In this week's episode Sarah chats with Logan about how to deal with being fired or laid off from work, something that we can probably all resonate with.

About Logan:

I've led SEO teams in the affiliate space and more recently B2B SaaS. My biggest success was leading Tipalti.com to 15X growth as a Unicorn FinTech organization. I recently launched a Beta product for Multi-Site Title Tag Management. Currently partnering with Agencies and B2B SaaS teams as a solo Consultant.

Where to find Logan:

@thisbylogan on Instagram

@LogansNotions on Twitter

Logan's Website

Logan on YouTube

Logan Bryant on LinkedIn

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Resources used for episode

• Digital Strategist + SEO Engineer - Nick Eubanks
• Patrick Rice Co. – Independent SEO Consultant – Scale Revenue

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Hello everyone and a very warm welcome to the SEO Mindset podcast, which is brought to you by myself, Sarah McDowell, and my wonderful co host, Tazmin Suleman. Now, this week I have a cracking guest joining me and we're going to touch on a quite important it might get heavy and it's going to be an interesting topic to talk about, but it's all about this episode is going to be all about dealing with being laid off or fired from work and strategies, because it all happens to us. Or I think we can all resonate with this kind of topic or this happening in some sort of way. So I'm really excited to talk about this now before I get Logan on. Who is Logan? I haven't said his name, have I? So our guest is Logan Bryant and Logan leads SEO teams in the affiliate space and more recently B to B SaaS. His biggest success was leading tipolt.com hopefully I said that right to 15 X growth as a unicorn fintech organization. So if you are enjoying the podcast and what me and Tazmin do, reminder that you can donate, we are on Buy Me a Coffee. A link will be in our show notes and also help us spread the word. So next time you're listening to an episode and you know someone who will really love it, find the link to that episode and share it with them over WhatsApp Facebook messenger anyway, but just help us spread the word of the SEO Mindset. Right, logan, hello, how are we doing?

Hi, Sarah. I'm doing great.

Happy to be on the I one. Very much love this topic. So when you suggested it, I was like, yeah, we need this, we need this on the SEO Mindset. And yeah, we've been chatting I suppose we've kind of been familiar or chatting over different things for a while. So it's great to actually have you on the podcast, on the SEO Mindset podcast and talking about this subject.

Yeah, like you said, it can get a little bit heavy at times. But I think it's also an important one because, honestly, careers get heavy sometimes and we all need a little bit of sort of we need to process things a lot of times difficult situations in our careers. And even though they're not always the most exciting, sort of like how I grew this blog to insane traffic levels kind of a topic. Sometimes it's more critical. And those times when you are in a rut or just been fired or laid off or anything like that and you're just mentally struggling through this insane internal battle, those can be some of the most important phases of our career. And so hopefully we can unpack some things for people and help people out.

In that way 100%. And this podcast is all about talking about these important subjects that don't often get spoken about and this is included in that. So let's get stuck in. Going to start with a quite heavy question for you, Logan. Let's jump in at the deep end, so to speak. Have you ever been fired or laid off and how did this make you feel?

Yes, multiple times. And of course, it made me feel horrible. There's no sugar coating that feeling that you have when you're going through something like that. There's silver lining. Of course, you can look at the bright side always, but the feeling is still there and the feeling is still really difficult to process. I have been fired once. That felt horrible. I rebounded and then had another job. I quit that one about a year after joining. And even the quitting process on that second one also felt horrible. And then I was laid off. More recently, I was laid off twice. Those were very interesting stories, but I think those four experiences could each be unpacked one by one. Most likely.

I mean, thank you for being so open and transparent because I think it is hard to sort of say those words out loud, isn't it, that, yes, I have been fired, I have been let go. Even though it's happened to us all, there's been times in my career that I've been fired and let go. And it is hard to say sometimes, isn't it? It just feels uncomfortable, even just me then saying, I've been fired and let go. It did make me feel uncomfortable.

Yeah. I think especially the first time because I had it in my mind that I think that there's this stigma that sometimes gets attached to people who've been fired or let go. And that's the fear that really crushed me the first time that it happened. Because I felt like not only it wasn't just like the pain of getting fired, but it was also this big fear in the back of my mind that when I go to my next job interview and they ask me what happened. And if I'm honest about the realities of how that all went down, then all of a sudden, it's almost like you're alienating your future career potential. Well, you're not doing it. But the event of being fired feels like, oh, no, I'm not going to be able to reach my full potential. Like Joe over there who's climbed the ladder three times and has this amazing success story, and he can go to his next employer with that versus, hey, I worked here and then they let me go. You know what I mean? So the story of your career gets altered and then you start to feel like, man, am I going to sort of have the scarlet letter on my forehead of like, I was fired. And now employers are going to be like, stay away from that one. That's not a good egg kind of a thing. So more than anything, for me, that first experience, that was my biggest fear.

