Why I quit my C-level job and corporate America for the 2nd time
There are many reasons why I recently left Corporate America for the second time, each of which I carefully named, contemplated, and weighed before making what felt like a huge decision. Reasons pulling me toward a deeper calling. Ultimately, all the reasons swirling around in my head converged into a singular quiet knowing, which went a lot deeper than just reasons alone: a soul-level promise I made to myself 20 years ago.
I left corporate for the first time in 2007. It wasn’t by choice.
I was 32, two years out of my MBA, and back in management consulting, working with Fortune 500 clients. This involved 70+ hour weeks and traveling 100%, arriving back “home” on Friday night — just long enough to do a load of laundry, drop off and pick up that week’s drycleaning, and repack. And then get back on a 6 a.m. flight Monday morning.
What felt like fun and glamorous work hopping all around the country in my twenties had become a relentless grind in my 30s. I was failing to find meaning in helping corporate behemoths grow even more. I was exploring other possible careers but nothing was clicking. If anything, it felt too scary to make a change. So I stayed put despite the weighty dread in my chest.
Then one week that summer, I left San Francisco as usual to run workshops for an East Coast client. But this time I flew back in a wheelchair.
You would think that would have been enough for me to take pause. But no. The overachiever, the people-pleaser, and the perfectionist in me couldn’t take pause. Pausing never entered my mind as an option. I kept pushing through the pain that made me unable to walk, still working 14+ hours a day from my kitchen table — this time “until I figured it out”, while planning my wedding all by myself.
I was in denial, convinced it was just an injury from wearing high heels, and completely oblivious to a decade’s worth of escalating clues — among them chronic bronchitis, worsening asthma and IBS, new allergies with hives to boot, and even a bout with the rare Legionnaire’s Disease.
Through all this, I looked “fine.” I gladly took the prescribed quick fixes, got up, and kept going. Often the only woman in the room at work, I not only kept up, I excelled. I overdelivered.
The pain, which had started in one foot, began spreading. Soon, I was tracking a growing list of symptoms as I continued seeking answers between work meetings. I finally secured a diagnosis, for which I was given a number of heavy-duty medications. While this diagnosis ultimately proved to be incorrect, at the time I was relieved to have a name for the problem along with a prescribed fix. Through it all, I kept working, got married, and kept pushing through.
Five months later: Since my mind — my trusty, smart, capable steed that had helped me excel and build a comfortable life and career as a first-generation immigrant in the land of promises — couldn’t do it, my body had to decide for me.
A trip to the ER forced me to face my new reality
It then took over a year and a draining litany of dozens of medical specialists and appointments just to arrive at the correct diagnoses: multiple autoimmune conditions, chronic fatigue syndrome, and more. Some “esteemed” specialists told me I was “stupid” and that it was “all in my head”. Others said the very words I needed in order to hold on to the next shred of hope. Almost all of them told me, “You can’t heal from this, so find a way to get used to it.”
I said, “Watch me.”
Rebuilding my body from the inside out took over seven years, through relentless chronic pain and debilitating fatigue that often made me want to give up. One of the main things that both kept me going and paved the road back to health was a newfound, magnetic draw toward food as medicine. I felt it more than I thought it. It made no sense on paper. I had already invested six figures into my MBA, was still paying off student loans, and was really good at my profession. But I was slowly learning how to follow the somatic breadcrumbs, even though I was second-guessing myself the whole way through.
And so I went for it. In the hours I could stay awake, I studied. Not just one program but two: health coaching and clinical holistic nutrition. I did it for myself at first. Never did I think I’d actually start, let alone run for a decade, my own nutrition and health coaching practice. Which is what ended up happening almost of its own accord. The more I healed, the more I was able to serve as wayshower for my clients with chronic health conditions, who thrived.
As that particular decade carried on in my 30s, a few things changed that led me to eventually wind down my practice and return to corporate: my marriage failed; my practice at the time was entangled with my own healing journey in a way that was no longer serving me; and I needed a fresh start.
Round 2 of corporate America — and quitting again to start my business, HealthCraft
I found myself making what felt like a natural transition into the natural products industry — clean-label, healthier foods, herbs, and supplements — which were already a big part of my everyday life.
So for the next decade, I worked with industry-shaping companies and teams, ultimately taking on C-level executive roles. For the most part, I loved it. I love building teams, creating order out of chaos, and creating momentum, and by golly I was in it. But then, starting about two years ago, my body started speaking to me again.
Like the Greek chorus, my multiple autoimmune conditions — while dormant and in remission for over 10 years now — seem to delight in conferring with one another and delivering a verdict when I am living my life in ways that are misaligned with my truth. It is their avowed job to call me out when I renege on my promise: to listen, heed, and come back to center.
Misalignment can look like many things, whether I am pushing too hard and not getting enough rest, saying yes when I really want to say no, being performative in order to please or appease, or ignoring that my current work is no longer ‘it’ for me. Often my head is late to the party, in denial and too busy being busy for far longer than the chorus has patience for.
That verdict is delivered through flares. My autoimmune flares can start as small as overly rosy cheeks (iykyk) or a whisper of a scratchy tickle in my upper right shoulder (yes, that specific), and can grow as large as inflammation and pain that starts yelling and puts me back in the ER (“All your insides look perfectly healthy. We can’t help you.”), which is what happened. It’s really just a matter of time if I fail to heed the whispers and course-correct.
So this time around, I’m heeding before my body has to take drastic measures. And that looks like two sides of the same coin: moving away from corporate and its many faces that began to outweigh the positives for me in this phase of life, and moving toward what’s been calling me back for some time now: restarting my nutrition and health coaching practice, to help reverse the tide of autoimmune at the intersection of perimenopause, which invites us to go even deeper with its added lessons and imperatives.
Because the world needs women, healthy and in our full power, more than ever.
You should hear the chorus now — they’re very happy and it’s quite the party!
Sign up for Simla Somturk’s newsletter, HealthCraft, to learn more about the intersection of perimenopause and autoimmune.
Simla Somturk is a member of the Founding MidstHer network of entrepreneurial women.
