Who Are You Without Your Role?

What happens when the role that has defined you for years suddenly disappears?

In this episode of Paths 2 Lead, Melissa Tassie shares a deeply personal experience of walking away from a leadership role she loved to be there for her family. What she discovered afterward was something much bigger: when the role disappeared, she had to confront a question she had rarely had the space to ask:

Who am I without it?

Melissa explores the grief that comes with letting go of a role, the identity shifts that follow, and the unexpected clarity that comes when we separate who we are from what we do.

Because underneath the leader, the parent, the partner, the coach, and every other role we carry, there is still one human.

And sometimes, losing a role is what finally gives us the space to meet that human.

If your role disappeared tomorrow, who would be standing there?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The role showed me what I could lose. Losing it showed me who I am. Welcome to the Stop Performing Life podcast. I am Melissa Tassey, and this is the Human Connection Movement. Each week, my guess and I will explore what it means to stop performing. We connect to what matters most intentionally.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Create a life that feels deeply aligned with who you are. You did not press play by accident. Maybe this is the pause you've been waiting for. Let's begin.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Hi, welcome, and thank you for spending time with me today. I wanted to share a really painful moment in my life. Um it was October 17th of 2023. I was at work, work um and a job that I loved, working with on a really cool project. Oh my god, this project was so cool. It was um teaching leaders around cybersecurity. And I am not the cybersecurity expert. What I am an expert in is creating these immersive experiences for people to learn. And that is definitely my zone of competence, not my zone of genius, my zone of competence. And so we are in the cafeteria of my organization, and um my events folks are helping set up this really cool dynamic experience with neon lights, and all the cybersecurity guys kind of have their little booze set up, and people are starting to come in. An amazing, amazing fucking team, working the room, making sure everybody was taken care of, jumping in where they needed to. And I stepped back and I realized that I could not be here anymore. That's when I made the decision to tap myself out. Tap myself out of a role that I absolutely loved, out of a company that I absolutely loved, and to step away from a team that I had the honor and privilege to pull together and to lead. Why did I do that? I had that, I had to leave that role behind. My daughter at the time was 19. Dial back May of 2022, right after graduation, my daughter started to present some health issues. June, July, August, September, October. We had no idea what was going on with her. What we did know is that it was serious. So during the months of June, July, August, and September, I was playing all my roles: mom, wife, daughter, leader, partner, coach. I mean, the list is long. We all have roles that we play. On October 17th, I realized we still didn't know what was going on with Maggie, but I knew in my gut, you know, as a mom, you just know that I could no longer serve all these roles well. And I was doing not only my team, my organization, my work, a disservice. I was doing a disservice to the person who needed me the most, the people who needed me the most, my daughter and my husband. That was the day that I decided to walk away from a role I loved. It cost me a lot. I grieved that role. I grieved that role because I genuinely loved it. I enjoyed having a job to go into every day. I enjoyed the work. I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the mission, the vision, the values of the organization. It was like a perfect fit. What I also enjoyed was the safety. The safety of that job. So when I left, I um took care of my daughter. She's thriving, thank God. And um when she got to a place where I could assume, take on that other role, I went into my organization. And quite honestly, I was there in less than two weeks and I understood very fast that I no longer fit the role. Not because the role changed, but because I did. Losing it showed me who I am. That's pretty heavy. Who I am. One human holding all of these different roles, one human experiencing so much stress, anxiety, depression around my daughter's illness. And is she gonna be with us in a year from now? I mean, that's what I was going through. On top of leading a high-performing team, on top of leading some amazing work, on top of being a thought leader and a thought partner to partners and peers in a nine billion dollar company. And the list is long. And what I realized is when the role disappeared, I was able to get really clear on what mattered most. What mattered most was one, the human that supports all those roles, the human that performs all those roles, and I got back to the human really quick. Um to get a bone marrow transplant on December 28th, 23. And we were in the hospital for close to a month, 24-7. Um, she had to stay in a room, a vacuum-controlled room, um, because she wasn't going, her immune system was going to be like basically knocked out of her due to chemo. So on the 28th, we arrived. On the 29th, um, I believe we did some pre-op stuff for chemo. And then on uh later that day, she started the chemo treatment. We were in the hospital on New Year's Eve. One of the most magical moments that we experienced as a family, and I got to experience as a mom and a wife in this small tiny little hospital room on New Year's Eve, was we got to see the fireworks after the ball dropped across the entire city of Columbus. We were on the 12th floor on the nationwide children's hospital, and that's the on the BMT floor, oncology floor, and we were able to see so many beautiful things. So many beautiful lights. And the time with my family, even though my daughter was going through the roughest patch of her life at 19, was magical. Why? Because we were in proximity of one another, we didn't have any role to play other than being a family unit. That was it. Nothing else mattered. Nothing, not one fucking thing. What mattered was we were together. And we were arm in arm because by God, she's gonna kick this thing in the ass. And she did. So walking away from that role, given it was hard, I really grieved. I still grieve today. It's funny how grief is. And yet I wouldn't change it for the world. I would do the same thing. I knew I needed to leave that role, and once I decided, the hesit, I mean, there was no hesitation. Literally. Literally, there was no hesitation. But when I decided, and then I got into this rhythm and routine when I got home without the role. Who am I? Who am I now? God, I haven't been just a mother or just a wife in my entire life. I mean, I've always been working mom. Always. I've always had to balance and choose Maggie, Jim, work, Maggie Jim, work, Maggie Jim, work. And now that I had work gone, what kind of mom am I? What kind of wife am I? Wow. That was intense. So intense. And yet beautiful. Be very clear. I still grieve that role that I left in the body of work and the people that I love that I worked with. What I gained was clarity. Clarity that I had a choice to decide which roles I was going to choose to play. And then I had the wonderful gift to also choose the expectations of what kind of mom I wanted to be, what kind of wife I wanted to be. Not just to support Maggie through her illness, but for the first time in my life. I mean, I would I got married when I was working, I had a baby when I was working, and I've always been working since I was 14 and a half. So who am I? I got the beautiful gift to figure that out. So the question I have for you, my audience, is if your role disappeared tomorrow, what would be standing there? Who would be standing there? Would you know? What feelings would be landing? And would you recognize that person? I can tell you I don't recognize who I was and who I am now. Complete. I don't want to say complete different, but I have grown more in the last four and a half years, four years, give or take, than I have in my entire adult life. And it started with that identity shift, the drop of the roll, and getting really clear and deep on who I am underneath all these roles. So, if your role disappeared tomorrow, who would be standing there? Do you know? Do you know that person? Do you know that human? Do you know that whole, that soul? Do you know that soul? And would you recognize them? That's what I had for today. I appreciate you joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you again. Thanks so much.