So You Got Fired Job - Now What? How to Find Your Next Job!

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF

Host: Vivian Tu
Episode: So You Got Fired – Now What? How to Find Your Next Job!
Date: October 22, 2025
Guests: Laura Brown & Christina O’Neill, co-authors of All the Cool Girls Get Fired

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Vivian Tu explores the emotional and practical realities of losing a job in today’s turbulent market. Joined by media veterans Laura Brown (former Editor-in-Chief of InStyle) and Christina O'Neill (former top editor at The Wall Street Journal), the discussion reframes the stigma around being fired—especially for women—and offers guidance for anyone navigating a career setback. Drawing from personal stories and interviews with high-profile women (including Oprah and Katie Couric), Laura and Christina share advice on bouncing back, the power of community, and how to craft your next chapter after a firing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Do “Cool Girls” Get Fired?

• Modern Reality: Career setbacks are increasingly common and should be seen as part of a normal professional journey rather than personal failure.
• Taking Ownership: Publicly acknowledging you’ve been fired removes shame and opens doors to support and new opportunities.
• Quote:
  • Laura Brown: “Getting fired is part of national life now… The cool girls who get fired take it on the chin, own it, and move on.” [02:49]

2. Personal Firing Stories

• Laura details being laid off on Zoom with her entire team after ownership changes at InStyle.
• Christina recounts being let go one-on-one after a new leadership shakeup at the Journal.
• Both emphasize immediately embracing the truth of what happened rather than spinning a story.
• Quote:
  • Christina O’Neill: “I instantly knew that I had to own what was happening and not sugarcoat it…if I was trying to carry a lie forward, it would be harder for me to build what came next.” [04:33]

3. Women, Shame, & The Scarcity of Fired Female Role Models

• Women feel harder hit because it takes longer to rise and prove themselves in corporate environments not designed for them.
• Men’s firings are often part of comeback legends (e.g., Steve Jobs, Mike Bloomberg), but few women’s stories are celebrated in this way.
• Quote:
  • Christina O’Neill: “We don’t have a lot of fired role models as women… if we could unlock more stories for women to tell each other… it would encourage women to be less ashamed.” [08:48-09:32]
• The guests aim to normalize the conversation and reduce stigma for women facing layoffs.

4. Common Threads From Interviews With High-Profile Women

• Recollection of being fired is vivid and emotional, regardless of later success.
• The grief must be acknowledged; it’s a genuine loss.
• Quote:
  • Laura Brown: “It could be Oprah… everybody remembered exactly who was in the room, what they said, what they wore… being fired is actually a key memory in your life.” [10:46]
• Sally Krawcheck’s advice: “Nobody cares”—others aren’t gossiping as much as fired workers fear. [12:32]
• Oprah’s wisdom: “The setback is a setup,” highlighting how failure can set the stage for greater opportunities. [13:44]

5. Today’s Job Market: A Rough Landscape

• The market has shifted dramatically: layoffs and hiring freezes are rampant; there are more job-seekers than decent jobs.
• AI and economic shifts have further destabilized the landscape.
• Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Many are seizing the moment to become self-starters—substacking, podcasting, consulting, etc.—and alternative career paths are more visible.
• Quote:
  • Laura Brown: “Work is no longer linear… sometimes the corner office need not be the goal anymore.” [17:32]

6. Practical & Emotional Advice: What To Do When You’re Fired

First 24–48 hours:

• Do NOT sign anything right away: Take all materials home, seek legal or professional advice.
• Rest, don't retreat: Take a minute to breathe, but don’t isolate entirely; people will reach out.
• Be honest with your network: Humility and openness lead to more authentic support and opportunities.
• Quote:
  • Christina O’Neill: “Don’t sign anything. You really think everyone’s gossiping about you, you feel like you’re wearing a scarlet F… nobody cares.” [00:08 & 12:32]
• Stay away from negative posts: Never disparage your former employer online.
• Put out your “bat signal”: Signal to your network (LinkedIn, personal contacts) that you’re looking for new opportunities.

7. Untangling Identity From Profession

• Many tie personal worth to job titles; losing a job can feel like losing a sense of self.
• Advice: Rediscover other aspects of your identity—family, hobbies, interests.
• The “library book” metaphor: Your employer borrows your skills, but you retain them when the job ends.
• Quote:
  • Laura Brown: “The employer borrows you, your experience, your personality, your skills… but you’re still the book.” [25:02]

8. Job Search Challenges & Navigating the Long Haul

• The average job search is now six months, even for highly qualified candidates.
• Ron Lieber’s advice: Use whatever time you have to reflect on what truly makes you happy.
• The risk of “spraying” job applications versus targeted, thoughtful searching.

9. Balancing the ‘Right Now’ Job With the ‘Right’ Job

• Sometimes, you need to take a job for immediate financial security and keep searching for a better fit.
• Resume gaps are less stigmatized. The gig economy has changed perceptions of career moves.
• Quotes:
  • Christina O’Neill: “You have to do a ton of research and a lot of soul searching… skills are more transferable than you think.” [30:09]
  • Laura Brown: “There is less judgment in the workplace now if you’re making changes.” [31:55]

10. Navigating Risky Career Moves/Quitting Without a Plan

• Younger generations increasingly quit jobs without something lined up; this may be viable or necessary depending on circumstances.
• Not everyone will succeed as a full-time content creator or influencer—it’s a glamorous but risky path.

