Episode 302 - Being laid off triggers deep emotional responses akin to grief. In this episode, Steve Jaffe shares his experience navigating these emotions and provides practical strategies for renewal and career recovery.

Renata Bernarde (00:51)
Steve, it’s a wonderful time to be releasing a book about layoffs, but it’s good for you, not so much for, you know, the people that are going through a layoffs, but 2025, what a year, Yeah.

Steve Jaffe (00:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I had no idea. I actually had thought that last year as I was writing the book, I had missed the boat because I was writing about things ⁓ like Facebook laying off 14,000 people, ⁓ Twitter, then X laying off people, Tesla laying off people. And I had no idea then that this year would be so much worse. And then of course, Elon Musk would be back in the news.

Renata Bernarde (01:16)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Jaffe (01:38)
So all of those stories and anecdotes that I gave about Elon Musk are almost even more relevant now because they give you a little bit of a backstory. So yeah, I mean, it was fortuitous ⁓ in a weird, bittersweet way.

Renata Bernarde (01:48)
Yeah.

I know when I do really well in the work that I do, I always feel a little bit off because right now I’m so busy, but that often means it’s a terrible time for job seekers.

So let’s go back to your book and most importantly to your experience. Let’s start there. I would love for you to walk me through how it happened to you. How did you lose your role and what those first few days were like for you. And then I can share my experience as well.

Steve Jaffe (02:30)
right, all right. Well, so the very first time I was laid off, it was the spring of 2001. And I was living and working in San Francisco, I was newly married, and I was working at an advertising agency. I was working on the largest account in the agency. I was very successful, the agency was successful, everything was going great. And

Unfortunately, the ⁓ client got impacted by some accounting and got swept up in the first dot com bubble and ⁓ I was laid off and it really, really struck me hard. ⁓ The experience of, ⁓ I had bought into the myth of meritocracy and I write about this in the book where, ⁓

If you are smart enough and you work hard enough, you’ll have success. And instead of being met with ⁓ like what I thought would have been like ⁓ successful type of metrics, I was laid off. And I just couldn’t get my head around that. I found that completely disorienting and it took me quite a long time to manage that and to struggle through what I later came to realize were the stages of grief.

So fast forward now, it’s summer of 2023. Over the course of those 22 years now, I’m experiencing my fourth layoff. And I go through that with really no issue at all. I understand all of the stages. I know what to expect. And I manage through it very, very quickly and easily. And there was about 20 % of the company that was affected by these layoffs in 2023. Some of them,

were very, very new and early and young in their career. ⁓ Some of them were experiencing their second layoff in that calendar year. And I found that I wanted to communicate to this group of people who I’d come to really be very close to ⁓ what they could expect, how to navigate it, kind of give them some friendly advice, give them ⁓ maybe just… ⁓

a little bit of empathy and say, listen, it’s going to be okay. You’re going to get through this. Let me tell you how I got through it. And what I realized was that was the topic for this book of the way that I wanted to help those coworkers who got laid off. I thought, you know what? I could help them and so many more people if I were to put down what my experience navigating these stages of grief after a layoff are. And ⁓

That became the genesis and the impetus for the book. ⁓ where, you know, I’m happy to say that I think it is helping people, the feedback that I’m getting, it’s resonating, ⁓ people find it ⁓ valuable, and that’s incredibly ⁓ meaningful to me. So I’m very happy with it.

Renata Bernarde (05:40)
Yeah.

How did you identify that the role being made redundant and you being laid off was similar to the seven stages of grief that we see in psychology? How did you find out? I’m wondering what that discovery was like for you.

Steve Jaffe (06:01)
Yeah, yeah. I had started to associate, okay, in the very early stages of being told, you you’re no longer employed here, ⁓ what that emotion was. And then as you progress through that, what the next emotion was. And I started to understand that the stages of grief, a wonderful woman named Elizabeth Kubler-Ross created these

as she was observing people who were terminally ill. And these were what the terminally ill people were experiencing. She then found out that their friends and family were also experiencing those same stages of grief. And it’s now become kind of widely accepted that any kind of traumatic life stage, any life event that you’re going through, whether it’s the death of a loved one, a divorce, a layoff,

