I quit my six-figure Google job after my colleague died. It's helping me to improve my self-worth.

• Kate Manser worked at Google for five years in program management.

• During that time, a friend, a relative, and two colleagues died at a young age.

• The loss led her to quit her job and find a technique that has helped her improve her self-worth.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kate Manser, a 39-year-old former Google employee based in Marfa, Texas. It's been edited for length and clarity.

For five years, my self-worth was wrapped up in my cushy, six-figure job at Google. I'd be at parties just waiting for someone to ask what I did for a living so I could make my stupid little joke: "Oh, I work at this tiny startup you've probably never heard of. It's called Google."

Then, in 2014, I tragically lost three young people in my life within six months. It sent me into a yearlong depression full of death anxiety. I was terrified to leave my house, except for going to work.

A year later, a Google colleague tragically died. That day changed everything for me.

I got hired at Google in 2011

While in college, I was lucky enough to land a paid internship in marketing at the parent company of Carl's Jr and Hardee's. The marketing team hired me right out of college, and I spent three years there before Google hired me in its marketing and sales department.

I spent the next five and a half years working my way up as a program manager, securing a six-figure salary, and living a great life in Austin. I was completely caught up in the prestige of my job and envisioned myself staying with Google for a long time.

I experienced four tragic losses in under two years. It changed everything.

In 2014, my 27-year-old boss died in a freak accident. Within six months of their death, a college friend of mine died unexpectedly then a young family member died from cancer.

I was 27 and had never thought much about mortality. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with the notion that I could die at any moment, and I became afraid to do much of anything.

About a year later, while still feeling plagued by death anxiety, I watched my Google colleague, Dan Friedenberg, who was the head of privacy at Google X, document his journey training to climb Mt. Everest on social media. He appeared to live this vibrant life, full of joy, always playing pranks on his friends.

Unfortunately, he was at the climber's base camp when the Nepal earthquake struck, and he died in an avalanche.

I sensed Dan knew there was a chance he might not come down that mountain, but he had to climb it to truly live. I looked back at my life and thought, "I only have a certain amount of time and energy, and I want to put it into living."

I took a trip and made a plan for how I'd change my life

The first thing I did after Dan's death was take a week off work and visit some friends on their sailboat in French Polynesia. They'd been asking me to visit for years, but I always turned them down, saying I was too busy with work.

While I was there, I looked at their unconventional lives on the boat and realized, for the first time as an adult, that I could do whatever I wanted with my life. I came up with the idea to quit Google and travel worldwide.

I planned to work and save for the rest of the year and quit the following January, but in September 2015, my team underwent a reorganization. I was given the option of relocating, finding another job at Google, or taking a severance package.

It felt like a sign from the universe, so I took the severance.

I quit Google to travel the world for two years. It didn't solve my depression.

There were so many times I asked myself if I was making a terrible decision. I had an amazing job that paid good money and was, frankly, not that hard. The fact that I told so many people at Google I was quitting to travel is actually what kept me from chickening out.

In January 2016, I put together my savings and severance and set off on a two-year soul-searching trip. I scrapped my plan of pre-booking all my flights and decided to travel freely. I went to places like Australia, Bali, Brazil, and all over Asia. It was amazing.

Then, when I returned home, I fell into a depression and knew I couldn't keep chasing the next high.

It was easy to feel alive when I was standing on top of a mountain or walking through the streets of Delhi, but I hadn't yet figured out how to feel alive when doing dishes at my kitchen sink on an average Tuesday.

Daily visualizations helped me redefine my self-worth

I dedicated myself to working on gratitude and presence and rewiring my self-worth to come from within.

One of the most impactful things I did was a daily visualization in which I imagined none of my material dreams came true. I lived in a simple home and brought soup to my neighbor when she was sick. It took a year of doing that visualization to get to a point where I could love myself in that reality.

In 2018, I needed more money to pay my bills, so I returned to the corporate space and landed a job as a global marketing manager at Indeed. This time around, I didn't get caught up in the prestige or my achievements.

I realized how hollow it was to derive my self-worth from my career. I continued working in corporate for the next few years while scaling my brand called You Might Die Tomorrow, a movement about living for today.

I quit corporate, became an entrepreneur, and started living out of a van

In 2022, I decided to go all in on entrepreneurship. I quit my job and bought an old 1992 RV to live out of. The RV was partially for the adventure and partially to live cheaply as I built my business.

Entrepreneurship has been deeply humbling. I've had many successes, but I've also had events no one has shown up for and products no one has bought. I'm slowly becoming more resilient, but I'm on a lifelong journey of decoupling self-worth from achievement.

Whenever I need a reminder of how to find meaning in my life and work, I look back to Dan Friedenberg. He uplifted others, had fun in everything he did, and truly spent his life like he might die tomorrow.

If you quit your six-figure job for an unconventional career path and would like to share your story, please email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

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