"I'm building a life I don't need to escape," says Chikara Kennedy, who launched a coaching business and moved to Mexico after her Meta layoff.
Courtesy of Chikara Kennedy
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Chikara Kennedy, the 43-year-old CEO of Chikara Power Coaching, who lives in Mexico. Business Insider has verified Kennedy's income and employment with documentation and edited her words for length and clarity.Before launching my own company in 2024, I worked at Meta for nearly five years as a senior HR manager.At the time, my base salary was roughly $250,000, and with bonus and restricted stock options, I was making over $300,000 a year.It was a high-income, very structured corporate role, and my pay was predictable in a way that felt stable.Then in 2023, everything shifted. I got divorced, I got laid off, and I turned 40 — all within the same year.I didn't have any indication that I was going to get laid off, and it was very traumatic. At first, I was shaken by the job loss; I felt anxious about the uncertainty ahead and was having meltdowns about my finances.I didn't know what to do at the time — but by 2024, I'd decided to start my own coaching business.
I knew I needed to downsizeWhile starting my business, not knowing if it would be as profitable as the job I had before, I started to look for ways to reduce my expenses and improve my quality of life.Even with savings, I knew that trying to maintain my lifestyle in DC in my expensive apartment, wasn't a good idea as an entrepreneur, where my income felt less stable and I wasn't getting a paycheck every two weeks. My rent in downtown DC alone was over $3,000 a month.
