The Making of a Multi-Millionaire

The Bible's Job failed miserably in his career and life -- until he bounced back

Job looked like a failure, but he finished well, with one estimate calculating the worth of his livestock at $56 million in today's dollars. 

By Mark O'Keefe, the After 50 Career Coach

I'm a career and life coach who helps men 50 and older discover their mission and pursue their passion so they can be happier, healthier and wealthier than ever before. See FiredUp50.com. 

​When I was fired at age 50 during an economic downturn, unable to get an interview, much less a job, I finally turned to Job.

Job is that book in the Bible about suffering. I had avoided it my entire life.

It’s a story about a guy who lost it all for no apparent reason and somehow hung in there, spawning the idiom, “the patience of Job.”

I’m not patient. But I was unemployed and had time to give Job a chance. I set out to read a chapter a day in my basement while my wife was at work and my kids were in school. No wonder I avoided Job like the plague. He experienced the plague.

We’re talking marauding invaders killing his livestock, servants and 10 children. We’re talking skin sores. Bad skin sores. We’re talking about a nagging wife who says give up and die.

Job isn’t a likely pick-me-up when you are out of work, wondering if you are over the hill, washed up and put out to pasture (not to mention other cliches) at age 50. You think your career is over. You start telling yourself you are a liability to employers who could hire two or more tech-savvy kids fresh out of college for what you got paid.

I pressed on with this book of woe, a chapter every day until I finally got to the end. That’s when I read:
“The LORD blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning.” — Job 42:12 (New Living Translation)

A happy ending! I underlined and highlighted it.

I dug deeper to see what other translations of the Bible had to say about the second half of Job’s life:

• NIV: “blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part.”
• ESV: “blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.”
• CEV: “blessed Job more than ever.”

The message seemed clear.

Middle age isn’t the end, even in a crisis. It can be a new beginning, a time to go into the locker room, talk to the coach, revise the game plan, and take the field again.

To quote baseball legend Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

If it happened to Job, could it happen to me?

Yes! It did, and it can happen to you.

Job 42 tells us he got 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys as Job did. One estimate calculated the modern-day worth of Job's livestock at $56 million.
 
Like Job, I overcame the naysayers. Unlike 90% of the people pushed out of a job after age 50 (Look it up: ​Health and Retirement Study), I regained and surpassed the income I made when I got fired.

It didn’t happen with a stroke of lightning or a lottery ticket but through realizing I needed others. Once I crawled out of my basement to let people know what I was going through, they came through for me in ways I never would have predicted and will never forget.

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