The Top Five Lessons I Learned From An Unprompted Job Loss

As soon as I saw the calendar invite, I knew. 

It was an August Wednesday morning- my ‘Friday’- a mind trick I had used for 6 or so years since taking over the weekend morning anchor shift and moving to an alternative schedule to most of the working world. I had been up for about four hours- clocking in for the proverbial 5-9 before my 9-5. After the gym and getting my son out the door for daycare, I came back home to grab my work bag with my station-issued laptop and phone packed inside. I was touching up my hair when I saw the email come through.

‘Karla touch base’ is all the notification said. Location: Upstairs small conference room.

Upstairs.

My logical mind started racing. Logically, it couldn’t mean what I was thinking; I had just led the newscasts two nights prior. I anchored the main shows the week before. A sprint on the morning and midday newscasts two weeks before that. I had been helping to lead the coverage of a deputy-involved shooting, doing analysis on the fly in the studio during a day of major breaking news.

Logically, the weekend ratings were strong- an understatement, really- we had some of the largest share of any show in the market. Logically, I was doing all the things in the community that were expected of me- I hosted back-to-back nonprofit events just days before, one Friday and one Saturday, resulting in me being dog-tired for the newscasts the following mornings. Logically, we couldn’t possibly be cutting one weekend anchor position while advertising to hire another- which we were, to fill the weekend evening newscasts which had been vacant for months. And maybe, most logically of all, I had just inked a new, three-year contract- in good faith- about 9 months earlier.

But as my brain tried to convince my body that, logically, there could be no way I was getting fired, my gut told me otherwise. I had an instant, innate knowing– this was it.

“Uh guys [my old boss] just put a touch base on my calendar for today at 9:30 so I guess it was nice working with you,” I texted my work friends at 9:02. 

“Lol noooo” | “Knock it off” | “I wish she’d put a touch base on my calendar” | the replies started rolling in. They all assumed I was being my usual sarcastic self. 

“Maybe it’s a promotion.”

On the 7 minute drive I’d done thousands of times, I called my husband. My voice was shaking- hell, my entire body was shaking- now in a full-fledged panic attack.

“I think I am getting fired today,” I said into the Bluetooth. Unlike my friends who tried to logically dismiss the notion, he, being a news manager himself, took a deep breath and tried to prepare me for the potential that I was right.

Moments after I hung up the phone and hit the brick streets of Thornton Park, my work phone lit up with a text from my then-boss. 

“I put a touch base on your calendar.” 

“I saw…” I replied. 

I then started blowing up the phone of the one person who would *know* if I was right. I called probably five times before finally connecting with him– by this time, I was in the newsroom corner where my desk held documents from still-active stories and memorabilia collected over a decade of working in one place. I faced out the window toward the 408 and started to tear up. An expletive response confirmed my suspicion was likely correct- and that there was nothing I could do at that moment to change it.

I walked the long way around the newsroom- out of sight of my friends and colleagues- to the stairs at the front of the building. At the landing, I could see the small conference room door closed- the security guard standing outside of it.

“Are you here to walk me out?” I asked her.

“You?!” she said in a whisper as I walked past, toward an open, lit office where one of my longtime mentors sat alone. From this office, I could see the backs of the heads of my then-boss and her freshly-hired second-in-command… waiting for me through the wall of windows that overlooked the station atrium.

“I’m about to get fired,” I whispered to him, tears now streaming. “They’re over in that room, waiting for me.”

“If that’s the case, it has nothing to do with you. And there is nothing you can do to change it,” he echoed my earlier phone call.

What happened that day felt like an out of body experience- like how it must have felt to walk the plank in Peter Pan; you’re facing down certain doom, and you have no choice but to walk right into it. And this may all sound a bit dramatic to someone who views their work as a job and not a calling, their colleagues as coworkers and not family. That place was legitimately like a second home to me. I had slept through hurricanes in the offices there, snuggled comfort dogs on the newsroom floor in the days after the Pulse shooting, worked every shift in the building and knew every single person who worked there not just by name but intimate details like their children’s birthdays and their Starbucks order. Working in news has so many parallels to the life of first responders— long hours in close quarters doing unglamorous work and facing the traumas of the world head-on. 

At 9:43, just 41 minutes after sending the first warning text to my friends, I was in my car on my way home, texting the same group that insisted there was absolutely no way this could be happening, that it did.

