A sudden full stop
On January 6th, I got a message from the startup I was at letting me know I was being laid off. No warning. No “end of February reevaluation” like we had originally discussed. Just a sudden full stop. I was told I would be compensated for the month.
The first week was pure adrenaline. I mass applied to roles on LinkedIn. Local, remote, anything that looked remotely aligned. Then came the scramble to rebuild my portfolio from scratch. That became heydavidelliott.com, along with new services, a blog, and a renewed focus on my personal brand. The uncomfortable part was realizing how much I had let my own brand go by the wayside while being so focused on my work at Corewell Health and TestifySec. That did not help.
Something unexpected
At the same time, something unexpected and grounding happened. Kris, Georges, and I started meeting every day. What began as “let’s keep each other sane” turned into a real consultancy. We built momentum fast: launched Ailloy, built the nimble giant brand, published our site, met with serious organizations, delivered a large proposal, and opened more promising conversations than I ever expected in the middle of all this.
Meanwhile, the job search kept moving. I interviewed with a local Grand Rapids agency for a 45 day contract that could turn full time. A genuinely exciting opportunity. But ddm was the one that hit differently. I spent almost nine years there. I wanted this role back when I left, but it did not exist yet. Now it does.
Still moving
And the momentum has not stopped. Last week I met with another organization about contract work. Before that, Cavallo sought me out, brought me in for an in person interview, and then nothing. Ghosted. Add that to the nearly 100 rejection emails and it has been an emotional marathon.
I have never been laid off before. I did not know how heavy the combination of uncertainty, hope, rejection, and reinvention could feel. But I also did not expect the amount of resilience, creativity, and community that would show up in the middle of it.
Everything seems to be coming to a head now. The job search, the consultancy, the interviews, the proposals, the conversations.
It has been a journey. A long one. January felt long, but February somehow felt even longer. Two months felt like a year. But I am still here, still building, still moving forward.