The Best Career Decisions Often Start as Bad News

Podcast Archives - Dale Callahan · Aug 6, 2026

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Episode 257 | Watch on YouTube | Listen on Buzzsprout

Last week, I got bad news on a virtual call: my university is cutting summer teaching, which means losing about $50,000 a year in income. And instead of panic, my first reaction was relief.

This isn’t a leadership-failure story — I’m part of that leadership. The real issue was that other stakeholders needed to be in the room before the decision could be made well. Once they were, the meeting moved fast, and something unexpected happened: within twenty minutes, the conversation went from…