“I really did get fired guys.”

By the time I arrived in my garage, a note had gone out in the newsroom- one that made it look like I chose to leave on my own. I started receiving calls of both congratulations and confusion– and since the note only went to the newsroom and not the entire building, I even received a message from a sales representative asking if I had time to talk about a new segment that had just been sold for the weekend morning show.

I wasn’t lying when I say that ratings in that time period were strong.

Years in a newsroom will train you to be calm under pressure. Through bursts of sobs and calls and texts that left my phone feeling like it had been left in a hot car for hours, my two closest work partners showing up at my doorstep with shock and tears in their own eyes, I turned my focus to the immediate task at hand- getting whatever I could out of the inbox with my anchor/reporter signature on it, before IT would shut off my access. Though I still had my work laptop and phone in the bag I had packed earlier that morning, I only had about 30 minutes before my emails to contacts stopped sending- I noted the time when a reply from a family who I had shot interviews with 48 hours before for an ongoing investigation landed only in my cc’d gmail address, and not my Outlook. 

I spent the next few hours downloading files I had saved to the desktop- old stories, award entries, documents for ongoing work. I sent hundreds of identical text messages to sources from my personal cell, and despite my best efforts to save all of the contacts that I could, some still disappeared when the AppleID was swapped out days later. I was laser focused that day- reacting to what I considered a personal tragedy in the way I would react to a breaking news story– focus on the job in front of you before feeling.

You really don’t know what you’re made of until your safety net is pulled out from under you unprompted. 

In the television news business, you live one contract at a time, and since I had just re-signed, I felt as safe as anyone can in that world. I had no job prospects outside of journalism, and though I had immediate interest in the market from other outlets, I was being held to a noncompete (before you ask- yes, they are enforceable in Florida; yes, even if you are let go without cause; yes, I hired an attorney to try to fight it; no, I was not successful). I had to simultaneously mourn a career and position I loved, carry the shame that comes with losing any job, and force myself to put on a brave face and go outside and find my way into rooms and on stages because I needed to line up a replacement of income.

Lesson One: Your Network Truly Is Your Net Worth

Do not wait until you need a network to build one. For one thing, that type of so-called networking is actually just being an opportunist- when you only call or text someone when you need something is disingenuous. I sent hundreds of identical text messages that day notifying everyone from attorneys to police chiefs and developers of my unexpected news, and I immediately had invites to coffee or lunch to brainstorm my next move. They were reaching out their hands to help me, because I spent time cultivating my network before actually needing it. 

It would have been very easy for me to hole up and disappear from the radar in the immediate aftershock of losing my position. But being vulnerable- first with my network, and then with the public at large, helped me line up my next opportunity.

My first forays as a 1099 employee came within a few weeks of my firing- helping a local powerhouse public relations firm as a freelancer, and creating social media videos for a developer to promote connectivity between two counties. The work was steady to start, and I didn’t worry about benefits because I was already on my husband’s insurance. I was making easy fun money by re-selling secondhand items and curating style bundles for friends and strangers alike. I interviewed for a public information manager position at one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the area, but wasn’t chosen. Then, in September, I was scheduled to moderate a panel at the Orlando Women’s Conference.

The panel itself was about making bold career transitions, which I felt was so serendipitous. I very honestly and vulnerably told a room full of strangers inside Steinmetz Hall that I, myself, was in the middle of an unexpected career transition. This came with a bit of risk; after all, I was only asked to serve on that panel because of my TV job. But that vulnerability led a woman in the audience to come up to me privately to tell me about a position she thought I’d be well-suited for at a local law firm.

Lesson Two: Lean In To Vulnerability

I got lost on my way to and fumbled my way through the interview. In my defense, I only had one other true job interview in more than a decade. I left thinking there was no way they would take a chance on me- I had no experience in sales or marketing and no knowledge of their particular area of practice. And if I’m being honest with myself, I wasn’t in a good headspace at the time. The version of me who interviewed that day was heartbroken and going through the motions, still in shock. But on October 22, two months and one day after the fated touch base was put on my calendar, I had my first first day in a very long time.

