Ted Turner on Getting Fired
As Jack Welch writes in BusinessWeek, “Being acquired and getting laid off are experiences that can hit you like a death in the family. The shock, sadness, anger, and confusion can make you want to enter into a period of protracted mourning. Such a response is only normal. But career-wise, such a response can be disastrous.” It took me a year to get over hearing, “we’re terminating your employment.”
But how about Ted Turner? The billionaire who at one point was AOL Time Warner’s biggest single shareholder, with 10% of the company, told a sold-out Atlanta Press Club audience, “I got fired by Jerry Levin (at Time Warner). They said they were simply not going to honor my contract to oversee CNN. Basically said, sue us! Well, I couldn’t do that. I loved CNN too much. But I gotta tell you, if I could make billions of dollars for a company and get fired, anybody can get fired. There is no such thing as job security, particularly in this economy.”
Yeah – I was recently laid off from a big media company after helping to build a system that will earn that company millions. It happens. But a guy in the elevator (as I was carrying my lamp and notebook out the door forever) said that if you say it and believe it, it will happen.
That’s what is keeping me going — even if my guy didn’t win the election 
This is the not the change that I was really hoping for. Nonetheless, I’m going to make it a change for the better. I’ve said it, I believe it and it will happen.
@WhatsupInteract