Yeah. And I completely get that fear because it completely makes sense, because it's nerve wracking being in an interview at the best of times, let alone if you've got to sort of own up about what happened at your last job and if you have been fired, it is a hard thing to say. But I suppose why you've been fired or why you've been let go isn't necessarily a bad reflection on you, for one, is it? You get fired or let go for lots of reasons. And I think we have to remember that that sometimes it's not personal. Well, I was going to say sometimes it's not personal, but it is personal because you're being fired. So that was ironic in itself. But have you got any sort of tips for our listeners of how best you can deal or process with being laid off or fired?

Um, well, I do I wonder if we should go into the stories. Should we start with the stories and do the tips? I don't mean to derail the conversation, but no, we could do it either way.

Yeah, go share.

So let's start with I'll go through each of the stories. So the first time that I was laid off, this was a company that I had worked for for approximately four years. I loved this company, especially when I first joined, I was, like, in awe of the people that worked there, loved working with these people, was soaking in information daily, and just really enjoying it. It had its downs as well, but I just loved the company and loved the job. A few years into that, I was doing everything I could to prove myself. I had a director that was like, hey, you're close to being promoted. And he thought I was doing a great job. That director then left and was replaced with a new director shortly after. And me being early in my career, I was kind of naive enough to think that, oh, well, maybe I'm still close to reaching the next level. So I was just, like, really going for that promotion. I couldn't even see any other options out there because all I wanted was to get promoted at this company. The new director just didn't mesh as well with me and my style. And so I don't know exactly how to put it, but I continued to sort of try to work with this person and do my best, basically give my best work. I ended up advocating for myself, and I was like, hey, had a meeting with him. Hey, what do you think it takes for me to get promoted? This director then was like, well, we've got a summer internship program. Let's see how you do in managing people with the summer interns, and we can revisit at the end. He was supposed to help out, but he ended up getting too busy, so I essentially ran the whole program. Kind of saved him a little bit because I took so much off of his plate doing that program, and the interns all gave me positive reviews. It went fairly successfully, and at the end of the program, I was like, hey, what's about that promotion? And he kind of gave me a non answer. And then several months went by, and I was just hoping that something would happen. And I just got more and more angry. I was like, you made me jump through all the hoops. I jumped through the hoops. I passed your tests, and I'm still waiting around, and nothing's happening. So I didn't handle it very well. So anyway, I was let go, and then that's when it crushed me. So when that happened, I immediately just my anxiety just went to, like, job hunt. I went straight to job hunt. I ended up getting another role very quickly, fortunately worked in the next role for about a year and had a similar betrayal type of circumstance. I just felt betrayed by my leader. So there was a guy that I was reporting to who ended up really like, he was a great guy. Actually, the guy that I was reporting to, he ended up taking another job, left, and then when he left, it was kind of apparent that he and I were sympatico almost on the same level kind of a thing. Like, he was my boss, but we were equally sharp in terms of what we were doing and delivering and all of that. So I felt like, hey, I'm on his level. He felt like I was on his level. I think he would probably agree to that as well. And I think he also wanted me to fill his shoes when he left. Long story short, there was another sort of internal thing. Another leader ended up trying to kind of prevent me from getting his old role, and so they sort of restructured things and tried to keep me in place, and I was just like, this is the second time I can't go anywhere in my career. And I was just like, what is going on here? So that's when I quit that company. When I quit that company, it was about nine months. So this was the second job I had kind of exited, and then it took about nine months to find my next. So because this was mean, there's several jobs in Utah. But at that point, in that stage in my career, I very strongly believed in myself, and I felt like the roles that were out there, the jobs that were available, didn't match my level. So the ones that did match my level were very few and far between.

Okay?

