Producer Dan (00:02.922)
You're tuned into Positively Terrible. I'm producer Dan and each week my buddy Scott and I discuss surviving, and thriving after trauma. It's a journey that started when Scott, his wife's fiance, and her boyfriend all walked into a bar. This week's Decent Human Being is Angelie. She's got a messed up story about getting laid off. Settle in my terrible listeners, today's episode is going to be Positively Terrible. Hey Scott!

Terrible Scott (00:28.836)
Dan, what's going on, man?

Producer Dan (00:31.755)
Well, that's my second run through the intro because I screwed it up the first time and I forgot to hit start, but now we're recording and I feel real good about everything, so.

Terrible Scott (00:40.63)
Well, can we start over? I think you've made some, nevermind, nevermind. We've gotta get going. Yeah, you made it through the second time and it was pretty awesome. We probably talk a little too much about how you do in the intro, but it's one of the most fascinating things. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that's the favorite part of our guests being here. Their favorite part is not just listening to you read, but watching you do it too. You're quite the professional. I...

Producer Dan (01:07.798)
You like to see my hands move when I talk?

Terrible Scott (01:09.766)
I like to see your hands move, just everything, Dan. You're wonderful at it. And Anjali, what do you think is that? Are you impressed already?

Angilie Kapoor (01:21.504)
I am, I am. Dan, you did an amazing job.

Terrible Scott (01:24.821)
Alright.

Producer Dan (01:24.895)
Thank you so much. I really like the way we're really building me up this time guys

Terrible Scott (01:28.05)
Yeah, Dan, you're an amazing guy. I'm going to record an episode dedicated just to all of your talent someday. But that is not what we're here for today. Today we're here to talk about Anjali getting laid off after building up a career. And before I say anything to you, Anjali, what I'm going to say is this is very timely for me. I'm leaving my job. It was just announced at work this week, so I can talk about it. And I'm going to.

Producer Dan (01:38.112)
No.

Angilie Kapoor (01:54.827)
Oh.

Terrible Scott (01:56.298)
I've built my career up over 18 years, worked my way into management, and just kind of decided I've hit the end of the road here and am going to pursue other adventures, and it's a weird and scary time. But we're not here to talk about that either. We're here to talk about you. So, Anjali, can you tell us a little bit about your career? You, I believe it was healthcare that you were working in, is that correct? Yeah, and how'd you get into that? Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (02:10.15)
Hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (02:22.728)
Yes, yes. So I've been in health care. Yeah, it's actually I'm through my mom and my family. I have a family of health care practitioners. I have my mom's been a nurse all over life. Same thing with my aunt. And I have several uncles. Same thing. And so I was kind of steered in that direction, if you will. And so that's how I got into health care. I was in health care for over 20 years. I started on the clinical side. And I started as a scrub tech. I don't know if you guys know what that is.

people in surgery who hand the surgeon's instruments. Yeah.

Producer Dan (02:55.246)
Oh yeah.

Terrible Scott (02:55.462)
Okay, I've seen them on TV before.

Angilie Kapoor (02:58.68)
Yeah, yeah, probably on scrubs or something. But yeah, so I did that for a while and then I got tired of, you know, wearing a mask all day and being in a cold OR and never seeing anybody while they were awake. They are. Yeah. They keep them like around 50 or below. So yeah.

Terrible Scott (03:00.522)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right.

Producer Dan (03:12.294)
ORs are really cold.

Terrible Scott (03:21.347)
Is that is there a reason for that? I'm sorry, but it's probably not important to this conversation, but I assume there's a reason

Angilie Kapoor (03:24.599)
Uh, yeah, no-

Angilie Kapoor (03:28.216)
Yeah, no, everybody always people are always curious about that. But yeah, they keep it that cold to prevent like germs and infections. But yeah, yeah. But anyway. Exactly. So so yeah, so I did that for a number of years, and then I decided to hop on to the administrative side and, you know, started at an entry level position and made my way up to the management ranks. And

Terrible Scott (03:35.442)
Okay.

Producer Dan (03:37.442)
that's too cold for organisms to reproduce. Typically.

Terrible Scott (03:42.654)
All right, good to know.

Angilie Kapoor (03:56.312)
No, we've discussed this, Scott, that I actually am today. I'm a leadership coach and I work with managers who are struggling because that's a really difficult transition to make. And you've been in management, so I'm sure you know. And then, yeah, about, I want to say it was my fourth or fifth year as a manager. I was with a company that had just emerged with another company. And

Terrible Scott (04:08.174)
Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (04:23.716)
because of financial stresses. And just one day walked into the office, thought it was a normal, typical work day, and then I get called into my boss's office. And the meeting said, check in. So I was expecting, oh, she's just gonna check in, see how things are going. And yeah, before I know it, she tells me that they're laying me off and hands me my little pink slip and a couple boxes to empty out my office. And...

shoot me on my way, so that's how that happened.

Terrible Scott (04:55.982)
Yeah, and it's an experience that a lot of people have gone through. It doesn't make it any easier to know that a lot of people have gone through it, at least not in that moment. But I want to take it back a little bit and just ask, like, was management something that you aspired to go into? Was that always kind of the plan or was it something that just kind of happened?

