Hi all,

I’ve been a little off my newsletter cadence, so this one is (even more) about personal news and musings. You’ve been warned.

I’ve dealt (ish) with my personal crisis and a pre-stage of burnout (agaaaain), and I’m now building systems to stop myself from overworking. I’m typing this on a Saturday evening, when I actually wanted to, you know, be digitally detoxed. But hey, writing has become part of me, so I’m not yelling at myself about it. Only internally.

I even have my old Mac and phone without internet and fun apps to use over the weekend. Look at me, taking preventative measures against myself.

Something I’ve learned: having a goal to rest is not enough. You need a system built around that goal to actually achieve it. Apparently, even rest requires strategy. Lovely.

Okay, I guess it’s news time!

Research, but make it collaborative

My research contractor work is becoming more rounded: I’ve joined forces with Trang Doan from Narrative Architects. Trang is brilliant and exactly the type of researcher I feel lucky to work with.

If you need support with UX Research of any kind, drop me a line. I’m pretty sure we can handle whatever you’ve got research wise.

Research is a human activity, after all, and I’m happy to have a partner in it.

Especially now, when we’re building as fast as we ever have, talking to real humans, both users and clients, is what sets you apart.

On my mentoring line: I’m not here to help you find a job. I’m here to help people find YOU.

I’ve realised I’m not particularly excited about helping people find their next job. What I am excited about is helping people who are serious about building their visibility and creating opportunities of all kinds make themselves findable.

Self employed people and folks who’ve been laid off especially.

Because, no joking, without visibility, selling yourself right now can be a hard sell.

Yes, I heard that sentence too.

I’ve never been a fan of chasing things. Even in “this market”, I never had to, and I’m not about to start now. Not that things are easy peasy. I just don’t have problems getting into the rooms.

And I can tell you 100% that investing in visibility and sitting down with the damn cringe that stops you from becoming findable and relatable might just be what you need.

You know, one of those things we all know we should do but somehow never do?

Reaching out to our own network for help. Consistently putting ourselves out there on LinkedIn. Telling people what we do without feeling like we need to take a shower afterwards.

Yeah. That stuff.

If you’re Laid Off & Fabulous, come join us. We even have a subgroup for exploring self employment, because apparently some of us looked at the traditional job market and thought, “You know what? Maybe I’ll make my own problems.”

→ [Join Laid Off & Fabulous on Whatsapp]

Come get comfortable with the cringe

This Tuesday (tomorrow!), I’m running a workshop on CRINGE!

This one is for L&D solopreneurs only, but let’s see how it goes. Maybe I’ll run it again if we collectively survive being visible.

Register here if you are an L&D professional.

And then on Friday, Laid Off & Fabulous meets again, and I’ll be talking more about visibility and cringe.

Because clearly, I have things to say about this.

And apparently, you have things to work through. ->  [Join us on Friday]

Stories of mere existence

Now for something completely different.

I have this buddy, Sandro, in Málaga. He’s knowledgeable about almost everything and has an entrepreneurial soul. Anyway, he’s given me tons of advice on how to become rich through real estate.

All those basic ideas about multiplying what you have. Use the first piece of equity as collateral, get a loan, pay it off while already using it, then repeat until you end up dirty rich.

And this was the moment I understood how capitalism works.

Not in an abstract, read a book about economics kind of way.

More in a “WAIT, YOU CAN DO THAT?” kind of way.

I mean, I knew capitalism existed. I’ve been participating in it this whole time.

Anyway, this is how I realised my next edition of insights is going to be born:

Pollo Digital: The Capitalistic Pig Edition.

I think this is important.

I don’t consider myself particularly great at business, but when I see something that feels right, I grab it. And this edition feels right.

So expect more capitalistic pig insights to come. Not only am I fabulous, I also have goals. Some of them involve capitalistic interests.

We contain multitudes.

Some of them want to dismantle the system, and some of them want to know how to use property as collateral.

It’s called range.

One more thing

If you miss me between newsletters, I have an experimental Telegram group.

Basically, it’s Instagram in group form, for people who want to get to know me a bit better.

