Your Setback Might Be a Setup: What to do When the Season Ends | William Vanderbloemen

In this candid and insightful episode, William Vanderbloemen talks through one of the hardest parts of leadership—what to do when you're fired, forced out, or just feel like your season is ending. From William's teenage painting job to his years in ministry and executive search, he shares real stories and practical advice on how to navigate transitions with self-awareness, integrity, and hope.

He discusses:

• Why few people admit getting fired—and why they should

• How to process your part in a job loss without shame

• Why how you leave will be remembered more than what you did

• Signs a firing or transition might be coming

• The surprising power of rest in avoiding failure

• What to do if you're burned out, broke, or in-between roles

Whether you're leading a church, business, or nonprofit, this episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating a difficult season. Your setback could be God's setup for your comeback.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the Vander Bloom and Leadership Podcast, where we help you build, run, and keep great teams. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

You know, leaving a role, whether it be ministry, business, opera, whatever it is, leaving a role can be especially difficult. Whether that's leaving on your own or whether or not you get fired. William, have you ever been fired?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I hope I'm not for asking, but would you fire a guy with glasses?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Uh I wore my glasses. Yeah, just sympathy. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Oh, yeah, I got fired. I was uh painting with my own painting business. I was probably 14 or 15, and I got real sloppy with one job, and they're like, Yeah, we don't need you anymore. I'm like, What? Wait, no, wait. I can no no no, we've decided, we're done. You didn't get done in time, and it's it wasn't the best work. So and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

So for was it what were you painting? What was it?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

A wall. Oh one color, one girl, pretty simple. Well, well, now look where we are. Yeah, so that's but you know what's interesting. Um, yeah, I don't know how many people I've interviewed over the years. I mean, we're way into six figures of interviews here as a team. Um I probably can count on my hands the number of people who said, Yes, I got fired, and it was my fault. Oh wow. It just doesn't happen. Don't admit to it or don't admit to it, or maybe they don't get fired. I don't know. I mean kind of hard to look for a job, and you think Yeah, I mean you get these, you know, sort of Christianese way of saying people don't want to talk about firing because Jesus never fired anybody. Well, wrong. I've said this before, but he fired the fig tree and it didn't bear fruit again ever. That's right. So, you know, I think in churches we try to stay away from uh firing language. It's not quite as bad in schools and nonprofits and values-based businesses, but um, you know, we pastors will say things like, Jared, my season just came to a close.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Like, yeah. So, and on a really jaded day, I've almost said to somebody when they say that, so was the the season ending? Was it a misdemeanor or was it a felony?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Oh my god. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Aren't you telling me what really happened? Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, there are seasons and some of them do come to a close, but come on, you know, we're all broken. I got fired from painting job. So you know, just own it.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

And it was hit, I was talking to a friend of mine who's a divorce counselor, and he was telling me, this is years ago, that the people who rebound from divorce are always the ones who spend a lot of time trying to figure out what part of the divorce was their fault.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

And they never heal until they get to that part.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

That's so good.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And I I don't want to that's a big giant thing to put out there when you're just talking about firing, but I think uh if you get fired and you're trying to put cosmetics on or whatever, you're missing a huge opportunity. I mean, if you can figure out what was my part here, yeah, what did I do wrong, and how do I learn from it? Yep. Doesn't matter how bad your boss is, you could have one of the horrible bosses. But uh there's always something in a firing that you can learn. I should have done this differently. But yeah, you know, the first time we do anything wrong, what happens? You know, Adam, why'd you eat that fruit? Well, that woman, the one you gave me, well, she made me eat the fruit. Yeah. Why'd you eat the fruit, Eve? Well, the snake. That's he made me do it because snakes are so persuasive. I want to hang out with them and listen to them and do what they say. No. Uh like we're forever passing the buck. It wasn't me. My mother grew, you know, three boys. God bless her for raising three boys, and she said, You know who I really want to meet is this guy named Not Me. Because he does everything. That's right. Who did that? Not me. Who did that? Not me. Yeah, you. If you've been fired and you haven't taken a long look in the mirror to say what part of this was my fault, and how do I learn through it and grow through it, you're missing a huge opportunity. You're also missing a wonderful chance in an interview to actually tell somebody you did get fired and and a a good learning from that, and hopefully not because you stole money from the company or yeah. We got a real problem on our hands. But but I, you know, how you leave we talked about firing and and own it and learn from it and that sort of thing. But I think um how you leave will often be remembered longer than anything you did while you were at your job.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

You can leave it huff. You can leave, you know, yelling and screaming. We had to let a guy go to church one time, and he just we weren't in social media at the time. This was in the dark ages, you know. But uh he was just sending out emails and rah-r-and-I called my dad, who's an attorney, not a pastor, and I said, uh, how's it going? How's it going? We got into this. And I said, This guy, he won't quit. And he said, William, he'll quit. He's just um I'm gonna get in big trouble for saying this. I have to cut this out right now. Dad, dad said, I didn't say, he's just posting his 95 feces. Oh how he left, I will remember forever. I don't know what he did while he was at work. Now, if you leave in a lovely fashion, people will remember that too.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

And so how you leave is gonna get remembered longer than what you did while you were there. So it's just it's just a uh this is happening now. Yeah. So how am I gonna be remembered for the way I act during this time?

