39: Why High-Achieving Women Walk Away (When Everything Looks Fine)

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What happens when you're successful and leading at the highest level but it's not your dream? Daffney talks with Sarah Elder, a former CEO who spent 17 years building a thriving art consulting company before making the bold decision to walk away and build a life on her own terms. Sarah gets honest about the years of upheaval, personal and professional, that finally pushed her to ask what she truly wanted outside of her title and her results. Together, her and Daffney dig into the trap high-performers fall into when their identity gets swallowed by their career, why endlessly optimizing yourself like a product is costing you more than it's giving you, and why real joy doesn't just happen. It requires intention, action, and the willingness to hand off what belongs on someone else's plate so you can finally lead the life you've earned.

Connect with Sarah Elder:

sarahelder.com

Substack: I Make The Rules

In This Episode:

• (01:55) Sarah’s corporate journey; building someone else’s dream
• (06:50) When career identity becomes your entire identity
• (16:15) The pressure high-achieving women feel to constantly optimize themselves
• (20:50) Reclaiming joy, freedom, and intentional living after burnout
• (24:20) How creating space leads to more creativity and clarity

Connect with Daffney:

The Game-Changer Consult → This 60 min deep dive offers you clarity and insight into what’s possible for your next 60 days. Leave this consult feeling full of possibility and with the energy of purpose!

liftprowellness.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So much of our health is tied into the decisions and the effort and the energy that we put into every aspect of our life. And today we're going to talk about career. I know career is a big piece as a performance coach for some of the folks I work with in the fact that when is it time to go? You know, you've done it all, you've pushed to your limits. And even though you're at the top of the game, is this really where you need to be right now? I am joined by Sarah Elder. She actually made this incredible decision at the top of her game, as successful as anyone will be, to move on, to choose herself and to do this big brave thing that maybe a lot of us are afraid to make that shift. Welcome to Don't F and Shrink, the podcast, where we stop playing small and start showing up big. I'm your host, Daphne Allwine, and I'm here to cut through the noise, ditch the self-doubt, and get honest about what it takes to live and lead with unapologetic confidence. Each week you'll hear unfiltered conversations, powerful stories, and in real life strategies to help you take up space in your life, your work, and your world. So buckle up because shrinking is not an option here. Let's dive in. When you are doing well, being successful, showing up, and there's no problems. There's no issues. It's not like you're, oh, I'm dying in this in this position. You're thriving in what you're doing and feeling successful, but that doesn't mean you're a whole person or that there's not something more beyond this. Hey, Sarah, how are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Hey, I'm so good, Daphne.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Sarah, how did tell us a little bit about what you were doing? Because it wasn't that you were in some like mind-numbing corporate space. You had like, you had art, you had creative creativity. Some of us feel like we're dying and suffocated because we don't have creative space in our work, but you actually had creative space. So tell me what you were doing.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah. So the company that I ran before walking away was an art consulting company that primarily served the hospitality industry. So we were creating, curating, and manufacturing artwork for hotels. So yeah, it was a really fucking cool company. And I definitely did not feel like I was in this soul-sucking environment that I just had to get out of. And we had a lot of great people and we were doing great things. But yeah, there definitely came a point when I realized 17 years into it that it was no longer for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

