What Was the Final Straw That Made Me Leave Private Equity?

It has been a long and winding road.

My second full-time job out of college was at Shields Meneley Partners, now called Felix. It was a career coaching firm for high-level executives. I absolutely loved it there. I loved working directly for founders, I loved helping people in transition, and I loved the way career became a lens for how I saw the world. Career, work, purpose — it was all alive to me in a way I could not ignore.

Because I was in my twenties, I could not exactly become a coach to retirement age CEOs, so I went back to school for an MBA and an MPH. At the time I thought I would fix the U.S. healthcare system (haha). Then I went on Survivor and came out of that knowing I wanted to get back to working directly with CEOs. I became a Chief of Staff at a startup in Denver, served two CEOs in that role, and eventually worked my way up to Director of Operations and Head of Shared Services at a private equity fund.

While each step in the corporate world was sending me signals of misalignment, entering into PE was the point when things really turned. The industry was completely out of alignment with who I was. The culture was horrific. I pushed myself physically, mentally, and spiritually beyond what was sustainable.

And then came the final straw.

I was closing an acquisition over Zoom while on vacation. I had severe COVID. I was literally on the bathroom floor, muting myself to vomit, then unmuting to continue the meeting. That was the moment. The line I could not cross again. I realized, with total clarity, that I was out.

I left corporate in June 2022 (forced out by a male partner who didn’t like my request to not use the word “pussy” towards my direct reports) and I have not looked back. 

What is important to know is that while I was on that corporate journey, I always had a side path. A so-called side hustle where I coached people through career transitions. I used the frameworks I had learned at Shields Meneley and helped people make huge moves. I loved it, even though I was not sure if I could make a business myself. And to be honest, I was making good money in my corporate job, so the leap felt impossible.

But here is what I had that mattered. While working in those roles, I trained as an Integrator in the Traction Entrepreneurial Operating System. I learned how to help CEOs dream, plan, strategize, and build businesses that actually functioned. After leaving private equity, I chose to do Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach Training. Martha’s work is about following your integrity, your desires, and creating the ecosystem where your deepest yearnings meet the world’s needs. That is the place where a business is born.

Looking back, it all makes sense. My favorite clients were never the ones who wanted to get a slightly better job. They were the ones who wanted to leave altogether. The ones who wanted to do their own thing.

That is the path that led me to create The Out Beyond.

The name comes from Rumi’s words: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” That field has always resonated with me. It is the spaciousness, the permission, and the possibility I want my clients to feel when they work with me. The Out Beyond is stepping outside of the rigid binaries. Not good or bad, not productive or lazy, not successful or failed. It is about the deeper, wiser place where strategy and soul work together.

For me, the final straw was a bathroom floor in the middle of COVID. For you, it might be something else entirely. What I know is this: the moment you realize you are done proving yourself in someone else’s system is the same moment you open the door to building your own.

Out Beyond is that threshold. It is the place where you stop forcing yourself into structures that were never made for you and start creating a business that feels like home.

Disclaimer: The stories shared here reflect my personal experiences and perspectives. Details have been generalized to protect the privacy of individuals and organizations. Any resemblance to specific people or companies is coincidental.