How I Got Here

CHAPTER 1

I want to tell you a story.  

It will come as a series in this blogspace.

It’s a story about why I decided to leave working for a large company after many years and excellent experiences, to start my own business.  Its about Professional ME v2.0.

Like any tale worthy of the name, it has heroes and villains. There’s also great heaps of self-doubt, sleepless nights, some raging on the heath and sundry other self-induced dramas. 

I’ll note up front that the places where we find meaning and the choices which lead us there are idiosyncratic: my logic and inclinations may not fit you.

But I write this series because a very high percentage of the people I speak with are contemplating a change in career/life direction and have expressed curiosity about my motivation for change and what I’ve learned thus far.

Whether the red thread I perceive connecting these conversations is the result of a small sample size or the zeitgeist, who can tell.  But if you’re one of those people, I hope you can locate yourself in this story in a helpful and meaningful way. If not, I’m told this blog makes excellent lining for a litter box or bird cage (thanks Mom).

So, here we go:

It was a dark and stormy night . . .  

Hmmm. Nope.  Scratch that.  

Let’s try instead,

Once upon a time, 

In April of 2022, I told my bosses that I intended to take early retirement at the end of the year, leaving my Managing Director role at a company where I had been for 16 years to start a leadership coaching and consulting business (crowded marketplace, low barriers to entry: what could possibly go wrong?).   

Friends and family had some fair questions.  Among these:

1. You’re doing what?

2. Tell me again why?

3. Have you thought this through?

Now that I’ve been away a few months, other questions pop up: 

1. How’d you come to the decision to make such a change? 

2. What’s it like to start your own thing?

3. People actually pay you?

4. Would you please help me do something similar?  

This is not my first reinvention rodeo

At various turns, I’ve been an autoworker, a practicing lawyer (despite the practice, never really got the hang of it), an insurance Claims Professional, a Six Sigma Black Belt and Master Black Belt, an Ops Leader, a Strategy Leader and a Casualty Underwriting Head, among others).

Most of the years of my career were spent at GE and Swiss Re, two excellent international companies where I lived diverse experiences which made me “me” as a professional.  

I’ve been super lucky and I know it.  So, why step away?

Several reasons.  

First, I was simply getting older and found personal priorities and perspectives changing.  What had me striving and thriving in my 30s and 40s no longer lit my candle as I rolled through my 50s.

Elements of the work I’d formerly enjoyed now chafed.  

It’s impossible to commit to and be good at something you don’t enjoy (and why would you want that anyway) and I came to a place where the pleasure/pain ratio with my work was out of whack. I had lost the plot.

All of which conspired to make me more aware of the increasing volume of my ticking, mortal clock.  

I don’t intend to be maudlin or mawkish, merely to recognize one of the few universal truths: at some point the story ends for each of us.

Which is where I introduce our Villains:  the global pandemic and lockdown, and where I’ll pick up next time.

If you would like to discuss your personal growth or ideas for your own, YOU v2.0, then Let’s Talk.  Please feel free to schedule a Discovery Session with me by clicking on the attached link. You can also sign up on my website to receive these blogs in your email inbox!

Until next time.

Be well everybody,