Nobody Warned Me About this Part

When I left corporate, I thought I knew what I was walking into.

The uncertainty. The learning curve. The moments of wondering whether I’d made a terrible mistake. I was prepared for all of it, or at least I thought I was.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the loss.

Not the loss of the title or the paycheck or the structure. 👇

I had colleagues I’d worked alongside for years. Long enough that I assumed those relationships were built on something that would survive the transition. Something with enough history and depth and meaning to extend beyond the walls of a company.

I was wrong.

Most of those relationships were built on proximity. And the moment the proximity disappeared, so did they. I can count on one hand the people from that chapter of my life I’m still genuinely connected to.

My friend Tatiana Ferreira and I have talked about this at length. You may have caught our two-part podcast conversation. When Tati and I first met, one of the first things we bonded over was exactly this: the shock of realizing that the professional community we thought we had wasn’t portable. And that the gap it left wasn’t just emotional. It was strategic.

Because here’s what I lost along with those relationships: thought partners. People who could hold a real strategic conversation with me. Who understood the complexity of what I was building without requiring a lot of context. Who could challenge my thinking and push back with care. That kind of intellectual partnership is something you don’t realize you’ve been leaning on until it’s gone. And then the isolation becomes very loud.

 I’ve believed that for a long time. But I had to lose my team before I understood what that really meant in practice.

Next week I want to get into what these relationships actually look like. The specific things I’ve found present in every slingshot partnership I have. Because I’ve been asking myself whether this community was lucky or intentional. And the more I examine it, the clearer the answer becomes.

It was built. And it can be built intentionally.

I’m actually in the process of building something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It’s an intimate, highly curated mastermind group centered on strategic clarity, thought partnership, and accountability. The first group is invitation only. I’ll share more in the coming weeks. For now, just know it’s coming.

🤏TINY TWEEK Challenge

Make a short list of three to five people you’d genuinely call your professional community. 

Not your network. Your community. 

People who are in your corner, who challenge your thinking, who you’d call when something goes sideways at work. 

If you can’t fill the list, that’s data. Keep it. We’re going to use it.