I'm Leaving My 34 Year Career Behind Here's What I'm Building Instead.
Your invitation to build the next chapter with me, out loud.
Early next year, I’m stepping away from a corporate career I’ve spent years building. Because something else is ready.
I’ve spent a large bulk of those years helping experienced women do one specific thing: turn what they already know into a digital presence people can find, trust, and hire. That work is about to have my full attention.
If you’ve built real expertise, in a boardroom, on a stage, in front of clients, you already did the hard part. Most experienced women don’t have an expertise problem. They just aren’t visible to the right people. Their online presence undersells what people already know is true about them in the room.
Closing that gap is what I call “digital authority”
…and no, that isn’t about some kind of fake personality you perform online. It’s the visible, trusted, easy-to-find version of the credibility you already earned.
This publication is going to become where I write about this idea of branding yourself in a way that reflects (and respects) your experiences, and about the bigger shift underneath it. Work, life, and technology are tangled together in this next season, for me and probably for you too. Some of what shows up here will be squarely about digital authority. Some of it will be everything else that comes with rebuilding a career and a life at the same time.
Expect me to write about what actually builds trust and visibility online, and what I’m learning in real time as I make some experimental moves myself. I’ll also be talking with other women and experienced men too, making major life transitions. Some will be on camera, some will be written.
In my first phase of being on Substack, this time last year, I was doing a livestream every week - come hail or high water. This time around, I’m not going to promise you a schedule I can’t (or don’t want to) keep. I will promise this: when I show up here, I’ll do my absolute best to make sure it will be worth your time and mine.
Me leaving corporate isn’t a secret. It’s just not something I lead with often. I wanted you to hear it directly from me and to be on the journey, not to find out later. I’m walking toward this next chapter with my eyes open, and I’d rather build it with people who might be able to learn while I’m in the middle of the journey, rather than announce it once it’s already done.
The differentiator for me from most people is that I’m not coming out of that world with my credentials hidden away; I’ve been using them online for a very long time, building a digital brand as a thought leader while applying my skill simultaneously behind a brick & mortar curtain.
My goal is to bring others along with me who might be at least 2-3 steps behind.
If you’re in a similar season, whatever expertise you’ve spent years earning, you are welcome to come along for the ride.
Your Guide: Tanya Smith is a digital branding strategist who helps experienced professionals turn earned expertise into a trusted presence people can find, trust, and hire. Off the clock, she's a wife, a soon-to-be empty nester, and mom to two daughters, plus one very mischievous Shih-Poo named Koda.
Congrats Tanya, you’ve put in the work. You earned it.