They follow a similar trajectory. Now, the stages of grief aren’t universal. It doesn’t mean that like every person may feel all of them. ⁓ Some people may feel one more pronounced than another, and they’re not linear either. They don’t follow like a linear path. You may feel one on one day, you may feel none on another day, you may feel all of them on the third day. So, ⁓

they kind of track with how people process really, really traumatic things. And laughs certainly are one of those. ⁓ that was kind of the genesis of looking at this. And what I had found was that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s original five stages were later expanded to include the last two, which are

reconstruction and renewal. And what I found was that those were really, really valuable for somebody coming out of a layoff because the first five are kind of ⁓ your processing, you’re managing the situation, you’re coming to terms with it. It’s very emotional. ⁓ And without reconstruction and renewal, which are the last two,

Renata Bernarde (07:59)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Steve Jaffe (08:23)
you’re kind of left holding the bat. You’re left without any resolution and like what the next steps are and how you actually bounce forward. So I felt that those two were really valuable and that’s why I included them and that’s why you’ll see it as in my book, The Seven Stages of Grief, which if somebody is really, really familiar with Elizabeth Kublai Ross, you’ll know that her original were five.

Renata Bernarde (08:49)
Yeah, all right. So I’m going to list them all here so that people that are not familiar with them will know. And then ⁓ I want us to, while I list them, I want you to think which one do you think you got stuck most with and maybe which ones you think ⁓ people that go through layoffs get stuck the most. So the first one is shock, right? The second one, denial. The third one, anger.

Steve Jaffe (09:03)
Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (09:17)
The fourth one bargaining. ⁓ The fifth one depression. And then I have the sixth as testing, but you said reconstruction. I really like that. And the seventh one acceptance.

Steve Jaffe (09:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so

mine are a little bit different in the way I write about them in the book. ⁓ Let me give them to you how I have them in the book. ⁓ They are ⁓ denial followed by anger, then bargaining, depression, acceptance, and then the two new ones, reconstruction and renewal. And ⁓ here’s what I’ll say. think I love the way you framed your question as it pertains to me because I think

Renata Bernarde (09:40)
Yes, Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Steve Jaffe (10:04)
These are really specific ⁓ to each individual person, their own lived experience and what they bring to the situation. And everybody kind of feels it and it manifests differently. ⁓ For me, ⁓ I can say that I think depression is probably the one that I would say ⁓ I felt the most impact from. ⁓

had the longest lasting effects and the one that I had to work the hardest to overcome. ⁓ In that first layoff, I didn’t realize I was young, I was new in my career, hadn’t had a lot of life experience, and I didn’t realize that I have a propensity for depression and anxiety. And the event kind of triggered in me a response that I wasn’t expecting, I wasn’t familiar with.

It took me a lot of time to come to terms with that. And so many of the coping strategies that I talk about in the book are wonderful for overcoming depression. They transcend depression and are great for navigating all of the stages. that was one. And one of the things that I talk about in the book also is for anyone who might be neurodivergent, depression might be one that stings.

it may really trigger a lot. ⁓ And I think triggering is a good way to describe what you’re faced with and how that will manifest given what your triggers may or may not be. But everybody is different. It’s not a one size fits all. ⁓ But for me, ⁓ depression, and I will tell you, I haven’t mastered depression for a time to time. I still suffer from it. ⁓

But I work very hard, I get up every day and I actively manage it.

Renata Bernarde (12:08)
Yeah. Yes, I see that a lot and in my clients and of course people that reach out to me because the job hunting podcast has a huge following. ⁓ But I also see ⁓ anger, people remaining that and that is really complicated when you’re going through the recruitment and selection process, you know, in the way that you position yourself and talk about your former employer and so forth.

⁓ when I do outplacement. Go ahead.

Steve Jaffe (12:39)
which is a group. Well, I just wanted to piggyback on that, because that’s a great reason

why you need to manage these stages of grief. You need to manage that anger, because when you do go on that job interview and you’re talking about your last experience and maybe why you were let go, the way you refer to your job on the resume, all of those things, if you don’t resolve that, it’s gonna manifest in a way ⁓ that may prohibit you and hold you back.

from moving on and moving forward.

Renata Bernarde (13:10)
Yes, I agree. Yeah. ⁓ I don’t know if it’s within a specific stage. I think it does. But when I’m working with people that know that their role has been made redundant, but they still need to carry on working for, let’s say, six months. It has happened in Australia a couple of times. I have worked with professionals that have left organizations, but they kept on working for a few months is that they try to prove them wrong.

Steve Jaffe (13:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (13:42)
Right? So they

stay on and they work so much harder during that period. And here I am as a career coach telling them you need to disengage, you need to save energy for the job search that’s coming next, you know, and they want to do more and more and more because they want to prove to the former employer that they deserve a spot and they shouldn’t have been laid off.

