Three years later: personal updates, recovering from achiever syndrome, finding meaning beyond career
Hi friends, I’m back with an update after three years without posting. Perhaps you’ve forgotten who I am or why you subscribed to this newsletter in the first place—totally understandable!
Here’s a refresher: I started this Substack in 2021 after leaving a decade-long career in tech and product management and becoming a executive coach. I called it “The Reset” because that’s what my career change felt like: examining the rules I had written for my life, questioning and rewriting them, trying to design a life of greater meaning beyond hyper achievement. You, along with about 500 lovely readers, subscribed back then, perhaps because you identify as a high achiever or maybe because during the stillness of the pandemic, you started wondering some of the same things I did. Questions like: Do I really like my job? Why am I accomplished on paper but feel unfulfilled? Is there more to life and identity than my career?
Whatever your reason was, I appreciate you being a part of my journey. I’m now embarking on a slough of holiday travel and thought it was an apt time to share how things are going.
What I’ve been up to: house building, wedding planning, dance training, coaching, moving back to SF, and more
Let’s rewind, and I’ll give you the abbreviated timeline.
In 2021, I quit my corporate job as Head of Product Growth at Oscar Health. I became an executive coach and was in major business-building mode. I’m proud of the risks I took in finding clients, putting myself out there, and experimenting with my coaching practice.
At the time, I was also building a house in the boonies with my partner Ben. Long story short, we made a mid-pandemic decision to buy a plot of land in a rural town and design/build our dream home. Drama ensued, mainly because permitting and construction took longer than anticipated. We spent 2021 hopping between Airbnb’s, stays with family, and short-term rentals as we waited for our home to be move-in ready.
We moved into the house in March 2022 and started making it our own. That meant a flurry of home projects: acquiring furniture while supply chains were recovering, designing our home offices, landscaping, home automation, defeating the spongy moths that were silently killing our oak trees, figuring out the logistics of trash pickup (context: our driveway was half a mile long, and the garbage trucks wouldn’t drive all the way up).
We also started renting a tiny studio apartment in Manhattan. Mindy during the pandemic thought: “All I need is a beautiful house in the boonies, away from civilization!” Post-pandemic Mindy realized: “Wait, I need friends. And restaurants. And things to do.”
In 2022, I built my confidence as a coach. I had an over-subscribed slate of clients, all of whom I loved working with. The business was clicking; I had found product-market fit, so to speak. And I loved witnessing my clients’ growth.
In 2023, tech hit a downturn. VC funding was harder to come by. Some of my clients no longer had the budget to work together. Others started paying out of pocket. And others shut down their companies and went back into the corporate world, or decided to take a break.
I was living the “city mouse, country mouse” lifestyle, traveling via Metro North between our house in the Berkshires and our Manhattan studio. As my client load lightened, I started investing more time in my non-career interests, like dance. I had dabbled a few years ago in social swing dance, but 2023 was the first time when I put serious effort into training. I took class consistently. I challenged myself with styles that were outside of my comfort zone. I started recording my dance progress for the first time (thank you, Ben, for getting me the 1TB iPhone for my birthday). I built my dance community in New York. I got very intentional about how I learned.
In October 2023, Ben decided to join OpenAI. He was worried about uprooting our lives by moving back to the Bay Area. But there comes a time when our partner has a big purpose, and we have to honor that. And so, we acquired a THIRD home in San Francisco, which has become our momentary home base.
2024 was a bi-coastal year. I traveled between SF and NYC countless times—to train in dance, and to plan our October wedding. This year, I finally felt like I could call myself a dancer. I started learning more styles—ballet, modern, contemporary— in addition to heels (my primary style, danced in stiletto heels, that draws influences from commercial dance and vogue). There are few things more humbling and requiring of patience than learning dance for the first time in one’s thirties, especially as a high achiever who likes being good at things. More on this in future posts.
I also grappled with being back in SF, a city that defined my 20s but now feels incredibly foreign. Not going to lie: I feel lonely and restless and bored when I’m there, and these feelings are only compounded by my frequent visits to New York where I feel a rush of aliveness and activity.
