Rich's Rule of Life #0 - If the worst thing that happens to you today is that you've lost your job, you're doing OK.

This rule was given to me by the vice president at the first post-university job I held, it took me many years to realize the truth of it. For a long time, I felt that my job was my life and that if you failed at your job you failed at life...

After a quitting, or being laid off a few times, I realized that, in general, the next job was better. I was able to identify the types of jobs I really wanted and sought them out actively. My job hunting skills became much better with practice... Lot's of practice.. IMMENSE amounts of practice.

I had sent out so many cover letters and resumes that I was excited whenever I got a rejection letter! I had been keeping a really great database of my job-hunting activities and I was able to correlate rejections to job-hunting actions. When I saw that something wasn't working, I changed things up a small bit and kept moving on.

I learned very early to go to interviews with applications that I had written and always gave a small presentation to those who were there. I judged their reactions to my presentation and decided if *I* wanted to work with them.

Interviews suddenly became me interviewing the employers, not the employers interviewing me. I realized that I had a bit of control, I could say "no".

I no longer worry about losing my job. I will always find a new, better one.