The email arrived at 7:42 a.m.
No warning. No conversation. No lead-up.
Just a calendar invite, a short message, and a quiet confirmation that after 23 years at Microsoft, I was done.
I’d been a strong performer. Respected. Experienced. Reliable.
And yet, laid off.
That’s the part no one prepares you for: the cognitive dissonance.
I was good at my job and I got laid off. Those two things are supposed to be mutually exclusive. They’re not.
For the first hour, I felt numb. For the next few hours, embarrassed. By that night, something heavier settled in.
Fear.
Not dramatic fear, practical fear.
The kind that shows up when you open a spreadsheet.
The Numbers Don’t Care About Your Résumé
My severance package would cover six months of expenses. That sounds generous, until you run the math.
Monthly household expenses: $18,900 Mortgage: due College savings: ongoing Health insurance: suddenly expensive Tax bill from last April: still very real
At 50+, in a tech market flooded with talent, the realistic timeline to land another Senior PM role wasn’t weeks.
It was 8 to 12 months. Possibly longer.
That’s when the thought hit me:
I did everything I was told to do and I still wasn’t safe.
The Permission-Slip Problem
For decades, my life had been built on a single assumption:
As long as I performed, someone else would keep paying me.
That assumption shattered in one morning.
And then almost unexpectedly I felt something else.
Space.
Because unlike many of my peers, I wasn’t staring at zero.
“Your Portfolio Isn’t for Retirement. It’s for Resilience.”
Two years earlier, my advisors Jo and Vinod at BricksFolios had challenged how I thought about wealth.
They weren’t selling fantasies. They weren’t promising early retirement.
Their message was simpler and far more uncomfortable:
Wealth isn’t about getting rich. It’s about optionality.
Since 2021, I’d been quietly building a real estate portfolio alongside my career.
Not aggressively. Not impulsively.
- A few short-term rental properties
- Some long-term rentals
- One joint venture through BricksFolios’ STR program
I never thought of it as an “escape plan.”
Until it became one.
November 2023: The Quiet Proof
That month, my properties generated $14,200 in cash flow.
Let’s be clear that didn’t replace my Microsoft income.
But it did something far more important:
It removed panic.
I could pay the mortgage. I could cover essentials. I could think clearly instead of react emotionally.
While others were scrambling to update résumés, I had breathing room.
I wasn’t desperate. I wasn’t rushed. I wasn’t afraid of making a bad decision just to stop the bleeding.
The Call That Changed My Mindset
When I called Jo, I expected strategy.
Instead, she said something I didn’t expect:
“You’re not starting over. You’re starting from a foundation.”
She walked me through what we’d already built. What was stable. What could be optimized. What new options were now available because income no longer depended on one employer.
That’s when it hit me:
My portfolio wasn’t designed for retirement at 65.
It was designed for moments like this.
The Real Divide in 2024
The biggest financial divide today isn’t between high-income and low-income earners.
It’s between people with optionality and people without it.
Job security is fragile. Titles expire. Companies pivot.
But income that isn’t tied to a W-2 buys you time, leverage, and dignity when things break.
Tomorrow, I’ll share the decision I made once I stopped chasing my next job and started intentionally designing my next chapter.
Because the real risk isn’t getting laid off.
It’s realizing too late that you built a life with no backup plan.
If this story resonates, you’re not behind but you are on the clock.
→ Book your private strategy session with BricksFolios Founders, Vinod Sharma and Jo Dixit.
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