Before you quit corporate, read this

Despite everything I went through, I still credit corporate for so much of what I built.

Last week I said, high performers are a dying breed in corporate because insecure bosses are growing in popularity and A LOT of people said..well damn, I think you are right. So let me be clear — I didn't make this up. The research has been saying it for years. We just haven't been talking about it loud enough.

The research backs it up:

• Harvard found most executives admitted to sabotaging high-performing employees — because they saw them as a threat to their position

• A 2025 study found 80% of workers called their workplace toxic — up from 67% just a year before

• MIT Sloan confirmed toxic culture is 10x more powerful than pay in predicting who walks out the door

• LinkedIn found 7 in 10 workers would quit over a bad manager

• The #1 reason people actually leave? Not money — toxic environment and bad leadership

• Gartner found top performers are the FIRST to leave when they feel undervalued — because they know they have options

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Mic Drop 🎤

Let me start things off by saying my DMs have been full lately. And it’s because people are exhausted, over it, and trying to figure out if what they’re feeling is valid or if they’re just being dramatic. (And no, you’re not being dramatic.)

Before you make any moves, I need you to hear me out. Because for a long time I was telling myself the wrong story about what corporate did to me, and I almost believed it.

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TL;DR 👀

• POV: Feeling alive after quitting corporate

• The reason high performers are a dying breed in corporate

• Don’t confuse what’s meant for you with easy

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Why you’ll never hear me say I hate corporate

So many people want to quit corporate. I get DMs about it daily.

And look — I get it. I really do.

As a high performer, I genuinely cared about the work. Doing a good job isn’t something I know how to turn off, and it’s just not really in my nature.

But caring about your work and being able to actually do your work are two very different things when the environment around you starts to deteriorate.

The bullying. The microaggressions. The politics. The exhausting math of figuring out how much of yourself you can bring to work today without it being used against you.

None of that is in the job description, but all of it became part of my job. At some point, I didn’t have the mental capacity to do both — navigate all of that AND show up and perform the way I knew I was capable of.

Someone left a comment on one of my posts recently:

“Our capacity changes when our body doesn’t feel safe at work anymore.”

Toward the end of my corporate run, I didn’t have the mental capacity to perform the way I knew I was capable of because I was using everything I had in me just to get through the day.

It was a very specific type of burnout from working hard while simultaneously fighting to exist in the space I was working in.

As a first-generation professional, I had no safety net. I had no family wealth to fall back on or a hidden cushion somewhere if things went sideways.

So when layoffs started happening regularly in my industry, the fear was not abstract for me. It was visceral. I was terrified to my core, and it just felt like another hurdle when I was already running on empty.

When you’re stripped down to just survival mode, you get very clear very fast on what actually matters and what you’ve been tolerating that you never should have.

So no, I didn’t leave corporate because I stopped caring. I left because I cared too much to keep pretending that what was happening around me was normal.

Here’s the thing I will never forget — and that I encourage you to keep in mind in your own journey — corporate also funded my exit.

While I was navigating everything, I was still getting a paycheck. And that paycheck bought me time to figure out what I actually wanted, take opportunities I otherwise couldn’t have afforded to say yes to, and start building something without the pressure of desperation breathing down my neck.

Again, as a first-gen, that runway wasn’t something I could have created on my own. Corporate created it for me, even when it was the thing draining me the most.

The personal brand you see now? Corporate paid for it. The version of me that was ready to leave when I finally did? Corporate built her.

That’s why you will never hear me say that I hate corporate. Yes, it was hard. I mean, it was even awful sometimes. And somehow, it still gave me everything I needed to get here.

If you’re struggling in corporate right now, I need you to hear this: The fact that you care this much is not your weakness. It is actually the thing that is going to matter most when you get to the other side — whatever that might look like for you.

You are steadily building toward something, even on the days it doesn’t feel like it. Stay strategic. Take the paycheck. Hone in on your skills. Embrace every opportunity they give you — and then some.

When you have wrung every last thing out of those corporate opportunities, leave on your own terms with everything you came for.

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Corporate is not the enemy

It never was.

For a lot of us, it was the only vehicle we had to get where we are today.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s easy to get out. It wasn’t. It took years of trying, failing, and trying some more. But the version of me that built my personal brand was forged in the corporate world. And I’ll never forget that.

I know you have what it takes to walk a similar path, if that’s what you see for your future.

That’s it for now! Tune in on June 15th for another That’s a Monday Me Problem.