Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Sometimes I ask audiences what they would do if their entire indus-
try disappeared overnight. They shake their heads and they say that
can’t possibly happen. Then I point out that the defense industry in
California literally collapsed in the early 1990s and over 400,000
highly competent defense engineers and executives, with many
years of education and experience, were rendered obsolete. Their
jobs were not only gone; they were gone forever. Each of these thou-
sands of competent, capable men and women were forced into the
position of going out into the marketplace, developing new skills,
and going to work in entirely new fields.
The collapse of the dot-com mania wiped out more than 90
percent of the Internet jobs and companies that had sprung up
across the country. The collapse in the telecom sector led to layoffs