Angilie Kapoor (05:04.91)
Right.

Angilie Kapoor (05:19.296)
Yeah, it was definitely something that just kind of happened and I think that's how a lot of managers end up being managers. It's they, you know...

Terrible Scott (05:25.744)
It's probably good for your business that that's how people end up managers.

Producer Dan (05:27.918)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Angilie Kapoor (05:30.673)
Exactly, exactly. But yeah, I mean, you know, I was, you know, doing really well in my different positions. I mean, I would probably get bored with a position every one or two years just because, you know, I'm a type A personality, I'm an overachiever, I'm really ambitious. So, you know, I did move up the career ladder pretty quickly, but it was never my intention to end up in the management ranks. It's just.

You know, you get called into your boss's office and they say, hey, you know, you're doing a great job. And we have this position opening up and we wanted to know if you'd be interested. And you know what, that's again, me being ambitious and an overachiever, I went ahead and decided to give it a shot. And I actually went back to school to get my four year degree in healthcare management administration.

But yeah, it definitely wasn't something that I was aspiring to. And talking to other people who have become managers, a majority of them, it's the same thing. They were kind of singled out as, you have great job performance, you're a team player. Let's try you as a manager. And then they get into a management position and it's like, whoa, this is not what I expected. Yeah.

Terrible Scott (06:31.616)
Yeah.

Terrible Scott (06:44.402)
Yeah, and it's going to be hard for me to not put on my director hat during this conversation because I see this all the time and it makes me wonder, like in this situation, before you were presented with this opportunity, had your manager ever talked to you about is this the direction you want to go? Was there ever career path conversations or was it just

Angilie Kapoor (06:54.192)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (07:12.77)
hey, we've got this opportunity for you and setting it up like this is the best thing ever. You're going to because I know a lot of times that that's how it happens. It's like, oh, hey, Dan, you want to be manager? This is going to be great for you. And Dan may never have wanted to manage people. So what were your feelings at that point? Was that was that kind of the next step that you were ready for or was presented to you? It sounds like it was more of being presented to you.

Angilie Kapoor (07:40.052)
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely more presented to me. And then I took it as, okay, and let me prepare myself for this next step by going back to school. But I mean, I definitely feel like, and that's kind of one of the things, my soapbox talks that I talk about with working with managers in the workplace is that most of them are promoted because...

Terrible Scott (07:46.158)
Okay. Oh, okay.

Angilie Kapoor (08:05.616)
they're seen by their boss or the hiring manager is again, being a good performer in the current job that they're doing, they're a good team player, but that doesn't necessarily correlate into being able to lead because it's a whole different skillset. Exactly, it's a whole different skillset. No, no, please. It's a whole different skillset, like you said. It's a whole different approach and a perspective. And yeah, and they never prepare you for that.

Terrible Scott (08:21.15)
It's not the same skill set. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Angilie Kapoor (08:34.676)
Nobody ever told me that. Other managers that I talked to, like, yeah, you know, crickets, blind, nobody told me.

Terrible Scott (08:39.786)
Yeah. And you know, as a manager, as a director, one thing that I'd like the world to know is a little bit. We talked about it. The Peter principle, getting promoted to the level of your own incompetence. You're good. You're great at a job. So what do you do? You get promoted. You're great at that job. What happens? You get promoted. You're not so great at that job. So you stay there. And then you end up with people in the wrong positions for their skill set.

Angilie Kapoor (08:53.232)
Hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (09:06.639)
Exactly.

Terrible Scott (09:09.482)
And it's kind of messed up the way. And the reason I say I wish everyone could hear this is because I very strongly believe in creating kind of your own career path and working on your man with your managers on what that is. And it's such a rare thing to happen in the workforce today.

Angilie Kapoor (09:10.465)
Exactly.

Angilie Kapoor (09:24.549)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (09:28.992)
Exactly, exactly. I totally agree on that. And, you know, I don't know if we talked about this before, but when you have people in these positions of authority that, you know, aren't quite ready for them yet, I mean, that's when you get all kinds of problems. You know, that's when we get unhealthy work environments, toxic work environments, and, you know, they don't know how to handle managing different personalities, making good decisions that aren't based on, you know, emotions or trying to be liked

of doing the right thing. So that's where things, it's really at the detriment of a company to have somebody who is not effective in a position like that because it's costing the company all kinds of stuff like high turnover rates, lost revenue. I mean, yeah, I can just go on and on.

Terrible Scott (10:18.718)
Yeah, and I could too, Angeline. I'm not going to let either of us do that, because this is not a business podcast, but I love talking about this type of stuff. So let's kind of get back to your career track. So you got, went back to school, became manager, all of that fun stuff, and one day, you're called to a check-in.

Angilie Kapoor (10:36.134)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (10:39.732)
Exactly. Yeah, called into a check-in.

Terrible Scott (10:40.426)
And you walk in. Who was in the room when you walked in? Or was it over like, was it in person or was it over Zoom or something?

