Laura Brown and Kristina O'Neill were both in their dream positions, Brown as the editor-in-chief of InStyle and O'Neill as editor-in-chief of WSJ Magazine, when they were fired in 2022 and 2023. The experience was difficult for both of them, they told CNBC.
"[Getting fired was like] here's an anvil that's smacked you on the head," Brown said "And then you take another weight of shame [and] weird verbiage and construct some narrative for yourself that isn't even true, when everything [feels like] you're already three feet tall."
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So the friends, who had met at a Marc Jacobs fashion show in 2001, decided to write a book covering all of the practical advice and moral support they wished they'd had at the time.
"All the Cool Girls Get Fired: How to Let Go of Being Let Go and Come Back On Top" was released earlier this month and covers everything from severance to bouncing back "with more professional mojo than ever."
Among Brown and O'Neill's top advice for the newly unemployed is to confidently ask for the help you need to get back on your feet and to be open to pivoting in directions you may have never considered before.
"Take no shame in asking for stuff, because everyone is and everyone will… [and] understand the way you steer yourself might be different to what you've grown up with, because there are different options and different schedules and different ways to make money," Brown told CNBC.
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"If you can, let yourself just look around the corner and think, ‘Oh, there are more and different opportunities to what I grew up with,' and then listen to yourself a little bit," she continued.
For Brown, this has meant launching her own company, LB Media, while O'Neill moved into art as the head of media at Sothbey's.
While they're both happy in their current career paths, they told CNBC it took some time to get there. They say they relied on friends and routine to carry them through the worst moments.
"Talking about it helps; calling it what it is helps; having your fired crew helps," O'Neill said.
Another comfort was knowing that they weren't the only high-profile names to have been through an experience like this. The pair said that when they were willing to open up about their experiences, they found that others who had been fired were empathetic and willing to help however they could.
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"If you've been good and worked hard, people will show up. Also with the environment that we're in, there's so much more empathy in the workplace and in hiring than there ever was before," Brown said.
That reaction is what motivated them to write "All the Cool Girls Get Fired."
"Our hope and our dream for this book is that the takeaway is this level-setting on what it means to be fired and how to come through it and be strong and face what comes next," O'Neill told CNBC.
"Having women go, ‘I just read it. This helped me. It makes me feel like I'm not alone.' That's been absolutely wild," Brown agreed. "If we can modify how women think about getting fired so there's less shame and more of a ‘Yeah, I'm a cool girl' feeling, then that's a victory."
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