More Than Anxiety

Ep 119 - Navigating Layoff Grief with Laura Krauss

• Megan Devito • Episode 119

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This week, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Laura Krauss, founder of Ripple Effect Sales Advisory and author of The Layoff Cooties: It’s Them, Not You. With over 25 years of sales expertise, Laura shares her deeply personal experience of being blindsided by a layoff. She shares her story of unpacking the difficult emotions and stages of grief tied to career loss, offering comfort and actionable advice for anyone dealing with similar challenges.

If you’re worried about the economy, anxious about potential layoffs, or currently picking up the pieces after being laid off, this episode is for you to help you process, heal, and find hope. 

Laura’s vulnerability and wisdom will inspire you to see that even the most unexpected career turns can lead to new opportunities and joy.

Key Moments You Won’t Want to Miss:

  • [2:40] Laura’s story: From a thriving sales career to a blindsiding layoff.
  • [5:46] The unexpected grief of losing a job and your identity.
  • [10:01] Why layoffs feel personal and how to redefine your purpose.
  • [14:31] Moving through the stages of grief: Laura’s advice for navigating difficult emotions.
  • [20:22] Preparing for uncertainty: How to protect yourself in today’s job market.

Listen now for an honest conversation full of insights and strategies to help you not just survive but thrive after a layoff. 

This episode is filled with validation, support, and a reminder that your worth is never defined by your job.

Enjoy the episode!

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Megan Devito:

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety cycle that keeps them frustrated and stuck. Get ready for a lighthearted approach that will change what you think, how you feel and what you believe about yourself. This podcast is full of simple steps, a lot of truth, talk and inspiration to take action, so you walk away feeling confident, calm, and ready to live. Let's get to it.

Megan Devito:

This week, I get to introduce you to Laura Krauss. I'm so excited for this episode. Laura is a seasoned sales veteran with over 25 years of experience. She's the founder of Ripple Effect Sales Advisory, which is a consultancy dedicated to helping sales professionals achieve their goals. But beyond her expertise in sales, Laura is also the author of a book called The Layoff Cooties: It's them, not you. In this raw and honest memoir, she shares her personal journey of being laid off and she offers support and guidance to others who might be facing a similar experience. We're going to talk about the book. We're going to talk about all the emotions and the big time feelings that she went through in her layoff experience, and offer some support and guidance for you if you are in a similar situation. This is going to be such a great episode. It's so impactful. So if you've been nervous about the economy, if you're nervous about possibly being laid off, or you're in the middle of a layoff right now, you are in the perfect spot. Enjoy the episode.

Laura Krauss:

Thank you so much for having me.

Laura Krauss:

I'm excited to be here as well and I'll just share a little bit about myself to your audience.

Laura Krauss:

So I spent the last 25 years in professional sales roles in corporate America, and this time last year I found myself on the other end of a layoff something that I absolutely never thought would ever be part of my career, history or timeline or milestones, and it totally rocked my world.

Laura Krauss:

And what happened in the days and weeks after my layoff is I started sharing my story on LinkedIn after really never participating in any type of social media prior, and over the last year, my story has just kind of grown over time, where people have learned more about the emotional impact and grief that a layoff can bring. So I've really been sharing my story about how much my grief in losing my relationships and friendships and work relationships over that time really impacted me more than even the financial aspect of losing my livelihood. And so over the last year or so I've been working on a book called Layoff Cooties: It's Them, Not You and it shares my own layoff story, woven through the seven stages of grief. And throughout that book I share a lot of anecdotes and stories and some advice for folks who may have gone through a layoff as well to help normalize a lot of these feelings of emotional grief and trauma that a layoff can bring.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, I love that you bring in all these different emotions. So many people who listen to this podcast come here because they feel anxious and one of the things I just repeat over and over is yes, you say anxious and what else. So I think being able to say grief and being able to say you know sadness, and you know, maybe there's anger, maybe there's anything else wrapped up into that, but being able to say grief, because I think so often when we hear grief we think death.

Laura Krauss:

Yes, you're absolutely right, and I think anytime we talk about any type of grief, I think you can liken it to the seven stages of grief, and that's actually what I wove my story through.

Laura Krauss:

And I think the most important thing to remember about grief is that it's not something that you ever get over. It's something that you get through and whether it's related to a death of a person, or the death of a job, or the loss of a job, all of those same feelings and emotions and stages absolutely happen. And when you think about it I don't know if everyone in your audience knows what the seven stages of grief are, but it's shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance. And what's been fascinating to me is that there are certain things that can happen to you that trigger those various stages throughout your grieving process. And I think when you've been laid off, you grieve a lot more than your paycheck. You grieve a loss of yourself.

