Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill were fired 14 months apart from their high-profile editor-in-chief jobs at InStyle and WSJ. Magazine, respectively. That was three years ago. They have since done more than just landed on their feet; they blazed a new path. Laura formed her own company, LB Media, and Kristina is at Sotheby’s where she re-launched the exquisite Sotheby’s Magazine. And, as smart editors do, they soon recognized that their experience of being fired and managing every thorny step afterwards made for a great story that hadn’t been told. The result is “All the Cool Girls Get Fired: How to Let Go of Being Let Go and Come Back on Top” – a freshly minted best-seller that Oprah called, “the book all working women need now.”

In our latest Substack newsletter, we talked to Laura and Kristina about work uniforms, their favorite synonym for “fired” and how they’re building a ‘Cool Girl’ community.