Angilie Kapoor (10:49.6)
No, no, no. I mean, she at least had the decency to do it in person. So yeah, I walked into her office and it was her. And then it was also another manager that I worked very closely with who was in there as well. And so I did, when I walked in there and I saw him in there as well, I did think of that was kind of odd that, you know, I thought this was kind of a check-in and there's somebody else in the room, but.

Terrible Scott (10:53.67)
Okay, okay. Well, I...

Angilie Kapoor (11:14.86)
Anyway, I just decided to go with it. Maybe, you know, there was a dual project or something that she wanted to talk about or something like that, but yeah.

Terrible Scott (11:22.75)
Yeah, well, so it wasn't HR. It was just another manager. That was in there. OK, that unusual to me, but I know health care is a lot different than I was going to say the corporate world, but I guess health care is pretty corporate these days, too.

Angilie Kapoor (11:28.12)
Yes. Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (11:38.396)
Well, yeah, not that you mentioned it, that is kind of odd. But again, the company had just gone through a merger and we were going through some difficult organizational and financial stuff. So yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, not that you mentioned that. That is kind of odd.

Terrible Scott (11:53.886)
Alright. So, what did they say to you?

Angilie Kapoor (11:59.768)
So she basically said that, because this new structure that we had gotten in with our company, we went from, you know, the doctors kind of being employees to the doctors being owners. So, you know, she sat me down and she's just said, you know, sorry to tell you this, but the doctors have decided to let you go.

And you know, that was pretty much it. She was very apologetic, wanted me to stay in touch, let her know where I landed next. And like I said, handing me paperwork and a couple of empty boxes and there you go.

Terrible Scott (12:35.442)
Yeah. It sounds and it always is going to sound this way, no matter how much empathy someone may have. But it sounds cold, right?

Angilie Kapoor (12:47.816)
Yeah, yeah. And I think it definitely is. I mean, you know, I have I mentioned this before that I have actually been on both sides of a layoff. I've been the one doing the laying off as well as receiving. And you know, until that happened to me, I didn't realize just how traumatizing it can be for a person. So it was very eye open. I mean, you know, of course, you don't want it to

Terrible Scott (12:55.742)
Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (13:17.75)
think about, you know, when I'm on the other side of that chair, you know, to be more empathetic and understanding and compassionate. And, you know, definitely, I started in my future positions, I started to really fight for my team members, you know, whenever the higher ups were talking about reorganization or, or we have too many people on this side or something, I really

I became this mama bear of my people and started to fight for them because, you know, again, having that experience, I know how devastating it can be. And, you know, if there was any way that I could figure out how to keep somebody on when they were thinking of laying them off, I would totally do it. I would, you know, try and do these jigsaw puzzles of, well, we could do this over here. Yeah. So.

Terrible Scott (14:10.202)
Yeah. And I'd expect nothing, nothing less. You seem like an empathetic and decent human being. So, but I want to go back to that day in the time, like right after that happened. So, what were you thinking when you're being talked at? Was it the, was it literally like the first thing that you were told is that, you know, we're letting you go? And

Angilie Kapoor (14:24.635)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (14:36.418)
Oh yeah, that was the premise of the conversation. It lasted about five minutes.

Terrible Scott (14:39.93)
Yeah, so the next four and a half minutes, what are what are you thinking? Do you can you put yourself back in that position?

Angilie Kapoor (14:46.792)
Yeah, I totally can. I mean, I was completely shocked, completely taken off guard. I mean, again, there was no indication that this was something that was going to happen. In fact, just three months prior, I had the most glowing annual review I had ever had in my career. I had, you know, on the scale of one to five, how they score you. I scored fives on all but two categories and told that I was an asset to the company and all these other.

you know, positive feedback things. So, yeah, it definitely caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting it at all. I mean, again, I knew that the company wasn't doing very well, but I didn't think that it had come to a point to where they were going to start laying off managers. So, yeah, I mean, I was definitely shocked, devastated. I mean, the word that came out of my mouth when she said that, I was like, wow, oh, my gosh, what?

Terrible Scott (15:30.283)
Yeah.

Terrible Scott (15:40.086)
I'm not going to lie. So, I mean, it sounds like things, you were almost, how do I, how do I say this? And especially how do I say it without putting words in your mouth? Because I am really good at putting words in other people's mouths. Things were going very well, it sounds like. You had a career, which is something a lot of people don't have, right? Just

Angilie Kapoor (16:01.861)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (16:10.084)
Right.

Terrible Scott (16:10.286)
Fast growth, fast advancement, went back to school and everything, dedicated to it. Were you kind of wrapped up in your identity? I mean, was your career kind of wrapped up in your identity, I mean?

Angilie Kapoor (16:12.514)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (16:26.392)
Yes, yes, you hit the nail right on the head there. I mean, again, with my being a type A and an overachiever, I was very career focused. You know, I made, I mean, when I, after I got laid off, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in a bit, but I started, I went into an identity crisis because like you're saying, my identity was my job title and my job. So when I got that ripped away from me, I all of a sudden was really lost and didn't know where I was. And I also,

you know, kind of looked up and realized that like 10 years had flown by because I had been so career focused and I lost touch with so many people that, you know, I had previously had relationships with and I didn't realize that, you know, all of that had happened while I was kind of in this narrow field of, you know, being successful in my career, continuing to climb up that ladder type thing. So yeah.

