What happens when a successful career has become such a big part of your identity that stepping away feels almost unimaginable? For Alison Hall, a serious breast cancer diagnosis forced a 15-month break from work. But her questions about her career had started long before her diagnosis. What followed changed how she understood the role work played in her life.
In this episode of Joy at Work, Alison joins Lucia Knight to share what happened when a demanding corporate career came to an unexpected halt, and what she discovered about the parts of working life she valued most.
When Career Success Stops Feeling Satisfying
Alison had built a successful career and recently stepped into a leadership role managing people across Europe. On paper, it was an interesting opportunity. In practice, the role had become relentless.
Long days of virtual meetings, organizational politics, and the difficult responsibility of making colleagues redundant had begun to overshadow the parts of her work she genuinely enjoyed.
Approaching 50, Alison found herself asking a question that many experienced professionals will recognize:
"I've worked and I've got to this point in my career, but I wasn't really sure this was what I wanted to do for another decade."
She wanted something more satisfying and had already begun working with Lucia to explore what that might look like.
But there was a problem. Her working life was so demanding that she struggled to find the mental space to consider changing it.
She knew she wanted something different. She just couldn't yet see how to get there.
When Work Is More Than What You Do
Six months into their work together, Alison received a serious breast cancer diagnosis.
During a conversation with her breast care nurse, she was asked about the things that filled her life outside her family.
Her answer revealed just how closely her identity had become connected to her career.
"I work, I work. It's a really big part of what I do or who I am even."
The nurse gently but firmly encouraged Alison to focus on looking after herself and prepare to be away from work for at least a year.
For someone who described herself as conscientious and deeply committed to her work, stepping away so completely was unfamiliar territory.
Alison stopped working and began treatment, eventually spending around 15 months away from her job.
Her experience raises an important question: When work occupies so much of our time, attention, and identity, what remains connected to that part of ourselves when we can no longer do it?
What Alison Discovered She Missed About Work
During treatment, Alison stayed in touch with colleagues, both current and former. Those relationships became an important connection to a part of her life that otherwise felt increasingly distant.
But something about those conversations surprised her.
"But it was about the people, not the work."
She wasn't missing the relentless meetings, organizational politics, or demands of her leadership role. What she valued was the connection with people she'd come to know throughout her career.
Those relationships helped her maintain a sense of connection to herself during an extraordinarily difficult period.
It's a distinction worth considering, even without a life-changing interruption.
When we think about what makes work worthwhile, it's easy to focus on responsibilities, achievements, job titles, and career progression. Yet the relationships we build along the way may be just as significant to our experience of working life.
For Alison, it took being away from work to recognize how important those connections had become.
Returning to Work, But With a Different Perspective
As Alison moved through treatment and began thinking about her future, she realized something else: she did want to work again.
But her time away had changed her understanding of what she wanted from it.
She had become clearer about the aspects of her previous working life she no longer wanted, as well as the things she hoped to preserve.
That clarity didn't immediately answer every question about her career. But it gave her a different starting point for considering her return.
And that's where Part 1 of Alison's story leaves us.
In Part 2, Alison shares how she approached returning to work, why she decided against resuming her previous role, and how she began changing not only the work she did, but the way she worked.
You Don't Have to Wait for Life to Force a Pause
Alison's experience is deeply personal, and a serious illness is not a career development exercise. But her reflections invite us to consider questions that are relevant long before life forces us to stop.
Are you still enjoying the work you've spent years building a career around? Do you have enough space to consider what you want from the next stage of your working life? And which parts of work would you genuinely miss if you stepped away?
You don't need to have all the answers today. But you can start paying attention to the questions.
What role is work playing in your life right now?
Take the Joy at Work Quiz to begin exploring your relationship with work and what you might want from the years ahead.
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What If a Life-Changing Diagnosis Forces You to Step Away From Work?
Joy at Work | Part 1 | Edited transcript
Alison Hall: I remember one of the questions she asked me was, ‘What do you do? What things do you have in your life?’ We talked about family and that kind of stuff. But outside of that, I basically just said, ‘I work. I work.’ It’s a really big part of what I do, or who I am, even.
00:00:19 | Alison’s Story
Lucia Knight: This week’s conversation is very special to me. You’ll meet Alison, a former client and friend who received a cancer diagnosis while we were working together. Since then, we’ve had many conversations, and I’ve come to understand that she describes better than most people I’ve ever met the changing role that work plays in life before, during, and after we face death.
Lucia Knight: Here’s part one of Alison’s story. Let’s dive in.
00:00:56 | When Work Takes Over
Lucia Knight: Alison, tell me, what role did work play in your life before your diagnosis?
Alison Hall: It probably played way too big a part of my life, if I’m going to be honest. I think particularly in the 18 months just prior to my diagnosis, it was incredibly full-on. I was working from home a lot, but I had one of those jobs that was relentless, actually, in terms of being on Zoom or Teams calls all day, often starting very early.
