I Stood Up, and Everything Changed

For most of my life, I believed that a career change always required a plan.

A strategy.

A timeline.

A sense of readiness.

However, the moment that changed everything for me didn’t come with any of that.

It came the day I stood up.

Not because I had a plan.

Not because I needed courage.

I was finished tolerating the bullsh!t everyone pretended was acceptable.

I stood up because, after 25+ years in the legal profession, I finally said something I had been swallowing for years..

I spoke up about something deeply unfair. I shared my perspective, my values, my truth — out loud, in a place where silence had always felt safer.

And in that moment, something inside me shifted.

I realized …

I wasn’t just burned out.

I was misaligned.

I had long outgrown the version of myself who stayed quiet to keep the peace.

I had long outgrown the identity I built decades earlier.

I had long outgrown the career that no longer reflected who I was becoming.

That moment didn’t give me clarity about the future.

It gave me clarity about what I could no longer tolerate.

And that’s often how reinvention really begins.

Not with a five‑year plan.

Not with certainty.

Not with clarity.

Not with a polished vision board or a perfect next step.

Reinvention can begin with a moment of truth.

A moment when staying silent costs more than speaking up.

A moment when your values get louder than your fear.

A moment when your body whispers — or sometimes screams — “No More.”

If you’re in that place right now, the quiet knowing that something has to change ...

You’re not lost.

You’re waking up.

You’re meeting the part of yourself you’ve been overriding for years.

You’re hearing the truth beneath the burnout.

You’re feeling the friction between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming.

Reinvention doesn’t always start with a new job.

It doesn’t always start with a new title.

It doesn’t always start with a leap.

It starts with honesty.

Honesty about what no longer fits.

Honesty about what you’ve been tolerating.

Honesty about the version of you that’s ready to emerge.

That honesty is the beginning of everything.

And sometimes, all it takes is standing up.

If you’re standing at your own moment of truth, you don’t have to navigate it alone.

This is the work I now do with leaders every day.