Losing your Job, Without Losing your Mind

Gregor Matheson at UXDX Community: Thriving through Change: Embracing Adversity and Unique Strengths. Video: https://youtu.be/tbEsIiJbux8

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

The human cost of tech layoffs

[00:00:07] Thank you very much. Good day, everybody. I felt, when I titled this talk "Losing your job without losing your mind", it was either going to help fill a room or probably help empty one, so hopefully it isn't the latter. Thank you very much for having me, and I hope there's something of value in here for everybody.

[00:00:28] Virtual hands up: how many people watching today have been on the receiving end of a layoff since the 1st of January 2023? Well, you are not alone. Each emoji on this slide represents 1,000 people that have been laid off in tech since January 2023. That's over half a million people, close to even one million people if you include 2022 as well, and the number is still climbing week to week. It's pretty scary, and pretty terrifying, when you see it quantified like that, isn't it?

[00:01:05] Well, what's even scarier is that studies have shown that 77% of these individuals attribute deteriorating mental health to their layoff. 33% are more likely to get divorced within the 18 months following their layoff. One in five will likely develop an addiction, and, terrifyingly, one in five are also likely to take their own life as a result of loss of employment. Now aren't you glad you came to this positive presentation?

[00:01:34] Joking aside, why am I talking about this? Well, firstly, like many people watching this, I can imagine, I am part of a family that has experienced divorce, addiction and suicide, so I've witnessed firsthand the lasting impact these events can have on an individual's life. But secondly, up until my own layoff, I considered myself to be a very resilient person. However, after my layoff I found myself in a really unfamiliar place. I felt anxious for the first time in my life. I felt worried about my livelihood and really pessimistic about my job prospects. And it was a dark realization that even the most resilient people can fall victim to what I call the scarcity mindset. It was also a realization of how easy it was for that to happen to somebody who did consider themselves to be a resilient person. But that doesn't need to be your story.

From scarcity to abundance: the six Fs

[00:02:31] I used to think the scarcity mindset grew from simply ambiguity, but what I learned through my layoff was that scarcity is ambiguity plus inaction. So during my layoff, to try and keep myself sane and occupied with my free days, I developed, unbeknownst to myself, a bunch of different tools, journal prompts, exercises and frameworks, as well as leaning on the fantastic resources of others that are already out there, to help guide me through my layoff. All of these helped me reframe the scarcity mindset into what I call an abundance mindset. They did so by helping me develop my self-awareness throughout that layoff journey, preventing me from falling into mental and physical slumps, minimizing that feeling of overwhelm, chaos and panic, and also providing me reassurance through intention and action.

[00:03:30] For the record, I'm just a guy sharing his experience, hoping that it provides value to others experiencing the same thing. I am definitely not qualified. This is not a scientific process. But all of the things I'm going to share today, I do believe helped me on my journey, so I simply wish to pay it forward and share them with yourselves and anybody else going through a similar journey. I bundled these resources into a framework called the six Fs, because it wouldn't be a speaking gig without a framework, am I right? With each, I'll share some of the journal prompts, exercises and tools that helped me reframe that scarcity into an abundance mindset. So let's get started.

Overwhelm: what do I need right now?

[00:04:16] Hearing you have lost your job feels like what I compare to cold water shock. Your mind suddenly spins into a state of overwhelm, millions of thoughts firing simultaneously. "What the (bleep) is going on?" is probably one of the first things that will pop into your head when you hear that dreaded news. I know it did for me. So instead of this feeling of scarcity, ambiguity and panic, you need to really try and recognize when that's happening and take yourself from scarcity into abundance: what do I need right now? It's important that you bring some calm to the storm that is happening around you. Understand where you are, understand what you need to tune into, and understand what you selfishly need right now.