11. Advice for College Grads & Entry-Level Job Seekers

• The classic catch-22 of needing experience to get experience persists.
• Practical solutions: Interning, cold outreach, finding mentors, and deep industry knowledge.
• Quote:
  • Christina O’Neill: “Sometimes it takes a little bit of moxie… but most of the time it takes just a real, almost clinical understanding of the industry.” [36:31]

12. The AI Flood

• The creative industries are (slightly) insulated but not immune.
• Advice: Stay vigilant, adapt, and study how AI affects your chosen field.

13. If You Could Talk to Your 21-Year-Old Self (in Today's World)

• Show up, be humble, follow your curiosity, and know things will be okay even if you get fired.
• Quotes:
  • Laura Brown: “Be nice, do good work, show up, be humble.” [41:29]
  • Christina O’Neill: “It all works out and everything is gonna be okay.” [41:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Getting fired is part of national life now.” – Laura Brown [02:49]
• “The setback is a setup.” – Oprah (as quoted by Laura Brown) [13:44]
• “Nobody cares.” – Sally Krawcheck (as quoted by Christina O’Neill) [12:32]
• “You are still the book…all your knowledge and experience is still yours.” – Laura Brown [25:02]
• “Be nice, do good work, show up, be humble.” – Laura Brown [41:29]
• “It all works out and everything is gonna be okay.” – Christina O’Neill [41:51]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Why Do Cool Girls Get Fired? [02:41–03:08]
• Personal Firing Stories [03:13–05:57]
• Shame & Lack of Female Firing Role Models [07:27–09:32]
• Learning From Famous Women's Stories [10:31–14:34]
• Advice for Immediate Aftermath [18:26–19:52]
• Untangling Identity from Career [23:07–25:15]
• Job Search Realities [26:26–28:19]
• Right Now Job vs. Right Job [30:09–32:40]
• Entry-level, Career Advice & AI [36:31–40:31]
• Advice to Your Younger Self [40:31–41:51]

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Conclusion

In an episode filled with honesty and humor, Laura Brown and Christina O’Neill encourage listeners to reject shame, embrace transparency, and use job setbacks as a springboard for reinvention. The conversation is a rallying cry for women to support each other, own their stories, and find strength in community—because being fired isn’t the end; it might just be the beginning of something better.

For more, check out Laura and Christina’s book “All the Cool Girls Get Fired” and find them on social at @allthecoolgirlsgetfired.

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Transcript

[Vivian Tu]

When someone gets like a devastating call and they learn that they're being fired, what should they do practically in the.

[Rich BFF]

First 24 to 48 hours?

[Christina O'Neill]

Don't sign anything. You really think that as soon as something like this happens to you that everyone's sort of like, gossiping and talking about it? And when you walk into the room, I like to say, you know, you feel like you're wearing a scarlet F. Yeah, nobody cares.

[Vivian Tu]

How do you balance the decision making between the right now job and the right job?

[Christina O'Neill]

I think that's a really good question. I mean, foreign.

[Rich BFF]

What'S up, rich friends? And welcome back to another episode of Net Worth and Chill.

[Vivian Tu]

I'm your host, Vivian Tu, AKA your.

[Rich BFF]

Rich BFF and your favorite Wall street girly.

[Vivian Tu]

And I always like to say that I'm on my third do over. First a Wall street trader turned media salesperson and now a content creator. I like to also consider myself an author, a podcaster, and you a rich bff. I've lived many lives professionally, but here's the reality. Career pivots aren't just common anymore. They're practically inevitable. Whether driven by personal growth, industry shifts, layoffs, or restructuring, most of us will navigate multiple career changes. And right now, the job market feels particularly chaotic. People are confused, frustrated, and honestly, just plain defeated. But here's what I want you to know. Getting fired or laid off, it isn't a personal failure. It's often just business. And finding your next opportunity, that's actually a skill we can learn. So today I've brought in two experts who live and breathe this stuff every single day. They're gonna break down what's really happening in the job market, why career setbacks aren't shameful, and most importantly, how to turn your next opportunity into your best opportunity yet. Everyone, please welcome the authors of the book all the Cool Girls Get Fired, Laura Brown and Christina o'.

[Rich BFF]

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[Vivian Tu]

Hi.

[Laura Brown]

God, that was a glittering intro. Damn, you're good.

[Christina O'Neill]

Hi, guys.

[Vivian Tu]

This is gonna be such a great interview. I'm so excited for you to be.

[Rich BFF]

Here with me today.

[Vivian Tu]

But before we get into everything, I do have one simple question. Why do all the cool girls get fired?

[Laura Brown]

All the cool girls get fired because. Because, as you said in your introduction, getting fired is part of the national life now. It's part of the workforce. It's the amount of people losing their jobs is growing and growing and growing. So the cool girls who get fired take it on the chin, own it and move on. Wow.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay. I love that. Take it on the chin. I feel like that's a phrase I need to start incorporating into my experience.

[Laura Brown]

That's the first time I've used it. Where did that come from? Ye.

[Vivian Tu]

Despite now being incredibly successful authors and editors at some of the top magazines, The Wall Street Journal, InStyle, you2 have been both fired before. Can you walk me through kind of what happened in those scenarios?

[Christina O'Neill]

Sure. We like to let Laura go first because she went first chronologically.

