Amidst the crisis of the virus, and the trauma of being let go from a job that seemed safe and secure, a glimmer of opportunity leads the way to a brighter future
“There is no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it,” said the MD of the magazine publishing company where I had worked for almost six years.
“The board has made the decision to exit the magazine publishing business. You will all be receiving a Section 189 letter after this meeting.”
That was how my Monday started. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, and a lockdown that forced us to sit metres from each other.
Editors and managers were visibly shocked and emotional. This was not news any of us saw coming. We had always felt safe, being part of a large and profitable group.
The most heartbreaking thing, besides being told we were all now unemployed (almost 200 of us), was that we weren’t allowed to console each other.
No hugging or touching, because of COVID–19. We stood apart from each other. Some laughed in disbelief, while others shed tears.
I desperately wanted to hug the editors in tears, but I had to stand a metre away and watch. And back into lockdown we went.
I drove home, incredibly sad for all of us. What was I going to do now?
We were two weeks into lockdown at that stage.
The economy was shrinking, people weren’t working as they normally did, and who on earth would be employing or even interviewing for new staff at this time in the world?
Back home, as the news sank in, I realised I had two choices. I could sink into despair, or I could find the opportunity in the change that had been thrust upon me. I forced myself to gravitate to the latter.
A wise therapist once told me about change and anxiety, and how change is pain for us as humans. I totally understood this concept in my situation.
I remembered her giving me a technique to deal with change. I whipped out a piece of paper and drew a line down the middle.
On the left-hand side, I wrote down the things that were out my control. I couldn’t control the pandemic, the current economic situation, and the fact that I was now unemployed.
On the right-hand side, I wrote down what I could control. The time I wake up in the morning, for instance, and what I choose to do during the day.
It was this exercise that sparked a new journey for me. Magazine publishing is unfortunately a dying industry, and opportunities in that sector were going to be minimal. So, what could I do?
I looked at the experience I had gained in my years in magazines, and in jobs I had held outside the industry.
I was good at content – I knew how to create stories. I had studied drama, so I was good in front of people. I had often been responsible for training, in the company that had retrenched me, and in other companies. I had to create something new. Something that was mine.
And so my training company was born, two weeks after I was let go. I now offer bespoke content to clients who want to train their employees, and I am available to train that content too.
I spent my lockdown days designing a website, writing training courses, and announcing loudly to anyone who would listen that I was now a training consultant.
I had to believe that I am my own business, and not an unemployed male in my 40s.
Thanks to being in magazines, I have a wide network of people I know. Many are well-known faces on South African TV and radio.
I started doing online interviews with them, talking about resilience (I was creating a resilience course at the time), and loading them on social media platforms.
Each of them proudly displaying my website, and introducing me to the world as a training specialist.
At the time of writing, six interviews have been flighted, and I’m now getting people asking me to appear in them – always a win.
Most importantly, I feel like I’m hustling, in a time when I could be sitting in my pyjamas all day, watching Netflix. I’m busy, I’m active, and I’m engaged.
I see opportunity, when I could have chosen to be paralysed by fear. Slowly but surely, interest is building, and so are the opportunities coming my way.
I feel like a new person, completely reinvented, in less than 60 days. I decided to look at what I could control, and work at that, as opposed to getting stuck in what I can’t control. It’s been life-changing.
I find myself grateful for being in the position I’m in. Something I would never have expected, when I first heard those words from my MD’s mouth.
*Clive Vanderwagen is the founder of ReadyPeople, a training and coaching consultancy, https://readypeople.co.za.
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