Navigating Layoffs: Stages of Grief, Career Reinvention, and Resilience Strategies with Steve Jaffe

Layoffs are gut-wrenching and increasingly common, leaving many professionals reeling with grief and uncertainty. But they don’t define your future. My guest, Steve Jaffe, has been through multiple layoffs and turned those experiences into The Layoff Journey: From Dismissal to Discovery, a book about reframing job loss as an opportunity for reinvention.

• Practical tools you can use right away to recover after a layoff.
• Fresh perspective on turning job loss into discovery and redefining your identity.
• The real meaning of resilience—why it’s less about bouncing back fast and more about moving forward with purpose.

Show Guest: 

Steve Jaffe, author and former advertising executive behind iconic campaigns, blends creativity, empathy, and strategic insight. Based in Altadena, he writes, consults, and inspires resilience and reinvention through authentic storytelling. His first book is The Layoff Journey From Dismissal to Discovery: Navigating the Stages of Grief After Job Loss . To learn more, visit TheSteveJaffe.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Layoff Journey
• 3:53 Steve's Personal Layoff Story
• 6:08 Seven Stages of Grief in Layoffs
• 10:13 Depression and Identity After Job Loss
• 14:16 Reframing Your Mindset Post-Layoff
• 21:26 Practical Steps After Being Laid Off
• 24:45 Finding Balance and Adventure Forward
• 28:09 Final Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Jill Griffin: 0:00

Hey everyone, I'm Jill Griffin and this is the Career Refresh. Today we're talking about layoffs and whether you're directly or indirectly impacted by layoffs. This is something that I think we all need to have a greater awareness about either how to support former colleagues who might have been layoff, how to lead within an organization if you are someone who remained after the layoff, and then, of course, if you are the person directly impacted by the layoff, and then, of course, if you are the person directly impacted by the layoff. So today we're tackling the latter, the person who's directly impacted by the layoff. And look, it is an opportunity. When you get through and use the tools that we're going to talk about today. It is an opportunity for reinvention if you choose to take it.

Jill Griffin: 0:42

My guest today is Steve Jaffe, who has lived through multiple layoffs, as many of us who work in tech have, and he also wrote the book the Layoff Journey From Dismal to Discovery. It's a book on how to process the grief, reframe the experience and to move forward with clarity and resilience. We're going to talk about the tools that he believes will help and where to see possibility and opportunity on the other side of job loss. So let's dig in. Dave, welcome. I'm really glad that we're finally having this conversation.

Steve Jaffe: 1:17

Thanks so much. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Jill Griffin: 1:20

So I'd love for you to give a little bit of background about yourself. I mean, obviously you've written this fantastic book, but I'd love for you to tell our reader, our watchers, our viewers and our listeners how you got here. The Layoff Journey From Dismissal to Discovery.

Steve Jaffe: 1:36

And it's a book that helps people navigate the stages of grief after job loss. So I'll give you my background and it kind of gives the story arc and how I got where I am today. So I have a 25-year career in advertising and marketing, spent some time in advertising agencies and the story picks up. It's spring of 2001. I'm working at an ad agency in San Francisco. I've just gotten married and things are going great. Great agency, great client, everybody's happy. It's literally and figuratively, the springtime of my life.

Steve Jaffe: 2:23

Very unexpectedly, I get called into a conference room and told in short order that the client is cutting their budget, the agency is cutting their staff and, thank you, your services are no longer needed. You have five minutes to clean out your desk. And I was very much taken off guard and I didn't really have any coping skills to manage that situation in a healthy way and it took me a very, very long time to overcome. Fast forward, it's summer 2023. And now this is the fourth layoff of my career and I sail right through it. It's like water off a duck's back and it doesn't have the same effect on me. I do some self-reflection and I realized that over the course of those years and those layoffs I learned a set of coping skills that allowed me to see the layoff for what it was, what it is, and really move through it very quickly.

Steve Jaffe: 3:18

And I was laid off at that last time with about 20% of the company, and some of those folks were very, very close friends of of mine, people that I had really developed a close bond with, and I wanted to share with them what I learned from my 10,000 hours of going through layoffs like I wanted to take my expertise and help them with their experience. Some of them were very young doing their. Some of them were very young, new in their career. Some of them were experiencing their second layoff in 12 months and I felt like I had something that I could share that would help them, and it was then that I realized that would be the subject for a book.

