I need to tell you something I have never written down quite this plainly before.

For twenty-five years, I served with a large faith-based nonprofit organization, and for the last 6 years as their international Vice President, serving over 250 adult staff in more than 40 countries. My calendar, my relationships, my sense of purpose, my very identity — all of it was woven into that role and that community.

Then the new president called me in and told me the organization was moving in a different direction. He gave me two weeks' notice. So I resigned.

The Going-Away Party I Didn't Want

He was gracious about it. He offered severance. He arranged outplacement coaching. And he threw me a going-away party — my direct reports gathered around me, saying kind and generous things about my years of service.

I stood there and smiled. And I was devastated.

I want to be clear: I don't tell this story to contest again what happened or to cast blame. The decision made sense from where he sat. But understanding something and surviving it are two very different things. And what followed those two weeks was one of the hardest seasons of my life.

I had spent twenty-five years building relationships, influence, and opportunity inside one large international network. When I stepped out, most of those relationships didn't transfer. The opportunities dried up.

I transitioned into consulting work. I kept busy. I told myself I was fine.

But for several years, I struggled with a question I couldn't quite articulate: Who am I now?

Not "what do I do?" — I had work. The question was deeper than that. I had spent so long being someone in a particular community, with a particular title, in a particular kind of work, that I had confused the platform with the person. When the platform disappeared, I didn't know what was left.

I had lost my tribe. And I didn't know how to find a new one.

The Turning Point

The shift came gradually, then all at once.

A close friend — a leader I trusted — invited me into a director-level role in a smaller, caring organization. It wasn't the scale I had been used to. But it was real, and it was mine, and the people around me were genuinely invested in my service.

In that role, I began coaching others who were navigating their own liminal spaces — people in career transitions, people who had lost their footing, people trying to figure out what came next. I received training as a coach, and I began using that training in earnest.

Something unexpected happened as I coached others through their transitions: I began to find my own.

Helping other leaders name their core values, separate their identity from their role, and discern what they were actually built for — that work clarified the same questions for me. I wasn't just coaching them. I was, in a very real sense, doing the work alongside them.

What Congruence Actually Looks Like

I am now in another senior director role where I supervise staff, lead projects aligned with my deepest passions, and am genuinely supported and encouraged by the leaders around me. It is not the role I had before. It is better — because it is built on something more solid.

I know who I am now in a way I didn't before the crisis. My identity is no longer borrowed from a title or a network. It is grounded in my core values, my faith, my hard-won wisdom, and the particular way I am wired to contribute to the world.

That is what I mean by vocational congruence. Not a perfect job. Not a prestigious platform. Just a life where who you are and what you do are genuinely aligned and being activated daily.

Why I Built the Congruent Leader Coaching Circle

I built this coaching practice — and specifically this peer cohort — because I know what it costs to navigate a major vocational transition alone.

I know the shame and disappointment of an unexpected departure from a role. I know the disorientation of losing your tribe. I know the years it can take to find your footing when the ground shifts beneath you. And I know how much faster and cleaner that process can be with the right people around you — people who understand what you are carrying, who will ask you the hard questions, and who will hold you accountable to the clarity you are discovering about yourself.

The Congruent Leader Coaching Circle is a 12-week peer cohort for senior executives, ministry leaders, and business owners who are navigating a major vocational transition. It is the community I wish I had when I needed it most.

The next cohort begins Thursday, November 12, 2026. Registration closes October 30.

If any part of my story resonates with you, I would love to connect. Book a complimentary 30-minute discovery call and let's talk about where you are and what your next chapter could look like.

You don't have to figure this out alone.