I have been there, and I know what it feels like when you get called into your boss’ office and see the HR person sitting next to them with that manila folder and the somber look on their face.
I was working at a start-up in Santa Monica, California and the writing was on the wall. Still the day it was my turn, it felt devastating. The feeling of being rejected, not being good enough, and the dread of having to look for the next opportunity when I was just cruising through life enjoying my job that came with a very nice paycheck and many cool perks.
While a layoff might feel devastating at first especially if you have defined yourself through your work and the prestige of having reached an executive position, it can also be an amazing catalyst for change and an opportunity to find your life’s true calling.
I remember a well-respected senior executive at another company I worked for radically reinventing himself and opening up a bakery after his corporate career ended.
And recently a private client of mine who had been wanting to leave her corporate sponsor but was not quite ready to make the jump used her severance pay to expand her small business turning it into a major opportunity.
There is a gift in everything and yes, it might take a little while for you to find it but trust me it is there.
If you are going through a similar situation at this moment, allow yourself to process the feelings that are inevitably coming up with this big life change, and then start asking yourself this question:
What do I REALLY want to do with the rest of my life?
You might be surprised at what you’ll hear because it can appear as a 180-degree departure from what you have been doing and…
In time you’ll find that everything you have done up until now has perfectly prepared you for this next chapter.
Then you have a decision to make: Follow the call and radically reinvent yourself or go back to doing the same thing that you can do in your sleep at another company.
The first option requires courage, vision, focus, and willpower. It’ll fill you with a tremendous amount of passion and excitement because you are showing yourself what else you are capable of achieving and the greater impact you can have in the world. (Trust me that baker has a tremendous amount of impact in his community and he’s happy doing what he loves.)
If you choose this option, your next steps are to create a strategic and financial plan of how to close the gap from where you are today to where you want to be and then start implementing it at once.
A severance package can become the starting capital that funds your own venture and the skills you have acquired throughout your corporate career will be handy tools as you navigate entrepreneurship. They might even become a packaged service that you sell because you have identified a gap in the marketplace.
I just talked to somebody today who is helping overwhelmed first-time business owners with the tech backend side of running a business. Something that comes easy and natural to her but can be challenging for many of us.
When you can shift your thinking from looking at a layoff as something that is happening to you to something that is happening FOR you, you will start to see the blessing in disguise in the form of an opportunity:
To be able to pursue your passion and do something that you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time to explore because you were too busy climbing the corporate ladder.
We are living in interesting times where people’s needs are constantly changing.
Your passion, the great gift that you have been given might just be filling one of those gaps.
If this resonates with you because you are finding yourself at a crossroads at this moment and you’d like some support on this journey, connect with me privately HERE.
I’d love to help you courageously step into your next chapter.
~Simona