Nuclear Day

On December 30^th the job I dearly loved ended with a dreadfully robotic, “We wish you well in your future endeavors.” The following weeks were spent in phases very similar to a failed relationship. I was hurt, angry, fearful, blaming myself while retracing every step/decision along the way.  As a family we were forced to plan out what we dubbed as our "Nuclear Plan". That is the plan for what you will do when your life hits the financial bottom. At the end of that exhausting effort, we realized something. We were so blessed. Our “Nuclear Plan” didn’t completely suck. It wouldn’t have been fun, but on detonation day we would have survived and life would have continued to be stable for our children. That was our main goal. Houses, cars, boats, lifestyle & social amenities – you realize don’t matter. When all the material/lifestyle pressures strip away you can more effectively focus on the core needs. I’ll forewarn you, going through an exercise like that is nothing short of a mental wring out, but it was also empowering for us. Once we knew we had a plan that accounted for the worst “what ifs” we could imagine, all of that negative angst and energy could be refocused towards the positive things like figuring out my next career move.

Once we had freed ourselves from fearing the worst, we could finally begin to hope for the best. Numerous opportunities were very promising and the potential employee/employer courtship was well underway for the top few. It was a process that moved in waves. There was a lot of hurry up and wait. I don’t wait well, so my waiting time was filled with prep work. I’ve supported sales teams throughout my career, so I started approaching my job search as a sales effort. Stuffing the funnel at the top, trickle marketing for opps in the mid-funnel and going for the close for the ones the end of the funnel.

It was a process that succeeded for me, I received two amazing job offers within 4 days of each other. Both were fantastic. Both were answers to prayers. But one stood head and shoulders above. It enabled unimagined blessings for our entire family, not just for my career. It was a game-changer and not one that we had really planned for. The irony wasn’t lost on us that one of the reasons I lost my job was that I didn’t want to relocate my family to Texas last year. Now here was a dream job for a dream company, but once again it would require moving. Luckily, we were able to work out an agreement for a trial run, before make any permanent changes for the family. While this will cause short-term disruption for our family dynamics, I believe the long-terms gains will be worth it. The next chapter for my career starts on March 17^th. This entire experience has been overwhelming to see how beautiful blessings really are hidden underneath terrible times.

There is something empowering about mapping out your Nuclear Day plan. It isn’t easy. It forces discussions that are unpleasant, but now that we have one I am unafraid of future endeavors. So much of my complacency was the fear of disrupting our life. I stayed in my last position several years too long, because I didn’t want to disrupt the status quo of our life. I no longer fear Nuclear Day and that is living Harder2Kill :)