I Went Back to Corporate After Swearing I Never Would

When the future I scripted arrived in the wrong package

Photo by Nils Stahl on Unsplash

I didn’t tell anyone for weeks.

Not my audience. Not my clients. Not even some of my friends.

I updated my LinkedIn profile quietly, late at night, like I was sneaking around with a secret I wasn’t proud of.

I was going back to corporate.

And I had sworn—sworn—I never would.

The role was Business Innovation, exactly the intersection of independence and scale I’d been craving but couldn’t admit. It excited me. It aligned with my values. It offered resources I couldn’t access alone.

Here’s the part that made it worse: six months earlier, I’d written about this exact role in a Future Scripting session.

“I am doing business innovation strategy work that aligns and leverages all my talents and skillset.”

I wrote it in detail, following the same 20-minute method I teach. I saw it in my mind’s eye. I wrote it with my pen. I acted as if it already happened.

But I was looking in nonprofit and education sectors.

When the corporate opportunity showed up instead, I froze.

The shame wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t philosophical. It sat heavy and metallic right behind my ribs, the kind of feeling that makes your chest tight and your thoughts cruel. Not the productive kind of discomfort that comes with growth. This was the kind that whispers, You betrayed yourself.

Seven years earlier, I’d walked out of my last corporate role with the kind of clarity that feels almost religious.

Never again.

I meant it.

I built a coaching practice. I consulted. I moved into education. I worked with brilliant clients one-on-one and in groups. Then I got the opportunity to run independent schools, leading entire institutions while still coaching and consulting on the side.

I was doing the thing people dream about when they’re stuck in conference rooms that smell like stale coffee and quiet resignation.

I told myself, and others, that I was free.

So when the corporate opportunity came two months ago the one I’d literally written about, I expected to feel relief.

Instead, I felt terror.

Followed immediately by shame.

The voice in my head didn’t hold back.

You couldn’t hack it. Seven years of building, and you’re crawling back. Everyone who stayed is secretly relieved you failed. You talked about courage for years—this is what quitting looks like.

I didn’t even argue with the voice. I just absorbed it.

Because this wasn’t just about a job. It felt like I had broken a promise to the bravest version of myself, the woman who walked away when staying would have been easier.

And breaking a promise to yourself hits differently.

When Identity Becomes a Cage

When I left corporate seven years ago, I didn’t just change jobs. I built an entire identity around not needing it. I was the coach. The consultant. The education leader. The independent thinker. The one who figured it out on her own terms.

So going back didn’t feel like a logistical decision.

It felt like dismantling who I was.

And here’s what most people don’t know: your identity isn’t just a story you tell yourself at dinner parties. It’s a neurological pattern your brain has reinforced thousands of times until it became automatic.

Your Reticular Activating System (RAS) literally filters reality to match what you’ve told it is “true” about who you are. It’s why you notice red cars everywhere the moment you decide to buy one. It’s why “independent leader” becomes part of your identity filter and anything that contradicts it feels like danger.

When you challenge that identity, your system doesn’t pause to philosophize.

It reacts the same way it would to a physical threat.

The shame wasn’t weakness. It was my nervous system screaming: This isn’t who we are. This isn’t safe.

And until I understood that, I couldn’t give myself permission to choose differently.

The Moment I Caught Myself Performing

I was standing in my kitchen on a Tuesday afternoon, phone pressed to my ear, when someone I hadn’t talked to in months asked the inevitable question:

“So what are you up to these days?”

I was wearing sweatpants and an old conference t-shirt. My coffee had gone cold on the counter. And I heard myself say, voice bright and casual, like it didn’t matter at all:

“Oh, you know. Still doing some consulting work. Coaching. The usual.”

The words came out smooth. Practiced. Dismissive.

And completely incomplete.

I wasn’t lying, exactly. I was still coaching. But I had also just accepted a full-time corporate strategy role. I was two weeks in. I was excited about it. I’d already started planning my first project.

But I couldn’t say that.

Because saying it out loud, with confidence, with ownership, would mean admitting I’d changed my mind. It would mean standing in the contradiction without apologizing for it.

So instead, I minimized.

I performed the version of myself I thought they expected. The one who hadn’t “given up.” The one who was still too independent to need structure.