I cried nearly every day of my first few weeks at the firm- silently at my desk, in the stalls in the bathroom, in my car on the way home, and while trying to fall asleep at night. I hadn’t been a beginner at a job or skill since graduating college, and even then, I was doing work I had trained for. Acclimating to a law firm is like learning a new language on the fly- from 2008 to 2024, AP had meant Associate Producer or Associated Press to me, but at the firm, it meant asset protection. EP was a title for an Executive Producer, but at the firm, it meant Estate Planning. VC was slang for Video Control, but at the firm, it was a Video Conference. Every day was a crash course on the differences in long-term care settings, payor sources, Medicare, Medicaid, home health and hospice.

Adjusting to a routine of a ‘traditional’ schedule was a challenge; going from a 9:30 to an 8:30 start time meant our morning routine had to be condensed, dropoffs at school couldn’t linger, and having the autonomy of a longtime employee to miss a morning meeting here and there was out the window. I was the newbie, yet I was always rushing in at the last minute. Then, one particularly hard day, I received a barrage of texts from my son’s daycare teacher, showing photos of a class party I had completely forgotten about- the juice and treats I had promised to bring, missing.

I went into the firm bathroom and sobbed. The kind of tears where you can’t catch your breath. I have no idea if anyone saw or heard me.

At that moment, I felt like a failure. I had failed in my chosen career, I was failing to grasp my new job, and I was failing as a mom. The whole time, all I could think and repeat to myself over and over- was that I shouldn’t even be here. This was not my doing. This was not my fault. This was all unprompted.

All of these changes shook me to the point where my new colleagues started to notice. I was even asked- point blank- whether I felt like the firm was a good fit for me, which caused me to feel the same kind of panic I felt on the last drive to my old newsroom. I was so grateful to be gainfully employed in a job market that remains incredibly challenging- many journalists who have been laid off over the last year are still out of work and spend months searching. So why was I wasting this chance at reinvention?

I had to make a choice- was I going to let myself fall to the level of my circumstances, or rise above this thing that happened to me and make something better happen for me? 

I was receiving tremendous support from viewers and the community at large who recognized that my career change was sudden and unexpected. And I still had my platform at my disposal, after a legal fight to maintain control of my social media accounts. 

I decided then to start acting like the lucky girl that I am, instead of a victim of unfair circumstances.

Lesson Three: Be Brave Enough To Suck At Something New

Something started to click for me when I realized that this was actually an opportunity to show up as a new and improved version of myself, because no one at this new job knew the difference. There was no history there. No hierarchy or competition you might find in a newsroom. I started to treat my coverage territory for business development like a beat system in a newsroom; trying to meet all the key players and have the right connections. Instead of tipping me off to story ideas they were connecting me to potential clients

In November, I started using my on-air and social media skills to promote the firm, which led to a boost in my own book of business. This allowed me to help families who had watched me for years on television in an entirely new way- securing their estate plans, qualifying their loved ones for long-term care Medicaid, and even being trusted with the probate process. Being a creator is a practice that requires repetition- the more videos I made, the better I felt. It reminded me that I didn’t have to ignore the unique talents I had cultivated through my years in television- I could use those gifts in other areas of life.

I started to view everything as an adventure I never would have had the opportunity to embark on without being pushed out the door of my old job. When I started to get more confident, my client interactions got stronger. I learned I actually am pretty good at this thing I didn’t know anything about just months earlier. 

The shift that happened then was subtle, but started the domino effect of a complete reconfiguring of my mindset, my aura, even my appearance. When you move from seeing yourself as a subject of pity and a failure to someone who is simply bringing their expertise with them into a new setting, you start to show up differently. Gone were the days of being timid due to a scarcity mindset- I put myself out there fully with every opportunity and pushed back when I felt taken advantage of. I embraced the travel time I had daily in my new role as an opportunity to learn through audiobooks and podcasts, which has broadened my worldview and growth mindset. Though I stayed consistent with my workout routine during that period of depression, I only started seeing more results once my mindset moved to one of empowerment rather than survival. I made new contacts who became new friends and I found myself in a new work group text. 

People notice when you start showing up with a certain confidence that comes from really listening and getting to know yourself.

I also learned what I had always suspected- though people knew about my former title or position, no one really cared that I was ‘that girl from the news.’ They gave me a fair shake as a newbie, they gave me a hand when I needed help in my new role. They wrapped their arms around me as though I had been one of them forever.