So I was trying to interview for those jobs, but there just wasn't that many. So I was just like, what I did is I just enrolled in a development boot camp. I was like, I got to level up my technical SEO. I'd heard that from a few job interviews. One which was quite a prominent company with a very well known SEO in the industry as well. Don't know if I should call that one out, but this very well known SEO gave me some good advice and said, hey, you're weaker in the technical SEO area and that's why you didn't get the job. And it was very honest, very straightforward, and I very much respected that critique. So I went and I did the development boot camp. So I basically sunk more money into my career while I was laid off. I ended up burning through cash, getting super worried about how much I was spending without any income, but I just felt like I need to level up in this area. So I did that, and I basically just hustled on my own for about nine months, and that led me to getting the job at Tupalti. So it's kind of like I had these downs in my career, but ultimately it's one of those we've all seen those charts. Your career isn't a straight line, it's like a line or whatever it really was that for me. So it's like I went through these awful experiences. I sharpened myself a little bit in the time off, and the hustle that I had while I was unemployed led to my best job ever, which was know. So that's kind of how that arc went. There's two more stories I'll get to real quick. Following that. Tupalti was an amazing success. Stayed there for about three years, loved it, still loved the company, still respect everybody that works there. And interestingly enough, I got headhunted while I was at Topalti, so I got recruited to another company and I accepted the offer. We basically had everything in writing a couple of months after I accepted the offer, or well, actually, a few weeks after I accepted the offer was when the whole layoff palooza went down with the economy crash and everything, and VC mailing companies. So I was one of the first people before the news really even hit the fan. I was one of the very first people that basically my offer got rescinded from this other company that headhunted me away from Tupaldi. So I was like, oh my gosh, I just took a big chance on a whole different company leaving this job in this company that I genuinely loved. And now my offer has been rescinded and I'm on the outs again. Like, what is going on? It was crazy town. Found another role, stayed there for about three months. They went through a similar thing, so the other company had to do some layoffs, and I was, again, let go for the second time in a year after only about three months of doing SEO for the company, which, as we all know, is impossible to get amazing results in three months. Yeah, so those are like my four layoff stories of my career.

I mean, thank you for being so open and transparent and sharing all that. And I think that just it shines a light on. Like you said, when you look at a line graph for your career, it's not going to go in a straight line, especially if you want to develop and try new things. It's going to go a bit wiggly and things aren't going to go to plan, things that are out of your control or maybe things that don't go quite to plan and you get fired, you're going to have ups and downs, but I suppose that's just part and parcel of it and you sharing your story. Just goes to show that after the break because we are going to take a short break, but I think what would be good after the break is sort of sharing with our audience tips of how to deal with this situation of being let go, being fired. But yeah, thank you very much for sharing all your stories. That was very interesting. And yes, let's take a short break and we'll be back for part two.

Awesome.

We are back with part two. Are you still with us, Logan?

I am.

Wonderful news. Wonderful news. Right? So let's turn this into a positive then, shall we? So let's share or could you share tips with our audience of how to deal with this situation?

Yeah. So first tip, which is easier said than done, and we hear it all the time, is try not to take it personally. It's very easy to think like, oh, is there something I could have done? Is there something in my control? But especially there's a lot of times, especially like layoffs that are just fully outside of our control and we still feel horrible. We still feel like it's a reflection on us. We still feel like it's going to harm our career in some way. The reality is it kind of goes back to controlling what you can control and letting go of what you can't control.

That's such good advice.

So we absolutely have to keep that in mind and we have to remind ourselves of that because our feelings don't like to let us remember that. When your feelings come up, like it's like something just happened that's a major event and your life's been flipped around. Your feelings want to tell you all these they'll trick your brain into telling you all these kinds of things and stories about like, oh, my gosh, you're not a good SEO or you're not a good employee, or whatever it is. And the reality is you may have been a great employee and it may not have been a fit. It's a little bit like a relationship. You can meet different people and people can break up and they can say horrible things about each other. And there may be some truth to some of the things that they say, but if they're with the wrong person, they're just going to have a horrible experience. Whereas if they meet somebody that's more in line with their values, whose communication style is more in line with their communication style, love languages are matching, et cetera, that sort of relationship culture that the two can build together can be a fit. And so fit is such an important thing in a career and companies change is the other thing. My first layoff, I was a great fit and I loved the company culture. Initially the company changed over the four years that I was working there. And as a newbie, I didn't realize how much and how quickly a company could change with new leaders and all of that. So it was almost like I didn't realize that things were changing even though they were. I was a little bit blind to the fact that this company that I'm now in is no longer the same company that it was when I started. So we have to kind of continually check and see how we fit with the company and how the company fits with us. And so if that happens, that's just a normal phase of life to go through, that people change, companies change, and it may have been time for a change if you've been laid off and there may be something better around the corner.

