The Job I Lost that Changed My Life

By Steve Shaner

“Would you come to work for us?”

At more money than I had ever made before, I thought I had finally arrived. I was given the title I wanted, and the job description fit me like a glove. In fact, I wrote my own job description during my interview process. Jeff Fouse, the owner of Mid-America Printing, accepted it “as is,” and I was on my way. To anyone else it might have seemed almost too perfect to believe. I believed God was taking care of me because of my “life in His Son.” However, I was soon to be challenged like never before.

Since the beginning of my professional career—while I was still in college—I had worked primarily on straight commission, with only a few exceptions of salary-based jobs through the years. I knew that straight commission compensation can only be carried by a certain kind of personality. I knew I could do that kind of work and do it well.

I believed I had been successful in my career because God was blessing me in many ways, including my income. In all my years as a commission-only salesperson I always wondered where the money would come from the next month, but it was always there when payday rolled around that month. I thanked the Lord continuously for my abilities and for His gracious favor.

Like most people, I had gone through a few job changes over the years. By the year 2000 I was almost 46 years old, born right in the middle of the Baby Boomer generation. By the time most Boomers reached adulthood, we had become the first generation that could no longer rely on the cradle-to-grave jobs for which many of our parents and grandparents had worked.

I had experienced some wonderful fulfilling job situations, and some truly bad work environments. Every job change in my career, up to that point, had been at my own discretion—often to the dismay of my employer. Wanting to advance my career and improve my station in life, I was rarely comfortable staying in one place for long.

Until now.

I once believed this might be the job where I could spend the rest of my career.

But only a few weeks later, the stark realities of business slapped me back into reality. One day I walked into the comptroller’s office and realized she was making phone calls to our customers trying to collect receivables so the company could make payroll the next day.

Was the company really that unstable? I had asked about the company’s financial condition during the interview process and had been assured that “everything was fine.” But what were they supposed to say? “We’re going down fast—want to come with us?”

Over the next several months subtle signs of financial trouble continued to appear. I began to think I had better keep my résumé up to date, because there were real indications the bank might lock the doors at any moment.

When I started looking for work, I quickly realized I was competing against candidates fifteen or twenty years younger than I was—many of them holding MBA’s.

I decided I should begin working on a master’s degree in case an employment emergency arose. I found what I thought was the perfect program for me. It wasn’t technically an MBA, It was a Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications from Roosevelt University. I had always wanted to complete a master’s degree and now seemed like the time.

About a year later, on a cold January day in Chicago, a sales and staff meeting was called to announce Mid-America Printing’s merger. Employees were assured the merger would provide financial backing and everything would be fine.

A few months after the merger I discovered that the company’s future did not include me.

After agreeing to a very amicable departure, I found myself out of work for the first time in my professional career—and it was not my choice.

“That’s OK,” I thought. “I’m good at what I do. I have a lot of talent and a valuable skill set. I shouldn’t have any trouble finding another job.”

Wrong.

Not wrong about my talent and abilities, but wrong about the ease of finding another job.

It was the beginning of the dot-com bubble bursting, and the economic policies of the Clinton administration was starting to show itself for the “cooked-books” of the 90’s that it really was.
Jobs were simply hard to come by—especially for a 48-year-old, nondisabled, Caucasian, heterosexual male.

I was almost halfway through graduate school and fortunately had enough money in the bank to finish this important step. I told myself I would find a job once I was closer to completing the degree. In the meantime, I continued looking with the intention of accepting the best offer available when the time came—even if I was still in graduate school.

For just over two years I found myself without a job—a season that became one of the most difficult and discouraging periods of my life. I networked tirelessly, filled out applications, rewrote resumes and cover letters again and again I pursued every possible opportunity in the hope of finding work—any work at all.

Though my mid-career unemployment was frustrating and uncertain, it also gave me time to reflect on my life and direction. I reassessed my goals, thought about my strengths, and considered skills I might develop or training I had previously postponed. During that time, I gained a deeper appreciation for meaningful work and for the stability that steady employment provides. In some ways the experience made me more resilient, more humble, and more empathetic toward others facing financial or professional hardship.

