I still remember the sound of the elevator doors closing behind me. I stood in the lobby of the building that had once represented everything I thought I wanted—a prestigious title, an impressive office, and the kind of job that made people lean in when they asked, “So, what do you do?” Just weeks earlier,

I still remember the first time I was handed an agenda with my name missing from it. The meeting was about a project I had spent six months building from scratch — a market expansion strategy that would take our company into three new geographies. I’d run the numbers, written the briefs, and briefed every