It was my first day and I had to fire twenty complete strangers. Okay, maybe it was more like 14.

I was one guy in a two man operation right before the economic toilet we call 2008. We were a driver service, a staffing agency that hired truck drivers for different companies.

I was 22, friends with my boss and just excited to be in an entrepreneurial business. Christmas was over a month away and I had to be the messenger of bad news.

All morning I dialled out to faceless names and had to be the one to tell them either “there is no work tomorrow” or “we no longer need your services.”

FUN FACT: I did not make any new friends that day.

The response?

“You fuckin’ cocksuckers! What am I gonna tell my wife!?”

“You punk kid, don’t ever call me again!”

While others were like…

“Well, what can you do eh?” or..

“Thanks for letting me know.”

This was a rude awakening for me. What would happen to those people? I had no idea. Some may get temp jobs, employment insurance, survive somehow. No fun.

I realized, in a job we have zero control of what happens to us. We grant someone else power over us.

We may think we are safe and secure, but what’s safe about having all our eggs in one basket? What’s secure about having all our income derived from a single source?

Something that can be taken away at any moment is actually opposite of safe, it’s anti-safe.

But I'm not here to talk about jobs sucking or whether entrepreneurship cures all because in most cases probably makes things worse.

Regardless of if we're at a job or have created our own job, one thing to remember is this:

Never grant anyone your power.

Whether that's customers, bosses, whoever it is, if they can make or break your life, how you feel about yourself, your ability to adapt and so on, you are screwed.

I’ve been at rock bottom and I’ve touched the sky. Whenever I outsourced my power to someone else, I always found myself at their mercy.

There are a handful of insights that helped me become UNCONQUERABLE from the inside and empowered, resourceful, creative and stepping into possibility from the outside.

No multiple streams of income, networking, or resume building garbage will fill the hole inside you.

These are the ways I know how:

1) GIVE TO EVERY MOMENT

When it’s our boss or our customer we are of service. When its ourselves, a stranger or something or someone in our presence we treat it differently for some reason.

If we could just slow down we might notice that we are exactly where we need to be.

What’s right in front of us deserves our attention (it took 13.8 billion years to bring this moment to you!) and when we accept this we realize there is a human being, a challenge or opportunity that we can serve.

Listen, share, help, hold, touch, move, inspire... BE with him, her, it.

Even when things are shitty… especially when they’re shitty, nothing heals us faster than giving to others.

Do your part and the universe will do it’s part.

2) INVEST IN YOUR GIFTS

The most dangerous idea is thinking it’s too late to learn something new. Getting our hands dirty and becoming experienced in different skills makes us more and more valuable and resourceful.

When we're not growing we're dying.

Through reading, workshops, learning new skills or developing our talents we can expand our reach and share more of our gifts to the world.

It’s foolish to think that you’ll have only one act in life. The era of 30 year careers and golden watches is over.

For most millennials studies say that we’ll have 14 different careers in our lifetime. Being one dimensional will kill you.

Find more and more opportunities to expand and share your gifts and you will slowly find more and more people who will gladly pay for them.

3) CREATE & RELATE

I had a client say he wants to be better at ‘maintaining’ relationships.

“Maintain?” I asked. “People aren’t cars.”

Truth is we sometimes treat relationships like they’ll be there forever. We take them for granted.

I’m guilty for this too. Again it's growing or dying.

You can spend time with people but if you’re not deepening the connection, it’s just not as fun.

We are all shaped by new experiences and lessons and deepening our relationships means finding more and more ways to connect with that person.

Each person is a constellation of different insights and experiences. Our level of openness and vulnerability helps us connect our constellation with theirs.

Go BE with people. Notice who they are and what they're about. Acknowledge and appreciate them. Be there through the breakdowns, resistances and tough times and they'll be there for you.

(queue Friends theme here)

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The combination of cultivating and giving our gifts to the moment and being genuinely connected to people makes life worth living.

Our inner world becomes filled with truth, beauty and love and slowly, so too does our outer world.

When we practice these deliberate ways of being, we empower ourselves. We take back what we have granted to others.

And if and when you're boss or client ever fires you, kiss them! Because you know you have everything you need inside, and no one can take that away.