How to Find the Blessing Hidden in the Disaster

In honor of Friday the 13th, I thought I’d share a story of how a recent event — one I thought would be a disaster — turned into a major blessing.

If you read my blog last week, you may remember I nearly got scammed by a fake job posting for a medical writer.

While I joked about it in my article, I was truly quite bummed about the whole ordeal. I mean, any type of deception just feels shitty, even if you’re able to spot the red flags and back away before it’s too late. That experience, combined with a fee other things going on in my personal life, pushed me into a little dark cave for a hot second.

I didn’t even want to write about it. It was my husband, Jason, who made the suggestion, “at least you’ll have a good story to write tomorrow.”

At the time, I was so angry I told him I definitely wouldn’t. I’d rather stew in a pot of my own resentment.

As you know, I ultimately took Jason’s advice. Not only was writing about the experience cathartic, but it opened the door for so many blessings.

I even got an actual new writing gig as a result.

Creativity rules

After writing the story, I shared it on LinkedIn. I rarely share blog posts there, but seeing as how the scammers were targeting LinkedIn, I thought sharing it on the platform was appropos.

One of the people who read the article was a former colleague of mine. We connected on LinkedIn years ago when he started writing for a company I was already freelancing for. He reached out to tell me he enjoyed reading it, and proceeded to ask what made me leave the company we both wrote for.

We swapped stories of getting burned out, underpaid, and frustrated with poor management. Though I’m not an advocate for complaining, I can’t lie — it was so nice to commiserate on this!

Freelance writing is an amazing career, but it comes with its downsides. One of those is the lack of camaraderie. Actually, it’s quite an isolated existence.

Perfect for introverts like me.

Most of the time, you’re working completely on your own. Maybe you communicate with an editor and content manager, but that’s usually it. There’s no freelance writers gathering at the water cooler. In fact, there’s often a sense of competition amongst writers — at least, that’s how it was at this company. It almost seemed like we were all sharks circling a chum bucket. It reminds me of the competitive vs creative mindset Old Wally talked about in The Science of Getting Rich.

But Ethan (the writer on LinkedIn) and I had some sense of camaraderie. He reached out to me shortly after signing on with this company, asking for tips on how to get more assignments. Instead of brushing him off out of fear that I’d lose some assignments to him, I assumed there was more than enough work to go around. I took the time to answer his questions and gave him my best advice.

Once again, creativity rules.

Money is a great blessing, too

After chatting with Ethan a bit, I let him know I was looking for a medical writing job and asked him to please keep me in mind if he hears of anything.

Right away, he told me he recently left a freelance gig in favor of a full-time position. The freelance job was similar to what we both had been doing before, but with better compensation and communication. He offered to reach out to his contact there.

Long story short, they were, in fact, looking for freelance medical writers. I signed a contract last Friday, and wrote my first two articles this week!

All of this came from my willingness to take a painful, borderline humiliating experience and turn it into something helpful and enjoyable. And it happened so quickly! I shared my story on Tuesday, and signed a contract three days later.

Thank you, universe, for always having my back, even if your sense of humor is a little twisted. And huge thanks to Jason for inspiring me to see the silver lining in all of this!

Cover image via Pexels