Career Transition or Job Loss? My Aunt Terry Was Right: Network and Keep Moving Forward

Published 8/7/25

I can hear my dear aunt, a career development and leadership coach who worked into her late 80s, telling anyone who was facing a job transition that this life change was a chance for new beginnings.

Aunt Terry would tell many of her clients who faced job loss:  “You’re a consultant. Starting right now.”

Some might have called her style “tough love.”  I’d call it empathy and compassion with buckets of fortitude. “Be brave and believe that you have what it takes,” she would say.  And go forward. Starting right now. Do. Not. Look. Back.  

Our loving aunt (I have seven brothers and sisters), who died at 92, trained corporate leaders and individuals across the United States and always encouraged a forward-thinking vision for anyone who needed to find their next steps in life.

First and foremost, my aunt was caring and charitable. She knew job loss was devastating to individuals and families, so she worked tirelessly to help people professionally package themselves, see how their gifts could be used in a new way and contribute to making the world a better place.  

Aunt Terry led corporations with large-scale corporate restructuring and helped build transition and career centers on the east and west coasts. She helped CEOs and steelworkers who were laid off reinvent themselves and come to see how their experience and skills built from decades in one business could be transferred to another.   

Leadership coach and organizational consultant Joe Millington was coached by my aunt in the 1980s and then worked with her at a multinational corporation in Pennsylvania when they were making a major downsizing announcement. The two continued to work together for years. Millington recalled some of the most memorable lessons he learned from Terry.

• Recognize the importance of values. “First, identify the values that you hold to be true and sacred. Name the values and develop regular practices to strengthen and ‘live’ your values.”

• Know yourself and be honest in your knowing.  “Terry masterfully used the client's ‘story’ to help them identify patterns, passions, and seminal moments.  The client's story was the foundation for establishing the client's vision.”  

• Be kind to yourself and forgive yourself.  “Terry was able to help her clients to get unstuck. She helped them to realize that holding on to anger and negativity was unproductive and unhealthy,” Millington said.

• Reframe and envision.  “After helping clients work through past experiences and emotions that were getting in the way of bringing their best self forward, Terry helped them to realize the power in reframing and envisioning.  Both reframing and envisioning were linked directly to the client's passions.”

Dr. Rajesh C. Oza, a consultant of strategic organizational transformation who facilitates the interpersonal dynamics of MBA students at Stanford, was coached by my aunt in the 1990s.  “Your aunt gave me that sense of ‘the art of possibility’…the idea that this is what I am meant to do with my precious life. Terry told me that if I put everything behind my dream of being a consultant, that vision would be realized. And she was right. OrganiZationAlignment Consulting has been going strong for over a quarter of a century.  

"Terry had a deep, abiding faith in people and believed in them. She believed in her flock. She had faith that people would find their calling in a way that is similar to how Mother Teresa found her calling," said Oza.  (With a little help from Terry, Dr. Oza was able to fulfill a dream of his—to meet with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, in Calcutta, India.)

Aunt Terry did not want her clients to look in the rearview mirror. She knew firsthand what many people were facing with job transitions since she had made a major midlife change in her late 40s. She had been a Sister of St. Joseph for over 25 years.  She loved her vocation but knew that God was calling her to serve Him and others in a new  way.  That change led her out into the corporate world all over the U.S., working with people of goodwill from all backgrounds to help them find fulfilling work and make the workplace more human-centered. She brought God into every work situation, even if many people did not know it.   

Our aunt had insights into people.   “Take credit for what you’ve done,” her nephew, my brother John, remembers her saying.  And “there’s great strength in humility.”

When I was breaking into the competitive world of media, my aunt helped me learn what it meant to really look for a job.   “Colette, don’t ask people for a job. Ask for their professional advice. They don’t have a job right now.  (And of course they know a 22- year-old needs a job.)”  And she encouraged the mindset of: “You think you don’t know anyone in television?  Your best friend’s mother does. Your neighbor does.  Let’s make a list.”  It was all about that big word, “networking.” 

My brothers and sisters and I graduated from college during the days of answering newspaper advertisements. Aunt Terry would recite to us the data – the low percentage of people who got jobs the traditional ways from newspaper ads or headhunters. After my youngest sister Lori, fresh out of college, had exhausted answering just about every advertisement in New Jersey’s Star Ledger, she came downstairs one day resolved that “Aunt Terry was right.”  Our aunt had told her that the cold-turkey method of answering ads translated into: “You’re a piece of paper. As a matter of fact, you're a piece of paper in the garbage.”  Lori was ready to courageously step out into the world of “networking,” a word she had grown up hearing Aunt Terry talk about for years at our Thanksgiving dinner table.  

As soon as my siblings and I were old enough to start thinking about our futures, Aunt Terry would declare: “You’re an INFJ” or “You’re an ENFP,”  referring to the Myers Briggs type indicator assessment.  As teens we had no idea what it meant, but we knew it was really important because Aunt Terry had said it.  Then she had us take the tests and it started to make sense. Aunt Terry was right. 

It was Aunt Terry, a big supporter of my media career, who told me after I had 20 fulfilling years in the business, and when our production unit was shutting down, that it was time for me to do something else.  Again, hitting me right in between the eyes with the tough-to-swallow, but realistic message.  “You need to get out of the business. It's becoming entertainment,” she said, knowing her niece’s interests.    

On her days off, Aunt Terry generously spent hours helping others with their career planning.  She invited friends, children of friends, relatives, parishioners into her home. Some were in very tough situations from job loss. Aunt Terry sat with them, asking questions and listening to their stories, hopes and dreams, and then helped them envision how they could pursue their passions—helping them craft their resumes and cover letters, giving them direction and their next steps.  No one left without homework for his or her career plan. 

Perhaps the most important advice was what her niece, my sister Gerianne, remembered Aunt Terry saying into her last days: "Always be kind.  Kindness matters."   Yes, Aunt Terry was right.  Kindness  matters. It matters in business.  It matters with your co-workers. It matters with your parishioners and neighbors. It matters with your family and loved ones. It matters very much when people face job loss and they need support, time and direction.  And it matters when you are summoning up courage to move forward, trusting that God has plans for you and that they will be good.  Aunt Terry was right.

 - Colette

P.S.  Recently, I had the privilege of  working on communications with Potluck Culture Solutions CEO and Career Development Coach Ranjit Nair, Ph.D. and his team as they provide leadership business development and individual coaching for executives and emerging leaders to help them see how they can use their gifts, unlock their potential and find fulfillment in their work. It’s vital work for people’s futures.

P.P.S. - After a long career in consulting, Dr. Oza has become a novelist. He is happy that Terry was an early reader of his forthcoming debut novel, Double Play on the Red Line. “As a baseball fan who championed social justice…indeed, she might have used the novel to suggest that we can make transitions at any stage in life,” Dr. Oza said.