And that really sort of makes me really sad for them because I know that there’s no way around it and the best thing that they could do is to conserve energy for what’s to come. Yeah, I see that often.

Steve Jaffe (14:15)
Yeah.

That sounds to me

a lot like bargaining. In that bargaining stage, it’s like if someone breaks up with you, you’re trying to appeal to them, you’re trying to get them back, you’re trying to do everything you can. And ⁓ that’s what that sounds like a lot. And a lot of times ⁓ you just have to let the rope go and just kind of, it is what it is. But that delayed trauma of,

Renata Bernarde (14:27)
Mmm, yeah.

Steve Jaffe (14:52)
you’re gonna work in this job for six months and then you’re gonna let go. Gosh, that would, I mean, there’s no good way to get laid off, but delaying that over six months and then you’re supposed to still show up and perform, that’s hard. That’s asking for a lot.

Renata Bernarde (15:12)
It’s really hard. In fact, I have interviewed someone that has gone through this and it’s one of my first interviews on the podcast back from five years ago. So I’m going to put a link below. And the reason why I found him, he was not a client, ⁓ but he posted on LinkedIn sharing his experience of how it all went. And I thought, wow, I need to interview this person.

Steve Jaffe (15:21)
Hello. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (15:40)
I will put a link below for those who are interested in this topic. And talking about that stage, know, the bargaining stage, you can also see that stage happening when you have already left, but you keep playing up scenarios of what you could have done differently. If I had done this, if I had spoken in a different way with that person, if I had maybe invested more time in this project.

And I, and sometimes I tell my clients, there’s no point in you re-living that, ⁓ scenarios, it’s not going to make anything better. We just need to go through the next stage. ⁓ Yeah. So that can really happen as well. ⁓ Looking at ⁓ the way that things have turned out for you, when it happened for the first time and

I like that you have written the book from so much experience because having gone through it four times, you really have hundreds of skills and how to deal with that. But if you look back to that first time, what do you think ⁓ was the most, ⁓ the thing that surprised you the most, that shocked you the most? I think you mentioned that before.

Steve Jaffe (16:49)
You

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (17:08)
But

if you see that sort of, I don’t know if you spoke to other people already and if it resonated with them. So for me, the way that I describe it and I have shock as the first one is because for me it was so shocking. I did not see it coming when it happened to me. So the shock happened even before denial. was like I…

I cannot believe this. I was in a complete state of shock. I was in so much sort of shock and even before the denial that I was completely distracted and I ended up having a car accident a day afterwards. Yeah, I wasn’t paying attention to life. That’s how much in shock I was. And I didn’t see the car coming and I hit the car pretty bad.

Steve Jaffe (17:50)
⁓ gosh. ⁓ no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (18:02)
So, ⁓ I wonder what happened to you that sort of struck you the most right at the beginning.

Steve Jaffe (18:10)
Gosh, you know, there’s the physical effect when you walk into a room, you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know what to expect, ⁓ you think you’re doing a good job, and you’re told, thank you, today is your last day, clean out your desk, you have five minutes. The effect that that has on you, like my breath.

I get shortness of breath, right? My heart starts beating. I start sweating. ⁓ Everything kind of goes quiet. When HR starts talking about the severance package and ⁓ here in the United States, we have Cobra as a healthcare option when you get laid off and they start talking about Cobra and all of these different things, it’s like a fog. You’re just sitting there going, I can’t believe this, right?

And then, so that’s the physical, right? And then you have the mental of, wait, I didn’t do anything wrong. What did I do wrong? Why is this happening? How could this be happening? What do you mean? And then you start thinking, well, gosh, how am gonna tell my wife? How am gonna tell my friends? What does this mean about me as a person? I was.

defined by this job. This is how I found success and meaning. What am I without this job? So all of those things rush in. ⁓ what I write about is your brain and your body kind of shuts down. ⁓ It’s in the fight, flight or freeze defense mechanism, it’s your body’s way of protecting itself because all of this is too much to manage. It’s too much to comprehend and process. So

Renata Bernarde (19:42)
Yeah.

Steve Jaffe (20:05)
Your body is gonna give yourself a minute to let it all kind of sink in so like Unfortunately the next day you were in that fog you got into a car accident, right? That’s your body kind of in the ⁓ Freeze mode, right? ⁓ So yeah, it’s and I’ll tell you even after my fourth my fourth ⁓ layoff I still felt that same

Renata Bernarde (20:18)
Yes.

