I Didn't Start Over... I Redeployed

Career paralysis isn't a lack of ability, it's a lack of perspective

Climbing the ladder for 10 years in a company can be very rewarding. Financially, Professionally, Personally…

But what happens when you’re laid off 2 weeks after your 10-year anniversary in a 70 person corporate layoff?

Unplanned. Unannounced. Unexpected.

The “day of death” for many people is how it was taken. People 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and even 30 years with the company were axed.

I still went and had lunch with my team after my termination as it was planned. I didn’t really eat much, yet it was planned, and I wanted that last connection with them.

I remember texting a colleague after they asked how I was doing only to say, “a job doesn’t define my value as a human being. It’s what I do, not who I am.”

Too often men take on their job or business as their identity. No bueno.

For me, it was sad, painful, and very memorable. It was rich with meaning and impact.

It was God’s timing for me to move on as I had planned to leave in the next year or so to pursue something in the entrepreneurial space as I stood out like a sore thumb in corporate America even though I loved it.

So on I went into the big pond :-)

One of the skills I had polished was my ability to recognize what I had built within myself working with so many great leaders and mentors over those 10 years.

• Leadership

• Project Management

• Conflict Resolution/Crisis Navigation

• Team recruitment & development

• Business Acumen

These are highly transferrable skills into any industry and I discovered many people like making but NOT running a business. I love the game of business. And when you see it as a game, it’s not work.

Quite often we can get trapped in this long-term career silo psychology where imagining anything beyond what we do and where we do it, is never possible or…

Even worse… not valued!

So if you’re in this spot, do what I did. Do what any wise person would do. Do what any person in recovery or running a physical product business would do.

Take Inventory!

Write down everything you’ve done in a list. And then break each one down in detail as to what the make up is of that skill set. This was wildly impactful for me and I was able to help a lot of folks coming from that layoff do this same exercise.

Seeing your skills and abilities in black & white is very empowering, especially sitting in a small form of hopelessness and resignation.

Take the leap. Shoot your shot. Do the thing.

We are not starting from zero like the mind loves to tell us, we’re starting from decades of experience.

That means something and has value.

This isn’t really a crisis, it’s a calling. Suppressing that inner call is what creates anxiety, irritability, and discontent. Not the change itself.

Drawing from our buddy Jim Hollis, the real question is not “What job should I get?” but:

“What wants to come to life in me now?”

So what is meant to come to life in YOU?

The world may desperately need what that is.

Thanks for reading and hoped you listened to Episode 13.

Cheers,

Joe