When Berger decided to spend a semester abroad in college, he handed the keys of his successful company over to the CFO and asked him to run things until Berger's return. But his staff had other plans:
Wharton Professor Jonah Berger was fired by his own staff in college.(Youtube)
"After I left, the group met and decided that me running the organization in absentia wasn’t going to work. Turns out I had underestimated how critical it was to be on the ground with my team. I had changed my plans, and that was fine, but they had decided to change theirs as well. They fired me."
"I was devastated. This organization was my life. I had sunk all my creative energies into it and now I was just supposed to walk away? But I did. It was hard at first, but I started looking for something else to focus on. I had just read the book The Tipping Point, and decided I wanted to learn more about trends and why things catch on. A professor in the business school was doing some related research, so I asked if I could help.
"Eleven years later I’m a Marketing Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. We’ve studied the science behind word of mouth, discovered why popular things become unpopular, and even published a popular press book on why things catch on."
"Getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me. If I hadn’t been booted, I’d never have discovered the career path that took me to where I am today. Sure, getting fired hurt; it always does. But setbacks are just that. Setbacks. They’re not the end of the story; they’re the start of a new chapter."
Source: LinkedIn
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 9, 2014
at Tuesday, September 09, 2014
and is filed under
inspirational-stories-of-success
. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
.
