So You Just Lost Your Job, then Think Like an Entrepreneur!
TLDR:
If you were just laid off, you need to change your mindset
You must think like an entrepreneur:
Build a team of peers
Find a mentor
Be fast
Be willing to learn from others
Steer clear of takers
Visualize your successes
These steps work no matter where you are on the journey
Full article:
According to TechCrunch, this fall, over 85,000 tech jobs were lost. And that’s just tech. Across all industries, many more jobs will be lost and yours could be one of them.
Even if you are one of my regular readers and already have a side-hustle, it may not provide enough to leave the financial comfort of your day-job. And yet, if could happen. In this economy, many jobs are being lost and will be lost. So, when that day comes, what will you do?
A very good friend of mine was laid off recently. She’s been doing all the things people should be doing when they lose their job: re-writing her resume, polishing up her Linked In page, looking for extra training, and she’s applying… everywhere. Unfortunately, her industry is very competitive.
Statistically, if you are in a high-skill industry and looking for work, even in the best of circumstances, it will still take a few months of applications, interviews, and near-misses before you land a new job. In the mean-time bills are due and that side-hustle may not cover the difference.
The fact is that she and many other people in the same situation lose hope during that time. So how do you cope, how do you stay focused, how do you keep going? I would suggest changing your mindset and start thinking like an entrepreneur.
Why think like an entrepreneur when you want to get back to work?
This is the first question I am always asked. Most people, even those who have a side-hustle, just want to find a new steady and dependable day job. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, and I get that.
However, thinking like an entrepreneur can benefit anyone, even those who never want to become entrepreneurs. This is because being an entrepreneur is hard. It puts your back against the wall and forces you to think, act and plan in ways that you never will when you are comfortable in a steady job.
If you suddenly lose that job, then that kind of thinking is incredibly valuable. Even if you aren’t leaving a day job but staying has become difficult, it can help. You company may be downsizing, consolidating, reducing salaries, and even relocating, which are all typical measures companies take to cut costs. If so, thinking like an entrepreneur is incredibly valuable.
So, what does that mean, to think like an entrepreneur? To answer that, I am going to pull from the many interviews I’ve done and all the people I’ve met who read my blogs. Some of this may sound familiar as it’s been mentioned elsewhere, but these tips all come from real people building real businesses right now.
First, Build a Team
Remember when you were in college, and you started attending a study group? Of if you didn’t attend college, do you remember what you learned about teamwork on the playing field? Or maybe your science teacher made you build a project in a group? Every person in the group added value and brought something to the table. The more participation from every person, the better the result.
This isn’t just because every person brings something slightly different, and these are combined to form a better product. It is also because those other people forced you to become a more productive member as well. It raised your level of participation and contribution. Perhaps you wanted to show off a bit, or maybe you were working through some feelings of inadequacy, but those other people in the group forced you to step up.
If you lose your job, or even if you are struggling in your job, you need to find or create your own group. Surely you can find people around you who are experiencing the same setbacks. These people will not only help everyone in the group do better, but they will help you do better.
So, start by looking online. If you’re on Linked In, join a group of people who are also out of work, or who are transitioning to a different career track (there are many). Draw from any organizations you are part of, your church, your local community center, your lunch buddies and find a few people who need you as much as you need them.
One important caveat is not to get together with people who bring you down, who just want to talk about how bad things are, and who aren’t ready to move on. This is especially likely when many people are laid off at once. Instead, look for people who uplift, who have interesting ideas and who bring something to the table.
Entrepreneurs know how to work in teams. They understand the value of teamwork, how it benefits the team and how it benefits them. Ignore those who claim to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, those who claim to have built a business by themselves and similar sounding hyperbole. Even if they succeeded at this, it was at the expense of greater success with a team.
Building a successful business is seldom something that is done alone or in a vacuum. Likewise, weathering a career event is not something anyone should be trudging through alone. Build that team and think like an entrepreneur instead.
Second, find a mentor
While a team is made up of peers that you see as equals, you also should seek out a mentor. Ideally, this person will not be part of that team, because it should be someone who you will learn from and who does not have a vested interest in building up the other team members.