Terrible Scott (17:19.41)
Yeah, and one of the emotions I'll say that I struggle with at times is shame. And I'm wondering if, even though it's the company not doing well, did you feel shame? And did you feel it all over again every time you had to tell someone too?

Angilie Kapoor (17:37.592)
Well, yeah, I definitely felt shame. And that was one of the things that really surprised me. And then also working with other people, talking to other people who had been laid off too. And that's kind of why it's so taboo is that there is this component of shame, even though most of the time when you're getting laid off, it is not because of something you did. It's because of a choice made by somebody else or because your company isn't doing well. But yeah, there is this component of...

feeling shame that happened to you. And then, yeah, it's definitely hard to tell other people. It took me years before I was comfortable saying, oh yeah, I got laid off. Before, I would try and come up with different wordings or say something else happened. Just because, again, there's a lot of shame around it, and it was uncomfortable to talk about.

Terrible Scott (18:22.989)
Uh-huh.

Terrible Scott (18:31.906)
that day, that night, did you, how did you process it? I mean, I know there was an age when I would have gone out and gotten drunk. I know that there's been an age where I would have probably gone to bed and slept 18 hours. We all process things in different ways. So, so what did you do in that like that day when you logged off left, what did you do?

Angilie Kapoor (18:57.76)
Yeah, I mean, I kind of went through a myriad of, you know, roller coaster emotions. I, you know, at first I was shocked, then I was, you know, angry. Then I felt betrayed. Then, of course, you know, you know, lots of tears, lots of angry, crying, sad, crying, you know, crying out of frustration. And then I spent a number of days kind of going through that. What was me? You know, why did this happen to me? Why me? You know, type of thing. And

And I mean, I'll be honest, I went into a depression after that for several months. Actually, I didn't. No, no, I didn't, not at first. I didn't realize it until hindsight, when I kinda got out of that funk, and then I kinda looked back in hindsight and said, oh wow, I was pretty depressed. My husband knew, and he told me later. But yeah, I went into a depression during that time, and again,

Terrible Scott (19:31.87)
Yeah. Did you realize? Did you realize it? Okay.

Angilie Kapoor (19:55.944)
just seeing things in a different perspective because how many people get laid off that spend months in a depressed state and people don't even realize it because again, most of the time when you're in that state, you either don't know, you don't realize it, or you don't share. So yeah.

Terrible Scott (20:13.994)
I find that I never know. I've actually told some of my friends some of the behaviors that they might see. And there's one specifically who I have asked her to tell me, even if I'm not depressed, I want her to say, hey, Scott, I'm seeing this behavior. I know that sometimes that you do that when you're depressed. And I promise to do the same for her. And I think.

Angilie Kapoor (20:23.849)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (20:34.125)
Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (20:41.029)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (20:41.674)
That's one of the hardest things is even recognizing how the hell are you even going to pull yourself out and pull yourself out? I don't know that I even like that term because it's not necessarily pulling yourself out, but it's really hard when you don't know just how low you are and then you've got the inertia of just sitting around or whatever, however, you're coping with depression and it's a terrible thing.

Angilie Kapoor (20:51.149)
Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (20:59.436)
Exactly.

Angilie Kapoor (21:07.397)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (21:10.002)
when you said that was about three months did you seek out therapy or were you already going to therapy or did you do something to that helped at that point?

Angilie Kapoor (21:19.892)
No, no, I was not. I didn't go to therapy. I didn't seek it out or anything. Because again, I really didn't know that that's what was happening to me. Because I was just in this, like you're saying, super low state for months. And exactly. Exactly. And I was going to talk about it. Say that when I started interviewing to get into, you know, find another position,

Terrible Scott (21:24.174)
Okay. Yeah.

Terrible Scott (21:35.43)
And you're expected to now find a new job, right? You're in that state. So how?

Angilie Kapoor (21:49.304)
That's when I really kind of started getting the idea that I wasn't, you know, I would say my normal. Because I bombed every interview and I must have done like 12 interviews or something. And it was like, you know, on paper, it looked good, but I just didn't have the confidence that I needed to have to do well in those interviews to get another position. And I know that I've worked with other people who it's been the same thing. That, you know.

because of what happened to them, they have the skills and the knowledge, and they have great work ethic to be able to get another position, but because of just their lack of confidence and self-esteem because of getting laid off, it takes them months, and they end up needing to talk to somebody like me to help them.

Terrible Scott (22:39.902)
Yeah, for sure. And how long did it take before you started, before you got that resume updated and started to try to put yourself out there?

Angilie Kapoor (22:49.528)
Yeah, so I intentionally took, because I got a three month severance pay when they let me go. So I intentionally took that three months to just, you know, kind of sit there and lick my wounds. And then I, you know.

Terrible Scott (22:53.079)
Okay.

Terrible Scott (22:59.758)
Good for you.

Yeah. Well, I say good for you. Was that the right decision? Or do you think you might have come out of it sooner had you, you know, be started doing applying and everything or.

