In this talk, Natalie Fisher shares a personal story about being laid off alongside 78 colleagues, describing the collective atmosphere of fear and panic. She contrasts this with her own calm, accepting reaction and recounts her sister’s surprisingly excited response upon learning of the layoff while on vacation. Fisher emphasizes that perception is a choice: the same factual information can trigger very different emotional states depending on how one frames it. She encourages listeners to recognize that they can consciously shift from fear to calm, viewing a layoff as an opportunity rather than a catastrophe.
Chapters
Hey, I just want to talk to you about the difference in perspective. So the perspective of somebody who's been laid off is normally, if you haven't kind of trained yourself otherwise, is gonna be, oh my God, scarcity, fear, what's gonna happen now, this is the worst thing in the world, um, how could they do this, a lot of anger maybe depending on how it was done. It's going to be pretty negative and anxiety creating, okay? And I know this because when I was let go, I was in a room of like 78 people. All of us were let go at the same time, and that's what it was. It was all fear, panic. The energy in the room was fear, panic, fear, panic, fear, panic, right? There were tears, there was anger, there was all that, right? And I just remember sitting there feeling calm, feeling totally calm. And my first thought was, I'm gonna be okay, we are gonna be okay, right? And interestingly enough too, my sister worked for the same company and she wasn't there when this happened, so So she was informed later. She was actually on a vacation in Mexico. And when she received the message, because I sent her a message through Facebook to let her know what had happened, her first response was, I'm so excited to figure out what's next. Right? And so those are choices, right? We can choose to be in fear and panic, or we can choose to be calm and accepting. And I know this might be hard for people to grasp right away because the instant response is going to be fear and panic for most people. That's what I witnessed anyway. But I was there. I was sitting there and I, I felt and I saw and I heard the same information, which was, we're closing down operations of Seeker Solutions. Your severance packages are at the back. Let us know if you have any questions. I heard the same circumstance, the same words, and my thought and feeling were totally different than everyone else's in that room. And it was all because of perception. So perception is going to be one thing to one person, totally different to another. You have that choice. I just want you to know that.
