Your job title is something you do. It isn’t who you are.

I know that now, but I didn’t know it many years ago.

After seven years at a major record label, I was called into a small meeting room.
My line manager was there and someone from HR. I know they spoke to me, and I’m sure they explained what was happening and what would happen next. But when I think back now, all I remember is white noise.

I was being made redundant. Or, as my American friends would say, laid off.

It was a shock losing my job, but if I’m honest, what took me much longer to process was losing the identity I’d attached to it.

I’d grown up professionally there. I knew the people, the artists, the politics. When someone asked what I did, I loved saying I worked at a major record label. The cache it held and the brand name was instantly recognisable.

Looking back, I realise the job had become much more than somewhere I worked. It had become part of who I believed I was. When it was suddenly taken away from me, I didn’t just wonder what job I’d do next. I wondered who I was without it.

It took me three months to find another job, back then that felt like forever. I know in today's market that may seem pretty quick. I stayed in the music industry and went on to build a career I was proud of.

Many years later, I retrained as an executive coach.

As part of my training, I offered free coaching to women in music. That wasn’t by accident, as I wanted to support women going through something I’d experienced myself.

I recognised that look: shock. The loss of confidence, and the feeling that they’d somehow become less valuable because a company had decided they no longer worked there.

Today, I spend a lot of my time helping women in music back themselves through career crossroads and important decisions.

This is what I wish every woman in music knew:

A company can take away your email address.
Your security pass.
Your desk.
Your job title.

But it can’t take your experience.
It can’t take your skills.
It can’t take the relationships you’ve built over years.
And it doesn’t get to decide what you’re worth.

If you’ve recently been made redundant, or you’re worried you might be next, I hope you’ll remember this.

It might not feel true today, but please know your value has never lived in your employer.

Your job title is something you do.

It was never who you are.

If you’re a woman in music and could do with a little extra support right now, I’d love to send you my free Back Yourself Toolkit. I hope it helps.

Sign up here and I’ll send it straight to your inbox.