[00:05:07] So, what do I actually want to do right now? I can almost guarantee you will not want to be job hunting. However, it can be tempting to jump into that as an instinctual reaction to learning that you no longer have a job. It's like fight or flight: I've got to go and find a new job. But really it's the last thing you probably should be doing. You really need to actually grieve the loss of employment, and maybe do so alongside your colleagues. It's not often you get to take advantage of all this free time and indulge yourself like this. So I found it personally helpful to really tune into what I actually want to be doing right now. It is not sitting at my desk thinking about work. It's actually completely disengaging from work, binging Netflix, getting fast food, whatever it may be for you, as long as it's not a destructive behavior.

[00:06:00] Who would be a great person to reach out to? Other than your colleagues, you're typically the only person in your close circle of family and friends experiencing a loss of employment at the time, and that can create a very lonely experience. In your circle of family and friends, it is quite an isolating experience, because now you've got all these free days when everybody else is still working. Especially if you're in a remote environment like myself as well, it can be very isolating. So who would be a great person to reach out to? Who would be a great person to hear your thoughts and frustrations, and be able to vent to, to let it all out in a judgment-free environment? We all probably have that one person that's popped into our head, and that's the person that you should reach out to at a time like this.

[00:06:53] And then finally: what needs to happen for me to leave this stage behind? Often when you experience difficulty in life, you hang on to thoughts and feelings and emotions, unwilling to let them go, but not really knowing why. You just want to stay in the misery mud, as I call it. So actually understanding where you are in this grieving journey, and what you need to do to leave that stage behind, can really help counteract that feeling of overwhelm.

[00:07:22] So I use this exercise. It's what's typically known as a grief curve, but I've just adapted it slightly for a layoff, versus an unfortunate loss of life. Each week, what I would do is take this and just dot vote, very simply: where do I think I am? Not giving it too much overthought or over-engineering it, just getting a bit of a gut check and a temperature check. Then I'd ask myself three questions. Why do I think I'm in this stage of the process? What would need to happen for me to leave that stage in the past and forget about it? And then finally, what actions can I take this week to help me achieve number two, to help me leave that stage in the past? This was a really helpful exercise for me. Not only was it a way for me to check in with myself week to week, but over time, if you do this every single week, you will have tracked your progress, which surprisingly gives you this feeling of accomplishment, because there is a physical dot moving along this line back to normality. And it helps eliminate the panic and scarcity.

Failure: what was I tolerating?

[00:08:39] Naturally, loss of employment feels like a failure, which goes without saying. For me, my instinctual reaction was to think there was some way I could have controlled the outcome, when in reality that's rarely the case. So how can you reframe that feeling of failure? It's instinctual for that scarcity mindset to creep in and place blame on yourself: what could I have done better, what could I have controlled? When in reality you could think: what was I tolerating? Even in jobs that you absolutely adore, there is something you will be tolerating. That could be poor processes, poor compensation, poor work, poor people, all of the above. By redirecting your negative emotions from yourself to the tolerations, you can actually begin to feel pretty glad that you're no longer working there, and begin to see the positive side of this feeling of failure.

[00:09:38] But I also learned that, during a period where your ability to excel professionally has been taken out of your hands, it's a prime opportunity to excel personally. So I used the following journaling prompts to help me understand how to do that. Firstly, what have I actually accomplished in this role that I'm proud of? In every role, no matter how long you've been there, there's something. In my last role, where I got laid off, I was only there for less than a year, and in that less than a year there was work that I could be proud of, even if not tangible output. So capture it while it's top of mind. But also, the impact that you have on other people is the greatest currency. So reach out to your colleagues and peers for feedback, and get them to write you recommendations. Again, this will help counteract that feeling of failure, because you'll get to see the impact you've had on people's lives.

[00:10:30] Then, getting on to the fun stuff: how could the situation actually be a gift, whether desired or not? The idea of not working does provide the benefit of free time. So while it might not be desired, or you might not feel like it, it is a gift. What hobbies and interests can you now explore that you told yourself you didn't have the time for? And with regards to job hunting, look at it as though you've got a competitive advantage over the other candidates. There may be candidates who are stressed in other roles, still applying for that job, trying to get out. But you've got all the time in the world to prep, all the time in the world to do your research, all the time in the world to craft your portfolio, to make use of that gift of time.

