Christopher Bell, III | Chief Operations Officer | Executive Advisor StealthEnomics.
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When I scan today’s business news headlines, I’m emotionally moved by the echoes of the Great Recession in 2008 when layoffs and the threat of layoffs were also at their peak for millions of Americans, and I was one of them.
Fast forward 15 years later and I realized that professionally, one of the worst things that happened to me became fuel for some of the best things in my life. However, it wasn’t until I was invited to read the manuscript for Unemployable: How I Hired Myself by Alysia Silberg that I was able to empirically connect the dots that mapped my own personal and professional business journey. I was once Alysia’s mentor at the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship (now the Maryland Innovation Center) and her book confirmed and affirmed the worst and the best about my views on employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship.
What Does Being 'Unemployable' Really Mean?
It's easy to understand how the word "unemployable" may carry a negative connotation; whether by tragedy, poor past performance, disability or antisocial personal proclivities, one can imagine a job seeker banished from the workforce wandering the Halls of Hope in a never-ending search for a predictable W-2 wage. But that's not necessarily so. For some, being able to self-identify as "unemployable" is an affirmation of self-awareness or, minimally, the internal acknowledgment of self-agency; that supervisors are like key customers, and every new job offer must now be accompanied by thoughts of an exit strategy. Lastly, there is a defiant, independent-thinking brand of "unemployable" who abhors any ecosystem in which one has to ask permission from another adult to take off when they're sick and another who realizes they don't want an MBA to get a promotion. They want five MBAs—working for them.
How Do I Know If I'm Unemployable?
You may be unemployable once you’ve walked on the path to peace of mind, good health, prosperity and time freedom that manifests from creating something with your mind and hands that people are willing to pay for.
There is an army of post-Covid quarantine, W-2 working professionals who are creating “anti-grind and hustle” employment exit strategies that empower them to surreptitiously build their businesses and maintain a healthy life balance while working full-time W-2 jobs. Others choose a “hair-on-fire” lifestyle. What works best is what works for you.
You may be unemployable if you once were exhausted by fear, survived the latest rounds of layoffs and encountered a former co-worker or friend who not only survived what you’ve been afraid of but is thriving in the ecosystem you were afraid of. It could change your life.
Those who choose self-employment to supplant the promises of a reasonably predictable, full-time W-2 employer generally view “average” as a terminal, infectious disease that too often co-ops and credits exceptional ideas and performances to average, politically savvy corporate types. Once one bears witness to that kind of dysfunctional reality, it changes everything.
You may be unemployable if you understand entrepreneurs and self-employed people have multiple bosses called “customers” who can be more demanding than any single W-2 boss or supervisor and in knowing, still choose to launch your business.
Everyone in business has a boss and I remind those within my sphere of influence that it is wise to have two good fears—God and the IRS—as they’re the only entities I know of who can take everything you own without permission or notice.
You may be unemployable if you’re confident in being able to convert pain into purpose and rejection into inspiration. Alysia Silberg’s book Unemployable: How I Hired Myself is a great reference of hope for anyone crawling out of the darkness. In my experience, successful entrepreneurs and self-employed people are exceptional because of their capacity to swim daily into consistently strong, deep streams of rejection until someone says “yes.”
You may be unemployable if you hail from a community of resilient “overcomers” with a proud heritage like mine that asks this question: What kind of person, once free... goes to seek another master? When I launched my first consulting business, I remember wanting to quit at least once a day, every day for two years. Eventually, I learned to navigate working a six-figure job while profitably growing a six-figure technology consulting business. But it came at a price: burnout. There’s a phrase in an ancient text that states, "A man cannot serve two masters for he will love one and hate the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other" (Matthew 6:24). Believe me... it’s true.
Decide
For many, indecision is a default decision that's often rooted in apathy and fear, and their ambivalence is a decision frequently anchored in false security. But no matter the decision, it takes courage to execute or walk away from what the mind has created as a possibility. I don't advocate leaving a W-2 job without patiently working through a well-designed employment exit strategy. Today you may be happy and fully employed and never care whether being unemployable is a fictional condition, but everyone decides. Not sure how? Consider this:
• You may not even know the most important people in your life yet. Can they find you where you are?
• Who are you in failure? In academia, failure is the worst desired outcome; and the word "no" is terrifying. For the unemployable, the predictable process of rejection and incrementally failing is necessary for the birth of new methodologies, products, processes and lifestyle breakthroughs that improve generational outcomes. Even if things don't change, we have the privilege of being changed in the process.
• Do you have an employment exit strategy? In this era, few companies offer dignified retirement benefits. What's your plan?
• Action cures fear. The longer you stay where you are, the faster you’ll adapt to where you are. Move. You’re not a tree, are you?
You decide!
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