Woody Goulart dot com

Out of Work Later in Your Career

2009-01-09T16:24:18Z

In today’s unpredictable economy, it is not unsual to find yourself out of work when you age 40 and older. The first question is: What can you do? I personally went through the experience of having a career gig of nearly eleven years brought to an end later in my career. I learned that there is quite a lot you can do when you’re 40 plus and you find yourself out of a job.

To help benefit you, let me share the lessons that I learned from this overwhelming experience. I won’t attempt to coat this with sugar. In all honesty, I believe that anyone who writes from experience about getting downsized later rather than earlier in their careers should be real and level with you if nothing else: This hurts you. In fact, it hurts you a lot. I think that it feels similar to falling down and hitting your head on the ground.While playing soccer in high school, I fell on the playing field and hit my head, so be assured that I know what I’m writing about and I am not being merely metaphorical. The difference is: I woke up in the hospital with amnesia after my soccer accident in high school. Decades later, after I was kicked out of a large organization where I had worked for nearly eleven years, there were moments when I sure wished for the removal from everyday life that amnesia brings, but that’s not how it was for me.

I wanted to do anything else but remember the feelings of being told that my professional services were no longer needed where I worked. I hurt. I was insulted. I felt angry. I needed to recover. While I did not wake up in the hospital this time, I did wake up, quite literally, in other crucial ways. I knew deep in my heart as I walked dazed from the office building on that fateful day after being downsized that this certainly was a major crossroads experience.

I also knew that no matter what else might be true, this much I knew absolutely: It is not what happens to you in life that matters most. How you respond matters far more.

It turns out that how you respond to finding yourself suddenly out of work in your 40s and up is crucial to whether you recover. When I just had entered my 40s, I went through a difficult divorce that taught me how to recover when life gets tough. There was never a single moment that I felt any lack of confidence about my ability to survive life after divorce. That was the key to my recovery. That helped me through the loneliness and the pain.

And, that is the key if you, too, want to recover. Believing down deep in your heart and soul that you will survive being unemployed late in your career is essential. It will help you through the loneliness and the pain.Everything else is secondary. Other blog posts in the future on this site will deal with those secondary issues. But, first things first: You must find your own way to arrive at the genuine belief that being booted from a career job later in life is an experience that you will learn from and survive. Only after this first step should you attempt to use the Internet to help restore your career. I would also strongly encourage people over 40 to aim for careers that involve the use of the Internet as I have done.

The reality that you create for yourself within the space between your ears can be far more important that the material world that is without.

This may sound like the sentiments found in a George Harrison song. So be it. These are wise truths that can save you from a lot of damage that you otherwise may do to yourself.

Visualizing Your Career at Age 40 and Up

2007-07-27T00:00:17Z

The key to both a prosperous career during your 40s and up surviving being let go from a career position in your 40s and up, is the same one thing–what your mind tells you. This is basic information that many people may not choose to accept as factual and honest due to deeply-held beliefs and values. But, don’t you be one of them.

Simply put: The ways in which you visualize your reality changes your reality for you. If you think you are a failure, thinking that way guarantees that you will be a failure. If you see yourself as someone who is a victim of other people’s actions against you, visualizing your life as reacting to bad things that happen to you, that is the wrong way for you.

In contrast, if you are someone (regardless of your age) who looks at life and sees new challenges and new opportunities as desirable, you will outdistance others around who. One truth in life is that if you ever stop learning new things, or stop thinking in different ways from how you thought in your past, or stop wanting to change in your life, what a mess you will have created for yourself and for your loved ones!

Here is what I would urge anyone who is seeking a career change in their years at and after age 40 (whether or not you wanted such a career change): Go after a career that involves the use of the Internet. You will find such a career path to be challenging, exciting and fulfilling because this career choice demands that you learn new things, plus think in different ways from how you thought in your past, and effects tangible changes in your life. I know these things because I have experienced these things personally and I am writing truthfully here about what I have experienced.

Older, Wiser, Employed

2007-07-08T03:01:02Z

We’ve all heard the saying, “Youth is wasted on the young.” Equally plausible is this: “Employment is wasted on the young.”

Oh sure, the stereotype (for now) is that employers prefer to hire young people. Employers largely may think that young people are plentiful and come cheap–especially compared to the more seasoned workers. The unwelcome reality of the early 21st century, however, has already shown how there are fewer young people nowadays than there are people over 40.

The current and long-standing employer preference for young employees feeds on the myth that young people make better employees because they are easier to manage and control as employees compared to older workers. There’s another saying that captures this myth: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Perhaps. But, old dogs are famous for being more loyal and for possessing proven reliability compared to those young pups with short attention spans who wander off unexpectedly for no good reason if you don’t watch them every minute.

WoodyGoulart.com is blogging about careers for people over 40. Why?

Because people like us, who have reached 40 plus, really should stick together and share what we know with our own kind. There are plenty of other websites that over-emphasize youth. You don’t need another one, so this website is different.

The WoodyGoulart.com blog posts about careers for people over 40 will help those of you who are older workers grow comfortable in the knowledge of how to use the Internet to help you manage and grow your career for as many years as you want to keep working. If you want to learn about retirement, this site is not for you. But, if you want to become savvy about your career after age 40, particularly if you are smart enough to be interested in careers involving the Internet, you will like it here.

Podcast: Washington, DC Radio Demo

2006-08-02T02:36:23Z

During July 2006, I prepared a demonstration (a.k.a. “demo") for a Washington, DC radio station, WTOP. My goal was to get hired by WTOP doing on-air work for the all-news station.

You listen to or download a podcast of my demo (MP3) that runs about a minute and a half. I am also making my script (PDF) available that I prepared for this demo.

While I did not get hired by the radio station, I was turned down with humor and wisdom by Jim Farley. That made the whole experience worth it for me and this became one of my absolute most favorite rejections during a job search.

I have worked on the air in Los Angeles radio, so it is true that my style and delivery has already been tested in a major market. In my humble opinion, Washington, DC’s WTOP has the very best presentation of the all-news radio format that I have ever encountered in any major market.