[00:11:19] And finally, how could I productively use this downtime? You really don't want to be in a new role, regardless of how good it is, and look back at the months you had off and go, oh, I wish I'd taken advantage of that time off more. So how can this downtime actually become your most productive time? For me, last year I casually began learning Italian, and I managed to accelerate my learning in a way I would never have been able to do if I was in a full-time job. Equally, I managed to get to the four or five DIY projects that I'd been ignoring for the past couple of years, because I had the time to do so. This feeling of productivity, even if not professional productivity, will help counteract that feeling of failure.

Fears, unknowns and doubts; hopes, aspirations and desires

[00:12:11] An exercise I leaned on was this: the fears, unknowns and doubts, and the hopes, aspirations and desires. Typically we leave many of our fears, unknowns and doubts, and our hopes, aspirations and desires, in our heads. We pent them up and we never verbalize them, never commit them to memory. Those unrealized thoughts can almost compound when you have been laid off, because you've got this additional feeling of failure, because you haven't actioned them. This exercise was introduced to me when I was laid off, and it helped me let it all out, as well as come up with paths to resolution before problems even occur, and establish positive habits.

[00:12:51] You go one by one and ask yourself: what is my biggest fear, my biggest unknown, my biggest doubt? What are my biggest hopes, aspirations and desires? For the FUDs, as they're known, which needs a bit of a rebrand, you can ask yourself: how would I overcome this? The reason for this is that it's a lot easier to produce a rational solution to a problem when you're not experiencing it. Yes, you're maybe in an uncertain situation with your layoff, but what's your biggest fear, and how would you overcome that fear? Establish the solution when you're not in a feeling of overwhelm. Then for the HADs, the hopes, aspirations and desires, ask yourself: what needs to be true for this to actually become a reality? This helps you realize the productive behaviors that will lead you towards one of these successes, which maybe you don't have and need to start doing at this moment of downtime. And then finally, for each, write some statements of intent, mapping: I intend to do X behavior to get Y desired outcome.

[00:14:05] Keep this safe. This is not an exercise you just do in isolation and forget about. This is something that I leaned on. Typically your fears, unknowns and doubts tend to be a bit longer than the hopes, aspirations and desires. But it means that you can refer back to these when and if you encounter any of them, and it means that you've created a solution to a problem at a time of focus and calm, for when you're actually experiencing it, probably at a time of overwhelm.

Finances: what am I spending my money on?

[00:14:36] This is probably going to be the most awkward one: money and finances. It's probably impossible to talk about layoffs without talking about finances. I am a firm believer that money cannot buy you happiness, but it can provide you access to things that contribute to happiness. And, as we all know, it pays your bills, so it's incredibly important and shouldn't be discounted. "What the hell am I going to do for money?" is probably a statement that will inevitably run through your head when you lose your job, typically in that state of panic. But let's flip that and ask yourself: what the hell am I spending all my money on? When your finances are finite and your livelihood is challenged, you'll be surprised, when you start analyzing your spending, how much money you spend on crap that you do not need.

[00:15:35] It's maybe an awkward one to broach, but if you are in this industry, and you're at a relatively high level, IC or management and above, you're likely on a privileged salary in the UK, especially in comparison to the UK average, which is £35,000 a year, which is not a lot. Most people in our industry will perhaps be above that, although it's all dependent on location and stuff. I know I can't really interact with anybody here, but if you were to lose your job today, how many of you could actually sustain your current lifestyle for three months? Typically, when I've asked this question, not many people put their hands up, and those who do don't actually know.

