I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

Sure, the now iconic line always gets a laugh, but it’s also a pretty darned good umbrella statement as to how lots of Americans are feeling right now.

Certainly in economic terms, you may very well have fallen. But you will get up. Whether you slowly bring yourself back up to a standing position, jump right up, or take off running in a new direction - and whether there’s a pot of gold at the end of your metaphorical sprint - I can’t say. But you will get up.

I’m not an economist, and far from a financial guru (if such a thing still exists), but it doesn’t take one to see that things are bleak right now in terms of employment. Yet, as we fret that the collapse of corporate giants, the mushrooming uses of our “frenemy” the Internet, and an ever-increasing array of shiny, efficient toys of technology have taken our jobs away and that a huge vacuum of needed manpower has been created, it’s quite possible we’re not seeing the forest through the trees. (Yes, I’m just popping with metaphors today!).

Nature abhors a vacuum. I learned that in tenth grade chemistry class. “Nature abhors a vacuum”. People need to eat, pay their bills, pay for health insurance (whoa boy, let’s not go there!), and gas up their yachts. The only way to do that is by filling the employment vacuum. And so, my friends, herein is the golden opportunity for you to dust off your thinking caps, get smart, and get creative.

As change happens, new needs and thus new opportunities are all around us.

The advertising world as we know it, for example, has to suffer as DVR’s and on-demand services invite us to altogether skip those 15- and 30-second bathroom breaks that cost millions create and to air. Yet, advertising can’t die because products still need to be advertised in order to be sold. So the business model needs to change. In some ways it’s begun to (experiential marketing, anyone?). But, how else? We don’t know. Or at least I don’t know. Who’s gonna figure this out?

As new companies form and old powerhouses re-boot, who’s going to handle all the HR and staffing needs? Office space and décor? IT? Lots of health care reform options are on the table right now. Who’s going to handle all the administrative work at insurance companies? In the government? In your gastro guy’s office?

Maybe you have an entrepreneurial spirit, and instinctively look for hidden opportunity. Bless you, you’re in heaven right now. Maybe your inner humanitarian was squelched by your outer derivatives trader. Well, there are lots of people in need right now. Think there’s any way to combine your passion with your career skills?

Hell, maybe Gordon Gekko was right, and that greed is good. Ego, too. Sure, we mock it now that we’ve been burned by it in its ugliest forms (hi, AIG!). But greed, kept on a reasonable leash, is a great motivator. The big financial houses are based on greed…they make money by making money. It’s their business. What else going to drive them to restructure, reboot, revive the economy - and hire you to help them do it? What’s going to motivate you to start that new business, which in turn is going to re-employ the mom of three whose home would otherwise be foreclosed?

Sure, some things will stay more or less the same, but at the same time, some lessons have been learned, the financially mighty humbled, and some kinder, gentler, more meaningful motivators have begun to emerge. At the very least, it’s giving us the opportunity we often miss: to take stock of where we are, what we’re really about, and where it is we want to be. Need more motivation? Just remember, it was a tiny li’l old lady, in a tiny low-budget TV commercial, who introduced us to those now larger-than-life words, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”