Angilie Kapoor (23:15.364)
No, I definitely think that three months was a blessing because it gave me time to think about what my next steps were. And instead of going back to being a manager, I actually pivoted and got into coaching. And that's how I got into my coaching business and what I do today. So, you know, ultimately getting laid off was a huge blessing. But yeah, it definitely wasn't I did not see it as that at the time.

Terrible Scott (23:37.579)
Yeah.

Terrible Scott (23:43.87)
Yeah. Well, Anjali, what I will say is I've got so much to say, given where I'm at, and I'm going to try to do the same thing. Take some time. I'm very lucky to be at a point in my life where I can. And if I'm being completely honest, I've had long COVID.

Angilie Kapoor (23:44.796)
Oh.

Terrible Scott (24:02.626)
The listeners are sick about hearing about it. Other people are sick about hearing about it. But I haven't talked to you about it. So, and it's kind of destroyed, even that's destroyed like some of my confidence. It's like when I'm staring at a computer and can't even come up with the word to type, it's like, can I ever function at, can I be myself anymore? And it's a terrible place to be. So you got to sit around and lick your wounds and.

Angilie Kapoor (24:14.201)
right.

Angilie Kapoor (24:23.321)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (24:29.994)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (24:31.262)
You said you bombed a bunch of interviews. Was there any signs of like promise in these interviews? Or did you were you just leaving them like what the hell just happened? What the? Okay.

Angilie Kapoor (24:34.926)
I did.

Angilie Kapoor (24:44.028)
Exactly. No, yeah, exactly. I was walking out of those rooms going, what was that? Yeah, yeah. It was bad for a while. And the thing is that the health care community, I mean, it's large, but in terms of networking as a professional, it's pretty small. So I was burning bridges pretty fast. And I know that people were talking to people. So I was like, ugh.

Terrible Scott (24:49.77)
Yeah.

Terrible Scott (24:53.959)
Okay.

Angilie Kapoor (25:12.46)
I have to get my shit together. Oh, there's my one swear word. I have to get my stuff together. Or, you know, I'm just gonna run out of opportunities.

Terrible Scott (25:14.127)
You mean burning?

Terrible Scott (25:23.838)
Yeah. When you say burning bridges, do you just mean by your performance in these interviews or was there something else going on?

Angilie Kapoor (25:32.308)
No, no, just yeah, my performance in these interviews. I mean, and then also people kind of other people vouching for me, you know, saying, oh, yeah, you should talk to talk to Angelie. She is she's an amazing manager. She'd be a great addition to your organization and then kind of go in there and then totally suck. And then they're like, OK, what was that? And then going back to the person who referred me, what are you talking about? What did you just do to me?

Terrible Scott (25:34.017)
Yeah.

Terrible Scott (25:53.454)
Right, right. Well, in the small world of healthcare, it is their reputation at stake to some extent. Um, so, god, that must have been hard. I'm sorry you went through that. So at what point did things start to turn around?

Angilie Kapoor (26:00.833)
Exactly.

Angilie Kapoor (26:09.564)
Yeah, so it actually started to turn around when I again, you know, like I mentioned earlier, I really went through an identity crisis when that happened. I definitely felt super lost. I didn't really know who I was. I had wrapped up my whole being into my job title of being a manager and focusing on my career. And so, you know, when you're at home for that long with nothing to do, there's a lot of.

you know, ruminating and stuff. And I really had to start focusing on, you know, who am I? You know, I really started to question, did I even want to go back to a job? I mean, I was going on these interviews because, you know, for income really, and it's what I had done in the past. But I really started to look at.

Terrible Scott (26:52.052)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (26:59.14)
you know, was I gonna be happy going back to another management position? Was this something that I wanted, the path that I wanted to continue on, or is there, you know, I had an opportunity to possibly go in a different direction. So I really started to do a lot of mindfulness work, you know, journaling, meditating, and things like that, and really trying to discover, you know, who.

I was and what it is that I really wanted to do instead of feeling pressure to go a certain direction because of different, you know, different reasons, like feeling pressure to continue to be a manager because we needed the income or feeling pressure to go in a certain direction because that's what people expected of me or told me to do. So really trying to create my own destiny, if you will, and take control of my life.

rather than feeling like I was getting pushed around in places where I really didn't wanna go.

Terrible Scott (27:57.794)
Yeah, Angeley, everything you're saying is resonating with me. So sorry, listeners. You very much have to hear too much Scott in this one. Because I am looking at you and thinking of questions that are for my benefit. Hopefully other people are getting something out of it as well, but for my benefit. And how did you know? I mean, that's a weird question, maybe. But I'm not going to say I have an identity crisis.

Angilie Kapoor (28:13.628)
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Angilie Kapoor (28:24.016)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (28:27.923)
I am having an identity crisis, maybe, because there is so much I love about managing. There really is, and a lot of people don't have that passion.

Angilie Kapoor (28:36.129)
Mm-hmm. Bye.

Right. It's definitely a calling.

Terrible Scott (28:42.07)
But there's the other side as well. And it's hard. And you mentioned that you've been on both sides of layoffs. Like one of the hardest days of my life was laying people off because of COVID. And there was one two person team and I had to lay off one of the people on that team. And I called the other person afterwards because I wanted to speak with her. I thought I owed her that.

