A Layoff Opened This Door. Here's What I Found.

One year ago, I was laid off from Microsoft after 16+ years. And honestly? I wasn't devastated.

That surprised some people. It surprised me a little too. But as I sat with it, I started to understand why. I think the answer might be useful if you're navigating a transition of your own.

The conversation I kept having

Every career discussion I had at Microsoft ended the same way. My manager would ask where I wanted to go, and I'd say some version of the same thing: Someday, I want to take everything I've learned here and put it toward the things I care most about. Animal rescue. Wilderness preservation. Climate justice. Fighting racism and homophobia. Every manager heard that version of me. And not one of them laughed.

What I didn't fully realize at the time was that I was making a quiet commitment — to myself, and to the people who invested in my growth. The layoff just moved up the timeline.

Why the "how" matters less than you think

Here's the thing about intentional transitions: they rarely look the way you planned. I didn't engineer a graceful exit. I was laid off in a round that affected thousands of people. And yet, within a couple of months, I found myself thinking: this is the door I'd been eyeing for years. Do I walk through it?

The answer was yes. Scary? Absolutely. But when you've been rehearsing a decision for years, you recognize it when it arrives — even if it arrives in an unexpected form.

There's a lesson in that for anyone navigating a career crossroads, a leadership change, or an organizational pivot: clarity about your values doesn't require a perfect moment. It just requires that you've done the thinking in advance.

What I've learned in year one

Starting Better World Strategy has been equal parts exciting and humbling. I've learned more about LLC formation, tax structures, and marketing than I ever expected to. I'm already working with two organizations I genuinely believe in (one a small business, another a nonprofit) and the work feels exactly like what I hoped it would.

But the most important thing I've learned isn't operational. It's this: the skills that serve mission-driven teams — strategy, planning, culture, alignment — are the same skills I spent 16 years developing inside one of the world's most complex organizations. The difference is just who benefits from them now.

That's what Better World Strategy is built on: the idea that nonprofits and mission-driven businesses deserve access to the same proven practices that help large organizations thrive. Not watered down. Not simplified. The real thing, applied with care.

The importance of mentors

None of that clarity came from nowhere. I was lucky to have mentors throughout my career who pushed me to think beyond my current role, to ask not just what I am doing but why does it matter. Research consistently shows that mentorship is one of the most powerful factors in long-term career development — not just for skills, but for the confidence and clarity to navigate transitions. That kind of guidance accumulates quietly over the years. When a big moment arrives, you're more ready than you realize.

More on this later, but for now, I highly recommend having multiple mentors, each with different skillsets, throughout your career. They are invaluable in countless ways.

A question worth sitting with

If you're leading a team right now — whether in a nonprofit, a small business, or somewhere in between — here's the question I keep coming back to: What door have you been eyeing?

Sometimes the circumstances push it open for you. Sometimes you have to push it yourself. Either way, the clarity has to come first.

If your team is working through a strategic, cultural, or operational challenge, I'd love to talk. That's exactly the kind of work I'm here for.

Cheers, Erik