Life after layoff, with Maria Goranova

Summary  

In this conversation, Maria Goranova shares her journey through unexpected career turbulence after experiencing her first layoff. She discusses the emotional impact of this event, the importance of self-worth, and how community support can provide hope and perspective during challenging times. Maria also explains her current role as a transformation catalyst, helping organisations navigate turbulence and develop resilience in their teams.

Takeaways

• Maria experienced her first layoff, prompting a career reevaluation.
• Emotional responses to job loss can include tension and uncertainty.
• Community support is crucial during times of career turbulence.
• Self-worth is foundational for navigating change and uncertainty.
• Freedom is a key value that drives Maria's professional choices.
• Joining professional communities can provide resources and support.
• Recognising the need for external intervention can lead to positive change.
• People in regulated industries often need guidance during turbulent times.
• Transformation catalysts help organisations adapt to change effectively.
• New careers and roles will emerge from the chaos of disruption.

Chapters
00:00 Sudden layoff
04:11 Inspiration from other people
09:16 The power of community
13:00 The role of a transformation catalyst
21:13 Challenges of people in regulated professions

Keywords
career change, self-worth, transformation, community support, emotional resilience, redundancy, personal growth, change management, professional development, coping strategies

Guest Contact Details:

Maria can be contacted by email on mg_goranova@yahoo.co.uk 

For all contact details (including our Associates) and useful self-worth resources, see www.SelfWorthAcademy.com

Transcript

John (00:01)
What happens when life stops following the career plan? My guest today is Maria Goronova. Maria is in Sofia, Bulgaria. She works as a transformation catalyst and that's a term Maria will explain later on in this conversation. But before that, let's talk about last year, Maria. What happened last year?

Maria (00:25)
Thank you, John, for this opportunity to share my experience. So what happened last year? Last year, I experienced my first in life layoff. It was first of October when I heard these words, sorry, but we have to restructure. So your role is no needed anymore. And this was a very interesting and exciting year because I actually traveled a lot.

started to rethink my career. ⁓ I had around 30 years working ⁓ in company and I started to think, can I do something alone on myself, on my path and working for different companies, giving my experience to more than one company and then the of October came.

John (01:20)
the decision got made for you.

Maria (01:22)
Yeah,

the decision. yes, Yes. Sometimes you know, sometimes you need a kick off from outside.

John (01:34)
So how did that affect you in the months that followed and the weeks that followed? What happened? What was your experience?

Maria (01:41)
I would like to share ⁓ my emotional experience because I am a kinesthetic person, the feelings for me are very important. So, what were my first feelings and what were my first thoughts? I like all people that I worked with, the whole environment, the whole setting, so I contributed a lot. my first thought was, don't be angry.

be a positive thank to all people who supported you on this journey. And I think that all people recognize this because it was a very normal and positive perception if you can see it from outside. And then the next days, something came inside. So some feeling of tense.

unexpected, some subconscious feeling of tense. Tense, tension. Tension, tension, yes, tension. So, for me, I'm a very grounded person, so I know what self-worth is. So, I relied a lot on knowing my values, what I can do, and that this is a turbulent situation, which is something that is normal and it's happening to a lot of people.

but still the tension was there.

John (03:09)
Were

you aware of it while that was happening? Were you able to say, I'm experiencing tension?

Maria (03:16)
I felt it. I felt it because I wanted to organize my daily routine, again, setting up calendars, what I will do to make my frame, let's say, because I want to see what I have to do, to have a schedule. Let's say that I'm organized, but not highly organized person. So I also leave myself do things organically, but I needed this setup. So I set.

started to do my setup and something was pressing me here. I feel a pressure here when I'm not feeling quite well or something is happening. I feel it here in my heart. so ⁓ then, but it was very, very important moment for me because then I realized what makes me change this feeling very fast. And this was...

This is something that I've never recognized before, such strongly, and it is that I need intervention from outside, meaning conversation with people. And how this came? Actually, I received a conversation, a small talk from a person who knows me from my professional world. And this person gave me such power. He called me, he said,

No worries. You are very strong. You are very professional. I know what you can do. I've experienced the same in my early career days. And don't leave yourself panic or struggle for a lot of time because you're just wasting your time. Keep calm because this is just a step that will show you that something different and even greater is expecting you. And really it was

Five minutes change. Absolute switch. As if I have a switch on switch off. So I was off and it was on. ⁓

John (05:22)
What did that switch change enable you to do or enable you to feel?

Maria (05:28)
Yeah, this enabled me to feel, to breathe, to breathe, to feel freedom and to feel light, let's say. Maybe here is the moment to mention that my leading value is freedom. Freedom to decide, freedom to do, freedom to create, freedom to work with whomever I've chosen, freedom to give freedom to people around me, the family, the child, to grow, to have his own ...

experience. actually, this gave me the light to turn again to my freedom spirit, to leave this pressure and to continue working on my ideas and to make a recap of what I can do, what value I can bring to the public. Because I have a very broad experience. I worked in two different industries, insurance and IT.

And then I reconsidered what each of them gave me. that I can, this experience gives me the knowledge to work in a very structured organizations and to work with a very dynamic organizations. Insight and to know what actually people working there need in times of turbulence. And this is very, very interesting.

John (06:50)
What do people in those industries need in times of turbulence? I mean, this whole podcast is self-worth in times of chaos. let's go to the times of turbulence. What is it that people need?

Maria (07:05)
Actually, people who work in the insurance, banking, finance, strictly regulated industries, actually, we can say this broader, they are low risk oriented and they're used to work in a very settled environment. Procedures, principles, levels of authorizations, very, very strict. They have integrated ⁓ very well established risk functions.

So when you change, let's say, when in insurance, because I have a lot of experience there, operations, insurance operations. So when you want to make a change in the process, you go through a very strict risk assessment process and someone leads it. There is a function inside who will guide you, who will train you how to do this. And so you don't have such freedom to decide. People there,

When there is a turbulence, people there really need someone from outside to guide them how to change, to leave them a space where they can start changing, expressing their opinion, start thinking out of the box, let's say, to understand what different can be done because they work in a very regulated environment, but also the world is changing.

So the turbulence for them is that the world is changing and the processes should be changed because the clients expect more lean processes, fast track and so on.

John (08:46)
Well, we come to the clients and we come to the organizations and indeed to your current work in a moment. But let's come back a little bit to where we started, which is exploring your experience of turbulence last year ⁓ and that shift, that switch that happened in about five minutes that enabled you to look at things differently, to feel different and to go out and do things differently. What sorts of things did you do?

Maria (09:16)
First, I relied on several communities that I'm in. I have different communities where I take resources and also exchange information with colleagues because they are professional communities. The one is related to portfolio career establishment where people similar like me are... ⁓

reconsidering what they can do outside the corporate or together with the corporate and to have, let's say, to set up a portfolio career. And another one related to the self-worth and where I actually met a whole group of people who are working the same in the change management field, which is great because yeah, yeah. ⁓

John (10:10)
Let's

talk about that for a minute, Maria. What is the significance for you of self-worth in these times of turbulence that you've described?

Maria (10:21)
I actually used my knowledge on self-worth and my belief in this concept when I have this turbulence, let's say, in my professional life, because the first thing that I said to myself is, you know who you are, you know your values, you know what you can do, you know how people perceive you, because I'm in constant interaction with people, I'm an extrovert person. And I said, so this is...

You know the concept of self-worth that I'm explaining constantly to whom I talk with is ⁓ a tree. This is a tree. And when the roots of the tree are your values, what you can do, what you can develop in yourself to be able to adapt quickly, the leaves can fall or can become green again.

So when you're in a fall in the autumn of your tree.

Focus on the roots, so blend yourself, focus on ground yourself, focus on the root and then put some water in, but not tears water, just water with a lot of energy, I can say, not tears at all. ⁓

John (11:46)
For some people, there will be tears.

Maria (11:49)
Yeah, there will be, and this is something normal, just to make you lighter, as I explained. My way is different than tears, but someone experiences tears. So, this is really very important for me. what is, I think that what is also, what helped me a lot is that I started to think of self-worth even without recognizing that this is self-worth, because two years ago I started to think...

my God, the AI is coming! So, will happen with people? What can ground us? And what is the human side of our nature? What is the strongest in a person? So, then I started to explore and then I found out, self-worth found out, you being ⁓ the person who established this philosophy. And yeah, so this was something that I felt that exists, that it is very important to be recognized. So,

from now on and when I experienced all this on myself, how this helps when you know where is your self-worth, then you can also, how to say, reinvent very fast.

John (13:00)
Indeed. Let's talk about the work you do today. Speaking of reinventing very fast, I'm also conscious of time. You described yourself right at the beginning, or rather I described you as a transformation catalyst. Would you like to explain that a little bit?

Maria (13:16)
So what is a catalyst? The catalyst, you know, is something that amplifies or increases the energy without losing its energy. What I want to do is to, and what I'm doing actually is intervention within a company struggling with the transformation and making

all people or the management team, the meat managers, the sea level, be capable to run the transformation themselves. So I'm going there, ignite where it is stuck and then make them capable to survive themselves. Of course, there are also companies that can afford internal

professional to do this constantly for them. And there are also a lot of who ⁓ would like to have these interventions from time to time when they need them. So there I come and help to catalyze the whole process.

John (14:29)
When you say catalyze the whole process, that sounds a bit like a mix of coaching and mentoring. Are there other elements as well?

Maria (14:38)
⁓ Yes, actually there is a diagnostic in this process. We first start with diagnosis of ⁓ what is not working. Is this ⁓ on the decision side, on the strategy side, on the organizational, how the structures work, how the stakeholders work? It could happen that this is the top.

of the company that is missing something. ⁓ actually we do this and a lot of coaching also because the change management part of the change management is ⁓ coaching. I'm certified NLP business coach. So that is something that I also integrate with my work. And this is part of the change management work.

John (15:32)
Let's just pause the change management side there for a little bit and come back to the main topic of today, which is other people who might be listening to this and who perhaps are experiencing the very thing you experienced back in October, which is that sudden shock redundancy, the unexpected redundancy for the first time in your life, as you describe. It's not something you'd had before.

What would you say to anyone else who is going through that this week?

Maria (16:05)
So I will say that there is nothing settled in our lives. So if we consider ourselves a very productive person, a very good professionalist and dedicated to one and the same company, let's say for a longer period, that doesn't make us ⁓ stick to this specific particular company. Even if we like it, if we people with whom we work also,

like us and we should be prepared for a side way to have something developed in parallel to sit and think of what I can do outside this organization. This doesn't mean that you will change your job, you will jump to another company, but think of about this and because we all see that the world is changing.

So people are losing their jobs and so this is not because they're not recognized as you see in my situation but just because something happens, financial changes or structural changes and they don't need you.

John (17:19)
We understand, I think these days, that change is inevitable. Anne says, change is the only constant. She's been proven right more often than not.

Maria (17:30)
Yeah.

John (17:31)
Where's the hope in all of this? Suppose that someone is lost right now in, like, they're not sure which way to turn. They don't feel like interacting with people that they used to interact with in their previous job for whatever reason. And we know this happens, right? A lot of people isolate during times of or after redundancy, I would say, particularly so if the environment has been difficult for them.

If they're coming out of an environment that was highly stressed or in any way toxic, of course, that's really difficult. But if somebody was looking for a bit of hope, a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, where would you suggest they look?

Maria (18:12)
I suggest they look to join communities with people with similar interests or even why not communities with different interests because then you will force yourself, you will see ⁓ many other people and you will see the variety in the world, let's say.

what the others are doing. you choose if you are a more settled person and more introvert, maybe it will be good to start with community where people have similar interests like you. Otherwise, I recommend even different one because for sure when you work for a corporate in a settled environment, you are not recognized as a professional. You even don't know what is going on in the world.

outside your industry, what kind of developments are there and opportunities. So join with two other people, right? Isolate.

John (19:11)
Why is that important?

Maria (19:14)
That is important because this gives you a different perspective, a much broader perspective. This distracted you from your personal focus and my small world. So, this gives you the bigger perspective. You will see a lot of things. You know that there is a saying that when you think of a red car, you start to recognize and see red cars. So, think of, I would like to be different. I would like to do something different.

And then the opportunities will come. But it comes not just with thinking, but with recognizing who can help. And these are these small societies, small groups of people who have similar or much different interests than you.

John (20:03)
Great summary, Maria. Chimes exactly with my own experience. What have we not covered as we come to a close today in this conversation? Is there anything we've not talked about that for you is significant in times of chaos or times of turbulence, as you mentioned earlier in this conversation?

Maria (20:24)
I think that this is the recognition from companies, businesses, that there is a need of special expertise to help their people run all initiatives and all...

changes that they want to run. Because currently, and I still see that a lot of businesses rely just on some trainings for the staff leadership or other rely heavily on project managers while the project managers are burdened with budgets, with deadlines. And I see that change management or transformation catalyst work is still recognized.

but not valued so much.

John (21:13)
Well, I'm wondering as you speak if it's even recognized because I'm very touched by the example you gave earlier of regulated companies like insurance, like banking and others, where people have been hired and trained to follow the process, reduce risk, don't do anything outside these guardrails because that's the job. It's to follow the process. And now, of course, we're going through this time of disruption where

isn't even a process to follow sometimes or the process is changing so often we don't always know which process it is. So I'm very much taken with that example you gave from the regulated sector that actually what we're asking people to do in this era of reinvention is to behave very differently to what they've been trained to do.

by both their professional upbringing and indeed mentoring and career.

Maria (22:09)
Yeah, that is the fact. why I say it is recognized? Because when I talk with people and I share ⁓ what is the focus of my work, they say, yes, we need this in our company because we are suffering with a lot of tension and constant change and a lot of projects. and burnout. Yes, and burnout.

So maybe it is considered from people that there is a tension and still not so much from the companies and the management of the companies. There is such role that can help to guide people towards transformation. And the management team itself, of course, all starts there.

John (22:56)
We'll be putting your contact details in the show notes. Maria, thanks for joining today. And as we come to a conclusion, I'm left imagining, not for the first time in these conversations, that perhaps there will be many new careers and many new professions that come into existence because of the times of disruption and chaos we're going through. And the example you've given us today of transformation catalyst sounds very much like

like one of them. Thanks very much for joining and thanks everyone for listening.

Maria (23:31)
Thank you, John.