For nearly 20 years, Liz Lehman practiced medicine as an anesthesiologist, taking care of patients using the basic principles of medical school: See the problem, find a solution.

That method of healing worked for Lehman until she became the patient. After a debilitating injury in 2017, Lehman, now 56, picked up candlemaking and turned her hobby into a side hustle. It kept her busy and tapped into childhood memories.

She soon stepped back from her career in anesthesia and doubled down on her passion for making candles. In 2019, with 26,000 glass jars delivered to her home in Baltimore County’s Lutherville community, she started her wellness brand, Aluminate Life.

Aluminate Life’s products are in hundreds of day spas and retail locations nationwide. Lehman said her story shows it’s never too late to pivot your career and change the direction of your life.

One more lesson: Every candle owner should trim their wicks.

When did you know that you were ready to leave your career in medicine to start a small business?

Liz Lehman: I’ve always been a very active person — running, doing yoga, spinning, going for hikes. A lot of things to try to bring joy. I was not listening to my body, and I just kept pushing and pushing. I tore my hamstring badly doing some yoga maneuver no woman my age had any business doing.

The doctor was like, “You’re going to need surgery if you keep going.” The universe really forced me to sit still.

So, I’m sitting on a frozen water bottle to heal the torn muscle, and I was on the computer feeling sorry for myself, and a blog popped up. I had never really read a blog before, but I could see that it was about making candles.

As a kid, I always loved candles. Growing up in the ’70s, there were a lot fewer safety issues or concerns. My mother had candles burning all over the place and I’d always stick my fingers in the wax or pull at the wax.

I read that blog and thought, this is kind of cool, and I’m going to need something to do because I can’t move for the next four months. I ordered a candlemaking kit that day, and honestly, that’s how the whole process started. It was really a kitchen experiment.

It sounds like part of what led you to candlemaking was the injury and not listening to your body.

When I decided this was going to be a business, it was still me in the kitchen. My husband was helping with the packaging, labeling candles, and all the things. I had to cut back to 32 hours a week in anesthesia versus the 40 hours or more I was doing before. I was waking up at four 4 in the morning to make candles and all weekend and evenings. I started developing pain in my hands.

I’m convinced now that when we are not in alignment, like mentally and energetically, this is when disease develops.

I thought it was just me being 50 and things hurt, but the pain in my hands got worse and worse. Long story short, the arthritis didn’t get better — I was going to need surgery. There came a day when I couldn’t put my patient to sleep. I lost strength in my hands; the pain was extreme. I scheduled surgery to fix it, but it did not go well. Subsequently, I have had three different surgeries on my left hand.

How did it feel to change how you thought about healing to something so different from how you’ve been trained?

I think that I have always questioned or rebelled against the status quo or the system. Growing up in a fairly paternalistic household in the ’70s and ’80s, you didn’t ask too many questions. You just did what you were told to do or supposed to do. Nice girls don’t ask those kinds of questions.

In some ways, I sort of ignored that little inner nagging voice that said, “This isn’t the best way” or “This is wrong.” Now, I ask a lot of questions, and honestly, all said and done, I really do feel I reach more people now, as a candlemaker, than I ever could while being a doctor.

How did you take candlemaking from a hobby to a business?

It started with research, because even if I’m not in medicine, I still have that very scientific brain. And to be honest, candlemaking is a lot of science.

I really had not researched much about the products I had been using in my home and around my children, so I was appalled to hear how many bad things were in the candles I had been burning.

I knew when I started that I was going to use natural wax. It’s as clean burning as possible. No synthetics, and I want it to be sustainable. It was a lot of what I now call trials and lessons.

What’s next for Aluminate Life? What are you hoping to accomplish in the future?

I want to continue to expand and tap into products that enhance other elements of people’s wellbeing.

But the next moves are going to be working with animals — a line of products that are really for our pets as well, because they have a lot of anxiety and physical and mental discomfort.

COVID did not help them either. Our dog used to fly independently, and then COVID, and now she gets so anxious when she’s alone.

I also want to, through sharing my story, expand my platform to share that everything’s possible. Just because you got on a path in your 20s and 30s doesn’t mean you need to stay on it. It’s ok to pivot, to change directions, because we’re not a one-trick pony.

You can be and do it all. And at 50, you can blow up your career and start something new.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.