SPEAKER_02 6:16

That's great. Uh quick sidebar here when you are interviewing someone, when you're talking with someone for a position or a role, and they do bring up the fact that they have been fired, you view that as a plus and depends on why. If they come to a realization and a self-awareness that it was their fault, yeah, it still depends on what it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah. Uh I I realize, you know, uh some of the horrible, horrible things that are happening to children. Yeah. I don't, you know, I'm I can't help you with that. You know, you you and Jesus can get straight, but you're not working with kids again. Like yeah, that's one example on the extreme end. Um, if you're interviewing for a finance role and you embezzled money, like that's a so it it's it it's not always a plus. Now, those are extreme examples. Yeah. What I do look for in an interview that's really, really, really uncommon is self-awareness.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And you know, what I can say now about the teenage painter is William is a seven on the Enneagram. I would have done better with a wall that needed 52 colors than one. Oh, yeah. I mean, a bunch of colors. I'll hey, we'll get after this, but one boring color, I think it was called bone. I mean, yeah, probably just oh plain. I know enough about myself now not to take a job that requires steady repetition. Because I am more about next challenge, next new thing. And I learned that, and I learned it the hard way. So um in the future when I reopen the painting business, I just paid my little brothers to do the painting and that's right.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Um you know, we we talked a little bit about uh pastors being fired. There's a stud out there that I think says almost one in three uh pastors or something like that. I may be getting the numbers wrong, but about one in three pastors are are uh fired from a job. And a lot of times it can come as a bit unexpected. Um what are some ways, maybe some uh maybe not red flags, but like some uh signs that you know something could be coming. Um and and what to do when you feel like maybe you know there something in the ahead could be that that moment could be in the near future.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah. Well, if you're not keeping close accounts with somebody who will actually tell you the truth, then you got a problem. Here's the thing if you're the headmaster of the school, if you're the CEO of the nonprofit, if you're the especially the pastor of the church, people will lie to your face about how you're doing. You're doing great. Yeah, everything's awesome. Yeah. Don't want to tell pastor something that could be unnerving. Yeah. So, you know, I've I've got an uh old parishioner who took a new job as a CEO one time and I asked him, he wanted my advice. And I said, Why do you want my advice? He said, I'm scared to death of you, you've heard the old saying, the first day you're the CEO is the last day you hear the truth. Well, no, I've never heard that. He said, Yeah, it's true. Yeah. People won't take so I would say if you're feeling like something bad could be coming on the job front, ask yourself, do I have people who are getting an objective read of how things are going? And am I getting real information about that? Yeah. So that would be one thing. Now, how do you prevent from getting to that point? You know, on the one hand, you can't prevent it. The church is a funky thing. It can go sideways, you make the wrong group of people mad, and in an age where everybody's got a megaphone, you you do everything right. Well, let's put it this way you could do everything right and end up nailed to a tree. That's yeah, very, very you could be the boss's son and do everything right and get nailed to a tree. So in some ways you can't keep it from having in other ways, there's some really simple things to do uh that can keep you from getting in the super hot water. Like I call them the red cards. Okay, you know, in in soccer or football, it's yellow for problem, red is like nope. Do you know what the red cards are? And do you have firewalls put up where you're not gonna hit those, right? Uh and it's different for everybody, but here's the common denominator among men and women that I know that have drawn the red card. You show me somebody who has gone and blown up their life, I can show you somebody who was really, really tired.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yeah, that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Every single failure that I've seen, and we've seen a lot of them. You can draw a straight line back to overworked, to you know. Yeah. I had a pastor uh who's a creative, so he's up late at night. Yeah. So he's a good friend. Sunday nights, uh, he'll text me every now and then because that's when pastors are depressed.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Done the sermon, probably already given an email about how your shirt didn't match match your pants.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Or something like that. Sound was too loud. Yeah, exactly. Uh he his church was just blowing up, and he said, Do you know of anybody who's preaching five live services or has tried doing five services on a Sunday? And I said, Sure. And I sent him a list of names. And I won't list the names here to protect privacy, but very well-known people who all lost their church from coloring outside the lines. And and he just wrote me back a little four-letter response and was like, okay, I'm like a tired pastor is a highly vulnerable pastor. Yeah. A tired headmaster, highly vulnerable. So if you want to avoid the getting fired, on the one hand, you I may not be able to help you. People are weird and it's a broken world. On the other hand, the things you can foolproof, um, if you'll make sure you're not getting burned out or worn out, you'll be a lot more um uh insulated from creating the critical error that people will look up and say, How in the world did I end up here? I don't know how I ended up. I didn't make these choices. How did I end up making this stupid something?

