Questions I have asked myself over the years since leaving corporate 9–5

I’m writing this article in response to a question raised by Janet Daniels-Thomas, who kindly responded to a comment I made on a recent article from: Sean Kernan

I’m Feeling A Bit Lost

To catch you up. The questions were:

• Who are you when your work does not define you?
• Who are your people?

Photo by Anthony Tori on Unsplash

Although I have written about this topic before when related to others, I had never put down on paper how these same questions had affected my worldview. So the following tries to articulate my thought process. I hope you find it of some small use. I’m writing this on a train journey on my mobile, So please forgive me if it’s a bit all over the place!

Who are you when your work does not define you?

For 20+ years, I have identified as a product manager and product leader. I guess a part of me still does. But my love of it has waned as the industry has become more and more evangelistic. These days I prefer to help others as a coach, especially other product managers, to further their own careers.

When I consciously left corporate, I found myself inwardly looking at what was left when I wasn’t ‘that guy’ anymore, and this is what I discovered:

1. First and foremost, I am a father. This didn’t change when I left corporate, other than my presence and self-awareness. My career gave me the opportunity to travel and, with it, the stresses of not being emotionally or physically present for those closest to you.
2. Disconnecting from my physical ‘social network’ at work left a big gap in who I identified with. It made me realise how important people were to me (and us all) and that I had inadvertently laid too much emphasis on my work ‘friends’ and not my family and or home friends. When you work from home, as many of us do now, this can impact your well-being and your natural instinct to ‘belong’.
3. Leaving my career meant the identity I had developed over the years at work meant nothing when it was no longer what I did. And reinventing yourself starts with your values…
4. Resetting my values: outside of my other values (truth, honesty, respect, openness etc.), the one that I had originally thought of as ‘team’ was actually a far deeper-rooted value of ‘family’. And that supporting/helping my team / my family was my anchor. To whom I can identify with.
5. I realised that out of work, I had no passion hobbies other than those I could not easily access on a daily basis- I live in London (snowboarding/hiking & wild camping) – I realised that my sense of what I like, what do I do, who do I do it with, was buried beneath the weight of my corporate identity – and through my kids, I rediscovered my love of creating – whether it be lego cities, prototype aeroplanes, or silly science experiments, I remembered how much I love doing things with my hands – delving into gardening and pottery – Both of which I still enjoy today – much like wild camping, there’s nothing quite like getting closer to nature and mud 🙃. I dabble in writing terribly, I find writing is one of life’s true levellers and one I have the utmost respect for those who do well. (Sean Kernan is one, as it happens) And although I love it, I find it very hard; I would do more, but I procrastinate all the time, and I find my confidence in voicing an opinion publicly is not something that comes to me naturally – that being said, Nothing in my life ever happens quickly and as my mum says ‘just keep buggering on’ so I will. I even experimented with designing and building a print-on-demand e-commerce site. I say experimented because although it was fun and I learnt a lot, I found it wasn’t pulling any passion strings (aka keeping me interested ) at that time – But I suspect it’s one I may return to one day.
6. Making time for my physical well-being. In Corporate, I found Myself On A slippery slope Of ‘Only Having Time for The gym,’ and that became increasingly rare the ‘busier’ my career became. Now I’ve taken up swimming in the local lake (a whole post of goodness in itself!) and dynamic Pilates. Being a late 40’s dad of 2 young lads makes you realise how much energy you need to keep up with the little monsters 😮‍💨
7. Understanding finance and the true meaning of wealth seems an odd one to put here, but I realised (no doubt later than some!) that I am solely responsible for my financial situation, not the company for who I work and that wealth is a sum of parts (including your time) not just what’s in your bank. Instead of blindly taking the monthly pay cheque, annual bonuses and pension. I am now much more active and aware of what I am doing with my finances. I am earning far less than I ever did, but my ‘wealth’ in terms of the origins of the word ‘wealth = well-being’ is far, far greater, partly because I am fortunate enough to control my own time and partly because my output is a result of an alignment to my values not of someone else’s (aka corporate culture). I am also educating myself about finance and teaching my kids as I go (something which I never had myself) with the explicit goal of making money work harder for me and not the other way around. I'm still building muscle here, but it has sparked a flame I never realised existed.
8. Reading for the love of reading, not just to further my career. I’ve been a lifelong reader. My bookshelf takes up an entire wall of my house. But for more years than I care to mention, I had been reading to further my career (not wrong in itself), but I had forgotten just how much joy I get out of reading a good book. To escape, to expand one’s mind, to immerse yourself in someone else's imagination cannot be underestimated. And have now set myself an annual goal on Goodreads to read – this year's target is 70, up from last year's 60.
9. Remembered, the simplest things in life are often the most rewarding. My kids (8&5) love board games – we now have a Friday night games night as part of our family ritual. If you asked my corporate self whether I liked board games, my answer would have been, ‘I haven't got time/headspace for games’ – this is simply fun for funs sake. Inventing new rules for trivial pursuit so that a 5 yr old can participate sounds trivial, but wow, does it get them excited! I now love the sense of togetherness a good board game can provide kids and adults alike.
10. Giving back – becoming a mini-rugby coach for my kid's club and a school governor for the local primary school has allowed me to give back to the local community I am invested in. The act of giving has its own qualities and a clearer sense of purpose – And again, it’s fair to say I had forgotten this simple truth. Again, ask my corporate Self and – I would have rejected out of hand because – I didn’t have time or headspace.
11. And finally, my epiphany – when I untangled my corporate identity from my personal identity, I realised the only thing I missed was the ‘developing & helping people’ side of my role. This led me to my purpose and, ultimately, ‘who am I when work does not define me’ – I want to help, and that is who I am. And for me personally, that has taken the form of Coaching as an outlet. Which I love.

Who are your people? Because Community and belonging are part of your purpose.

I've already touched on this in points earlier, but I think this question has had the most profound impact on my life.

I’ve always been a social person. But arguably borderline introvert. I have a brilliant but small group of friends from school and a large and disparate friendship group from my university days. Many of whom live abroad or who live miles away from ‘me’ – leaving corporate made me see that ‘my people’ was again bundled again into my life at work.

My brother and I are also business partners at Kahvay. He has worked for himself for many years and, to be fair to him discovered this truth years before me. He found that working from home narrowed his worldview by limiting himself to the four walls of his home office. So what did he do? He found his community in online gaming and his hockey and rugby clubs. He found his sense of belonging without being part of a corporate organism years before WFH was ever in the popular culture.

What did I do?

I sought out my people. I joined a coaching community. I invested heavily in my local friendship network of which I’ve been lucky enough to pick up through connections with my kids at the school. My local neighbours and my son's rugby club are now ‘my people’ – my community. And as I mentioned in the original comment, I found Maslow's hierarchy of needs helped frame this well for me. I found my sense of belonging not through my work identity but in my identity as ‘me’.

I hope this helps!

Tom

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