17 is a big investment. Can we just say what it is like you and I have discussed that we're in our 40s, right? Like I love that you saw it as a chapter of who you were, as opposed to with a lot of my clients, I'm seeing like they that is their personality, that is their identity, is all this success and work that they've been in in their CEO space or their their professional space. It becomes who they are, almost not integrating other any other part of their life, right? Like it's so. So what was the moment for you? Like what kind of brought you to that answer?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Oh gosh. I mean, there's never really one moment, right? Like it's hard to call that, you know, things build over time and then it's over the cliff. There were many points along the way when I sort of dreamed about having my own business one day. And when I think about what would it look like if I did my own thing? Because as passionate as I was about building this company with the founders, Jesse and Helen, and as much as I felt like I was very much a part of the ethos and the soul and the foundation of this, it wasn't my dream. I never thought to myself, I want to own, run, build, et cetera, an art company one day. No regrets. So great. Learned so much. What an incredible experience. But it wasn't, it wasn't my dream. No matter what, it wasn't my dream. I was putting a lot of myself and my energy into building someone else's dream. And I was very happy to do so, but there were definitely points along the way where it was like, what do I want to do? And of course, I started with the company in my 20s, and who fucking knows who they are in their 20s. So I didn't know. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Definitely did not know what my dream was then. But the longer I was with the organization, the more people I met, the more I learned, the more I grew myself along with growing the business, and the older I got and the more experiences and life experiences I had, the more I started to see that, you know, maybe there is something out there that's really for me. And there's something that I can bring to the world that's my dream that will have the impact that I want to have. And I think like just it just kept building on that. And so that was like maybe the stirrings of a desire, the stirrings of an idea. And then the the real sort of like hard pivot happened over a period of five years where we just went through so many things as an organization. We lost our founder to cancer, which was absolutely devastating. We were acquired by private equity. We acquired one of our direct competitors and went through a hellish integration. Uh, and then COVID. And then here's a pandemic on top of that. Meanwhile, in my own life, I'm going through a really hard divorce. So there was massive change, massive upheaval happening for me personally and professionally. And that really pushed me even harder and further to think about what do I want the rest of my life to look like? And where do I want to go next in my career? And is it time to close out this chapter and move on? And then, of course, eventually I did.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

It's incredible. And the way you described it is perfect. And I think a lot of us have come to that. If you are a solarpreneur or you're somebody who is interested in entrepreneurship, you recognize that you're the nanny, not the parent, right? Like you are putting all of this energy into this baby, into this passion project. But at the end of the day, you're not the parent. You're not, this isn't your dream. You are the nanny who was just helping it along. So how bold of you to recognize that this is somebody else's dream. What a great analogy. I love it. Did you know at that point what was pulling you from a passion standpoint?

SPEAKER_02 6:19

To a degree, yes. And I've certainly done a lot of work to fine-tune that, shall we say, over the past four years that I have been in business for myself. But I had a great mentor at the time, um, sort of as we were going through these five years of massive change. And he really saw in me my potential to coach and develop other people. He really saw how I built and developed our leadership team and gave me a lot of recognition for that and a lot of praise and kudos for that. He's like, what you are great at, you're great at leading, you're great at running a business, you're great at looking at the operations and figuring out what needs to be better. Yeah, sure, sure. Check all those boxes. But like what you're really great at is seeing people, seeing what their potential is, asking the sometimes hard questions, calling them on their bullshit, holding them accountable, and ultimately helping them to achieve their goals. And I was like, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

I am so great at that. No, I also had imposter syndrome, let's be honest. I was like, nah, really? Am I not? You're talking maybe.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