[00:16:20] Would you be surprised if I told you that 34% of UK adults have less than £1,000 saved? £1,000 is not going to get you far. I know not everybody here will be from the UK, but that's a relatively low figure. I know people are probably thinking, I'm stretched as it is, I can't afford to save. Well, interestingly, the average UK adult also spends £530 a year on takeout coffee. Those two statistics, to me, are terrifyingly conflicting, aren't they? People would rather prioritize fleeting short-term enjoyment in the form of a coffee over long-term financial security. People have less than £1,000 saved, but they spend over half that on coffee. It just seems completely crazy.

[00:17:10] To put it into perspective, if you take that £530 spent on coffee each year, over 10 years you will of course have spent £5,300 on coffee, which alone sounds completely ridiculous. But if you take the same £530 and invest it in the S&P 500 index, at the average return we've had over the last 10 years, you will have almost double that money, from the same money that you spend. It's not a financial lecture, but the point I'm simply trying to make is that you can have enough money to save. It just needs to be prioritized accordingly.

[00:17:47] And don't assume you are safe. Set yourself up for success, invest in your future and be prepared. I did a little survey where I worked recently, which was just: how many of you actually feel secure in this industry? Not many people do. The layoffs are rife, and you just never know what's going to happen. We live in a very unpredictable industry, so don't assume that you're safe. Make sure that you set yourself up for success, and this will serve you. When I was laid off, my wife's and my savings and investments literally saved us, and allowed us to keep paying our mortgage while I wasn't working.

[00:18:27] Also ask yourself: what spending is contributing to my financial anxiety? It doesn't matter how much money you earn, we all have financial anxiety, and we increase our spending without even really realizing it. It's natural to never question it when times are good, but when times are tight you need to analyze your finances. Most people can't tell you how much money they spend on coffee, or how much money they spend on meals out. So it's really important you drill down into the specifics and understand what is actually not helping you.

[00:19:00] Also ask yourself: where and how am I living outside my means? We all typically live outside our means somewhere. For some people it could be holidays, for some people it could be cars, tech, eating out, whatever it may be. An easy way to detect where you're living outside your means: I remember reading something in a book years ago, which was, if you can't buy two of the thing at the time that you're buying one of them, you probably are living outside your means. Equally, nowadays, if you find yourself leaning on these buy now, pay later services like Klarna and Clearpay, that's probably a good signal that you're living outside your means and you can't actually afford to be buying whatever it is that you're buying.

[00:19:45] But also ask yourself: how much happiness do I genuinely attach to these items? Once you've determined your list, these are my must-have spendings and this is my nice-to-have spending, go through that list again and really question, do I actually get a lot of happiness out of this? Because quite often the happiness that we think we get turns out to be very fleeting or unnecessary.

[00:20:09] So where do you start? Well, you need to understand your finances in order to control them. During my layoff, I developed this expense sheet that I've got in Notion. It helps you scrutinize your spending, while also providing clarity on where and how you're living outside your means. In addition to that, I've also shared the habits and tips that you can maybe use tomorrow to start building your financial nest egg and setting yourself up for future success. Like I said, I am not a qualified financial advisor, or any of those disclaimers. These are just things that have served me well and helped me personally over the last 10 years.

Friends and family: who is always there for me?

[00:20:52] "What are my friends and family going to think?" is such a common thing that runs through your head when you lose your job. The reason why, I think, is that a lot of us attach shame to losing our job, even though nine times out of 10 it's outside of our control. We can feel embarrassed and assume that our loved ones[?] will be disappointed in us, or even judge us. But reframe it and ask yourself: who is always there for me? Because surrounding yourself with those who care for you the most is the much-needed healing tonic you need when you have lost your job and you have this intense feeling of isolation. Studies have shown that the relationships that you have with your closest are as crucial to your survival as food. So it's very tempting to isolate yourself during that loss of employment, but your body is actually craving the opposite.

