My name is Hana Kim, and this is Building Act 3. If you’ve been following me on LinkedIn, you know my story. On December 1, I dropped off my work computer and bid corporate life farewell. After 17 years in marketing, I left my VP role to start a consulting business.
One good thing about my former employer is that they offer a pension. If I had delayed my departure by a few months, it would have vested. If I had waited a few weeks longer, I would have received my yearly bonus.
I chose to walk away from a bonus and a pension.
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One reason I left when I did: logistics. On January 1, my employer would enforce a more rigid hybrid policy that wouldn't work with my caregiving responsibilities. The flexibility I had enjoyed in the past 5 years would soon go away.
The other, more important reason was misalignment. We hear about values misalignment often and for me, that came down to one thing: I did not want to waste my time doing work that no longer felt meaningful.
I looked ahead a few months to see what my department's priorities would be. The projects were fine. My team would execute them well. But I knew I would be going through the motions. The C-suite had a vision for where we were headed, and I just couldn’t see myself in it. What excited them wasn’t what I wanted to spend my energy on.
Before I gave notice, I did the math and calculated what I would be giving up by leaving before the end of 2025. The pension alone would be significant assuming I lived long enough to receive it for an extended period of time.
I also thought about what it would mean to hold onto a role that was no longer fulfilling. To show up and pretend to be excited about initiatives that left me cold.
I laid out the numbers in front of my husband to get a second opinion about my exit. He didn’t care about any of that. He said, "I don't want you to be sad and stressed all the time anymore. I support whatever you decide."
I picked December 1 as my last day so that my health insurance would last through the end of the year. If I had waited a few weeks longer, I would have received my bonus. But it was time to be honest with myself and leave a situation that no longer served me.
One lesson: Your "why" doesn't have to make sense to anyone else but you.
I've never told anyone about the pension until now. Maybe I was afraid of judgment from my friends and family.
I had to remind myself that no one else is living your life. They don't wake up in your body on Sunday nights. They don't sit in your meetings. They can run the numbers, but they can't quantify what staying costs you.
The decision that looks reckless to someone else might be the most rational thing you've ever done. You're the only one who knows what you're actually moving towards. For me, that meant building a sustainable career where I could control my schedule.
And I'm documenting what comes next.
Every two weeks, one lesson from building this business.
Next issue: I created the kind of polished audit that always worked in corporate. What worked instead.