It is a topic to talk about dismissal and depression, mourning phase, of uncertainty, disorientation, crisis. As he had said Louis van Gaal, "Always negative". And, What about the positive side of dismissal? Why you would never talk about people who have discovered that there is a better life after an ERE? What about those who, From overnight, They have discovered that they were authentic entrepreneurs? Why do we insist so much on our coverfailures? Is there life after dismissal?

How could it be otherwise, I will begin with a case I believe I know well, mine.

For GR. Life begins at forty

the what

I have the personal and professional privilege to have experienced a layoff, what was the lever launch of a new life with more flavors than unpleasantness. With more flashes of happiness than sadness. If today I dedicate to personal branding it is because of what happened at the end of 2004.

The how

I started my career very young. My first payroll, contract internship advertising agency Tiempo BBDO, It is dated January 1979. I had 16 and she is studying at night. I understood then that the environment communication, This iscreativity, advertising and all the madness that lead would become myprofession.

So it was. Pass 11 years J. Walter Thompson, then by Bassat & Ogilvy and then Saatchi & Saatchi. Total, some 20 years in the environment of international advertising agency, working for big-budget advertisers and global brands. after those 20 years I wanted a taste of being a shareholder of a company, so I accepted the offer to head the agency Barcelona Altraforma. Year 1998 and the experience could not start better.

I felt comfortable, It works with the same intensity or more, weekends, some nights. But it works "for me". A small piece of the result (If I recall one 15%) it was Min e. In 2000 and 2001 we managed to put the agency ranking places reserved for very large groups. We were a dreamboat. We receive many offers from multinational purchasing groups. The circumstances made no such offer was accepted (crass error) and that 2003 signs are sighted deceleration. I lost a client, some untimely dismissal, things happen in the best families and are often overcome.

But something happened that marked my life forever. Without knowing it, I settled on "comfort zone“, in the brain that obscures the need to change the way of doing things. It is possible that some adverse circumstance in my family environment influenced my mood, but outside any rate in September 2004 I reached out an agreement with the majority shareholder of the agency. Euphemisms aside, I was fired from the company. Let's be clear, please. I sold my shares and I went in December of that same year, after a Christmas party that became my funeral advertising.

In January 2005, and thanks to an advertiser who did not want to release my, I started my own business, Lateral Consulting. What side it came by the positive influence of Edward de Bono y su “Lateral thinking”, a book that should be read to babies in the cradle.

There I discovered that I could work like a donkey and be happy. The pressures were my pressures, nobody put me goals, I put them on my own. Without knowing it, iDEE my own personal branding plan. In 2007 I accepted an offer to manage the business in Spain TVLowCost, a young French agency that broke the mold and opened in two years subsidiaries worldwide defying its philosophy to large multinationals. The invention is not worked here, which it gave me new parameters to know what not to do, but fortunately my business with Lateral Consulting worked well.

In 2007, from Lateral, I started working on projects and communication strategypeople-oriented, professionals. Politicians, entrepreneurs, people who had suffered a layoff ... I still do not know, but my good friend Linda Reichard One day he told me that what I did is called "personal branding“.

Earlier 2010, hand that would later be my current partner, Jordi Collell, We attended a conference in Madrid on personal brand captained by sherpa Andrés Pérez Ortega, and in October of that same year we opened SOYMIMARCA.

The why. Key learnings.

Happiness exists. You just have to go get it. And that is achieved overcoming fears.

Risking is key. If you do not risk you can live reasonably well with a living wage, but it will be difficult to go to work with the appropriate degree of motivation.

You can live with less. Many people are closed in band to undertake for fear of not reaching the levels of remuneration they were working as employees.

Think big. Think big. If you have a good idea, ponle resources, do not be stingy. No idea prosper without a decent investment.

Surround yourself with the best. So far the topic. But I mean surround yourself with the best people, of people whom you can trust the keys to your life. Quickly detach yourself who do not share your level of enthusiasm for the project, It will become a toxic agent.

Become a plan. you map. Follows a script. And you see adapted according to circumstances. Do not close to change course, but keep the destination. And remember, as the Greek poet said Constantino Kavafis, the important thing is not only to reach the destination, but learning trip without forcing the crossing.