[Laura Brown]

Chronologically. I'm not to brag. I was fired first. Yes. I used to be the editor in chief of InStyle magazine in early 2022. We had worked for three different companies over my tenure at InStyle. We were bought by a. And fired. My whole team and I were fired on a zoom, what they refer to as the print team. And we're all laid off in one fell swoop in February. And it was very. I mean, I was a bit looking around, like, thinking I was going to build my own thing at some point, but had no idea we're all going to get absolutely shit canned, you know, all at once. And so that was. I ended up spending a lot of my time sort of tending to my team and trying to be Winston Churchill, even though I was kind of like, where's my money? Coming? And then sort of picking up and knowing that I was gonna work for myself and not for anybody else and sort of slowly heading down that road. But Christina here was canned.

[Christina O'Neill]

I was one of one. So, yes, I was the lucky one the day that I was let go. And essentially, there had been some leadership changes at the Wall Street Journal. At the newspaper at the top of the masthead, there was a new editor in chief. And about eight weeks into her tenure, she let me know that I was not going to be part of the plan going forward. So that was, like Laura said, about 14 months after she was fired. But what happened in the meeting when she let me know that I was fired? I sort of instantly knew that I had to own what was happening and not to sort of sugarcoat it or spin it or package it in any other way than what was actually happening, which was she was firing me. So, you know, I think that was just something that kind of clicked in. In the moment, because I knew that if. In addition to the sort of shock and just the rawness that I felt, if I was also trying to carry a lie forward, you know, spinning it, telling people, oh, I'm, you know, I'm leaving. I'm gonna go do this or that or, you know, I knew it would be harder for me to sort of build what came next. So it was instantly part of my narrative, if you will.

[Vivian Tu]

What do you think is harder? Being canned, One of one or being canned as part of a group? On Zoom, by the way? Horrible.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah. Intimate. I don't know. I mean, they're both pretty special. They're both pretty special. Neither one of us had the other one's experience. I think there's something to be said about being part of a community, but that's actually. If you take me and my team and you expand that, being fired now, you are part of a community, but you're not going to find your community unless you admit it. So we are, and we're a part of a community of hundreds of thousands of people who get laid off every single day. And what really helps you when you lose your job is oftentimes you can feel very vulnerable, very alone. Women can feel a lot of shame the minute you kind of put your hand up and go and admit it. Same thing with me, because we also got. Because we had pretty prominent positions. We got, like, press release, fired. So I got, like, quote, unquote terminated. You know what I mean? So it was very clear that it happened as well. But, yeah, there was no interest on both of our parts in spinning it. And the minute we sort of said, no, this happened, or we Instagrammed or we said whatever, people go like, oh, wow, that's pretty rad. You've done that, actually. Oh, this. And it just cuts out all this layers of bullshit, you know? And it's already hard enough losing your job. It's already hard enough not knowing where your income's coming from. It's already hard enough not knowing how long your healthcare is going to last. All of it. All those vulnerab are exaggerated and made worse if you are dishonest about what happened.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah. And you specifically set a line just now. You said, women feel a lot of shame when they get fired. You know, the book title includes Cool Girls. Is there something unique about how women experience being fired versus men?

[Christina O'Neill]

I mean, we think so. And I think part of that is because it took so much longer for us to get there in the room. You know, just to get in the room to climb the corporate ladder had.

[Vivian Tu]

To be twice as good to get half as much.

[Laura Brown]

We only got the vote a century ago.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

Like, that's insane.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. So, you know, we do believe that women, you know, take it harder, take it on the chin harder, take it on the butt.

[Laura Brown]

You know, like when you fall off. You're wrong. No, because you've been, you know, you don't. You don't realize what you're necessarily carrying. And then because you are carrying all of womanhood with you in a way, and it does. Like you. You've cleane clambered up to this rung, whatever it is, in whatever sphere you work in, and you're pushed off it and it just hits harder because we weren't. We didn't even construct the workplace right. Men did all those titles. CEO, cfo, cmo, they're all military, they're all from men. And so that does come with us. And we have no interest in feeling shame. And we want women to lose that shame because, again, it's so unbelievably challenging out there right now. So why would you put a big whole weight inside your chest and carry it around?

[Christina O'Neill]

We also don't have a lot of fired role models as women.

[Vivian Tu]

True.

[Christina O'Neill]

You know, there aren't many women whose story involves the chapter when they were let go from their jobs, where we have lots of men who have been, you know, pushed out of their companies. Two examples, you know, that are very, very, you know, public are Mike Bloomberg and Steve Jobs. So that's part of their comeback narrative. Right. That's part of the legends of Mike and Steve. We don't have many women who.

[Vivian Tu]

I can only think of one right now off the top of my head.

[Laura Brown]

Which one have you got?

[Vivian Tu]

Whitney Wolford.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. Ah, well, she's about to have a hit film about it, so.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, exactly. Isn't that crazy that you can pull up one?

[Christina O'Neill]

You know, and we interviewed 15 women who are pretty well known in our book who should be on that Mount Rushmore of getting fired, and they're not, you know, so if you can imagine coming up the through, whether it's stories we tell ourselves, our daughters, our friends, about women suffering through this sort of fired chapter and coming back a lot stronger, I think it would sort of encourage women to be less ashamed of it when it happens. But that is part of the cultural conditioning. Right. So if we're able with this book to sort of unlock more stories for women to sort of tell each other and more confidence in coming back stronger than ever, then, you know, let that be a silver lining of this sort of, like, horrible dark cloud that, you know, comes with getting fired.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, It's a job well done.

[Vivian Tu]

And you mentioned Woman, Mount Rushmore, of being fired.

[Laura Brown]

There's an image, right?

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

For all the cool girls get fired. You interviewed some absolute powerhouses. I'm talking Oprah, Katie Couric, Jamie Lee Curtis. When you heard all of their stories of being fired, what surprised you the most? And was there, like a common thread that, like, ran through all of the stories?

