To my Former Employer: Thank You for Laying me Off!

I havent been active on the forum in while, mostly because I have been active in IM and havent had a chance to post. Here is a little story, kick in the butt and inspiration for some of you warriors.

Up until January, I was working a very nice job. I had a great salary, company car, expense account, laptop, cell phone, and an a corporate Amex. I had that job for ten years, and thought I was set.

Along comes January and my manager calls me up and tells me that the company has to let me go. I had no warning or anything. The company was losing money and had to make drastic cuts.

My 1st instinct was to panic. That was the first time I had ever been laid off, and I didnt know what to do. I have a family to take care of, what do I do. Those were my first thoughts.

To prove to you that this is real, I even created a thread on the Warrior Forum the day after I got laid off. And, I was searching for anything to lift my spirits and give me some motivation. Here is the thread:
http://www.warriorforum.com/mind-war...-10-years.html

Then began the job hunting process. Here is the problem. The industry that I was in had reformed the workplace. Now, the industry standard was to hire a lot of part time people for minimum wage and no benefits. This left me out of a job in a career I had spent all those years creating for myself.

I was screwed! I was applying to 40-50 jobs per day on careerbuilder, and getting interviews for jobs that paid half what I was making. The job market in my area, in the professional market was DEAD.

So, what did I do? As luck would have it, I had spent the past couple of years right here on Warrior Forum building a skillset for myself. I was doing affiliate marketing, writing and product creation with success, so I had something to fall back on.

The problem was I had never intended for those things to be my sole income. Those things were my source of play money. On that note: As I was making money last year, I was saving it. I wasnt spending it on TV's and Cameras. I was holding onto the money "just in case." Its a good thing I did. My savings from IM got me through a few months of not having a job. Keep that in mind while you guys are making play money. DONT SPEND IT ALL.

Anyway, I turned to a friend here on the forum; winebuddy. I skyped him and he set me straight. He kicked me in the butt. He reminded me that I was an internet marketer and that this was the best thing that could have happened to me. At the time I was like, "whatever!"

I settled down, created some sites and created some products. My income was soring and so was my confidence. I spent the summer with my son, going to the beach and hanging out!
Then something remarkable happened.

In July, I got a call from a staffing agency that specialized in IT staffing. They were soliciting business and came across a business in my area that need a full time SEO/Internet Marketer. The agency found me by chance via my blog.

It turns out, the staffing agency didnt know anything about SEO, or what it was. They wanted me to write an employment ad for them. Long story short, I interviewed with them. In fact, during the interview I told them what questions to ask me.

So, I got a full time job as an SEO. Now, most of you are working to be self employed, but this is ecommerce and I love ecommerce, so I am very happy doing what I am doing. In fact, I am working a job that I never dreamed possible, doing what I love to do.

It turns out winebuddy was right. Getting laid off was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

I see threads from people who are in similar situations all the time. The important thing to note is that if you are on this forum you have a specialized set of skills that the general population does not have. You might not think so, but when you step back, what percentage of the population knows what SEO copywriting is or how to do article marketing?

You have the skills to make money. The place where most people mess up is they do not take the time to do things right. Think like a business person. So many people want the easy way of doing things. They want instant money. That isnt the way to be successful.

If you want to be successful in this business, you have to work at it, but it pays off. My life was saved because of internet marketing and the advice given on this board for the past two years.

Learn, test, and test some more. Learn as much as you possibly can. Start making a little money at first and save it. Work toward independance while you still have a full time job. I would work till 1am a lot of days of the week trying to figure this stuff out. I lost a lot of sleep, but look what it did for me in the long run!

Dont give up out there. Take stock of what you know and take action. If you only sit around and read the forums and never take action, you will never make money. Read. Do. Read. Do some more.

For me, it has given me freedom. Even though I elected for a full time job over working strictly for myself, I have been able to travel. I went to a few Auburn games this year where I was able to meet winebuddy face to face. (What are the odds two Auburn fans would be on this board.) Last week, my company paid for me o go to Las Vegas for Pubcon, which was amazing.