What’s up, friends? It’s Damian Jay. This is The Morning Drive.

Recently, Facebook decided to remind me of something I wasn’t exactly asking for. A memory from one year ago when I got laid off.

Seeing that pop up brought a mix of thoughts. Yeah, I’ve come a long way since then. And weirdly, around the same time, a quote came back to me that I thought was from Dr. George Sheehan, but turns out it was just something I wrote myself. Probably at 2 a.m., wired and thinking out loud to nobody but myself.

The quote was:
“If you want people to respect your work, perhaps you should start with doing good work without expecting praise in the first place. Good work is its own reward.”

(note: “Good work is its own reward,” by itself, is a quote from SIr Arthur Conan Doyle)

That didn’t come to me after I was laid off. It actually came to me ten years earlier. But the timing was wild.

Getting laid off was humbling. In the moment, it felt like the world ended. I thought of all the client relationships I had built, and there were a lot. At one point, I was managing nearly 100 accounts. Toward the end, I was still working with about 20.

And there’s this ego that creeps in. You start to think, “There’s no way they’d ever let me go. I’m too valuable. I’ve got great relationships with my clients. If anything happens, I’ll just go work for them directly.”

Reality hits fast.

None of them reached out.
Not one.

These were people I met with monthly, in person. Some told me, “Damian, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” But when I was let go, they moved on.

It sucked.

But here’s what I realized. They didn’t hire me. They hired my company because it was cheaper than hiring someone in-house. I was given 20, 40, sometimes 60 accounts because no one client justified my salary.

And that’s the business. That’s the infrastructure. It’s not personal.

We like to think people will always remember what we did for them, but more often than not, people are focused on their own survival. And it’s not just clients. It’s everyone.

Your support system, even the people closest to you, still have to take care of themselves. That’s not me being cynical. That’s just how it works.

If you’re in a relationship and you lose your job, that becomes a shared burden. And if you’re not doing your part to move forward, to find the next thing, eventually even your biggest supporter will start asking you to get your ass up and figure it out.

I’m lucky. I have a wife who stood by me and pushed me forward.

Within 30 days of being let go, I had a new job.

And now, almost a year later, I’ve been promoted.

Not just in title, but in responsibility. The thing I was promised at my last company but never got, the promotion that was all title and no substance, has finally come around in a real way.

I’m now officially the Director of Project Management. That started about a week ago.

But I didn’t click the “announce promotion” button on LinkedIn. And I probably won’t.

Why?

Because I want this one to be different.
I want the work to speak before the title does.

At this point in my career, I know what needs to be done. I know the timeline. I know the responsibility. I’m currently offboarding clients while still running a full report load. They’re slowly peeling accounts off so I can fully transition. I’ve been given a runway. I’ve been given trust.

And I don’t take that lightly.

This isn’t the kind of promotion I want to celebrate with a big post and a bunch of likes. I want to earn it first.

Because the truth is, we are all replaceable. I hate to say it, but it’s real.

That voice in your head that tells you, “There’s no way they’d function without me,” you need to shut that down.

In a world with ChatGPT, easy content tools, a sea of marketers, and a million people with people skills, ask yourself honestly: Can I be replaced?

Because if you hate talking to clients, hate talking to people, and think your technical skills are enough to carry you, you’re probably already on borrowed time.

Even as a former master electrician, I had to talk to clients, deal with conflict, and show up with professionalism.

No matter your role — marketer, electrician, project manager — there is always someone better.

So if you want to stand out, if you want to survive the storm, you have to lead with good work.

Jobs will come and go. But the people who remember you, who pick up the phone when you list them as a reference, who connect you with your next opportunity, they are the ones who saw your effort. They saw your value.

And that only happens when you put in the work without needing the praise.

So yeah, I guess this is a quiet announcement that I’ve stepped into a new role. But more importantly, it’s a reminder:

Do good work first. Let that speak before you do.

That’s all I’ve got.

– Damian