I can’t put all my thoughts about life on LinkedIn or in this newsletter. Nor do I have Insta.

Some thoughts need a cozier little home where they can roam around without worrying about professional positioning.

So they land in that cozy little Telegram channel instead.

Come join me! → [Join my Telegram group]

That’s all for now, folks.

Go rest. Or build a system that helps you rest. 

Love,

Anna 

Laid Off & Fabulous lady, Founder of Pollo Digital

P.S.:

•You can book an 1:1 intro with me to discuss my work and see how I can help.

Hi folks,
Since July I am officially off the unemployment benefits, paying my own health insurance (yikes) and making my own revenue (double yikes). 

The last two months I’ve been networking in real life and building my Laid Off & Fabulous community like crazy, this is why this newsletter is about the visibility skill. 

The one I spent the last year smashing my head against. The cringe, the self-doubt, the oversharing, the trauma-dumping on LinkedIn – all my challenges that I consider overcome.
After I’ve been laid off, I didn’t know what to communicate to the world.
“I was great at my job but kinda also didn’t enjoyed it and it showed so I got canned?” didn’t seem like the right content strategy. I was unemployed, I wanted to build my own revenue, and I had no idea how. The only thing I knew – no more jobs. So I tried everything, from hunting for the right co-founder and build a startup to trying to force connections that cannot be forced.

The truth is… Connection and progress happen over time, and it happens organically, somewhere in the middle between your ultra-polished version (nobody is actually like that) and your “I’m a traumatised child and no one likes me” version. It took me a while to land in that middle..
And i’m far from having it figured out or having consistent income. But I see it more clearly now: Building s product or a service is not so hard. Building an audience is harder. 

It asks for the exact stuff we avoid – being vulnerable, sharing, and hearing feedback. And my community, the people I’ve reached and learned with and from, are the reason I might actually pull off this whole “founder” thing.

When I talk about the visibility skill, in my world it means two things:
- Talk to people you know – a much bigger project than messaging the five work friends from your last job.
- Talk to people you don’t know – which goes way beyond a cringey “I’m open to work” announcement every three years.

So, I’ll do some more of that visibility before my break. 

But yeah, I know, when I say we should do it authentically, the cringe the the fear of not being liked is so strong that we’d rather send CVs into the void… Well, here’s my response:

Events, and a little announcement

On Friday, September 4th, I’m part of the mentoring circles with Laid Off & Fabulous at the next Employed.world community gathering. That also means I’m now a mentor inside their community, and my Laid Off & Fabulous visibility program can be covered by an AVGS voucher. If you’ve been laid off, the unemployment agency can pay for us to work together. Until now, it was only out of your pocket.
Free for laid off folks to attend.
Come say hi -> https://luma.com/ir8ti0d8
More events Saturday, September 5th – Laid Off & Fabulous meetup -> https://luma.com/nwuse6qb

Wednesday, September 16th – Beyond the Layoff – Rebuild Your Confidence, co-hosted webinar with Mena, a resilience coach. My part is mainly about how the people around me, and a lot of self-exposure, got me out of my self-pity trap -> https://luma.com/h3ipeqsu
Friday, September 18th – run by me and co-hosted with Employed-world – Being laid off in Germany? You’re more protected than you think. -> https://luma.com/employed-cc6d
One more thing If you miss me between newsletters, I have an experimental Telegram group – basically my Instagram in group form, for people who want to know me a bit better. I can’t put all my thoughts about life on LinkedIn or in here, so they land in that cozy little telegram channel instead. Come join me.
That’s all for now, folks.
Love, Anna from Pollo Digital

Hi all,

That question stuck with me. I wish I took it more seriously when I was being laid off. I still don’t have an answer for myself, and I hope that it is what I’m doing, but deep down I know that… well, that I don’t know what I don’t know.

And it got me thinking about the F word – the old and good failure. While failure (fyi, layoff is considered as failure in most cases) is not being celebrated, I figured that exactly those times create a chance to rethink, change and go in depth.

