293: Navigating Career Grief: From CBS Executive to Moonshot Mentor with Laverne McKinnon

The Mid-Career GPS Podcast

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What do you do when a dream job ends in heartbreak?

In this eye-opening episode of The Mid-Career GPS Podcast, host John Neral sits down with Laverne McKinnon, former Senior VP of Drama Development at CBS, to talk about a rarely acknowledged experience: career grief.

After leading CBS from last place to first with mega-hits like CSI and Criminal Minds, Laverne was unexpectedly fired at the height of her career. What followed was a silent, decade-long struggle with emotional fallout that society often tells us to ignore.

Laverne introduces the concept of disenfranchised grief—a powerful term for the emotional pain professionals feel after job loss or career disruption that isn’t socially validated. Through her LEARN Framework (Look, Explore,

Address, Reframe, Nurture), Laverne shows how we can move from heartbreak to healing, reconnect with our values, and reclaim agency over our careers.

Whether you're facing layoffs, mid-career stagnation, or preparing for a major transition, this episode will help you understand how to grieve the professional losses we’re told to "just get over."

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why career grief is real—and why ignoring it is harmful
• The emotional impact of sudden job loss after career success
• What disenfranchised grief means in the workplace
• How to use the LEARN framework to process grief and regain clarity
• The connection between unprocessed failure and blocked resilience
• Rituals like writing a "career eulogy" to create closure
• How grief reveals your core values—and points you toward your next moonshot

Connect with Laverne McKinnon

Website | LinkedIn | Substack

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Chapters

1. Introduction to Career Moonshots (00:00:00)

2. Laverne McKinnon's CBS Success Story (00:03:43)

3. The Firing and Processing Career Grief (00:05:50)

4. The LEARN Method for Career Grief (00:13:56)

5. Building Resilience Through Processing Failure (00:22:05)

6. Finding Your Next Career Moonshot (00:28:26)