I Saw My Old Self on a Plane Today

Today, somewhere between the boarding chaos and the plastic cup of ginger ale, I saw my old self sitting on a plane.

Middle seat. Basic economy. Late-night flight that no human being actually wants to be on.

But she didn’t care: she was in the zone.

Managing Director of Financial Strategy and Wealth Advisory… or something equally inflated and ultimately meaningless.

Laptop open before the plane even left the gate. Emails firing. Slack messages flying. PowerPoint decks outlined, timelines projected, strategies drafted with that self-important intensity only people running on adrenaline and survival mode possess.

She even nodded to the music in her headphones, that tiny head-bop I know so well. The hustle anthem. The “I’m exhausted but I’m a badass” soundtrack.

And for a second, watching her, I remembered exactly what that felt like.

The pride.

The rush.

The quiet superiority, believing you’re the only person on this plane doing something worthwhile while everyone else is “wasting time” napping or watching a movie.

I used to work seven-hour flights straight coming back from Europe. Not because I had to, but because I needed to feel needed.

Almost two years later, I can still relate to her.

And I also feel… sorry for her.

Not in a condescending way.

Not in a “poor thing, she’s clueless” way.

But in a “I wish she knew what I know now” way.

I wish she could see what I see now. I wish she knew that the ladder she’s climbing leads to a rooftop with no view. I wish she knew that no amount of title upgrades or performance reviews or “strategic projects” will give her the peace and fulfillment she’s hoping the next role will magically bring.

I wish she knew that the constant hustle isn’t a badge; it’s a symptom.

Of burnout.

Of misalignment.

Of losing yourself inside a system that rewards output more than meaning.

I wish she knew that the job she thinks is so important is, in many ways, what David Graeber famously called a “bullshit job”. Work that feels impressive but often has very little to do with impact, purpose, or a life that feels like your own.

Because that’s what corporate burnout steals first: Your ability to see the truth. You don’t realize you’re drowning until you finally take your first breath of clean air.

And when you do, everything shifts: You start recognizing all the ways you traded yourself for performance. You see how tiny your world became. You notice how much joy, creativity, and choice you abandoned in the name of being “valuable.”

And then — slowly — you begin to rebuild a life that fits you again.

A life with space.

A life with meaning.

A life where you no longer have to perform your worth.

I wish I could walk up to that woman on the plane and whisper:

“You don’t have to live like this.

There’s another way.

And it leads back to you.”

But she’s not ready yet.

Because none of us are… until we are.

Until the crack forms. Until the whisper becomes a scream. Until your body tells you what your mind has ignored for too long. Until you realize you’ve been grinding so hard for a version of success that never actually belonged to you.

THE SO WHAT: The Hustle Doesn’t Disappear When You Quit the Job

Here’s the part nobody talks about:

Leavingcorporate doesn’t magically erase the programming. You can quit the job, but the job doesn’t always quit you. The woman on the plane? She follows you. She shows up when you start your business and suddenly believe everything must be hard.

Every win must be earned in blood, sweat, and cortisol. Every quiet week must mean you’re failing. Every moment of rest must be justified.

I see it all the time with new entrepreneurs: They’ve left the burnout behind, but the identity of the burnout high-achiever is still alive and well. They build businesses that feel like slightly prettier versions of the jobs they escaped. They recreate the pressure, the pace, the over-delivering, the martyrdom — not because they want to, but because it’s what their brain has been trained to believe success feels like.

Hard.

Heavy.

Relentless.

But here’s the truth: Running a business doesn’t have to feel like a corporate job with different branding. And if it does, it’s not because you’re doing something wrong. It’s because you’re still operating on old software. That’s the real work: Rewriting the programming. Unlearning the hustle-as-worthiness identity. Building success from alignment, not adrenaline.

That’s what I help my clients do.

If you saw yourself in any piece of this, you’re ready for the upgrade. Not of your business strategy. But of the belief system that shapes how you run your business. Because when you change that, everything changes:

Your decisions.

Your boundaries.

Your time.

Your joy.

Your income.

Your entire experience of being an entrepreneur.

If you’re done building a business with the same burnout blueprint you escaped… If you want success that actually feels like yours…

👉 Let’s talk. Book your free clarity call.

Together, we’ll untangle the old programming and rebuild a business that doesn’t cost you yourself.