Life After Selling

There’s a silence that follows success.

After spending decades in an industry that has shaped my identity, life after selling our dealerships was a notable change. I know countless dealers, including my father, who could never imagine what their lives would be like if they weren’t car dealers. In some ways, it is all we know. Many of us grew up in the industry and were primed to be in it from an early age. We never had a choice, so to speak.

My husband Eric and I sold our Kia dealership on March 31st, 2022. A Thursday. By that Saturday, we were sitting at home, drinking coffee, staring at each other, not knowing what to do with ourselves. We always wanted to be at the dealership on Saturdays. It was our favorite day of the week. It seemed we had nowhere to go and quickly became irrelevant. We felt extremely guilty sitting at home watching golf. In our “previous” life, golf was only reserved for Sundays, when dealerships were typically closed. Luckily, or perhaps planned by design, we only sat around for a week before we began an eventful travel schedule to Europe, the United States, and Mexico.

If you grew up in the automotive world like I did, you know it’s more than a job. It’s a legacy and it’s generational. It’s what we do, and more dangerously, it becomes who we are.

I was extremely emotional during the sale of our dealerships. My husband joked that there weren’t enough tissues available to soak up all my tears. I cried a lot! It wasn’t because I had regrets, but because I had spent so many years tying my purpose to the pace, people, and pressure of the industry. For the first time in decades, we weren’t needed, and it hit harder than I expected.

Taking time to get away, breathe, see the world, and reconnect with my husband provided us time to heal. It also allowed us to acclimate to a new lifestyle where our phones weren’t constantly ringing with calls, emails, and text messages from employees, customers, the manufacturer, or general business inquiries.

I learned you can’t discover who you are after the grind if you are still surrounded by everything that built it. Taking time off was a way for us to recharge and refocus before deciding on our next career move.

We could finally exhale.

There’s no question that the decision to sell our dealerships was a difficult one, but it also offered new opportunities in our lives.

We weren’t quitting or retiring. We were simply ready for the next chapter. The business served us well, but it wasn’t going to write the next part of our story. We started exploring new ventures where our experience would be valuable, but didn’t require our constant availability. And let me tell you, it was liberating.

It’s easy to feel unproductive when you’ve spent your life proving your value through output. The guilt of stillness is heavy. What’s heavier? Living your entire life without ever enjoying what you’ve earned.

I built Drive Her Forward because women are exhausted from carrying identities that were never designed for sustainability. Too many high-performers confuse momentum with meaning. We know how to achieve, but few of us have ever been taught how to redefine ourselves once we’ve arrived.

If you’ve ever felt like you wouldn’t know who you are without the title, schedule, or grind, you’re not alone.

You’re allowed to want something different, even if what you had was successful.

I did.