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Imagine going to the office tomorrow morning. You park your car, you go to your desk, you open your laptop, and out of nowhere you find an invite to an all-hands meeting. You're almost certain it wasn't there last week, but maybe you didn't notice.
It starts in 30 minutes. ...
It starts in 30 minutes. ...
You go to the all-hands. Usually there's croissants and coffee on the table next to the door, but this time there's nothing. Not even the projector is on. Something looks different, but you don't think much about it. You're busy responding to emails. ...
Then, bam. "Unfortunately we have some bad news." This gets your attention and you close your laptop.
"We unfortunately have no choice but to reduce full-time employee headcount. There just isn’t any other way. Thank you for everything you have done to advance our mission." ...
"We unfortunately have no choice but to reduce full-time employee headcount. There just isn’t any other way. Thank you for everything you have done to advance our mission." ...
Someone asks about when this will take effect. The answer is unnecessarily long, full of meaningless platitudes, but out of all the verbal word soup you catch that you're expected to clear your desk as soon as the meeting ends.
By 11:00 AM you're back home. ...
By 11:00 AM you're back home. ...
If the prospect of this happening frightens you, you're in a fragile position. Your livelihood, peace of mind, social standing, and self-esteem might be depending on something completely out of your control. On something that might go away suddenly and without warning. ...
You can choose to bury your head in the sand and ignore the possibility of something like this happening. After all, you're in good standing with your employer, and the company is doing well, so the odds of a layoff must be very low. ...
But it's very hard to fool your subconscious. Your behavior and actions will be influenced by the part of your brain that doesn't tolerate consequential risks being pushed under the rug. You will inevitably find yourself behaving as "someone with lots to lose". ...
Rather than feeling in charge of your destiny, you'd be worrying about protecting what you have. Because when your survival is threatened (or when your lizard brain thinks so), nothing else matters. ...
When you enter this mode of self-preservation, you also become blind to any opportunity of advancement, even if it lands right in front of your eyes. Cost-benefit analysis stops working when the cost is a matter of survival. ...
The cure to this blindness is to escape the fragile position. You need to make your subconscious believe that you don't have anything important to lose. Fate won't be able to harm you if you have nothing to lose, and opportunities for improvement suddenly become viable. ...
Luckily, in most cases (but not always), you can escape the fragile position with a simple mental exercise, and a little bit of imagination and creativity.
I fell in this trap before, but I managed to get out. Here's how I did it:
I fell in this trap before, but I managed to get out. Here's how I did it:
