• 9 to 5 Dilemma: The Death of Job Stability. RIP.

• Who Gets Your Best?

• Work is a Sales & Marketing Game… And You Hate Sales.

• Dollyism.

Repeat after me: Job stability is dead. Loyalty to company is dead.

A recent study by Checkr found that 61% of Americans believe the idea of a “stable full-time job” is a myth, including 72% of Gen Z workers.

The reality today is that even “safe” companies are making cuts. Funding shifts. Leadership changes. Departments restructure. Priorities pivot. And sometimes, people with strong performance reviews and happy teams still find themselves in the middle of a reduction in force.

Last week, I met with someone who had spent 20 years at one of the most well-known tech companies in the world.

Two decades of loyalty. Countless late nights. Millions of dollars in impact.

Then one Thursday morning, they were called into a meeting and told their entire department was being eliminated. Effective immediately. That was their last day.

No notice. No transition. No chance to wrap up work or say goodbye to colleagues.

It was a gut punch that completely shattered their thought that loyalty and contribution equals job security.

You are living in a job market that looks nothing like the one your parents told you to prepare for.

And while you can’t control the market, you can control how you talk about it and how quickly you bounce forward.

Step 1: Keep the story short and consistent

When an interviewer asks about your job changes, you don’t owe them the blow-by-blow. You owe them a clean, consistent narrative that tells the truth without giving away your power.

Something like:

Then stop talking. Let them ask the next question.

The more you over-explain, the more it sounds like you’re defending yourself. You have no need to play defense here, you’re playing the hand you were dealt and it has nothing to do with impact or performance.

The decisions to reduce a workforce, reorganize, or restructure are largely rooted in factors out of our control… business decisions, poor strategic planning, weakened markets, inefficient internal decision making, reduced financial resources, board whims, leadership turnover… none of which include you or your performance.

Speak to the organization’s environment and decision and then shift the focus on the future. The circumstances that brought you here don’t need to play a role in your story, but your impact and value does.

Are hiring managers still biased against shorter tenures? Absolutely. Especially hiring managers that have had the fortune of tenure in their career. It’s easy to judge a market and an experience that you’ve never faced.

We can’t eliminate their bias, but we can make a solid argument that quiets their bias.

Step 2: Take the mystery out of your resume

Don’t let a hiring manager wonder if you were fired for cause, because their imagination will fill in the worst-case scenario. In the absence of good, true information, people are defaulted to filling in gaps with their own narratives and story.

Add a short, factual note under each impacted role:

• “Role eliminated during company-wide restructuring.”

• “Position cut due to post-merger integration.”

• “Impacted by 20% workforce reduction.”

Step 3: Be Ready to Sell You

In a market where nothing’s guaranteed, the best career insurance isn’t just moving quickly, it’s knowing exactly what you’re selling and who’s buying it.

Your career brand is the throughline of every conversation, resume bullet, and LinkedIn update. It answers four questions:

1. Who are you? – The role you play in the story.

2. What are you great at? – The skills and strengths you can back up with proof.

3. Why does it matter? – The problems you solve or outcomes you drive.

4. Who’s buying it? – The industries, companies, or leaders that need what you do.

When you can advocate for yourself with that level of clarity, you’re no longer “a candidate looking for a job,” you’re a solution looking for the right buyer.

That means:

• Keep your materials brand-aligned – Resume, LinkedIn, portfolio, and talking points should all tell the same story about who you are and the value you deliver. If your LinkedIn profile is a glorified advertisement for your company or current role, consider pivoting to focusing on YOU and your brand instead.

• Stay visible year-round – Share insights, comment on industry conversations, and connect with people in your target market long before you need a job.

• Choose your opportunities – Whether it’s a contract, consulting gig, or full-time role, pick work that strengthens your brand and keeps you relevant to your next move.

When you know your brand and own your value, you’re not just reacting to change, you’re also driving your own market demand.

Step 4: Reframe “instability” as agility

You can’t change the fact that you’ve moved around. But you can change how people see it.

If you’ve onboarded quickly, delivered results in unfamiliar environments, built relationships in uncertain situations—that’s agility. And agility is an asset.

Try this in an interview:

The New Definition of Stability

In 2025, stability isn’t about staying in one job for decades. It’s about staying employable, marketable, and confident no matter what changes around you or who signs your paycheck.

So if you’ve had three jobs in four years? It doesn’t mean you’re a problem. It means you’re playing the new game of work. The people who win it aren’t the ones who sit still, they’re the ones who can pivot, adapt, and keep moving forward.

I get it though. Change is HARD.

The idea of continually packing up your stuff, finding a new job, learning new people, systems, and processes is daunting.

The fear of that pivot is what keeps people from playing to their full potential. But, you, my friend are an exception.

You see the market for what it is, play the game to your advantage, and keep showing up with a carry-on size bag full of travel sized mini’s to stay ready in case the stay ends sooner than you expected.

Got your own 9 to 5 dilemma?
If you’re wrestling with something at work—confusing feedback, job search drama, leadership challenges, or just trying to figure out what’s next—I want to hear it.
Send your dilemma by responding to this email and I might feature it (anonymously) in an upcoming edition.

Because if you’re feeling it, chances are someone else is too.

Who Gets Your Best?

Recently, I had a long conversation with someone I love about what it was like growing up in her house at a kid.

She told me her mom, a lifelong public servant, worked long, exhausting hours while living with bipolar disorder. At home, the memories she had were of a mom in depressive episodes: coming home Friday, disappearing into her room, and reemerging Monday morning to go back to work.

Her mom was moody, hard to please, and distant. There were no big hugs, no verbal “I love you,” no energy left for affection.

Years later, my friend visited her mom at work for the first time to celebrate her 25th work anniversary.

One by one, people stopped her to tell her how much her mom had meant to them. That she was the only leader who cared. That she’d changed their lives. That she’d bought baby gifts and wedding gifts to celebrate the milestones. Advocated for them. Been their rock. Cried with them… loved them.

My friend was floored. Is this the same woman that was also my mom?

It raised a question that’s been bouncing around my head ever since:

Do we give the best of ourselves to work and leave the scraps for the people we love most?

The Hard Truth About Energy & Work
In leadership (and in life), there’s a difference between where we intend to give our energy and where it actually goes.

For my friend’s mom, work may have been the one place she could channel purpose, stability, and control. It may have felt safer to give her energy there than in the unpredictable messiness of home life. Or maybe she simply didn’t have anything left in the tank when she walked through the door at night.

The result was two completely different experiences of the same person… one public, one private.

What This Means

• Energy is finite. If work gets all of it, there’s none left for your people.

• Impact at work matters, but so does impact at home. Both can be life-changing.

• Boundaries protect your energy so you can give intentionally, not just reactively.

If you’ve ever caught yourself giving the polished, patient, and empathetic version of yourself to your team, but the irritable, checked-out version to your partner or kids… you’re not alone.

The question is, do you want to keep doing that?

What could it look like if you committed to giving your best to the people you care about first and the rest of your energy went to work?

This Week’s Reflection
Where are you giving the best of yourself?

And if it’s not where you want it to be, what’s one boundary, habit, or shift you could make to change that?

9 to 5 Strategy: Why Work Is a Sales & Marketing Game

Here’s the thing about work we don’t talk about enough:
It’s a sales and marketing game.

Not in the “sleazy pitch” way. But in the sense that your career success depends not only on what you can do, but how well you can position, package, and promote it.

Think about it:

• Skills are your currency. They’re the hard and soft assets you trade in the market. Problem-solving, leadership, technical know-how, communication, strategic thinking — each one has value, and value changes based on context.

• Your brand is the story of those skills. It’s how people perceive you: the way you show up, the results you’re known for, the impact you create. If you don’t shape that story, others will write it for you.

• Advocacy is your distribution strategy. The same way a product needs visibility, your skills need champions — including you. Self-advocacy isn’t bragging; it’s ensuring your value is understood and invested in.

Borrowing from Marketing & Sales

The best marketers know how to lower barriers to entry, understand customer psychology, and make it easy for people to say yes. You can apply the same to your career:

• Behavioral barriers: If others don’t see your skills clearly, they won’t know how to “buy” them. Translate your work into outcomes, not tasks. Instead of “I managed onboarding,” say “I cut ramp time for new hires by 40%.”

• Positioning: Just like products need a differentiator, so do you. What’s your unique mix of strengths? What problems are you the go-to person to solve?

• Consistency: Good brands repeat their message until it sticks. You can’t mention your leadership skills once and expect people to remember. Subtly weave your story into updates, meetings, and reviews.

• Psychology: People are wired to notice what’s easy to understand and what connects emotionally. The more you frame your skills in human, relatable terms, the more memorable you become.

The Rise of Skills-Based Hiring & Promotion

Companies are moving away from résumés full of job titles and toward skills-based hiring and promotion.

Instead of asking “Where have you worked?” the question is becoming “What can you do, and how do we know?”

That’s a huge opportunity — if you’ve been keeping track of your skills, updating your story, and aligning them to what the market wants. But it’s also a challenge — if you’re still relying on tenure, titles, or hoping someone else will connect the dots.

You’re not just an employee. You’re a brand in the marketplace.

Your job is to:

1. Know your product. Inventory your skills regularly.

2. Own your brand. Shape the story about who you are and what you deliver.

3. Advocate with confidence. Make it easy for others to see, remember, and reward your value.

Work isn’t just about doing the job. It’s about marketing the value of what you do, selling the story of why it matters, and making sure the right people are “buying.”

And in a world moving toward skills-based everything, those who treat their careers like the business they are — with brand, positioning, and advocacy — will always be ahead.

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