A few days ago, I hosted one of my biggest webinars about personal branding and career reinvention.
We spoke about LinkedIn, visibility, personal brands, and building a new chapter.
But very quickly, I realized something:
This wasn't really a webinar about careers.
It was a webinar about grief.
Because when life moves our cheese:
When we lose a job, leave a company, move countries, become parents, go through divorce, or simply wake up one day realizing that our old life no longer fits us:
We don't only lose certainty.
We lose identity.
We suddenly ask ourselves questions we have avoided for years:
Who am I without this title?
What am I actually good at?
What if I don't want the thing I worked so hard to achieve?
What is my purpose in life?
And perhaps the scariest question of all:
Who am I becoming now? and how will I end up in 5 years from now?
During the webinar, I was surprised by the amount of pain in the room.
Most people closed their cameras and were curled up into themselves.
People weren't just afraid of not finding a new job.
They were afraid of not being needed anymore.
Of disappointing others.
Of discovering that the ladder they had been climbing for years was leaning against the wrong wall.
And honestly? I know this feeling very well.
Every meaningful chapter in my life began because someone,or life itself,moved my cheese.
Leaving jobs.
Starting my own company.
Moving to Thailand.
Changing identities again and again.
At first, it always felt unfair.
But eventually, I realized:
The moments that broke my identity were also the moments that expanded it.
Because sometimes life removes what no longer fits us before we are brave enough to let it go ourselves.
Maybe the job change isn't the tragedy.
Maybe staying in the wrong story would have been.
Maybe this transition is not punishment, but an invitation.
An invitation to ask:
What gives me energy?
What kind of life do I want to build?
What would I do if I wasn't trying to impress anyone?
What version of myself is asking to be born right now?
Purpose is rarely found.
It is created.
Slowly.
By trying things and jumping into the water.
By listening to ourselves and being willing to disappoint old versions of who we used to be.
And yes, change hurts.
Our nervous system loves certainty.
Our ego loves titles (+our society is chasing it around us)
Our mind loves control.
But growth?
Growth asks us to sit in the uncomfortable space between "who I was" and "who I am becoming." That space is super messy.
But it is also where magic Glow happens.
You start to dare more, and stop giving a Sh*t about what other people think.
So if life moved your cheese recently... maybe don't rush to replace it.
Pause for a moment.
Listen.
Because perhaps life isn't taking something away from you.
Perhaps it is making room for something much more aligned.
And my question for you this week is:
If no one expected anything from you…who would you become next?
With love,
Anna.
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