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah, that's great. That's a great analogy as well. Um moving on from being fired from a job, sometimes you just feel like it's time to move on, that the season is is over. Uh 42% of pastors in the United States said that they've seriously considered quitting full-time ministry. Um a lot of that has to do with being overworked, with the fact that pastoring is harder than ever. Um what what are some ways that uh maybe just give us some insights into into that reality that a lot of pastors are are facing? What are some ways that we can, you know, make sure that that's not the case and maybe even give some encouragement to those who are well feeling that.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

You know, the whole one study showed and another study showed and another show. I don't know how much faith I'll put in those. There was a big everybody's gonna quit ministry thing that you know was running around during the pandemic. Everybody didn't quit ministry. A whole lot of people did, but not everybody. Yeah. Uh the 42% that said they were thinking of quitting. I'm guessing those are the people they asked on Monday. So that's yeah, that's fair. Monday is when pastors are in the gutter. I mean, it's just horrible. In fact, I told uh pastors for years it used to be Monday was the day every pastor took off. And it was a new idea when I came out of seminary. Well, when I left Princeton, it was like, I'm gonna take Friday off. Well, why don't you take Monday off? It's well, I feel terrible on Monday because church, I'm down, and yeah, it'd be a great day to take off. I said, I'm not giving myself to my family when I feel like that. Yeah, but family gonna get a good day. Yeah, that's a great point. So, you know, it Monday's a horrible day. You you spend the whole and and you know, Billy Graham lost lots of weight when he went out preaching. It's a big toll, and you get up on a high and followed by highs or lows. It's kind, it's kind of somewhere in the you know, sort of manic spectrum. People who can get up to tell people this is what God says for your life and put their whole soul into it. After that, there's nothing left. Yeah. And you just feel terrible. So I would say if you're sensing your season is coming to a close, ask yourself first, am I tired right now?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Because if it is a seasons do end, and that's a call of God. And here's the thing you're not gonna miss God's call. That's really good. It just gets louder and louder and louder until you finally say, Okay, what's C. S. Lewis calling the hound of heaven. Okay, fine. I will I will submit to your, you know, so you're not gonna blow the chance to leave your job if you wait another day, if you wait until Tuesday. When we first started and I was taking all the calls, like my phone was the whole office. Yep. Um, you know, I actually had a voicemail prompt from Mondays that said, it's Monday. If you're thinking of quitting, call me on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Today's not a good day to talk. During the work, I'd leave that on. And I mean it kind of is a joke, but people said, you know, that was actually pretty good advice. So if you're thinking of quitting, you don't quit when you know it's gonna be hard. Like if I have to quit a marathon, it won't be in mile 20. Yeah, it won't. Because I know mile 20 sucks. You hit the wall. I've it's happened to me eight or nine times now. And I will not not during that one mile. If I have to crawl to mile marker 21, I'm getting to there. Yep. And so it's like look forward to the places where you're gonna be tired and say, I gotta push through that. I'm not gonna make a career move while I'm feeling that.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Yeah, that's really good. Uh, you know, a lot of a lot of pastors are maybe even uh would cite some of the financial, not the the financial stress that a lot of times ministry can put on you. And I know you've said before and and joked that you you know you you don't go into ministry for money, and if you do, it's for one of two reasons. Either you're crooked or you're stupid, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Dumb crooked news.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Yeah, which is it's true. It's true, but there is a reality too of like there is a lot of times for many who are in ministry, a little bit of stress that finances can can put on your your day-to-day, your day-to-day life. Uh how big of a factor do you think that is in pastors and like how much should they be weighing that really that sacrifice um when leading in ministry, when thinking about going into ministry? Yeah. Maybe talk to that.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, well, I think uh first and foremost, it doesn't matter what job you have, if you outspend what you earn, you're you're never gonna make it. Yeah. And you know, we used to require when you came to work here, you had to take Financial Peace University from Dave Ramsey. I can't outpay your spending habits. If I pay you more, you'll just set keep spending more. So pastors should get paid well, um, but that's not gonna help if they can't manage their own money.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

