When Your Dream Job
Doesn’t Work Out
By Daniel Ryan Day
A few years ago, my dream job
didn’t work out. I was a few weeks
away from the release of my first
book, Ten Days Without, and had
been invited to speak at an event
in Michigan. My wife and I were
so excited! A lifelong dream—the
dream to publish a book—had come
true, and I couldn’t wait to engage
with an audience around the
content I had written.
The Michigan trip would be the
first stop in a month-long book tour,
and I had already set up a few
more speaking gigs in the Southeast.
Rebecca and I decided to bring
the whole family and use the time in
between speaking engagements as
a much-needed vacation. In fact,
just a few days before the event in
Michigan, we stopped in Chicago for
our first visit to Navy Pier, the Chicago
Children’s Museum and the Great
Lakes. The tour was off to a killer
start! One of my expectations for my
dream job was that I would have
enough flexibility in my schedule to
do more fun things with my family. So
far? Check!
A few days later, the time came for
my first presentation, and my speech
56 Solutions
went almost exactly as I expected.
Although there were fewer people
in the audience than I expected,
I hit all of the points I wanted to
cover. Emotionally, I was floating.
Writing a book and getting to speak
about it was a dream, and I had
just experienced the thrill of seeing
a dream come true. The moment I
was finished, I knew I had nailed it! If
there hadn’t still been people in the
room—or if I had been equipped
with a cone of silence—I would have
shouted something equivalent to
“THAT. WAS. AWESOME!”
A few moments later, after
everyone else had left the room, my
boss—who was also in town speaking
at the event—congratulated me and
told me I had done an excellent job.
He told me that I communicated
each point clearly and that the
content was going to really help a lot
of people. He told me that he was
glad he got to see the talk because
he knew I’d be okay.
And then he fired me!
I was completely blindsided,
and I was in shock. Talk about an
emotional swing! I went from the top
of the top, to a very low, low. What