Career Transition’s Unexpected Treasures

A couple of weeks ago I was writing a birthday card for one of my close friends – and I realized we’ve been in each other's lives and inner circle for nearly a decade.

We met in coach training back when we were both in marketing roles, hungry for something new and on the edge of what we didn’t know would be a life-changing, identity-shifting moment in time.

On long runs in Prospect Park, we coached each other through the hard reality of having one foot in our full time roles and one tip toeing into a world we didn’t yet know how to navigate.

At brainstorming lunches, we laughed at ourselves and our respective mistakes. And when I say laughed, I mean projectile tears and lettuce from our takeout salads.

Of all the things I’d hoped for in my career transition – a new friend to walk beside me on the journey was not even on my radar.

And yet it’s the part I didn’t know how much I needed.

I wish I could go back to “ten years ago me”, a bundle of nerves and fear as I humbly asked myself…Wait, what the hell are you doing with your career while you have two young kids and a mortgage?

And I would say – you will not take this leap alone.

As you move closer to the work you love, you will meet your people who love it like you do.

Who will nerd out with you on the minutiae that would bore your partner and your old friends to tears.

Who will celebrate you, knowing both how hard it is to do what you’re doing and how far you’ve come from the very first idea of your business that lived only in your mind.

It’s hard to quantify the life and the growth I would have missed out on if I was too fearful to make the change, but when I think about the people I would have never met – the pang in my belly makes me grateful I don’t need to live with that regret.