Yeah, exactly. And I really liked when you said about it's like a relationship. Like you have relationships at work, you have relationships that don't. People break up. And it is the same with working, especially because you spend most of your time with the people that you work with as well, don't you? So it's so important to make sure that you fit in with the company culture. Team is a big thing as well. Who you're working with day in, day out, who you're reporting to, who's part of your team of getting stuff done. That's also an important one, isn't it?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Is there anything else, like any sort of practical tips? So when you've just been fired or you've just found out some news, is there anything like, I don't know, taking a breather or doing something you enjoy, is there anything that you've found that helps in that situation?

Yes, I think that these kinds of situations can be both emotional and logical. So don't forget that there's going to be an emotional element. And it's so important as humans, as adults, that we learn our emotions. And for me, one of the most effective tools that I've used and I don't use it as much as I should, but I do use it in crisis situations.

Okay.

So my default when I go to a crisis situation like that one is mindful meditation.

Yeah.

So I've got a subscription to the Headspace app. That's my personal app of choice. There's other ones out there, there's calm, there's others. Some people prefer going to a therapist, some people we have different ways of dealing with those emotions. If you want to do professional therapy, that's okay. If you want to do something different, that's okay too. But the whole idea is just learn to deal with your emotions in a healthy way. And for me, that's been the most healthy way. The second thing that I would say that is healthy for me is a gratitude journal. There's like a five minute journal that I purchased on Amazon that has like a few little pointers because I was like, I need something quick but also helpful. So the combination of the five minute gratitude journal that helps me to put things into perspective because when something happens, your perspective changes and it gets very disoriented. It's like your perspective is warped. It's not even reality. Your feelings take over and you start thinking all these negative thoughts. But the gratitude journal and the combination of the gratitude journal and mindful meditation for me was the most effective way of dealing with the emotional side of things. Because if you're emotionally warped, you're not going to be bringing your best self to job interviews. You're not going to be bringing your best self to any sort of a recovery plan. So I think before you even do any recovery plan, think about your emotional side and make time to handle that portion of things no matter what, because it's going to affect everything you do. That's not in the emotional category. You have to figure out the emotional category first.

Yeah, that's such good advice, such good advice. And is there any tips of what you can learn? Is there anything that you can learn from being fired or being let go or anything that you can implement next time?

Yeah, I would say first of all, remember that graph. It's going to be a squiggly line. I mean, my career trajectory took me to some lows, but out of that came my best success story and it was incredible and I'm super grateful for it. It's absolutely elevated my career. So those downs did follow ups, but when I was in the downs, I could not see the ups. It's so hard to see around the corner and see when you're in the down and when you're in the pits. It's so hard to think, oh, there could be an amazing job for me next year that will lead to this really cool case study and people will like it. And I'll actually experience the success that I've been working so hard for for the last whatever number of years. Yeah, that grind can be exhausting. So keeping in mind that there could be an upside and as far as practical tips outside of mindfulness and those sort of like mental tips, the mental game for me, like I mentioned, I took some time going to the Dev boot camp and just leveling up my skills. So while I was unemployed, I looked for areas where I was weak in my career and I tried to turn them into strengths or at least turn them into something that I wasn't as weak in before, so that I could go into job interviews. And when I interviewed with Topalti, I could have gone in and been like, well, I was let go nine months ago. What have you been doing since then? I could have been like, well, I've been playing pickleball or whatever. But at that point in time, I had a story that was more like, hey, I was let go. I spent a ton of time developing my technical SEO skills, and I went so far as to even enroll in a development boot camp to do so. So then the employer sees, oh, I've invested in myself. I haven't been sitting on the couch for nine months. Yeah, I've been continuing to hustle in my own way and level myself up in my own way. And that's very attractive to my next employer, even though there was a job gap in my resume.

