John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and ran his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Since 2012, John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where he has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, including Peter Diamandis, Adam Grant, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Marie Forleo.
John is also the Co-founder of Rise25, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners. They help their clients generate ROI through their done-for-you podcast service.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [1:06] John Corcoran shares a personal story of being fired by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- [01:49] How the California energy crisis and economic downturn led to political upheaval
- [02:56] The impact of a surprise election decision by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- [03:20] John’s job loss and immediate challenges
- [03:45] The importance of cultivating a big network before a crisis hits
- [04:20] Why developing new skills is crucial, even when your current job feels secure
- [05:11] How John prepared for the worst by taking control of his career path
- [05:49] Personal and professional growth in the face of adversity
In this episode…
Life can throw unexpected challenges when everything seems to be going well. From job security to personal stability, these certainties can be upended in an instant. When the worst happens, like losing a job during a political crisis, how do we re-evaluate our decisions and adapt to new circumstances?
John Corcoran faced this exact scenario when he lost his job as a speechwriter during the California recall election that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger into power. Despite the upheaval, John used this setback as an opportunity to take control of his career path. He leaned on his strong professional network, a key asset he had cultivated over time, to find new opportunities quickly. His experience highlights how setbacks can lead to personal and professional growth when approached with the right mindset.
In this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, John Corcoran, Co-founder of Rise25, talks about how an unexpected job loss transformed his career and life. He discusses the importance of networking before a crisis, the need for continual skills development, taking control of career transitions, how to prepare for the unexpected, and the lessons learned from navigating major life changes.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
Quotable Moments:
- “You never want to run against a popular movie star with 100% name recognition.”
- “The worst time to look for a job is after you lose a job.”
- “There’s nothing worse than losing your job and having to email or call someone you haven’t communicated with in years.”
- “You don’t pay a lawyer to assume everything is going to be rosy.”
- “Sometimes the best decision is to take a deep breath, be brave, and forge ahead.”
Action Steps:
- Cultivate and maintain a vast professional network before you need it: Building relationships in advance creates a safety net that can be invaluable during unforeseen career changes.
- Invest time in skill development even while comfortably employed: Continually enhancing skills can ensure adaptability and competitiveness in the job market.
- Make strategic life decisions that position you for growth and new opportunities: Proactive life choices can help you navigate transitions more smoothly and open doors to new possibilities.
- Prepare for worst-case scenarios in your career planning: Expecting the unexpected helps to create contingency plans that mitigate risks in volatile job markets.
- Embrace courageous actions during times of upheaval and uncertainty: Bold decisions taken amid chaos can lead to personal and professional fulfillment that would otherwise remain undiscovered.
Sponsor: Rise25
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.
We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.
What do you need to start a podcast?
When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.
The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.
We make distribution easy
We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create a copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?
Contact us now at [email protected] or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:00
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders and thought leaders, and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran 0:19
All right, welcome everyone. John Corcoran here, I am the host of the show. This is a special episode where I share with you one of my most popular blog posts before we get into it. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. Rise25 helps B2B businesses to get clients, referrals and strategic partnerships with podcasts and content marketing. If you are listening to this and have ever thought, Should I do a podcast? We say yes, we specialize in helping B2B businesses with a high client lifetime value. So to learn more and get some more inspiration and ideas about how you could get clients referrals and some of the best friendships of your life from a podcast, go to Rise25.com or email [email protected]
John Corcoran 0:48
So here we go. I have a confession to make. I got fired by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let me explain. I’ll start at the beginning. I just started dating this great girl, Nicole. We were in that honeymoon phase early in a relationship, you know, you’re always going out to eat and on weekend trips and generally annoying other people in public by being all lovey dovey. I had also just bought my first house, a little two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow on a cute Street in Sacramento. Shortly after I bought it, Nicole moved in. In short life was good, then storm clouds started to gather on the horizon. You see, I had a great job at the time. I was a speechwriter for the governor of California, and the governor had just been reelected for another four-year term. You would think I was set for a few years, but it had been a rough couple of years for California. Unemployment was up. The.com bubble had crashed, and the state’s economy was in the tank.