[Laura Brown]

Yeah. I mean, for us, it was muscle memory. It was bizarre. It could be Oprah, who was fired when she was 22, she's what, 70 now? 71. Everybody remembered exactly who was in the room, what they said, what they wore, what beverage they had, you know, and the urgency in their voice, it became sort of starker. It's like being fired is actually a key memory in your life, and you don't realize it until you're dredging it up again. Everyone has that kind of photo memory of that moment. And still some of the women still got quite upset, you know, even though they'd gone on. And the whole point of the book is like this lady, they're so. Yeah, but she felt like you once and you feel bad. So did Oprah at this point. And you think, yeah, the whole idea is like, wow, what do you mean? Nothing bad ever happened to them. But it did. It did. Remember it. Absolutely viscerally.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. Just the fact that they still carry that with them, despite all of the success they've had since, I think was just kind of a reminder that it is, you know, when you're going through it, you know, there is grief and you do have to mourn it. It is a loss when you lose your job.

[Vivian Tu]

Have you guys seen Inside Out?

[Laura Brown]

I feel like it's like one of which motion, which.

[Vivian Tu]

Well, I feel like when you get fired is like the sad blue ball and it's like a new blue one that goes to the back of your brain.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you carry it with you and.

[Laura Brown]

You got to mix it up and one's got to come to the front.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah. So I think that was a surprise to sort of, you know, it didn't take much to get Those women back into the room where it happened.

[Vivian Tu]

Right.

[Christina O'Neill]

Which, you know, for better or for worse is, you know, part of it.

[Vivian Tu]

What piece of advice from these interviews still gives you chills when you think about it? Like, something that, like, changed your entire perspective?

[Christina O'Neill]

Well, Sally Krawcheck says something that's so refreshing. That's such a great reminder. You know, we sort of joke that you really think that your network and your peer group, as soon as something like this happens to you, that everyone's sort of like, gossiping and talking about it. And when you walk into the room, I like to say, you know, you feel like you're wearing a scarlet F. Yeah, yeah. You know, you just really feel not for fabulous, not for fabulous.

[Vivian Tu]

Fired and for loser, fired.

[Christina O'Neill]

You know, and you feel all of this, right? It feels very like, oh, my God, I haven't seen that person. Da, da, da. She says very succinctly, nobody cares. And it's such a good reminder because you're carrying all this weight around. You're sort of carrying the shame into the room. You think everyone's like. You walk in and everyone's head's turning. They're not. People have moved on. They don't care. People are self absorbed. The human race is worried about itself. So it is a lovely reminder that for all of the things that are playing out in your head, when you walk into a room, carry your head high, no one's sitting there, like, whispering behind your back. Nobody cares.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

Oprah said, you know, Oprah. Oprah's got away with words. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, if you've heard it, but she said the setback is a setup, which is basically a T shirt slogan, but basically, like the thing that knocks you off your feet is actually there to show you a broader world if you allow yourself to look at it. So. And that's what happened. That's what happened with her. And, you know, Oprah kind of got canned from her newsreader job and sort of furloughed in this kind of crappier reporter job for a year until one day there was a new managing director. And he said, we're thinking of selling a talk show. And that was that. And so if she hadn't had that setback, she wouldn't have been on tap for that show. So there's wisdom everywhere because everyone has a different experience. You could have been fired from a job, let go from the company you founded, fired by a client, not cast in a role. Like all different sorts of, yeah, firing.

[Christina O'Neill]

Looks different for everybody. And I think that's why we wanted such a range of stories. And, you know, we have those 15 different women to represent all the different sort of like facets of firing.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

God.

[Laura Brown]

And hopefully there'll be many, many more afterwards. It's been fascinating. We've had like women coming up to us in the street now going, I was fired too, you know, and we can already feel like it's sort of opening that psychological door a little bit, which is exactly the intention of it. Not sort of shrinking away and just going, no, me too.

[Vivian Tu]

To have those honest conversations.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, no more lies, man.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah. Speaking of honesty, can we talk about the elephant in the room? Today's job market, please. It's a very large elephant.

[Laura Brown]

You haven't noticed it.

[Vivian Tu]

Listen, today's job market, you know, to put it lightly, sucks. Yep. We're seeing mass layoffs, hiring freezes, and for the first time in decades, we actually have more unemployed people than we do have available decent jobs. Like, how are you guys making sense of this moment that we're currently in?

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, listen, I mean, when we started writing this book two years ago, we could have never imagined, you know, the, the world that.

[Vivian Tu]

Because you started it when it was like kind of still the great resignation where like a lot of job hunters had this power.

[Christina O'Neill]

Quiet quitting.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

The TikTok trap, summer 23. Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

So, yeah, the employees sort of had the upper hand, but, you know, obviously no one could have foretold doge and sort of havoc that's been wreaked, you know, by both AI and our own government.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

So I think, you know what's interesting, at the same time as that's happening, there are so many more opportunities for the individual and I think that's also new, especially in media, the industry that we come from. What's been exciting to see is how entrepreneurial a lot of our peers who have been fired have become probably out of necessity, but also just out of the sheer evolution of the sort of community that content and news and information is created in. So it's been really exciting to see some of these great sort of former legacy players sort of pop up on their own. And there are a lot of tools out there that didn't exist even two years ago, whether it's sub stacking or all the different sort of podcasts, for example. Yeah. So in media alone, it's been kind of wild to see how self starter and entrepreneurial a lot of people have become. You know, when Laura was let go, she Knew she never wanted to go back into a traditional sort of media company and set up her own business. Which I think is what's been really interesting to kind of see a lot of people, not just in media, but a lot of people using the setback to sort of set up things for themselves where they never will feel that, you know, insecurity again. In the, in the job market, work.

