I quit my 21-year Deloitte career after a health crisis. Work used to be my identity, but now I've redefined what real success is.

Deepa Purushothaman was a partner at Deloitte before quitting due to health issues.Lesley BohmDeepa Purushothaman left her Deloitte partner role due to severe health issues and burnout.Her health issues led her to question her previous definitions of career success and purpose.She worried at first if she'd made a mistake quitting, but she realizes now that she grew from it.This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Deepa Purushothaman, a 51-year-old founder and author in Los Angeles who previously worked at Deloitte. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I joined Deloitte after graduate school in 1999 as a senior consultant. I'd been recruited out of the Harvard Kennedy School and thought I'd spend a year or two in the private sector before entering politics or policy in DC.Twenty-one years later, I was still there and had become a partner. I was at the height of my career — then my health caused me to come crashing down.I worked long hours at DeloitteLooking back, my superpower wasn't that I was smarter than anyone else; it was that I could outwork almost anyone.I advanced quickly within the firm, becoming a partner at the age of 34. Becoming a partner at Deloitte was deeply meaningful, both professionally and personally. I grew up in a home where arranged marriage was often discussed, and early on, I believed a big career would save me and set me free.Yet, I never saw myself there forever. I was one of the only non-MBAs in my cohort, and I often felt like an odd duck who would eventually go on to something else.In 2014, I married my husband, who was also a Deloitte partner at the time, and I relocated from Washington, DC, to San Francisco. I transitioned from telecom to tech within the firm. The hours ramped up: 100-hour weeks, leaving at 4 or 5 a.m. for the client site and getting home near 1 a.m., a routine that went on for months.My health took a hitThe symptoms started small: headaches, rashes, constant infections, stomach issues, and adrenal fatigue. At the height of my symptoms, I got shingles multiple times. I saw 15 doctors. The 15th one, a rheumatologist, finally diagnosed me with late-stage Lyme disease, likely latent since my New Jersey childhood and triggered by extreme stress.In 2019, I took a leave of absence and spent eight months in bed. I developed full neuropathy, losing feeling from my elbows down to my knees. It was an extremely severe situation.I'd always had a question about purpose, given my background in policy and politics, and my health crisis became a kind of reckoning.Eventually, I realized I couldn't go back, and I officially left the company in May 2020.Leaving at the partner level after 21 years was odd; I had worked so hard for it. But I had to ask a different question: If success doesn't include health, is it really success?I sold a book and started new ventures, but my health suffered againBefore I got really sick, I'd started organizing gatherings of women, in some ways looking to answer my "purpose" question. In one of those gatherings, a CFO of a public company said, "I sit in a seat of power and I don't feel powerful." I felt that way too, and I wanted to study that.Six weeks after I left Deloitte, I sold a book, The First, the Few, the Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America, to HarperCollins. Over the next two years, I interviewed 500 senior-level women of color for the book and spoke on hundreds of corporate stages about the importance of inclusion.In 2020, I launched nFormation, a vetted membership community for women of color, and in November 2023, I became an executive fellow at Harvard Business School.The book was released in March 2022, and from then until 2024, my days were packed; I was running my company, hosting space for senior women leaders, writing articles, doing interviews, speaking on corporate stages, and meeting individually with women who reached out for support. I sometimes had as many as six speaking engagements in a single day during the book tour.At times, it felt as intense as Deloitte. I believed the success of the book was tightly tied to the hours I worked and the number of things I said yes to. I approached it as if I were launching a major client project.With all the intensity of my book tour, I fell ill again; I got mono three separate times that year, and my Lyme symptoms crept back in.That forced another reset; there was so much coming at me that I had to really figure out what I wanted to do and not just say yes to all the opportunities.I had to rethink my approach to work and care for my healthFirst, I paused my 1:1 coaching work. I needed to learn how to support women without absorbing their energy or taking on more than I could handle.Then I focused on deep spiritual work, worked with coaches and therapists to set both real and energetic boundaries, and rediscovered joy.In 2024, my cofounder and I shut down n2formation, and I started re.write, a think tank focused on rethinking how we work.Knock on wood, I haven't been sick since early 2024. My Lyme disease feels under control, and I've learned how to recognize my limits. It's chronic and will always be something I manage, but I'm much better at seeing the signs and knowing when to slow down.I worried at first if I made a mistake leavingAt first, leaving Deloitte was hard. Work had been my identity and my measure of worth for decades. For the first few years, I kept looking back, wondering if I made a mistake.Now I know, I didn't lose anything.I gained and grew. My reach and impact are greater than they ever were within one organization. My network is stronger, my voice carries further, and I know I'm on the right path.And when I forget, my community reminds me through a note or a request, reminding me how my work has shaped how they see success and the choices they make.In my book research, I had found that many women hit a reckoning at the very peak of their careers: a health crisis, a divorce, a missed promotion that was "promised." They did everything right — worked hard, ate well, exercised — and they still ran into major health issues.Two out of three women I interviewed reported chronic symptoms: migraines, hair loss, fertility issues, and much more. So many female senior leaders are burnt out and seriously ill. We don't talk about it enough, and there's a bigger question of success versus listening to our bodies. We must work differently if we're going to survive and thrive.Do you have a story to share about quitting the Big Four? Contact this editor, Jane Zhang, at [email protected] the original article on Business Insider

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