0:09

What do you do when the layoff you never expected forces you to face the version of yourself you didn't know you were becoming?

Caroline 0:17

This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal. I'm a life first career coach and strategist on a mission to normalize questioning your career because I believe each of us is made on purpose for a purpose only we can fulfill. The longer we live out of alignment with who we are, what we do best, and why we're here, the more we miss out. And the more the world misses out on what only we can give. The Your Next Success Podcast is where we explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life. We talk about self-discovery, smart job, search strategies, professional growth, and you'll hear stories from people who've navigated big career transitions themselves so you can see what it's really like to make bold changes and feel inspired to create your own version of authentic success, one that is aligned, meaningful, and truly yours.

1:18

Our guest, Steve Jaffe, is a seasoned marketing and advertising executive with more than 25 years of experience across agencies, hospitality, tourism, tech, and product marketing. His career includes work on major national brands, leadership roles in major markets and contributions to iconic campaigns. But what makes Steve's story powerful is more than what he built. It's what he survived. He has been laid off four times across two decades, each time navigating the emotional, practical, and identity level challenges of job loss. He turned those lessons into his book, The Layoff Journey: from Dismissal to Discovery, where he walks readers through the true stages of grief after a layoff, and offers a grounded path toward renewal. Today's conversation explores the parts of layoffs no one prepares you for: the emotional unraveling, the shock, the shame, and the quiet rebuilding that follows. Steve and I talked through his four layoffs, how each one stripped away a layer of identity and how he eventually learned to navigate the grief instead of rushing into the next job. If you have ever felt the weight of a layoff or questioned what it means about you, this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

Caroline 2:42

Welcome to Your Next Success. I have been looking forward to this conversation for months, and I'm so excited that the day has finally come.

Steve Jaffe 2:52

Thank you. It's great to be here. I've been looking forward to it myself.

Caroline 2:56

Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so we are going to get to everybody. As you've just heard, Steve is an author, an amazing, with beautiful career and author of The Layoff Journey. We are gonna get to that. in traditional, Your Next Success style, I also wanna dial it back to learn more about your journey before some of these, twists and turns. So if you would help understand your childhood, like where did you grow up? What were the kind of things you absolutely loved doing?

Steve Jaffe 3:28

So I'm from Southern California. I grew up in San Diego, and it's a beautiful city. for a while it had the name America's Finest City, and I just believe that to be the truth. It's just a gorgeous place, gorgeous place to grow up. And, you know, I grew up in Southern California tradition on the beach on a surfboard, on a skateboard. My volleyball, sailing, water skiing. It was a lot of that kind of stuff. And yeah, just a wonderful place to grow up, beautiful weather. It's like Camelot, like 72 and sunny every day of the year.

Caroline 4:07

I was really fortunate this past March I got to go there for a conference and I was like, wow, this is amazing.

Steve Jaffe 4:13

Yeah.

Caroline 4:14

And so school-wise, were there any particular subjects that were of interest?

Steve Jaffe 4:21

Yeah. So, one of my favorite subjects in college was cultural geography. I loved that. My minor was art history. I love art and my major was Journalism with an emphasis in advertising. And I would go on in my career, to work in advertising, advertising agencies and had some success there. I would later translate that into marketing, like in-house marketing roles. But that journalism seed, always stayed with me and I always wanted to write and be a writer, and it's great that later in my career now I was able to kind of bridge those two together and write this book, loosely about my career in marketing and advertising. But definitely found that through line, and have been happy. To have really fulfilled a lifelong goal, to write a book, to publish a book. So, in a way, just having the book out is sort of a goal achieved.

Caroline 5:22

When you were even trying to kind of do that transition from high school to going to college, how did you pick that major?

Steve Jaffe 5:33

Well, I always had an interest in marketing. I found it interesting, the kind of behavioral sciences, the psychology behind it, a little bit of like the art and creativity. So it's kind of a left brain, right brain art and science, and in a way that's kind of how my brain naturally works. Very creative, but also like kind of data driven and analytics and a very analytical. So, I had thought that my original major was sociology and I had thought that study of like cultural norms and like behaviors and things is what I wanted to do. But I specifically remember a conversation I had with a relative one time, and we were talking, he was asking like really good probing questions and we were getting at the heart of marketing and he's like, well, it sounds like that that's really what you want to do. And within a week I changed my major and went down the road of the advertising path.

Caroline 6:34

Did you know anybody like was that person in marketing or what kind of career? Sometimes there's a little bit of patterns within families if you actually dive back to generations as far as what people have chosen to do. Were there any particular patterns you noticed in your family or.