My failed startup (and 6 months well wasted) – best teacher I’ve had about entrepreneurship, myself and what’s important. And also, how not to lose your mind while building your own revenue.

Dropping the limitations of failure makes this question a great exercise to explore what it is we find exciting to do with ourselves.I found when I drop the possibility to fail, I thrive again.In a way, It also forces us to notice how often, even when we have the agency to change our lives for the better, we still choose the familiar patterns that leave us out of control and unhappy.  

Self-employed people agreeing to work with clients from hell. Falling back into employee habits by giving clients too much control over income and security (like yours truly). Laid off people wanting more agency yet searching for another job. Or people running their own business becoming overworked employees of the thing they created and hardly enjoying the perks (partly yours truly, again).Because old patterns worked, we know them.

New ones might be way better, but they might be more of a failure than the ones before so that’s why bad habits die hard.

When I look at my own days, the same tension shows up in a more personal way. My head started reaching for business value – of each interaction, each investment, every piece of content, every intro, every hour of paid work. 

My more creative, non-business-oriented self has a different intuition: pure fun, connection, reading, sharing, creating, exploring, and simply being me without calculating what those fifteen minutes cost.I’m learning that the constant value filter is useful… and also it suffocates my creativity. I am not what I deliver.

We as people are flawed, sometimes highly organised yet chaotic and creative beings who also deserve to call some of our time well wasted.

The sweet spot – still rolling in creative flow while delivering enough business value is where most of us are hoping to find happiness, trying to answer that original question about what’s worth doing if we knew we wouldn’t fail. 

For now I’ve chosen to deprioritise the pure business optimisation side, because what I’m doing is working. Why break it.A living example of following that intuition and having an immense amount of fun is another Laid Off & Fabulous meetup. Absolutely fabulous & our biggest crowd so far.

Though I thought this would be the last one this summer, community asked for more, so I’ll run another on the 22nd of August to close the season (the last time in this format in Berlin): https://luma.com/nwuse6qb

And with that, it’s officially summer break in Europe – I hope you take good care of yourself and get some rest.

P.S. I’m hosting a webinar called “Beyond the Layoff: Rebuild your confidence, wellbeing and career” with a resilience coach Mena on the 16th of September. Yes, the F word will be the topic, though my part will focus on self-exposure and how to strategise both your own network and the network beyond it (hello LinkedIn and Networking as tools for self-exposure therapy again). Self-exposure got me out of my trap to go and build something of my own, and I’m happy to share it with you. 

You can already secure your spot here: https://luma.com/h3ipeqsu

That’s all for now, folks.

Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you have something worth sharing for what I’m building. Community matters.

Anna from Pollo Digital

Hi all,

“AI is taking people’s jobs” has been a popular narrative for a while now. That’s not what I’m seeing in practice.

Tech companies overhired during COVID. Many are now using AI as a convenient narrative while adjusting headcount, eliminating positions they see as less valuable. 

But back to the data: The more a company integrates AI, the more its headcount actually grows. According to Ramp/Revelio (2026), heavy AI adopters grew headcount by 10% over the two years following adoption, while low adopters saw no statistically significant change. (I first saw this in the Handpicked Berlin newsletter)

So no – AI isn’t the job-killer it’s made out to be. If a layoff is justified this way, I don’t take it seriously – there are other reasons behind it.

The bigger question I keep coming back to is this: How do companies expect employees to stay highly engaged when they give them little to no control and keep them in constant limbo?

The funny thing is, almost every company is great at creating laid-off talent. Prolonged limbo, hiring freezes, salary freezes, and zero agency given to the employees… it’s tough to stay “employee of the year” when your mental health is taking hits.

Strip away the AI and business buzz: you end up on the “to go” list because the business can keep running without you. At the next company, you might land on the “keep at all costs” list – simply because you’re in the right place at the right time with the right attitude.

And that attitude makes a huge difference: low conflict, initiating cross-department conversations, low resentment, high agency, making your wins visible, and openly sharing learnings from failures.

At the end of the day, I truly believe AI plays a much smaller role in this than we’re led to believe.

