By Just Ask Maxx
The email came on a Tuesday. “Due to restructuring and our investment in AI…” And just like that, the job you’d given eleven years to was gone.
If that’s you, you’re in a lot of company. Companies have been naming artificial intelligence as a top reason for job cuts this year, even as some workplace experts warn that “AI-washing,” blaming AI for cuts that were really about cost, is part of the story. Either way, the result for you is the same: you’re figuring out what’s next.
And for a lot of people, “what’s next” sounds like: I’m done working for someone else. I’m starting my own thing.
I love that. I’ve built businesses myself. But I’ve also watched people pour their severance into an idea in the first thirty days, before the shock wore off. So before you launch, read this.
Give yourself two weeks before you decide anything big
A layoff is a loss, even if you hated the job. Grief makes us either freeze or sprint. Neither is a strategy. Take two weeks. Sleep. File for unemployment if you qualify. Look at your money honestly. Then decide.
Ask what people already pay you for
The best business ideas usually aren’t new. They’re the thing people have been asking you for, for years. The coworker who always came to you with problems. The friends who call you before every big decision. The thing you could explain in your sleep.
A man I worked with, I’ll call him Andre, spent twenty years in HR. After his layoff he wanted to open a food truck. He’d never worked in food. When we talked it through, every story he lit up telling was about helping someone through a hard conversation at work. Today he’s a leadership and conflict coach. He kept the food truck dream for retirement.
Test before you build
- Tell ten people what you’re offering and what it costs. Count how many say “I’d pay for that.”
- Do three paid sessions or projects before you spend money on a logo or a website.
- Keep a side income if you can. Plenty of people are picking up side work this year. There’s no shame in a bridge.
If your business is coaching, don’t build alone
So many people coming out of corporate careers are good coaches and don’t know it yet: managers, nurses, teachers, HR, sales leaders. Certification helps. But what new coaches struggle with most isn’t skill. It’s being seen.
That’s exactly why we built Life Coaching Today. Coaches can start with a free listing in our directory, take paid on-demand calls, and publish articles that put their name in front of readers across our magazine, blog and partner publications. Learn how to write for us and get seen, or see how to join as a coach.
The truth about starting over
Losing a job to a machine, or to a company’s story about a machine, can make you feel replaceable. You’re not. The parts of you that can’t be automated, your judgment, your warmth, the way people trust you, those are the parts a business is built on.
Want help figuring out your next step? Life Coaching Today has career and business coaches ready to help. Find your coach or book a free 15-minute discovery call with Just Ask Maxx.
Read the book: Red Flags: A Woman’s Survival Guide to Dating in the Manosphere by Kiddada Asmara Grey and Georgia Ann Hunter Jones. Get your copy on Amazon.
Just Ask Maxx is the founder of Life Coaching Today, a Master Relationship Coach, Master Hypnotherapist, Certified NLP Practitioner and Certified Divorce Mediator. She writes the weekly Just Ask Maxx column and co-hosts He Said, She Said.