Steve Jaffe 6:51

So, my family, my dad, and his family had a family like construction, real estate development business, and they did a lot of like property development in San Diego. So they weren't really involved in any way in marketing, but the family member that I spoke to was a very successful family member. He had done a lot like in business and investing and finance and the stock market, and he was just kind of like a well-rounded like business person, and was pretty successful, and a good communicator and a good listener. And, it's interesting how that one conversation kind of changed the trajectory of my career and my life, and I still remember it very vividly.

Caroline 7:36

Oh, wow. That's awesome that family member took an interest, listened, and ultimately was trying to help guide you. To do something that you would enjoy you were saying. Because that's the thing, a lot of times, you know, younger versions of us, we don't know, all the careers that are out there, we know what we've seen from our families. You know, maybe family, friends, school, those things are accessible, firemen, right? You, you know, these things, 'cause everybody's kind of talked about them, but some of the nuances of what was marketing, what is advertising, how does that even work? Aren't necessarily articulated, so that's pretty special. Now, when you were in that, let's say late teen, early twenties, what did you think success looked like? What did you think it was gonna be, you know, one day when you were successful? What was that vision in that moment?

Steve Jaffe 8:30

I think I had a very like surface, almost materialistic individual definition of success. So I would've defined success by like my title. Certainly the company that I worked at, in advertising, it was all about like the prestige of the account that you worked on. and you know what my salary was, my area of responsibility, the budget I was responsible for, they were very like, I would say one dimensional, not terribly sophisticated ideas of success. It wasn't until later in life that I had the realization what I really wanted to have. As a lasting legacy of my career was, who could I help? How did I leave relationships or people, you know, did I leave them better? Did I leave them? With encouragement and empathy and compassion. And I look back at some decisions I made when I was in leadership roles with frankly a lot of regret. 'Cause I did make a lot of bad decisions. In a way I hope that this book really helps people. As I was writing it and I was thinking about how am I gonna define success? What are my KPIs or my ROI on the book, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that the more people I could help, that I would define that by success. So it wasn't necessarily linked to sales or number of books. That, you know, like dollar revenue, it was, you know, impact. Exactly. And, and I think that's the arc of maybe it's maturity or experience, but,

Caroline 10:16

Wisdom, all of that.

Steve Jaffe 10:18

Yeah, I'm left with that, that Maya Angelou quote about "people remember how you made them feel", you know? And that's, I believe kind of your legacy. And, and that's what I would want to ultimately define success by.

Caroline 10:35

And I think that, you know, even in, as you were kind of alluding to some of the earlier leadership decisions, some of the more self-driven things at the time, you made what you thought was the best decision. You know, it's this wisdom in this hindsight that we could look back and I'm like, oh my goodness. Wow. I don't know if I would do it differently because it's kind of helped me to become who I am, but I absolutely wish I could be like, my bad. I am so sorry. That was a selfish decision and I am learning and getting better. So let's go back to the, you changed your major, and then how did you find your first job out of college? And tell us a little bit about that experience.

Steve Jaffe 11:19

Yeah. Great example of luck and opportunity. Meeting, there was a job fair. so I went to San Diego State and there was a job fair and, the largest agency in San Diego happened to have some representatives at this job fair. And I was walking around, I was meeting people. I met somebody there. And we had a brief conversation and he said that they were looking for interns and, you know, he gave me a number to call and said, you know, hey, mention my name and, you know, you could see where it goes. So I called and I said, I had met so and so at this job ferry, and he said I should call you about this intern. And, I got the internship, dropping His name got me really far. They had thought I was like some close personal friend of his and he was like saying, Hey, call these people because like I'm giving you almost a reference or something. And they read into it far more than I even alluded to. This is when I found out later that they had thought we had this like close personal relationship, but I just met 'em for a couple of minutes. anyway, got the job, ended up getting hired full-time and, worked at that agency for about, I dunno, maybe it was like three years, maybe a little bit longer. And then, translated that to agency work in San Francisco during the dot-com bubble. And ultimately then, worked in Las Vegas, at the agency that did the, What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas ad campaign. I worked on that ad campaign for the first five years of its life and it was an in incredible time in probably one of the highlights of my career. Yeah.

Caroline 13:02

And, what made you shift from this phenomenal first opportunity to then, you know, the next ones or some of the other things? Like what was it? By choice or by force? Yeah. How was that?

