When Your Work And Your Identity Become The Same Thing
There was a season of my life when I cared a lot about being in impressive-seeming spaces. I told myself that it was because I was getting business in them, but looking back, it was about more than that. I loved that I felt important by proximity (ie: the people felt impressive, they seemed to welcome me, so ‘transitively’, i felt that way, too).
Allow me to explain: It started in 2009 when I launched my first company (a credit card processing brokerage) and I invested a lot of time in traditional networking.
One place where I focused my attention: the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. I was so committed that I was named their youngest ambassador, ran meetings, and won awards. I knew people, and they knew me, and that translated directly into trust, referrals, and business. My reputation in those spaces was real and it was earned. And I loved it.
What I didn't realize until later was how much of myself (my worth, reputation, and value) I co-mingled with it.
Around that time, I started to get bylines in publications most people recognize, interviewing celebrities, on speed dial for publicists, being a correspondent for events with companies like Chase and Inc. 5000, all while building my companies and eventually selling one. From the outside, it looked like momentum. From the inside, it was starting to feel like a trap.
The moment I felt it most clearly was when I began stepping back from some of those spaces. The FOMO was immediate. But underneath the FOMO was something quieter and harder to name: the feeling that I was losing a piece of myself. That without the access, the accolades, the rooms… I felt anxious.
That's the thing nobody warns you about when you build a career with any kind of visibility. The identity and the work get woven together so gradually you don't notice it happening. And then one day you consider stepping away from something, or something gets taken away, and the response feels disproportionate. Because it's not just a professional loss. It feels existential. (For what it’s worth, I see this all the time when clients retire, get laid off, sell a company, or name a new CEO. They feel unmoored and their identity is shaken.)
I eventually made a deliberate choice to trade what looked good externally for what felt right internally. Personal peace over prestige. It wasn't a dramatic exit. It was a quiet reorientation.
But it required me to ask a question I'd been avoiding: who am I when I'm not being recognized for anything?
That question is uncomfortable. It's also one of the most important questions with which a person can sit. Because if you can't answer it, you'll keep chasing your version of the rooms and the bylines and titles, not because they serve you, but because without them, you're not sure who you are.
Your work should be a part of, an expression of you, not all of you.