My own career is the proof: walking through a dark tunnel after saying no to the jobs I was known for eventually produced WorkLife, which transformed my disconnected projects into a whole that felt like magic.

I stepped off the traditional career path four years ago with no plan. I simply started saying no to the jobs I was known for—COO roles at bigger and more impressive companies—because they no longer brought me joy. ... My ego really, really wanted to say yes. I kept saying no. I built the leadership communities Glue Club and The Guild. I wrote on LinkedIn and Substack. Not because I had a vision for what any of this could become ... but because they made me happy every day. ... more than any other time in my career, I felt like I was walking through a dark tunnel, with no sense of where I was going. ... When they made that offer, it was like someone had turned the lights on in the tunnel. They saw me in a way that I could not see myself. That offer transformed my weird, disconnected pile of projects into a whole that felt like magic.

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