10 Things You Need to Know Before You Leave Your Job - Part 2 (#97)

Ready to wrap up your corporate chapter and finally build the life you really want? In Part 2 of this powerful series, I’m sharing the final 5 things I wish someone had told me before I left my six-figure job.

These lessons will help you prepare emotionally, financially, and spiritually so you can create a smooth, successful transition — without the panic spiral or second-guessing.

If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, make sure to catch Ep. 95 after you listen!

🎯 In today’s episode, you’ll learn:

• Why your identity cannot be tied to your title
• How to maximize every last benefit before you resign
• Why you’ll be tested with shiny offers — and how to stay strong
• How to evaluate long-term incentives (and break free from the golden handcuffs)
• The incredible ripple effect of your bold decision to leave

💡 Whether you’re still planning or already halfway out the door, this episode will give you tools to reinforce your confidence and reclaim your power.

You’re not “walking away from corporate” — you’re walking toward something better. Your leap will inspire more people than you know.

🎧 Hit play and let’s finish strong!

If you're looking for additional support through coaching, visit my website to learn more about working together and my signature program EDIT Your Life™: www.karinfreeland.com/life-coaching

Then book a call here!

Not ready for coaching? Get a copy of my self-help book: Grab Life by the Dreams!

Transcript

Karin Freeland: 0:00

Welcome to Rock Your Reinvention, where I help high-achieving career women like you get unstuck, make your corporate exit strategy, and successfully transition to your next chapter. Hi, I'm your host, Karin Freeland, a certified life coach and corporate exit strategist. Whether you want to start a business, become a speaker, or something else, I'm here to give you the tools and strategies to shift your mindset, build your confidence, and take bold actions so you can rock your reinvention. Ready? Thanks for joining me and coming back for part two of 10 things you need to know before you leave your six-figure job. If you haven't listened to part one yet, make sure you head over there next and give that a listen too. These are things that I really wish someone would have told me before I left my six-figure job. And since I don't like to keep secrets, I want to make sure I'm passing this information along to you. Because by knowing these things, these other five things that you need to know before you leave your job, you can make a more effective exit plan. You can avoid the mistakes that I've made and prepare for the obstacles ahead. I want this transition to be as smooth as possible for you. So without further ado, let's jump in. Number 6, you have to know that you are not your job or your title. Your identity is so much more than that. Now I wanna share two recent examples that I think will really help paint this picture. First, I was listening to a podcast recently about preparing for retirement and they had this big banking executive on, it was a female, and she was talking about identity and how this is really critical. Like before you leave your job, you need to start thinking about who you are, how you're gonna fill your time. And she said something to the effect of, you know, I know I'm going to be out there at the grocery store and think, don't you know who I was? Don't you know what I did? And I'm sitting there in my car driving, yelling at the radio, you know, at the podcast. Like, no, they don't know who you were and they don't care. And sadly, that is the truth. You can spend your whole life in an organization and when you retire, No one is going to know who you were and no one is going to care. You're going to be at the gas station pumping your gas just like everybody else. No one's going to be like, oh my gosh, that's Karin. She was the VP of digital go to market and learning. She's my hero. No, that doesn't happen. So you need to be really careful of this identity trap. And if you want more support specifically on this topic, I would encourage you to listen to episode 40 of Rock Your Reinvention. Episode 40, Is Your Self-Identity Holding You Back? So if you're not your job or your title, then who the hell are you, right? And believe me, this is not an easy question to answer. I was watching a video of James Van Der Beek. You probably remember him. He was a big actor on Dawson's Creek back in the day. I didn't watch the show, but I guess that that was his claim to fame. And he left Hollywood and he was talking about how for the beginning of his life, he identified so much of his life as an actor, but when he left, he wasn't really sure how to identify himself. And then he got married and he was a husband and that was great. And then he had kids and he became a dad and he felt like that was the ultimate. and he was homesteading and living off the land. So he became this like steward of the land. And then he got cancer and he could no longer be a husband. He could no longer be a dad or be a steward of the land. He had to focus 100% on treatments and getting better. And so he shared that while he was kind of laying there, he was like, who is this frail, weak man? Who am I? And the way he summed it up was, you are someone who is worthy of love. And I think that's beautiful. We all have a different definition of this. So I don't want you to feel like that's the only identity you can have, right? In my faith, I would say that I'm adopted daughter of God. Right, that's my ultimate identity. And from there, I'm a wife, a mom, a friend, a sarcastic, silly, fun-loving weirdo. I mean, that's sort of how I would describe myself. But what's yours? What is your true identity? If you answer your identity with