Before I get started with my story, I want to talk about yours. Many of you reading this may have recently been laid off, or you’re concerned it may happen soon. It's a scary experience, for sure, but when I was laid off, it ended up having an incredibly positive impact on my career. My intention here is to provide you with a combination of inspiration and tactic-level advice on how you can come out better on the other side.
That said, if you’re currently going through it, I encourage you to acknowledge and experience every stage of this transition. These are real feelings that need to be processed; we all have our own system and timeline for dealing with these emotions. My approach and mindset might not be applicable to your specific situation, but I hope you can learn something from my own lessons, and feel free to leave the rest behind.
Getting laid off
On May 13th, 2009, I was laid off from my job as a Marketing Manager at a SaaS startup in the Financial District of Manhattan. The HR manager told me my role was being revised because the company was reducing its focus on digital marketing, my specialty. (Hard to believe, but digital marketing wasn’t really seriously back then.)
I called up my good friend, Lorie Alter, to tell her what had happened. In an attempt to cheer me up, she responded: “It could be worse, it could be raining”. The joke fell flat. It was, in fact, raining.
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