Alison Hall: It was stressful. I’d got promoted about 18 months before my diagnosis into a leadership role where I was managing people across all of Europe. Unfortunately, although that could have been a very interesting role, it came at a point when the business was looking to downsize.
Alison Hall: One of my first jobs was to make people redundant, which is not exactly joyful and not why I wanted to work. So it was stressful; it was relentless. There were aspects I enjoyed. I’ve always enjoyed the kind of work that I do, but it felt like that wasn’t playing enough of a part. It was much more about the politics and just the quantity.
Alison Hall: So it wasn’t much fun, I think it’s fair to say.
00:02:18 | Questioning the Next Decade
Alison Hall: In fact, we started to work together probably about six months before my diagnosis, because I’d also just turned 50. So I’d had that kind of moment in my life where I’d felt, ‘Okay, I’ve worked and I’ve got to this point in my career, but I wasn’t really sure this was what I wanted to do for another decade.’
Alison Hall: I wanted to find a way to find something more satisfying. I wasn’t sure how to do that. I started to experiment with some of the things that you talk about on the Fierce Emporium, again just before my diagnosis. But to be honest, I didn’t have a lot of brain space, I think it’s fair to say.
Lucia Knight: Got it. And that’s a situation that many people who listen to this will get. And then six months or thereabouts into our work, you received your diagnosis. How did the idea of work and work life change during your treatment?
00:03:19 | A Diagnosis Forces a Pause
Alison Hall: Radically. I remember very vividly when I was diagnosed, and perhaps it’s worth saying I was diagnosed with cancer. It was a form of breast cancer. It was, shall we say, a very serious diagnosis. The breast care nurse took quite a long time to talk to me after the news had been delivered.
Alison Hall: I remember one of the questions she asked me was, ‘What do you do? What things do you have in your life?’ We talked about family and that kind of stuff. But outside of that, I basically just said, ‘I work. I work.’ It’s a really big part of what I do, or who I am, even.
Alison Hall: I remember she was very calm, but equally she said to me quite directly, ‘Now is the time to look after yourself.’ Essentially, in a very gentle way, she told me to forget about work and prepare my work for me not being around for at least a year.
Alison Hall: I’m now two years post-diagnosis and actually just coming to the end of that treatment. So that’s how long it’s been. I couldn’t get my head around that at the time. But it was really clear to me that this was a breaking point in my life, basically, as far as work went.
Alison Hall: And I think particularly because I had been finding work stressful, I basically stopped straight away. I remember I spoke to my boss the very next day in tears and told him what was going on. I couldn’t talk to my team; I was too upset. I sent them an email. I did a brain dump of everything that was ongoing.
Alison Hall: And then I stepped away. I’ve never done anything like that in my life before. I’m very conscientious, but I completely stepped away from work, and I was very rapidly into some very serious treatment. Within two weeks, I was on very hardcore chemo. I don’t think I could have worked, to be honest.
Alison Hall: I made that decision, prompted by the comments the nurse had made and how I’d been feeling about work, to focus on myself. So I decided not to work at all during chemo or surgery, or the subsequent radiotherapy. I ended up not working for about 15 months. And that in itself was quite hard in some ways.
00:05:42 | What She Really Missed About Work
Alison Hall: I kept in touch with people from work, and it really made me realise the importance of the relationships I’ve made over the years. Not just with my current colleagues, but with colleagues from the past as well. I really valued that while I was going through such challenging treatment.
Alison Hall: Because it kept me a little bit connected with a part of me that was getting completely lost, to be honest, at that point. So that was valuable. But it was about the people, not the work. We didn’t talk about work ever, I don’t think. We talked about all sorts of things, but not the actual work.
Alison Hall: I remember, I think it was actually the day my chemo finished, I went into the office. I wanted to see my colleagues, and that was wonderful. I did that periodically, actually. So when I say I was away for 15 months, I did periodically go in and connect with people. I didn’t actually start to pick up any work.
00:06:50 | Rethinking the Return to Work
Alison Hall: I can’t remember exactly when it was. To start with, there’s a lot that you have to process when you’re going through this kind of thing. There’s what’s happening to you physically, but I think almost harder than that is the mental side, the emotional side, facing your own mortality and everything that brings.
Alison Hall: It was massive. To be honest, work wasn’t really what I was thinking about at all in all of that. But as I was starting to come through, perhaps closer to the other side, I was starting to think, ‘Actually, I do want to go back to work at some point, and what does that look like?’ So I did start to think about that.
Alison Hall: By that point, I think I was a lot clearer on what it was that I didn’t want to do and what I did want to do. The whole experience of being away from work and going through such a life-changing diagnosis and treatment changed my perception of what I wanted to do.
Lucia Knight: We’re going to stop it there. Come back next time to hear part two of this conversation, where Alison said something that I think has changed me forever.