I hung up the phone and felt my chest tighten again.

That’s when I realized something important: shame doesn’t just make you feel bad.

It makes you edit yourself so small that the truth becomes easier to hide.

And that’s how you know you’re standing at an identity edge, when you can’t say the truth without shrinking it first.

The Question That Changed Everything

The shift didn’t come from confidence. It came unexpectedly during a session with one of my own clients.

She was beating herself up for taking a “traditional” job after years of freelancing. She felt like she’d failed. Like she’d given up on her dream.

I asked her a question I’ve asked hundreds of clients before:

“What if this isn’t failure? What if this is just the next chapter of your story?”

The words landed in my chest before I could stop them.

Because I was giving her the exact permission I hadn’t given myself.

What if I wasn’t going backward?

What if I had misunderstood what “going back” even meant?

And then it hit me: I had written about this role six months ago. I’d used my own method. I’d scripted the future I wanted.

My nervous system just couldn’t accept that it arrived in corporate packaging.

The Reframe That Broke Everything Open

Here’s the realization that finally cracked the shame:

I wasn’t abandoning my independent self.

I was bringing all of her with me.

Seven years of coaching taught me how to see what people aren’t saying. How to ask the questions that unlock stuck thinking. How to hold space for transformation without needing to control the outcome.

Consulting taught me how to diagnose organizational gaps and design solutions that actually work in real environments, not just on whiteboards.

Running independent schools taught me how to lead institutions, manage budgets, navigate boards, and make decisions when everyone is watching and the stakes are impossibly high.

Those aren’t corporate skills you learn in a training seminar.

They’re forged in uncertainty. In late nights when no one is watching. In client conversations where the only credential you have is your ability to deliver. In boardrooms where you’re the youngest person and the only woman and you still have to make the case for change.

And when you bring those skills into a corporate environment—with resources, teams, and infrastructure?

You don’t become less of who you were.

You become dangerous in the best way.

I wasn’t erasing the woman who left.

I was integrating every version of her I’d become since.

Your nervous system doesn’t care about your LinkedIn headline. It cares about predictability. When you shift your identity, even toward something objectively better, your system doesn’t register “upgrade.” It registers: Unknown. Unsafe. Abort.

But here’s the part that changes everything: you can rewrite the pattern.

Not by thinking differently. By writing it differently.

This is the foundation of what I teach—your pen is your permission slip. When you write a new identity in detail, with sensory texture and emotional truth, your nervous system starts to believe it.

I had already done this six months ago. I just needed to trust what I’d written, even when it showed up differently than I’d imagined.

I wrote my way into accepting it:

I am a business innovation strategist who moves fluidly between independence and collaboration. I bring coaching insight, consulting rigor, and educational leadership into corporate environments. I don’t abandon past versions of myself—I integrate them.

I wrote it until my body stopped resisting it.

And then I acted as if it was already true.

What Reinvention Actually Looks Like

We love to talk about reinvention as if it’s a clean break.

New chapter. New identity. New life.

But real reinvention doesn’t delete previous versions of you.

It’s a spiral, not a line, you circle back to familiar territory, but with deeper awareness. You don’t erase who you were. You metabolize her. You take what she learned and integrate it into who you’re becoming.

The corporate professional I was seven years ago lacked the coaching instinct, the consulting frameworks, and the leadership depth I’ve developed since.

The coach, consultant, and education leader I became needed collaboration, scale, and shared infrastructure to expand impact beyond what I could build alone.

The person I am now holds all of it.

Not because I compromised.

Because I stopped asking my past self for permission to evolve.

Your Next Chapter Doesn’t Owe Your Past an Apology

I updated the profile. I took the role.

And two months in, I’ve never felt more aligned, not because it fits the original story, but because it fits who I am now.

Some promises aren’t meant to be kept forever.

They’re meant to be outgrown.

You’re not failing your past self.

You’re updating her with better information.

The question isn’t whether you’ll break promises to your old identity.

The question is:

What promises are you finally ready to make to the person you’re becoming?

Write it down.

Not in your head. On paper. In detail.

Your nervous system believes what you write in detail.

And your pen is your permission slip.

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Let’s make this real:

Write in the comments: What’s the one promise you’re terrified to break?

I’ll read every single one and reply to all.

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