Steve Jaffe (20:33)
shortness of breath and the fog and don’t quite hear or remember everything that was said. It’s a defense mechanism that your body puts you in to manage the situation. ⁓ I think what’s important is being able to then kind of recover from that, right? What do you do in response to that? Do you go out after layoff and go have drinks with your friends?

Renata Bernarde (20:55)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Jaffe (21:03)
Do you go home and maybe sit quietly and kind of take a deep breath and process? That’s where the decisions begin of what’s a healthy decision and a healthy coping mechanism from the very first moment, okay, what am gonna do now? ⁓ That will follow you through the stages of grief as you navigate them. And the more healthy decisions that you make, maybe the better the recovery is, the quicker you get through it.

Renata Bernarde (21:35)
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And it made me think a lot about ⁓ the fact that in our modern society, we devalue the idea of rest and taking a break. And that’s what happened to me. I shouldn’t have been driving. I should have identified that I was incredibly sad and upset and, you know, not really functioning well. ⁓ But in modern society, we’re just still to

you know, deal with it and do things and not really pay attention to that. And I say this as well, because sometimes just now, before we ⁓ started this conversation, I was having a session with a client and she’s going through some performance issues at work. And I said, do you have annual leave or any type of leave that you can take to take a break? And it was hard for me to explain to her that that break is important for her.

Steve Jaffe (22:06)
Right.

Renata Bernarde (22:32)
mental health, not so much to take her away from her work, but it’s just to provide some opportunity for her brain to rest from the fight and flight that she’s feeling right now, the anxiety and all of the ⁓ stress that she’s under. And it was hard for me to explain to her that the rest necessary for her brain’s health.

Steve Jaffe (22:56)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

Renata Bernarde (23:02)
foremost.

Steve Jaffe (23:03)
yeah. I think our culture has gotten caught up in always being on high performance. You have to really overachieve and it’s hard for people to turn that off and to maybe, and I think that’s also part of that work-life balance that people have a hard time with. One of the things I talk about in the book a lot is taking a whole body approach, a very holistic way.

of managing mind, body, spirit. Those things in conjunction is what’s gonna help you manage this very emotional and traumatic time.

Renata Bernarde (23:42)
Yeah. And the other thing you talk about in the book as well that I think is a very common situation is the sense of identity that gets lost when you are not employed by an employer. And this to me is so surprising. I personally have never felt that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Steve Jaffe (24:03)
⁓ wow, lucky you.

Renata Bernarde (24:08)
But I see that happening a lot with my clients where they feel like if they’re not employed, they are not, they don’t have an identity as a professional. I think it’s because I’m highly entrepreneurial. I’ve had my own business before and then I sold it and then I moved to Australia. Now I have my own business again. So I know I have agency from an early age. I always had little businesses when I was growing up as well.

So that sense of agency has always been strong with me, but I see that with my clients. ⁓ And you mentioned that in your book, that loss of identity was also something you experienced quite deeply. So talk me through it and how did it come back to you?

Steve Jaffe (24:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I think in that first job that I had, I mentioned, like, I defined myself through what I did. I was a media planner at advertising agencies, working on big clients, big budgets, doing big things. Like, that’s who I was. And I didn’t have, I had no work-life balance. I had no well-rounded, like, outside of work.

Renata Bernarde (25:00)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Jaffe (25:25)
I socialized with people that I worked with and it was, and then we talked about work and it was a very one dimensional kind of way of being. And above and beyond that, then that’s where I derived like my pride and joy and purpose was from those things that I was achieving at work. So what I needed to do and what I was able to do over time, and sounds like you’ve been able to do.

is develop a more well-rounded person, interests, hobbies outside of work, things that you’re passionate about that excite you, that you find meaning and value in. ⁓ Again, back to that whole body, mind, body, spirit, what are you doing each day to fill those three cups so that the only cup that you have isn’t just what you do, right? ⁓ I don’t know what it’s like in Australia, but in…

social circles here in the United States, it’s common sometimes to say to somebody as like a icebreaker, so what do you do? What do you do for a living? And that’s kind of like, well, I’m a painter, I’m a whatever, I’m a writer, I’m in marketing. And that then becomes what you do is who you are. I ⁓ think that’s symptomatic of

this problem, right? We don’t ask people, ⁓ what are you passionate about? What do you derive joy and love from, right? ⁓ How do you fill your time outside of work? If somebody is a doctor or a lawyer, you pass a judgment, they’re a doctor and a lawyer. That means they’re some sort of socioeconomic class and you draw all these inferences, right? I think that’s the root of all of this. So now you’re laid off, you’re unemployed,

Renata Bernarde (27:05)
Yeah.