My advice (to employees, not companies): Take as much control as you possibly can. If you don’t get this agency at your job – you have it outside of it. Create your own thing, doesn’t have to be big. Put it out there. Create a name for yourself outside your company’s logo. It’s a long game, but whether you stay employed or go independent, it will be worth it.

On other note: I ran a UX research workshop as part of my UX Research freelance work – the interactive kind, with co-creating, training elements, energisers with dancing cats, all of that… and it felt gooood.

So I wondered: why am I not running workshops for my community, for all of you?

I’ve got tons of ideas and people to run it with, so here’s where I want your feedback.

And last but not least… Meetup meetup meetup!

11 people showed up to my Laid Off & Fabulous picnic, again! Community is growing attracting fantastic people. JUHU. I’ve learned that the people who show up are not necessarily unemployed, but rather identify as fabulous.

AI tells me being fabulous means “being so extraordinary or large in amount it is almost hard to believe” – which sits well with my line of work: how to become so fabulous that opportunities start chasing you rather than the other way round.

Next one is happening in two weeks: come and be fabulous with us -> https://luma.com/ljk9g8mi

And if you are job-searching… Handpicked Berlin is awesome and has a job index for tech and startup jobs in Berlin.

Don’t hesitate to come back to me if you have something worth sharing for what I’m building – community matters.

That’s all for now, folks
Anna from Pollo Digital

Hi all, 

In the pouring rain, 11 people showed up to my first outdoor meetup for laid-off folks in Berlin.

Organising meetups is nerve wracking. There’s always a chance no one shows up – pouring rain, life, etc etc… For that case I have a mantra: if no one shows up, no one will know no one showed up. And I do the event anyway.

But 11 people showed up. And here’s the answer to the question in the subject line: no, you were not laid off because you were bad. A room full of laid-off people made that very clear. We usually don’t know why we ended up on the “to lay off” list and not the “to keep” list, so we connect our worth to it and prefer not to go there. 

Have you ever seen a person openly sharing how they navigated a layoff? Rarely, right?

That evening, we went there. And I noticed three patterns you never hear at a “normal” networking event.

→ Companies’ layoff playbooks are dreadful. Finally unpacked in a group setting, not only in 1:1s… we talked about some of the undignified ways companies lay people off. This topic keeps on giving – so much that I’m creating a “jerk move” vs “decent thing to do” guide for companies. More on that soon.

→ Being laid off is systemic, but society still treats it as a personal flaw. Like if you don’t have a job, you’re not a “full” human. How far did we all get brainwashed into thinking we’re only worthy if we bring value to the economy – don’t get me started… But anyway. That’s why reviews for my layoff work are anonymous, and why I decided not to take pictures at this first event. People need help but don’t want to show up as “I needed help, but if I say so, this might backfire.”
The closer I get to my mission of de-stigmatizing layoffs, the more pictures and people there will be.

→ The traits that put you on the “to fire” list in one company will secure your spot on the “to keep” list in another. Same person, different circumstances. Some of it is simply being in the wrong place. Some of it can actually be worked on.

And one thing I didn’t expect or strategise around: the people who showed up asked for a way to stay connected.

So I guess this is the beginning of a community.

Go laid off & fabulous!  

P.S. I am hosting the next one in two weeks, register here -> https://luma.com/0xcq27fp

Stories of mere existence

My first date for the meetup was the 27th of June, when we had 40 degrees in Berlin. I rescheduled to the 4th of July – 15 degrees and pouring rain. For a picnic type of event, less than optimal. My first reaction was to reschedule again, but this is not who I am. I did the event anyway. Zero regrets, though so many things could have been better, including my own preparation. But now I know.

Made me think about all the other things I keep on unconsciously rescheduling…
Like the content series “why I was let go despite having the best hard skill set and best visibility in the team.” This thing will directly feed my mentorship program and yet… This is very hard to kick off, so I keep on rescheduling it. 

What’s your thing you keep on rescheduling?

The ask:
This month I’m looking for partners – lawyers, career transition coaches, educational centres working with German unemployment vouchers (AVGS). If you know one, send them my way – here is my LinkedIn.

