Why I Thanked My Boss for Firing Me

In 1989 I was managing the national ad sales effort for a sports magazine, based out of my home office. Having designed that office space as part of the house I’d built a dozen years earlier when I was a territory sales rep for Xerox, I was home-based long before being home-based was cool.

At 8:30am one Monday the phone rang – of course, I was at my desk. The caller was a boss who got to the point: They had a new plan for how they were going to market, but I wasn’t going to be part of their p...