From Corporate Into Calling: Career Change, Burnout, Meaningful Work, Find Your Purpose

You left corporate — or you're on your way out — and right now the path forward isn't clear. Maybe you're months in and nothing has clicked yet. Maybe you're still in the job and exhausted by it. Maybe you've started building something and you keep wondering if it's working.This week I want to tell you something I've had to remind myself of recently: the hardest part is often the part right before something shifts.I came back from a trip to Cornwall last week feeling overwhelmed and depleted — not inspired, not clear, just spent. And it was in that exact moment, before I'd had chance to recover, that a business idea I'd been circling for months finally surfaced. I didn't see it coming. I couldn't have, from inside the exhaustion.I've watched the same pattern with clients. The moment they're most tempted to walk away is almost always the moment something is about to move. Seth Godin called it the dip and my own experience keeps confirming it.If you're in the middle of a career change, burnout recovery, or just trying to find work that means something to you, this episode is for you. Wherever you are in that process, the difficulty isn't a signal to stop seeking. It might be just the opposite.Next steps:✦ Subscribe to my emails✦ Book a call with meRelated episodes:→ The Room You Used To Belong To Isn't Yours Anymore→ What's The Worst That Can Happen?→ What Changes When You Stop Looking For An ExitHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

If you’re seriously thinking about a career change but you’re afraid that stepping out of corporate might mean becoming less serious, less competent, or less ambitious — this episode is for you.You’ve probably said things like:“I’m good at what I do…but I don’t enjoy it anymore.”“It feels wrong in my body, even if it looks fine on paper.”“I don’t want another job like this — but what else could actually work?”Many high-performers stay where they are not because they love the work — but because they’ve internalised the belief that ambition only happens inside a system that runs on pressure.In this episode we unpack that belief structurally, not emotionally: why corporate environments condition us to equate stress with success, and why stepping away doesn’t automatically lower your standards. On the contrary — it forces you to decide whether your ambition belongs to you or to the machine that trained it.If you’re wrestling with burnout, craving purposeful work, or wondering whether meaningful, self-directed work is actually possible — you’re in the right place.Self-Directed Work That Works For You This 90-minute workshop will help you build a clear, practical framework for work that fits your values, your strengths, and your life.You've spent years being exceptionally good at work that was built around someone else's priorities. Now you're in a different moment — one where you have ideas, skills, and a growing sense that something new is possible. The problem isn't capability. It's clarity. This workshop is designed to give you that.Book here.Next steps:✦ Discover the Meaningful Business Incubator✦ Subscribe to my emails✦ Book a call with meRelated episodes:→ Sick of the job market? Why now is the perfect time to build your own business with purpose→ Don’t Just Quit Your Job — Pivot with Purpose→ The 3 Types of People Who Need to Quit Corporate (and Find Meaningful Work)Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

When my son was four months old, he came with me to a notary’s office in Berlin.I was setting up a company during Brexit uncertainty, travelling across Europe, growing fast. At the time, the structure of my life could hold that intensity and the work made sense inside it.Nine years later, everything looks different.In this episode, I explore what it really takes to build work that brings you back to life after burnout or career change. It all starts with a question that’s often skipped when people plan their next move:How do you want your work to feel?And how should it actually support your life?We talk about why changing jobs often doesn’t stop burnout repeating, how this question becomes a decision point before job searches or business ideas, and why many forms of full-time employment are structurally incompatible with the lives people want to live.Whether you stay employed, change roles, or decide to build your own work, this episode offers a calmer, more grounded place to start.Next steps:✦ Discover the Meaningful Business Incubator✦ Subscribe to my emails✦ Book a call with meRelated episodes:→ You Don’t Need a New Job! How to Choose Purposeful Career Change Instead→ The 3 Types of People Who Need to Quit Corporate (and Find Meaningful Work)→ Don’t Just Quit Your Job — Pivot with PurposeHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

This week’s episode is a replay of an interview I recorded with Courtney Holm for the Up Your Impact podcast.We talk about what it really feels like when you’re stuck in corporate — especially when financial fear, responsibility, and the day-to-day reality of your work feel completely out of sync with what you want your life to look like.In the conversation, I share an ecosystem approach to career transition: a resilient way to expand your options and start building meaningful work over time — without needing to take a dramatic leap or burn everything down overnight.In this episode, we cover:Why the gap between “what you’re doing” and “what you want” can feel so heavyThe role of financial fear in keeping you stuckWhat an “ecosystem approach” actually means (and why it works)How to build options and momentum in a grounded, realistic wayThe difference between craving clarity and needing a first stepDiscover Courtney's work at https://theholmedit.com/Ready to make an empowered exit from corporate?Courage to Quit will give you clarity, direction, and a practical plan for what to do next — without spiralling, procrastinating, or trying to force certainty before you act.Book Courage to Quit here.Next steps:✦ Discover the Meaningful Business Incubator✦ Subscribe to my emails✦ Book a call with meRelated episodes:→ Sick of the job market? Why now is the perfect time to build your own business with purpose→ Don’t Just Quit Your Job — Pivot with Purpose→ The 3 Types of People Who Need to Quit Corporate (and Find Meaningful Work)Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

What do you do when work stops having meaning for you? When the career you’ve poured years of energy into still looks fine from the outside, but no longer feels aligned? That moment can be hard to name — and even harder to act on — especially when nothing is obviously “wrong.”In this episode, I talk about that early phase that often comes long before burnout. The sinking loss of belief. The nagging questions that won’t go away. The sense that you’re propping something up that no longer makes sense to you. I share reflections from my own experience of questioning work I’d invested in for years, alongside what I’ve seen happen when people ignore these signals for too long and end up paying a much higher price later.This isn’t about dramatic exits or throwing everything away. It’s about learning to trust what you’re feeling before your body has to force the issue. Too often, we tell ourselves to push through, be grateful, or wait for certainty — and in doing so, we override important information about what’s no longer right.If you’re at a point where something in your work has shifted, but you haven’t given yourself permission to listen yet, this episode is for you. It’s an invitation to take that feeling seriously — and to act in an empowered way, rather than waiting until burnout makes the decision for you.Next steps:✦ Discover the Meaningful Business Incubator✦ Subscribe to my emails✦ Book a call with meRelated episodes:→ Sick of the job market? Why now is the perfect time to build your own business with purpose→ Don’t Just Quit Your Job — Pivot with Purpose→ The 3 Types of People Who Need to Quit Corporate (and Find Meaningful Work)Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

As the year comes to a close, I continue the regenerative retelling of A Christmas Carol, turning our attention toward the future and what meaningful work might actually look like when it’s no longer shaped by exhaustion or extraction.In Part Three, we meet the Ghost of Meaningful Christmas Future and glimpse a different way of working: one rooted in alignment, care, and contribution — not just for ourselves, but for the people, communities, and living systems our work touches.This final chapter isn’t a blueprint or a promise. It’s an act of imagination. A reminder that the ways we work today are not inevitable — and that stepping away from dehumanising systems can open space for more honest, humane, and generative forms of contribution.At its heart, this story is an expression of belief: that individuals are capable of far more than the corporate system asks of them, and that meaningful, regenerative work is not a fantasy, but something real and available to be shaped.Next steps:✦ Discover the Meaningful Business Incubator✦ Subscribe to my emails✦ Book a call with meRelated episodes:→ Sick of the job market? Why now is the perfect time to build your own business with purpose→ Don’t Just Quit Your Job — Pivot with Purpose→ The 3 Types of People Who Need to Quit Corporate (and Find Meaningful Work)Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.