8 years ago. One day after Labor Day. 2012.

I’ll never forget the gut-wrenching feeling after that surprise phone call. I was fired from my dream job. Or more accurately: one of my many dream jobs.

I stayed all dressed up (as if looking the role would bring it back?) and called my friend, Monica. I needed to see a dear friend. On my deck. With wine. Girl talk. The real kind. Pronto.

When David returned from biz travels a few days later, he took one look at me,

“You’re not over this, are you.”

Um, no. It happened like yesterday, how could I be. Not even close.

He suggested I get a good night’s sleep and then scheduled a kitchen table ‘meeting’ with me for the next morning. (Sometimes you just need to let someone you trust guide you thru and beyond your stuckness.)

That ‘meeting’ shifted my whole perspective and transformed my soul.

I was going to be all right.

Yet there I was: Fired. From a major dream job after having been invited in, following an international search. I would be Co-CEO of a soon-to-be-global startup.

(Don’t ever be Co-Anything. Own your role… and structure the organization so that everyone else can own theirs, too.)

I left my BOLD business and my Fit Modeling Agency to go do this. It was an opportunity custom-created, made-in-heaven, a custom fit, for me. So yes, it was a very big deal.

And yet, there I was. Fired.

Back to David. “Head to Treehouse. Nature will do you good. Take a few months and go write. You always wanted to write. Go. Write.”

So many times in my life I was sure I no longer needed a cabin. Every time, ours has proven me wrong. I packed a few things, said my Goodbye Awesome Husband goodbyes, and headed to Treehouse. The little lake cabin we built together almost 30 years ago.

When I arrived, I was overcome with emotion – gratitude, exhaustion, amazingly no hate.

The decision someone else made for me was no longer holding me prisoner in my own mind.

I headed out the door, straight onto one of my favorite dirt trails… I walked that dry, dusty road and cried pools of tears until all that was left on my face was the same dry dust I was walking thru.

And then I looked up. I looked deep into the woods. And saw THIS.

Sunshine revealed a most exquisite scene… mighty trees protecting bouquets of delicate peach-colored moss.

I had walked past this same spot every Fall for years… and never noticed.

I exhaled one last massive exhale and finally believed I was ready to let it all go. And in that moment, reinforced for myself that no matter how hard anyone wanted to help me thru it…

Rebounding from any setback was, is, and always will be… up to me.

Thanks for stopping by. I’m glad you’re here.

KEEP BECOMING TOTALLY YOU

And I will, too.

ANN TATARELLI ULRICH

WingWoman For Women – Champion. Friend. Coach. Confidante.

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