I think the conversation I'm continuing to have lately with clients, and maybe you're in the same boat, is I have to get my clients to stop thinking of themselves as a product versus a person. So because these are really high stakes or high stress type A folks at the top of their career, what I'm noticing is they are constantly optimizing. They're constantly looking for ways to be more productive, to upgrade, to whatever, but they're doing it to themselves, not to their work.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, it's interesting. So the the version of that that I feel like I'm hearing, and maybe the like sort of tangent to that is people saying, like, I think I'm just fucking sick of professional development. I'm sick of working on myself. So there's this awareness that these women have that men, everybody has, that are going through this. But I think we both work with a lot of women and see this, especially in women. There is definitely an awareness that they are doing this to themselves. There's an awareness that they are doing this optimization and this endless fine-tuning and constantly striving to be better, smarter, more educated, more certified, whatever the word is. They are aware of that and they're feeling gross about it. And they're feeling like I'm fucking tired of it, but maybe afraid to stop because they feel like they might fall behind if they do.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Their validation is coming from that optimization. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Yeah. If I stop, I might not be good enough, or I might not go far enough, or I might not stay on par with whoever it is I'm competing with.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Absolutely see that. And three cheers for let's stop fucking professionally developing ourselves for a minute. Like, how about take some of that time where you were thinking about listening to another business audiobook? And don't get me wrong, love a business audiobook. And I don't know, go for a walk and listen to music instead. Find those opportunities to say, like, I don't have to spend every minute of my free time bettering myself or billing every hour in some capacity, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Like I we've all fallen into that trap where we think we need to be billing every hour or being productive every hour. What a trap. What a fucking trap that is, right? Because if they're keeping you constantly busy, optimizing for this external validation, right? Let's call it what it is. And that's that's kind of where I dig into my clients, where we we dig into their nervous system and what's kind of pulling them and why are they feeling this in their body or struggling with something health-wise, my answer has been this. And tell me if this resonates for you. But if your contribution to the world is superseding your own experience in your own world to your own body, you're fucking doing it wrong. 100% correct. So if you are not living your life, integrating your relationships, your experience, your voice into what you're doing day to day and not optimizing yourself like a robot, you're doing it wrong. The reason I was really excited to talk to you today is because I think this is where your pivot came from, or at least the inspiration of what I read about your pivot was about you making this bold shift because it, like I said, you weren't being ousted. You know, you weren't being told, hey, you've you've lost validation. You're no longer optimized. We we can turn AI into your, you know, whatever. We can take your job over with AI rather than that. Where's your joy coming from these days? Where's your passion?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Oh my God, such a great question. And you're totally spot on. It was, it was time for me to figure that out. It was time for me to find my joy and my passion and to just be more in control of my life and my freedom and the ways that I was spending my time and energy, which is it it can be very hard to do that when you are in a corporate environment. Just period, right? You you answer to a lot of other people, your bosses, your direct reports, your peers, whatever. So I saw exiting and building my own business. There was a number of things that I saw it as, but one of the most important and relevant to this question is I saw it as an opportunity to be really intentional about my time and energy. And that would include working still, because I do love working, but it would also include more space and freedom for getting outside in my garden and digging up plants, for picking my kids up from school and going for walks with them, for traveling, for having dates with my partner, for just sitting my ass on the couch and watching a mindless television program if that's what I felt like doing. So I like I really enjoy joy, duh, so everybody, but I enjoy and pleasure. Sometimes I worry.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Sometimes I worry about these chaos people. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

It's priority for me. I want to have so much fun all the time. Yes. And I know that working is one version of fun for me, but it's not my whole identity. It's not the only version of fun for me. So I am super intentional about making sure that I have space for my various versions of fun and trying to get as much of the shit off my plate as possible that I don't think is fun so that I can do that.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

This is about at 40, right? At this chapter in our life, reclaiming our time. Yes. And recognizing that now, right, we now have skill value, you know, what what our price point is, whatever in our minds, right? Now our time has become more valuable. Oh, right. Yes. Than the income part of it. And the fact that, like, now we have these skills, so our time actually costs more to other people. And that's what makes us valuable. That's what makes, and I'll even, I'll even pivot in here because when I talk to clients about that they want more of this and they want less of this in their life, it takes a bold proclamation and a little bit of fucking discipline to say, I need space in my schedule to make that happen. Yes. One of the gifts of COVID, maybe you had the same experience, was that all of a sudden I didn't have four hours in the car anymore. And I was thinking, what do I do with these four hours? Should I be billing more? Should I be seeing more people? Should I be building, you know, building more, more platforms, whatever it is? But it was actually in that space that I that was forced upon me that I find it finally clicked for me in that space of not trying to be productive. I was more creative. I was more clear about what I was doing. I was no longer fumbling and trying to like do more. I was creative, clear, and all of a sudden I had the energy to do that. Yeah. What has this change for you done? Like what have you noticed in your world and in your life? Maybe we'll actually have you give a one through five of like start here, go there, do this, if you're ready to finally reclaim your time and experience and value.