Laura Krauss:

For me, my career and history of my job was really part of who I was. I identified so much with being a sales professional and being good at it, and when that was taken away from me, it's like I didn't know who I was. I've often said that my job and career was as much a part of my identity as my big brown eyes, and once somebody else took that away from me, I had to really take a step back and reevaluate, "Okay, who is Laura Krauss? What impact do I want to make on this world? What type of legacy do I want to leave behind? And it's so much more than just being a sales professional.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, we do. We'd like to say there's this separation between who we are and our job, but so often we really do identify with our job and who we are. I mean, I moved from being a teacher to becoming a coach. It was so hard to rip that name tag off, that I am a teacher thing forever, I was like, "well, I used to be a teacher and now I'm coaching and I'm like, why do you keep saying that? It does it becomes so much of who we are. It's just interwoven in there. So in that place where, when you were laid off, was this something that it was coming down the line? You saw it coming or was it a blindside? Tell a little bit about how that happened and what that was like.

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, it really was a blindsiding layoff. Our company had gone from a public company to a private equity-owned company, so I knew the playbook. I knew there would be layoffs. I was part of the conversations in previous layoffs but I was part of the sales organization and all of the sales layoffs had happened previous in the year, so in my mind my job was safe, like I had made it through that.

Laura Krauss:

I actually got five new people on my team as part of that reorganization. That happened just months prior. So the fact that I was being let go with literally less than two months left in our fiscal year, which is our biggest time of the year for sales, I was absolutely shocked and in my particular case, I believe that mine was extremely politically motivated and targeted because I was very outspoken about pay inequity within our sales organization for women. I had gone above my SVP of sales head to try and get some answers on headcount for my team because I wasn't able to backfill like other teams were. And so I believe that that was kind of the final nail in my coffin, because the layoffs that happened when I was laid off were more of a henpecked layoff and I do believe that in many organizations, layoffs are used to silence people as well, and so I believe that my blindsiding layoff was absolutely part of that.

Megan Devito:

I have to admit I kind of want to launch through the screen and high five you for that, but also hug you because how awful.

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, it was awful and it was a complete shock to my colleagues as well. I mean, they even said to me you know, wow, if someone like you can get laid off, like we're all in trouble, you know, which was both a compliment and then also kind of you know, numbing as well, right, like nobody is safe. And I think what we're seeing in today's environment, with layoffs just in, you know, on our LinkedIn feeds and in the media, where it's being covered, you know, 10,000 jobs here, 3,000 jobs there. You know there are also some where it's more henpecked and just a couple here and there. But regardless of the way that it happens or the circumstances, rejection is still rejection and it still hurts at the end of the day, regardless of knowing that you are no longer in control of working for a company that you once really, really enjoyed working for.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and I think that sense of rejection I mean it is different than you know I imagine that rejection has to feel as, almost as heavy as a lot of those other emotions, especially when it was something that you enjoyed and that you said I have friends here.

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was literally in my dream role. I had worked for 25 years up to that point and it was a job that I really wasn't ever expecting to have. I was an individual contributor for many years in sales, doing very well, you know, in my own right, until I was tapped on the shoulder to say, hey, would you come lead this team brand new team. We really think you'd be a great fit.

Laura Krauss:

And by this point in my life I was in my mid forties, my kids were older, I could handle the travel situations and, you know, not have that kind of blow up my home life.

Laura Krauss:

And so I took it on and I loved it and I was doing all of the things.

Laura Krauss:

I was mentoring and training a lot of people within our sales organization, especially women, and in software sales there's not a lot of women to begin with. So I always made it a point to kind of bring them under my wing and help them as much as I possibly could and give them the type of mentoring and training that I actually never got when I was coming through the ranks. So I was doing all of the things that I was supposed to be doing, bringing in millions of dollars of revenue to this software company. Being asked to be on task forces and leadership teams and all this right stuff and then to have someone else control you no longer being in that capacity is extremely numbing. To go from a fully booked calendar traveling up and down the East Coast of the US and Canada enjoying your customers and building up this team, to then literally going to a calendar the next day that had absolutely nothing Right, I think one of the most numbing things you can go through leaving corporate America when it's not your choice.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, that's a big. I mean there are days where you know sometimes we look at our calendar and I speak so often to overwhelm but going to overwhelm isn't always having too much on your calendar. That had to, I imagine that that emptiness had to feel overwhelming.

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, and it's fascinating, Megan, because you know, after you're laid off, you still wonder about all those things on your calendar, even though it's not your responsibility anymore, right. Like you still think about oh, I wonder what happened with this customer or man, I was supposed to talk about this on my one-on-one with my reps, like what happened here, right? And you realize, you think to yourself, like gosh, did any of that really matter? Did anything that I do there like, have an impact or make a difference? And that's the message that I would want folks to get out of my book is that you absolutely mattered and the time that you spent at your organization did make a difference and came into other people's lives, just like they came into yours. And there's a reason why you were there. Whether it be for two years, four years, 10 years or 15 years, whatever it may be, there's a reason why you were meant to have met that person and work at that company, and the fact that you don't work there anymore doesn't take any of that away.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, but kind of that idea of everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we don't get to know those reasons right away and I think that is difficult to say, but why? And maybe that's part of the grieving process, that trying to figure out why, I don't I mean the questioning.