Ben and I got married in October. The wedding week was hectic AF, but I can’t imagine a more meaningful wedding day. Honestly, the whole event was just so authentically us— 55 people, at the Berkshires house we built together, with a very sentimental ceremony and multiple choreographed dance numbers. We wrote individual letters to each guest: 60,000 words total. We created a hybrid speakeasy/museum in our guest house with artifacts from our childhoods all the way to our engagement as a couple. I was showered with love and attention, in an absolutely beautiful way that also made me a bit shy and sheepish. It was special to host everyone at our home (even though we barely spent any non-wedding-related time there this year), and our architects even attended.
Softening my relationship with achievement
This Substack is titled “The Reset: A high achiever’s guide to a meaningful life.” So you might be asking: did I do it? Did I get that meaning I was after and begin living a post-achievement life?
My answer is yes.
I cringe a little because “yes” feels static and absolute, like “hey world, I’ve been cured of my high achiever tendencies!” And that’s not the case. Day-to-day, I still sometimes get pangs of “but shouldn’t I be achieving more?!” I sometimes compare myself to others. I sometimes get impatient with myself. I sometimes don’t feel at peace with where I am in life.
But it’s also an honest answer because the achievement noise has drastically diminished. I rarely think about what I want to achieve or what others are achieving. I barely talk about my career. My headspace is instead occupied by creating beautiful moments with loved ones, appreciating art and design, progressing in my craft, learning new things, connecting with new people, supporting others in their learning and growth.
What softened my relationship with achievement? I’ll be honest: it’s a lot of privilege and luck. First, I am financially secure enough to have what I want in life, which removes a big motivation for the continued grind. Second, I fell in love with someone who makes me feel unconditionally worthy. I sometimes ask my partner if he is attracted to me in part due to my accolades— going to a prestigious school, being a leader at great companies. If he is proud that he has a partner who did those things because it reflects well on us as a partnership— a power couple, if you will. He shakes his head; our partnership has never been about those things. I press him skeptically: What do I contribute then, if not achievement? What do I bring to our relationship, to the world?? Love, wisdom, and joy, he says.
I’d be discrediting myself if I didn’t also acknowledge the courage it takes to let go of compulsive achievement. Unless one is an enlightened monk, humans need a semblance of identity. “I am X, my value is Y, people like me because of Z.” For me, achievement was that identity. “I am smart and a good leader, my value is my competence, people like me because I work at interesting companies and have intelligent things to say.”
Identity can change. All it takes is the courage to dive into some uncertainty and experimentation. A few things that helped me make the shift:
Learning a craft (dance) primarily for the joy of learning
Building and designing a nourishing home
Spending time with people who have their own passions
Exploring cultures that aren’t as ambition-oriented as American culture
Leaving tech communities and joining ones that aren’t career oriented
My dogs– they don’t dwell on the past or worry about the future. They’re present to each moment and just appreciate the cuddles. They love without ego. They are perfect.
What’s next in 2025
A few things I’m looking forward to in the new year:
Growing as a dancer— I want to train more intensively in ballet and Graham technique. Martha Graham is an icon and influenced a lot of contemporary dance styles. Plus, I love that she was such a mighty woman at the height of 4’11”. I’ll continue training in commercial heels, while being more selective about which teachers I work with.
Building strength — I’m going to start weight lifting! Despite being physically active through dance and pilates, I have never done a proper gym session. I find most gym environments stuffy and uncomfortable: the smells, the grunting, the dark interiors. But I think I’ve found a personal trainer who changes the vibe, and I’m excited for the challenge.
French immersion— In 2022, I went to Vieilles Charrues, a French music festival in Brittany. I realized I had forgotten all my French from high school and have picked up learning it again. Next year, I want to spend a month doing a language intensive in Paris. Paris isn’t the best place for true immersion because everyone I’ve encountered there speaks English. But I have a secondary goal of training with some French dance teachers, so Paris it is. I’ll consider it a win if Parisians no longer revert to English when I try to speak French!
I’m figuring out if I should continue writing this newsletter, perhaps with a more personal bent.
Reply to this email and let me know how you’re doing! What’s happened for you over the past couple of years? What questions are you asking yourself going into 2025? What, if anything, would you be interested in reading about on this Substack?