Steve Jaffe (27:23)
You don’t have a job, you’re collecting unemployment, you’re at a social gathering. Somebody says, so what do you do? I don’t have a job right now, I’m unemployed. What does that say about me? What are the inferences there, right? ⁓ At the heart of that then there’s a kind of shame and embarrassment that that person feels because they no longer have maybe the prestige of what they had

And that for me is the root of what I hope people take away from the book is that ⁓ they shouldn’t feel shame or embarrassment from a layoff. ⁓ It wasn’t because of anything that they did. It’s easier to cut headcount than it is to increase sales. ⁓ Your name was on a list and for no fault of your own. ⁓

I think that’s where the burden of this grief for me, I think is rooted in this kind of shame and embarrassment that society has put on layoffs. Because if you don’t have a job, if you aren’t your job, then what are you? How are you being successful and productive in society?

Renata Bernarde (28:41)
Mm.

Steve, my advice, and I want to say this because we have listeners here who will be listening to this. My advice, if people ask, what do you do? Is that you say, I’m an advertising professional. I’m an HR professional. I’m a project manager. You are still what you are, right? And there is…

Steve Jaffe (29:07)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (29:11)
No problem whatsoever using your last job title or your area of expertise to explain to people what you do. And if they insist and want to know more and want to know where you work, you can say up until last month or up until four months ago, I was working at X, Y and Z, I’m currently looking for work.

Steve Jaffe (29:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I’d love that. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Renata Bernarde (29:34)
And that’s totally fine too, right? So I want people

to take ownership of their area of expertise and see themselves as the professionals that they are. And in fact, as part of that holistic approach, when you go into job search mode and you are between jobs, you carry on upskilling, reskilling, reading the news, writing.

attending events, you know, to the best of your ability and catching up with people. ⁓ It should be once you rest and you relax and you enjoy. have a client now and she’s like, you’ve made me too busy. My recruiters, we’ve updated her LinkedIn profile after she was laid off. did, you know, we did that transition and, know, a month she was still in the job and then she was, she left.

And then with the work that we did on her LinkedIn, the recruiter started reaching out to her and she wanted to have her summer off. She’s like, what’s happening? You know, I haven’t had this time to enjoy summer in like 25 years. And now I have all these people calling me and messaging me. And she just messaged me just now to say, know.

Steve Jaffe (30:48)
Great. Great. ⁓

Renata Bernarde (30:58)
It’s still happening and halfway through my holidays. ⁓ So I think that once people rest, take the rest that they can afford to, or if they really need it, go ahead and do it. I’m all for it. But once they are in job search mode, that’s to me, that’s full-time work.

Steve Jaffe (31:18)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to go back to what you’re saying because I write about that in the book too. We share a common thread where that last employer, they took that job from you, they took that title from you, but they didn’t take your experience. You still carry that experience forward and you still bring that to the next employer. ⁓ I like the way you frame it as ⁓ you’re still that person. You may not have that job, but…

Renata Bernarde (31:20)
Yeah.

Steve Jaffe (31:47)
If you were in advertising for 20 years, you’re still an advertising executive, right? You still bring all of those skills to the table.

Renata Bernarde (31:54)
Yeah, it’s interesting when I work without placement, you know, as a career coach helping people through redundancy, the first session is usually how do I tell my family? How do I tell my, you know, mom and dad? It doesn’t matter if you’re 50 years old, you still struggle to tell your parents, to tell your friends. ⁓ And then the second session is usually how do I tell the world? So this is…

Steve Jaffe (32:06)
Right?

Hahaha!

Okay.

Renata Bernarde (32:23)
a really interesting time, especially for those that have been fortunate enough not to have been made redundant ever. you know, if they’re facing this in their fifties, usually what I tell them, you’ve been very lucky. Right. You cannot expect to have a 40 year career, you know, start working in your twenties and finish in your sixties or even more and not have ups and downs.

Steve Jaffe (32:37)
Yeah, yeah ⁓

Renata Bernarde (32:52)
What were you expecting?

Steve Jaffe (32:52)
Right, right, right, right.

I think there are some industries where it’s more prevalent, you know, like media, technology, marketing, ⁓ software, other industries, like accounting, finance, maybe there’s not as many layoffs, you know, so if you’re in accounting for 40 years, you may not, but if you’re in accounting at a startup, you’re just as susceptible as anybody else, you know, but.

