ABOUT JENNY CALVERTI've Been Exactly Where You Are
I kept a resignation letter on my desktop for months.
I had everything I thought I wanted - the title, the salary, the respect. I was a 3x SaaS startup Customer Success leader with a career trajectory that looked impressive on LinkedIn. But the more I climbed, the more miserable I became.
I'd built my entire sense of worth around what I accomplished at work. I was addicted to the chase - the next win, the next validation, the next recognition, the next problem to fix.Every achievement gave me a temporary high that quickly faded, then I'd go chase that validation again, needing something bigger to feel worthy again.
The breaking point came during an all-hands meeting. They put up a slide - Atlas holding up the world, except it was my face on Atlas. Everyone was cheering about how I was "carrying the weight of the world." I even laughed and made a joke about getting a six-pack from carrying so much weight.
But that image broke something in me. I realized I'd made myself responsible for everything - every customer that churned, every product release that flopped, every team member's success or failure. I was exhausted from making myself responsible for outcomes I couldn't actually control, all in the quest to be seen and validated.
That resignation letter kept sitting there because leaving felt like losing my identity. But one morning in late August, I woke up in a full panic attack. My body was screaming that staying was destroying me. I decided to unsubscribe from the cycle- and, after months, finally hit send.
After resigning, I took time to understand what had really been happening. I discovered that your job title doesn't have to be your entire identity - and that you can actually perform better when you're grounded in who you really are. I had to break the validation loop by rediscovering who I was outside of work achievements.
Now I help other high-achieving women in tech make the same discovery - without having to blow up their careers to do it.