Steve Jaffe 13:15

It's funny that you ask, so, I, I had met my now wife and she loved San Francisco and she said she really wanted to go back to San Francisco. So I said, okay, well let's go. And it was a little bit of an adventure. So, I applied to a bunch of agencies in San Francisco, and like I was mentioning earlier, my idea of success was based on the caliber of the name and the quality of the account. And I happened to get an offer from a really amazing ad agency in San Francisco. ironically working on, this is gonna date me a little bit, but, working on amazon.com when all they sold was books. so when I was there I helped launch the music and the video divisions. So it goes back a ways.

Caroline 13:59

That's cool.

Steve Jaffe 14:00

But yeah. Yeah, yeah. and now as an author, like I'm on the Amazon platform every day, like looking at

Caroline 14:05

Full circle.

Steve Jaffe 14:06

The book. Yeah, exactly. And then, Vegas was sort of a roundabout way aft after actually my first layoff. It was, it was a tough time to find a job, but, I got offered that opportunity before What Happens Here, Stays Here, launched. And, and they had told me I was gonna work on this new ad campaign, didn't know what it was and had no idea it was gonna be so successful. But, I decided to kind of gamble a bit, no pun intended, and take the leap. And it actually ended up being, probably one of the best choices for my career because, I was able to not only work on that campaign that then make the jump over to marketing from advertising and that expanded my horizons greatly.

Caroline 14:50

And so that first layoff, how did that go down? How did you feel about it?

Steve Jaffe 14:55

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mentioned, I was with my girlfriend and now wife. Well, we had just gotten married, it was spring of 2001 and I was working at a great ad agency, on a great account, different agency, different account than the Amazon. But, unbeknownst to me, this was the beginning of dot-com bubble bursting and, the client ended up going bankrupt and the agency called everybody that was working on the account into the conference room one by one and said, thank you. The agencies, the client has cut their budget. We have to cut head count. And, since you work on the account, you're being impacted. Thank you. You have five minutes to pack your desk and, that was really, really difficult.

Caroline 15:42

Yeah.

Steve Jaffe 15:43

I had put, because of my definition of success at that time, I had put a lot of my self worth into that job and what that job meant to me and what it meant about me as a person. And without that job, I didn't really have much left.

Caroline 15:59

Hmm.

Steve Jaffe 15:59

And it, and then the events of 9/11 happened and the job market got really bad. So I was out of work for about 18 months and it was a really, really difficult time for me, and I found that getting through the grief of that layoff was incredibly difficult. And kind of that story arc that I follow in the book is my motivation for writing the book is by my fourth layoff in the summer of 2023. I didn't really have the same effect on me. It was like water off a duck's back, and on some self-reflection, I come to realize that my association with my job and the title and all the prestige and all that, I was able to kind of put that into better perspective so that when I did lose the job, I didn't lose everything. And I was able to, come to terms with it much, much quicker. And I thought to myself, well, because of these lessons that I learned over four layoffs in roughly 25 years, I wanted to share that wisdom and that experience with people, to help them manage their layoff in months rather than years. So that became the impetus and the motivation for the book was to, try and translate, what took me a very long time to learn into something that can be like. Easily read, easily digestible, but, effective in managing the stages of grief, which, so often after a layoff. All of the advice is here's how you update your resume and here's how you go on job interviews, and here's how you do your LinkedIn. And nobody presses pause to say, here's how you manage this grief, and here's why you should manage this grief first before you do your resume or go on job interviews. And that was, we were talking before the recording. I was mentioning how much I loved your After the Layoff series that you posted on your podcast earlier, because you talk about a lot of this and, and it's, it's not common that people talk about the grief and, you know, you specifically talk about Why You Can't Skip the Grief and why it's important to manage the grief. And I hope that this conversation becomes more common. Certainly as layoffs become more common, more people are going through them. If there's a real need for people to feel like: One. They're not alone. This isn't something that's abnormal. Everybody experiences the grief of a layoff and, there are resources available that can help you get through it in a healthy, effective way.

