Can You Deal With Career Reversals?

We live in an age of recession, mergers, downsizing, lay-offs and Adobe Photoshop. Life according to Jose Mari Chan, is a “constant change.”

Here are some ways to cope, from Shad Helmstetter’s You Can Excel In Times Of Change (Simon & Schuster).

1) Choose Your Attitude. The French impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir was already suffering from arthritis but he continued painting. Why are you still doin’ that thing you do, asked his fellow master artist Henri Matisse, and he answered, “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.”

2) Choose Your Action. Spanish journalist Pedro J. Ramirez was fired for criticizing the government. But instead of grousing, he went around raising funds for a real independent newspaper – and El Mundo became President Felipe Gonzalez’s biggest headache for exposing his cronies’ corruption and secret deals with the mercenary group ETA to silence critics.

3) Choose Your Style. Winston Churchill was instrumental in the victory of the Allies, but when the war ended, he lost his re-election bid. He was in the bathtub when he heard the news, and the former British Prime Minister (in an accent like High Grant’s) quipped: “They have a perfect right to kick me out! That is democracy! That’s what we’ve been fighting for! Now please, hand me my towel!”

Watch Pedro J video. Photo of Renoir’s “Sailor Boy” painting courtesy of CanvasReplicas.com. See also “Can You Bounce Back After A Setback?” here on 2Rivers