Is This Really It?

In the beginning, it felt like magic.

I remember sitting in the very first Navigator School program my team created at Full Sail University. I turned to my boss and asked:

“Do you feel the magic?”

He did.

We were building something special.

And we kept building.

Over the years, my team and I created recognition programs, new employee orientation, leadership development programs, mandatory learning for more than 2,600 employees, daylong leadership events for our employees and community, retirement celebrations, COVID training, video learning, and so much more.

It was creative. It was challenging.

And it was meaningful beyond words.

Until one day, it wasn't.

When the job of a lifetime stops feeling like the job of a lifetime

There wasn't a crisis.

I didn't have a terrible boss. Quite the opposite. I had one of the best bosses in the world.

I wasn't being pushed out.

I was well compensated. My career allowed me to support my family, travel, and enjoy a wonderful life.

And I wasn't unhappy.

That's what made the feeling so confusing.

We had accomplished the long-term vision I'd once imagined. The programs had been built. The team was strong.

And somewhere along the way, I began to sense that we needed fresh energy.

Maybe even energy that wasn't mine.

I remember thinking:

Uh oh. I know this feeling.

This is supposed to be the job of a lifetime.

Why doesn't it feel like it anymore?

The work that had once energized me wasn't giving me the same sense of satisfaction. And as difficult as it was to admit, I began to feel like perhaps I was getting in the way of what needed to come next.

Not just for me.

For the organization.

I knew they were ready.

More than a year earlier, I had identified the people I believed could eventually replace me.

I spent years pouring into them, preparing them, sharing what I knew and giving them opportunities to grow.

And that was meaningful, too.

Then something happened.

I looked at them and realized:

They were ready.

I didn't need to stay because I was afraid to leave.

My chapter was complete.

And that's when the questions got louder.

Who walks away from this?

Am I being ungrateful?

What if I regret it?

And perhaps the biggest one:

I'm 63. Am I really going to start over again?

Sometimes gratitude makes leaving harder.

I felt guilty.

I was enormously grateful for my career, for the people I worked alongside, and especially for a boss who had supported and believed in me for years.

There would have been nothing wrong with staying.

But I was beginning to understand something I couldn't quite articulate at the time:

You can be deeply grateful for a chapter of your life and still know that chapter is complete.

Wanting something more doesn't erase what came before.

It doesn't make the years less meaningful.

And it doesn't make you ungrateful.

Sometimes it simply means you've grown.

Then something brought me back to life.

As I prepared to leave Full Sail, I earned a coaching certification.

During my final year, I began coaching people as part of my role.

And something shifted.

I felt alive again.

I loved watching someone come into a conversation uncertain and leave seeing herself differently.

I loved the moment when her face changed. When the uncertainty began giving way to confidence.

That moment when you could almost hear her thinking:

“I CAN do this.”

I knew that feeling.

Someone I worked with had pursued coaching before me. I watched what he was doing and became curious.

Seeing someone else go first gave me permission to imagine that maybe I could do it, too.

That's one of the reasons I believe so deeply in sharing our stories.

Sometimes we need to see someone else do the thing we're afraid to do before we can imagine ourselves doing it.

I was qualified—and terrified.

When I finally left my career and started Life & Leadership Essentials, I experienced one of the strangest contradictions of my life.

I felt completely qualified.

And like a complete imposter.

At the same time.

I knew how to coach. I knew how to develop people. I knew how to lead.

But how would I find clients?

How would I market myself?

What if nobody hired me?

What if I failed?

I hadn't been that scared in a very long time.

So I did what I've learned to do when something matters:

I did it anyway.

Not because the fear disappeared.

Because I knew there might be something important on the other side of it.

Maybe “Is this really it?” isn't the problem.

Maybe it's information.

If you've built a successful career or life and find yourself quietly wondering:

Is this really it?

Don't immediately dismiss the question.

And don't assume it means you need to quit your job tomorrow or reinvent your entire life.

Just get curious about it.

What has changed?

What doesn't feel the way it once did?

What are you ready to release?

What keeps pulling at your attention?

What might be trying to emerge?

You don't need to know the entire path.

Sometimes you only need enough courage to take the first step.

And sometimes you need someone to come alongside you while you do.

I know how much that matters because other people did it for me.

And today, I have the privilege of doing it for others.

You can love the chapter you're leaving and still be ready to write the next one.