If You Want to Get Rich, Get Fired (But Have a Mouse in Your Pocket) Edit post

I’m sure we’re all familiar with how Walt Disney was kicked to the curb from his first job for “lacking imagination and having no good ideas.” It seems like every motivational speaker brings it up at some point, telling us we all have to find our own potential, even if others don’t see it. Sometimes being fired is the best thing that can happen—or it was for Walt Disney.

That’s all well and good, and a great story. Disney was an oddity, and maybe that editor at the Kansas City Star didn’t recognize genius when he saw it. Maybe the Kansas City Star wasn’t a great place for geniuses. Who knows, maybe the editor knew Disney wasn't cut out for newspapers.

It’s all speculation, of course. Even Walt was never sure if being fired was a good or a bad thing. He’d go on to other disasters, like his Laugh-o-Gram animation studio that he ran into the ground. Or wandering around Hollywood with his brother, getting doors slammed in their faces.

Here’s what motivational speakers don’t mention, though. Throughout his early disasters, Walt had something in his pocket. It was a folded up piece of paper with a drawing of a mouse. Until they got to Hollywood, probably nobody saw that mouse except Disney and his brother. They must have looked at it a thousand times, knowing—or at least suspecting—their fortunes were tied to that little guy.

How many of us have a mouse in our pockets, an idea we let sit there, all folded up? How many of us think: “One of these days I’m going to do something about this” but never do it? Is it because we don’t have a Kansas City Star editor booting us to the curb?

Or do we fall back on destiny, saying: “If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen”?

Probably both are true. We’re all sedentary destiny seekers. Most of us go through our careers, wondering what would happen if fate forced us out of our comfort zones. Actually, comfort zones aren’t great places for genius, either.

In my book: “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive),” my main character, Sam, admits that if he hadn’t been fired, he would have gone on doing the same thing. “I’m a plodder,” he says. “I wait for visionaries like Frank [his boss and owner of the agency] to tell me what to do.”

At the age of fifty-eight, think of all the plodding Sam has done, all the visions he’s expected someone else to have for him? Aren’t we all guilty of the same thing? Don’t we see ourselves as plodders and pencil pushers?

After Sam is fired, he finds himself falling in with all kinds of odd characters, each engaged in what Sam calls their own “personal lunacy.” Everyone’s doing the craziest things, like Otis who has an online streaming show called: “Otis Cries for You.” Each day, Otis asks people to call in with their saddest stories and he’ll cry for them. The show becomes a hit, making Sam wonder if he’s the only one without a mouse in his pocket.

“You want to find your reason for being, Sam?” his doctor asks him. “Look at all the stars in the sky. We’re infinitesimal. You think succeeding or failing is really the point? Life’s a crapshoot. Go fill the cheap seats”

As Sam watches people around him, he sees movement, and with movement comes a certain amount of success. They’re not trying to be rich necessarily, but there is a richness in doing.

As Disney said: “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

When Sam finally steps out of his comfort zone, he isn’t necessarily a success, but he is rich in what he discovers he needs most: the fulfillment of himself. As Sam’s doctor tells him: “Be happy, Sam. You’ve got family and friends. You’ve found something you like doing. You’re a rich man.”

In other words, being rich monetarily isn’t a goal, it’s a byproduct. The goal is finding that mouse in your pocket. We all have that mouse, it’s just a matter of unfolding the paper. What stops us isn’t what we don’t think we can do, it’s what we’re afraid to even try.

I think of the great jazz clarinetist, Artie Shaw, who turned down engagements at the height of his career worth millions of dollars. “Tell them I’m insane,” he said to his booking agent. “Anyone who turns down millions must be insane.”

In a later interview, after he officially left the music industry, he admitted that he had other destinies (essentially other mice). He went on to write books, saying it was more fulfilling than the clarinet. “With the clarinet,” he said, “I was trying to be a perfectionist. That’ll drive you crazy.” Instead, he did things that made him happier (including being an expert marksman and fly fisherman).

“Shoot for the moon,” he said. “If you miss, you’ll end up in the stars.”

So it’s the story of mice and men (or women), a folded piece of paper, an act that takes us out of our comfort zones. It can be scary at first, but ultimately it makes us richer. Maybe not monetarily, but if you look at the geniuses of the world—including Disney—money was never the goal. The goal was fulfillment.

As Benjamin Spock once said: “Happiness is mostly a byproduct of what makes us feel fulfilled.”

Now, the question you’re asking: Do you have to be fired to feel fulfilled?

It’s not a prerequisite. I’ve known people who pursued their “mice” while engaged in long careers. If you can do both (I wrote short stories under my desk), why give up the paycheck? On the other hand, if you can’t juggle two mice at once (Disney couldn’t), maybe being kicked to the curb is a good thing.

It certainly was for Sam, and Disney, and Robert Redford, and even Mark Cuban (he got fired from a computer store and never worked for anyone again).

What about you? Are you fulfilled? Is there a mouse in your pocket? Do you need to be kicked to the curb? Let me know at: rcormack@rogers.com

Robert Cormack is a freelance copywriter, novelist and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. For more details, go to Yucca Publishing or Skyhorse Publishing.