Merry Korn on Turning Professional Loss into Purpose-Driven Work

2026-03-10

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What happens when the job you thought would carry you to the finish line disappears overnight?Two months into what she believed would be her final role, Merry Korn was let go. She was a single parent with two teenagers, college tuition looming, and no clear path forward. The fear was real. The pressure was immediate. Staying in bed was not an option.What followed was not an overnight success story. It was a series of hard conversations, informational interviews, small courageous steps, and a refusal to surrender. From those early survival decisions, Merry...

What happens when the job you thought would carry you to the finish line disappears overnight?

Two months into what she believed would be her final role, Merry Korn was let go. She was a single parent with two teenagers, college tuition looming, and no clear path forward. The fear was real. The pressure was immediate. Staying in bed was not an option.

What followed was not an overnight success story. It was a series of hard conversations, informational interviews, small courageous steps, and a refusal to surrender. From those early survival decisions, Merry went on to found and scale a for-profit social enterprise that employed more than 1,300 people across 30 states, prioritizing jobs for people with severe disabilities, disabled veterans, and individuals living in the most impoverished communities.

Merry shares how to:

Move forward when fear feels paralyzing
Use informational interviews as a career and business growth strategy
Align work with purpose instead of contorting yourself to fit the wrong environment
Build a mission-driven company that attracts high-quality talent
Create simple rituals that protect presence at home
Lead with values when rebuilding after a professional setback
Turn survival mode into meaningful, scalable impact

Dig Deeper

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Schindler's List

Barney

Crazy by Patsy Cline

Follow Merry

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merrykorn

On X: https://X.com/korn_merry45334

On Instagram: https://instagram.com/mpearlkorn

On Facebook: https://facebook.com/firedtoinspired

On her website, Fired to Inspired: https://firedtoinspired.com