Introduction:Under the wave of layoffs, where should middle-aged professionals go?With you today**.
Seeing that this year is about to turn the page, I didn't expect that a new round of layoffs will come ahead of schedule.
In November, NIO announced a 10% layoff of its workforceByteDance contracted its game business and carried out a layoff;In December, iQIYI's QIYU VR laid off 70% of its workforce ......
And in this wave of layoffs,Middle-aged people over the age of 35 are often the first to be laid off.
It's not easy in the workplace, especially for middle-aged people. Yesterday it was an elite in the workplace, and today it may be cut off into a headless fly that has not landed.
Why are middle-aged people always the hardest hit area in the wave of layoffs?Where do we go from here?
Today, let's talk about this topic.
The times have abandoned you and never said sorry.
I'd like to start by giving you a concept:The turkey effect.
There is a story in Taleb's classic book "The Black Swan" about the happiness index of a turkey.
There is a turkey that has been kept on the farm by its owner since birth.
Every day at noon, the owner brings food on time and feeds the turkey.
10 days, 20 days, 100 days passed......The turkey gets its food on time every day, and it feels that its owner is the person who loves it the most in the world, and its happiness index has skyrocketed.
Turkey loves this life and thinks that this happiness will last forever.
However, on Thanksgiving Day, the owner came in with a knife.
The turkey was killed and became a dish on the owner's plate.
Thanksgiving is to a turkey what layoffs are to a working person, a knife hanging over the head. When this knife falls, what you think is "stable" is actually vulnerable.
In recent years, there have been more and more examples of this around me.
I'm often approached by executives who want me to help introduce jobs.
They had been working in a large factory for many years, and they originally thought they could work in peace. However, the situation is not good, the company lays off employees, and they are the first to lay off.
After coming out, I suddenly found that I didn't know anything except those things at work, I knew too little about new things, and I didn't know anything about new tools and skills. Coupled with the issue of age, finding a job becomes difficult.
Historian Yuval Harari said:"There is no such thing as stability in the 21st century, if you want a stable identity, a stable job, and stable values, then you will be abandoned by the times!”
You might as well think about whether you are like this too:
Because of his old qualifications and long years of service, he has always thought that he has no credit and hard work, and he always feels that he will have his own place in the company.
In the years of stability, you gradually lose your alertness and feel that layoffs are not going to happen to you.
It's just that you forgot that it's 2023, and the times are changing, exponentially.
Wouldn't you think that after the epidemic, every company will have to tighten its belt to live and work hard to survive?
You wouldn't have thought that ChatGPT would set off a big model revolution, and most repetitive tasks would be replaced by artificial intelligence
The workplace does not need "luxury", when you are getting older and more expensive, the company will inevitably replace you with young people who are cheaper, more motivated, and not much less capable.
So,What you thought was a stable job was never stable. In these uncertain times,Stability, in fact, is the biggest instability.
Nothing is timeless. When the times abandon you, they never say sorry.
Middle-aged professionals, where to go?
Taleb says in his book Antifragile:When exposed to volatility, randomness, chaos and stress, risk and uncertainty, we need to take advantage of it.
As a middle-aged professional, where should I go?3 suggestions for you:
1. Enhance self-efficacy
Don't have self-doubt because of a little setback and difficulty, and feel that you can't do it and don't have enough ability.
Actually, when you have bad thoughts in your heart, all good things will not come to you, and the world has cause and effect.
So, you have to face up to the difficulties, be optimistic, and enhance your self-efficacy. Pass the difficulties, encounter difficulties, believe in yourself, believe that you must have a way to overcome difficulties, ideas determine the way out, you want to change, you will open your legs.
You know, even if the environment can't change, you can still do the part that you can control, and starting with a 5% change can often bring good results.
2. Learn to lower expectations
When people reach middle age, they have to learnAccept reality and lower expectations.
In the face of competition and impact from young people, we must learn to understand and accept it head-on.
There is no need to work overtime with young people, you must not be able to compare with young people, but you can solve problems in what you are good at and play your value.
After coming out of a large factory, looking for a new job, whether it is the office environment or salary, compared with the large factory, it is inferior by more than one and a half stars. What to do?You have to lower your expectations, accept the gap, solve the income problem first, then talk about development, and wait for the opportunity to come.
In the past, you had a high income, a stable job, and you spent lavishly, but now you have to spend your money where it really brings you happiness and satisfaction.
As Charlie Munger said:The secret of happiness is to lower expectations.
3. Become a lifelong learning Xi machine
In the concept of "knowledge half-life", it is believed that a person who is very knowledgeable or has rich professional knowledge in a certain field, if he no longer learns Xi, will enter the knowledge half-life after a certain period of time, and will slowly become obsolete.
Just like many people, although they have worked for 10 years, but only repeat the experience of the first year for 9 years, such people will slowly fall behind until they are eliminated.
The "half-life of knowledge" is getting shorter and shorter, from the earliest 100 years to 3 years, and even iterations are being carried out every year and every quarter.
For example, today, if you want to make a short **, you are still using the logic of 1 year ago, and there is a high probability that you will not succeed.
So, you must not stop improving. Instead, we must continue to learn Xi, learn Xi knowledge, learn Xi skills, and keep evolving.
When you progress at a pace that keeps up with development, there is no risk of being eliminated.
Finally, I would like to say,In this life, no one can help except self-ferry. There is never an "age crisis" in the workplace, only your "ability crisis".。You need to constantly improve yourself, make yourself scarce, and improve your antifragility skills.
In the book Antifragile, two kinds of people are described:
One kind of person is "Damocles", with a sword hanging over his head, hanging only by a horsehair. It seems to be very calm, but it is difficult to resist any risk and can fall at any time.
The other, is the Hydra. Each time you cut off a head, two new heads will grow, making them even more powerful than the original.
What kind of person would you like to be?