Saying Goodbye to the Climb: Leaving the Career Ladder Behind
A post-layoff reckoning with career risk, job security, and how I define success
I once believed that my full-time job was safe and stable, and starting my own business would be a risky endeavor.
I once believed I’d be happier when I got the promotion, the salary increase, the corporate accolade.
I now believe I was chasing someone else’s definition of success.
As a type-A eldest daughter with an MBA, I was built for Corporate America—straight A's, gold stars, 'exceeds expectations' reviews. I grew up seeking the prestige of promotions and the desire to have a well-known company on my resume. I built a career for myself where success meant someone else recognized my talents by rewarding me with a promotion and a salary increase, where my worth was tied to my job.
Yet even through years of corporate climbing, I always had a desire to break out. To work for myself. To start something, anything, that didn’t involve someone else telling me what my work was worth. But leaving corporate life to go out on my own felt far too risky. I had now climbed for so long that the ground felt miles below me, and stepping off would mean a long, hard crash. Give up a regular paycheck? Big-tech benefits? Unlimited PTO? A clear path forward? Why would I throw away a map and a path for the complete unknown?
And then one day, I was pushed off the corporate ladder. Yes, I had a nice little severance parachute strapped to my back, so there was no crash landing. Instead, I slowly drifted back down to earth, watching the rungs I clung to as I climbed for years slip past me, each one a step I once believed would take me higher. As I earned each job and promotion, I thought the next title would be the one that brought me happiness. Instead, as I watched them all drift past, I realized those titles hadn’t brought me more meaning. They’d brought more meetings that could’ve been emails, more spreadsheets to justify my team’s value, and more stakeholders with louder opinions. What they didn’t bring was more happiness. The more time I’ve spent out of the corporate world, the more I’ve realized what little connection any of it had to my happiness.
I wouldn’t say I’ve firmly landed on solid ground yet, but that’s my new goal. Where I once thought the career path and the promotions would make me happy, I now realize I’m happier with no clear path in front of me. I relish building my own entrepreneurial life, one where “success” is not an end goal, a title, or a set salary; it’s a feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment.
As I build my own consulting business, I don’t have a dollar amount I know I’ll make at the end of the year; I don’t know all the things I’ll work on next month, or even what I’ll write on LinkedIn today. While I never thought I’d thrive in that kind of uncertainty, I realize now that I love it! I love getting to sit down each day and figure out what feels right and head in that direction, whether that’s crafting a first call deck for an AI-startup or working on a storytelling workshop for marketers. Sure, my time is not 100% my own; I’ll wake up to a Slack from a client in Tel Aviv, take a 7 pm Friday call with someone in San Francisco. But, I also block Monday nights for tap class and Wednesday mornings for watercolor, because creativity brings me joy and makes me better at my job.
The more I climbed the corporate ladder, the more I felt the pull of gravity, the pressures and challenges of relying on a single corporation for a paycheck, security, and validation. Now I see the ladder as a risky, uncertain life choice for me. Corporate climbing means limiting my salary and my potential according to someone else’s validation and appraisal of my work. It means risking getting pushed out at any time due to layoffs. It means getting stuck hanging after a re-org changes my job completely, or finds me with a new manager I don’t click with. It means putting all my financial eggs in one basket. It means prioritizing an income over my happiness.
I once believed I’d be taking a risk by working for myself. Now I believe I’d be taking a bigger risk by not trying.
What risk have you been avoiding that might be a safe bet?
Good Stuff!