Caroline 18:48

Yeah, and I think that this perspective now, I don't know, not quite. Maybe 14, 13, years removed from my layoff. I definitely didn't have that perspective at first. Right. There was a lot and I also didn't have the perspective I think I was mentioning before, you know, I came from hard science, like chemistry, like polymer science experiments and all of that, and I spent decades of my life living as a head. Attached to a body, but not necessarily integrated with feelings and personal development. You know, it was all just very, um yeah, hard, smart stuff, but not the real work that makes somebody actually a fulfilled human. I wasn't even aware that any of that existed. And so with my layoff, there was a tremendous, although I don't even know that I had the words to put to the feelings, but there was definitely that shame. There was the loss and, and what do I do now? And I was also pregnant with our second kid at the time. And so I was just like. Well, what does this mean? What does this all mean? You know? 'Cause here I never thought I was gonna be barefoot pregnant, living off the government, and there I was barefoot pregnant, living off the government. I'm like what the heck happened here? You know most likely to, you know, I'd never, never had I thought of that. So I had a lot of, you know, an internal reckoning, an internal, definitely there was grief, there was shame and I didn't articulate it for the longest time, and it wasn't even until years later when I kind of went back as a recruiter into the chemical industry and I thought, ah, now I see that has a purpose. Because I could talk with people who also had been at the wrong end of a business decision and be like, but wait. Yeah, more. This, this new chapter is opening and this does not define you. One thing about the job that you had, but you are still amazing. You're still awesome let's figure out what you'd love to do next, how we can get that thing to happen. But how did you sort that out? I think the first one hits the hardest because I never even thought that was a possibility. I joined a company where people had, in that time spent decades there moving on up, and I just thought I would be one of them too. But how did you deal with it at first? How did you come to that peace? Or did you go into the next one eighteen months later with baggage? How'd that work?

Steve Jaffe 21:28

I definitely went into the next one with baggage. I think it took me a long time to find peace. What I didn't understand that I now understand is this myth of meritocracy. I believed that if you worked hard enough and you were smart enough, you were a high performer, you would be met with success. You would be met with, you know, a raise, a title, a bonus, recognition, more responsibility, all those. You know, measures of success and I was a high performer and I had never considered that instead, I would be met with a layoff and I couldn't understand why, like, why me? I had all these questions that had no answers.

Caroline 22:14

Yeah.

Steve Jaffe 22:14

What could I have done differently? Was there a project that I worked on that I could have done better was there a personal interaction I had with somebody that I could have had better? And all of that kind of internal bargaining, all of that looking backwards, served me no purpose. And, the sooner I was able to say, rather than like what happened, and say what's next, and stop looking backward and start looking forward. That's kind of like where that journey begins. That length of time between that where you, use the analogy of like a tug of war with yourself where you're pulling the rope, you know, the sooner you can let go of that rope and, and move on, the better able you'll be to start to navigate the stages. But I also think that, you know, the shame and embarrassment is very, very real for somebody who's been laid off. And the thing that I am really trying to talk about as much as I can is how misplaced that shame and embarrassment is. About 40% of all Americans have been laid off at least once in their career. I think if more people knew that number, they wouldn't, one wouldn't feel so alone, but they wouldn't feel like this is some sort of a stigma. Layoffs are the result of a company going through a budget exercise. There's some sort of market condition that's forcing them to increase revenue to the bottom line quicker than they can through sales. And the quickest way to do that is to reduce headcount. So, layoffs are a no fault termination. you haven't done anything wrong. You're not fired if, you know, layoffs are very different than being fired. And I think sometimes people. Don't quite separate those in their mind. They feel like they were fired, but they were really just, on the wrong side of a budget exercise. So you, you can let go of that baggage, and move forward with the peace of, you've done nothing wrong. You were at the wrong place at the wrong time. And, all of your skills and your experience and your value are all still inherently yours. They don't get removed when the business card gets revoked. You know, letting go of that shame embarrassment then enables you to talk about it with others. Because you need to find your new community. You need to find those resources that are gonna help you, mentors that are gonna help you find your next job. So, keeping it to yourself is only detrimental to your recovery. And kind of the key to unlock that door is to let go of the shame and embarrassment. 'cause it's very real.

Caroline 25:08

Absolutely. This is a great point that you mentioned. I wanna just make sure that our audience understands when you go for your next job and they say, and why are you looking for this new role? Yes. You were separated from your former employer. And you're right, there's the, you know, the, the terminology from an HR perspective. 'Cause I went back later and I'm like, you know, let me just see, let me, let me go get that HR education 'cause I'm really kind of curious what it's like on the other side. And I didn't find anything nefarious at all. And I found although HR is going to ultimately work to protect the company's name and reputation, if somebody says, why are you looking for your new job? You do not want to say I was terminated. You do not want to say I was fired unless you really were. And if you really were, there will be a document, that you are given that says you're terminated for cause or something of that sort. You would not have been eligible for unemployment usually. So, how do you answer the question of, why are you looking after a layoff? And here's what I'd like to tell people. You go ahead and just say it, flip it, and the benefit to you. Right? So unfortunately, I've been working at this company as a research scientist for nearly seven years, and I loved it. Honestly, I thought I was gonna work there until I retired. Developed new fatigue and fracture test methods. I commercialized adhesives So say a little bit of the success that you've had then, it was a shock for me to find out that the company had a 40% projected decrease in sales, and they had to make a cut of me, my two technicians and 297 other people. Boy, that was a hit because it wasn't what I thought my future was gonna be. And now that I'm looking more into your company and the people that I've met so far, and just the amazing work that you guys are doing, I tell you what, I'm glad that happened to me because I really believe that what I could do to help you guys with your mission is just even better than what I thought was possible just a few months before. And so I'm really looking forward to the next stage in this process and I hope you choose me because I am ready to go. So that's the thing. You say it, you flip it, and the benefit to you, that is the formula, everybody. That is the formula. Do you have any perspective on it, Steve?