That's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

So, and and here's the trick. Um, you know, I pastored churches that tended to be fairly affluent people, nice people. Yeah, but fairly affluent, you know, community leaders, that sort of thing. So their like let's go do this for the weekend spend was way higher than my budgets spent. But I wanted to hang out with people. Yeah. So so you know some smart people just say, Well, I can't roll with you for that. I'll see at church, you know. Yeah. Um, other churches make allowances to allow you to hang out with your people, but don't let the I don't make enough money become um a a line of victimhood for you.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Make sure you're controlling your own spending, make sure you don't fall prey to the I'm gonna live like all the people I'm doing my life with at the church. Chances are you're not making as much as they are. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. But and and you know, moving to another church just to get more pay, I mean, there's a tension there, Jared. Oh, you know, I used to say, Oh, just go, don't worry about the pay, but then you have kids, and you realize Paul, who didn't even have kids or a spouse, said, Yeah, if a believer doesn't provide for his family, he's worse than an unbeliever. Yeah. So your fruit parish is your house and you need to take care of them and provide. But uh uh just going for more money just to have some more money, man, if you don't have a good sense of call to a place, it doesn't matter what size check you get, it's not gonna be enough to fill the hole.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

That's really good. That's really good. You know, we talked even a little bit at the start and and now too of moving on to new new places and moving on from a job. When we are kind of go back to the beginning, when we are maybe maybe a leader's been recently fired and they are in need of a bounce back, they are in need of getting themselves back up on their feet um and and and moving on in life. What what are just some mentalities that you think are really helpful for kind of that bounce back metal mentality of you know, hey, you know, this reality has happened, but it's not the end of the world, you know, your life's not over. What are some what are some things you think about?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Well, I mean, all of our work is interim work, right? Everything we're doing is just a placeholder till we get to the finish line, right? So I wouldn't get, you know, too worked up about, oh my gosh, my life is over. If your entire identity was poured into your identity as pastor and you've been removed from your church, that's gonna sting because your phone's not gonna ring, you're not gonna get as many texts, people will move on to, you know, a man goes the way of the earth and his place remembers him no more. That's like just the way it is. So if you've got identity issues tied into your job, that's something you really ought to work on. It can't be um that defining for you. Uh, if if on the other hand you um are feeling hurt and everything's over, but it's not an identity issue, I would just say the best thing you can do is just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You don't have to make the next career move to make your career make sense. You can just go get a job. I need to provide for my family and I need to get back on my feet and heal up a little bit. I'm gonna go get a job at Starbucks or what, but get something that leaves your resume with some continuity.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

And try your best to make it a job you can stay at for a little while. Mm-hmm. So you don't have this jagged bounce around and you know, yeah. If you get fired, again, there can be reasons you get fired that are gonna leave you pretty wounded, but most of the time, if you get fired, you can come out of it stronger. It may require taking a job that's not your normal career field for a while and for a season. Take a job. Don't just wait on the next best thing to come along. And certainly don't expect the church or school or nonprofit to just keep carrying your paycheck until you figure out what to do with your life.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah. That's really good. That's really good. Well, just kind of as we close today, are there any final encouragements, word of advice for those who maybe are coming out of a ministry transition or like currently in a transition ministry and you know uh business and nonprofit alike, just the transitions of jobs, um any lasting and yeah, they're they're all hard.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Transitions are hard. Yeah. I mean, they just they just are. Um I will say I've had the good fortune professionally to have jobs that are completely unrelated, but have layered upon one another where I could never do what I'm doing now had I not spent time studying search. I would never be able to do what I do now had I not um gone into the business world for a while. I would never be able to do what I do now had I not been a pastor and sat in their seat. I really would not be able to do what I do now had I not gone to seminary and developed some ability to sort of exegete what the theological operating system of a church is, the culture is, you can't just feel that. That's yeah, so without all those weird stops that appear to be totally unrelated, I could never do what I'm doing now. Yeah. So if you're leading your career and you're heading into something brand new and you're like, oh my gosh, hey, maybe God's up to something. You know, our friend Joel just across the way here says all the time, you know, your setbacks God's set up for your comeback. That's right. So, you know, it it can be that there's something better coming, and you'll look back and be thankful for these days. If you look in the mirror, figure out what part is yours, and and try and keep moving forward, things will eventually get better.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

That's really good. I don't think I can close it better than that. Besides, hey leader, your setback could be the setup for your comeback.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Thanks again for joining us on the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're looking for more leadership resources, you can find us at Vanderblumen.com and on socials at Vanderblumen. We'll see you again next week where we continue discussing how to build, run, and keep great teams.