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When Your Job Is Your Identity: How to Rebuild After the Title Is Gone
Ask a business owner who they are and listen closely to the answer. Nine times out of ten you’ll hear a title, like I’m the founder, I’m the vice president, or I’m the guy who runs the shop on Main Street!
So what happens the day that title goes away?
Maybe you sell the business. Maybe there’s a restructuring and you get the call into HR on a Tuesday morning. Either way, when your job is your identity, losing it can knock the floor right out from under you, and nobody hands you a manual for what comes next!
That’s exactly what I talked about on this episode of Renegade Breakthroughs with my guest Janylène Turcotte, and I loved this conversation!
Who Is Janylène Turcotte?
Janylène is the founder of HypnoCoach and a clinical hypnotherapist who has guided more than 1,500 one-on-one sessions. Before that, she spent 25 years as a senior human resources executive.
Now, the HR people are usually the ones delivering the bad news, right? Well, Janylène has been on both sides of that desk! She lost her own executive position in a corporate restructuring, and two years later, at 49, she made another decision that changed everything. She stopped drinking, and she hasn’t had a drink in the nine years since!
Today she works with founders and senior leaders through the identity shifts a resume never prepares you for, like selling a business or getting fired and asking yourself, “Now what?”
Why the Things We Lean On Work (At First)
I asked Janylène what really drives drinking, and her answer surprised me with how simple it was. Whatever reason you start drinking for, it works!
For her, it was about fitting in. She was a bit of a nerd growing up and felt left out, and alcohol made her funny and part of the gang. For a lot of people, it’s that glass of wine after work and before the kids, the one moment of the day to take the edge off.
The problem is that it keeps working only for a while! Tolerance builds, you need more, and somewhere along the way you cross a line you never even notice crossing. Eventually you’re drinking just to keep from feeling bad, because the good feeling stopped showing up a long time ago.
That’s why Janylène suggests a better question than judgment when someone tells you they drink too much. In other words, what did it do for you back when it started, before it became a habit?
You see, a habit is almost always solving a problem, at least in the short term. Somebody who is shy finally opens up, and somebody with a low self-image finally feels like they belong.
I saw this up close when I was in college in Montreal and worked four years at the SAQ, Quebec’s liquor store. Two guys who started around the same time I did became alcoholics within six months. One of them was eventually caught drinking from the cases in the basement and taping them back up. He lost his job and his girlfriend, and he simply couldn’t stop. It was really sad to watch!
Janylène was clear on this point. Once the substance takes over, you’re no longer in the driver’s seat, and there’s a real biological effect on your judgment. So when someone says an addict could stop if they really wanted to, that just isn’t the case!
She also made a point I want to repeat here. She quit cold turkey, but she would NEVER tell anyone else to do it that way. If you’ve been drinking heavily for years, see a doctor and get medical support before you stop.
When the Title Is Gone, Who Are You?
Here’s where it ties straight back to business. The title, the company and even the bank balance can become the same kind of crutch, and when your job is your identity, you don’t see it until it’s gone!
Janylène works with a lot of entrepreneurs who are selling their companies, and some of them are young. They’re in their late 30s or early 40s and suddenly quite wealthy. Their spouse still wants to work, the kids still have to go to school, and they don’t want to play golf every day for the rest of their lives.
Most of them hit the wall at about six months, and the questions start. What do I like? What do I want to do now? Some of them don’t even know their favorite color, because for years the business decided everything for them. In family businesses, many of them were chosen to be the one who carries everyone, the family ATM.
Janylène calls the work that follows finding your re-purpose. You were headed in one direction for a long time, and now you get to choose a new one!
I shared a thought on the show about this, because it connects to where AI is taking all of us. People worry that if machines handle the work, everyone will sit on their hands. I don’t believe that for a second! Look at anyone who retires. After a few months of rest, they go right back to building and creating, because that’s who we are.
In fact, did you know entrepreneur is a French word? It comes from entreprendre, to undertake. An entrepreneur is the one who takes everything on, which is a gift and a curse at the same time. We’re so skilled that it cripples us, ironically!
Peel Back, Rewire and Rise: Janylène’s Three Steps
Her method has three parts, and the third is the one most coaching skips entirely.
Step 1: Peel Back
Peel back means going into the subconscious to find the story you’re telling yourself without knowing it. Say you have a buyer, the timing is perfect, the deal is right, and you just can’t sign. Something underneath is playing on a loop.
Once you see that story for what it is, you can’t unsee it! At one point in your life it may have made sense, but it doesn’t serve you anymore.
A lot of programs stop right there. Back in my Tony Robbins days we had a saying for that problem. We broke them open, but we didn’t fix them!
Step 2: Rewire
Rewire is where you build the new program. Janylène uses role plays, stories and visualization, so the person who fears public speaking actually sees themselves on stage feeling grounded and strong, even with people checking their phones in the third row.
Remember, the old program doesn’t get erased. You simply stop walking that old path, and the less you walk it, the less familiar it becomes, until one day you don’t go back there at all because it’s no longer familiar or fun!
Step 3: Rise
Rise asks a simple question. Now that you think differently about yourself, where are you going to take it? How do you want to impact yourself, your family and the people around you?
Here’s the part I loved. Janylène says don’t wait for the new belief to be fully installed before you act. When you take action while the belief is still settling in, the two feed each other, and you get a lot more than you expected!
What Hypnosis Is, and What It Isn’t
People get nervous about hypnosis because of the stage shows they’ve seen on TV, and that’s simply not what this is.
Her clients stay fully aware the whole time. If she gets a detail wrong, they’ll correct her, and if they need the bathroom, they’ll tell her! What drops away is the hypervigilance, that noise in your head telling you it didn’t work last time.
You already know this state, because it’s what happens when you lose yourself in a movie, or drive somewhere and can’t remember the trip. (I thought that was just getting older!) And yes, she works with clients all over the world over Zoom, in English or French!
Go After Ten-Out-of-Ten Moments
Janylène had a great observation about her clients. On her intake questionnaire, most of them rate their lives about a seven out of ten, even though from the street you’d swear they had a ten-out-of-ten life.
So she tells them to stop chasing the perfect life and start collecting ten-out-of-ten moments, small ones, all day long. Your brain shows you more of whatever you tell it matters. Look for idiots and you’ll find plenty of them, but look for those moments and you’ll find a lot more of them, too!
Your Value Doesn’t Rise and Fall With Your Bank Account
Her closing words of wisdom hit home for me. Your value doesn’t change based on what people think of you. When you do something great, you’re not better, and when you fall short, you’re not worse. You are who you are!
I see this again and again with entrepreneurs. When the bank account is low, they feel worthless, and when it’s full, they’re king of the road. That’s a dangerous way to live, because nobody is shielded from life!
Janylène put it beautifully. She can tell her story as a former drinker or as the woman who quit at 49 and started a business a few years later. It’s the same person either way, and it all depends on who writes the story.
And judgment? It belongs to the judge! When someone judges you, it tells you about how they see the world, not about who you are.
So if you’ve been wearing a title as your identity, take some time this week to ask who you’d be without it, then go write the next chapter yourself!
To book a free discovery call with Janylène, visit HypnoCoach.ca.
Selling your business, changing direction, or just stuck and can’t see why? Most owners don’t have a tactics problem. They have a strategy problem they’re too close to see, and from the outside it jumps out in minutes. Book a Power Session with me at renegade.club/powersession and let’s find it together! Then grab my free AI guide at RobertImbriale.com, and listen to the full episode of Renegade Breakthroughs at RobertImbriale.com/listen.
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