The last time I saw Mark, he had been downsized from what he had thought was the peak of his career. The pink slip came out of the blue, and Mark had no likely prospects in sight.
“I’ve contacted everybody I can think of, sent my resume to all the headhunters, answered every appropriate job in the listings, and nada,” he told me over coffee at Starbucks. It was going on four months for Mark. I vividly recall him telling me that “While I started out optimistic, I’ve come to accept that nobody’s going to want me at my age. I just got rejected from a job at a quarter of my former salary and the whole company is smaller than the support staff I had personally. I’m thinking about looking into early retirement, but what a shame: I’ve got so much more to give.”
The least I could do was pick up the tab for his cappuccino and biscotti. Happily employed for going on two years, after a similar bout of downsized-itis, I had equal parts compassion and survivor’s guilt. As we stood up to leave, I told him I’d keep my eye out for something suitable, as well as send positive thoughts for him out into the universe.
I did a better job at sending out positive thoughts than sending him leads, but never mind. I got a phone call from Mark yesterday. He has been tapped to be chief operating officer of a global entertainment company. He’s at the top of the heap of 1200 employees and his salary is even bigger than the job he’d lost.
“Which of your job-hunting efforts led to this?” I asked, delighted at his happy ending.
“None,” he said. “It came out of the blue.”
Seems that a search consultant had been retained to find someone with just Mark’s skills, credentials and personality. Above all, they valued his seniority and seasoned expertise. He’d been scouted on Linked-In, noting all the positive things people had to say about him online, and within weeks of his first interview, the job had materialized.
“They must not have got the memo about your being too old,” I said.
“Guess not!” he laughed. I would have liked to talk more, but he had to run.
“I’m heading to China on business,” he explained.
I realize in retrospect that I wasn’t the only one putting good thoughts out into the universe on Mark’s behalf. He’s a good guy who deserves his good fortune. And as it turns out, it really was the positive energy—rather than the referrals—that did the trick.
When, like Mark, fate knocks us to the ground, it is natural to believe that our luck has run out, and nothing good will ever happen to us again. But the truth is, we have no more control over the good things that happen to us as we do over the bad. Pink slips can come out of the blue, but so can job offers beyond our expectations.
It is as if until the surprise call comes in we are on the other side of a dam, standing in a dried up river bed. Behind the concrete wall, unbeknownst to us, the water of all our good deeds, contacts, karma and yes, other people’s fondest wishes for us, is piling up. Invisible to us, we think absolutely nothing is happening then suddenly, one last drop of luck takes it over the top. The water that has been dammed up begins to flow freely again, and we are once again neck-deep happily paddling away down the river of life.
So remember, the next time you think it’s all over for you, it is true you can’t always stop the bad things from happening. But you can’t stop the good things from happening, either.