Unlock Your Next Chapter, Pt. IV - Creating a Post-Corporate Life

As I mentioned last article, if I could sum up the biggest lesson I’ve learned since leaving corporate life behind, it’s this:  The skills that make you successful in one chapter of your life are rarely the ones you rely on as you create the next one.

We’ve covered a lot so far, such as using discontent as a springboard to move forward and how you can use your origin story to understand where you are today.  In the last post, we looked at a story format called the hero’s journey, where you depart from your routine life to follow a call to action, you’re initiated in some way, and then return home to share the wisdom you obtained.

And I left you with a challenge – to reflect on what has resonated with you throughout this series and identify a call to action that intrigues you.  I could be something within reach or something much bigger, like tackling a lifelong dream.  Whatever is calling to you in this moment, keep it in mind as you read this post so you can put it into action.

We’ll start with three reasons why viewing your intentions through the hero’s journey lens is so impactful:

1. Awareness:  When you overlay your story on this format, you’ll discover new things and deepen your understanding of yourself, including insights relating to your motivation, values, strengths and challenges.

2. Clarity:  These new insights will help you focus on your aspirations and take initial steps as you accept your call to action.

3. Resilience:  With understanding and focus comes the willingness to try new approaches and the confidence that you’ll be able to handle the obstacles you face on your journey.

Now it’s time to get practical.  I’m going to give you a personal example of how I used this process so I could visualize my life in a new way.  Here’s the narrative in the hero’s journey format with some commentary and takeaways for you.

Years ago, Kathy heeded the call to join the corporate world and successfully navigated its twists and turns for more than three decades.  She was at the peak of her career, having reached the top rung of her professional ladder.  The practical path forward was to ride it out, to reap the benefits of all the hard work she put in over the years.  But something else seemed to be tugging at her.

It showed up in vague and unusual ways.  She felt it when she got up in the morning and wondered what it would be like if her days were not filled with back-to-back meetings.  She felt it as she packed for the next business trip and wondered what it would like to be deeply rooted in one place instead of scattered around the globe.  She felt it when she was about to give a big presentation and wondered what it would be like to speak on a completely different topic she was passionate about.

This felt more like a siren call, a new way that was appealing but fraught with potential danger of leaving the comfort of what is known.  So she spent several years using her personal time to intentionally explore the things that intrigued her.  She took classes and workshops and read books.  She journaled and kept coming back to one recurring question:  “How would I like to spend my time?”

She began to think of this experiment as a paid sabbatical of sorts, a way to safely try on different personas in the privacy of her own home.  While she had no idea what she’d like to do, as she tried different things, she got clear on what she didn’t want to do, such as not having to operate under anyone else’s schedule or execute some else’s priorities.

In time, she realized what she did want.  Kathy’s intention was to start a business that was creative, lucrative and location independent.  She knew she had to get more specific, so she spent some time reflecting on her sabbatical experiment and realized all of the things she loved fell under the broad umbrella of wellness.  A quick Google search led her to wellness coaching and she completed a certification program within a year.

At that point, she was still working full-time in the corporate world and had no intention of leaving it.  Then came the inciting incident – her boss announced his retirement and she was faced with the choice of whether or not she wanted to invest the time to build a new professional relationship.

She knew instantly on a deep, visceral level that if she had to prove herself to a new boss, she’d rather use that energy to prove to herself that she could create and grow a viable business.  But it wasn’t without doubt and hesitation.  Although she went back and forth in her mind over a period of months, she also used that time to take action on a parallel track, one that would last for more than a year.

On weekends, she created her business infrastructure, including the LLC, business cards, bank accounts and so on.  Within a month, the first of several wise teachers crossed her path, this one in the form of an entrepreneurial business coach she hired to help her establish a website and blog.

While her inner critic still voiced warning and displeasure, she kept moving forward on this parallel track.  She decided to write a wellness book to help establish herself in this new industry and spent the next year setting the coffee pot for 3:45am to get an hour of writing in before heading to the office.  As the writing got underway, she shared her plans with her boss that she, too, intended to retire when she turned 55.