And it shows that you're proactive, because I think it's hard, isn't it? Because in that moment when you've just been fired or you've just been let go, you're going to feel all that raw emotion. You're not going to feel great and it's going to be hard, but you do kind of need to be like, right, okay, what's my game plan? What am I doing next? For you, it was to look at where your weaknesses were and look at where you could level up, basically. And that's such great advice because see it as like a bit of a kick up the bum, or see it as like a way to turn a negative into a positive, because this was the reason why I got let go. I'm going to make that into a positive for why someone would want to hire me. So I think that's great advice to not sit and because you could be stubborn, couldn't you, and wallow in it and feel sad, or you could actually start doing something about it. Put yourself out there and get finding your dream job or your best job like you have done. And I'm so glad that your squiggly line, as we're calling it, ended up in a success. So I'm very happy for you.

Yeah, and one more thing that was really cool out of that development boot camp, if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have also come up with this idea. I built a title testing tool, and that idea came from the development boot camp several years ago. So now that whole SEO tool that I've now built is like a manifestation that came from that period of my life where I was out of work and trying to learn code and banging my head against the wall. So out of that sort of pain or fire or whatever can come something bigger in the future. So that's kind of another silver lining on top of finding Topalty work. But I would also say that you can find a passion project. It doesn't have to be, Go do a developer boot camp. It doesn't have to be level up your skills. It could be that, hey, you've just been let go. Now, I can see this as an opportunity to follow some sort of a dream or passion project that I have. Maybe it's building an affiliate website for yourself. Maybe it's starting a podcast.

I was just going to say, maybe it's starting a podcast.

Yeah, maybe it's something like that. So if you've got something that is like, oh, I've had this project that all these years of working full time for somebody I've never had time for, let me invest some time while I have it into this other thing. And maybe by the end of that, you can actually have some sort of a portfolio that you can bring to your next job interview as opposed to a development boot camp. So it could be anything really wonderful.

I've really enjoyed this conversation because, yeah, we said at the start that it might be a bit heavy or bit hard to talk about, but I think it's been really good to have this frank and honest conversation and actually, look, this is how you turn it all into a positive and how you can start making things work for you. We are running out of time. Well, we've practically ran out of time, but I just want to squeeze in the questions that I always ask all my guests. The first one is, if you could sum up in a sentence the main takeaway from today's episode. What would that be?

The main takeaway from this episode is that your career is a squiggly line and make sure to watch and address your emotional state of mind so that you can turn that into a positive.

Love it.

That's my sentence.

Love it. I love how we've both used squiggly line as well, and we both know what that means. If you could sum up in a sentence again your best career advice that you've ever received, what would that be?

Best career advice I have ever received? Oh, man, I wasn't expecting this question.

Sorry.

Best career advice I've ever received.

Is there anything that springs to mind? Something that an old boss has said to you or someone that you worked with? Someone that you met in your developer camp? I don't know. Like anything.

I can't put it into a sentence because there's way too much. I'm just going to say that the best career advice experience of career advice I've ever received came from Nick Eubanks. So I'm going to plug Nick Eubanks in there and say that he's given me so many he's been so generous with this time and so much career advice has come from him, and I'm just so grateful for that. So there's so much that content out there from him. I would say follow his content for all of that advice, but I just. Can't summarize it. I have no way of summarizing all of that information.

We'll make sure that their details or where to follow. Like you said, he's got loads of resources. We'll pop them in the show notes so people can find him. Another time to put you on the spot, one person to follow in SEO right now.

So one person I'm going to go with an underdog who has really impressed me with his work, his personality and his hustle has been Patrick Rice. So Patrick Rice, he's a younger guy, he's one of those guys that somehow figured out a way early on to go solo and build up his own portfolio of clients. And I'm just really impressed with his work and he's just also a really cool guy.

So check him out again. We shall pop him and some links so you can find him, follow him and reach out, whatever. We'll pop him in the show notes and yeah, I'm very sorry, Logan, but time we have reached.

Well, hopefully it's been helpful.

That's the goal here 100%. Look, this podcast is all about those open, honest conversations that don't often get talked about. And I don't think I've ever had such an open and frank conversation about being fired and let go. So this is really good and I think it's going to be really helpful for our listeners. So thank you so much.

Hopefully it is. Thank you.

Thank you. And yes, just as a reminder, as I said at the start, if you do enjoy the podcast and what me and Tazmin are doing, you can support us. You can give us a donation on Buy Me a Coffee. Our link is in the show notes for that. And again, like I said earlier, please do share episodes. So after listening to Logan and his episode on being fired, being let go, and how to turn into a positive, if you know someone who would really like this episode or will find it really helpful, please do share it with yeah. And hopefully you'll join us next time for another wonderful conversation to delve into another topic. Goodbye for now.