The Dallas Morning News
Try to make job loss a passage, author says
Melissa Morrison
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| "Her timing, unfortunately, was great: Today's sputtering tech industries are catapulting others like her out of their careers – whether they want to leave or not. But losing a job, she says, can be a chance to reconfigure and enrich one's life." |
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Debbie Gisonni was 38 years old and at the top of her field in 1998. She had just launched a publication for the then-booming Silicon Valley-based Web industry. She was making great money and oversaw dozens of employees in a multimillion-dollar company.
Then she quit.
Her heart was no longer in it, she realized. It was time to turn her energies to something she could wholeheartedly embrace. So she wrote a book, Vita's Will, inspired by lessons she learned after the deaths of four close relatives in a short time. She also started a company called Real Life Lessons to help others grapple with dramatic life changes, including job loss.
Her timing, unfortunately, was great: Today's sputtering tech industries are catapulting others like her out of their careers – whether they want to leave or not. But losing a job, she says, can be a chance to reconfigure and enrich one's life.
She'll explain that idea in a 45-minute talk titled "How to Leave Your Job and Find Your Soul" at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Whole Life Expo at the Dallas Convention Center. The expo, Friday through Sunday, is devoted to the exploration of natural health and personal development. Ms. Gisonni's seminar will cover the abstract as well as the specifics of being actively unemployed, including strategies for discovering what is personally meaningful.
"We've come to this place where we're these working drones," she says from her home office in San Francisco. "When we leave that behind, we leave our identities behind."
One step toward recovering one's identity is resisting the urge to start job hunting immediately, she says. Instead, spend some time alone, doing nothing – even if it's just a weekend, she recommends. That allows time to rejuvenate, as well as to grieve the loss of the job.
"I went from 50 staff members, seven department heads and two personal assistants, to just me, myself and I," she says. "For many people, that can be lonely. But it can turn out to be a period of great spiritual awareness."
She also will offer nuts-and-bolts survival strategies such as ways to save money while not receiving a paycheck. For example, shop around for cheaper long-distance and cellphone plans (now that you have time to do that sort of research).
Getting laid off or fired is jolting, but it also could be what you secretly wanted, she says. "You may unconsciously have been giving signals to your management because it was time for you to move on. Everything happens with perfect timing, even though you may not think so when it's happening."
Reprinted with permission of The Dallas Morning News
September 18, 2001 |