Ideally, this should be someone who has successfully gone through what you are going through. It should be someone who has lost an important job and who has recovered from it. They can show you the right steps to take so that you too can recover.
This is a difficult thing for many people to do because it means admitting to yourself that you need help. Our American culture is so entrenched in the idea of individual success, especially in work and business, that admitting to yourself that you need guidance is a difficult change in mindset for people.
One way that many entrepreneurs get past this hurdle is to think about it like it is portrayed in movies. Everyone needs their sensei, their teacher, their Aristotle, their Mr. Miyagi, their Obi-Wan to become the hero of their own story. No entrepreneur would turn down a Marc Cuban to help them grow their business, so there is no shame in doing this.
Entrepreneurs know the value of mentorship. If you are laid off, you will need mentorship as well. Even if you are just weathering a career event, you will benefit from having someone who can help you navigate that storm. Change your mindset, do what entrepreneurs do and find a mentor.
A little side note on dealing with depression: I don’t pretend to be a shrink, but I do know that losing a steady job is heavy stuff. If you need professional help, then you need to seek it out. A mentor is not the same as professional psychological help. There are many ways to find that kind of help, though. If you still have insurance, then see if this is covered. Maybe your severance package includes assistance. There may be free community services as well. If you can afford, it, pay for it. The bottom line is that this should not be the same as mentorship.
Third, you must be fast and agile
One of the things that separates successful entrepreneurs from everyone else is the ability to pivot, change course, and realign quickly as conditions change. If you lost your job or are experiencing a career event, then you need to be just as fast as things change.
When you work for a large business, that speed is less important because the business does this, often at a much slower pace. Think of the business as a much larger ship, and a corporation as a tanker. It takes much longer for these to change course. Entrepreneurs are like catamarans, much more agile, able to skip over the waves.
When you lose your job or are about to, you need to be ready to do interviews, ready to ready to travel, ready to jump on a zoom call, and ready to respond to whatever comes your way. Since you are a catamaran, that’s easy to do. You just need to change your mindset so that you don’t respond like a tanker.
Fourth, you need to learn from the success of others
Consider that an established entrepreneur is already making ends meet through their own labor. This means that they are not where you are right now. They represent where you want to go and where you want to end up. There is a path to follow, and you need to see the crumbs on that path.
If there is one word that always comes to mind when talking to entrepreneurs, it is the word “inquisitive.” This is because entrepreneurs are always learning from others and always looking to improve their own processes to better the competition. They are perpetually observing, learning, and adapting.
This is what you need to do. Change your mindset to be an observing, learning, and adapting person. As with asking for help, this isn’t always an easy change to make, either. In the typical work environment, especially with specialized jobs, you were conditioned to be the example, the leader, and the one who’s example others would follow. You now need to change into the one who learns and follows.
Let’s not kid ourselves, losing a job is something millions or people have experienced before you, so there are plenty of opportunities to learn from others. There are also hundreds of opportunities to learn from online sources what to do. However, to be truly successful, you will need to be extra diligent in your willingness to observe, learn and adapt.
Fifth, know who is truly successful
When you have the security of a day-job, you didn’t need to worry so much about dishonest people around you. Yes, it is a concern, but you always have the security of a steady income to cover you if someone takes advantage of you. Theft and fraud are simply less worrisome.
Entrepreneurs don’t think like that. Being taken advantage of not only hurts the bottom line, but it limits the potential of greater opportunities. That loss is money that cannot be used to grow the business. Entrepreneurs are always guarding against loss at all levels.
When your day job is in jeopardy, you need to develop the same thinking. Dishonest people who take advantage of you will not just impact your ability to pay your bills, they will also keep you from rebuilding. This thought process needs to be just like an entrepreneur because your future literally depends on it.
Unfortunately like a lion stalking a herd of gazelles, bad people prey on the weak. When you are unemployed r about to be, you have a weakness because you are eager for a quick fix. As you search online for options, you slip down rabbit holes promising riches. Even on TV, and around town, everyone seems to have a plan for a quick fix to financial freedom.
