I didn’t grow up with a playbook for success. My path has looked more like a winding road than a straight highway, filled with trauma, career detours, and pivots that shaped who I am today. I wrote this piece in the hopes it will encourage those whose careers or lives look nothing like a straight line.

By 21, I was valedictorian of my food chemistry cohort and was excited to continue in my master’s program. I also got married, way too young and to the wrong person. My planned future was abruptly cut short when I experienced an unimaginable loss: my mother, mother-in-law, and two aunts and an uncle were killed in a car accident.

By 22, I was grieving, selling parents’ homes, trying to stay engaged in my master’s program, and managing a failing marriage. I couldn’t do it all. I ended up getting a divorce and leaving my program. I needed rent money, so I figured out how to get into runway modeling. It was completely different and not my long-term plan, but it gave me breathing room as I tried to figure out what was next.

I started an MBA program, thinking it would be my new path. I’m forever grateful to a psychology-in-business professor who saw something in me and said I’d make a great therapist. That conversation led me to shift into a master’s program in psychological counseling. I became a psychotherapist working with female abuse survivors with dissociative identity disorder.

After a few years, I burned out. The job didn’t fit me. Given my own trauma, I was naturally drawn to help people who were willing to do the hard work of healing, but I struggled with those who weren’t. Not sure what to do next, I made a big move to Boston and became a senior high-tech recruiter. It was the dot-com era, and it gave me an understanding of how businesses and leaders scaled and failed. When the dot-com bubble burst, I realized I didn’t like recruiting. I liked when clients asked, “Why do we have all these brilliant engineers and they can’t meet a deadline?” Ah-ha, that’s usually a leadership or culture issue, not a recruiting mistake. I decided then to marry my fragmented chapters with my love for psychology and founded my executive coaching business in 2002.

That may sound circuitous, but it taught me that resilience is often born from pain. My disjointed history turned into the perfect background for the coaching I do today. My upbringing gave me scrappiness and determination. Trauma gave me empathy. Science gave me a love for scientists. Psychology gave me the knowledge and tools to help others navigate their paths.

So, if your CV feels like a zig‑zag, not a straight line, celebrate it!

Life isn’t neat. Unemployment, uncertainty, and pivots can feel like failure, but they’re often the groundwork of future impact.

Here’s what I’ve seen:

• Unexpected experiences build empathy and creativity. Loss pulls us out of autopilot. It forces a reset and allows you to write your next chapter.
• Nonlinear career paths create adaptability. You learn to roll with the punches. You recognize that the plans you make will probably change, so adaptability becomes a skill and strategy.
• Resilience at work is contagious. It’s especially valuable in startups. Resilient leaders create resilient teams.

For anyone struggling right now:

• Your story is not a detour, it’s your edge. Learn from past chapters and explore how they may help with your next one.
• Growth isn’t always linear or scheduled. Sometimes tough breaks plant the seeds of purpose.
• Take one small step. I did a lot of therapy to heal. It was essential. For your career, consider coaching, mentoring, and sharing your story and struggles with others. You’ll find it sparks momentum.

Remember this -> Your worth isn’t on a straight line.