[00:21:50] Personally, I found it helpful to reflect on my relationships and understand where and what I could do to invest in them. Apart from anything else, catching up with friends and family is fun and enjoyable and fantastic for your mental health, but it also gets you out of the house, which is another great thing. It sounds simple, but it's much required during a layoff. So what relationships could you strengthen or rebuild? Life gets in the way of all relationships. Sometimes we relocate, we move jobs, we simply lose touch with people. We now have the space and time to either strengthen great relationships or rebuild neglected ones. So which ones in your life can you focus on?

[00:22:33] Another way of thinking about this is tapping into the feeling of nostalgia, or simply missing people. Who have I not seen in a long time that I would love to catch up with? For me, I hadn't caught up with a friend that I'd not seen in over 10 years, and I managed to finally catch up with them during my layoff. We all have those people we've been meaning to catch up with, and for whatever reason just haven't been able to make it work. But now you can.

[00:22:59] And also, how can you serve your friends and family, your nearest and dearest, during this time? For many of us, work can be all-consuming in our lives, especially if you live far away from your parents and family. But you now have the opportunity to invest in being a better partner, a better friend, a better relative, without any distraction. So what could you now have the capacity to do in those relationships that you didn't have the capacity to do before?

Fitness: what version of myself do I want to be?

[00:23:29] And fitness. Unsurprisingly, when we experience a loss of employment our mental well-being takes a toll, but so does our physical well-being, and the temptation to fall into that slump is ever present, or it was for me at least. You can often think, how am I supposed to focus on health when I don't have a job? When you don't have a job, finding a job becomes your job, so you typically neglect your mental, emotional and physical well-being. But flip this and ask yourself: what version of myself do I want to be at the end of this? A period of downtime is a fantastic time to prioritize your mental and physical well-being. Get those productive habits and positive habits locked in, and create the best version of yourself, so that it's all embedded by the time you find yourself in your next role.

[00:24:21] So, understanding how am I looking after myself mentally and physically? For me, in the first seven weeks of my unemployment I gained 8 kilograms, which is a lot. That takes effort. I just got too indulgent over the festive period, without the structure of a working day, where I didn't have my usual routine. But it also demonstrated to me how easy it was for that slump to happen. So take stock: what habits are positively contributing to my well-being, and what habits are having a negative impact?

[00:24:58] What activities have you always wanted to explore? If you're anything like me, we all have hobbies or goals, sporting challenges, spiritual journeys, that we want to explore deeper, but maybe we've told ourselves that we don't have the time. Now there's no excuse. You have nothing but time, and activities are a fantastic way to fill that time. And also: what could I be doing today that will improve my well-being? Self-improvement and personal development is a forever work in progress, but it starts with those baby steps, those 1% changes that you can start taking today. That could be doing something, like I'm going to go for a walk, or I'm going to start doing exercise, or eating healthily, something that takes effort. Or it could be not doing something: I'm going to stop sleeping in, I'm going to reduce my alcohol consumption, all of that kind of stuff.

[00:25:58] This is actually an exercise from James Clear's book Atomic Habits, so I'm absolutely not taking credit. I would just encourage you to buy a copy, so I don't bore you to death. But this exercise, with the journal prompts that I just shared, was a really good way for me to understand how I could prioritize my well-being and establish those productive behaviors. Write down one good habit you wish to start, and one bad habit you wish to stop. Then, for the good habit, write down how you're going to make it obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying. For the bad habit, write down how you're going to make it invisible, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying. Then finally, next to each, set an intention. I'm a big fan of setting intentions and committing things to memory. How am I going to ensure success, and equally, how am I going to avoid failure? Because our fear of failure is most often a bigger motivator than our desire to succeed.

Fear: what if I find an incredible job?

