The 40+ Career Protection Playbook

Some people reading this got the calendar invite from HR last week. Some still have the job and watch the layoff news every morning. This book is for both.

If you are over 40 and the market feels colder than it used to, you are not imagining it. 185,894 tech workers were cut across 267 events by June 2026. Workers aged 55 to 64 now average 41.2 weeks unemployed, against 26.1 for everyone else. The system changed and nobody sent you the memo.

What is inside

• The four wounds. Age discrimination, the broken job search engine, tenure read as a liability, and the career education that takes your money. Named, with the numbers.
• The five plays that work. Fractional and consulting, niche expertise plus AI, industry transition, geographic arbitrage, and board and advisory work. Each with a real case, an entry path, a timeline, and an honest cost.
• Find your next job. Six steps: check the fit before you apply, show what you can do, apply and then find one person, keep the log, run the weekly review, and work out when a certificate is actually worth paying for.
• Prepare while you still have a paycheck. A four-week plan you run on your own time, without quitting and without touching anything that belongs to your employer.
• Build a second income. Do the work, make the guide, or teach the class. How to pick, how to price it, and how to find the first customer.
• The Recruiter Language Decoder. Ten phrases, what each one can mean, and your move.
• The Decision Matrix. Stay, Pivot, Build or Retire. First 90 days, the return, the real cost and the warning sign for each, plus a one-page decision card you fill in.
• Three seven-day plans. One for finding a job, one for preparing while employed, one for building a second income. About two hours a day. Pick one and start Monday.
• Six people who got out. Vanessa, Toria, Kam, Jason, Gibran, and the public story of Shane Hummus. What they did, in order.

Every statistic is sourced. Twelve numbered links at the back, plus a separate research base, so you can check any claim yourself.

What it will not do. It cannot promise you a job or a paying customer. Nothing can. It gives you steps you can start this week.

You get it immediately. It lands in your library the moment you pay, and the download email arrives within about five minutes.

Refundable for seven days. If it is not useful, reply to your receipt and I will refund the $9. No form and no questions, and you keep the playbook.

Founding rate is $9. The price is going up soon.