When Messy Beats Polished

Corporate Exit Diaries -- October 10, 2025

So here's a weird thing that happened: I had two posts go viral in two weeks by talking about medical sales disasters.

Not my carefully crafted insights. Not the "professional advice" posts I agonized over. The ones where I looked like a total mess.

And now I'm sitting here with 103 website visits, 14 new email subscribers, and a growing audience that seems to like me most when I'm least polished.

Plot twist I didn't see coming.

The Medical Content Trap (Or Is It?)

I've spent the last few months trying to figure out how to build beyond healthcare while still working in healthcare. Trying to write a book about leaving corporate while creating content for medical companies. Trying to position myself as "more than just medical sales expert" while that's exactly what's getting traction.

And then the colonoscopy story blew up. Then the failed in-service story. Both deeply medical. Both completely human.

My initial reaction? "Shit, I'm trapped. The algorithm wants medical content and that's all I'll ever be."

But then I started looking at the comments. People weren't relating to the medical part. They were relating to the filter breaking. The rejection. The showing up anyway even when you feel like garbage.

The medical setting was just the vehicle. The humanity was the thing.

What I'm Learning About Showing Up

I used to jam product flyers into the hospital directors' door cubbies who wouldn’t give me a meeting (insert face-palm moment). You know, the ones nobody ever read because they didn't care about features until they cared about me first?

Turns out, building an audience works the same way.

I launched corporateish.io before I had a book to sell. Before I knew exactly what I was building. Before I had any answers about what comes after the "comfortable choice."

And people are subscribing anyway.

Not because I have a product. Not because I have it figured out. Because they're watching me not have it figured out in real time.

That's the uncomfortable part nobody tells you: building before you're ready feels like standing naked in public. You're planting seeds without knowing what grows. You're showing people your journals full of ideas you haven't executed. You're admitting you're still doing client work while trying to build something different.

It's messy. And apparently, that's the point.

The Bridge or the Hole

Here's what keeps me up at night: I'm building an audience of medical professionals while writing a book about outgrowing that world. I'm gaining followers who want healthcare expertise while my heart's pulling toward something bigger.

Am I building a bridge or digging a deeper hole?

The medical stories that perform aren't trapping me - they're earning me permission. Permission to talk about code-switching. About competence traps. About being really good at the wrong thing.

The setting is medical. The lesson is universal. And maybe that's the bridge.

What Selling Yourself Actually Looks Like

Here's the thing about those viral posts: I wasn't trying to sell anything. No CTA. No "link in comments." Just honest stories about being human in professional spaces.

And 14 people gave me their email addresses anyway.

Not because I convinced them. Because I showed up as myself long enough that they wanted more.

That's what I'm learning about building: you sell yourself when you stop selling. You earn trust by being messy in public. You plant seeds by showing up before you're ready.

The alternative - waiting until I have the perfect positioning, the edited manuscript, all the answers - would mean never starting at all.

Where This Goes

I don't know if my medical audience will stick around when I pivot harder toward transformation content. I don't know if talking about healthcare while trying to leave it is brilliant strategy or self-sabotage.

But I do know this: 103 people found my website in the first month. 14 of them cared enough to subscribe. Two posts resonated enough to go viral.

That's not an accident. That's people responding to humanity over performance.

So I'm going to keep being myself while doing the work I'm good at. Keep telling stories that aren't really about the industry. Keep building infrastructure before I have a product.

Because waiting to be ready is just another way of staying comfortable.

And I'm too far in to turn back now.

This is part of my Corporate Exit Diaries - real-time documentation of finishing my book and transitioning from profitable work to purposeful work. No highlight reel. No perfect positioning. Just the weekly mess of becoming whatever comes next.