#114: The Blank Canvas Effect: Finding yourself by starting over.

A real talk guide to big transitions, retirement, and self discovery.

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I can’t decide if it feels like yesterday or an eternity since my last day as a corporate American.

Maybe because it feels like both. I’ve found that transformation can have that effect on a person, making past versions of yourself feel both achingly familiar and worlds away.

It’s been exactly a year since I left my position as Chief Growth Officer at V2X. This is the biggest transition I’ve ever consciously faced. In previous times — Mike’s death, moving houses, changing jobs — my motto was, “Get on with it, Deagle!” But this past year I’ve had something my corporate salary could never buy — space. So I’ve gotten to pay attention as the layers of this transition unfolded, instead of hurrying to catch up with the future.

A career change isn’t usually what most people think of when they hear the term “loss”, our TL bread and butter. But transition of any kind inherently involves losing things. Which is… a bummer. It would be great if we could ensure that any change we made only added more to our lives, never requiring a single sacrifice.

But it does and so, when in doubt, we don’t risk it. We avoid transition, choosing to remain in jobs, industries, relationships, city limits, routines as default. The devil we know feels safer than the devil we don’t, and all that.

So as frankly as I can, I’m going to share what this experience — retirement, reinvention, creative awakening are just a few of the names it could fall under — has been like. Both because I’m intrigued by what I will find in my sifting, and because there may be a nugget of realization somewhere in here for you, too.

Maybe the devil you don’t know will be ever so slightly unmasked — the shroud of unknowing lifted just enough to imagine a life beyond “what I’ve always done”.

Come take a peak at the other side.

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What I’ve lost since leaving V2X and my corporate career:

People. Hands down, this is the biggest blank space.

I miss the coworkers I interacted with daily. I miss the teammates in far flung places. I miss meeting warfighters around the globe dedicating their lives to the service of our country. I loved that part of my job, and no matter how many coffee dates and book festivals and group workout classes I go to, I can’t replicate that special coworker/teammate bond.

Speaking of…

Teamwork. Specifically, solving big problems that impact a lot of people together.

As a swimmer growing up, I had no idea how satisfying a team victory could be. I didn’t understand the revelry of having your individual goals fall away to become a spark plug in a mighty machine. But in my corporate career, I had the exhausting pleasure of joining forces, setting our mutual sights, and performing the capitalist equivalent of this rugby scrum holding off a revving F1 race car.

Since leaving V2X, I miss moving mountains as a team.

Purpose. I was lucky. My corporate job had a sense of purpose. Not every aspect of it of course, because what job does? But supporting our nation’s service members — all the young soldiers, sailors, and airmen who joined the military for both patriotic and personal-opportunity reasons — was a true honor.

To be fair, I have been able to replace my old purpose with a new purpose, one that is arguably closer to my heart. But no purpose is quite like the next. So there is still an ache when I remember being able to immediately and concretely improve those service members’ lives.

Part of the V2X squad in Jordan!

Income. Ah yes, that pesky detail!

This is not a finance blog, but I’d be lying if I said that 30+ years of a bi-weekly paycheck was not a source of comfort. My finances are fine, but it’s taken me a while to adjust to looking at them in a different way.

PowerPoints, spreadsheets, performance reviews, self-assessments. Hooray!

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What I’ve gained since dedicating my time fully to writing about loss and vibrant living:

Freedom. I do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want.

For years I had to stick a smile on my face and deal with difficult people (in all fairness, some might say the same about me!), frustrating tasks (see the last point above), and decisions I didn’t agree with. But I don’t have to play nice anymore. I don’t have to play at all.

I’m able to fine tune my dials — what makes me happy; what makes me crazy. More of this. None of that. I feel in control of not just my day, but my destiny.

I’m able to lean into exactly what matters to me:

• a weekday visit to see Kendall;

• a pilgrimage with spotty wifi;

• a vacation where I only open books, not my laptop;

• literally anything for the end of the month, quarter, fiscal year — those times that used to be off limits and heads down in the corporate calendar.

I’ll stop now, but this list is endless.

Freewheeling. Goodbye plans, hello last-minute, gut-feel, why-the-hell-not decisions.

To be clear, this isn’t because I’ve become a sloth. My days are still full, my nights still find me weary and satisfied. My work is simply no longer guided by shareholder expectations. Instead, I follow feelings — what is engaging, energizing, self-actualizing.

So far it’s going better than expected. I have one book under contract, and two more in my brain (stay tuned for a pilgrim adventure story!). I have one overseas speaking engagement coming in the spring, and hope more will follow. I’m in the flow.

Reverence. Without the corporate workload, I’ve slowed waaaaaay down. And with that change of pace I see far more — not just with my eyes.

Replacing the skin-deep experiences of nature, people, architecture, weather that I used to squeeze in during busy weekends, I can now let the phenomena around me sink in… opening me up to deeper levels of understanding.

