A clip from this longer presentation — Douglas E. Welch presents “Transition as the New Normal” to OPEN (Outstanding Professionals Employment Network) Ventura County in Simi Valley, CA on February 27 2015.
Also mentioned in this talk is “Career Compass: Finding Your Career North”, an Amazon Kindle booklet
Transcript:
Now, the reason we always seek out stability is, of course, that big “F” word and I’m not talking about that “F” word — stop it — Although, we often say it with the same intonation in our voice and can anyone guess what that “F” word is? (Audience: Fail, Fear”) Fear. Fail’s a good one too though. Fear. Fear is a very human instinct. We have an innate “fight or flight” response to fear. Do I need to stand and put up my fists or do I run. There’s the great joke about the two guys hiking in the woods and they come across a bear and the bear starts to growl and one friend quickly reaches into his backpack and puts on his running shoes and the other friend is like “What are you doing? You can’t outrun the bear.” Then the other guy says, ” I don’t need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you!” (Laughter) Ok. Fear is a strong motivator in our lives. You might be thinking, especially those among you who are recent layoffs, “I can’t be in transition forever or I will go crazy.” And I’m here to tell you, you will be in transition forever, but you won’t go crazy. If you approach transition as something that is normal — as something that is useful in your life — you eon’t go crazy. Yes, it will be scary. Yes, it will be a little bit annoying — having been through layoffs myself and job transitions of all sorts, but it will not kill you and it will not drive you crazy.