Angilie Kapoor (28:45.764)
Yes.

Angilie Kapoor (28:54.144)
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (29:03.609)
Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (29:10.64)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (29:11.418)
And I had to hang up because I started crying on the phone because it was horrible. So I do want listeners to know that that's pretty fucking traumatic to. Most managers, most leaders are not looking to lay people off. And you know, I've been lucky that I have not had to do it more than once, but I don't that's an experience.

Angilie Kapoor (29:15.208)
Oh, yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (29:24.036)
Yes, it is. It is.

Terrible Scott (29:38.494)
And then I feel guilty for feeling guilty or for feeling bad because I'm not the one losing my income. I'm not the one whose world was just kind of pulled out from underneath them. But I also took pride a little bit. You know, I had heard that there were other people who had the their managers that do the work for them. And I thought, no, this is my job. I'm I am the director of this department.

Angilie Kapoor (29:48.964)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (30:08.418)
this is my job as much as it fucking sucked. But do you find in your coaching that a lot of people feel that they've got to continue on the path that they've always been on? Because that's where I've been for a long time is I feel like because I ended up in management and a lot of that was, you know, like you, I succeeded. There were expectations. I was a straight A student, you know, all of that stuff and

Angilie Kapoor (30:10.522)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (30:24.518)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (30:37.007)
Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (30:37.066)
I think people expected a lot out of me and I followed the path I thought I was supposed to follow and I didn't know I could get off that path. It felt overwhelming. Is that one of the bigger challenges that the people you work with run into is I'm kind of stuck. I've got this job or this career and I don't know how to do anything about that.

Angilie Kapoor (30:45.072)
Right.

Angilie Kapoor (30:56.396)
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. A majority of the people that I work with, they find that even if they came to me and they didn't know that ahead of time, is when we start working together and peeling the layers of the onion away, they find that...

gosh, maybe I don't want to go this direction. I've had managers that I've worked with end up going into doing different things. I had a gal who'd been a manager for a number of years decide to pivot and go into project management. Because she, kind of like you, and also me, there's parts of the job that you love. And she loved doing the project type stuff, but she didn't like...

you know, kind of dealing with the people stuff because that's hard as we're talking about, you know, especially when you have to deliver bad news. So she, you know, decided to just focus on that and go into project management and she's doing extremely well. And I had another gentleman who was a director who came to me and his exact words were, I have this incredible career and life, but I'm so unhappy, help me figure out why.

And we figured out that he just wasn't in alignment with what he was doing, and he ended up pivoting and going somewhere else too. So yeah, that's definitely something that I find in working with people that I work with.

Terrible Scott (32:21.062)
And I do want to go back a little bit to the to when you got laid off because I meant to say it and I think that perhaps I said it when we talked previously but Losing your job is I mean, it's like any other loss. It's grief, right. And it sounds like you were describing, you know, kind of going through a lot of stages of grief and

Angilie Kapoor (32:41.376)
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Angilie Kapoor (32:47.808)
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Terrible Scott (32:50.654)
Did you did you despite being told the reason and having the glowing review, you said you lost your confidence. Did did you blame yourself during that time?

Angilie Kapoor (33:03.476)
Yeah, I mean, I think I definitely did. And again, just kind of like what you're pointing out is even though, you know, getting laid off is not necessarily your fault or anything that you did or didn't do. But it's very personal, you know, it's hard to separate that event from taking it personally when you know that the reason was actually.

more of a separate reason than it being about you. But it's such a something that happens, it's so personal to you that you can't help, but feel like you did something that caused this. And that's when you go, like you're saying through those grief stages and feeling having that lack of confidence and self-esteem and having to kind of claw your way back out of that hole.

Terrible Scott (33:58.722)
Yeah. And do you remember the moment that you felt like you kind of got your direction back?

Angilie Kapoor (34:07.52)
I do, I do. I actually, well, first of all, it took several months for that to happen, because I actually did decide to pursue coaching. And how I figured that out is I really started to figure out what parts of my job did I love. And I loved coaching and mentoring my staff and physicians. It really warmed my heart when I could help someone achieve a goal and then watch them.

achieve that and celebrate with them. So that's when I decided to go the coaching route and use my expertise that I gained over the years that I had been in management and leadership and help other managers that I always saw struggling just like I had been and seeing that, you know, some of them didn't make it, you know, some of them quit after just a few years when I knew that they had the potential to be a great leader.

But anyway, that's where I started to go into. I went to life coaching school. I went into a training that was a year long. And in that experience, you know, I really had to, we were really forced to deep dive into becoming more self-aware. Because you know, that in turn is how you help people that you coach. And so it was very enlightening, but painful at the same time, if that makes sense.

Because learning about yourself is probably one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. And it faced value. It's like, learning about yourself, what's the big deal? Man, it's hard.

Terrible Scott (35:34.482)
Well, it's

Terrible Scott (35:43.158)
Well, I was just going to say that it's also not something that we're taught to do. It's, it's kind of incredible of how important it is and how positive the changes of my life have been since I learned about me, but I will really say that the learning about me accelerated. Well, I thought it accelerated in my thirties until I got to my forties and realized I was wrong about a lot of things. And.

