When I quit my job at Apple at 40, it didn’t seem brave or pioneering. It felt terrifying. For years, I’d constructed an identity of being part of one of the most beloved companies on earth. My job was the crutch I leant on when the conversation grew dry, when I felt insecure or just wanted to prove that actually I had my life together. So when I left, it wasn’t just walking away from a job — it was separating from the identity of myself that I had carried around for a dozen years.
It hit me in the silence that followed for a while. No team meetings. No packed schedule. No badge to swipe, no products to obsess over. My days had this eerie sense of emptiness to them, as though someone had wiped the plan for my life off the map and I was standing in empty space. I didn’t know how much I depended on work to feel grounded until it was gone.
The biggest challenge wasn’t finding another career path — it was deciding who I was without the title. I didn’t realize I’d ever had an identity wrapped up in work, but as soon as I walked out the door it was like, “Oh god how much of my self-worth was based on being ‘the person who works at Apple.’” I was naked, vulnerable and oddly invisible. And when people asked what I did, I fumbled for an answer because I had no canned response left.
But the pain it caused thrust me into a certain kind of honesty that I had avoided for years. For the first time, I needed to grapple with what I reallywanted my life to look like — not what would be impressive or fit tidily into a professional bio. I saw how much I had been neglecting parts of myself that didn’t fit the pace or culture of tech. Creativity got pushed aside. Curiosity was replaced by deadlines. Even my friendships were about work more than I realized.
Beginning again at forty made me take my foot off the pedal. It made me tune in to things I’d been too preoccupied to listen for: my fatigue, my longing for liberation, my wish to create something on different terms. I realized that I wanted a life in which success was not the only indicator of value. I sought connection, rest, purpose, joy and ritual that did not demand the sacrifice of every ounce of time and energy.
Rebuilding wasn’t glamorous. It was uncomfortable and humbling. I added work that wasn’t in alignment with my prior title. I did something new and totally failed at it. I relearned how to reach out for help. But every small step brought me closer to a version of myself I had never really met — someone who did not have to have a brand name attached in order to feel important, someone who finally understood that identity was not supposed to be a job description.
THE WORST PART What I found the most surprising was how freeing it felt when the fear finally began to fall away. As soon as I stopped obsessing so much about not keeping up with my peers, I began to see what I’d been missing. I had time to breathe. Time to learn new skills. Been a long time since my sole focus wasn’t on something or someone working related. I’d found clarity in that space that I hadn’t as a freelancer juggling deadline after deadline back to back.
I eventually developed a new career, one built upon the things I truly cared about. The outside didn’t seem as shiny but it felt good. It felt mine. And in doing so, I found a potent form of self-worth that didn’t disappear when I closed my laptop.
Parting ways with Apple taught me something I couldn’t have learned by staying: that your value isn’t derived from the logo on your paycheck or the renown of your past. It comes from the entirety of who you are — your curiosity, resilience, story, passions, failures, and courage to begin again.
Walking away at forty didn’t kill me. It rebuilt me.