Laura Krauss:

I think so.

Laura Krauss:

I mean, if you would have told me a year ago that I would write a book, I probably wouldn't have believed you.

Laura Krauss:

But if you would have told me that I would have written a book about layoffs and the grieving process, I would have told you you were crazy right, especially having never gone through a layoff before, prior to this experience.

Laura Krauss:

But what I can tell you during the last last 10, 11 months, Megan, is, I have met hundreds of people who have been laid off one, two, three, four times in their careers, and what I learned from them is that just getting the words out and sharing their stories and their experience it's a huge part of their healing process, and so what I'm trying to do is really open up the conversation around the emotional trauma and grief that a layoff brings, because I think a lot of people don't really focus on it.

Laura Krauss:

They focus so much on oh, I need a new paycheck, I need to pay the bills, and that's all right and good, but I think a lot of people don't give themselves the time to really grieve what they've lost and, like I said, it's more than just your paycheck. You've lost a piece of yourself and you need to go back and find that, because if you don't, it's going to show up in other ways. When you're trying to move on, when you're trying to find that next job, when you're trying to build that confidence and realize that you don't have it yet because you haven't taken the chance to grieve it.

Megan Devito:

I'm so glad you brought that up. I talk a lot about processing emotions and about you can't just power through, and I will admit that my story for so long was let's just power through. We can get through this, and it doesn't help. So how did you take care of yourself?

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, for me, Megan, writing was such a huge part of my cathartic journey.

Laura Krauss:

I've always enjoyed journaling throughout my entire life and in the days and weeks after my layoff I journaled a lot.

Laura Krauss:

I obviously took to LinkedIn and started sharing my story vulnerably, which for me, just kind of validated and confirmed what I was going for and I recognize that not a lot of people want to put themselves out there when they're going through that, but for me, talking about it and sharing it was part of the validation and confirmation of what was happening to me and I needed to express it that way. I did a lot of writing exercises throughout my journey, not just, obviously, through journaling and LinkedIn and writing this book, but just getting the words out and bringing those words to fruition, I think really helps as part of the healing process. And one of the things that I share with a lot of my clients in the layoff community that I work with is really putting their thoughts down on paper and then also reading it out loud, because there's so much that can happen not just from the writing but just in the speaking of the words. That can be very healing and cathartic as well.

Megan Devito:

I think you're, I love the journaling idea as well. It's amazing sometimes, when we just sit down and let it all roll out, what actually comes out. Why would I say that? Why would I think that it's interesting to be able to look at that Right?

Laura Krauss:

And it's fascinating too, like when I've gone back and looked at some of the posts that I did in the weeks and months, you know, just after my layoff the visceral feelings that I had during that timeframe, like that's all part of the healing process. I had to go through that in order to get to the point that I'm at today, right? And so that's the message that I'm really trying to share with other people is that, look, your timeline is totally different from everyone else's, so don't compare, and however long it takes you is however long it takes you. But sitting in each of those stages is not, is not healthy, like to just stay there. You have to continuously move along, even if it's zigging and zagging through the various stages back and forth, because they're not linear, like you can very much feel all seven stages at once and then you can feel like you're in one stage for just weeks on end. Right, and so that's where the self-awareness needs to be on. Okay, where am I right now? How am I going to help move this forward? Because, as I said before, it's something you get through.

Megan Devito:

it's not something you ever get over. But I do think it's interesting. Even with like all grief, it feels like I like that you said it is kind of this. It's this continuing process of up and down and doing. You know it comes and goes, but I just remember, even into like personal loss grief, like losing my grandmother, for example, it sucker punches you.

Megan Devito:

It's like everything's fine and all of a sudden it just flies in and sucker punches you.

Laura Krauss:

Yes, I actually liken it and I share this story in my book about the death of my dad five years ago from Alzheimer's. Even though we were expecting it, it was planned, we knew it was going to happen eventually. Until it really happens, you really never know how you're going to fully grieve and what you're really going to feel right. But I also say that how I grieve and and what you're really going to feel right. But I also say that, like, how I grieve my father today, five years later, is very different than, obviously, how I grieved him.