I’m going to pause the story for a minute to bring us back to the hero’s journey framework.  What you’ve read so far is the departure stage.  Kathy was living a comfortable life and had a daily routine that included family, friends and a career.  Something was tugging at her and she began to explore it, but it wasn’t until there was an external disruption, in the form of a retirement announcement, that she started to take action.

While she weighed her options, there was a lot of doubt in her own mind, wondering if she was tossing aside three and a half decades of hard work.  But once she took some quiet action on a safe, parallel track, the wise teacher crossed her path and helped her see the possibilities beyond what she was capable of seeing herself.

Back to our story…

Once she made her plans known, there was no going back.  She had to make her plan work.  Her company asked her to say for an additional six months, giving her some extra time to figure it out.  She used her last day of work as the goal to finish her book manuscript, hiring a book coach to make sure she hit that goal.  On her first day as a business owner, she created a six-month publishing plan and delivered the book on time.

All of this activity kept her logical, left-brained corporate self occupied.  However, there were challenges at every turn.  There was no longer a team, an administrative assistant, or the name recognition of Fortune 250 company to rely on.  She was responsible for determining and delivering on every task – from business proposals to presentations to ordering office supplies and clearing printer paper jams.  When it was time to bill her first client, she needed to create the invoice.  Late nights at the corporate office were replaced with late nights in her home office.  There was a feeling that she’d never learn all she needed to know nor would there be time to get it all done.

Time for a story pause.  This is the second stage of the hero’s journey framework – the initiation.  Kathy has left ordinary life, crossed the threshold and entered into the unknown.  There’s uncertainty everywhere and every task feels like a test.  But she meets allies along the way – those who help her publish her book, invite her on their podcasts, and hire her to speak to their teams.  At each step along the way, she’s confronted with herself, feeling unsure but determined to move forward.  She reminds herself to celebrate each small success – even if it’s just to pause and remember that it wasn’t all that long ago that a life like the one she’s living now was just a dream.

Back to the final chapter of our story.

Kathy’s mission the first two years she was in business was to help professionals stay well as they ascended the corporate ladder, which was the topic of her book.  But she realized that she could be of more service by helping professionals who were ready to descend the corporate ladder as she did.  So she set her sights on creating a course and coaching offering to help them.  It was a refinement of the vision and one she couldn’t have foreseen when she started her journey.  And to this day, Kathy’s fully engaged in her work, grateful that she unlocked her next chapter and created a post-corporate life she loves.

While the story is ongoing, we’ll bring it to a close for our purposes by looking at this last phase of the hero’s journey, the return.  While it’s clear that Kathy’s external day-to-day life changed, her internal growth was even more profound.  As she gained experience and integrated her learning, her focus shifted.  She became interested in helping others make the transition from successful professional to creating an impactful future beyond corporate life.  So she developed business offerings to align with this new mission.

The point of this story and your takeaway is this – the hero’s journey is never-ending.  It’s a spiral of experience and growth.

When Kathy was still part of the corporate world, she could only see as far as publishing her book.  It was enough to get her to the departure stage.  She was so busy getting her new business up and running in the initiation stage that she didn’t even realize there were many paths she could take to further her work.  When she did some reflection in the return stage, she decided to go back to departure phase and create a new segment of her work helping a different demographic of professionals.  At the time of this writing, she’s firmly in the initiation stage of that work.

I share this so you can release any preconceived notions of “getting this right.”  Grant yourself permission to be less precious with this process and practice with a manageable call to action.  Pick anything that calls and give this a try.

Bring your call to action to mind and ask yourself these three questions:

1. How can I ready myself for a quick and easy departure?

2. What do I need in order to initiate, to cross the threshold and begin?

3. How will I feel when I return from the journey, wiser than when I began?

This concludes our mini-series.  I hope it’s inspired you to unlock your next life chapter and take steps to create your dream post-corporate life.

Journal Reflections:  What is your call to action?  What is needed so you can depart?  When and how will you begin?

Note:  If you prefer, you can listen to this article here:  Episode 244

If you have any questions or comments about this series, please do reach out by email at hello@athenawellness.com. I’ll be sure to receive it.