Angilie Kapoor (35:49.385)
Exactly.

Angilie Kapoor (35:57.209)
Mmm... yes.

Angilie Kapoor (36:11.6)
Hehehe

Terrible Scott (36:13.134)
had the help of a therapist as well. And at that point, that's when I started to learn about me. And it's just not only I mean, it's such a great tool to know to recognize why you think or why you behave and set yourself up to be successful. And it's such an incredible thing. And

Angilie Kapoor (36:16.155)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (36:30.832)
Yes.

Terrible Scott (36:37.95)
It's not anything, if I was designing curriculums for students, that would be something that I think should be all through. From the time you're a kid, you should be learning about introspection and understanding yourself. And I just wish that these resources were more available to everyone as well.

Angilie Kapoor (36:44.852)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (37:01.288)
Exactly, exactly. I say that all the time. I mean, if these things were talked to us from, you know, childhood, in our childhood school years, how different would our lives be? You know, what, how would our lives have gone different? So yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you there. But yeah, I went through, you know, my journey of self-awareness and self-discovery. And, you know, I've since learned in my experience and, you know, starting my own business and,

starting to travel around the world and be in different countries that it's a process that you will continue to keep going through. So you'll keep repeating the same steps of the process in different situations. So it's not like you know I've gone through this self-discovery journey, I'm really confident and I have this high self-esteem and I feel you know I'm perfect and in this perfect place in my life. That's not realistic. It's a continuous cycle of

Terrible Scott (37:48.665)
Hehehe

Angilie Kapoor (38:00.376)
learning and developing. So yeah.

Terrible Scott (38:02.602)
And when I said that I thought I knew myself in my 30s and then I learned I didn't in my 40s, some of that was my own evolution, right? There were things I knew about myself and thought about myself. And I might not have been wrong, but things change. And I'm not the same human I was that I was back then. Yeah, and I'll also say that.

Angilie Kapoor (38:11.107)
Mm-hmm.

Angilie Kapoor (38:19.412)
Exactly. Yeah, we're always growing and developing.

Terrible Scott (38:28.386)
From that perspective, learning about myself has been...

an eye-opening thing and

It's allowed me to maybe be more myself.

Angilie Kapoor (38:49.42)
Right, exactly.

Terrible Scott (38:50.962)
because I think a lot of my life, including my career, I feel like was expectations. What does what does success look like? And for me, you know, I don't have I'm not I don't need to be starting businesses and going public with them or anything. Success to me is having my home, having a career, that type of stuff. And I just gave up my career and

Angilie Kapoor (38:59.666)
Yes.

Angilie Kapoor (39:16.962)
Exactly.

Terrible Scott (39:20.898)
If it doesn't go right, that could result in me giving up my home. But it's just such an interesting thing about.

knowing ourselves and in the work life and personal life being intertwined. And I'm rambling probably because I have so many more questions that, again, are for my own benefit. And I'm not going to make my listeners, our listeners, listen to all my questions. But if someone is thinking about career changes.

Angilie Kapoor (39:43.128)
Hehehehe

Terrible Scott (39:54.166)
What is your best advice? What do you want to tell the people if they're not sure about what they want in their future, they want a career change, what would be your best piece of advice? Your best piece of free advice. They can pay you if they want to go do the coaching.

Angilie Kapoor (40:04.9)
Yeah. Yes. But no, it's basically what we have been talking about for the last few minutes is becoming self aware, figuring out what it is that you want to do, who you are, what it is that you want to do, who do you want to be. Because again, you mentioned it, that a lot of our life is expectation, you know, especially in our country. It's, you know,

living up to the Joneses, being like the Joneses, you know, our neighbors, and always comparing and competing. And, you know, that's not what it's supposed to be about. That's typically not who we truly are. And, you know, going through my self-discovery journey, I really I figured out that I was a complete stranger to myself. And, you know, how many how many other people are out there who might find themselves in the same place. But yeah, if you're.

contemplating a career change or you find yourself in a position where you've been laid off and you're trying to figure out what you want to do next. Maybe you're not comfortable going back into the same function job function that you just came from. Get to know yourself, you know, figure out who you are, what your core values are, what makes you happy, what you want to do and what type of legacy you want to leave behind. You know, so yeah, that's my that's my free advice.

Terrible Scott (41:30.878)
Yeah, and I'm going to ask you one more question that it is. And I think that I came to some of those conclusions recently. But and your answer might be exactly the same. This might not even be a good question. But that is what you want to do when you want to change a career. But what would you say would be the first thing that you'd tell someone to do when they unexpectedly lose their job?

Producer Dan (41:32.162)
That's good free advice.

Angilie Kapoor (41:55.832)
Yeah, same thing, but I would add to let yourself go through that grieving process. You know, it's traumatizing. You've been traumatized if you have lost your job and it wasn't your choice. It is go through that grieving process. And one of the things that was one of the things that helped me the most when I was going through that and I also find it helpful for other people that I that I work with who have gotten laid off too is

is, you know, again, go through the emotions of your emotions. And one of those emotions that was huge for me was anger, because I felt betrayed by the people that I was working with who then decided to let me go. And again, I started to journal. And one of the most liberating things that I did is I took a day to write a letter to the people who I was angry at, who I felt betrayed me.