Steve Jaffe: 3:55

Not only could I help the 20% I was laid off with, but I could help so many more people too. So I wrote the book and it published in February and I've been out promoting it now. And I had no idea that 2025 was going to be such a huge year for layoffs, not only in, you know, the corporate business world, but in government as well unprecedented layoffs. So the world we live in now it's not a question of if you're going to get laid off, but when. So this is a practical guide that helps someone navigate those stages of grief.

Jill Griffin: 4:37

Yeah, really, really important, and I can relate both personally and from the hundreds of clients that I've worked with over the years who have been laid off. You know I often joke that my life was a signing bonus in a severance package. Yeah, that, especially when you work in tech and marketing and when the two of those cross right, that triangulation of that plus a layoff is probably going to happen at some point, is probably going to happen at some point. And you know, I also think, as we ground through this, there'll be future podcasts that I'm doing about what the leaders can do, what the colleagues can do. But this particular conversation is what you the person who's been directly impacted with the layoff needs to be thinking through.

Jill Griffin: 5:18

So, again, I really appreciate that you're putting this good work out there, because it's something that, like you, the first time I was laid off, yeah, it was gut punched. The second time, the third time, I was just like show me the numbers, I'll piece it out, we'll see you on LinkedIn, like it was totally fine, there was no drama to it, and I realized that that is because I always believe that resilience is built in the rearview mirror. You don't realize you need to be resilient as you look back and you're like oh, that actually wasn't as hard as I thought, so I love that you're coming up with tools and tips that people can easily follow. So my first question for you is obviously we just discussed you've been laid off more than once what were some of those emotional hits? I do want to talk about the parts of grief. Part one is like what were some of those emotional hits? Tell us how you felt. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Jaffe: 6:07

So let me frame it with the stages of grief. In terms of the book, there are seven of these stages. They were created by a behavioral researcher Her name is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and she observed these internally ill patients as they were on their journey. They went through these stages and their friends and family also went through these stages and they became kind of widely accepted. For any of life's traumatic events, people usually go through these things. So, like a divorce, a layoff is certainly a traumatic event and they include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, reconstruction and renewal.

Steve Jaffe: 7:02

So I read those off kind of in numerical order, but they don't always follow that linear path and you don't go through them one at a time. Sometimes they're mixed up. Sometimes you'll experience all of them in one day and some amazing, awesome days you don't experience any whatsoever. Depending on your own life experience, you may experience some more than others, others. I certainly in in the shock of the initial layoff, notification, denial, absolutely my, my, my body kind of gets real hot and sweaty and my brain gets real foggy. I kind of don't really hear every word that's being said. It's a really, really like things kind of start to shut down Right and that's your body preserving itself. There's too much information to process.

Jill Griffin: 7:51

Yeah.

Steve Jaffe: 7:52

Yeah. So it's a, it's a protection mechanism and it's healthy, right, certainly, I've felt anger and the bargaining stage. You know you kind of bargain with like what could have I have done differently, what could have I have said differently, how could I handle the situation differently? But you're also bargaining with a severance agreement. Right, you're bargaining on the terms of your departure. So the bargaining stage can be both literal, right, right, yeah, and I will tell you that I absolutely probably the hardest stage for me was depression. I very much took a layoff. Personally, I had a lot on the line in terms of, like, my identity and who. I was wrapped up in that job and when I didn't have that job any longer, I was questioning myself who am I without this job? What does it mean about me as a person? What does it mean about my abilities and my skills and my intelligence? All roads you do not want to go down that are basically dead ends. So how do you suggest people stop that?

Jill Griffin: 9:01

Because that's sort of the natural that the brain is going to do Right, right, right. So how do you suggest people stop that? Because that's sort of the natural that the brain is going to do.

Steve Jaffe: 9:06

Right, right, right. So what you have to do is not define your identity based on what's printed on that business card. That title and job and whatever else is attached to it is transitory and you don't necessarily own that. What you do own are your skills. So if you have 25 years of marketing experience and let's say you have a level of expertise in software technology, saas, for example, those are inalienable skills that you take with you wherever you go Um the job may come and go, but you will always be that talented marketing executive. So, not defining your identity by what you do, but also going a step deeper and finding purpose and joy and passion in um how you're finding fulfillment in your life. So so your only fulfillment can not be the job. You have to have a well-rounded um kind of whole person, whole body, um, um understanding of people around that Right.

