What Happens When Success Becomes Too Important?

Cheryl Hunter had built the kind of career most people would call successful. She spent 17 years with McDonald’s Corporation, eventually becoming a Director of Operations. Then she spent another 16 years as an owner-operator, building strong restaurants and leading a large team.

Then she was passed over for another restaurant she fully expected to receive. Her numbers were good. Her experience was there. Everything seemed to say she had earned the opportunity. When she didn’t get it, Cheryl was frustrated. But over the next several months, she began asking a harder question.

Why did losing this opportunity bother me so much?

That question eventually exposed something she had not fully realized. Her career had become more than something she did. It had become part of how she saw herself. That is what makes Cheryl’s story so interesting. She was not failing. She was doing well. She cared about her people, tried to lead with her faith, and was running successful businesses.

The problem was not that her career was bad. The problem was that something good had become too important. Eventually, Cheryl made the decision to sell her restaurants.

What came next was uncomfortable. One day, she had a to-do list with 83 things on it. The next day, after selling the business, there was almost nothing on the list. When you spend decades being needed, making decisions, and solving problems, an empty calendar can force you to figure out who you are without the job.

Cheryl does not like to call what followed “retirement.”

She calls it redeployment.

Instead of trying to recreate the career she had just left, she began asking how everything she had learned could be invested into other people.

Today, she coaches entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders and uses decades of business experience to help other people grow. One story near the end of our conversation captures the change perfectly. A woman Cheryl had been coaching told her that her business had finally become profitable and she was preparing to hire her first employee.

Cheryl once led around 180 employees.

But she said she was just as excited about this woman hiring employee number one as she had been about leading 180 herself. That may be the difference between success and significance. There is a season when you are trying to build something. There may also come a season when the better question becomes:

Who can I help build something?

Cheryl’s story is a reminder that walking away from a title does not mean your useful years are over. Sometimes the experience you spent decades gaining becomes most valuable when you start giving it away.