That’s all for now, folks.
Love, Anna from Pollo Digital

Hey all,

How did being in a layoff make you feel? Did you feel fabulous? I bet not many of us did. I did not. And yet – this whole layoff experience is a wake-up call for so many of us – that no job is permanent, and ultimately, taking agency over your own professional life is key. This is what I learned helping many people navigate layoffs smartly – and no, it is not about the money. It is about that agency and empowerment. 

Would you rather fold, or follow your own path even in the layoff? That’s why my work is evolving from “How to survive a layoff in Germany,” with its bureaucracy and limited information, to an ecosystem for an empowered exit, with a plan and a vision. Because yes, before, during and after the layoff – we have more agency than we possibly think. This is why I am working on my…

PARTNERSHIPS! 

I am working closely with a trusted lawyer, and working on partnerships with AVGS educational centers (this is when the unemployment agency covers your educational or coaching costs), career and founder coaches. If you have someone who should be in my network for me to refer the wonderful laid-off people to – reply to this email!

Working with people who are trusted by my own community is crucial to me, because being laid off might be a bit… lonely. We don’t quite talk about it, all shush-shush about it. Well, not me. I believe that accessibility of information, knowing your options and human exchange make everything better. This is why…

I am hosting a picnic-style meetup for all the fabulous laid-off folks in Berlin, this Saturday 27.06 starting 6PM in Gleisdreieck. Right now, the weather is showing 39 degrees and I am secretly hoping that Berlin will pull its regular Berlin weather spin and we will not actually have a temperature that high. I am optimistic and the plan is on!

We are 40 people on Meetup and Luma, so cool – you can sign up here -> https://luma.com/xmc1l5eg

For those who are joining (and for those who are not) -> that’s me in Berlin on the Warschauer Brücke, laid off and fabulous. At the picnic, I’ll be carrying this sign, so it’s easier to find us

Don’t hesitate to come back to me if you have something worth sharing for what I’m building – community matters.

That’s all for now, folks
Anna from Pollo Digital

Hey all,

I’ve been playing around with the name “Generation Layoff” recently. Generation Layoff goes beyond pure numbers – we are talking about a complete shift in employees’ trust.

Look at the epic layoff announcement at ClickUp. What’s so special about this one is that the CEO did not try to make it look like a cost-cutting measure. This layoff did not need to happen. It is apparently how we win the future now.

Framing an unnecessary 22% layoff as “innovation” while promising million-dollar salary bandwidths for the people who stay is just not sustainable human-driven business, yet here we are.

Eroding trust. Because those who stay, and saw their colleagues get HR-slaughtered, now no longer trust their employer like they used to.

And yet… Layoffs can be a fantastic wake up call for some of us. How? Well, imagine having witnessed the leaders in your company make bad decisions. That’s human, some of the leaders don’t even trust their own “business decision” story. You, however, get to pay for them screwing up. So many of us go: why don’t I get to screw up myself, instead of being laid off or waiting to be laid off?

So here is when many people make a glorious decision to take a leap and stop working for companies – and I’m happy to see more and more laid off people transitioning to founder or a freelancer. And those founders and freelancers? They are also “Generation Layoff”.

Because Generation Layoff includes them all:

Founders and job-hunters who were laid off, people who stayed and witnessed the forced exodus, people leaving because of the layoff’s aftermath…

A layoff has shaped them all – but my sweet spot, after helping people out of the layoff crisis, is how employees build trust back in themselves when entering the next stage, whatever that stage is.

And I like people who trust themselves to make the right mistakes, setting out on their own, because they trust that they’ll make it.

The challenges we go through are very similar, yet many of us keep it quiet. Because being laid off is still treated like a stigma – you don’t really talk about it. So this is why:

I’m going to host meetups this summer, called “Generation Layoff” – for everybody pre-, during or post-layoff – to create clarity and address our challenges. It is going to be a very chill event, nothing heavy, pure community and support. 

The first one is happening on Saturday 27th in Berlin, picnic-style to embrace Berliner Summer. Join us! 