what you do for work, you are really gonna struggle to leave and struggle to embrace whatever is next. I also know that you may not fully know what your identity is yet, and that is okay. This is a process. This is part of the journey. And I want you to start exploring and journaling on this so you can start formulating that answer before you leave. The sooner you separate your identity from your corporate job, the easier it will be for you to exit. All right, I know that was a heavy one. So number 7 is a little more tangible. use up all your benefits. There is a lot that can fall into this category. We talked about in the first part, how you need to figure out insurance, but I also wanna make sure that you use up any of the doctor's appointments that you need to do. that you go to the dentist, you get that new pair of eyeglasses, right? You schedule all those appointments for you and anyone else under your current insurance so that you use up those benefits now. And I would encourage you, based on some of the clients that I've worked with, to use them all before you give your two weeks. Because what happens is sometimes the company will surprise you and go, you know what? Thanks for your two weeks, but we don't need them. You're done today. And they immediately shut off your computer and you're out. So you want to make sure that you use that stuff up first because you just don't know if your benefits are going to get cut off the second that you leave. And you may have a smaller window than you think. I got screwed when my company let me go. I got screwed out of about $600 of flexible spending account money that I should have had access to. Because, you know, usually that money is good until the end of the calendar year. Well, they actually turned off the card and froze my funds about 60 days after I left. And I really needed that money because that Christmas, my son got in a very bad sledding accident and we had a bill of about $2,000 for plastic surgery on his face. So if I had known the cutoff date, I would have at least used those funds for something else and then had more of my own money left over to pay for that bill. This also includes things like your PTO, your vacation and sick time. Now, you may have the option to cash in unused time and get a payout, but a lot of companies have gone to unlimited PTO, so when you leave, there's no payout for that. And if that's the case, then I wanna encourage you to take some time off before you leave. And you can use it for the doctor's appointments as well, right? Why not? You're gonna be using up those benefits, take the time off to go to those appointments during business hours. And if it's unlimited and you're planning to leave, why not just take off an entire week and prep yourself for going out on your own? So your action step here is to think about how you're gonna use your benefits, outline when you're gonna use them up by, figure all that out so that you don't give your two weeks notice and then realize you have benefits that were left on the table. Okay, number 8, you will be tested. Ooh, that sounds sort of like ominous, I know. But the universe is going to throw some curve balls and maybe even some carrots your way. So I want you to be prepared for this. One of my clients, Brenda, had decided to leave the corporate rat race to pursue an advanced degree in arts education. She was already about halfway through the master's program when she received an opportunity for a director role at one of the biggest media companies in New York City. This was it. The role she had wanted to achieve the entire time that she was working, she was like, this would have been my dream job. And so during our session, she brought it up and was like, okay, is this universe sending a sign? Should I go back or am I being tested? And I guided her through a process of finding out, which involved inviting her to listen to her body and how it responded as she read through the job description slowly. And she noticed almost immediately within like the first six or seven sentences of the job description, she's like, I already feel anxious. I feel nauseous. I just don't want to do this. So therefore, we could confidently say that this was indeed a test. that simple act of turning inward and going and reflecting back on her goals and why she had left in the first place, right? She could then be more committed than ever to continuing her path towards becoming an art teacher. That was a pretty cool moment for both of us, but your tests can come in the form of a counter offer, right? If you give your two weeks and they really don't want you to leave, they may try to keep you. What then? Will you be prepared? Will you have a response for that? A lot of my clients find that after they leave LinkedIn becomes a very big trigger for them. They see old colleagues getting promoted, people getting awarded for their accomplishments, and they start to second guess themselves. They wonder if they made the wrong decision. So these are just a few ways that you can be tested. And now that you know, how can you help prepare for it? Well, Have a plan for what you'll do when you get triggered or when someone offers you the role of a dream job that you would have wanted three years ago. It might be something as simple as pausing and just doing a breathing exercise to center yourself. It might be checking in with your body like Brenda did. It might be taking a LinkedIn detox like I've prescribed for several of my clients. It might be working up a response to job offers. You know, thank you so much for thinking of me. That means a lot. I'm actually doing XYZ now. If you know anybody who would be interested in those services, I'd appreciate an introduction. You may even want to make a list of all the reasons you're leaving and why you never want