The Hard Truth About Success From a Fired CEO

When I first started in business news twenty years ago, I was afraid that the content would be boring. I'd have to write endless articles about earnings, capital markets and more earnings.

I found out pretty quickly that business news was exciting, not least because of the Machiavellian drama that unfolds when billions of dollars are at stake and Mack truck-sized egos are at the helm.

There's one thing observing people in business has taught me: being successful never stops being hard. The more successful you are, the more you have to lose; and the richer and more powerful you are, the more vulnerable you become.

George Zimmer, the former CEO of Men's Wearhouse, knows this well.

Zimmer, who founded Men's Wearhouse in 1973, is perhaps best known for his iconic tagline:

"You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it."

Two years ago, he was fired after a disagreement with the board. As Zimmer explains, the firing itself was bad enough; take into account the fact that he was close friends with almost every board member, and you have a betrayal of Machiavellian proportions.

"They were all my close friends, and that's what I think made it particularly difficult," Zimmer said on the Radiate podcast. "I reread Machiavelli, and it's only your good friends that you let that close to your back unprotected, and so really, it's usually your best friends that stab you in the back."

Zimmer described the difficulty of returning home to his family after hearing the news.

"I finally said to my family, 'You know? Everybody is gonna get knocked down in life, regardless of who you are or what you're doing. The question isn't how you get knocked down. The question is how do you get back up?' And I said that without actually knowing how I was getting up, but knowing that I was gonna get up," he recounts.

Zimmer is now involved with a new startup: an online tuxedo rental service called Generation Tux.

"My new business is really like God was watching this happen and dropped this in my lap," he said.

Zimmer describes how, with a little perspective, he's actually enjoying his time in the spotlight as a wronged CEO. Now, he says, he's got a better story to tell the public. He even admits to some schadenfreude watching his former company's management struggle with declining sales.

"I feel sorry for them. I think that what they have now discovered in a very harsh way is that they may have made a mistake," he said. "Now, it's going to be impossible...for people in that position to admit that they've made a mistake, so I don't expect to get a phone call anytime soon."

For another CEO's story about taking failure in stride, check out Greg Norman's Radiate interview:

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