[Laura Brown]

Is no longer linear. You know, the corner office need not be the goal anymore. Sometimes we were quoting a Lean in study and it was saying, you know, there's still only like, maybe it's got up like 4% the amount of women have the corner office. And we're just kind of reading it and going, well, that's, you know, that's a bummer. And that's. That's relevant. But why does that need to be the goal? The economy has changed so much. The individual can run their own business from being an individual. You can bake cookies and sell them on TikTok. You know what I mean? There is all of these ways, and it feels like. And look, not everyone's an entrepreneur, and we well know that, but it's. Hopefully it'll balance. At the moment, it's just like people getting fired, fired, fired, fired, fired. But there is, if you look at this other universe, you know what I mean, and see maybe there's a little piece for you there because of your passion and your interest and your talent, and you may not have to rely on this setup that we've all been obliged to fall into for so long.

[Vivian Tu]

And I. I love to give my audience, my listeners, some practical advice, but we're going to do emotional, too. So I'm going to ask this question twice. But first and foremost, when someone gets, like, a devastating call and has to sit through that unexpected meeting and they learn that they're being fired, what should they do practically in the first 24 to 48 hours?

[Christina O'Neill]

Don't sign anything.

[Vivian Tu]

Don't sign anything.

[Laura Brown]

Don't sign anything. You don't have to. What happens is, you know, when you're in the room, the dreaded hr.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

You know, there's a packet of papers or a metaphorical packet of papers on Zoom that comes to you. They need you to sign that so the ball's actually in your court. Like, you can't hold onto it for six months, but you actually have a minute. You should not feel pressured in that room because they're looming over you to sign it. You can take it home. You can get some advice. You can call a friend you can call a lawyer, you can have someone to wait because they can't move on until you've signed it. You actually, you feel like you have zero power. You have some power in that situation. So take that beat and don't need your consign anything else. Drink? Oh no, sorry, that doesn't help. No, I think take, yeah, 24, 40 hours. I mean I always say like rest but don't retreat. Like take a minute, you need to sleep or whatever, but don't. It is an isolating feeling. But don't isolate yourself on top of that because people are going to reach out to you. People are going to say, oh God, that's no good.

[Vivian Tu]

I feel like that answers like the emotional of like what you should be doing.

[Laura Brown]

But that's the same thing. The emotional can lead to the practical because it could be the person going like, oh my God, oh wow, that happened. You actually heard about this thing or heard about this lead or heard about that. So the same thing. It's about being open and communicative in one. Yes, for your mental health 1000, but also your professional well being and options down the road is not. You want to go fetal for a minute. Of course you do and you should, but just calibrate yourself. Don't shut everything off.

[Rich BFF]

Right.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. I think if you're in the headspace in that 24, 48 hours to make the decision that you are going to own this, that is going to set you up for everything that comes next. Instead of starting to sort of spin your spiral of, you know, how you're not actually like getting fired. You know, I think that would be my advice. The sooner you can just sort of acknowledge to yourself what's going on and then set yourself up for those steps. And grief is part of that. So the emotional peace comes. But if you can just switch your brain on to be like, okay, I'm getting fired. This is what's happening. Like I am present and I'm going to go through my checklist, which is what we sort of outline in the book.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah. What's like your stress list?

[Vivian Tu]

What's the best way to put out a bat signal? Am I like writing about this on LinkedIn? Am I like calling friends and family.

[Laura Brown]

Like, yeah, you know, but we say everyone's going to call you, but also call everyone. It's sort of a two way street when we got fired, you know, it's sort of, it's a sort of a strange sensation. But you compare it to like reading beautiful eulogies about yourself, but you're still alive. People telling you you're just terrific, you know, and you've gotten cancer. So that, that's incoming. But yes, put your hand and look. We're very. It sounds very Pollyanna. If you've been a good person, you've done good work, people show up for you. They just do. Especially like this is America. They really do. And so they, people will. It's a two way street. But you've got to be open to that for people to, you know, not.

[Christina O'Neill]

Every person gets a press release sent about their departure.

[Laura Brown]

Bummer.

[Christina O'Neill]

But I think that there are ways that you can signal to your community, to your peer group, to your industry that you are moving on. But yeah, the first call, you have to call your family. You have to call the people who are going to show up for you spiritually before you can start having those conversations with an old mentor, former boss or whatever. But LinkedIn is obviously a brilliant tool for re sort of entering the workforce. Social media, open to work.

[Laura Brown]

I know it's such a big, big brand, but. Yeah, but it is, it's honesty. And you don't have to like, it can just be a declarative thing. Like I've my time at blah blah blah finished. You know, I'm open to investigating or looking into X and Y and Z. And also the big important thing is don't spend time dissing your former employer. Don't give that the energy that doesn't like that in an interview. It's bad. It never helps you. So whatever. And you. But you've got to get yourself in that space too. And that might take a minute. Like I freaking hate them. No, no, no. Well, you got to wait till you've got.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. Breathe.

[Laura Brown]

Stop simmering.

