First off I have never thought of myself as having anything the rest of the world or even the communities I am apart of would want to hear. That being said I have made it a goal this year to start sharing anyway and just maybe I will figure out something someone wants to hear along the way. I have thought about this concept of me just sharing for a long time now, I mean a long time, I think it was roughly 10 years ago, I was working with someone that was a fairly big influencer in his space. One time we were talking about the idea of me sharing my ideas and I asked him, “How do I even get started?” His answer was simple, “Just start writing.” Although it was not the answer I was looking for or even one I feel I really understand still today, 10 years later I am finally taking his advice. So here we go…
It was almost 45 years ago, a baby boy was born in Houston, Texas. He was a cute chubby baby ready to conquer the world … Nah! Just kidding we will not go that far back ( at least not right now ). Maybe we will start about a month ago, to the event that set this into motion. Like many others this year, especially those in the Tech Industry, I was laid off. Yeah, I know it is sad. I was in a good position at a company that I had been with for about 5 Years, I enjoyed my work ( most of the time ) and I was excited about the possibilities of where we were going as a company. Unfortunately, I might have had different thoughts about where we’re going as a company to our new owners and the updated leadership team. So me along with 39% of the rest of the team in various departments were laid off in a reduction of force. Since then I have gone through a couple different emotions related to this event. There is probably some sort of psychological stages for this, like “Stages of Grief” that I do not know about, here is sort of the process I went through
1. “Well it was probably about time for me to leave anyway.” I still believe that, I do not think I would have left on my own if the company would still be leaning into the vision I had for parts of the product. So while I felt it was time I was still optimistic about what we were doing and the possibilities for success.
2. “Well this really sucks, How do I tell my wife and kids? How do I tell the rest of my family and friends?” (Did I forget to tell you about my family life: I am married, 4 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, about 20 chickens … more about all this later). Of course I told my wife right away, I think she was both excited and nervous. Excited because she believes I always stay a little too long at a job and nervous because getting laid off left us without an income. It took me about 2 weeks to finally tell my parents and almost another 2 weeks to tell my kids, there was just something about tell my kids that I know longer have a job and it was not my choice, that was hard to say to them. As of this post I still have not updated my LInkedin profile :(
3. Building up the guts to tell people I was laid off lead to the next feeling. “Wait, why was I one of the people that was laid off and not someone else?” Really up until this point I had not even thought about this question, maybe it was a little bit of shock or maybe it was because I sort of had a feeling it was coming. I personally could have thought of few other people that I would have chosen over myself, but hey maybe I had over stayed my welcome and honestly based on what I was hearing about the new direction for the company, I am not sure the vision I had and the new company vision were really all that compatible.
4. “Well what the hell do I do now?” This was/is a really tough one. Do I just find another job, what are my other options? Luckily I have a really supportive family, I have received small severance to get us by for some time and I have always dreamed of building my own company or at least working for a new start up (again). That is where TryinSomethin.com, comes into play. I have several ideas of my own, I have a few friends that I have worked with in the past that are looking to start some stuff and I have always wanted to learn a few new things as well. TryinSomethin.com will be my place where I can document my wins and failures, maybe show off a few new ideas I want to try as well as if people are interested show of others just tryinsomethin as well :)
( This is the first post to “Just Start” as my past influencer friend my say. More to come. )
