Raise Your Hand First
If you feel the firing coming, get to the conversation before your boss does.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 85%
Posner is blunt: if you get fired and didn't see it coming, you don't have self-awareness and you're lying to yourself. He knew — there were conversations, there were touchpoints — and he admits he was running out the clock. His prescription is to invert that: the first thing you should do is raise your hand to your boss and have the conversation yourself, because heading it off first is a huge competitive advantage for course-correcting. Part of the honesty is accepting that not every job works for everybody; it can be performance-based or purely cultural, as Gary told him — it wasn't that people didn't like him or that he was terrible at social media, it just wasn't the right place at the right time. The second half of the framework is what comes after: it took Posner a full year to say 'fired' instead of 'left,' and the moment he said it publicly on someone's podcast, the weight lifted and it became a waterfall of people saying 'I've been fired too, I'm with you.'
Origin
Posner was fired from VaynerMedia within a year of landing what he believed was his forever job — he calls it the lowest point of his life. Gary reportedly named him among the 15 hardest people he'd ever had to fire. Posner spent a year telling people he left before admitting the truth on a podcast.
Core principles
- 01Anyone who gets fired without seeing it coming lacks self-awareness and is lying to themselves.
- 02Not every job is meant to work out for everybody — it can be performance-based or cultural.
- 03Heading the conversation off first is a huge competitive advantage for course-correcting.
- 04Running out the clock is the failure mode; the touchpoints were the warning.
- 05Once it happens, owning the word 'fired' publicly is what actually frees you.
How to run it
- 1
Admit you can feel it
The conversations and touchpoints are the signal. Posner knew it was coming and it was only a matter of when.
Watch out Running out the clock is the choice that removes every option you had.
- 2
Raise your hand first
Go to your boss or whoever you report to and open the conversation yourself: let's talk about this.
Pro tip Getting there first is the competitive advantage — it's the only window where course correction is still on the table.
- 3
Diagnose honestly
Separate the two failure modes: are you not doing what they hired you for, or were you never set up for success and it's cultural?
Pro tip Posner names both in his own case — his own underperformance AND not being set up for success.
- 4
Accept that not every job works
Sometimes it isn't the right place at the right time, and that's not a verdict on you as a person or a professional.
- 5
Say the word out loud
If it ends, tell people you were fired rather than constructing optics about having left. Posner took a year to do this.
Pro tip It takes more effort to maintain a facade than to be truthful — it's easier and less stressful.
Watch out The cover story doesn't protect you; it isolates you from everyone who's been through the same thing.
In the wild
Posner landed what he thought was the holy grail — a role at VaynerMedia in 2014 doing new business pitches alongside Gary. It went south within a year through a combination of him not doing exactly what he was hired for and not being set up for success. He knew it was coming from the touchpoints and admits he was running out the clock.
→ He was fired — the lowest point of his life — but calls it the wake-up call that changed the trajectory of his entire life and led directly to the recruiting pivot and his own business.
For a full year Posner told people he left, inventing stories he calls 'all optics.' Then, on someone else's podcast, he said publicly for the first time that he had been fired.
→ He describes it as a weight lifted and 'finally free' — followed by a waterfall of audience and people saying 'you know what, I've been fired too, I align with you.' It became an asset to his personal brand rather than a liability.
Common mistakes
Running out the clock
Posner did exactly this and names it. Once you're waiting for the axe instead of raising your hand, you've surrendered the only window where course correction was possible.
Optics-managing a firing into 'I left'
It took Posner a year and a pile of invented stories. He says maintaining a facade takes far more effort than the truth, and the facade blocks the genuine conversations that actually build a brand.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone sensing they're misaligned in a current role, and anyone carrying the stigma of a past firing.
Not ideal for
Situations of genuine bad-faith management where self-disclosure would only be weaponized.
From the transcript
“Anyone who gets fired, if you don't know it's coming and you don't feel it, then you don't have that self-awareness and you're lying to…”
“The first thing you should do is raise your hand and say hey, to your boss or whoever you're reporting to, let's have this conversation.…”
“It took me a good year to tell people that I was fired versus I left, and I came up with stories, I came up…”
From the episode
Adam Posner: Land The Job
Adam Posner