Steve Jaffe 27:49

No, that was amazing. That was fantastic. Like, you take the oxygen away from it and you don't give it more power than it should have. And it doesn't become this like elephant in the room that you're trying to like dodge, right? Anybody who's been in business that understands business knows like the formula behind layoffs and if somebody is gonna attach a negative connotation to it, they just don't quite get it. And it's probably not a place that you wanna work anyways 'cause, what it means is they're gonna approach layoffs from a kind of a nefarious way. The most important thing, and you kind of touched on this a little bit is make sure when you've been laid off that you get in writing that you are eligible for rehire. Eligible for rehire is that there are very few things that a future company can call your past company and ask employment dates are one, eligible for rehire is another. So if you're laid off without cause and they say, is he eligible for rehire? And they say, yes, great. It means there was a no fault termination. If they say, no, he's not eligible for rehire, then the connotation is, oh, he was fired and there's a problem there. So. Make sure that little nuance there would give you a lot of peace of mind too, because that will be a confirmation in writing. Okay, look, I didn't do anything wrong. This was just a, you know, unfortunate series of events. But I love the way you frame it and I love the way you make it forward looking and you make it like, here's the thing about a layoff too, is, is it gives you time for a pause. It gives you time to do some assessment and to evaluate your career path. The industry you're in, maybe the industry you're in is undergoing some contraction and you need to pivot into something else to avoid another layoff because your industry is getting decimated, let's say, by AI right now. Taking the time to do that, like self-assessment of what are my personal values, what is my like personal North Star that guides me, what's important to me? What are my passions? And finding alignment with your career path, gives you the assurance that when you are in that job interview and they say, well, why do you want this job? You can say with confidence. Well, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is a career I want to be in. It brings me joy, it brings me happiness. It's a passion of mine and this job that I'm applying for here fulfills that and it's in alignment with that. Or you can say, you know, why does this job interest you? Well, I'm looking to make a transition and this is exactly the transition that fits this life stage where I'm at because I did this reflection. But it's all about, using that time to bring forward what this next opportunity means and making the most of it. And that's why processing this grief before you go on that job interview is so important because if you go into that job interview and you're carrying the baggage of this shame and embarrassment and all that weight, like that answer that you gave won't be as eloquent and you're gonna kind of stumble over the fact that you're still harboring some resentment in anger and other emotions around the layoff. Like, the thing about the way you said that was, you can clearly understand that you're over it, you're through it, you're past it, you're ready to move forward and, that's really important. That clearly comes out.

Caroline 31:33

Imagine what your life would be like if your career aligned with who you are, what you do best, and actually fueled the life you want. At Next Success, we support all ages and stages through career transitions from students exploring majors or careers to job seekers actively searching or re-imagining their next move to professionals committed to self-awareness and leadership growth. Stay connected and explore what's possible at nextsuccesscareers.com and follow @nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Yeah, I remember, talking to a candidate a few years ago when I was doing recruiting and he had worked at one paint manufacturer wanted to go work at another one, and his non-compete had run out, so he was free and clear and it was good. And then when I asked him, 'cause I would always, you know, talking to my people all throughout their process. And I'm like, well, and why are you looking? And he started getting defensive about a specific account from his former employer, and I was so glad that I was doing this interview prep with him so that I could, Hey buddy, let's rewind. Nowhere in your resume does it say anything about this or that account? Nowhere at all. I don't know anything about it. I'm excited to talk to you. They're excited to talk to you because you have the base skillset. What value is being defensive about that particular account and you didn't know, and you try like, just stop. Stop buddy. Stop.

Steve Jaffe 33:11

Right, right.