Laura Krauss:

You know when it happened and that's true of layoff grief too. It's something that is a mile marker in your life and it's something that will always be a mile marker, obviously as being an adverse event that happened to you, but it's not something that has to define you right. Think about it your layoff is just one example of an adverse event that happened over the entire course of your lifetime. So I talked to a lot of my clients about, you know, channeling some of that adversity from their previous history and how did they get through where they were, you know, five years ago to today. It's the same layoff grief, right? It's just another adverse event that you have to work through to get to a future point.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and I know there's a lot of people out there who we hear so much about the economy. The economy is great, the economy is terrible. Employee you know, everybody's got jobs, we're at full employment and then we're like, oh, nobody can afford anything. So how do you like? Do you have a suggestion for people on? Is there even a way to prepare for something like this?

Laura Krauss:

I think what this life altering event taught me is that it can happen to anybody, and so I think self-awareness is really a big piece and just knowing to be prepared that it could potentially happen to you one day, that you could receive that 9 15 AM email like I did, or that faceless zoom with no HR on the call and somebody just saying you're done here and your access is shut off in five minutes, like my story was right, right, like just knowing that that can happen is is, is key and paramount, especially in today's, today's day and age of of how corporate america is. Um, I would tell people, just be prepared. So, like, like for me, I wasn't able to get anything off my computer that was important to me. So I had like personal pictures and you know personal items which shame on me, I shouldn't have had them on my company's you know system, but at the same time it was the only computer I had. So you know, I don't think I'm any different than most folks putting stuff on their their corporate computer right, or their work computer.

Laura Krauss:

I'm unable to get any of that stuff off, and so I lost, you know, that whole piece of of my life and wasn't able to get it back. And then I think it's really just again going back to knowing that, like losing your job through a layoff doesn't define you, like your rejection is really just a redirection to something else, except someone else decided it for you. And now you have to figure out what that redirection is and when you think about it. You're going to redirect yourself so many different times in your life. This is just one opportunity that wasn't necessarily planned by you. But now you have to kind of regroup and figure out okay, where am I going to go next?

Megan Devito:

Yeah, I love that. I love that, so I know you've read a book. What's your next redirect? What happens now?

Laura Krauss:

Oh, good question. Well, the book is launched on November 5th and I feel like I've been talking about it forever on LinkedIn, so it's kind of surreal that it's actually happening now. In the next couple of days, I started a Lay Off Cootie's C couch online community, which has over a hundred members in it today, and it's I say it's the safest seat to help heal from the emotional trauma of your of your layoff, and we bring in coaches and counselors and have lots of different coaching sessions on different topics that are related to the layoff community. I get a ton of. I'm just so full of gratitude with the members that we have there, and that really fills a large part of my cup.

Laura Krauss:

I honestly don't know what I want to do next in regards to quote unquote career. I spent 25 years in traditional corporate sales roles. I just don't feel like that's the place for me anymore after this experience, and so I think, for the first time in my life, I'm actually okay with not knowing what's next per se, and I'm really just very open to being an advocate for the layoff community and really really seeing where this, this book and authorship, goes and see if that opens up other areas of opportunity for me as well.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, it sounds like you might have just fallen into it, like maybe you're already in it, like maybe this was it you know yeah. I think it's so interesting, like how things play out, like things that we couldn't even imagine, and here you are supporting all these people.

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, thank you.

Laura Krauss:

My faith is very important to me and I have just had this kind of like bone wrenching feeling that God is saying to me Laura, your platform at your previous company was far too small and I'm now preparing you for a much larger platform for you to help people in ways you never even imagined and I just believe that, like so so hardly, with the people that have been, that have been introduced to me over this last year I mean, just take the fact that I never posted on social media prior, prior to this, linkedin is the only platform that I'm on, and I feel like I've just met thousands and thousands of new friends that I would have never known had this never happened to me, right? So I really, really try and see the silver lining in all of this and that there is a greater purpose for my layoff, and if the words from sharing my story can help others heal and find theirs, then there's no greater gift than that, in my opinion. That's beautiful.

Megan Devito:

I love that. It is it opinion. That's beautiful. I love that it is. It's that. It is that silver lining, and sometimes it takes a while for us to see it, but I feel like you're on such a good path. You're helping so many people and I'm thrilled that you took time to come and talk with us today, because I know there are so many people who are. You know whether they're in a layoff or they've experienced it in the past. They are dealing with that same thing and you have such a strong voice. So your book comes out November 5th. If people want to find you, it is LinkedIn only.

Laura Krauss:

Yeah, so where they can go to my website. I also have a coaching consultancy, so it's called Ripple Effect Sales Advisory and you can find me at rippleeffectsalescom. And then LinkedIn is really the best way to befriend me and I love engaging in my community there every day, and if you send me a DM, I can promise you I will write back.

Megan Devito:

I can promise you we'll write back too. So I feel so lucky to have connected with you and thank you for your time and I will be sure to put all of those links in the show notes so that people can find you and grab your book and read and get some hope and some stability back in their lives, and I appreciate that.

Laura Krauss:

Thank you. Thank you, Megan.

Megan Devito:

I appreciate that. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel calm, to stop overthinking and have a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. I'll talk to you soon.