How do you walk away from a job you love, where you have status and influence, when your ego is telling you to stay but your soul is calling you to leave?
Today is a big day for me—my last day at McKinsey, the end of a ten-year relationship. I coach so many people on leaving a job you love, but it’s only now, going through the process myself, that I can fully appreciate the complexity of emotions involved. Nervous excitement about heading down a new path. Fear that comes with actively choosing to close the door on an experience that’s been overwhelmingly positive. Grief that comes with ending a relationship where it feels like ‘it’s not you, it’s me.
Our global practice leader for my group also recently left McKinsey, and when I asked him what he would miss most, he said “people responding to my emails.” I get what he meant – he wasn’t referring to good email hygiene, but rather to the status that he had attained after years of relationship building and good work, which in turn allowed him to influence change and have a positive impact on the lives of others. My ego is constantly niggling at me, whispering “look how much influence you have at McKinsey. You are speaking at big conferences now. You can pick and choose what you do. You are a peer to Senior Partners. Are you sure you want to give up all that status and become a nobody again? You are finally in a position where you can make real change happen!”
And yet, when I close my eyes, place my feet flat on the floor, and breathe slowly and deeply, my gut tells me this is the right move. I know very clearly the work I want to do – healing the divisions within and between people by doing deeper transformational work with individuals and teams. There is so much polarity and conflict in the world, at a time when we need more humanity and connection. I know that by joining Mobius Executive Leadership, I will have the chance to learn from people who are true masters at this work. This is what my soul is calling for.
Perhaps fittingly, I first heard John O’Donohue’s poem For a New Beginning at a Centered Leadership training led by Amy Fox, Andi Winter, and Zuzana Seneclauze back in 2019, where the seeds for my own new beginning were first planted and tended to. His words are a great comfort to me in this time of uncertainty, reminding me that while this change might feel like a big risk, “soon you will be home in a new rhythm, for your soul senses the world that awaits you.”
