Car crashes, plane crashes, getting fired - this week's episode of the Day After Graduation podcast.

Act 1 - The New Cowboy in Town.

It’s not every day that you get to have an enlightening interview with a former employer, to put into perspective what led to getting fired from a job. Today, our host Ryan does just that, he examines his humbling experience straight after graduating school, by interviewing the very person who let him go.

Kelly Adams, former co-owner of Punch, a design agency remembers Ryan’s energy at the starting the job and eventually, with his enthusiasm he got promoted to marketing position responsible for landing new clients.

So, what went wrong?

Kelly describes it as a common mentality, calling it the “cowboy” attitude. With all guns blazing, going against the grain and rubbing people the wrong way. In trying to impress clients and getting involved in all the specs before the entire team is involved Ryan ended up excluding the team and working against goals.

Ryan thought he was being tenacious and on target with his direction, however he misdirected his ambitions and went outside the normal procedures, while losing personal connection with the rest of the team.

Gain some unique insights into what it’s like talking to someone that fires you.

Listen to "Adjusted"

Act 2 – First Class Nightmare

Catherine Byers Breet graduated from Longwood in 1993 and now runs her own business teaching people how to do what they love for a living. Before finding her calling, she needed to walk a path of her own to figure out what she wanted to do, and more importantly did not want to do with her life.

First jobs included camp counsellor, waitress, tour guide, and eventually flight attendant. She admits the draw to becoming a flight attendant was to see world, and with heavy student loans due, could not afford the backpacking lifestyle even for an interim. Therefore, in her mind, getting a job where she could do just that while getting paid was the answer. She entered this position with huge expectations.

After training she started understanding that she would not be seeing much of the world, as a rookie would be doing the US route first and what’s worst, in her first flight she realized that apart from being nervous about the first job, Catherine was also a nervous passenger!

Why get involved? Facing her fears had always been a strong viewpoint of hers.

An on-board emergency helped Catherine become aware of some of her strong suits in managing stressful situations, calming people down leading in a fearful situation.

In the end, Catherine had to change jobs as the reality of low income and failed expectations caught up with her. Despite the dream of seeing the world, she realized that this was the privilege of senior attendants only, and the low paying road to that point was just not viable.

In the end Catherine reckons that she would do it all again, just for the lessons she learnt along the way.

Act 3 – Just getting started!

Self-confessed terrible driver and 2015 Longwood graduate, Kirsten Gaines found out the hard way that part of adjusting to life after college includes transportation and housing responsibilities. Car troubles, accidents, buying cars and paying tickets, while managing housing in a new town were some of the things she had to face, all in one week!  You would be hard pressed getting into this much trouble yourself, but listen in for some good advice from someone who has ‘been there and done that’!

Kirsten shares the story of her 4 cars in 2015 and includes some humor which goes to show that life’s painful lessons can help us grow.

Life after college may not be all that rose-colored, but as you will learn from this episode no efforts are ever wasted and only contribute to the people we become.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What can go wrong with ambition?
• Why you need to learn patience and politics in any position, especially from the start.
• Is it tenacity, or overconfidence?
• Does reality always match expectations?
• How many times does it take to get things right?

Listen and Subscribe!