One Year Later. I'm Finally Emerging.
- Hetal Joshi Gordon
- 7 minutes ago
- 3 min read
A year ago this month I went from being the breadwinner to putting actual bread on the table.
What followed was a reckoning with who I’d been, what I actually valued, and who I was without all of it.
From filling out immigration forms that ask for your profession to meeting your daughter’s freshman year friends — the question hit me in the most ordinary moments. How do I introduce myself? Who am I if I’m not a Googler, a TTDer, a Director, an SVP? I didn’t have a clean answer. As awkward as it felt, I was more grounded in it than I expected.
What had served me for so many years was no longer serving me. I didn’t care about the prestige of the company I worked for or the title before my name. What I cared about most was peace. My incredible coach of 4+ years, Rachel Parikh, had been naming this for a while — that I was on a several-year journey back to myself. Leaving corporate was going to be the last step.
The first 6 months are almost impossible to describe. I started baking sourdough, which can be a full time job! I spent more time with my parents, I slept, I walked, and I processed. I showed up for my three children in ways I never had been able to before. Eventually I started reconnecting with friends who I just didn’t have time to see during the 10 years of global travel and intensity.
Then January came.
I enrolled in a coaching program through Cultivating Leadership called Coaching Leaders in a Complex World — and something shifted. The energy I had been slowly getting back? It started flowing again. Genuinely. For the first time in a long time I was learning something that fueled me — not a company's agenda, not a quarterly goal. Me.
And slowly, I started emerging.
You know what emerging is. It's what happens when a butterfly finally breaks free from its cocoon. The caterpillar doesn't just grow wings — it completely dissolves first. It lets go of everything it was, so it can become something it couldn't even imagine. It's uncomfortable. It’s hard. It's invisible to everyone watching. And it's absolutely necessary.
That’s this year for me. Each month of my coaching program has helped me slowly shape my executive coaching practice. Each month, something new. Each month, a little more me.
Here's what I've learned about myself in the process thus far:
I no longer care about status. For so long I craved the "Director" or "SVP" title. Maybe it's a been-there-done-that moment. Or maybe it's the realization that titles which once served me well had become heavy weights — and every day felt like walking uphill in them.
Progress over perfection is critical for my wellbeing. When I started at TTD, I would often tell my friends, “I’m a recovering perfectionist.” It took leaving to see that I was never in recovery. Perfectionism had followed me into every role, every meeting, every decision — disguised as high standards. It’s made me a better parent, friend, and partner. I won’t pretend it’s gone. But for the first time, I have enough space to see it coming.
Real coaching requires honesty. And honesty, inside a company, always has a ceiling. Mine doesn’t anymore.
I feel lighter. I spent decades wearing layers that I didn’t realize weren't really mine. Executive. Breadwinner. Company spokesperson. One by one, I've been shedding them. What's left is just me.
The caterpillar doesn't mourn who she was. She trusts what she's becoming.
One year out. Still in the cocoon. But the wings? They're coming. 🩵
