Reinvention, Resistance, and Fear
...we all face it sooner or later
Someone I know was just unceremoniously dumped from a newspaper job. I sat down to write them a note — and realized the advice they needed might be exactly what a lot of people need right now.
Reinvention isn't a luxury anymore. It's a survival skill.
Whether by our own hand, or the fate of changing market forces, leaving a job is emotionally charged. Especially, for those of us who have a tendency to live paycheck to paycheck. When that paycheck is gone, the bills remain. Credit ratings can plummet making it even more expensive to get a loan for years to come.
Add to that anxiety, throw in a flat tire, a failed refrigerator, added expenses related to kids, and - oh my - life can get real sucky real fast.
Been there. Done that.
I’ve reinvented myself so many times, I tend to be a go-to coach for those who are feeling helpless and hopeless.
Been there. Done that.
My first lesson in how fickle a management change can be happened when I was a talk radio host in the 1980s.
A good friend, and predecessor at the station, had urged me to apply for her job when she went to the bigger market of Philadelphia. I had no radio experience and a phobia of public speaking, but she thought I could do it. What the hell, said I.
Miraculously, I survived an on-air audition, got the job, managed to climb out of a ratings hole the change created, and by the third year, I was touching her high ratings point. Then, the station got a new general manager, who was conservative politically (and, of course, I am not).
He wanted to make his mark and steer the format to the right. So, he called me into his office and said I was going to start doing 3-minute segments about household hints, instead of my three-hour, morning, talk show.
Household hints? Oh, the irony.
Stepping into the unknown can be terrifying, on top of a very public humiliation.
Still, I quit. Which I suspect was his desired outcome.
The only bright spot was that dozens of listeners led by feminist Roxanne Conlin gathered at the station banging pots and pans and holding signs with their favorite household hints:
What’s for dinner? A reservation.
Like a sailboat catching a change in wind, I zigged, I zagged — sometimes an employee, sometimes an entrepreneur.
At the moment, I am in Annapolis and thinking about a huge reinvention period I went through in 2000. Walking into an art gallery here I became inspired by an acrylic painting of a sailboat on a nautical map, to the point I bought a chart of Annapolis harbor at the local marine store, bought some pastels, and created a painting of Richard’s boat.
He suggested that if I could do a custom painting of boats on charts, it could be a commercial hit.
Art on Charts was born, I took orders for them at my booths in boat shows from Annapolis, New Jersey, St. Petersburg, and Miami. My watercolor classes from Register cartoonist/artist Frank Miller (who instilled a fondness for the color Paynes Gray) and an interrupted college Art major came in handy, albeit briefly.
Being my own boss is what works for me, but I understand this is a personality style not shared by the majority.
The era of guaranteed lifetime employment is over. Kaput. Gone with the rotary phone and the pension plan. Change is the only constant as technology, or Elon Musk and the current president, can wipe out an entire job classification in an instant.
You have choices.
You can fight.
You can stew.
You can build a shrine to your old job and light a candle every day.
Or you can move on.
No judgment here — but moving on can be a lot more fun.
Fear of the Unknown
Right now, we're living aboard a boat with our pup, Dudley — who's on day three of learning to be a 'boat dog.' After a near-slip yesterday trying to jump back onboard, he's developed a deep distrust of docks, planks, and anything resembling a gap over water.
Usually, this dog is stuck to us like glue, but Richard had to call me for help when he took Dudley for a walk this morning, and the pup refused to go back on the dock. It took four of us, including two dock hands who manage the boat lift, to coax, then carry him on board.
The fear of the unknown is so powerful.
Our dog does not know that his instincts would propel him to shore, not to mention I’d probably jump in just to make sure he did.
The funny thing is, tomorrow is always an unknown.
We just don’t know what will happen, no matter how thoroughly we plan. Ask the employees with decades of service, some who are responsible for trains running, or planes from crashing, or our food safe, or diseases from spreading, or curing cancer, just some of the employees who were summarily canned in the first 100 days of this new presidential term.
I vehemently disagree with these radical, ill-conceived, thoughtless, layoffs. People will die. Structures will fail. The overall cost will be impossible to determine.
That said, I expect many of the individuals impacted will find new life, new passions, and new purpose.
Eventually.
Eventually.
Looking for something new?
Come to the Okoboji Writers’ and Songwriters’ Retreat! Seriously. Join us. If you are suddenly unemployed from your newspaper job, I have a partial scholarship available for you.
https://okobojiwritersretreat.com
Speaking of Re-invention
Many of the members of our Iowa Writers’ Collaborative are former journalists who found new life through Substack. Check them out:
Substack Class
Substack Success:
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June 11, 18, & 25, 2025
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Central
Although the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative is limited to professional writers, you can find your audience in many ways on the Substack platform. Learn how:
Walk the ancient ruins of Pompeii and you discover that homeowners lived above the business that provided their livelihood. Consistent with this form of livelihood was the birth of artes liberales, the education necessary to make a human a free person - able to adapt to the conditions at hand.
Corporate employment and education in pursuit of a singular job, OTOH, is a vestige of the past 80 years and only provides a false sense of security.
The candle referenced in your message can be snuffed out with a puff of air.
Sounds like you are making some waves, and Dudley is living life to the fullest. I hope he doesn't suffer from any "pier" pressure.