Reclaim Your Professional Identity the Newsletter

Reclaim Your Professional Identity

Whether you're looking to land that next job, build resilience against today's layoff culture, or create the perfect launch pad for a business of your own, it's time to take back control of your professional identity.

59. The Mid-Career IC Trap: Why Your Safest Position Is Actually Your Most Vulnerable

Here's a question that should make you uncomfortable: If your company needed to cut 20% of costs tomorrow, and you're a high-performing mid-career IC making over $170K, what structural power do you have to prevent your name from appearing on that spreadsheet? Not your performance. Not your value....

Nov 29, 2025

58. The Two Job Search Channels: Why 95% of People Are Playing the Wrong Game

Read time: 4 minutes | Forward to a friend A recruiter friend admitted something to me recently that she was almost embarrassed to say out loud. She knows her company's ATS is rejecting qualified candidates - she sees it happen when people she knows personally get filtered out. But with 300+ a...

Nov 15, 2025

57. Are You an Ant or a Honey Badger?

Read time: 5 minutes | Forward to a friend The Trail Off the Cliff Last month, I watched a former colleague celebrate their promotion to Senior Director. Big title. Bigger salary. Expanded responsibilities. But when I asked what excited them most about the role, they paused. "Honestly? I'm just ...

Nov 08, 2025

56. The Application Black Hole: Why Playing by AI's Rules Is Killing Your Career

Read time: 6 minutes | Forward to a friend Last week, I watched a former colleague, someone with serious product management credibility and an outstanding track record, get auto-rejected from a role she was overqualified for. After some analysis with an experienced recruiter, we determined it wa...

Nov 01, 2025

55. Your vacation won't fix your work problems (here's what will)

Remember that SNL sketch where Adam Sandler's Romano Tours character tells anxious travelers: "If you're sad now, you might still feel sad there. You're still you... just in Italy"? Full sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbwlC2B-BIg Brutal. Honest. And exactly what we need to hear abou...

Oct 25, 2025

54. Career Insurance: Building Security While You're Still Employed

Read time: 6 minutes | Forward to a friend Most people think building professional independence means choosing between their job and their security. THIS. IS. WRONG. Professional independence isn't about quitting your job. It's about making sure your job can't destroy you. And the best time to b...

Oct 18, 2025

53. Why Your Career Feels Like Survival Mode (And How to Change That)

Read time: 6 minutes | Forward to a friend The Day I Realized I Wasn't Making Career Decisions... I Was Just Reacting Several years into my corporate career, I found myself sitting in a hiring manager's office, nodding enthusiastically at a job description I knew was wrong for me. The salary was...

Oct 11, 2025

52. The Outplacement Gap: Why You Can't Depend on Corporate "Goodwill"

Read time: 6 minutes | Forward to a friend The Translation We All Know "We're restructuring to optimize our human capital allocation for maximum shareholder value." You've heard some version of this corporate-speak before. Maybe you were in the room when it was delivered. Maybe you read it in an...

Oct 04, 2025

51. Your Job Security Is An Illusion

Read time: 4 minutes | Forward to a friend The Wake-Up Call Last week, I watched a brilliant software engineer – 15 years at the same company, stellar reviews, deep institutional knowledge – get laid off with two weeks' notice. His entire professional identity was tied to one employer, one skill...

Sep 27, 2025

50. The Visibility Paradox: Why Top Performers Get Cut First

Read time: 4 minutes | Forward to a friend | Read online Audio Edition The Moment Everything Changed Three years ago, I sat across from my former manager at a coffee shop as he shared something that still haunts me: "Nathan, when we made the layoff decisions, we literally didn't know what ha...

Sep 20, 2025

49. The Security Trap That's Actually Making You More Vulnerable

Read time: 6 minutes | Forward to a friend | Read online At the end of July, I watched a friend celebrate her 12-year work anniversary on LinkedIn... proud photos, grateful posts, talk of "loyalty paying off." Three weeks later, she was part of a "strategic restructuring." Fifteen minutes. Tha...

Sep 13, 2025

48. The Professional Who Never Stopped Thinking Like a Free Agent

Read time: 6 minutes | Forward to a friend A former colleague texted me after getting laid off last week. But instead of panic, her message was almost... relieved? "I've been casually job searching for months," she said. "This just gave me permission to use all that preparation." How did we b...

Sep 06, 2025

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