Renata Bernarde (32:59)
Yeah.

Steve Jaffe (33:20)
Yeah, I think it’s become ubiquitous today. And here in the US, government jobs aren’t even safe, where they used to be totally insulated.

Renata Bernarde (33:29)
You’re right. Yes. No, we had a situation here in Australia a few years ago in my state where the state government eliminated a whole sort of line of managers. there were thousands of people were made redundant all at once. And that was completely unexpected. If you are a public servant, you do not expect to be laid off like that. So yeah, it’s happening everywhere. And

Steve Jaffe (33:53)
Right?

Renata Bernarde (33:59)
Then you went into ⁓ looking for work again. Tell me how you organized yourself to go through job search and recruitment.

Steve Jaffe (34:12)
⁓ you know.

I think that one of the things I talk about a lot is your network. And you want to have your network in place before you need it. So you want to be building your network and have it there so that when you are laid off, now is not the time to build a network. Now is the time to rely on the network that you already built. Because there is a very large segment of jobs that never make it on a job board.

that network will help you probably find your next job. ⁓ They’re gonna know what you’re good at. They’re gonna know ⁓ people within your circle that they might be able to refer you to because they might know of one of those jobs that isn’t on the open market. ⁓ I think about 25 % of the jobs that I’ve had in my career were never posted, or didn’t even have job descriptions written.

and came from somebody knowing somebody and whatnot. ⁓ you know, a good solid foundation, ⁓ a good solid network. ⁓ I think that having a career in marketing has helped me probably in being able to position myself well on LinkedIn, on resumes. ⁓ I know kind of the tricks. I’ve also had some experience in sales, so I kind of know how to sell myself.

So I think more importantly than that though is the skill of resilience, of learning how to get back up after you’ve been knocked down. ⁓ I know my resume was pretty tight, but for every 100 resumes I put out, I probably got one hit on it. And I knew that those were the numbers and I just had to play that game. ⁓

Renata Bernarde (35:55)
Mm.

Steve Jaffe (36:11)
When you’re applying to job number 100, you have to do it with the same zeal that you did with job number one. And ⁓ that’s where some courage and some hope come into it. ⁓ Being able to rise above all of those setbacks when ⁓ you’re going to get ghosted. You’re going to have great interviews that you think went fantastic that you don’t hear back from. Being able to put that behind you.

and carry on, ⁓ those are the skills that will resonate. Because you’ve got to show up to that job interview ⁓ as if nothing’s wrong. You may be out of work for nine months, and you’d be worried about how you’re going to make your mortgage, but you can’t carry that into a job interview. You’ve got to go in there ⁓ ready to prove your value and your worth. And you won’t be able to do that unless you kind of manage through this grief.

Renata Bernarde (36:53)
Yeah.

Steve Jaffe (37:10)
and you get through to the other side.

Renata Bernarde (37:14)
Yeah, absolutely. When you went through those redundancies, were you offered career coaching by the organizations?

Steve Jaffe (37:25)
No, no, no.

Renata Bernarde (37:27)
Did

you sign up to work with a coach? No.

Steve Jaffe (37:32)
⁓ at different points in my career, I’ve had different coaches, ⁓ some that I’ve hired directly, some through the jobs while I was still employed. ⁓ I’m someone that has like a learning mindset, so I’m kind of always constantly learning. So I’m, I’m observing, absorbing, I’m, I’m, learning, I’m soaking things in. So I’m always trying to like, be like 1 % better today than I was yesterday.

Renata Bernarde (37:37)
Okay.

Thank

Steve Jaffe (38:01)
And in that way of absorbing things, kinda, and I think that’s part of how I picked up these skills is, I took a little bit from this one, I took a little bit from that one and pieced together what I think is a good roadmap. ⁓ I’ve heard about like what you were describing earlier, like transition outplacement services. I think that’s phenomenal. ⁓ Unfortunately, I’ve never,

been able to do that, but I think it’s great that some employers do offer that.

Renata Bernarde (38:36)
Yeah, yes, they do. ⁓ No, it’s okay. Look, I’m going to challenge you on this. The next time you’re looking for a job, you and I are going to work together because I do not want you applying to a hundred jobs and getting one hit. All my listeners on this podcast will understand that I have a real pet peeve with that.

Steve Jaffe (38:46)
Yeah, that sounds great.

⁓ Okay, I’ll take you up on that. Yeah.

Yeah?

