“The Layoff and the lantern”

Meet Eric

Eric Lewis is 36 years old. He worked in the accounting department at the U.S. Department of Education for nearly a decade. Steady, humble, always reliable. Married to Melissa, a third-grade teacher, and father to Ava (6) and Julian (3). The kind of guy who kept a spreadsheet for groceries and cracked dry dad jokes when things got tense.

He didn’t see the pink slip coming.

One morning, an all-staff email mentioned departmental restructuring. By Friday, his badge stopped working. Budget cuts, effective immediately. His supervisor cried more than he did.

It wasn’t personal. That’s what they all said.

But to Eric, it felt like identity theft.

Part 1 – Financial Freefall

Eric rated Financial as a 10 in importance—stable income was how he protected his family. But his current score? Maybe a 3. He wasn’t drowning in debt, but the free fall was starting to creep into everything: his sleep, his stomach, his temper. He kept replaying worst-case scenarios: What if I don’t find work before unemployment runs out? What if we lose the house?

Mining Mentality Action (Financial): Eric’s small step came after a breakdown in front of the fridge. Melissa gently handed him his own self-assessment worksheet—the one he had downloaded weeks earlier out of curiosity.

His action that day?

• He wrote down the contact info for their mortgage provider and their bank.

• He called the unemployment office—not to ask about benefits, but to set up a virtual session with a career counselor.

Tiny movements. First strikes. But they steadied him.

Part 2 – Purpose in Collapse

What hurt more than the money was what it meant: Who was Eric now?

He used to be “the guy who kept the department running.” Now, he felt like the guy who hit refresh on job boards every 10 minutes and couldn’t explain to his kids why he seemed so distracted during storytime.

He rated Purpose as a 9 in importance. His current score? 2. He wasn’t sure if another government job was what he wanted. But what else was he trained for? What else made sense?

So, he started small.

Mining Mentality Action (Purpose): Eric picked up his old journal from a drawer. He wrote one prompt across the top of the page:

> When have I felt most useful—not impressive, but useful?

That night, he filled three pages. It wasn’t a map, but it was a compass.

Part 3 – The Unexpected Gold: Family

When Eric looked over his worksheet again, one thing surprised him—Family was the only category where his “importance” score and his “current” score were aligned.

Suddenly, the slow mornings walking Ava to school weren’t interruptions—they were the highlight of his day. He started showing up more in the kitchen, learned how Julian liked his sandwiches cut, and noticed Melissa smiling more at night.

It didn’t fix everything—but it reminded him what wasn’t broken.

This didn’t erase the pain of his job loss. But through the Mining Mentality, Eric stopped seeing the layoff as just a loss—and started using it as a lantern.