AboutYour Next Chapter is an anonymous and free career-recovery community with two purposes: 1) Help professionals get back on their feet, and 2) Help them find a new sense of purpose. We are self-supported and not sponsored or affiliated with any association, movement, company, religious denomination, or not-for-profit organization.
Those of us who are most directly involved with this website community are professionals with PhDs, MDs, JDs, MBAs and a wide range of credentials that were once very important to some of us. Importantly, however, this website does not give any professional advice. It focuses on sharing the experiences and insights that have helped us recover from devastating career loss -- not job loss, but career loss. We are focused on helping the person who wanted to be a CEO, minister, professor, doctor, teacher, or attorney all of their life, but can no longer follow that career because of a scandal, bad decision, mistake, or misunderstanding. What we share here are the insights, non-professional advice, and support that can help other professionals survive their trauma and find a new destiny, or an even more inspired calling. From our conversations, we estimate that for every one person who eventually successfully recovers from a traumatic career loss, there are at least two or three who don't. As David Brooks wrote in his New York Times column on April 7, 2019, "Some people are broken by this kind of pain and grief. They seem to get smaller and more afraid, and never recover. They get angry, resentful and tribal. . . . But other people are broken open" and realize their life is defined by how they make use of their moment of greatest adversity. Our hope is that we can help you be the person who finds a heroic recovery despite this moment of greatest adversity. That's the next chapter that the world needs. If you need help, we encourage you to find allies and support for your family. The tabs "Find Allies" and "For Families" will help. You can then digest some of the materials under the "Recover" tab (Recovery Phases, Professions, and Books and Films). If you want more help, it costs you nothing to register, and then you can access the rest of the website. If you've successfully recovered from a traumatic career loss (or you know someone who has), we'd love to hear from you. There are lots of ways you can help others in this community be "broken open" rather than be broken down. We'd love your advice, counsel, support, or feedback. Also, if you'd like to consider making yourself available to someone who is facing a similar trauma that you recovered from, we could discuss that. (You can send a note in the comment box below, or you can find our email on the Success Stories and Q&A Forum pages.) |
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