About Danguole Litvinskaite

The moment I knew.

The number on the table was very big. It was one of the largest mandates I had worked on, the kind of deal I had spent years building towards. And sitting there, I realised I did not care any longer.

Another sale would not change anything, and neither would the one after it. The passion that had carried me through fourteen years of investment banking was gone, and I knew I was done with that chapter.

It should not have been a surprise. I had been asking myself is this it? for years by then, between meetings and late at night, without ever letting myself look at the question properly. From the outside there was nothing to question. I had spent fourteen years in four countries, leading business development for Scandinavia and advising high net worth clients. I had been promoted by saying yes to everything, and I was good at what I did.

Everyone I could have asked had a stake in the answer: my manager, my family, and even the part of me that did not know who I was without the title. I did not know there was such a thing as a person whose work was to sit with exactly this question. So I left the way people leave when they have waited too long: suddenly, and without a plan.

It took me longer than it needed to find the next chapter. Along the way I trained in body psychology, identity level coaching and astrology, became an ICF PCC coach, and I have now held more than 3,100 coaching sessions.

What I needed back then was someone with no stake in the answer, who could help me decide while the question was still a question, and then plan the move well. That is the work I do now, with Directors and VPs who are standing where I stood.