The reality is that most of these people who make these claims are not successful at all. If you look closer, you will see that their supposed success is based more in selling you something rather than having a plan that works. They are swindlers and they haven’t really found success. After all, if they really were successful, they wouldn’t be hustling so hard.
When you imagine your idea of success, does it include that hustle? I doubt it. True success is the absence of a hustle. Financially successful people have no reason to hustle. They tend to be calmer and not out to sell you anything. If you like what they produce you’ll buy in, but they aren’t dependent on you doing so.
That resolute calmness is more typical of success, and entrepreneurs who have figured out how to succeed exude that. As you change your mindset, you need to take on the same calmness. This will show through as confidence when you interview and look for new opportunities. Ironically, an employer is much more likely to hire someone who isn’t trying so hard to impress them.
Successful entrepreneurs also have no reservations about helping others succeed. They see success as the best path towards happiness and they want to surround themselves with happiness. So, they want to see you succeed and will help you do that.
The bottom line is that successful entrepreneurs have nothing to prove. This also means that you will pay it forward, not out of obligation, but simply because you want to. Ironically, that is a good indicator of knowing that you have found success.
Visualize success
It is sometimes hard to see that you will find success when you just lost your job. You need to remember that this bad turn of events is in the past and you can’t do anything to change the past anyhow. Entrepreneurs don’t dwell on the past because they have things to do and things to look forward to.
So do that too. Every time you start getting down on yourself, think about the next goal you want to reach. Think about small steps up. Consider short-term reachable goals. Then do what you need to do to get to that next step. Perhaps a good illustration of how this works is to take it all the way back to the first morning after you lose that awesome job.
Let’s say that it’s already 10am and you are sulking in bed. Now, do this: think about just rolling out of that bed, standing up, and making that bed. More specifically, think of yourself standing in front of a made bed. I’m not saying you need to do it just yet, but just think about it. As you think about standing in front of a made bed, the act of doing it becomes easier. Before you know it, you’ll be standing there, in front of that made bed.
Yes, this really works. Making your bed in the morning is actually a very good routine to get into in the morning when you are suffering from extreme depression. It doesn’t cost anything, it will make you feel like you accomplished something, and it will keep you from diving back into that bed. Yes, it really does work.
And now that you did that, consider what you just did. You visualized a goal, and you accomplished it. Visualizing it before doing it, made it easier to do. It works the same way with everything you don’t want to do. Soldiers, marathon runners, mountain climbers, UFC fighters, and even Jeopardy contestants all use this same technique to get beyond any obstacle. Likewise, it is what entrepreneurs do to reach the next level of success in their business.
So, start visualizing where you want to go. Do it in small, reachable steps, and just like getting yourself out of bed, you can get yourself to that next level of success. Again, it doesn’t require any physical work at first. You just need to think it. Once you do, doing it is much easier. What you just did is visualized a success and achieved it.
As you become better at this, you can use the same technique for getting a new job. Finish writing that resume, call the next reference on your list, join that Linked In group of former employees, fill out your profile on Indeed, pull out that stack of business cards you collected at the last conference. Each thing that you accomplish is a step forward on your way to recovery.
Then continue to use this technique as you continue to rebuild. Use it to impress your new boss, use it to apply for a new loan, use it to ask for a promotion, and use it build wealth. Visualize the small steps you know you can reach, achieve those goals, and you will be building a ladder to much greater successes.
Conclusion
As I was writing this, I realized that I started with examples of great leaps of success and then as I continued, my examples narrowed down to just getting out of bed. I didn’t mean for that to happen, but that doesn’t matter because the mental process is universal.
Everyone has to get out of bed in the morning. Whether you are a data entry temp at a small local shop, or the CEO of FTX Crypto that just lost $3 Billion, you both have to get up and out of bed in the morning. It starts with thinking about standing in front of that made bed. The rest just follows.
So, change your mindset and start thinking like an entrepreneur, even if you plan to return to a comfortable day-job. Build a team of peers around you, find a mentor, be agile, steer clear of the takers, and visualize your successes. It isn’t even hard to get started, it doesn’t even require you to lift a finger, all you need to do is change your mindset. Think like an entrepreneur no matter where your own success lies.
