This post originally appeared in September 2023 on my parent site emilyburnett.me and is reposted here with my permission :-) It’s wild how even just 8 months later I see parts of this differently, and my own exit dream has evolved so much, but this is an important glimpse into why and how I originally left.
It’s been one year since I made my corporate exit.
What a year.
It’s been a hard, exhilarating, humbling, worthwhile, year of struggle, stretch and success.
It’s been a year of:
uncertainty
travel (dozens of states, 5 countries...so far)
learning
wrestling (not literally, unless we're talking about the frequent forcing of things back into a carry-on suitcase and backpack)
exhilaration in goals reached and new deals
talking to hundreds of strangers-now-friends
finally releasing my book (Dear Fellow Spender)
heartache
joy and contentment
discovering how much I deeply love rocks and plants and toast...
But this wasn’t my first time leaving corporate.
Oh no no no...
I left a job 6+ years ago, fully intending for it to be my permanent break-up with the corporate grind.
I charged out of there with a heck-yeah energy:
"I can do what I want now! Brunch dates every day of the week, hikes at 2:00 in the afternoon without telling anyone or checking Slack while on the trail, no commute, no corporate bureaucracy complicating every single decision, no more fluff meetings..."
But I jumped too early for it to last.
Yeah sure, I was debt-free, finally trusted myself with the money in my care, had a savings runway, and a handful of clients for my budgeting coaching practice.
However, my “why” wasn’t meaningful, motivating, or solid enough, my savings and my business vision wasn't big enough, and I ended up playing small and re-entering corporate later that same year...
The first time I left corporate, I played small.
This corporate leap, made a year ago, I've played much bigger and consistently. The reason why? Because it was more about you.
I finally was ready to really risk, take the big chances, make the mistakes, and play on a bigger stage because I want to help you get free to do similar.
This time my corporate exit was motivated by three things:
A feeling deep in my soul that it was time to leave the nest.
A hunger for the type of growth that doesn’t come for dreamers in corporate.
Knowing that in order to show up as the ME that could help YOU the most, I had to leave "safety" and go into the unknown.