I was notified that I was being laid off of my corporate gig of 5 years! I almost jumped out of my seat when the meeting happened.  I told God in the fourth quarter of 2017 that something had to change and it did!  I was fresh into January 2018 when I received the mandatory meeting email, saw the HR representative and knew the layoff conversation was getting ready to happen.  I was told that my last day would be January 31st and the number of weeks of severance and benefits I'd receive for the 5 years of service. I almost went skipping back to my office!

When I told God that something had to change in 2017 I started packing up my office.  I didn't know what and how things were going to change, but I was expecting change soon.  Honestly, I was unhappy with my current role and was suffering from a few rounds of organizational change over the few months.  It's very emotionally draining to see your co-workers, managers leave for varies reasons and still keep showing up to work with positivity and good vibes.  

I needed a day to process the layoff information and then thought about what a huge blessing it was.  I decided to reach out to the executive assistant to the senior vice president for a meeting.  My intention was to thank the SVP for the fabulous five years, say my good byes and exit gracefully out of the organization. Before the meeting God told me to go get a thank you card.  It was soooo inconvenient on that day because is was cold, rainy...I'd loss my parking space...blah blah.  I went to Target anyway and purchased a blank thank you card.  It's probably that best $3.46 I've spend in my entire professional career.  

The afternoon of the meeting I walked into the SVP's posh office, sat down and thanked her for a fabulous 5 years with the organization as I had planned. I don't think she was expected me to do anything like that.  I placed the card on her desk for her to read later and shared with her my thoughts about my time with the organization.  I didn't go to beg for my job or complain about anything.  I was there purely to say thank you and to let her know I was at peace with the decision.  I shared with her that if she needed anything from me over the next couple of weeks that I'm here for it.  I told her that how she sees me now is how I'll be until my last day in the office...positive, professional and polite.  She sat across her desk looking at me.  She told me that it took a really mature person to do and say what I was doing. Making my mark and leaving a positive lasting impressions was important to me.  The meeting lasted for 45 minutes and she share some insights, thoughts and professional things with me.  We ended the meeting with hugs and I went on my way to finish out my final two weeks.

I started my internal job hunt.  I wasn't ashamed to let people know I was looking for another role to pivot too.  I wanted to engage as many people in authority as possible to transition smoothly within the organization and NOT have to start from the outside. I dusted off my resume and pitch materials to be ready for intro meetings cross divisional in my organization.  Relationships, reputation and letting my work speak for me was my platform for pivoting.

As, God would have it people were working in my behalf behind the scenes to secure an opportunity for me to pivot that I had no idea about.  While I was scheduling meetings and looking for internal positions God was working.  I'd found a couple of roles I was interested in and emailed the SVP to share my interests and asked to extend my date of departure because I had some "things" in the works.  The organizational powers that be were truly working in my favor.  As, my end date approached...

Click and listen to Episode 1 to hear the more...