The Tender Pursuit of Reinvention
I had the funniest conversation with my brother a few weeks ago.
He was retelling his experience of a job interview process. It was hilarious because of what they were asking him to do: hours of online tests that involved hypothetical problems that needed solutions, long waiting periods of not hearing from anyone, and then an awkward remote interview that was surely botched after a moment of frustration he had with the interviewer. Spoiler alert: He was offered the job, but he declined a few days later.
As he was telling me this story, I kept interrupting to say things like: Do they know who you are? His resume reflects decades of international business in a profession that defines the world of high-stakes deals. He is overqualified for this new job by miles, and yet the whole experience felt degrading and disorienting for someone who really should have been the one doing the interview. I laughed until I cried because this illustrated perfectly the tender pursuit of reinventing yourself at a certain age. After a substantial amount of equity invested into a career, a network, a name, a title - one day you get the notion that maybe there's something else you want to do with the good years you've got left. But when you do pivot, what gets left behind might be the very pillars on which you are built. It's a humbling thing to let go and start again.
Much like my brother, starting again is exactly what I did last year. The decision came when I began defining what I was no longer willing to do in my career. It turns out the list was long and revealing. A less risky version of this happened when I turned 40 — I decided one day that I didn't wear silver jewelry any longer. I wear gold now, I said out loud, staring at my collection one morning. And they stared back at me collectively nonplused and a little pissed. A decade later, on the doorstep of 50, something similar happened with my career. Get over it, it's fine. Stay, it's fine. They need you, it's fine. You're good at it, it's fine. It wasn't fine. A few months later I gave my notice, and a few months after that I was free to set out on a soul journey.
It was one of the most terrifying times of my life. The question that haunted me in the middle of the night was, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? It was a pretty ballsy move, especially when the answer came back with a resounding I DON'T KNOW. I swan-dived into the abyss of the unknown anyway, launched a podcast with absolutely no frame of reference, and felt — for the first time in a long time — like I was coming home. Then the sabbatical money started to run out. I spent the winter wrestling a resume into place, breaking out in cold sweats, feeling lost and untethered, staring down job descriptions that were unrealistic for even two people and paid half of what I thought I was worth.
So in between fits of panic, I just kept asking myself WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? And slowly, the question started to feel less aggressive and more like an invitation. I started by naming who I wasn't — a painful process that feels a little like killing yourself softly. But when I had named who I wasn't, I could understand who I already was. Not who I wanted to become, but who I have been all along. I had lost sight of my true nature, too busy trying to belong, look good, be successful, and somehow outrun whatever it is I'm really here to do.
What I've come to land on, now more than a year later, is that what I'm really here to do is hard to pin down. It doesn't come with a title, or most of the time even a paycheck. It looks something like an ever-present surrender to what is true for me, and not anyone else. And when I started to claim this, here's what I learned:
Who I am shows up, but doesn't hustle. Who I am no longer pleases others first, but honors her own needs. Who I am sits quietly to listen, and doesn't panic. Who I am is someone who speaks her truth, even when it challenges others. Who I am embraces her special gifts, and now uses them fearlessly and ruthlessly every single day she is alive.
Pretty big stuff for someone who has spent most of her life as a people pleaser and conformer — someone who never felt comfortable in her own skin because she was always trying to wear the skin she thought others wanted her to wear. But I'm convinced now that when we do it like this — fearless self-knowing first — there is no waiting around for the future to deliver our deepest desires. They are already ours to claim right now, at this moment. No online test questions or awkward interviews required.
