In this episode, Mike Gardon chats with Sara McElroy. Sara McElroy is an ex-chief marketing officer and former hustle culture devotee who reinvented her career and reimagined the way she works after unexpectedly becoming The Wall Street Journal’s poster girl for pandemic burnout.
Between the demands of her CMO role and MBA program, she was clocking up to 20 hours of work per day, and her body began to rebel.
Two trips to the ER after throwing up blood, and one shingles diagnosis later, she finally hit her breaking point.
In just 97 days, she quit her hard-won chief marketing officer job, trekked to Peru's Sacred Valley to reset her frayed nervous system, and moved from the buzzy metropolis of Atlanta to the beach in sunny Boca Raton, Florida for a new job and a fresh start.
The extreme nature of her story caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal and The Journal podcast, both of which featured her journey – from stress-induced health scares and endless hamster wheeling, to finding more peace and a slower pace of life on the water – as part of their pandemic burnout coverage.
Since then, she’s dedicated her work to helping other women make bold career moves by learning when and how to quit a job that’s taking more than it’s giving. She codified these stories in a journalism project called Raze to Rise which has also sparked a podcast and even a book deal.
I love Sara’s story and we have an absolute blast talking about how to know when to quit, what people are striving for with work life balance and even the 6 steps for walking away from your job to pursue work that makes you come alive.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- The story behind how Sara became The Wall Street Journal’s poster girl for pandemic burnout
- Who Sara was before her first resignation and what led to it
- What lead to Sara’s second resignation
- The Great Resignation - what’s behind it
- Raze To Rise and what Sara has learned about the women she has interviewed so far
- How to go about deciding to quit a job
- How to prepare for quitting and what you need to have in place
- Sara’s thoughts on quiet quitting
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BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- “We want more control over what our careers look like and we want our careers to into our lives, rather than the other way around.” - quote from Sara
- “Framing every decision you make as an investment can help overcome uncertainty.” - quote by Mike
- Quit readiness quiz
- Connect with Sara on Raze To Rise, her personal website, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
