Books and Movies
​about Career loss

To help recover, media can serve as an escape, but people have also found it helpful in other ways:  1) Books can provide understanding and direction, 2)  movies can illustrate useful parallels with a main character, and 3) music can offer new meaning and insight.  These were mentioned as useful in some people's recovery.  Here's more: 

•  Books -- Books can provide understanding and direction. Unfortunately, many people say they can't focus enough to read an entire book for well over a year after their crisis.  If this sounds like you, let us know in the comment box on the "About" page, and we'll provide you with some of our abbreviated personal notes to some of the most useful books.
• Movies and Television -- Some can illustrate useful parallels with a main character
• Music -- Some songs offer new meaning and insight during or after a crisis
• News Media and Social Media -- Most people avoid them.  Some for a very long time

Here are some of the books, movies, and music that different people have mentioned as useful in their recovery.  If there are ones that have been valuable to you, please let us know in the comment box on the home page or by emailing us.

Books

Didn't See it Coming

​A useful and insightful book.   Nieuwhof shows that seven challenges are usually at the root of a lot of professional crises (cynicism, compromise, disconnectedness, irrelevance, pride, burnout, and emptiness).  
For each of these traps, he provides multiple specific steps you can take to find a way forward into a more powerful and vibrant future.  Although the seven challenges might not surprise you, the multiple solutions for them are very insightful, and they are based on what's worked with the people he's counseled.
Firing Back

Some people bounce back after a career tragedy and some people don't.  What do the successful one's do differently?  There are five actions Sonnenfeld believe they take: "Fight, not flight" (face the difficult situation), "Recruit others into battle" (enlist the right assistance), "Rebuild heroic stature" (spread the true nature of the adversity), "Prove your mettle" (regain trust and credibility), and "Rediscover the heroic mission" (clear the past and chart the future).  Although aimed at CEOs, there are relevant insights for all, such as trying to be productive instead of trying to escape.
Designing Your Life

Two Stanford professors designed a process they've used thousands to help find a new life path that gives them more joy and purpose.  This is aimed at the last part of the "Your Next Chapter" process.  It has some remarkably insight-generating exercises to help you find what gives you flow, what engages you, and how to make it your next career.
What Should I Do with My Life?

A remarkably insightful writer distilled over 500 interviews people who found their own path and chose the 50 best that capture the question "How do I leave the chorus and find my own voice?"   There are no recipes, steps, or checklists in this book, but he does show how most of these people came to answer the title question for themselves.

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​The Bible

The Bible takes on a new dimension of relevance when a person's being crushed by a professional crisis.  The persecution of the Israelites and the epic tragedies of others in the Old Testament offer new perspective in both their dark moments and in their recovery.  The redemption in the New Testament also takes on a more urgent relevance.
Mobbed!

Workplace mobbing is a new term and although lots of new books are coming out on the topic, this was one of the first.  It shows both the psychology and sociology about how mobbing gets traction, and it explains so many of the patterns the most people going through professional traumas experience.  It's most vivid example comes from the author who was a professor, but many of the insights also hold in other fields.  This book dovetails with the pdf downloads on the Allies page about why you need to be careful about what you say in casual conversation.
The Trial

 Kakfa's bleak novel is a controversial inclusion on this list.  Following his arrest, the protagonist spends the entire book trying to answer  "Why?" and "Why me?"  The strongest advocate of this book said it helped him move on in life without feeling the need to fully answer those questions.
We Got Fired . . . And its the best thing that every happened to us

Harvey MacKay profiles about 25 famous people who were fired. He found out what they learned from it and how it led to something better.  Napoleon Hill wrote, "Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit."   This book shows how these people made that seed grow.

Movies and TV Shows

Branded (TV and DVD series)

This mid-sixties TV series follows the adventures of Jason McCord (Chuck Connors), who was the only surviving cavalryman of an Indian massacre.  It's assumed he deserted, so the Army brands him a traitor and coward -- and the entire country knows this.
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Each week he faces name calling, prejudice, and hate in a new town with a new group of people.  It is instructive how addresses these attacks with integrity, and how he alway acts in a creatively heroic way that turns things around within 30 minutes. 
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Movie)

When his job is threatened, Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) decides to stop daydreaming and start living toward what he believes is his destiny. 
Everything Must Go (Movie)

A career salesman (Will Ferrell) is fired for indiscreet actions with a client after falling off the wagon.  He returns home to discover his wife has left him, has changed the locks on their suburban home, and has dumped all his possessions out on the front yard.  Thoughtful ending (but not Anchorman-funny because of the sober topic.)
The Shack (Book and Movie)

Following a deep depression, a man (Sam Worthington)  receives a mysterious letter urging him to an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness.  What follows transforms his understanding of his tragedy, and it dramatically changes his life. 

​The Human Stain (Book and Movie)

Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) is a classics professor at the top of his game who is disgraced and fired as a racist.   What happens after this fast explodes into a series of events with devastating consequences.
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A useful warning that shows how the decisions a shaken person makes when off balance can have even have even more extreme consequences than the initial event.
The Bucket List (Movie)

Two hospital roommates (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) come to terms with how they had led their lives.  They create a "Bucket List" of what they wish they would have done, and spend the rest of their lives living and checking things off.  
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You don't have to watch the movie to create your bucket list. ​

Music
Every Picture Tells a Story
​(Rod Stewart)

Rod Stewart describes a series of unlucky youthful trips.  He concludes that you can choose what you want to remember from a failed experience.  He decides to flash back on the "picture" of the happy highlights instead of what went wrong. (Here's a live, unplugged version.)
Night Moves
(Bob Seger)

Bob Seger's flash-forward song reflects on how even the greatest experiences always have us restlessly looking for "What's next?" when we're young, and restlessly looking for "What's this mean?" when we're older.


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Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
(B.J. Thomas)

The song the reminds us that we're "never going  to stop the rain by complaining."  Also, it offers the reminder that nothing can defeat us as long as we remember that we are free (have free will).

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Shake It Off
(Taylor Swift)

If haters are going to "hate, hate, hate," it makes less sense to fruitlessly try and convince them differently, then it does to just "Shake it off, shake it off."
Firework
(Katy Perry)

This metaphor of using a spark within to ignite a firework.  This can take on important meaning if a person interprets this "firework" to be one's volunteering nature, their mentoring ability, or another outward-focused dimension of themselves.

St. Elmo's Fire

(John Parr)

This is about finding a source of deep-seated inspiration, support, or memories that can drive you on and keep you in motion.  Written in honor of Rick Hansen who travelled across Canada in a wheelchair, and made popular by the namesake movie.