First Stop and Breathe

I am very interested in how people survive difficult life and death situations, such as being lost in the wilderness or at sea. The first thing that you learn from survivors in these situations is that they stay calm and stop what they are doing and assess where they are and what supplies and tools they have to help them survive. The bottom line is they use their brain and do not panic.

Of course all of my reading and preparation to survive in the wilderness was thrown out the window when I learned back in February that I was going to lose my job. I immediately panicked, quickly updating my resume and jumped head first into the online job search sites such as Monster, Career Builder, and Dice without first truly assessing my skills, passions, and interests.

There were few jobs available as an IT Manager within my chosen Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry and even fewer willing to match my current base salary. My resume was 6 pages long going back 25 years to my first job out of college. The lack of response to my resume also fueled my anxiety and led to many sleepless nights wondering how I was going to provide for my family. I was also concerned about leaving my home, family, and friends and the impact of uprooting my wife and children to chase after a job that potentially was full of uncertainty.

It is now 4 months later and I have made it through almost all of the change curve phases from denial to anger to depression and now finally on my way out of the hole of despair and beginning to think that this change could actually be a blessing in disguise. Please do not get me wrong, it has taken me months to move through all of these phases with the love and support from my wife, children, family and friends. This has been a hard journey and I know that it isn’t over yet. I have made many mistakes along the way, but I also learned a few tricks that I would like to share with you with hope that it will make your journey a little easier.

Please be aware that my personal journey has been full of mistakes and fraught with obstacles.