P.S. I’m building a “How to be a dick during a Layoff” – guide for the companies. Kinda like the “Being laid off in Germany guide”, except, in that guide I truly want to help employees, in this other one, I kinda mock inhumane practices of companies. I hope at least that can change the default we all got used to. 

If you’d love to share your story to help me create it, book a short call with me. All interviews are anonymous, unless you wish otherwise. 

And the stories of mere existence are back!

This time, I had an interesting conversation with a friend who’s considering starting his own business. He mentioned that “Diary of a CEO” might just be derailing you from your own path. Learning from others shouldn’t delay you from living your own life, unapologetically making your own experiences.

Got me thinking about all the stuff we do that feels like moving towards our goals but is actually just performative – because we’re not doing the hard things.

Like me buying serious sporty gear at Decathlon and then very slowly walking to a restaurant without raising my heart rate by a single beat. But damn I look sporty.

What’s your sporty gear?

That’s all for now, folks.

Love, Anna from Pollo Digital

Hey all,

I finally get to share the learnings of my insane “viral post” week.

Surprise: Most people reaching out for my resources on smart layoffs are not the ones in the layoff. Most of them are in active employment, preparing. Not what I expected at all.

We are talking 100,000 impressions and 82 saves on LinkedIn, 58 downloads, 27 testers, dozens of helpful conversations… I so hit the nerve there. And then came the external data:

Only 11% of workers in Germany are actually engaged at work and invested in what they do, Gallup research says. 

11%!!! What about the other 89%?

Think about it – “Survivors” that now need to carry extra work and implement AI in their companies. Only 11% are up for a challenge. 89% might as well be… quietly preparing for a better exit, maybe looking for a different job.

Some grind even harder, showing their worth. But here’s the question: 

Are you doing your best work when you internally know all of it might be for nothing because any day, you might be let go?

Living in constant tension goes beyond declining engagement, I can tell you from experience – I fooled myself into thinking that the harder I worked, the more I could handle the uncertainty. Wrong – I could fool myself (my superpower), but you can’t fool your body or your psyche. That tension cost me a teeth-grinding habit so bad I needed a mouth guard at night. The daytime damage was on me.

I don’t have a good closing point. What I have is…. 

-> Companies have a huge trust gap to close.

-> Employees have a task of staying in the zone of their control to not completely lose it.

-> And I truly believe that with a dignified, informed and empowering exit, you set yourself up for a better start by staying in your control zone, which is close to impossible the longer you stay in the uncertainty zone.

If you feel that you need support figuring out this tricky tension – please do reach out.

That’s all for now, folks.

Love, Anna from Pollo Digital

Hey all,

Things are moving fast. After my post about being laid off went viral – again – I found myself buried in work and many introductions. And my subscriber count doubled, so hello to all of you new here!

Let me get you up to speed with what I’m doing with this whole “Being laid off in Germany” work.

Turns out, being laid off has started to feel like another Tuesday for many people. So weird and sad that it has gotten so normalised in Europe and this does not sit well with me.

Why? What happens in layoffs stays behind closed doors. In Germany, we don’t know how companies communicate and execute layoffs – and what consequences it has for employees.

Zero transparency. Zero accountability. Maybe I start a movement of dignified layoffs, who knows.

Another piece is the emotional impact a layoff has on your professional confidence and how you approach your network afterwards. How do you move on with your job search? And if you decide to build something of your own – how does a layoff keep influencing you? We started treating layoffs as something so normal, but they are not – for our psyche they are still an insanely abnormal event.

If you’ve been laid off, try reaching out to your former boss. The feeling is not great, there is a certain taboo and awkwardness, on both sides.

And in the middle of all of it are immigrants, whom I want to help most. Being on a visa, not speaking the language, not understanding the cultural norms of negotiating in Germany, not knowing your rights – it adds such a damn layer of complexity to an already fucked up emotional experience.

If I can help more immigrants in Germany avoid questionable decisions in the negotiation and come out stronger after a layoff, I’ll feel that I am really, truly doing something good. And I am so happy to see that it is already happening.

Can you help me?

I am in the problem-definition phase with real people – that’s why I am inviting people who downloaded my resources for a short research interviews. 