Jill Griffin: 10:24

So um um client has small children, has aging parents, you know, working hard within their job. There's not a lot of fat, there's not a lot of extra time. Any extra time is going to care for the children or the aging parent. How am I getting through that? How am I? How am I finding other areas of interest that my job doesn't become all of?

Steve Jaffe: 10:55

it Right, right, so one of the things that a layoff can do that that is difficult when you're working, but I would invite people to try and find this at any point is a pause, some time to sit, and, whether it's meditation or praying, a few minutes alone, quietly, grounding yourself, being present, will open up your mind to your purpose and your passion and your values, right? So certainly if you're working 60 hours a week and your paycheck is keeping everything afloat, you may not have the luxury of going off and pursuing some other career that may not pay as much, but what you can do is build a more well-rounded personal life. So if that means journaling, if that means regular exercise, a healthy diet, good sleep, a gratitude practice, all of these things will get you thinking in a positive, healthy kind of mind, body, spirit approach. That will give you more purpose and meaning beyond that nine to five job, so that if you do lose that job, you have one really healthy coping skills, but you also have an understanding of who you are outside of that job, right?

Jill Griffin: 12:28

No, I appreciate that. I mean I always suggest that you figure out your non-negotiables right. What are your non-negotiables right away? That for me, my listeners know I'm a traumatic brain injury survivor so my first non-negotiable is sleep. Health and wellness has to be, otherwise I ain't here and I ain't functioning. Not a possibility. You know, morning meditation, practice. All of that has to come first. That fills the bucket first and then from there doing everything else.

Jill Griffin: 12:55

I think depending on where people are in their career trajectory and there's a very different trajectory for Gen Xers, boomers, versus, you know, gen Zers, the more seasoned or the more experienced professional, is not going to be in a situation where they came up through the ranks with that ability for that space and grace right.

Jill Griffin: 13:16

I think that we are talking about it more and I also think that conversations like you and I are having now are really important in those areas, to be having conversations to let you know our younger brothers and sisters that are coming up the ranks to say plan it, grab it. I'm hearing more of them are doing it, are making sure that, yes, work is important and I want to be fulfilled that way, both intellectually and financially, and be contributing in a way, but I also need to make sure that I'm carving out that time. So I love that you're anchoring on that. I think it's really, really important when you start to think about the ways you move forward. So you gave some examples there around health and meditation and prayer and journaling and all really really healthy practices. What were some of the other ways that you moved through that depression?

Steve Jaffe: 14:03

Yeah, those gave me really good skills. For example, like exercise opens up serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin great um um chemicals your body releases naturally to battle depression. Um, I learned to limit alcohol intake. Alcohol is a depressant, bad combination if you have a propensity for depression. So, um, and I would say that the gratitude practice in a layoff gets your mind trained to think about what you still have, what's of benefit, what's positive.

Steve Jaffe: 14:39

In a layoff, you tend to kind of ruminate on what you've lost, so it's good to rethink that. Also really good to take that time and think about. You know, is your career path experiencing contraction? Is there a blue sky opening ahead of you that you might be able to pivot into? At one point I found that, like marketing, generalist roles were being eliminated en masse. Roles were being eliminated en masse and I started to see a lot of product marketing manager job openings. And as I looked at those I saw, with a kind of a new narrative and some edits to my resume, I could adjust my experience to highlight how what I've done in the past is relevant, those transferable skills.

Jill Griffin: 15:33

Those transferable skills. Right Again, you have to actually have the experience or get trained in the experience, because we never want to put something out there that's not true but really massaging those transferable skills.

Steve Jaffe: 15:44

Yeah, right, right. And then I also learned really a method of positive thinking and positive reframing. There's something that I like to frame around like if you get stuck in a loop of negative thoughts, you know the one that grows is the one that you feed. So if you feed those negative thoughts, they're just going to continue to grow. If you feed your positive thoughts, get on a positive loop, that's what's going to grow. So it's really important in the layoff particularly and those stages of grief, that, like you said, you start to look forward and you don't look backwards. It's really easy to think about what could I have done? What would be different. Instead, think about what will I do next? Where do I go from here? And look forward rather than backward.

