A Calculated Break from Corporate

At the start of the 2017 holiday season, I started to think about my yearly theme.

Definition of “Yearly Theme”: an annual challenge and commitment one makes to oneself with the intention of self-improvement; less prescriptive and more flexible than a set of New Year’s resolutions.

I began my tradition of yearly themes back in 2014.

After assessing where I was emotionally, mentally, and physically, I realized 2018 is the year “to be true to you”. Little did I recognize how many decisions I would make that would immediately change the structure of my life.

I have spent a majority of my professional career in corporate human capital consulting (i.e., working on everything from helping people to deal with changes to their daily jobs to strategic planning for a global culture initiative). Each of these experiences have been invaluable to my growth and development because of the access to intelligent, honest, and collaborative clients, leaders, and team members. I had reached a point where the expectation was to lead, manage, and develop others. I’ve hit my sweet spot, right? Not quite.

As I deconstructed how I would be spending the next three years of my career path, I recognized that I had maximized my own desired return on investment. This was the start of a series of rapid decision-making (all of which were also vetted through my personal Board of Advisors) that resulted in leaving corporate.

It’s been a month, and I’m still in the discovery phase. While I am very comfortable with ambiguity, marching to the sound of my own drum, and understand that this a choice to invest in myself, it helps to get validation from others. I’ve found this through the movement by other professions to designing a life with purpose. In my opinion, a life with purpose means a life with passion.