[Christina O'Neill]

Step away from the dance Instagram, from X, from whatever it is. Do not, do not say anything disparaging ever.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, okay. And we talked a little bit about the emotional piece. But like so many of us in particular in like this modern world tie ourself our identity, our value, our worth as people to our jobs. So like, when that gets completely stripped away, it can really feel like you're losing a little piece of you. Like, how do we untangle me versus like what I do? Because I feel like these days you go to a party and you're like, oh, it was not like, oh, who are you? It's what do you do?

[Laura Brown]

Oh, yeah. I mean we come from the, I always say it was sort of the tip of the spear of industries that judge you, literally. Fashion and fashion media judges you on where you sit at a fashion show.

[Vivian Tu]

Are you front row?

[Laura Brown]

Oh, you're not. But like, you know, we come from where it's like the ducks in a pond and you're just trying to look so smooth, but the legs are going. So we know this intimately and I think that it's. And it's. If you attach a lot of people in our business, attach all their value and they think that the going to the fashion show in the Cote d' Azur is their life, it ain't, you know what I mean? So I think you've got to keep. It's like a pie, you know what I mean? Like, okay, yes, a piece of the pie is going to be your work. And of course, maybe you love it and you're passionate about it and you. But you know, when you're stimulated by it and that's all good, a good thing, but you've got to have stuff outside, you've got to have your family, you've got to have interests, you've got to have travel, you've got to have something else that makes you you. Because if you lose it, job, not to make a pun, but you lose it. Yeah, you really lose it. And we've seen people who've just been like beetles on their back for a long time because they couldn't understand who they were without this job. And we had somebody in the book, it was a really great comparison, saying, say you are working for X, like not the actual platform, working for a company. And they said you like a library book. So the employer borrows you, okay. And you're the book. And they borrow you your experience or your personality, your skills.

[Vivian Tu]

But they can return me at any time.

[Laura Brown]

They can return you, but you're still the book. You didn't lose everything. So all your knowledge, I like that, yeah. All your knowledge and all your experience is still yours. And the problem is so many of us can forget it, but it's always been there.

[Christina O'Neill]

That is one of the other sort of bonuses of getting fired is that in that in between time before you decide if you're setting up shop for yourself or you're going to start, you know, toe dipping back out in the market, you are forced to sort of make sure you have all those pieces of the pie. Right? Like when work is taken away, suddenly all these other things become really important. So when you start something new, hopefully you don't go in where you give yourself like 100% just to the job, because you've now kind of reignited and re engaged with all of these other things, that should fill you up too. But yeah, we see it all the time. It's easier said than done. And I think it is, you know, something that if you can go into whatever comes next, where you sort of force yourself to, you know, put down the phone on a Saturday night, don't reply all to an email at an inappropriate time for your colleagues to sort of be like, ah, what's wrong with her? You know, I, I really think that that is a benefit of, you know, what, what comes next is you're forced to really look at all those other things.

[Laura Brown]

Being shocked into a bigger life. Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

And speaking of, like, taking time, like, we're hearing people are now saying that, like, being unemployed is like a longer status. Like, it's taking people six months on.

[Rich BFF]

Average now to find a job.

[Vivian Tu]

Like, it feels like this job search process is really broken. Like, how can people cut through the noise and find these opportunities, man?

[Laura Brown]

I mean, look, I, it's, it's. I. We were just reading this terrible piece in the Times the other day about how college educated. You know, it was always a presumption that if you're college educated, it's going to be easier for you to get a job. And there's people out of work for six months, a year longer, man. I mean, I think that, you know, being clear on who you are and what you really want. And there's, there's. Ron Lieber, New York Times money columnist, actually gave us one of the most empathetic pieces of advice. And he said we all have different amounts of time where we can take a minute to think about what we want to do. Guess what? If you have more money, you have more time. But he said everyone has some time to think about what gave you more happiness, what made you feel happy or less happy over the course of your career, and what could you do going forward to increase the happiness and decrease the unhappiness? And so I think that sometimes, and again, people need to work, people need money, and we understand that. But I think if you're perhaps going too general and blanket, blanketing things and being too knee jerk and not really listening to yourself, I think that might prolong, you know what I mean? If you're just like, oh, I'm going to just spray all of these, all of these employers with my application, it's like, actually, do I really want that? Do I really feel good about that? But no, I, Look, I, we sadly cannot correct the terrible state of the job market. But what we can do is say that if you don't say you need help and you don't own it, it's going to be longer. That terrifying time period is going to be longer. Fox Creative.

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[Vivian Tu]

What about, like, when you have an offer in hand and you're like, I don't, like, really want to do this, but I kind of need the money. How do you balance the decision making between the right now job and the right job?

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I mean, listen, I think it took me six months after I was let go to find or to move, like, to make the decision to move to it, to accept the role that I am in now. But that took a lot of conversations. It took a deep understanding about how the market, what the landscape was right? So if it's not the right job for right now, it's the right job for whatever you said.

[Laura Brown]

The right now job.

[Christina O'Neill]

The right now job versus the forever job. I think that will come after having kind of really done a lot of research over the time period to understand is this the best opportunity that's gonna present itself for now, for the next six months, for the next year. And maybe those are factors worth considering, but I think you have to do a ton of research and a lot of soul searching. And I think one of the things that people sort of forget is how transferable their skills are to different industries. We work in an industry where people just sort of assume like, oh, this is what I've always done. I'm just going to get a job at a same company, different title. Same title, different building, like whatever the just sort of plug and play is. And I think if you give yourself the opportunity to really sit down and think about what your skill set is, there are a lot of industries that could probably benefit from that. They just might not be the ones that are obvious. And so doing a lot of research, you know, you have to do a lot of research, you have to take a lot of meetings and a lot of phone calls and kind of understand the landscape. And then I think that will help understand if the job is right for the minute or right for the long haul.

