It does feel great to be able to do that. I did this too, after being let go in 2007 from a CEO job. Took about a year off, then "worked" about four years as a flight attendant for close to minimum wage, and that itself was a total blast. I had fun telling people who knew me career-wise what I was now doing for a living, and even more fun when greeting former staff and peers on my flights. One of my close friends is a consul and regularly invites me to attend functions with big shots and other diplomats, and I quite enjoyed seeing their reactions every time I said jokingly that I had every little girl's dream job. I think I may have seen some envy in some people's eyes. On the down side, I must admit that it took me some time to get over my self-importance from my big-shot days, especially when I was working the business or first class cabin. I took a job in my field back in October, after getting an offer that was too attractive to turn down even being FI, but this time I accepted the challenge on my own terms, and if things don't go my way, I won't lose any sleep if I have to leave.
EDIT: I saw your comment above about doing manual labour with the goal of working as a consultant. Funny you say this, because when I got into the airline business, it was with the intention of eventually getting into an executive job with an airline, a field I loved but had no clue about. So in order to learn the ropes from the bottom up, I successively worked as a rampie, a customer service agent, then a flight attendant. When I had my interview to become a flight attendant with a major Canadian airline, the HR Manager, at the end of the interview, offered me a management position with the company. I replied that I was flattered by the offer, politely declined, and said I would consider it after experimenting with flying. However, I had so much fun working with at the frontline that the thought of becoming an executive never came back into the equation.