Renata Bernarde (39:04)
I think that if you work with a good coach, and it doesn’t have to be me, there are other good coaches all over the world, if you work with a good coach, you can get a much higher conversion rate than that. So I think you’ve learned so much about redundancy and you do have a growth mindset. And I think one of the hardest things when you’re going through this process of recruitment and selection is it’s very unnatural to hear so many no’s and not so many yes’s.

Steve Jaffe (39:14)
Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (39:32)
usually in life for us to have a happy life, a happy marriage, a happy ⁓ friendship circle, we need more positive than negatives. Even in education, so teachers who are teaching in kindergarten, primary school, the way that you educate your students is lots of positive reinforcements and just a few negative constructive feedback every now and then, right? ⁓ And what you’re getting as a job seeker is the

Steve Jaffe (39:58)
Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (40:02)
opposite of that. You’re hearing lots and lots and lots of no’s and not a lot of yeses. So that is very unnatural and that can be quite depressing. So when you are going through job search, knowing that this is unnatural, that this is not what your brain wants, ⁓ is something you need to acknowledge every day in the morning and in the evening when you stop job searching. Otherwise you really can get upset about it.

Steve Jaffe (40:06)
Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (40:30)
but the conversion can be higher than that. And I know that in the US, the jobs market is crazy. So every time you apply, there’s like 500 people applying with you. But I still think that we can work on that. The network piece that you said before, I really wanted to know how did they help you, Steve?

Steve Jaffe (40:41)
Right. Right.

I like that. Okay. All right.

Renata Bernarde (40:55)
I’ll give you an example. I’m going to be working with a client after I speak with you and she has emailed me in preparation for the session and she said, you know, I don’t know what to do. I’ve reached out to my network. They were very nice. They met with me. They promised on things and nothing happened. And I wanted to get your opinion on what’s going on with her.

Steve Jaffe (41:14)
huh, huh, yep.

⁓ well, I think.

My experience with the network has been, ⁓ I found a lot of compassion and I found a lot of like comfort. ⁓ Folks would say to me, ⁓ maybe what I felt like I needed to hear in the moment, which was, I can’t believe they let you go. You were one of the top performers, you know? And just hearing that, getting that validation from like a third party ⁓ meant so much, right?

gave me confidence and the ⁓ self-worth then to go on and to do the hard things. ⁓ It gave me the validation that, okay, I know I’m not crazy. I know I was doing good work, right? People that I respected. ⁓ So that was one thing that I got. ⁓ And there were people who would offer to introduce me to somebody who would

even just say, hey, I’ll keep an eye out for you. They might send something on LinkedIn like, hey, this person is ⁓ looking for a job. think they’re, or write me a recommendation. I had a lot of folks write me great recommendations where ⁓ on difficult days, I would go back and read those LinkedIn recommendations and they would really bring me joy. They would fill me up and then give me the strength to keep going. So, you know, it wasn’t always,

hey, I know this job over here, great, now I got that job. Although that did happen, right? ⁓ So those were some of the tangible and intangible benefits that I found. ⁓ What I’ll say about the person that you mentioned, ⁓ I don’t know the strength or the value of that network. There’s a network of people who you go back with.

years, right? And there’s a value exchange and there’s a closeness and a bond, right? People who you know would do anything for you and will always have your back, right? ⁓ There are people who may be more casual and in passing, and there are people who maybe might reach out and express an interest in, I’d love to help. But sometimes those people may have ulterior motives. So it’s sometimes difficult to

Renata Bernarde (43:30)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Jaffe (43:52)
ascertain who you can really trust in these situations, who’s showing up for you and who’s showing up for themselves. So ⁓ what I will say is there are times when people have come out of the woodwork and have contacted me or reached out to me that have been the most help that I was the most surprised by. People who I thought ⁓ I never liked.

I never would have considered reaching out to them, but they, for whatever reason, I made an impact on them and they went above and beyond for me. So ⁓ you never know who it is or where it’s gonna come from. ⁓ think ⁓ the last thing I would say on it is just make sure the value exchange is equal. You wanna make sure that ⁓ as you reach out to people, you’re asking them, how can I help you? What can I do for you? Is there anything you need, right? ⁓

Renata Bernarde (44:33)
I agree.

Steve Jaffe (44:52)
You don’t always want to be extending your hand asking for something without giving something in return. Think of it as a friendship or any relationship that you have. It shouldn’t be one way.

Renata Bernarde (45:01)
Yes.

Yes, I really like how you put it, Steve. ⁓ One thing that I wanted to add to what you’ve just said is the fact that even if the network is really strong and there is a lot of strength and trust in that network, they may not have something for you right away. Right? You know, the fact that you need a job right now doesn’t mean that they have a job for you right now. And it would be a real coincidence if that happens.

