This is episode 50 of Burn the Map. With the leaves turning color and the clocks changing (why must the clocks keep changing?), it feels like a good time for a small adjustment. We covered a lot of ground since this show launched in July of 2025, so today I’ll look back at the big themes of the first 49 episodes, and give you a preview of where we’ll go from here.
Four major themes came out of the last 15 months of shows.
Your Job Was More Than a Paycheck
It’s confusing and weird to finally leave a job you hated, then spend the next 3 months in deep grief over the loss. You couldn’t wait to get out of there, and then once you did, you realized what else it was giving you: a daily structure, people who understood you, and a sense of purpose. Because you were wired for that rhythm, after you go it can take a while for the “I’m late for a meeting” adrenaline rush to subside. You might try to head off the loss, loading up your days with volunteering and coffee with friends, but it doesn’t stretch your brain like your job did. Replacing everything your job gave you takes time and ingenuity, especially if you want to put less pressure on the next venture to fulfill your every need.
Your Work Personality Served a Purpose
To survive the corporate world, you adapted your personality in a bunch of small ways. You smiled in meetings and laced your emails with exclamation points. Or you directed your piercing gaze at coworkers, demanding they prove their opinions with data. Even as these traits paid your bills and got you promoted, a few of them followed you home. Some people don’t like the person they became in response to their work environment. And at the same time they can’t remember who they are below the mask. The exercise after you leave is to figure out who you always were and to rediscover what you like. That personality you developed for one company culture will probably not fly where you end up next. It takes way less work to show up as yourself.
The Layoffs Are By Design
Microsoft just announced that they are offering another 60,000 people the chance to please go away. Some of those folks are now understanding that their loyalty only ever flowed one way: from employee to employer. For years, midlife professionals hunkered down, trapped by their stock vesting schedules and mortgage payments, hoping their high performance levels would keep them safe. That worked until corporations decided to show their hand, which is and has always been to maximize profit. They can take big strides in that direction by cutting expensive people and offshoring more work. The resentment and bitterness you feel after you get the boot is totally normal, even if you were ready to go. Part of the sadness is seeing more clearly how the system works and realizing that it never cared about you, not really. It can make you question your value and the lost time. Once you get your footing, you’ll see that there’s life outside of the system, and it’s yours to design.
Figuring Out Who You Are After Corporate
What am I like when I’m operating at my best? I’ve sent dozens of clients to go find out by asking their close friends and colleagues to answer that question. What comes back? Personality t raits, sure, but also stories that capture the magic of the person. How they show up for other people, where they exercise their brilliance. Everything that people love about you still exists, even if you’re burned out and demoralized. Hearing feedback from friends or writing down some words is easy. Believing it is another matter. But once you start to believe that your loved ones aren’t lying to you, that they are perceptive and have good taste, other possibilities open up to you. You let yourself follow threads, from weird crafts to tiny conferences to new sports. It might not make sense right now, but every experience is useful data.
I’ll add some relevant episode links to each theme in the show notes if you want to dive in.
Up Next: Paths To Joy
My LinkedIn feed is filled with doomsayers, and I’ve been one of them. Companies are telling employees to train AI so it can replace them. People apply for hundreds of jobs with no replies. It’s bleak out there for a lot of people.
A couple of years ago on his Late Night show, Stephen Colbert interviewed musician Nick Cave. They talked about Cave’s project The Red Hand Files, where people write in with every type of question under the sun. The one he shared on Colbert’s show stayed with me, and I keep a quote from it on my desk. Nick was talking about hope in the face of despair, and he said that hope “is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.” That hope makes demands of us, and that we can keep it alive in small ways that help us remember that each person has value.
Much of my coaching work is about identity. Who do you want to return to or become in the next phase of your life? What would you try if you weren’t afraid? These questions can feel deeply challenging to someone stuck in burnout or grieving the end of their career. It’s like they’re trying to focus on a tiny pinprick of light from the bottom of a well.
I could spend the next 50 episodes of this podcast talking about the slog of getting out of the well, but that would bum me out so much that I’d lose interest and stop altogether. So I’m not going to do that.
Instead, I’m going to start tackling some broader themes. Many of you are getting ejected from the corporate world, or you see clearly that the emperor has no clothes. It’s too easy to stay angry and bitter, so let’s claw our way back to hope.
I’ll bring in what I’m hearing about where people are finding connection and a sense of awe. I’ll probably talk about my own projects since I vowed to myself that I would follow my energy and take it seriously. And I’ll look at ways to use our basic motivations to get moving.
In the constant search for our own value as humans, we’ll need to get a little messy and weird. Taking off the corporate mask can feel exposing, but when you see that no one is actually looking at you, you’re free to try whatever you want.
I’ll let you know about what I’m trying. Maybe you can let me know what’s working for you as well. So for the next ten episodes, we’ll look at different Paths to Joy. And here’s a head start: what is bringing you joy right now, and could you do 1% more of it in the next two weeks?
Previous episodes related to today’s themes:
Your Job Was More Than a Paycheck:
- What GenX Professionals Should Build Before Leaving Corporate
- Staying on the Emotional Payroll
- Aren’t You Supposed to Be Resting?
Your Work Personality Served a Purpose
The Layoffs Are by Design
Figuring Out Who You Are After Corporate
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