And I, you know, they never saw that letter. I never mailed it to them. I didn't email it to them. It was more for me, for me to get out all of that emotion. A lot of it pent up emotion. I didn't even realize that I was, you know, holding in just to get it all out, get it off of my shoulders and just let it go. Cause when you can let that go, I mean, you won't realize it at the time, but that really deep emotion is holding you back from moving on.

So when you let that go, you can move on to bigger and better things. And, you know, I wrote that letter to a few letters to a few people, and I actually ended up burning them as kind of, you know, a letting them go in that way. And, you know, it wasn't I had to do it more than once. You know, because, again, it's a lot of deep rooted emotion. But yeah, I would add the same thing, you know, go through your self discovery.

process, figure out who you are, what you want to do. But then I would add to process your emotions. And if you need to write letters and burn them, you'll find that super helpful.

Terrible Scott (44:04.24)
Yeah, I love that. Don't burn the bridges. Burn the paper. Burn the letters. OK, great advice. I appreciate that. I think that a lot of people listening will appreciate it. And I shared with you when we first talked that I was a little bit worried, not worried. That's the wrong word. But when I saw the topic losing a job, my first thought was

Angilie Kapoor (44:08.108)
No, no, exactly.

Terrible Scott (44:29.218)
we've had stocking, we've had cancer, we've had all but in the end it was like wait this is something a lot of people go through and

Producer Dan (44:39.982)
I think frankly, that's one of the most traumatic things that I have been through in my adult.

Angilie Kapoor (44:40.077)
Yes.

Terrible Scott (44:45.566)
And probably one of the more

Angilie Kapoor (44:46.052)
Yeah, yeah. And again, we don't talk about it, right? It's like taboo to talk about. It's like, oh, you got laid off? No big deal. It is a big deal.

Producer Dan (44:47.917)
Yeah.

Terrible Scott (44:50.186)
Yeah, and I was gonna say probably one of the more relatable things too, because so many people have been through it. And you lose so much more than a paycheck. You lose your community, you lose your identity, you lose a lot of things. And there's the grief in everything. So I think ultimately...

Producer Dan (44:54.431)
Right.

Angilie Kapoor (44:58.584)
Yeah, exactly.

Angilie Kapoor (45:05.931)
Yes.

Angilie Kapoor (45:09.828)
Yes. Mm-hmm.

Terrible Scott (45:17.902)
This is a very powerful topic and a very relevant topic. And I think we're gonna get a lot of value from it. So thank you so much, Anjali. I really appreciate you being here. You've been a great guest. Is there anything else that you'd like to say, whether it's plug something, what's your websites, your socials, tell us a good joke. I don't care, just one last thing for our audience.

Producer Dan (45:30.808)
Yeah.

Angilie Kapoor (45:43.269)
Yeah, one last thing for the audience that I would say, I'm not going to plug anything that I'm doing. If you do want to check me out, it's www.oversightglobal.com. You can find all of my socials there and everything about my programs there. But I just...

Terrible Scott (45:51.894)
Okay.

Producer Dan (45:55.862)
That'll be in the show notes too.

Terrible Scott (45:57.815)
Yeah, we'll share it.

Angilie Kapoor (45:59.144)
Oh, awesome. Awesome. But yeah, I just want to leave the audience with, again, self-awareness. It's so important. It's something we're not taught, something we don't do, but it changes your life. Figure out who you are, learn to like yourself, and most importantly, learn to love yourself. And that's what I'll leave with.

Terrible Scott (46:21.294)
Man, what powerful words to end. My favorite, thank you so much. You've been amazing and you passed the decent human being test. You're awesome. Anjali, Dan, you know, I speak for Dan all the time because he's the silent type over there. The, this. Yeah, yeah. He's got the looks, I've got the voice. So I do the talking.

Producer Dan (46:42.214)
This strong silent one on the podcast.

Angilie Kapoor (46:42.34)
Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Terrible Scott (46:50.87)
But Dan and I are grateful. We're honored, we're humbled. I don't have enough words to tell you about the way that it makes me feel when you are willing to share such an important and traumatic experience with us. So thank you so much.

Angilie Kapoor (47:00.42)
Hehehehe

Angilie Kapoor (47:08.516)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me and for providing this platform to do it. You guys are great. Amazing work.

Terrible Scott (47:14.11)
Yeah, for sure. I great might be a strong word, but I decent decent.

Producer Dan (47:18.478)
We try not to suck. Hahahaha

Angilie Kapoor (47:22.648)
No, you guys don't suck at all. You're way beyond suck.

Producer Dan (47:25.646)
was very kind of you. This episode did not suck and that's because of you. So thank you so much for that.

Terrible Scott (47:27.699)
Alright. You may not believe this.

Terrible Scott (47:33.362)
Yes. And you guys are so far from sucking or whatever you said might be the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. So on that note, I can't say any more, except this experience has been absolutely positively terrible.

Angilie Kapoor (47:35.62)
Thank you.

Producer Dan (47:39.17)
Ha ha

Angilie Kapoor (47:41.277)
Ha ha ha!