It’s always impossible to describe the ineffable because, well, it’s ineffable. But I have a reverence for what’s around me because I’m taking it in for longer, savoring it, seeing the meaning underneath.

Irreverence. Yep, I’ve always had a big, ridiculous laugh. But I’m deploying it so much more these days.

I can laugh in a crowd. I can laugh by myself. I can laugh at my favorite TikTok dad who shares quotes from teenagers including, “what time is noon?” I can laugh at inappropriate moments and not care if anyone cares.

I have the spaciousness, the lightness of an unhurried life, which makes laughing easier than I can ever remember it being.

Which brings me to…

Space. The factor that underpins all the others.

I would need an entire book to report all the benefits of taking your foot off the gas and letting life unravel in it’s own pace. But I’ll summarize with this — I didn’t know I could feel so much gratitude in daily life.

Something about spaciousness makes it bloom like wildflowers.

The number of sunset selfies I have from the last year is insane.

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It’s fair to say that what I’ve gained has made up for what I’ve lost.

However, does that mean I wish I had made the transition sooner? I’m not so sure. I would not be on this “other side” if I had not been a corporate wonk first.

Tactically, I wouldn’t have earned enough to be independent now. But I also wouldn’t have learned the lessons, the skills, the resilience either. Every ounce of that knowledge informs and improves what I’m doing today — how to tell stories; how to make an impact; how to influence; how to share; how to talk 1:1 and 1:1,000.

I believe that none of our life experiences are wasted. Not the good ones: starting a women’s summit, closing a giant deal, growing a public company, turning coworkers into teammates into lifelong friends. And not even the crappy ones: some Wall Street investor calling me a female token or an Arab man comparing widowed women to used cars. Thanks, assholes. You made me tougher. You made me believe in myself even more. You made me a force of nature.

In other words, transitions are more than a matter of “I’m ready to trade up.”

Who we were and what we’ve done informs what we will do and who we will become.

But there’s another factor that I think has helped me make lemonade from this lifequake. When we learn to lean into the opportunity of change, life is much more likely to become what we hope it to be, instead of what we’re used to it being.

Six months after leaving V2X, chilling on the pilgrim trail in Norway.

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Through my widowhood, I’ve become intimately familiar with the revitalizing force of loss.

When much of what you’ve known has been swept away, by choice or by circumstance, you are left with a blank canvas.

The concrete facts and routines of your life aren’t the only things changed beyond recognition. Your beliefs, how you think life “works”, your priorities and values are dust. There is no going back; you have to start again.

This is terrifying… but it’s also a chance to reimagine your life. It’s not a coincidence that in the shadow of volcanos we find the most fertile soil on the earth. Annihilation in its completeness renews and prepares the ground for endless possibility.

So when the smoke of transition clears, you find yourself with more choice than you’ve had in a long time. Not just in what you’re going to eat that day, but in how you’re going to fill your day, where you’re going to focus your energy, how you’re going to meet and make something of your life.

Mike’s death prepared me to meet this annihilation with arms wide open. Because an annihilation it was — I lost my identity, my ride-or-die work family, and 60 hours a week of stimulation and expectation in one fell swoop.

For the first couple of weeks afterwards, I distracted myself, took it easy, and didn’t think too hard, because hey, I’m still human. But when the dust and emotions settled, I knew that I was going to let go of everything I could. Because anything that was true — friendships, habits, priorities — would grow back. And anything that wasn’t would decompose, leaving space for… whatever I could dream of.

And the only limit was how big, how out-of-the-box, how authentic to me I could dream.

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Your transition won't mirror mine — nor should it.

When done right, transitions are unique to each of us. Whatever you’ve lost has left space to cultivate new goals, new routines, new ways of being that fit you.

“New… all of those things?? There are too many options, where do I begin?”

Great question. A question many of us don’t get a chance to think about until life is asking us for the answer.

All we can do is give ourselves permission to try things, to experiment and mess up and reroute, to gently add and subtract until things feel… right.

It’s taken me a year.

I slowly shed the layers of Corporate Sue, Go-Getter Sue, Strategizer Sue one by one as I realized those versions of me didn’t fit anymore. I turned off my 6am alarm for a day, then a week, then for good; I outlined a longterm marketing plan for TL, then scrapped it; I returned to hobbies I loved when I was a girl.

We humans are so adaptable, it can take awhile to realize that who we’ve learned to be isn’t who we want to be.

So, I can’t tell you what your transition will be like. I have no clue! But I can promise it will open up options you didn’t know you had… in direct proportion to your acceptance that you might not get it right on the first try.

Just remember: the stakes aren’t that high. If this round of reinvention doesn’t go as planned, the universe has a way of offering us “fresh chances” to grow something new again soon. (That’s code for volcano eruptions.)

To fertile soil,

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