2022: A year full of surprises

Dear 2022,

It's been a heck of a journey. I've never written an article on this platform, but I was inspired by a former peer Hayden Searcy. Check out his post if you can. Now that i've gotten that out of the way let's chat about what my year consisted of. This was the most challenging year of my professional career by far. It was really broken up into 2 chapters for me. The first chapter I call it "uncertainty" and this chapter consisted of the first 8 months of 2022. The second chapter is called "rejuvenation." Full disclosure, I'm not a professional writer, although I did write for my school newspaper many moons ago. I approached this article as a journal entry without many edits.

I started this year in a brand new role with the organization I spent most of my adult life at. I entered 2022 as a Community Engagement Manager, however I was no longer performing the job functions as a CEM. I ended 2021 being placed into the marketing side of my org and away from the sales org, which I had spent the last 12 years of my career. The constant changes in the business really left me apprehensive, and optimistic all at the same time. Apprehensive because the changes kept coming and I was worried I would be a victim of these constant changes. I was optimistic because I had an opportunity to be in an uncomfortable position, which would force me to grow and level up my skills. I'm a sucker for learning new things and applying it. Despite the transition into a new org, I was accompanied by my senior manager and a few peers in the job change which made the transition a little bit smoother. I had gone through 3 leadership changes in those last 18 months, so not having to go through another change was a relief. Coming into this year I had a clear goal in mind, take control of my future. In 2020, I had gone through a layoff in the middle of the pandemic and multiple leadership changes coming into 2022.

To put it simply, I was exhausted. I was exhausted by all of the changes, the lack of direction and I started to feel like I wasn't in control of my professional life. It was tough, I had put so much time into an organization and had grown so much that I believed the grass was only green on that side. So I continued taking courses to earn my project management degree, while juggling the shift in job responsibilities with as much grace as possible. Learning the role and partnering with my new peers was a fun journey, I was excited to work side by side with them everyday as I started to learn the role. Partnering with local community organizations, radio stations and building those relationships was incredibly fun for me. It challenged my creative juices and I was really starting to enjoy it.

Fast forward to April. The last 2 months I was learning something new, while also dipping my toes in the job market, as I felt a lack of growth opportunities in my current situation. These last few months I had started to feel that "uncertainty" kick in. Uncertain about where my place was in my organization, uncertain about what I really wanted to do. And then one beautiful spring afternoon I received an e-mail for a conference call titled Org changes. I was at my daughters soccer practice when I received the e-mail, so I decided to open it on my phone and look at the details. After opening I was curious to see who was invited to the call just to find out it was myself, my director, and HR. After taking that peek, I knew what time it was. To quote that famous GTA San Andreas meme (sorry to the non-gamers who are unfamiliar, however google it so you can understand the reference lol) "Aww sh** here we go again." I had been through a layoff once before, a little less than 2 years ago. I called my wife, gave her the news and as soon as I got home that evening I started tweaking my resume. Upon receiving the news and posting about it on various channels, I received an outpouring of support from peers, and former coworkers. The amount of support, and encouragement I received was overwhelming and it helped me cope with the uncertainty of my future. Outside of work, I was preparing to go through a decent sized renovation to my home, and I had just been told I was no longer going to be employed. That was scary, to have such a huge personal milestone on the brink, only to be told that the source of income for your project wouldn't be there long term. However, I was determined to not let this bring me down and got to work on figuring out what I wanted to do. In my heart, I've always been passionate about helping others grow, through coaching, development, and putting programs, processes, content in place to help others achieve their goals. Through my search I stumbled across a role titled "sales enablement" and thats where the search and preparation began.

In these next few months I would have interviews almost every week. After every interview I would learn something new. Whether it was highlighting my experience to match the role I was applying for, speaking confidently about what I brought to an organization, or just discussing why I was the best fit for the role. As I went through each interview I grew restless. I had final interviews with a few organizations, only to be told that they went with a candidate who had more experience. It was beyond frustrating because my experience didn't change from the first interview to the last, so getting my hopes up, and preparing for a final interview just to be told they went with someone who had "more experience" felt like a slap in the face. There were even some organizations that put me through a final interview and gave me no tangible feedback or even feedback at all. That was one of the most annoying things about this process, putting myself in these situations, putting time and effort and not hear a single piece of feedback, even after I asked for them to provide. I won't say all organizations were like that. There was one organization in particular that went with another candidate but gave me the opportunity to schedule a call with the recruiter to receive feedback. It was great to receive the feedback because I always want to improve and grow and it can be difficult without receiving someone else's point of view. Despite the continued uncertainty, I kept refining my skills. I knew it wasn't a matter of "if" but rather "when." That when couldn't come soon enough for me.

August of 2022 is when things started to get real for me. I had been on the hunt for 4 months, had countless interviews and was still without a job. The uneasiness of my reality started to settle in. Despite the countless interviews and about 4 final interviews I was still searching. I had some promising prospects, one in particular that I had grown fond of. I got my interview by "shooting my shot" on a post by the hiring managers boss. At that point in this job search I said what the hell do I have to lose by commenting on it? As much as I had liked the organization I had been through countless interviews and was worried that all my efforts would end up in another "no." In this point of the interview process I had given it my all, I showed out like Jordan in game 6 of the 98' NBA finals. In mid august, I got the call I had been waiting for since April, the search was finally over, I was offered a position with Sprinklr. In these months, I had my back on the ropes, 0 experience in SaaS companies, countless "no's" but what helped me through this was my determination, my willingness to learn from my interviews and the desire I have to be great at what I do.

Chapter 2

After my offer, I was excited to get that weight off of my shoulders and get back to working. This had been the first time in my adult life that I went months without a job. While I embraced the freedom and not having to deal with work stress, I was ready to get back to work. By nature, I'm a grinder, I enjoy working and keeping myself busy. Being hired at Sprinklr, I knew the learning curve was going to be steep but I also knew that everything that is put in front of me I can handle. I had never worked in a SaaS organization before so the acronyms, the sales cycles and methodology's were somewhat foreign to me. The biggest challenge was to not be a victim of "imposter syndrome" and in full transparency I did for a little. As I went through my onboarding it was challenging to feel like I belonged and that I earned this. I had a moment of clarity where I said to myself "Sales is sales" and while I don't have experience in SaaS sales, I have experience in sales which is the foundation for anything sales. Once I broke through, I felt that rejuvenation. I was fired up to learn, to meet people, and to be the best at what I do, that's what drives me. It had been a few years since I've had this feeling of rejuvenation. I stuck around an organization and allowed them to dictate my future and I felt an incredible sense of loyalty to them where I didn't feel a sense of purpose, but now I feel an incredible amount of purpose. A big part of why I feel rejuvenated is also the team I'm surrounded by. From my VP all the way down to my peers, I feel the support, I feel the cohesiveness and that is refreshing. I truly feel I can grow professionally and personally.

While this year has been challenging, it was a much needed reset to my professional life. Despite the many days of stress and worry, I never gave up on my goals and continued to persevere through many challenges. 2022 in one word was "Growth." I thank all of those that have been involved in this growth, there's too many names to list but I am grateful to have had you along the journey. Thank you all for taking the time to read this, as I said in my opening, I am not a professional writer, this approach was to write this as a journal entry. To 2023, I am looking forward to everything that you will bring and I'm ready to kick some ass in these next 12 months. Until next year!

• Luis