The California energy crisis had cost the state billions and resulted in rolling blackouts, not such a good thing in a state with companies like Apple and Google, which kind of need electricity to operate. People who weren’t happy with all of these things started to gather signatures for a recall. At first, I and other staffers didn’t think much of it. Sour grapes. We said I had just made the major life decision to move from Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay Area with Nicole so that she could attend graduate school. It was a risky decision. Up to that point, I’d worked primarily in politics, and my network and all my connections were in Sacramento. If the recall passed, I’d be out of work and looking for a new job in a new town where I didn’t know many people. I had also just bought the house in Sacramento barely a year earlier. We had to rent out the house and we turned around and bought a condo close to where Nicole would go to school. I was a little stretched, to say the least, so I was planning to go to law school a year later, but I would need to work for a year to help pay for Nicole’s school while she was not working.
John Corcoran 2:38
And then the week we were moving to our new home, Arnold Schwarzenegger went on The Tonight Show where he was promoting Terminator 3 and announced he was entering the recall election. I had one thought, oh, shit, it was the perfect storm in politics. You never want to run against a popular movie star with 100% name recognition. But the timing was especially horrible. There were just two months until the recall election. It was like a big steamtrain, and we all got run over by it. Long story short, the recall passed, and Schwarzenegger was elected. I was out of a job.
John Corcoran 3:20
It kind of felt like a sock in the gut. Here I was. I just moved to a new city. I’d rented out my house and bought a new condo. My girlfriend wasn’t working because she was in graduate school, and now I was unemployed. But there’s a silver lining to this story. I did land a new job. Before long, Nicole settled into her new graduate program, and we enjoyed our new home in a new town. But like most setbacks in life, there were some important lessons. Here are my major takeaways from the experience. Number one, cultivate a big network. The worst time to look for a job is after you lose a job. The people who fail at finding a new job are the ones who don’t have a big network or who haven’t kept touch with that network while they were gainfully employed. There’s nothing worse than losing your job and having to email or call someone you haven’t communicated with in years. It looks completely self-serving.
So you should always cultivate a big network and keep in touch with that network. It’s easier than ever today, with social media and sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Number two, develop your skills similarly. The worst time to need new skills is when you need them the most. In retrospect, I think I wasn’t doing enough to develop my skills during this period. After three years in the same job, it wasn’t so challenging anymore for me to write a three page speech. I could have done more to develop and hone my skills.
Number three, be brave and control your path. Put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life and your career. Fortunately, I had already made the decision to follow my wife to grad school and eventually go to law school. When the recall started, I had already put the wheels in motion of a new life. I think it would have been a rougher adjustment after the recall if I had planned to stay working in the same job. My decision to move to the Bay Area ended up working out well. I think I had an easier time getting a job because I wasn’t competing with all my out-of-work colleagues.
John Corcoran 4:44
Number four, always be prepared for the worst that could happen. The California recall election was unprecedented but not unexpected. So the recall taught me that there truly is no, or at least very little, security in today’s job market and economic climate, and as a result, I think it’s important to always be prepared for the worst. I say to clients all the time, you don’t pay a lawyer to assume everything is going to be rosy. You pay a lawyer to assume everything is going to go to shit, and to help you make sure if it does, you are protected. I think that’s a good approach for everyone.
Always be ready in case all your assumptions were wrong and what you never thought would happen happens. Did I make the right decision a few nights ago, I wondered to myself, if I made the right decision to leave Sacramento and move to the Bay Area in the middle of the recall, I had to rent out my house, had to buy a new condo, which ended up being a bad investment, and had to scramble to get a new job in a new city. As I thought about it, I walked down the hall to my son’s room. I watched him while he was sleeping, his little chest rising and falling softly in the faint light of the room. Nicole and I married two summers after the recall, and Mason was born a few years later.
John Corcoran 6:08
I couldn’t imagine my life without him or Nicole. I don’t know if he will be here today. If I hadn’t made the decision to follow Nicole, I’d rather not know the answer to that question. So the next time you face a big decision in the midst of chaos, remember that sometimes the best decision is to take a deep breath, be brave and forge ahead.
Outro:
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