Laid off - so now what?

You've been laid off. Your company has downsized, smart-sized , right-sized, reorganized, had a workforce reduction, been reengineered, restructured. You've been pink-slipped, let go, eliminated, fired.. whatever, it's Monday morning and you've got no place to go. Now what?

First thing, reality check: is it going to be possible for you to find another job? Let's be brutally honest here: maybe not. Oh, sure *eventually* you might find a job like you had, but that's long after the bank has repossessed your house, your car and you've been living on cornflakes for a while.

So you just have to adjust your expectations, they say. Settle for less. Take a lesser paying job. The trouble with that is that it might pay so much less that you still end up losing the house..

You can Google for all the facts on COBRA, and unemployment benefits. Maybe you got a severance package too. Maybe with everything put together you've got a little breathing room - things will be OK for a few months at least.

Or maybe not. Either way, the day of reckoning will arrive. So now what?

This is the best time ever to be thinking about working for yourself. All the usual problems and objections have just been eliminated. Health insurance? You are going to lose all that soon enough if you remain unemployed. Job security? You already lost that. Might not make as much money at first? You aren't earning anything at all now.

The very first thing to realize is that you really aren't looking for a job. You are looking for income, for money. A job is one way to make money, but having a business is another way. Jobs may be scarce, but there is one person always willing to hire you - the owner of your business.

The next thing to realize is where money comes from. People trade money to get things they want. I know stuff about computers, networks, troubleshooting. People who need things in those areas pay me to help them. I don't know what you do, where your skills lie, but someone needs you and will pay you. Maybe they only need a little thing and maybe you can't get much income from that, but there is someone else too. One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that it can help you find those people and help them find you.

I'm not saying this is easy. Working for yourself can be harder than working at a job. It can also be more rewarding, but right now we're talking about survival, right? You need income. You have skills, other people will pay for your skills. You *can* do this.

At least think about it. It doesn't take all day to read the want ads. You can only polish your resume so much. No matter how many networking contacts you have, soon enough every one of them will know your situation and there is nothing more to say. Rather than watching Oprah, why don't you think about how you might take charge of your own destiny? Yeah, that's scary. Scarier than losing the house? Scarier than living in a tent?

Think about it.