Life after corporate...a 5 year reflection

The number one question when I left the corporate world was, "What will you do?" -- often paired with "How will you pay your bills?"(1)

While I spent a lot of time researching the latter, I spent many more sleepless nights considering the former -- not only how I would fill my days but also the story arc that would explain my seemingly irreverent actions.

My top stories went something like this...

--> I've spent 15 years(2) getting to the top(3) of this career, I can spend the next 15 getting to the top of my next career.

--> I want to use my skills to give back and do more for my community.

--> I'm going to re-insource my life, focusing on urban homesteading, cooking from scratch and building our own small home.

--> Anything I want!

While these long term goals felt like great aspirations, there was a more practical manner of what I would do on a daily basis. What would this next career be? How would I give back?

It has been 5 years since I left. Today I can tell you some highlights of what I have done with more clarity and detail than were in my mind's eye back then.

>> If you're here just to see a quick summary, here's the gist --

• I have confidence and time to figure out how to do things by myself rather than buying the service or product.

• I found my stride in non-profit and will be board president for Oregon Environmental Council starting in June.

• I am leaning into pottery: making, selling and defining my own metrics for success.

• I continue to layer in -- running, singing, etc...

But if you want the story arc, here goes --

My first year 'off' was 2020. The pandemic was an opportunity to spend a LOT of time at home for "adventures in insourcing." I'm quite happy to say that most of this stuck, and I'm still doing these things today.

• I deveined my first shrimp, banged out pasta noodles, froze homemade broth.

• I refined my biscuit recipe, made all things sourdough and upped my fermentation and infusion game.

• We re-sided our garage.

• I started saving my own seeds and over-wintering garlic and potatoes.

• I discovered Buy Nothing and met many neighbors through porch visits.

• I fixed pants, shoes, made patterns for clothes and designed a quilt.

• I started cutting Joel's hair (and my own).

• We built out our home gym.

I leaned into supporting non-profits more, which also had urgent and dire needs during and immediately following the pandemic.

• I balanced vice-president roles for two non-profits through 2020. While the title holds few specific tasks during calm times, 2020 was anything but calm for these organizations.

• In 2021 I took an interim executive director role for Saturday Academy. Although I had been a board member for 6 years, owning the decision making and day-to-day operations from within the organization was extremely different.

• We rebuilt the strategy, deepened our equity and inclusion practices (including offering trauma-informed education for all instructors, increasing stipends for student interns and moving class offerings to locations in underserved communities) and grew revenue by 56%.

• I supported students and staff through threats, medical emergencies and other stressful and urgent challenges that brought emotional highs and lows.

• I considered joining a charter school board of directors.

• After better understanding what my ideal, engaged board member looked like, I opted to maintain a single board position at a time to embody that role.

• I am slated to be the incoming board president for Oregon Environmental Council in June.

I was involved with Saturday Academy because I am deeply supportive of their mission. In fact, I wish there had been a program available to me that allowed me to explore career paths before committing. As it turned out, Saturday Academy was able to do that for me as an adult. In addition to my stint as executive director, as I ended my tenure, the board gave me another unexpected gift. They paid for an 8 week ceramics class, which allowed me to pursue a personal passion.

• I took my 2nd beginner ceramics class immediately following my final day on Saturday Academy staff.

• I promoted myself to intermediate classes then started Lady E, because I had learned what a pleasure it was to make business decisions that defined an organization.

• Today, I balance my days throwing, carving and glazing small batch and unique pottery with updating my website, pricing and displays -- and can easily get lost in either!

• I hope to grow to a stage where I can regularly donate a portion of profits to local community organizations while also paying my bills.

Then of course, there is the time I spend on my personal well-being and enrichment -- even if some days it feels like I am a n00b at everything. For fitness, I started obstacle course mud runs in 2016 but ramped up distances when I had more time and have been layering other fun things into my life as well.

• Run distances: 2022: 141.3 miles, 2023: 330.9 miles, 2024: 845.7 miles, 2025: I've run over 100 miles each month, already surpassing FY 2023 and on track for well over 1000 miles.

• I have run three 50km OCRs/runs since 2020, taking 1st place in my age group on my slowest one. :)

• May 2024 I started learning Hebrew and I can now read all the letters.

• Early this year I joined a singing group again and am teaching myself to sightread for voice.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part. Most of the activities I've described above happen in roughly the timeframe of a part time job, or at least on a flexible schedule -- certainly a LOT less time than I was spending at work. So I have time to:

• Take lunches and spend evenings with family.

• Play softball and support friends in their pursuits.

• Vacation with loved ones.

• Nap occasionally. I love napping!

So I've taken some detours. After 5 years, I've started two potential careers (and considered others - franchise ownership, transition consulting...) and at best, I'm two years into my next career. While it's hard to know if I'll "get to the top" of the pottery world eventually, I am better at making and selling more each year. But it seems unlikely to be the only thing I'll focus on for the next 15 years.

I can be an extremely focused person. I spent many years at IBM attempting to determine and take "the right path." If I'm being honest, "the right path" was to CEO. I developed this plan when I had about 2 years with the company. Many years later a friend asked if I wanted to be CEO. I realized I had never considered it deeply before -- and the answer was no.

As much as I like to push myself and have a clean story, I try to remember that moment and others like it when I get focused on completing a major milestone. While I am giving back, leaning in and doing what I want, just as predicted, I am more open now than ever that the next 5, 10, 15 years may look completely different. In fact, I kind of hope they do. Because if I do exactly what I set my mind to 5-7 years ago, I probably won't have grown enough -- and that just sounds boring...

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Footnotes:

(1)

This is a whole different subject and one answered much better by folks in the FIRE movement. I spent a LOT of time reading their blogs before venturing on my own journey. And, making money absolutely helps. :)

(2)

(3)