[Laura Brown]

But I think the landscape has also changed because back when we were coming up, oh, they're in the job less than two years. Oh, they must be dodgy. That must be, oh, they're not reliable. That is gone. You know, we're in a gig economy along with everything else. You can have four things going at once. You can have nothing, you can have overlap, that stuff. There's less judgment there now.

[Christina O'Neill]

So no one's looking at your resume like in the old days where you're like magnifying glass, you know, a perfect candidate, no one's poking holes and all of that.

[Laura Brown]

So say if you do need a job for right now because you have kids and they need health care, you know, I mean, then you're gonna have to take it and that's all right, you know, and then, but you can still keep your eye on the prize and see where you want to be. Everyone's situation is different. But I really think that the, it's not even silver. Whatever the crappy lining of this crappy situation is is there is less judgment in the workplace now if you're, if.

[Vivian Tu]

You'Re making changes, we're not doing the 40 year same company climb, corporate ladder stuff. So kind of on a, it's like the same question. But the different other side of the coin is like nowadays young people are actually quitting jobs without something lined up, right? They're just choosing to leave. But I was always told because of the scary resume gap thing, you should never leave one job without having another lined up.

[Laura Brown]

Right?

[Vivian Tu]

What is your guys perspective on that?

[Laura Brown]

I mean, I didn't, I, you know, And I'm not the youth. I mean, bless sweet, sweet youth. You know, the guilelessness you have, you know, when you're young is wonderful. I think it's, you've got to listen to your soul a little bit. And it's like, look, and again, look, kids, if they, they can leave a job and then maybe they have no savings and they're going to have to get a job at our age, maybe we've got a little bit of savings that we can live on a little bit. So all those situations are different. I just don't feel like there's, there's this sort of like sometimes, you know, we also have the kids. Couldn't you just sit down and focus for a minute and work a little bit? You know what I mean? There's not as much obligation, you know, as, as there used to be in our era. And I think the ideal is somewhere in between the two. Like, you, like, you understand the nuances of this universe. But then that generation is growing up with TikTok that they're growing up with, like, oh, I can be an influencer and make money. So it's, you know, it's, I know, is there a child here? We can ask them. But you know, I mean, I think that, that, that, that sort of behavior, that sort of behavior in the job market is really fascinating because there's options open that we are exploring, you know, at our age, but we didn't have.

[Vivian Tu]

So the study I think was that like over 50% of children younger than 18, when asked what is their dream job, they said YouTuber or like vlogger or like whatever it was. I guess my question for you is, do you think this is a good direction to overall take your career and the economy? Just knowing that like, as someone who does create content full time, I feel incredibly grateful to know that I'm part of the 0.1% that can afford to do this full time and make a living doing this.

[Christina O'Neill]

And yeah, you're living the dream.

[Vivian Tu]

Pay for a team to help me run the podcast and, you know, all of these things. But like, most content creators cannot make ends meet. They have to do it on top of having a full time job. Like, do you encourage people to go down that route?

[Laura Brown]

If it's your skill, it's like any skill in life. You know, it's like, I could be a journalist. Am I a good writer? I want to be a doctor. Have I done my study? Like, I mean, I think it's all well and good to say, I want to be because it looks cool and everyone's doing a dance on TikTok and everything and they got some free handbags. But not everyone's going to be compelling enough in that. In that world. And sometimes you'll learn it sooner rather than later. But I'm sure when we were, like, growing up, I mean, I'm sure we wanted to be models or whatever the thing, but you know what I mean? Like movie stars or like, I also.

[Vivian Tu]

Wanted to be a basketball player, but I'm five, six, so that's not happening.

[Christina O'Neill]

It's okay.

[Laura Brown]

But, you know, we all wanted to be shiny things. What we thought, you know, oh my God, what's their life like? And we all. We all had our shiny avatars when we grew up. I think the shiny avatars now are these kind of content creators and influences, and they are our movie stars and models. And I think that, yeah, they also.

[Christina O'Neill]

A little more within reach. Right, right. Like it does. You know, there are kids like Justin.

[Vivian Tu]

Bieber who get found on YouTube and.

[Christina O'Neill]

Become famous, and he's like, they're famous for 15 seconds, not 15 minutes, like in the Andy Warhol era.

[Laura Brown]

It's the same hill to climb in a way. You know what I mean? It's just a different reference.

[Vivian Tu]

What about fresh graduates? Because right now it feels like they're kind of stuck in this impossible catch 22. They want to get hired with experience, but you can't get experience without being hired. It seems like I had to have started working before birth to finally be.

[Rich BFF]

Qualified for the job I want.

[Vivian Tu]

Like, what is your advice for breaking into a market when you're starting from zero?

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, listen, this is. Goes back to the research and the understanding and the studying and the really knowing how that industry is, you know, cracked open and what your DNA is. Yeah. And whether or not you're, you know, the right fit for it. I think interning, finding a mentor, Cold reaching out to people who have the career you wish you had. I mean, that's how I ended up where I am. I cold called Candace Bushnell on a payphone because I wanted to interview her for a school paper and became her assistant not long after. So, you know, I think sometimes it takes a little bit of moxie, but I think most of the time it takes just a real, almost like clinical understanding of the industry that you're interested in and how you can, you know, whether it's, you know, applying through, you know, a program that fast tracks people, you know, whatever that takes your hands.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

But being in front of the right people and in, you know, in front of the opportunity.

