We’re Not Simply Losing Jobs; We’re Losing Identities

When the Job Market Changes Faster Than You Can do a Personal Rebrand

The headlines have come fast and furious over the last week: tens of thousands of white-collar jobs cut at Amazon, Target, UPS, Paramount, Rivian, Molson Coors—and more to come. The stated reasons vary: efficiency, AI integration, right-sizing after over-hiring.

But beneath those corporate-speak statements lies something deeper and far more human. The ground beneath our professional identities is shifting.

For decades, we’ve been taught to define ourselves by what we do—our roles, our titles, our deliverables, our performance reviews. Yet the new reality is making that definition dangerously unstable. When technology can outperform experience and algorithms can replace layers of management, the question quietly emerges:

Who am I when what I do no longer guarantees value?

The Great Professional Unraveling

This isn’t just a business cycle—it’s a cultural one. The old contract between employer and employee was built on stability: show up, perform, stay loyal, climb.

Now, that assumed corporate ladder itself is being dismantled—and for many, it feels like it’s being pulled away mid-climb. Organizations are flattening, automation is accelerating, and “middle management” has become corporate shorthand for redundancy.

For many, the impact isn’t just financial—it’s existential.

We’re not simply losing jobs; we’re losing identities.

Those mirrors once reflected our worth through activity and output. Without them, the deeper question arises: What remains when the titles are gone?

From What I “do” to Who I “Am”

In times like this, some will scramble to retool, rebrand, or “re-skill”—and they should. But the ones who will truly thrive are those willing to look inward before they look outward.

There is a self-truth brand—a presence, a knowing—that when realized, has never changed and never will. Because the next economy—the one forming right now—won’t reward just skill.

• It will reward self-awareness.

• It will reward human engagement.

• It will reward those who stay grounded, empathetic, and real in a world speeding toward automation.

• It will favor those who know their essence, not just their expertise.

• Those who can adapt without losing integrity.

• Those who can lead without needing a title to prove it.

What we’re witnessing is less a layoff crisis and more an identity re-calibration. The future will ask something radical of us: to stop outsourcing our sense of value to the marketplace and start sourcing it from within.

The Inner Economy

There’s an economy we don’t talk about often enough: the inner one. It’s measured not by quarterly reports but by clarity, alignment, and presence.

When the outer structures collapse, this inner economy becomes the foundation—the only kind of capital that cannot be automated, replaced, or laid off. Knowing who you are isn’t some luxury of self-help culture; it’s the new baseline for relevance.

The leaders of the next era—whether they sit in corner offices or work from kitchen tables—will be those who’ve done the internal work to understand what drives them, what grounds them, and what they stand for when everything around them shifts.

A Quiet Invitation

If you’ve recently been affected by these changes—or you’re simply feeling the tremors—it might not be a personal failure. — It might be your personal opening.

The economy is resetting, yes. But so are we. And perhaps that’s the real work now:

• Not just finding another job, but finding yourself again.

• Not just asking what’s next? in your career, but who’s next? in your evolution.

Because when the noise fades and the roles reshuffle, the future won’t belong to those who do the most—It will belong to those who know themselves best.

For those standing at the crossroads between what was and what’s next.

If this message resonates, share your story—or just want to talk - reach out. calendlymeeting