You left the meeting composed. Then came the parking lot, the kitchen counter, the Sunday evening with no Monday to plan for—the moment your body did something you never asked it to do. Your hands felt distant. Your throat tightened. You had no word for what was happening.

That is not failure. That is the second wave. And most career advice never names it.

Still Standing is not another resume playbook. It is a clear, practical guide for the losses a paycheck never covers: the identity that lived inside the job, the routine that held your days together, and the self-worth that used to arrive with hallway nods and Friday-afternoon requests for your opinion. Income loss wants a short plan. Routine loss wants a patient rebuild. Identity loss wants a longer clock. When you try to fix all three with the same spreadsheet, you grind harder and feel worse.

Inside these pages you will learn how to:

• Separate the three kinds of loss so shame stops running the show • Read your body’s warning signals and build a personal early-warning routine • Map competence when the old story about your worth has cracked • Slow the first fearful thought long enough to act on the second • Protect sleep, one relationship, and one meaningful output while everything feels unstable • Handle the first twenty-four hours with five small steps that cost nothing—and avoid the traps that make week three harder • Build a thirty-day plan that fits your real energy, not a fantasy version of recovery • Have the hard conversations you have been postponing, ask for help without performing, and design the next ninety days with scenarios you can switch when the market moves

Use the exercises selectively. One honest page beats a perfect workbook abandoned on day three. Begin where you are—hour one after the news, week three when the scripts feel hollow, or month two when the house is finally quiet and the deeper work begins.

You did not become a different person the morning the access card stopped working. You lost a job. You are also losing the person you were in that job. Those are two losses, and they do not finish on the same schedule.

Still Standing gives you the language, the structure, and the small daily practices to reclaim who you are—without waiting for the next title to tell you.

© 2026 Independent Authors Group (E-Book): 6610001303419

Erscheinungsdatum

E-Book: 29. Juli 2026