Jill Griffin: 16:39

Yeah, yeah. It's making me think of another concept that I talk about a lot about surrender versus acceptance. And the idea of accepting doesn't mean I have to like it in this scenario, it means it was supposed to happen. How do I know? Because it happened. So we need to accept that this is the reality of where we are.

Jill Griffin: 17:02

When we're in a place of like, submission, like okay, fine, but you know, I'm going to figure this out or I'll show them, or I'm going to make them wish they didn't fire me. All welcome to being human, all very natural thoughts. But when we're in those two pieces to your point, what you focus on increases, and if you're focusing on the parts of what you're leaving, then that's going to continue to stay with you as you're building what's coming next, whereas you're focusing on the acceptance or sort of the surrender of okay, fine, this happened. Again, I don't have to like it. That's not what we're suggesting. We're simply saying, if that's the reality, only when I accept where I am can I move forward. Only when I accept that I am sitting in New York City can I then figure out how to get to California, because I need to know where I'm starting and I think that's a really important reframe of what you're talking about too.

Steve Jaffe: 17:52

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I think about acceptance, as what you're talking about is like this tug of war within yourself, right, and the only way to win that tug of war is to drop the rope and walk away, right, and that's when you can begin to then move forward. Otherwise, you're just stuck in the battle.

Jill Griffin: 18:11

You're in that cycle and listen, as you said, this is not linear. You might have a good day and then tomorrow you are right back into that story of what you would have said and what you should have said and da, da, da, and that's normal, Just inside voice. Call a friend, call a therapist, call a coach. Figure out a way to process through it. All of that's very normal, and know that it might also sneak up at you at times that are just like grief.

Jill Griffin: 18:42

I mean, I talk a lot about the tragic death of my brother just a short, about two years ago, just short time. And how, like, how do you still function and work? How do you still show up? How do you process the stages of grief where you're in the silent scream and you're like whoa, this is not right and I have to function and you need to give yourself the space for that in order to move forward. It's really really important, important work. And, again, that's why I love the fact that you were pairing the stages of grief that many of us are familiar with into the job. So when you think about that framework, you know how did you sort of use that framework, having the awareness right, how did you use that framework to guide the choices that you were making next?

Steve Jaffe: 19:26

Yeah, you know, I think originally I fell into some sort of like healthy care practice by accident, primarily driven by the need to battle that depression and anxiety that started to create some of that foundational groundwork groundwork, but in time then other learnings. I'm a growth mindset, lifelong learner. I believe every opportunity is an opportunity to learn and grow. So I started to be more open to learning what the experience was trying to teach me and trying to find, rather than be focusing on the past and what was taken from me, what I could do with it. So I started to see this less as a roadblock and more of a detour. I started to feel like this was what I knew to be true was.

Steve Jaffe: 20:26

This was not the whole book of me and and who I am and what I am. This was merely a chapter um in that book and I I could write that story of what came next. So it was about sort of rising from the ashes and it was very much over time, I think I learned how to be resilient. I learned how to get down, get knocked down eight times and stand up nine or, in this case, get laid off four times and come back a fifth time, you know. So I started to be less focused on what the job was and what it said about me and more focused on who I am and what I bring and what my values and desires and passions are. So it was a little bit of a mind shift and a different kind of frame of mind.

Jill Griffin: 21:22

Okay, Okay. So let's get a little tactical. Someone's listening to this. They were just laid off last week. Okay, Step one you're suggesting they get your book. Step two for those of us until they can get the book, what do you suggest that they do?

Steve Jaffe: 21:36

Yeah, take a minute, take a pause, take a very deep breath, know that what you're going through and what you're feeling is normal and it's okay. Right, give yourself a big hug and tell yourself what you would tell a friend that was going through this. If a friend just called you and said, hey, I've been laid off, you'd be really comforting to them, you'd be really understanding. You tell them it's going to be okay. Have that conversation with yourself and give yourself some time to experience these stages of grief before you go out and you update your resume and you go on LinkedIn and you try and get job interviews. It's really important to process this in some way before you move on.

Steve Jaffe: 22:20

If you process this in a healthy way and you start to come to terms with it and you begin that acceptance and reconstruction and renewal, when you do go on the job interview and somebody says to you well, tell me about your last job, what happened, or tell me why you want this job, you're going to be in a much better position to answer that question. In a way where it's not this big elephant in the room that you're trying to avoid or you're stumbling and stammering. You can say I'm a 25-year marketing executive with a lot of great skills and experience, and I'm looking forward to bringing them to this job. You don't even have to mention the last employer. You don't even have to go there. If you're still carrying that baggage, it shows up in that interview. It's important to give yourself some time really and let yourself experience this and kind of manage your way through it.