Caroline 33:12

Work through that before you go on the interview and make it. The benefit to them focused on them. How you're excited, how you love that. Yes. Absolutely. So now, tell me, you talked about the one layoff, early on in your marriage and, how was your wife at that point? Because she chose you, she picked you, she loved you. When my husband went through a layoff, I wrote him a little note. I'm like, this isn't about you. I can't wait to see what you do next. You know? And I just thought, I love this guy. I know. But how was your wife a support for you in that system? or in that time?

Steve Jaffe 33:49

She's been an incredible support through all four of my layoffs. I couldn't have come out the other side without her. I probably couldn't have written this book without her. but in that first layoff I mentioned we were in the San Francisco bubble that burst. About maybe eight weeks later, she got laid off. So now we suddenly found ourselves, we went from newlyweds. We both had great jobs.

Caroline 34:11

Yeah.

Steve Jaffe 34:11

We saw this, you know, big blue sky ahead of us. And, all of that changed very quickly. That newlywed life that we had, changed a bit. we had to make some decisions. And, it was an early test of our life view and our approach to life and our approach to problem solving. I learned that she had much better skills than I did, so I learned a lot from her.

Caroline 34:38

Yeah, that's, that's cool. my husband and I were home for a while, together as well. My dad, laughed one time. He is like, are you guys doing reverse retirement? Like, what are you doing? Somebody's gotta grow up and get a job here. And I'm like, ah, I'm gonna vote not it. 'cause I was just work in the last, and, you know, nice that you mention also about, you know, the things that can happen in a pause and, you know, kind of reevaluating where are you, what do you wanna do? my husband at that time, I remember asking him, you know, what is it you'd love to do? And he said, well, I kind of think I wanna move out of the lab. And I'm like, okay. And then, and then what would that look like? And what does that mean? and he ended up going, going back to school. Now, did you or your wife in that period of time, did you in any way or how did you get through those that, exciting time as newlyweds and terrifying in the same moment?

Steve Jaffe 35:31

Yeah, she did use her time as a pivot, and so she went back to school and pivoted from HR into, like social work. later in my career, after a layoff, I found that like, you know, "skate to where the puck is going, not where it was" from Wayne Gretzky. I use that a lot because, I saw the marketing world that I was in was undergoing a lot of contraction. And I saw this new world in product marketing opening up and, every job board I went on. There were job openings everywhere for product marketing managers, and I thought if I can position my skills in a way that are relevant for product marketing, which they were, I could find this blue sky and like skate to where that puppy's going. So, through some reframing and, you know, good conversations and networking in being at the right place at the right time, I was able to make that jump. And it was great and I found that I really enjoy product marketing. But that's one of the things that the layoff afforded me was that opportunity for perspective and to kind of make that pivot.

Caroline 36:42

Yeah. And that like resilience of, now what, and how am I gonna make this, you know, work for me? As you had your, your second and your third layoff, how were those experience like? Did it, did it sting a little less each time?

Steve Jaffe 36:58

Yeah, absolutely. It did, it stung a little less. The more that I realized, this wasn't, like anything that I had done wrong, I was kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Caroline 37:08

Yeah.

Steve Jaffe 37:09

And that, you know, in my career field of marketing, you tend to get impacted by layoffs a little bit more than other fields. So technology, software, finance, media marketing, those tend to be, some of the more heavily impacted. And I began to realize that this was, kind of a goes with the territory and, you know, one of the risks of the industry. So that aspect got easier and what I had learned over time, I began to develop a much stronger self-care practice. I really didn't have any resources available to me at the time of my first layoff that I could draw from, when I was, let's say, going through depression, which is one of the distinctions of grief, over time I learned a much better self-care practice of like, diet, exercise, sleep. Some type of like mindful meditation and breathing and gratitude, all of which then would help me in future times of crisis, not feel those things as badly. And that was incredibly helpful to me.

Caroline 38:20

How did you, because I remember the depression that I didn't. And I didn't know it was depression, right? But how did you pull out of that? Because there are some days where, I dunno, getting up to pee seems like a tremendous amount of work and you're not sure you really wanna do it, and then all you wanna do is just dive right back in bed. Now for me, fortunately there were little humans that needed things that were going to come and, you know, pull me out of that, out of that funk just because of the duty of what I had to do as a mom. I knew, that, yes, moving exercise, eating right, and all of that would be good for me, but there was this huge activation energy that I had to try to overcome to do it. Did you have any tricks or tips of, somebody is listening to this and they're in that period of everything seems like it's closing in and just dark and bleak. What would you say to them? How could you help them in that moment?

