No Longer a Star, Not Even in Demand

BusinessInsider, professional anonymous networks Reddit and Blind and client sessions with me all scream out the same professional horror: Unemployed and with their old jobs not coming back, they are no longer a star. In fact, they are no longer in demand.

Driving that are the return of Friedman Doctrine of the primacy of shareholder value, cost-efficiency, AI, offshoring and also the aging of societies.

Meanwhile, the law of supply and demand has mutated into a binary entity. There are stars and there are the expendables. This was first signaled in 2021 in the legal sector in a Bloomberg Law interview with Paul, Weiss partner Brad Karp. He was direct: A law firm without a marque of stars wouldn't grow. Without growth, it probably would go out of business. 

That reality has taken over myriad other sectors.

So, what do you do if you either have lost your twinkle or the grid on which you twinkled has collapsed? Among the latter are content-creation, graphic design, much of marketing, journalism and traditional tech.  

The solution goes back to the advice of FDR during The Great Depression. It was to try something, anything.

Post 9/11 that was the pickle so many of us Boomers were in. Perfect storms had wiped out how we used to make a jolly good living.

So, some of us did try something, anything. Shock! Among what we experimented with was the new medium of blogging. Boomers shouldn't be on the front lines of digital technology, right. But we were. The media picked that up as a good story. Overnight we found ourselves twinkling again. A public relations agency paid me a king's ransom to live-blog special events. 

Then the big guys moved in, pushing us out. Those of us who were determined to find, hold and move on to better work tried other things. 

Most of the sad stories about the end of orbiting in glam high-paying galaxies could have happy endings. At least for a while. That could kick off with grabbing a survival gig. The old saying that work gets you work is on the money because when you work you get back your confidence, perspective, access to contacts and, of course, income. Sitting at home pondering loss you are frozen in time. It shows. Employers veer away. 

A useful read on this? Executive coach Henry Cloud put together "Necessary Endings." 

Meanwhile, forget how you feel. The world doesn't care a rat's ass about anyone's feelings. It assesses behavior in dispensing the goodies.

Career Paths? So Over. It’s about Earning a Good Living. No matter what.

Complimentary consultation. No Pressure. Street-smart Guidance. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.


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