In some ways the summer of 2012 seems like more than four years ago. In July of that summer I was…Forced? Compelled? Convinced? whatever you want to call it, to end the operations of my former business that had been around for 16 years.

As calm as I tried to remain, I was freaking out (the technical term).   Even a year later in 2013 having written about it the sting was still evident. At the time I had not worked for anyone else for a really long time and having started a more recent venture with partners, www.moddern.com, I really preferred to continue to grow the newer company, than to try to find a…job.

Today I am still standing up as a professional – partly because of my standing desk which I use about half the time, but more because of the efforts of those around me that have helped and continue to help me help our clients succeed with their strategic marketing objectives.

While I would never admit that my path of falling down and getting up is the best way for everyone, in my case, it forced me to learn many new skills and do things in very different ways from what was familiar for so long.

There’s one thing I keep in the back of my mind all the time, and that is I am one of the lucky ones. Lucky in that I have been able to take advantage of the opportunities that have arisen and re-forged my professional career and outlook. Many people don’t have those opportunities and never really are able to rebound. I think about this a great deal since career disruptions in the U.S. and around the world continue with no end in sight.

It should not come as any surprise that those of us of a certain age who have enough history to have seen the start of what was formerly called the computer revolution.   That phrase seems archaic now. Adapting to changes in technology is harder than being born into it as in the case of Gen X, Gen Y and to a greater extent, millennials.

The best and only real advice I can offer is for you to be insanely curious and continue reading and learning about things that are relevant and interesting to your life. Try to consider your possible next moves before ‘things happen’.

And things tend to happen right?