[Laura Brown]

It's kind of old fashioned, but it's the same thing. It's like putting your hand up, knowing the references in the interview with the person. You could both see the same thing and feeling like, comfort, comfort in what you're talking about, you know, as a kid as well. It's like, oh, I really am interested in fashion or whatever it is, and just knowing that that's where you spend your time, that's where your, where your, where your, where your heart is and where your knowledge is, as opposed to like, oh, I feel like I should, I feel like I should go to this law firm, for example, because my mom said, and I go into that room and I feel ick and I don't feel like myself. And I don't feel you gotta listen to that sometimes. It's like listening to your inner kid in a way.

[Christina O'Neill]

But we also grew up in an era where you really did have to start at the bottom.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, so.

[Christina O'Neill]

So I think low. Yeah, really low. So I think knowing that, like, what is the bottom of the industry and not having the expectation that you're going to leapfrog to the top in, you know, two years because it, it doesn't work that way.

[Laura Brown]

Get someone a sandwich.

[Christina O'Neill]

It's okay. Yeah, it's okay to go get someone's coffee.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, I've done many a coffee run. So I guess talking about the bottom, we have to say the two scariest words to ever hit the job market in recent times. AI, how are we feeling?

[Laura Brown]

Oh, you know, it was funny. I was just saying to Christina the other day, because what are we, 51? Christina's 49, and I was just sort of laughing. It's a hollow laugh. To be clear that we're quite fortunate that one, we didn't grow up with the Internet, thank God. And two, we're sort of too established in our creative sphere to be replaced by AI. So we're like. And everyone goes like, the mythology is like, oh, when you're 50, it's harder for, for you. We kind of snuck through these two.

[Christina O'Neill]

Gates literally, like while the door was closing.

[Laura Brown]

While the door was closing, like in the action movie, you know, I think, yeah, AI is. Yeah, we're the first ones to jump on ChatGPT whenever we have a question. I. It is scary, I think, true. If you're in a creative business, I think I have happen to believe you'll be all right because I think AI uses a tool not used as the, as the master of things is where it should land. But who knows? I mean there was an AI actress created the other day, but there was a big furor, you know, about that.

[Christina O'Neill]

No one would represent her.

[Laura Brown]

No one represent her. She wasn't allowed to sit at the lunch table. But yeah, it's, I'm. I was reading in that same piece, I was talking about someone who was a coder, you know, a man who like people who write code, people in tech whose job can be so easily done. But I don't have the answer to.

[Christina O'Neill]

That because, listen, I think it is like we're early days and again, I think it does go back to studying, learning, absorbing everything, how it applies to your industry, how you can use it to fulfill your sort of objectives and goals. But you know, it's early days and I don't think anyone really has the roadmap for how it's going to disrupt.

[Vivian Tu]

So say you guys are 21 again, but now it's 2025. What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

[Laura Brown]

I think it would be the same. Show up, you know, show up in the workplace or with the people with whom you want to work. Look at them online, follow them on social, you know, really steep yourself in that business, that sort of stuff. Actually, AI aside, tech aside, that stuff still stands. Going into the meeting with the person that you want, you want to work for and speaking to them and impressing them and people want to meet with people. We're not meeting with a robot. We're not hiring code, you know, we're hiring people. So I think that some, some of it, sometimes things just stand in the old fashioned ways and the Pollyanna ways. Like I was saying, be nice, do, do good work, show up, be humble. Really, really important. Which I think is something that is getting lost now because everyone's like, oh, I can't. Can I just be famous?

[Vivian Tu]

Sure.

[Laura Brown]

You know, yeah, that's. That was go the same for when we were 21 then to 21 now.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean I spent the first time 30 years working. Like it never occurred to me that one day I'd get fired. So I think it's also just a great reminder to my younger self that it all works out and everything is gonna be okay.

[Vivian Tu]

Oh, I love that. That's like a really good warm ending. Where can everybody get their hands on your book? And what is the best way to follow your work and stay connected with you guys?

[Laura Brown]

You can purchase all the Cool Girls Get Fired on your whatever bookstore retailer you enjoy online or off. We're Also our social is all the Cool Girls Get Fired. So is our website. Our respective socials are AuraBrand99 and Christina O' Neill for a good Time. But we're touring around for the next six weeks or so and I have to say anybody who's written us, we have a huge amount of women who've written us on DM or text and there's so much need out there and we've responded to each and every single one of them. Again, know that we're going out there to meet the community, but the community is there for you. So stick your hand up, say this happened and yeah, sure, read this book. But in the same token, like, you know, really listen to yourself and it is, it is going to be okay.

[Vivian Tu]

Thank you guys so much for being here.

[Christina O'Neill]

Thanks for having us.

[Laura Brown]

Thank you.

[Rich BFF]

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastourrichbff.com follow Net Worth and Chillpod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news and you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know how.

[Vivian Tu]

See you next week.

[Christina O'Neill]

Bye.

[Rich BFF]

Support for Net Worth and Chill comes from Botox Cosmetic. Ana Botulinum Toxin, a Botox cosmetic, proudly supports women entrepreneurs through the Confidence Project, a transformative program designed to provide access to skill building networks, mentorship and funding. The Confidence Project connects entrepreneurs, mentors and industry leaders. Plus, at the end of the program, 20 women will each be awarded a $20,000 grant from Botox Cosmetic. Talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information including boxed warning, call 877-351-0300. Learn more at botoxcosmetic.com realimpact.