Steve Jaffe (45:24)
Right? Yeah.

Renata Bernarde (45:35)
So you have to give it time and have the patience to withstand the safety net through, you know, tightening up the budget, asking for help if financial help is needed, if it’s a prolonged job search, because it doesn’t mean that the network isn’t interested in you. It just means that there is nothing there right now. But if you keep top of mind for them, they will come back to you.

with opportunities, yeah. Before we go, I wanted to talk about something you mentioned in your book in the chapter renewal ⁓ and it’s intentionality. I really like that word and I want you to share with the listeners what you mean by that and what does it mean in practice to go through life with intention.

Steve Jaffe (46:05)
Yeah.

You

Yeah, yeah. So I believe intentionality is about being present. It’s about being grounded. ⁓ intentionality and renewal, it’s renewal, especially after a job loss, isn’t about picking up where you left off. It’s about stepping into something new, right? And it’s about stepping into something new with intention. So the…

The trap that you can fall into is I’m out of a job, I gotta get a job right away, I’m gonna start applying to jobs doing what I was doing before. And that’s gonna be action and action means progress. That’s not what you wanna do, right? Take a minute and assess, was I happy doing what I was doing before? Did it fulfill me, did it bring me joy? ⁓ Is it what I wanna be doing? Is it the career path I wanna be on?

When I look down the road in five, 10, 15 years, would this put me where I want to be, right? ⁓ That’s the opportunity in a layoff. That’s where, like, I would never say a layoff is a blessing to disguise. It’s not. Layoffs suck. But if there was something that was going to come from a layoff that’s good, it’s the pause to take a minute to assess.

Right? Because when you’re working, you’re working hard. You don’t have time to say, is this really what I want to do? Right? That opportunity doesn’t exist. Life is handing you this opportunity. Right? You’d be a fool to not to take it. So it’s an alignment of purpose with intent. You think of it like a rebirth. Maybe it’s an opportunity to pursue a new career path. Maybe discover hidden strengths.

Explore passions that maybe at one point you set aside. I see a lot of great artwork and painting behind you. Somebody may have a passion for our painting that they were never able to pursue. Maybe you go to art school, you study painting and you do that, right? ⁓ It’s an alignment of your values. ⁓ And this is where that holistic mind, body, spirit come into play. What is your holistic person telling you?

Are you on the right path? And the answer to that whole exercise may be yes. You’re on the right path, great. Now go apply for those jobs, do those things doing exactly what you were doing before with the assurance that it’s the right path for you. If you show up to a job interview with that, you’ll crush every interview, right? Because you’re gonna show up there, you’ve got meaning, you’ve got purpose, and that’s intentionality, right? But… ⁓

If that exercise says, you know what, that career path really wasn’t for you. It really wasn’t bringing you joy. It may have brought you a paycheck, but you were miserable, right? Those long hours, time away from the family, not doing what you wanted to do, it’s not bringing you anywhere closer to what you want to be doing. And that’s where you assess, right? And there’s some risk there, and there’s some courage.

that it takes to maybe walk away from something for something different. ⁓ But I think that ⁓ when you can build what I would think of as a lifestyle that’s aligned with your personal values, ⁓ that’s meaning, that’s purpose, that’s intentionality, ⁓ and being present enough to listen to what you’re hearing. ⁓

ask yourself in a moment of quiet, know, what am I open to discovery in this moment? And just listen, you know?

Renata Bernarde (50:28)
Yeah, I

love that. I think it’s really important. We’re working very long for decades and decades. And if we don’t stop to do that self-reflection, ⁓ we just live a life without a lot of meaning and purpose. So thank you for including that as part of your book. It’s a great book, Steve. Well done. I hope it reaches out to a lot of people that are going through it and ⁓ that they buy for their

Steve Jaffe (50:48)
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Renata Bernarde (50:58)
for their employees if they are happy to be here. And I will certainly be recommending them to my clients and of course to the listeners. I’ll put a link below in the episode show notes for those who want to reach out to you and read about the book and read the book of course. So thank you for being here today with us.

Steve Jaffe (51:00)
Yeah.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation. I really appreciate it. And ⁓ if there’s anything I can do for you or your listeners, I’m more than happy to. So everybody can reach out to me. ⁓ my goal is to help folks manage this, what can be a painful journey.

Renata Bernarde (51:38)
Thank you.