[00:27:02] And the last one: fear. Fear, for me, is the biggest contributor to that scarcity mindset, and I also think it's our instinctual reaction as human beings to the ambiguity that loss of employment presents us. "What if I never find a job?" This is something that crossed my mind probably more times than I care to remember during my six-month layoff. But rather than the scarcity, how can you reframe this into: what if I find an incredible job? Of course you will find a job. That is inevitable. It is highly unlikely, as a skilled individual, that you will never find a job. But we want to ensure that it's the right job, not the right-now job. Even though this downtime may not have been planned, may not have been desired, you can still use it really effectively to understand what it is you actually want next, and reassess your life. Remember, it's still a choice. You don't have to just default to whatever you were doing before, but also you don't need to take the first thing you're offered either.

[00:28:16] What does a fulfilling career look like for me now? At least for me, this industry, especially in the turbulent times we've had these past few years, can be absolutely exhausting. So with time for reflection, spend time to understand: is this what I want to be doing? Is this what fulfillment looks and feels like for me now? I even considered leaving the industry entirely in pursuit of a simpler, less stressful life. I even considered doing it temporarily. I was like, while I'm learning Italian, why don't I get a job as a waiter in an Italian restaurant, so I can improve my Italian? It doesn't even need to be permanent. But what I'm trying to say is, could this be the time to reinvent yourself? Do you want to go back to what you were doing, or is this a time to maybe start a new business or pursue another career?

[00:29:07] Have I done everything in my power to find that new role? The recruitment process in our industry is inherently broken, and it's easy to shake your fist at the industry and deflect any accountability for what might happen. And it is really bad, I'm not disputing that. But equally, you don't want to look back and go, should have, would have, could have done that. So understand what you're doing with regards to your job search that is working really well for you, and what you maybe need to pour some more energy into.

[00:29:40] And ask yourself, with everything that you apply for: does this role align with my ambitions and my values? Unless you received some crazy severance package, which seems to be a unicorn these days, most of us will need to find that job as soon as possible, and that is okay. You want to try and find something quickly, but there's no reward in just running into the arms of another miserable job. Once you're in there and the feeling of "oh yes, I've got a job" wears off, you're just going to be like, why the hell did I take this job? So understand what you want, and, more importantly, try and avoid your own proximity bias: making excuses for the company that you're applying to, ignoring red flags, or anything that lowers that barrier to entry. Unfortunately, whether consciously or subconsciously, companies will prey on your circumstances, and you just want to make sure it's the right role for you.

[00:30:45] But most importantly, you've got to operationalize your job hunt. Applying for jobs, excuse my French, is (bleep) demoralizing. I hated every second of it. Some applications you pour your heart and soul into, some you don't and you apply for flippantly. You get ghosted all the time. It is really terrible out there at the moment. But by operationalizing your side of the fence, and keeping your part of the process organized, efficient and streamlined, you'll feel better about yourself, because you're like, right, I'm doing all the right things, it's just a matter of time. So I created the following job tracker to help bring order to this job search chaos. Each ticket in here has a template to stay on top of all your applications: questions you should be asking, what information you provided, et cetera. But there's also a bunch of tips in there about how to leverage LinkedIn Premium, advice for reaching out to people, portfolio and interview advice, as well as a handful of recruiters that were personally there for me at a time of need.

Resources, and reaching out

[00:31:52] Just to wrap up: I've not been able to show everything today, but every resource in this presentation and more I've curated into a Notion site. The site is 100% free and available to anybody, forever. You can scan the QR code to visit it, or go to bitly success[?], all lowercase. All of it should help you reframe that scarcity mindset into that abundance mindset, turn your should-dos into must-dos, and reframe that overwhelm into clarity and action. I just hope to get this into the hands of as many people as possible, and those who need it the most. So if you do find it valuable, please just pay it forward and share it with whoever you wish.

[00:32:42] The final thing I just want to say: if over half a million people in our industry have been impacted by layoffs, the chances are you know at least one of them. So I just want to ask each of you, whoever just popped into your head when you read that, text them or email them or reach out to them, and just say, "I was thinking about you today. How are you?" From experience, I can guarantee that not only will it put a smile on your face, but you never know, you might have also just saved their life. Thank you very much for your time.