Let’s be honest about the current environment in tech. The past decade made us soft. We got caught up in the hysteria of unicorn valuations. Companies succeeded despite mediocre execution. And along the way, we tricked ourselves into believing things would always be up and to the right.
But we all have to learn this lesson sooner or later—never allow yourself to be caught off guard. To combat this, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency are critical—the ability to think for yourself, adapt, and focus on what’s within your control.
When you get caught up in it and lose your sense of self along the way, these lines become blurry. Your company and your job consume your identity. And over-identifying with a job or a company strips your ability to think for yourself and hands over your peace of mind to something beyond your control.
It’s difficult to guard yourself against this as you get further into your career or if you’ve idealized working at a certain company as your ‘dream job.’ The definition between you and your job begins to blur. You get wrapped up in your work because you care, you see your recent valuation as a lottery ticket, and you tell yourself that your Metafam will always take care of you. Then a downturn hits, your job is cut, and you’re facing an identity crisis.
“No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by her.”
It’s easy to feel like it’s all over when the winds of fortune shift, as they can and will for all of us. Because too many of us have trapped ourselves into focusing on externals and things beyond ourselves to define who we are and fuel our sense of self-worth. And too often we fail to recognize that conditions of the recent past won’t extend indefinitely into the future.
To combat this you must first untangle yourself. You are not your company. You are not your job. If you were impacted by a layoff and feel blindsided, you are not alone. Now is the time to build the muscle so you’re never caught off guard again.
This starts with a focus on the mental models and resources you need to establish a greater degree of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness. With these, you can build resilience, flexibility, and independence. That way, when the unexpected strikes, you are able to avoid catastrophe, instead using that as a catalyst for growth.
Hold your identity lightly
“You are not your work” sounds catchy. People throw it around, but what does it actually mean? When you tell yourself you are a ‘Head of Product’ or your identity is constructed around the fact that you were an early employee at Stripe, and then you’re pushed out, things crumble. Because titles and companies are externals that fall beyond your complete control. Over-indexing here can make you rigid and fragile.
“When you cling too tightly to one identity, you become brittle. Lose that one thing and you lose yourself.”
The reframe this, you must go back to why you do what you do. Who are you as a person? Forget the bullshit, forget the vanity, forget the ego. Who are you at your core? Are you the type of person who loves building and creating? Are you a storyteller?
When you base your identity in who you are rather than what you are or where you are, you create room for flexibility and resilience. Holding your identity lightly allows you to adapt. It allows you to find harmony in the motion that is life.
Assign things their proper value
Inherent to this focus on who you are rather than your title or your company, is a shift back to what’s within your control. Self-sufficiency begins with identifying what’s within your control, what’s beyond, and what falls in between. By going through this exercise, you can start to map out and assign things their proper value.
You can control how you show up. You can control your focus on your craft. You can control the boundaries you set between your job and your identity so they’re not blurred beyond all recognition. You cannot control economic conditions. You cannot control every decision made at a company.
Focusing on what’s within your control is about reducing the dependencies you create between external conditions and your internal well-being. The less reliant you are on others to provide the things that only you’re able to give yourself—meaning, character, integrity—the more resilient you become to the whims of market conditions and executives.
“There is only one road to happiness—let this rule be at hand morning, noon, and night: stay detached from things that are not up to you.”
Live below your means
If you’re working in tech, you have been in an extreme position of privilege in terms of compensation. But inflating your lifestyle to match your income is one of the most dangerous things you can do. And while you might be able to get away with this in good times, should economic conditions turn south, this mistake will crush you.
“Independence, at any income level, is driven by your savings rate. And past a certain level of income your savings rate is driven by your ability to keep your lifestyle expectations from running away.”
If you’re in this position currently, write this on your mirror and stare at it every day: build a safety net. When you’re employed, you should be stashing away as much of your paycheck as humanly possible. While inflating your lifestyle to match your income makes you fragile and dependent. A safety net creates flexibility, independence, and peace of mind so you’re never buried in desperation.
You always want to have options. This is about taking back your life from those who have you strung out on an addiction to your biweekly paycheck or annual bonus.
Getting laid off from a job can be a catalyst to come back to yourself, find alignment, and focus on more meaningful work. But without a contingency plan—emergency funds and a modest lifestyle—you’ll throw yourself into a state of panic. This state of desperation forces you either jump at the next opportunity rather than the right opportunity or get stuck in jobs you hate.
The mania will return one day, do not allow yourself to get caught up in it. Begin building a buffer to protect yourself against ruin. You always want to have the power to walk away or bounce back if difficult times come your way. Work your ass off to create a safety net that puts you back in control of your own life.
The good times won’t last forever, but neither will the bad.
Take back your identity
If you want to take back control of your life and build resilience, focus on eliminating dependencies. Disentangle your identity, your sense of self-worth, and your well-being from your current job and company. Assign things their proper value by focusing on what’s within your control.
You are not invincible. You are not immune to the winds of the market. The best way to guard yourself against the waves of mania and panic that define the human condition is a relentless drive toward self-sufficiency and resourcefulness.
With these skills, you can take your happiness, your well-being, and your life back into your own hands. No one else can do that for you. Not your partner. Not your job. And certainly not your company. This allows you to build resilience, flexibility, and independence which guard you against despair when all hope seems lost.
It all starts with creating the space for yourself and sitting in that. No matter how uncomfortable it might be or how much easier it is to lose yourself in the busyness of work. You must sort through the noise and determine what is your own.
Now is the opportunity to find your way back to yourself. Now is the opportunity to create your own momentum in life.