“COVID Update”: Are you going to sink or swim?
On April 7th, a Tuesday, I noticed a random meeting popped up on my schedule for 11:30am. The title of the meeting was simply “COVID Update.” Initially, I assumed this meeting was to tell employees about how the company is being affected by the Coronavirus…if any. Before running with this idea, I checked to see who all was invited to the meeting, and to my surprise it was a meeting for 3 people, my manager, the VP of Engineering, and myself. Fast forwarding to the first words of the conversation from the VP, “This is a difficult conversation to have, so let’s get straight into it…” Immediately, my stomach dropped because I knew the next words were going to end in me being terminated or laid off. Once my theory was confirmed, I overwhelmed myself by thinking about my life. To myself, I was thinking different things like
- Furloughed? What in the world does that mean? (Not my actual words by the way)
- I am only 24, what am I going to do without a job when I have bills?
- What if nobody else is hiring?
- I just started my new role 4 months ago, that’s not enough experience for another job
- How am I going to tell my family this?
All my life, I have never been the type to drown in the moment. I soak up the reality of situations, then adjust accordingly. With that being said, after thinking about those initial questions, plus others, I immediately started the job search 30 minutes after the meeting. 2 days later, I received an offer to work for Ally Financial.
Motivation
When I first heard the news that I would be furloughed, I took 30 minutes of processing and went straight into action mode. This is where a lot of people get caught up, when they receive bad news, they drown in it. Edwin Louis Cole once said, “You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” Knowing this, just because initially you think a situation is negative, do not drown in it, GET UP! Depending on how you look at it, there is always a positive to every situation. In my situation, I could of drown in negatives, but I got up and thought of the positives. The biggest positive for me was that I was able to start testing the market for other job opportunities. Because I was with my prior company since I graduated from undergrad, I was comfortable and never looked at the job market. Due to my furlough, I was forced to do so. After taking a positive approach, as mentioned earlier, I was offered a job 2 days later making over 30% more than my previous job. If “COVID Update” never popped up on my calendar, how long would it have been before I decided to look elsewhere and get the amount I am worth? Who knows?
During this pandemic, you have had several weeks to sit and drown in negatives. Why not get up and start that business you always wanted, paint that wall you have always wanted to, or clean out that grease that is been sitting in your stove for ages?
All in all, I realized that we all are where we are supposed to be in life, no matter what. Most of the time, we fail to realize why we are in the place we are currently in, but as soon as you discover that, that is when you can move forward. Once forward, you will realize that the “negative” situation you were in, was the best thing that could have happened to you at that time because of the lessons and strength you built along the way.
As always feel free to leave feedback and comments.
Thanks!
Side note: My favorite motivational speaker is Eric Thomas. If you are one that responds to someone yelling at you to motivate you, he’s the guy. I think I like him so much because he reminds me of a lot of my athletic coaches that I had throughout my life. In addition to his energy, he talks about great things and he’s not afraid of making you feel bad in hopes of building you up.
Check out one of his most viewed videos here