Jill Griffin: 23:14

Okay, what if someone doesn't really have the time that you know, based on severance or unemployment, or depending on their own personal scenarios, what would you suggest that they do?

Steve Jaffe: 23:28

What would you suggest that they do. Yeah, I mean, at minimum give yourself a week just to take a breath, for all things. If you get laid off on a Friday, a Monday morning, don't start doing your resume.

Jill Griffin: 23:41

Don't set the alarm.

Steve Jaffe: 23:42

Take a minute and give yourself just a beat to accept and process what's happened. A beat to to accept and and and process what's happened. Um, and, and you know, while you're getting back into it, you you need to replace the routine that you've lost. So it's important to replace that routine with a healthy one and find those things that maybe you're already doing, that you can do more of, and find the things that you can start doing that might replace old unhealthy habits. Right, so you can start doing that might replace old unhealthy habits. Right, so you can start a healthy routine while you're still on the job hunt and you can start to take some of these lessons into practice. Right, some gratitude, some reframing of the experience, starting to look ahead and forward to what the opportunity may bring for you. So those are things that you can do simultaneously, but you do need a minute just to pause.

Jill Griffin: 24:39

Yeah, Okay, I really appreciate that. So you've said that because I read your book that balance and adventure are guiding values for you. Give us some insight on how those principles shape the way you navigate uncertainty and reinvention in your career.

Steve Jaffe: 24:55

Yeah, yeah, you know, I find that after a layoff there are some parallels to what one would think of as an adventure.

Steve Jaffe: 25:05

You know, it's kind of an open road, um, it's a new beginning, um, there's some uncertainty and, um, and there's a level of like survival in that too.

Steve Jaffe: 25:16

So that was, I was able to think about it in terms of, of, of that framework, and I think about, like the song from the beatles about you know the magic, the magical mystery tour, and I started to think about know life. In a lot of ways it's a magical mystery tour that we're on and you don't necessarily know what's around every corner. But if you um approach it with that level of positivity and like this is, this is an adventure, let's see what the um, what life brings, um, let's see what life brings. It opened me up to be not as resistant and more welcoming to what was coming. So, and I think finding healthy balance in all of this was a great way for me to find an opening into, like a healthy self-care, a holistic mind, body, spirit. That gave me the baseline to really deal with any of life's challenges, not just the layoff. So I think but I appreciate that answer I haven't been asked that before.

Jill Griffin: 26:27

Yeah, good, you mentioned at the start of our conversation that you you know this was the fourth layoff Some of your colleagues it might have been their first or second, and they were in a different space, mental space, than you were and I'm guessing that was sort of the impetus of putting all of this together, together. Do you have any feedback from any of those colleagues that have taken this and now kind of put this plan into action? Anything that you can again protecting anonymity, of course, but anything that you can share?

Steve Jaffe: 26:58

Yeah, you know, it was one. There was one person in particular that I really wanted to talk to and that person became kind of who I was writing the book for. And that person became kind of who I was writing the book for and so I was really eager to share the book with them. I never told them that they were really who I wrote the book for and secretly I was really afraid God, what if they don't like the book? What if they hate it? But I did get feedback from them that they really appreciated it. In fact they said they were going to recommend it to friends and that was a really great moment for me that the person that I wanted to pull aside and give this advice to found it valuable.

Jill Griffin: 27:47

I love that you had that experience. Yeah, yeah, and my hope is that today's conversation gives you some tips and trips. Obviously, check out Steve's book. I want to hear from you. If you have questions for Steve. You can email us at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom, and we will get those questions to Steve or to myself and we'll get them answered. We'll even bring them back if we have enough questions for it. But as always, friend, remember, reinvention is possible and I'm asking you to really slow down, take that pause, as Steve has also suggested, and give yourself a little space and grace during this. And know that it's not linear. It's not like you go through that phase. You're not going to slip back. There may be some random time that all of a sudden you find yourself back there, and all of that is very normal and very human. So be intentional, be kind and we'll see you soon, thanks,