At the same time, the long stretch of unemployment was emotionally and financially taxing. The routine of job searching—sending applications and receiving rejection after rejection, or even worse crickets – no word at all. The silence was deafening and it gradually wore on my confidence and morale. As the months dragged on, the pressure grew heavier. I worried about how the gap in my employment might appear to future employers and whether it would make returning to the workforce even more difficult. What began as what I hoped would be a temporary setback sometimes felt overwhelming.

During that time, I attended numerous job clubs, seminars, interviews, and the Naperville Church Networking RoundTable. It was there that I was encouraged to reach for what I truly wanted to do for the rest of my life—not simply find “another job.”

Then one day I had an interview that left me convinced I had the job in the bag. I came home ready to pop the bubbly. Instead, I listened to a voicemail informing me that the agency had “decided to go another direction.”

In my sorrow it was my dear wife, trying to console me, who asked a simple but powerful question.

“Steve, what would you do if you could do anything you wanted—regardless of how much it paid or whether there was even a job opening for it?”

My answer came quickly.

“I’d love to help a few nonprofit organizations with their marketing and public relations. Maybe broker some printing jobs, do creative work, manage marketing projects.”

And that’s when it hit me.

Former customers and contacts from my network had already begun calling to ask if I could help them as a consultant on contract projects. The role of part-time consultant seemed to fit me perfectly. It allowed me to work on an as-needed basis while staying in graduate school.

Before long I realized something surprising. I had been planning to find another job—but I was too busy doing consulting work to look for one.

My project list kept growing. So did my income.

Now I faced a real decision: Should I go back to searching for a traditional job, or step out on faith and believe this might be what God had intended for me all along?

Fear crept in. I had financial responsibilities—a son still in high school and another in college.
But eventually I took the plunge.

I hung out a shingle for my consulting work, and Image Marketing and Communications was born.

I completed my master’s degree, incorporated the business, and never looked back.
Image Marketing and Communications developed three primary service areas: marketing and public relations strategy for nonprofit organizations, public speaking and presentation training, and marketing collateral and printing project management.

Occasionally I still applied for positions where I believed my skills might truly help an organization—but somehow those doors always closed.

In my advertising agency I quickly learned that every business has its own sales season. At times my sales climbed steadily; at other times they slowed for reasons that had little to do with my effort or ability. Economic conditions could shift the marketing landscape almost overnight.

Inflation tightened budgets. Consumer confidence dipped. Clients faced supply chain problems, regulatory changes, or technological disruptions. Even unpredictable events—weather, politics, or cultural shifts—could affect whether companies decided to spend money on marketing.

I also learned that the rhythm of sales often reveals itself months later. If I became too busy serving existing clients and neglected prospecting, that gap would usually appear about three months down the road when the pipeline ran dry. Competitors entered the market, clients changed priorities, and unexpected events caused organizations to cut marketing budgets. There were countless forces—many outside my control—that could push sales from the brink of disaster to the euphoria of a record-breaking year.

Then one day, December 26, 2007, during a particularly slow sales month, the phone rang.
My first thought was, “Who would be calling from a central Arkansas area code the day after Christmas?”

It was my old friend and mentor, Dr. Mike James from Harding University. He was calling to discuss a job opportunity that would ultimately change my life. He would not have ever offered me that job if I did not have the experience I did, and a master’s degree.

After four months of conversations and correspondence, I accepted the role of Assistant Professor of Communication at Harding University, my alma mater from which I had a bachelor’s degree in mass communication. I was going back to teach some of the classes I once took at Harding.

It took another four months to transition clients and close that season of Image Marketing and Communications before I moved to Searcy, Arkansas, and began the next chapter of my career.

Looking back now, I can see that those years taught me lessons I never could have learned any other way. The uncertainty of commission sales had already taught me to trust God month to month, but unemployment taught me to trust Him day to day. The consulting work taught me that every business moves in seasons—times of abundance and times of drought—and that faithfulness in the slow months matters just as much as success in the good ones. At the time I thought I was simply trying to survive a difficult chapter in my career. In reality, God was quietly preparing me for the next one. When the phone rang the day after Christmas, it wasn’t just another business call—it was the beginning of a door opening that I never could have planned for myself.

Through it all I have believed that God had—and still has—big plans for my life. I held tightly to a verse from Jeremiah:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11