There is opportunity when things don't go our way

Most people never choose to stop. The decision gets made for them.

We can only ever see it after the fact. That is the frustrating truth.

A former colleague of mine was made redundant from a consumer goods company. By most measures, a setback. By every measure that matters now, a turning point. He took that pause, that enforced space, and opened one of the finest restaurants in Geneva. It is, without question, one of the best in the city.

I doubt he would have got there any other way.

I am not naive about this. Bills need to be paid. Mortgages do not pause because your employer has. The anxiety that comes with sudden job loss is real, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not lived it.

But there is something that happens in those moments of disruption, if you let it. The noise stops. The diary clears. And for the first time in years, you are forced to ask a question most people never get around to asking: what do I actually want?

Not what looks good on a CV. Not what your industry expects of you at this level. What do you want?

Haemin Sunim, a Zen Buddhist monk, frames it simply: there is opportunity when things do not go our way. The adversity is not the obstacle. It is the opening.

What I would advocate, before updating the CV, before reaching out to recruiters, before anything, is a moment of genuine pause. Not inaction. Pause. A deliberate step back to think about direction before resuming speed.

The path forward is rarely the same path you were already on. The pause is where you find out which one you actually want to take.