Introduction

There is nothing wrong with feeling proud of a promotion. Chichi worked hard for her director title, and she says plainly that nothing took away the pride she felt when she got it.

The problem starts later. When your identity is coupled to your title, all it takes is one signal that you are not doing a good job, or one decision to take the role away, and your world can come apart. That is the tension at the centre of this conversation between Sope Agbelusi and Chichi on the Everyday Leadership Podcast: how do you hold ambition and achievement without letting a rented title decide who you are?

The line that changed everything: job titles are rented

Chichi describes reading a line on Instagram that stopped her: all job titles are rented anyway, you're just renting them onto the next person. That single idea started her journey of no longer being defined by her job or her level.

It also became a motivator for building her personal brand. Not for vanity, but because she did not want to be tied to one thing. A title is one facet of who you are. It is not who you are.

The identity crisis nobody warns you about

Chichi's first identity shake did not come from a boardroom. It came from maternity leave. After leaving HSBC, she says she immediately became her daughter's mum. She lost her name. When people asked what she did, she had no clean answer, and it triggered what she calls a major identity crisis.

Her response became a discipline she still uses: keep asking, who am I when you take all of the accolades away? The achievements are receipts. They are not the person.

Loving work versus enjoying it

Sope asks a question most people never separate: what is the difference between loving your work and enjoying it? Chichi's answer is precise. You can enjoy an organisation and its people while no longer loving the work. For her, losing the love means she is no longer in her element: no longer playing to her strengths, no longer growing, feeling stuck and going through the motions. When work starts to feel like that, it is a signal, not a mood.

Colleagues can extend how long you stay. They cannot fix a role that no longer fits.

Burnout, twice

Chichi hit burnout running her own business. Outwardly everything looked great: a Facebook group of nearly 4,000 people, a podcast, a book. Inside, she was spent. She closed everything down and took a sabbatical, without knowing where it would lead.

Going back into employment felt like failing. She said as much to her coach, who reframed it: why would you see it that way? It is a season. Four years at Multiverse followed, where she grew from coach to director, the fastest person in the business to do so, and the most senior Black person in the organisation.

Then the pandemic compressed everything. She was promoted in February 2020, moved the business online, recruited remotely, and kept everyone else fine, her kids, her team, her family. Asked later what she would do differently, her answer was simple: I would have taken care of myself more. By 2021, burnout returned.

What it costs to step back, and why she did it anyway

Chichi chose to change roles and move to four days a week. She instigated it. That matters, because even a change you choose still tests your identity.

She is honest about the cost. Meetings you used to be in carry on without you. You are no longer in the inner circle. People assume you know things you no longer know. Through a four month transition she wrestled with the questions out loud: am I still valuable in this organisation? Am I still important?

The work was decoupling her value from her title. If you are your job, she warns, you put yourself in a position where others control your life.

The question that reveals the truth

When Chichi became a director, she asked for a coach outside the organisation, someone who had led big teams and was also a mother. That coach asked one question that cut through everything: if the job was available to apply for now, would you apply for it?

Her answer was no. She had reached the goal and discovered she did not want the job. That question is worth stealing. It separates what you are proud of achieving from what you actually want to keep doing.

Rebuilding on your own terms

Instead of clinging to the role, Chichi asked what she was good at and what she enjoyed: developing people, supporting people, building relationships at every level of an organisation. She built an employee advocacy programme around LinkedIn, taught colleagues across the business, and poured into people in a way that mattered to her. She controlled her brand, because that is one thing a reorganisation cannot take.

And on sabbatical now, her self-care is unglamorous and non-negotiable: seven and a half hours of sleep, journaling, prayer, movement, seeing people, and actually listening to her body instead of pushing through.