Lesson Four: Titles Don’t Matter

It takes a lot for me to admit this, but one of the hardest parts about losing my job in news is that I felt like my identity was lost with it. For such a long time, being a journalist was such a huge part of my self worth. I still identify as a journalist a year later. The work I did was so important to me; the causes I championed, the people who trusted me to tell their stories. I will never take them for granted. 

That said, with the exception of a few hours of hurricane coverage… I haven’t watched local news since that day. Neither has my 3 year old, who used to watch every weekend morning, not understanding why I wasn’t at home. To him, the only title that ever mattered was ‘Mommy.’ He doesn’t know that my job title has changed, but he knows that we spend weekends together now. 

My family fell into a new routine that I hold sacred now. We became members at a new gym that provides two hours of childcare per day, something my son genuinely looks forward to every single weekend. My husband and I are able to work out together, which we haven’t done since before our son was born, and afterward we go get lunch and run errands as a family. This probably sounds like the most domestic, boring routine ever, but when I reflect on my time in my former ‘dream’ role- I was so exhausted after my weekend morning shifts, I barely wanted to leave the house. I would spend most of my Saturday and Sunday afternoons napping or being a zombie, not being present, dreading weekend activities like birthday parties or charity events because I knew I would be sacrificing sleep. 

In December, I got my nose pierced- a symbol of freedom from the constraints of the TV anchor uniform (though I will say, many networks have become much more lenient to this sort of thing compared to when I took my original nosering out in 2008 for my first full-time on-air job). My skin started to look clearer, thanks to the time I had for more intense treatments and the fact that I hadn’t worn a full face of makeup since the end of summer. 

Using the momentum I was feeling from that fourth quarter upswing, my husband and I booked a babysitter and spent an afternoon at the public library, doing strategic planning for 2025 (hot date, let me tell you!). We set personal and professional goals (including the launch of this website), laid out timelines, and put a plan in action. I used the same process I did the year prior for my own personal vision book- a step up from a vision board- and set the cover as my phone wallpaper so I see my goals clearly every time I pick it up (which is more often than I want to admit).

This was the first cold and flu season where I did not come down with the plague or lose my voice completely, something that was commonplace for me in my former role.

From January to my birthday in mid-March, we took on the 75 hard challenge for a second year in a row, and the discipline felt so good. After my birthday, I took my experience as a midsize, midlife woman navigating the fitness space and used it to become a Certified FASTer Way Coach, and have since helped dozens of women lose pounds and inches through the program. This is something I never would have been able to do while working in my previous role.

As I worked to self-promote my wellness business, I got the opportunity to pull out some of my old secondhand inventory for a pop-up at my neighbors-turned-friends’ new gym, fulfilling a longtime goal of sharing my love of resale in an in-person setting. And though I can’t get into all the details of the invisible string that took me from that event to launching my latest entrepreneurial effort, just take my word for it that there are no accidents. 

I don’t have a crystal ball to say I will never work in news again, but I can tell you I’ve finally been able to separate my self-worth from my TV job title. That’s a true gift I would not have experienced if not for being forced out.

That leads me to the most important lesson of all.

Lesson Five: It’s Okay To Change Your Dreams

In July, only about 6 weeks until the one-year mark of my last day in my old job, I was offered a new role at the firm as public relations manager, which has allowed me to perfectly blend my passions and skillsets in a true work-life balance. The same week I signed the new offer letter, I was approached about a one-on-one media coaching opportunity, giving me the push to finally carry out the goals I had written down back in December at the library- securing my LLC, building out an offer, and launching this website for services as an on-air consultant, story strategist, and public speaker. 

You can reinvent yourself whenever you want, as many times as you want. It’s never too late. You’re not too old. You’re not behind. 

I may have felt like a beginner a lot over the last year, but in reality, I was bringing all of my experience from my past life into this new chapter, and it has served me in so many ways. I’ve learned so much about myself and what I’m made of- which is grit and determination and endless optimism. I learned that forced reinvention still requires you to do the work. 

What a waste it would have been for me to stay stagnant, when instead I have evolved into truly my favorite version of myself to date.

In the TV news business, unprompted literally means not using a teleprompter. In its traditional definition, it means spontaneous, unplanned changes, like those that led me here. What I know now, reflecting on the past year of growth, is that nothing is truly unprompted… it’s all part of a bigger plan. It’s our job- as anchors of our own stories- to know when to go off script.