Steve Jaffe 39:29

I would say, I've been there and I felt every ounce of that weight of the depression and anxiety. I didn't realize that I had like a propensity for depression and anxiety and that the first layoff was kind of a trigger for those flood gates to open. It took me a very long time to get that a little bit under control and, and like minimize it. One of the things that I, I'm, I'm a big fan of in terms of, what you just talked about, when you go through a layoff, something very important has been taken from you. You're experiencing a lot of loss. You've lost your job, your paycheck, your health insurance, your community, probably friends that you worked with, routine. There's a lot of loss there and it's totally normal to feel depressed as a result of that. What I think is really important, is through some type of a gratitude practice. A few minutes each day. Think about what you still have, think about what you can be grateful for, and you'll find some of those things and you start to retrain your mind to think about, what's still going well, what you're grateful for, what you're thankful for. So, you know, in that moment, I'm sure, you know, you probably were very grateful and, and thankful to have your children and, you know, they became the motivation for you to get out of bed, but they also became a source of joy and love. So that would be one thing that you could really have daily gratitude for. And, our mind tends to go toward the emotion that you feed. You know, so the one that feeds is the one that grows. If you start to feed some gratitude, it can chip away at a little bit of that source of depression. There were a lot of things that you said in your life, After the Layoff podcast, and one of them you said, what would compassion look like for me right now and what is an act of kindness I can offer myself right now? Those are really great questions to ask in the time of depression. You know, what do I need? There was a friend of mine that was going through this and they were feeling what I'm feeling, what would I say to them? How would I comfort them? And give yourself those same words of encouragement and compassion, and empathy. You know, be gentle with yourself. What you're feeling is normal, and it will pass. You will come out on the other side, so it is temporary.

Caroline 42:03

Great, great words. And that's, that's another wonderful thing I liked about your book, right? It's digestible, it doesn't look intimidating and be careful everybody because it doesn't look intimidating. But boy, there is a lot, a wealth of practical tips, information backed up with sources, you know, statistics, storytelling, and at the end of most of the chapters, a here's what to do now, like a tiny little exercise to help you move forward. But just because it's simple doesn't mean it isn't profound. I don't know. I know I couldn't have written anything any better than what you did. So definitely was a huge fan to be sent this book. Tell me, you kind of wanted to be an author and then you got laid off for the fourth time and that, are you thinking like, this keeps happening to me so that I can write this book? Or what was the, you know, sometimes you're gonna get little

Steve Jaffe 43:07

Yeah.

Caroline 43:08

whispers, whispers sat down,

Steve Jaffe 43:09

Yeah well, thank you for the kind words about the book. I appreciate it. In that fourth layoff, there were people I was laid off along with that I had grown very close to. We had become, like friends, we were all in a foxhole together, you know? And there were friends that, this was their second layoff in a year.

Caroline 43:27

Oh.

Steve Jaffe 43:28

And there were people who were very, very early and young in their career. and I found I wanted to pull them aside and offer like this, these words of advice and words of wisdom, if you will. And offer the lessons that I learned to them, so that they didn't have to go through what I went through in my first layoff. I wanted to give them like this handbook or this roadmap and say, if you follow this, you can navigate this in months rather than years. And, that's when the light bulb went off for me and I realized if I put this in a book, I could help a lot more people than just the 20% of this one company. And I had always wanted to write a book. I was looking for the subject matter. I didn't ever quite have the subject matter that I thought would be compelling. And, when I realized that that sharing these life lessons and the wisdom that I've gained with others, would be like a subject matter that I could really sink my teeth into. And I felt like, I could contribute something, to like the landscape on. Because as I started to research like I mentioned, the only books that are available really are, you jump right into resume writing and job interviewing and there's nothing, there's nobody talking about the grief of the layoff. And I thought, well, that's, that's something that I can really contribute to the world doesn't need another book on how to write a resume.

Caroline 44:56

No.

Steve Jaffe 44:56

But the world needs books on how to deal with the grief. So, that was for me, you know, another aspect of skating to where the puck was going. I had no idea that layoffs would become so prolific. Frankly I thought I kind of missed the boat because in 2024 there was like layoffs at Facebook and Tesla and I thought, God, I'm gonna be late on all of this 'cause there aren't as many layoffs. And you know, unfortunately we have more layoffs than ever and even layoffs with the federal government where historically there have never been this type of layoffs. So more people are getting affected now than ever. Which means more people now than ever could benefit from the book. So it's a little bit bittersweet, you know, in a way I wish nobody was getting laid off and there wasn't an audience for the book because it would mean, you know, people weren't feeling this grief. But, it's an unfortunate byproduct of business and, I hope that it is written in a way that it's like a practical guide. So, you know, when you're drowning, you don't want to get thrown like the war in peace, like, you know, encyclopedia. You wanna get thrown a life raft that can help you survive. And this book is definitely like the life raft that you could throw somebody that can help them get through the coming weeks and months after layoff.

