Separation Anxiety

You’d think I was leaving a cult or something given what I’ve been writing and feeling about leaving my corporate job. Not only am I having this personal soft moment and romancing the idea of the working for a large corporation – some sr leaders in the company have gotten wind of my departure and have taken that time to seek me out in an attempt to sway my thinking.

I was blown away by the fact my CVP spent 30 minutes in my office trying to understand my position on why I wanted to change my relationship with the company. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this woman and was quite frankly honored by the complimentary things she said about my work performance and her genuine care for me to make a solid choice about my professional future. It was really a great feeling.

When I explain it was just as much about striving to gain work life balance AND having time to develop a program for others like me to learn how to have better balance and boundaries – her response was that I stay at the company and develop the pilot program for her organization as part of my job. I was speechless. What an incredible offer – one that monkeyed with my head all day and all night long.

The temptation is great and for half of the day I actually entertained the idea. I’m going to resist it and bet on my plan. I’ve committed to myself to go on this new journey and I’m not going to go back out on my word to myself. Nor am I going to back out on my commitment to my new vendor company, my new clients (which includes another CVP at the company) or my future vision I want to build for my life.

I have to keep going forward and push for a life with more freedom in my schedule, more financial reward in proportion to the work I do and give myself the chance to develop a program that has the potential to have a huge positive impact on people’s lives.

It’s good to feel wanted and valued and it’s good to see that others believe in me as much as I believe in myself. To be honest -I would have been disappointed if no one tried to tempt me to stay – I didn’t expect it would be my CVP and her GMs - and that's really cool. It comes down to this – if I stay I would always wonder what I could have built - and I don’t want to look back even in 3 years and regret not taking a gamble on myself.

And I pledge to myself that I will pilot my program in my CVP’s organization because weather I’m an employee or a vendor I think deep down she supports the idea and knows her organization could only be made stronger by balanced employees.