The Climb After the Fall

Repairing the cracks after failure

I got fired from my very first job out of university.

I was barely 21, fresh out of school with an accounting degree, working as a tax accountant and bookkeeper. From the very beginning, I was in over my head. I was constantly behind, scrambling toward deadlines, and had no idea how to ask for help. I was an overachiever who hadn't yet learned how to be honest about struggling.

And eventually, they let me go.

Here’s the part that still stings a little: I knew I hated that job. I knew I’d made a mistake choosing accounting within six months of starting my degree…and I sure as hell knew it when I was trying to do tax returns. But by the time I figured that out, I couldn’t imagine how to undo four years of study and student debt. So I didn’t. I got another accounting job. This time at a credit union. I was better at that one. The work made more sense to me, and more importantly, I had a boss who had my back. (Ken Walters, if you ever read this, you helped me more than you know.)

Still, after that first fall, I didn’t have the tools to process it. I didn’t know how to treat myself with compassion or even basic curiosity. I carried that failure around like a hidden wound. No one could help me put myself back together because I was working so hard to hide the cracks. I was ashamed, afraid, and determined to prove I was fine.

This week, I read After the Fall by Dan Santat. It’s a beautiful continuation of the Humpty Dumpty story. Not the fall itself, but the long road back. The fear that stays. The identity that forms when you start to believe you’ll never get back up again.

It hit close to home.

Because this is what happens. We fall. We mess up. We take a wrong turn. And if we’re not careful, we build our entire story around that one moment.

That’s where coaching can help. But so can friendship. So can a supportive manager, a wise mentor, a loving partner. Sometimes it’s just someone who sees through the story you’ve been telling and reminds you who you really are.

So if you’re holding on to an identity shaped by failure or fear (if there’s a part of you still stuck in the fall) this is your gentle nudge.

You’re not the fall.
You’re the climb.
You’re the person who decided to try again.

And that’s where things start to get interesting.

-L