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Career Transition

You are not your job title.

For fifteen years I worked at one place, and slowly the work became who I was. When that was taken from me at 36, I had to learn to shed an old identity and build a new one. This is that journey, and what it taught me about change.

The path so far

Fifteen years, one identity

Comfortable in the same organisation. I knew the pace, the culture, the scope. Without noticing, the job became who I was.

The shock, at 36

"We won't be investing in you anymore." A fixed ceiling, and the identity I had built quietly came apart.

A side hustle

Built a venture to $150,000 in revenue. The point was to learn the ropes by doing, and to get comfortable with unknowns.

Back to school

A Master's in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at SMU, to sharpen what the doing had taught me.

Into deep tech

At 40, interned at a venture capital firm assessing frontier technology. From team manager to individual contributor.

Started life coaching

Trained as an ICF coach and started my own practice, helping others navigate the very change I had lived through.

Still prototyping

Doing, learning, exploring. Each attempt narrowing me a little closer to what I actually want.

Not a straight line. A series of experiments.

Prototyping a new identity.

For most of my working life, I was at one organisation. Fifteen years in the same place. It was comfortable. I knew the pace, the culture, the scope. And without noticing, the job became my identity.

Then, at 36, the shock. "We won't be investing in you anymore." Slower progression. A fixed ceiling. Aspirations crushed. The thing I had quietly built my sense of self around was suddenly compromised, and my world fell apart. I complained. I blamed. I grew angry.

Then one day it clicked. I stopped asking why me and started asking better questions. What can I do now? Who am I, really, beneath the title? Fifteen years had handed me an identity, and I had held onto it too tightly.

So I set about shedding the old identity and building a new one. Not by thinking my way there, but by doing.

I started a business. It grew to $150,000 in revenue. This venture was never about money. It was to learn the ropes of building something, to get comfortable with constant unknowns, and to prove to myself that reading about entrepreneurship is nothing like the act of doing it.

Then I went back to school, a Master's in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at SMU, to sharpen what the doing had taught me. And at 40, I interned at a venture capital firm specialising in deep tech. From team manager to individual contributor, assessing frontier technology I barely understood at first. It stretched me, and it opened my eyes to how fast the world is moving.

And somewhere along the way, I found coaching. What started as learning to truly listen, first to my own children, grew into a practice. Today I help others navigate the very change I had to live through myself.

None of this was a straight line. It was, and still is, a kind of prototyping. Keep doing, to learn. Keep exploring, to narrow down what I actually want. Each experiment tells me a little more about the next.

You do not think your way into a new identity. You build it, one experiment at a time.

So let me leave you with the question that started it all. Who would you be if the thing you cling to fell away?

Try it

Interactive

Design your next experiment

You do not think your way into a new identity. You build it. So do not plan a whole new career. Just design one small, low-risk experiment worth running. Write freely.

The goal is not to get it right. It is to learn something you could not learn by thinking. Then run the next one.

Standing at a crossroads?

A transition can feel like losing yourself. It can also be the start of building someone truer. In a coaching conversation, we find the first experiment worth running.

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