to go back. So you have it readily available should the carrot be dangled in front of you. One caveat worth noting is that we tend to romanticize the past when we're scared of change, or we tell ourselves like, oh, wasn't that bad? Maybe I could go to corporate. Oh, they're going to give me a counter offer. Maybe I could stick it out for another year. Don't fall into that trap. It's one of the things I share in chapter three of my book, Grab Life by the Dreams, when I talk about the change cycle. And that is why I want you to have a plan to combat this stuff. Because when we do get scared, one of our defaults is to start romanticizing the past and downplaying our former discomfort. But I'm confident that if you have a plan, you're going to pass the test with flying colors. Okay, number 9, recognize long-term incentives for what they are. The price is You pay to give up your dreams. These are quite literally the golden handcuffs. I know you might have a short-term incentive, like a bonus, and those can be hard to give up, but they're usually a little easier to swallow than those long-term incentives. And that's a whole point of them in the first place, right? They are designed by the organization to keep you in the job for the long term. Psychologically, we are wired to fear loss more than value gain. Think about that for a second. Even if your long-term incentive isn't guaranteed, it's dependent on company performance or tenure, the idea of leaving money on the table triggers real anxiety. However, the huge long-term incentives are great in theory but once you factor in taxes, time, market risk, they're not really worth the emotional cost of staying stuck. So you have to retrain yourself to start valuing the gain more than the perceived loss. So here's what you can do. I want you to truly calculate What are you actually walking away from? After taxes, that number's gonna be a lot smaller. So let's get really clear on what that is. And think about what could you earn sooner by building your own business? How could you replace some of that income? What are some of the revenue streams that you could create? And then you can start thinking like, would you pay $100,000 to buy back your freedom? and create a life you love two years sooner? Hells to the yes, right? You're not walking away from something. You're walking towards something better. I'm gonna say that again. You are not walking away from something. Instead, you are walking towards something better. If you can embrace that idea, it is gonna be so much easier to let those long-term incentives, those golden handcuffs go. Number 10, you will inspire and touch so many lives. You are leaving corporate. So many people want to do this, but they think they can't. So many people want to go, but they have built lifestyle prisons for themselves. They're in so much debt. They're spending so much of what they earn each month and they don't see a way out. Their kids are on their payroll. I mean, I have seen so many examples of this and had people send me messages, Karin, I wish I could do what you did, but here's the laundry list of reasons why I can't. And then here you come leaving and going on to follow your dreams. You're the one to be admired. Not all the people who stay in an unfulfilling job and you never know the ripple effect that your exit will have. I mean, for one, you're going to plant a seed in others, right? You're going to send a signal that it's okay to leave and do something new. It's okay to go follow your dreams. That is powerful. Then whatever you go do, the business you start, the audiences you speak to, the clients you serve, the readers who read your work if you write a book, you're going to change so many lives through that. And many of the lives you won't even know that you've touched or how you've touched them. That ripple effect is just beyond calculation. And I think that's pretty cool. Not to mention, if you have kids, you're going to show them that they don't have to settle, that they can truly be whatever they want. Now that's an example worth setting. I mean, my husband left his company to start his own business in May. I never in a million years, if you had asked me if my husband was a business owner, I'd have been like, no way. I had no idea I would inspire my own spouse to make a move. Yet here we are. So you can literally change the world and the lives of others for the better. simply by being you and chasing your dreams. Now that's a world worth living in. That's exciting. If you're crafty, this is a great time to make a vision board of all the things you want to achieve, but also all the ways that you want to impact the world. Or if you're not so great at vision boards, maybe you do a journal and you do an entry if you prefer writing. Either way, you'll have a beautiful representation of how you'll inspire others on your journey. And you'll have a much clearer picture of that thing that you're walking towards, like we just talked about in number nine. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you're feeling inspired. As you heard, the final five things I wish someone told me before I left corporate and that I wanted to make sure you knew before you left corporate were, You are not your job or your title. Your identity is so much more than that. Use up all your benefits. They owe you it for putting up with their organization for so long. That's the way I see it. So don't be afraid to get every last little bit of your benefits and exhaust them. You will be tested either as you're leaving or after you're out. So be ready. Recognize long-term incentives for what they are golden handcuffs that are holding you back from achieving your dreams. And you will inspire and touch so many lives with your new path. Take the leap. Rock your reinvention. I believe in you.