I have been working for my current company for several years. It’s a small company with a lot of growth and expansion activity which can be both fun and stressful. It is a male dominated field and up until recently, I have been quite successful working along side other members of our leadership team as the only female. My favorite focus and greatest strength has always been collaboration and mentoring. I believe, you can build a strong team by mentoring, empowering and supporting their success.

For the first several years we had great success building that model and expanding business. Unfortunately, greed and a power struggle began to cause a shift in the dynamics of the company. New leadership was brought in initially with a plan to enhance capabilities and strengthen growth. It became clear rather quickly, that the new leadership team planned to restructure the organization and eliminate several of my team by shifting them into roles we already knew weren’t options for success.

It became an incredibly toxic environment over an 8 month period. I dreaded going to work, I listened to staff who had been transitioned to other departments call me to vent their frustrations and tried to encourage them to keep open minds and let their skills speak for them. Many staff left and those of us that remained felt deflated, under valued and knew eventually we would be pushed out.

I began a job search hoping I could get out of the environment before they eliminated my position, but I felt so nervous, insecure and frustrated that I knew I needed to change my approach. I had read The Secret several years before, but like many, never really engaged. Clearly, my positive thoughts about making a positive change lead me to pick it up again.

I started daily visualizations of receiving notice of my job elimination as a positive opportunity in my life. Shocking thoughts for me, really! I envisioned a severance package that would allow me to take my time to search for a position I truly wanted rather than the nervous desperate approach I had begun previously. I was actually excited about the opportunities I had ahead of me. I really focused on how grateful I was for my experience in this position. I continued to perform to the best of my abilities and kept myself positive.

The morning I received the call advising me that my job was being eliminated was a shock. It came much sooner than I expected. They were kind enough to advise me that they were giving me a few weeks notice to transition my current workload. I settled myself, removed the panic and negative thoughts from my mind and sat back to look at the notice I received.

After a couple of days of visualizations I refocused on my plan for a long severance for a leisurely job search. Then I called our Human Resources manager. I thanked her for the courtesy notice and asked her to go back to the team for the following: I requested my severance package extend through the remainder of the year, including my insurance coverage and offered to continue to support any specific needs regarding my skills that may come about during that time period. I reminded her that someone in a similar role as mine had received a similar package to what I was requesting and that it was the right thing to do. She thanked me for my candor and advised she would speak to the leadership team because she too agreed it was the right thing to do.

I hung up the phone knowing, and I mean knowing, it would work out as I envisioned. A week later, she called me to advise they were extending my employment for several months and yes, they were also extending my severance package!

The Secret works! I shifted the negative thoughts to positive. I actually felt the excitement of getting this notice and moving forward. I knew it would come to me and it did!

Next, is the job of my dreams! Ask, believe, be thankful and feel it and you will be pleasantly rewarded!