241. BONUS: 4 Things I Did To Escape 2 Layoffs In 4 years

Rebuilding your life after divorce means rebuilding your career too. In this episode, I share how I escaped two layoffs in four years at my corporate job—and the four principles that saved me. These same principles apply whether you're navigating the job market or the dating scene.

The Four Moves That Changed Everything:

1. Set Your Intention I put "full-time employee" on my vision board. That simple act trained my brain to spot opportunities I would have missed. When the right door opened, I walked through it.

2. Build Your Network Every good thing comes through people. I made connections outside my team—learned names, asked about families, showed up for others. Those relationships became my safety net.

3. Pivot When You Hear "No" My boss told me there was nowhere to grow. I believed him—and used that truth to find my next move. A "no" doesn't mean you lack value. It means your value belongs somewhere else. This is the same lesson I teach my dating clients: rejection isn't about you. It's information.

4. Ask for Help Closed mouths don't get fed. I leveraged my network. I asked people to recommend me. Three months later, I landed a new role—just before 400 people got laid off.

Your next chapter starts with one decision.

Ready to build the confidence and clarity you need—in love and in life? 📞 Schedule your dating consultation call with Sade today.

Transcript

I wanted to share the four things I did at my last position to escape being laid off twice in the four years that I worked with that company. My name is Sade Curry. I'm a life, love, and leadership coach. I work with divorced women primarily, and I use my background to help a lot of divorced women who are going back to the workforce after a divorce, or who need to move to a new level and earn more money after their divorce.

My last job, I escaped being laid off twice in four years. Looking back, it looks like a lot of luck, but the real lessons within that situation are hidden in the unconscious things that I did at that time.

So the first thing that happened was I had gone back to work after my own divorce. I got this really great job as a contractor within this company. It was a great role. I loved my team. I had a great boss. She was awesome. She's still awesome. We are still in touch—about four or five of us analysts on her small team.

One of my goals when I had joined the company was to eventually become a full-time employee, because the company had great benefits—pension, all the things. That was my next goal. I had gotten the job, I got the great salary, and I wanted to become a full-time employee. I put it on my vision board, if you are into things like that, but I wasn't actively working on it. I was just really loving where I was at.

The first principle I’ll share is to always know what your next level is that you're going to work towards, or at least dream about. I had set that goal to become a full-time employee, and because I had set the intention, about a year into this role, an opportunity came up.

We were working with another team to help them set up some processes. I was a process analyst, and this was a robotics process analysis team. We were helping them set things up, so I was interfacing with that team. Just in passing, the new head of that team mentioned that he was hiring. I asked, "Are you hiring contractors or full-time employees?" He said he was hiring full-time employees. All of his roles, or at least many of them, would be full-time.

That sounded amazing. I asked if he would consider me for one of those roles. He said, “Yes, actually. I can't believe I didn’t think about it, because I’ve been looking at all these resumes and I haven’t been getting a lot of really great ones.” I said, “Absolutely. Let me talk to my boss. I’m going to apply for one of your full-time roles.”

I already knew I had a good chance with him because we had worked together. He’d seen my work. I still had to interview with his team, but I felt confident.

The challenge was that my team and I were really close. We are still friends. We still hang out. We just did a girls' trip not long ago. I had a hard time telling my boss I wanted to leave her team. It wasn’t personal, but it was still a big deal.

I also worried about how it would be if I didn’t get the job and stayed on her team. What would working with her be like after that? These were all my own thoughts. Looking back, she wasn’t thinking any of those things.

It took me about a week to get my courage up. I asked her to talk. I explained that the gentleman had a role on his team that I wanted to apply for. I told her it wasn’t that I didn’t love working for her—I just really wanted the opportunity to be a full-time employee. I wanted to be able to give my kids really great healthcare and all the other benefits.

She teared up and gave me a hug. She said it was such a godsend. She had just been given an order to eliminate one person from her team due to budget cuts. Every team leader was asked to lay someone off. She had been struggling to figure out who to let go. So the fact that I was leaving meant she didn’t have to let anyone go. That was such a godsend for her. I believe that was a miracle—something God put in place at just the right time.

I applied for the role and got it. I started working as a process analyst for the robotics process analysis team. I was having a good time. It was really great.

I learned a lot and helped build the team from scratch. As the team grew over about two years, they added management layers above me. I didn’t have an MBA, and the people above me did. That was fair. I had no interest in getting an MBA, but I did want to grow on the job.

My next target was to move up. I had trained many of the people on the team, even some of the MBAs, on our processes. I believed I could handle what they were doing. Each MBA had a book of business they managed. In my spare time, I built a new portfolio for our team. I was good enough at my job to have spare time to do that.

I had built a strong network across other teams. People knew me, and I knew them. I always made great connections—asked about their families, remembered names. I said to myself, “What’s the best way to make a case to move up?” I figured the best way was to demonstrate that I could do the role—so I just did the role.

I sold our services and got yeses from three to five groups. I set everything up and pitched it to my boss. I said, “Hey, I have this book. These teams want to work with us. I’d love to lead this portfolio.”

In that meeting, he was very frank. He said, “No, you’re not going to lead the portfolio.” His literal words were, “There is nowhere for you to move up on this team.” I have a lot of thoughts about why, but I won’t go into that. He also took my book of business and gave it to other managers. That really upset me.

But the third thing I did was pivot. I’m grateful he was that frank because it helped me make a decision. I realized there was nowhere for me to grow on that team. I wasn’t going to sit in a role where I wasn’t valued for growth. I wanted to continually grow. He made it clear I couldn’t.

So I used my network to find my next role. I asked my network for help. I looked at roles within the company. I eventually found a role that was perfect—remote, supported client-facing teams, more opportunity, more perks. I asked around, “Do you know who the hiring manager is? Can you recommend me?” I applied, leveraged my network, and got the role.

About three months after I switched teams, the entire team I had been on—35 people—was laid off. It was part of a massive layoff of 400 employees. It was nicknamed “the bloodbath.” Someone called me and said, “Did you hear about the bloodbath?” I hadn’t. They told me 400 people were laid off all at once, including that entire team. It was really hard.

I think about the fact that I narrowly missed two layoffs at that company.

A lot of people are going through layoffs now. The principles I used while I was a 9-to-5 employee still apply. Whether you’ve been laid off or are facing one, here are the four things I did that helped me escape two layoffs.

First, I set an intention to continually move up. I was constantly pushing the edges of my role. Some of it was subconscious, but setting the intention triggered that. My brain was on alert for opportunities. Even if you're not actively applying, setting the intention tells your subconscious to look for opportunities.

Second, I built a network outside my team. I do this now as a business owner. Every good thing outside of nature comes through people. Build a network. Get to know people. Build the skill. It comes naturally to me, but it is a skill anyone can learn. Many of my clients lost their networks in divorce or never had one. I teach them to rebuild.

Third, when I got a “no,” I didn’t take it personally. A rejection isn’t about you—it’s just not the right person or place. I demonstrated my value. His “no” didn’t mean I couldn’t do the thing. It meant I had to take my value somewhere else. Learn to pivot when you get a no.

Finally, I leveraged my network. People want to help. Closed mouths don’t get fed. You have to be willing to ask for help. There are classy, appropriate ways to do this depending on the situation. I coach my clients through how to do this in different contexts. But what’s never helpful is not asking or not being willing to receive help when you’ve been a giver.

That is my story of escaping two layoffs in three to four years as a 9-to-5 employee. I hope something in this story is helpful to those of you who have been laid off or are facing that possibility. Sending love to everyone. If you feel I’m the right coach to help you through this, please feel free to send me a message or book a call.