3 Hard Truths I Learned From Being Laid Off
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Nearly eight years ago, on March 20th, I woke up, walked to a coffee shop near Washington Square Park with Carly, and prepared for another Tuesday as a junior engineer.
I was usually the first person in the office. I took pride in that. But as I sat there, my phone buzzed with a Slack message from my boss:
“Hey Kevin, do you mind coming to the office a couple of minutes early today?”
It felt off. I was already the early guy; why would I need to be there earlier? I remember joking with Carly, “Maybe I’m getting laid off.” We laughed it off, finished our coffees, and I headed into the office to see what Nick wanted so desperately to discuss.
By 10:00 AM, the joke had become reality. I was told the company was downsizing. I shook hands with my boss, said my goodbyes, and walked out of the building with a letter of recommendation and all my belongings. It was two days before my 23rd birthday.
Looking back now, that wasn’t a “setback.” It was a system reset. Here are the three lessons I learned from that morning that still guide how I build my career today.
1. Be Positive: Your Worth is Not a Line Item
In the immediate aftermath, I had a choice: I could be bitter, or I could find a way to turn this into an opportunity for myself.
At first, I doubted my abilities as an engineer. There’s a famous quote often attributed to Einstein: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” The layoff made me feel like that fish, but it eventually helped me realize that I have many skills beyond just the specific tasks of that one role. This single data point like a corporate downsizing didn’t mean I wasn’t a talented engineer. It might just meant I was in the wrong “tree.”
A corporate decision is a reflection of a balance sheet, not your talent. Don’t let a “no” from a company convince you that you aren’t capable. Use the moment to recognize the broader set of skills you bring to the table.
2. Work Hard: Rejection is a Signal, Not a Stop Sign
Because I received a month of severance, I decided to take the first 30 days off to recharge and gain some perspective. After that break, I hit the ground running. I applied to hundreds of jobs and amassed a mountain of rejections. I still have the screenshots of those “no’s”. They were the fuel I needed to keep pushing.
Before the layoff, I didn’t have a clear enough picture of what I was actually trying to achieve. My default decision was just staying at my job because it was comfortable. There is no telling how long I would have stayed in that role if I wasn’t forced out, even though I knew deep down it wasn’t helping me reach my long-term goals.
You have to proactively think about what you want and what you’re after. The layoff forced me to become the version of myself that was “too good to let go.” It turned a passive career into an active pursuit.
3. Believe and Create: The Only True Security is Your Own Value
In 2018, “something better” meant landing a job at a place like Amazon or Google. But eventually, I reached a different epiphany: there is a hard cap on what you can achieve when you work for someone else.
What I want to achieve, the freedom to build and the scale of my impact, could never be done within the confines of a 9-5. This realization was one of the biggest pushes that led me to quit my job back in May. Every day I spent working for someone else was a day I was giving myself less time to go after the life I actually wanted.
Real security isn’t a salary; it’s your ability to create value on your own terms. Once you realize that your time is your most limited resource, working for yourself becomes the only logical choice.
If you’re currently struggling with a tough market or a string of rejections, I’ve been there too. It feels heavy in the moment, but it works out as long as you keep at it and keep putting in the work.
Getting laid off was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Whatever situation you’re in, no matter how tough, there is likely a valuable lesson to be learned if you’re open to it.