Caroline 46:18

I also wonder like, I think layoffs have always happened. Right? but the beauty of social media, right? The blessing and the curse is that now we can know more about them. You know? So back in the day if there was a layoff that affected one local area, maybe that local area newspaper got it, but the rest of the country didn't and didn't know, all of those things. So, yeah. The social media normalizes that it happens, can also normalize the go-to, I hope people find this podcast that which will lead them to your book, which can lead them to that the lifeline of what's to come. And, what's to come for you? I heard you say on another one, my fourth and final layoff. So do tell, do tell. Are you on your entrepreneurial journey or freelance or just being like, you know what, I'm gonna enjoy and travel. Like, what's next for you?

Steve Jaffe 47:19

I've chosen to invest in myself and my own career path. So that may mean, marketing, consulting. It may mean another book. But I definitely have enjoyed the process of writing. I would like to write something else. I'm not quite sure if it'll be fiction or nonfiction. But, I do feel like I've left the corporate America world behind. And would happily not undergo another layoff again.

Caroline 47:47

Yeah, be all in control of what you're doing or not doing,

Steve Jaffe 47:52

Right, right.

Caroline 47:52

Never have to lay yourself off so. So that's interesting. How long did it take to, you know, I've got this grand vision that, you know, lots of ideas of the things that I want to do, the ways that I want to do it in reality. And you came from a journalism kind of background, but how long did it take to write the book? What was that process like?

Steve Jaffe 48:19

Beginning to end, it was about a year. Um, I had a lot of starts and stops. I had a lot of stuff happen in between. Um, I would say the majority of it all got written in about a three month process. But it was about a year in like development and ideation and, kind of the germination, if you will.

Caroline 48:45

Yeah. Did you self-publish your book?

Steve Jaffe 48:48

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Caroline 48:49

How did you choose to go that route versus, 'cause I would imagine you had lots of connections as well, you know? Or is it that again, the control? I don't know. Yeah.

Steve Jaffe 48:57

No, God, I would've loved to have been traditionally published. Unfortunately, these days, publishers want to see a large platform. So they wanna see like, you have 10,000 Instagram followers or something. And I didn't have that follower count. And, what's interesting, what I didn't understand at the beginning of this journey was publishers don't really care if you can write or not. All they care about is what does your platform look like that you're gonna market to. They don't even do the marketing. So, I thought all you had to do was be a good writer and they would do the rest. It turns out that's the opposite.

Caroline 49:31

The meritocracy again.

Steve Jaffe 49:33

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I self-published it, which means, you know, I own the whole thing beginning to end and, I'm drawing from my marketing background to market the book. But what I didn't realize was, you know, to market the book, you basically become like a content creator and a social media person. So, I thought I was moving away from marketing, but I'm actually doing more marketing now than I've ever done. trying to get eyeballs on the book.

Caroline 50:04

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you're doing a great job even in, trying to research beyond reading your book in searching, Yeah, you want, Oh, there's that guy everywhere. And, I was seeing you in a lot of places, so it's really great. So if everybody wants to hear more, I definitely recommend that they get the book. What's the easiest way for them to get the book or to connect with you?

Steve Jaffe 50:28

Easiest way to get the book, you go to Amazon and just type in the search bar, The Layoff Journey. You can learn more and we can connect on my website thestevejaffe.com you could download a free chapter there if you'd like. We can also connect on LinkedIn, and on Instagram. I also have a blog on Substack. So, I'm in all the places. but if you want to connect personally, I'm happy to be a resource to anybody that's going through a layoff and is looking to grow their connections.

Caroline 50:58

And, now that you've had all your experiences, successful author and all of that, how do you define authentic success for you now?

Steve Jaffe 51:10

Yeah, I think showing up, being present, having real connections and just trying to help as many people as I can, being empathetic is kind of the place that I ground myself from. And, you know, I know that it's a difficult thing for people and I hope that people are able to learn from my experience and take some wisdom that helps their journey a little bit better.

Caroline 51:37

That's beautiful. Well, thank you Steve for all of your sharing your insights, this amazing book. And I am excited for you for your future. I can't wait to see what you write next. And, definitely looking forward to, to staying connected as the years go by.

Steve Jaffe 51:54

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Caroline 51:56

Thank you.

Tara 51:57

Thanks for listening to Your Next Success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.