Just about a year ago I got laid off from MediaMath. I received a 9AM meeting on my calendar as I was getting off the BART at 2nd Street around 8:50AM.

I know what’s about to happen here.

I dialed into the Zoom and saw one of my favorite leaders not shining as brightly as he usually does.

Here it comes.

I heard the words that I’d no longer be employed and immediately thought about my wife, our 17 month old girl, and our second child that was due in 3 months.

Fuck.

After collecting my thoughts I packed up a few things and left the office for the rest of the day. The streets looked a little bit different, or maybe it was me that was different now.

Where do I go?

A little bit of introspection, a few fortalezas, and a future-planning session with my wife put things in perspective. I’m the same guy that led product demos at E-Trade HQ and supported hedge fund traders on the 59th floor of the Carnegie Hall Tower 2 years out of college. I pulled all-nighters authoring dozens of competitive intelligence reports for a multinational pharmaceutical company. I moved across the country to chase my dreams of being part of Silicon Valley. I traveled all over America, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and India as part of my roles as Business Analyst, Account Manager, Product Manager, and Solution Engineer. After digesting the day’s events I got comfortable thinking about how getting let go from a company was just another experience to add to my list.

So what happened this year? Well, I was unemployed for a day, then signed an offer letter to lead a client success team that was responsible for Procter & Gamble’s global analytics practice. Yes, I had been interviewing for about three months prior to getting let go. The why about this isn’t important right now, but I’m glad I did. Within three months of starting at Origami Logic we were acquired by Intuit. Upon acquisition I was informed that my role would be terminated soon after our client contracts expired. I took a look at Intuit’s job board, found a few roles, some that were in fields that I was familiar with like digital acquisition, and one job that was a stretch. Guess which one I felt the most passionate about? In September I started a new role as a Senior Customer Experience Specialist for Payments within the Small Business Self Employed Group. That’s a mouthful, so I plainly say that my purpose is to help small businesses prosper. I’ve never been able to say something like that in my entire career, and now I don’t think I want to do anything else.

Throughout the introspection phase I thought about the people that were part of my journey and helped me get to where I am. Here are a few that come to mind that I’d like to recognize for helping me get through this year…

Bob Ney – I could not have asked for a better mentor, especially at the very start of my post-college career. He recognized my potential and was the first to tell me that I’d succeed in California. As usual, he was right.

Rick Smith – I was at a low point in my career as a Competitive Intelligence Analyst when he shared a posting with me for a role at a start-up in NYC. Little did I know that this would be the first chapter in my journey to California. If you haven’t heard about how I got the job and want to know please reach out, it’s a doozy.

Shay O’Reilly – As a Business Analyst Shay taught me to have an idea of what what to looking for before you go venturing into the forest (AKA large sets of search/social campaign data). I transformed that into, “know what success looks like before you start busting your hump”.

Trish Gilbert – Taught me how to be a great Client manager and how to take care of a team. She also helped me surprise my family by sending me back to NYC during the first year that I was supposed to be away for Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget how happy my mom was when I surprised her at home home while fronting that I was calling her from my car driving back to my apartment in San Jose after work.

Jen Dorre – Coached me in my first Product Manager role and has been an integral part of showing me what a successful future could look like. My goal is to become an enterprise level PM in the next 3-5 years, and I’m lucky to have someone like Jen to show me the way.

Karen Maciolek & Shelley Nguyen – They trusted me as a Business Analyst at Adobe, a Senior Account Manager at Campanja, and Senior Account Manager at Origami Logic. Three companies and three acquisitions for us three amigos. They also shattered my rule about not being friends with coworkers, and I can’t imagine my career without them.

Throughout much of the past year the words “control what you can control” come to mind (said by Keith Pepper after the second round of layoffs that I made it through back in 2010). I refer back to my experiences and the people that were part of my journey to keep moving forward.

So, what can I, or even you, do next time a rough patch hits? Slip on those future shoes and walk around to visualize what a desired future looks like. Take time to figure out what it’ll take to get there. Realize that the potential for success is already there. Understand that exiting comfort zones is a certainty. People that inspire you to do better and embody aspirational characteristics can stay, others will only serve to distract and disable gots to go. Reserve time and energy for those who want you to be a part of their life and career as much you want them to be a part of yours. These are the people that you’ll go far with together.