Hey {{first_name}},

This week on the podcast I sat down with Rebecca Karpiuc, someone I have known for the better part of eight years, and someone who has just done something quietly brave.

She was made redundant. Fifteen years of experience behind her, a role she was great at, gone in a restructure.

Instead of doing what almost everyone does in that moment, she did the opposite.

Most people, the day the redundancy lands, go straight into panic.

Fire off the CV.

Grab the nearest role that looks like the one they just lost, anything to stop the free fall.

But Rebecca sat still…

Rebecca is a design thinker by trade, and she made a decision that I think is the whole lesson. She treated her own career like one of the problems she solves for a living.

Before rushing to a solution, she sat in what she calls the uncomfortable middle. The not knowing. The bit where you have no clean answer yet.

She was honest about how that felt. There was a morning, she told me, where she woke up and thought,

“what am I doing, is this even right?”

Her husband then said something to her….

“It’s just like climbing a mountain. It is hard on the way up, but you climb it for the view at the top.”

Here is why this matters. When you are anxious, the fastest way to feel better is to grab the first thing that looks familiar. But familiar is not the same as right.

Take the lookalike role in a panic, and there is a very real chance you are back here in six months, unhappy, doing it all over again.

Sitting in the discomfort is not weakness. It is the work.

When Rebecca got clear, she realised something that surprised even her. She had never actually cared about climbing the ladder.

What she loved was the work itself. The problem solving. The room going quiet and then someone having that aha moment.

So she stopped looking for the next title up and started looking for the next problem she wanted to solve. She got clear on her values too. Not just what she wanted, but what she absolutely would not do.

I keep saying careers are not ladders anymore; they look more like chessboards. The move that matters is not always up. Sometimes it is sideways, into the work that excites you.

Here is the part I could not wait to share.

While Rebecca was doing this work, she started posting on LinkedIn. Just sharing what she knew about solving business problems, the thing she is genuinely brilliant at.

She was terrified of it at first, because from her own words, she does not like to “big note herself.”

Then a woman called Rabin, someone Rebecca had crossed paths with through work, saw those posts. She picked up the phone and said,

“what you are saying online is exactly what my business is about.”

That conversation became a role. A brand new one, built around Rebecca's actual strengths, that no job board would ever have advertised.

She did not find it. It found her. Because she got clear, and then she let people see it.

Visibility leads to opportunity. Every single time.

If you are between chapters right now, or you can feel one coming, resist the urge to grab the nearest lifeboat. Give yourself the uncomfortable middle instead.

Ask yourself the 3 questions Rebecca sat with.

Then let people see the answer… Post the thing, send the message, reconnect with the person you already know.

The opportunity that is right for you is far more likely to come through a person than a portal.

Listen to my full conversation with Rebecca here →

With confidence,

Georgie 💜