Would you jump on a 20-minute call with me to tell me about your pre-, mid- or post-layoff experience? If you had one, of course. 

My plan is to later use that qualitative data (anonymously, of course) to run a large survey. The report I’ll create will become a tool of transparency on how companies ran layoffs and what impact it had on employees. 

The paid clarity sessions with me are great too. They help me help you. I provide strategy, clarity on your situation, your options, the best negotiation structure, and my lawyer’s recommendations if needed.

Reply to this email if either of those is you or if you know someone it would help.

Stories of mere existence

This email’s story of mere existence happened to me. A person who downloaded my “being laid off in Germany” guide emailed me back saying it was so insanely helpful, asking for my PayPal to support my work.

Gosh, the best feeling ever! And he did PayPal me. 5 euros. And then he…. unsubscribed.

The path of entrepreneurship is certainly a never-ending source of humans being humans. 

In the next email I’ll update you on my post-layoff progress and my cultural fit mentorship work.

That’s all for now, folks.

Love, Anna from Pollo Digital

Hey guys,

I simply stayed in Georgia after my vacation and settled down in a little town called Mtskheta. Love this freedom – it’s worth working hard for. Also, I’ve started dedicating one hour every morning to writing, and things like positioning, clear communication, and a better grasp on my publishing have been developing like crazy.

So, some updates:

Sadly (or not) I have decided to stop working on my startup in the area of deepfake protection 

Quite dramatically, too – I pulled back my incubator application, and this one I was really excited about.

I’ve dedicated a year to it, many potential co-founders, many different angles, tons of biz learnings later… I’ve realised it is time to let go and choose myself. Why chase something that isn’t working well and not work on something that is working beautifully – like the Pollo Digital one-woman-show company, whose newsletter you are reading right now.

My grown-up entrepreneur friends say the first one must fail and this is the one that hurts the most. It certainly hurts – I even wept a bit. I am certainly not giving up my entrepreneurial spirit – Go Pollo Digital!

Now, that Pollo Digital

What I do there is tied closely to helping people through a layoff, and beyond and help them land in a German local work culture, which is a tricky one. Let’s focus on my mentoring through a layoff.

Why mentoring people through a layoff? Because a lot of people come to read or watch my stuff mid-layoff and for me, a layoff has transformational power.

Here’s why: In employment, you can hold one of two positions.

→ Proactive – when you are choosing roles you enjoy and that serve your career, leaving when a job stops serving you.

→ Passive – when you are staying because you’re scared you won’t find anything else.

Other reasons exist, but the bottom line is fear. You’re scared to leave.

The second one is quite sad to me. I made that mistake myself – instead of leaving, I stayed another half a year, waiting for the layoff. Strategically and money-wise, it was the right call, and I’m glad I did what was best for me and not for the company. But almost a year later? What a waste of time and mental space.

That’s why the first thing I ask when employees reach out to me during a layoff: what is this job for you- is it worth keeping?

The moment I hear the word “scared” – scared to lose it, scared they won’t find something else – I know there’s much more going on than just the layoff situation.

Getting fear out of your decision-making will enrich your life in ways that were previously unthinkable.

We treat our jobs – and our lives – like a draft. Except this draft is it. There is no rewrite.

On that dramatic note, I’ll cut the long read here. I’m happy to offer mentorship where we dig into why you’re living your life like a draft and how to stop. Reach out

Stories of mere existence

Chuck Norris passed a few weeks ago. Here’s that iconic story of him and the tiger:

“So I (Chuck Norris) went in and bent down and petted him, and all of a sudden you heard this groaning. The trainer says: get up very slowly and back up. And the tiger did – he slowly got up and backed out.”

RIP Chuck.

In a way, me choosing to dedicate myself full time to Pollo Digital over my deepfake startup makes me feel like damn Chuck Norris. 

The ask

Who do you know who’s facing a layoff and would benefit from talking to someone who went through it and came out stronger? 

Reply to this email and let me know. 

That’s all for now, folks. 

Love, 

Anna from Pollo Digital