unknown 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

I mean, what it has done for me is just made me a happier person. Like that is the simplest answer. I have created happiness for myself. And maybe a lot of people think that, you know, when's happiness going to show up for me or happen to me? And it doesn't work that way, right? Like you have to take action. And us driven, badass, you know, business owners and boss ladies, like we are very action-oriented. So we just need to channel that action into creating happiness for ourselves and figuring out what that looks like and then making the decisions that will help us achieve that. And so for me, one of those was exiting my corporate career. And maybe that's not true for everyone, right? Some people might be in a career that they love and want to stay in, but still want to figure out how to make that work in a way that allows for this space. So you can do that too, but it does require you to be intentional and take action. And for example, like I was saying, getting things off of your plate. There's always stuff that we're doing that we can give to someone else, whether that's someone on our team or hiring someone in our homes, like a house cleaner or a yard person, or getting someone to do our laundry, or hiring an assistant in our workplaces, like whatever structure you're in, whether you're an entrepreneur or a corporate leader, there are always things that we are doing that are taking up space in our lives. That's the drudgery that we don't want to keep doing. And so a huge step, I don't know if I have the exact one to five, but a huge step is identifying what those drudgery things are that are pulling away from your joy, that are distracting you from doing the things that you love to do and do best, and fucking find someone else to do them. And I know we can question ourselves when we're doing that, like, should I spend the money on this or is this right? Shouldn't I just handle it myself? But the answer is is a resounding yes, because the more drudgery that you clear from your life, from your business, from your corporate job, the more space you have to be creative, as you said, to think about your future in an expansive way, to desire, to want, and then to go after those things.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

That's amazing. I think that's the that's the biggest permission slip we can ever give ourselves. It doesn't make sense to be so ambitious and so driven towards your own joy, your own personal goals. Yeah. And then also being the person flipping the burgers, right? Like it doesn't, like that's not even how corporations work, right? Like we wouldn't have the CEO directing the company and then also coming back every afternoon to flip burgers at every single franchise, right? Like it's not a productive use. You've already built those skills. You've already had those experiences, which makes you a good leader. Let's call it what it is. It makes you a good leader that you had those early experiences, like we talked about, but now your value is in that gap, is in getting those other people to close that gap with you. That's what makes you a powerful leader. That's making space for opportunity for those people too. So I love that you said that. Where should I just hire an assistant or this person to do these things? No, I can do it myself. Great, but you're also creating a loss of opportunity for someone else because you got you pay it forward, right? Like, or pay it backwards. I don't know what's the right term for that one. Where it's basically you're creating space, right? You're creating space for someone to have this dynamic mentorship that you're meant to give.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah. And clearing up the space for you to do the things that you love the most. And that is where no guild. And when we do that, when we're losing our time and energy for the most part, obviously we're never gonna get 100% of it off our place and still gotta go fold the laundry. And but for the most part, when we clear these things and when we make that space for ourselves, we are serving our passion, our joy, our happiness. And that makes it possible for us to show it better for everyone around us.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Sarah, you're a force. I think this is like the conversation or the permission slip a lot of people need. And I know that you're there supporting people in that realm. So happiness takes action. Yes. Happiness requires action. And if we think that, like, oh, this is the end, the next vacation will make me happy, the next relationship, the next, I don't know, raise in my and my pay is going to make me happy. That's not the passive sense that we're talking about today. Today we were talking about being intentional and creating space for what's possible because you're not a product, you're a person. Sarah, thanks for joining our show today. How can people connect with you and your dynamic energy?

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Okay, so the easiest thing to do is just go to my website, which is Sarahelder.com. That's Sarah with an H E L D E R. And then if you want to hear more from my experiences and get a little dose of the wisdom and treasure that I bring to the table, I do have a substack. It's called I Make the Rules, and it's totally free. And I post twice a month all kinds of things related to life and leadership and happiness and burnout and all the things that women especially need to hear. So I'd love it if people jumped on there and subscribed and you know, share, comment, like, feedback, all the things.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I've read the Substack and I I'm already sort of elbows deep in some of the topics. And I I loved that. Walking away is scary, but it's a skill.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah. Like us, yeah. This is the support we need when we know something no longer fits for us. Sarah, thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for not fucking shrinking and uh for also giving us that inspiration.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

You're so welcome, Daphne. Thank you for having me.