From Facebook to Executive Coach
from the founder of careercoaching.ie
“So what are you doing now?”
It’s the question everyone asks at parties, networking events, random encounters at the weekend. And for the first few months after leaving Meta, I didn’t have a clean answer. I was becoming a coach. But I was also unraveling an identity I’d built to date.
For nearly 12 years at Facebook (now Meta), I led high-performing Sales and Product Marketing teams across EMEA. I worked with global brands like Burberry, Nike, Rolex, Estée Lauder, helping them transform their digital presence across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. I led multi-million-dollar growth strategies. I built teams. I had the job title, the impact, the career trajectory that looked perfect on paper.
I was exhausted.
I was anxious.
I had lost the sense of purpose as the company grew exponentially. My best days were the ones where I helped others succeed in their goals. That gave me more satisfaction than any personal goals.
I remember saying “all the things I want more of are free - time with my family, time for fitness, space to gather myself and reassess”. I was also very aware of how privileged I was to be able to ‘step out’ at this point in my career.
When I announced I was leaving people said I was brave. It didn’t feel brave but it did feel right. I had an amazing experience working with fantastic people and it was time to move on. I felt the company was getting more from me than I was getting from it and the next chapter couldn’t begin until I closed the current one. But that didn’t mean I didn’t second guess myself between making the decision to leave and actually leaving,
What people didn’t see were the months before I left—the growing feeling that something wasn’t right. The Sunday evening dread that crept in earlier and earlier. The realization that the work that once energized me was now just... work.
Even after I made the decision to leave, the messy middle didn’t end—it intensified.
Some days I felt clear and confident. “This is exactly what I’m meant to do.” Other days, I questioned everything. “What if I’m making a huge mistake? What if I can’t do this? What if I’ve just thrown away a career I spent 12 years building?”
The doubt sounded like: “Who are you to call yourself a coach? You were good at sales and marketing—why would anyone want your coaching?” And the scarier one: “What if you become irrelevant? What if you can’t get back into corporate if this doesn’t work?”
Nobody tells you that leaving a job you’ve outgrown can feel like grief. I wasn’t just leaving a company—I was leaving an identity. The person who led teams. The person with the answer when people asked what I did. The person who knew exactly where they stood. But that job was what I did. Not who I was.
For years, I was the leader. The strategist. The person who drove results and built teams. My identity was tied to the work, the title, the companies I worked with, the deals I closed.
Becoming a coach meant stepping into a completely different role. Not the expert with all the answers. Not the person driving the strategy. Instead, the person creating space for others to find their own answers.
I had to let go of proving myself through external markers. No more quarterly results. No more big brand names to drop. Just me, my experience, and the belief that I could help people navigate their own transitions.
The hardest part was sitting with the uncertainty of building something from scratch. The vulnerability of putting myself out there. The patience required when growth is slow and non-linear. But what I discovered was that the skills I’d built during my corporate career—understanding people, seeing patterns, asking the right questions, creating clarity from complexity—they didn’t disappear. They just showed up differently.
What helped wasn’t having a perfect plan. It was giving myself permission to be in the mess without rushing through it.
I learned to sit with the uncertainty instead of treating it like a problem to solve immediately. I stopped comparing my behind-the-scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel. I started trusting that the path would become clear by walking it, not by mapping it out perfectly first.
The turning point hasn’t been a moment of clarity—it was accepting that there wouldn’t be one big moment. It has been a series of small choices to keep moving forward even when I can’t see the full path. What I wish I’d known earlier: The discomfort of transition isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong. It’s a sign you’re doing something real. Growth doesn’t happen in comfort zones—it happens in the messy middle.
The messy middle is valuable and necessary because it challenges us to really clarify what matters. If this is where you are I would love to hear from you. How are you using your messy middle to move forward?
Catherine