Designed Pause Podcast

Last episode, I told you the doctor in Bangkok found something during my full head-to-toe checkup. This is what happened next. I share what came up, the signs I’d brushed off for years, and what it felt like to finally be heard by a doctor who trusted me to know what I want for my own life. It’s still unfolding, and it may keep me in Thailand longer than I planned. If nothing else comes from this...

I'm in Thailand, and I used part of my career break to do something I never had time for in corporate. I got a full head-to-toe checkup at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok. In this episode, I take you through the whole experience, start to finish. I'll tell you why I wanted to go beyond a standard physical at 40, how I booked a package with the price listed up front, and how the hospit...

I spent years with a suitcase that never really got unpacked, for a job I was good at. My guest today knows that life well. Alana Rollock was a nurse turned director of client outcomes at a virtual nursing company. She flew Monday through Friday, answered emails at Sunday dinner, and loved the work. When she tried to leave, they offered to double her salary. Twice, they convinced her to stay. She...

Since I was a little girl, I had a dream of living on an island close to the beach. I always figured it would happen at retirement. After I had done enough of the other things first. And then I stopped waiting. This is a personal episode about why I made travel and a move to Saint Lucia part of my career break — and what that decision has taught me about what luxury actually means, what ambition c...

Ten planes in fourteen days. A friend's studio opening. Napa Valley with my sister. An interview on a channel I've watched for years. Time with my mom. A new coaching client whose entire perspective shifted in one conversation. This is a freestyle episode — no framework, no guest, just an honest reflection on what it feels like when the life you spent so long designing starts to actually land. I a...

Career breaks are about more than preparing financially. You need help getting ready for the mental shift too. Most high achievers who take a career pause are blindsided by two things nobody warned them about. The first is living between identities — the disorientation that hits when someone asks what you do and your old answer no longer fits. The second is letting go of the need to feel productiv...

Tarji Carter knew she was leaving corporate. She just didn't know when. So she started preparing. Two years before she actually left, she was collecting personal phone numbers and email addresses, saving aggressively every pay period, getting her medical appointments done, and quietly building the vision for what would become The Franchise Player — because she knew that when the moment came, she d...

There is a lot of noise about what a career break will cost you. You'll fall behind. Employers won't hire you. You need to have it all figured out first. Some of that is true. Some of it is outdated. And some of it is just fear dressed up as fact. In this episode I walk through three of the most common myths about intentional career pauses — what the research actually shows, and what I experienced...

I'm not going to tell you to quit your job. What I will do is ask you five questions. Because the woman who is privately wondering whether she needs to make a change doesn't need someone to hand her an answer. She needs someone to help her find her own. These are the questions I would ask if you came to me and said — I think something needs to change, but I don't know what. Something shifted. What...

If you're wondering whether now is the right time for a career break or career pause, this episode is for you. High-achieving professionals — directors, VPs, senior managers — have built programs from nothing, led teams through constant change, and been held responsible for outcomes they didn't even control. So why does planning a career pause feel harder than any of that? In this episode, I break...

The thing standing between most high-achieving women and a career pause isn’t information. It’s the internal work. The self-sabotage. The scarcity mindset. The fear of what people will think. The way we overcomplicate decisions until we can’t make any of them. These four books helped me work through all of it. In this episode I share what I was going through when I read each one, what shifted, and...

If you found this video, something stopped you. Maybe it’s the word pause. Maybe it’s the word designed. Maybe you’ve been quietly wondering whether the career you’ve built is actually the life you want. This episode answers the question: What is Designed Pause — and is it for you? I walk you through the brand story, who this is for, what a designed pause actually is, and every tool I’ve built to...

Kat Kibben quit their job on a Thursday. By Monday they had given their notice. No fallback plan. No slow walk. Just a decision made in the middle of caregiving for their mother, after a manager told them they had no talent. What followed was eight years of building Three Ears Media, three years of van life across the country, two books, and a top surgery that taught them something they hadn't exp...

You have a folder. Maybe it doesn't have a label. But it's there. Career break posts. Sabbatical stories. Financial independence threads. Women who walked away and figured it out. You've been saving them for months. Maybe years. And you are still in the same place. This episode is about why inspiration without a framework doesn't move you forward — it just gives you something to do with the anxiet...

I lost someone recently. Someone close to me. And I’ve been sitting with something ever since — not just grief, but gratitude. Gratitude that when it happened, I was fully present. That my pause made it possible to show up the way I wanted to. Today I want to talk about what losing someone teaches you about the life you’re living. This episode covers six things: Grief and joy can exist at the same...

Stuck behind a desk wondering if a career pause means falling behind? In this episode, I'm breaking down 5 ways to come back from your pause more valuable than when you left. In this episode: Why a hybrid pause is the right time for skill-building (and when it's not) Remote contract, freelance, and fractional work — how to start without recreating your old workload Online certifications that actua...

Sandy Diaz Haley did not leave corporate on a whim. She left when the timing was right, the cushion was there, and nothing on the corporate side excited her anymore. And even then — it was the hardest she has ever worked. Sandy is the founder of SDH Communications and the creator of the Badass Collective, a community of 3,000 plus communications and PR professionals that started as a happy hour af...

Kalilah Wright founded Mess in a Bottle in 2016 with less than $500, during one of the hardest seasons of her personal life. What followed was nearly a decade of building something remarkable — national television, major brand partnerships, and close to $10 million in revenue. And then life changed. The stakes got higher. The hustle that worked at 32 looked different at 42. And Khalilah found hers...

Bernadette Smith has been an entrepreneur for 22 years. She didn't leave corporate to start over — she never went in. And what she built instead is a masterclass in following purpose over comfort, even when it means burning it all down and starting again. In this conversation, Bernadette and I talk about: How a Supreme Court ruling on the steps of the Massachusetts State House launched her first b...

The thing keeping most high-achieving women from making a big life decision isn’t other people’s opinions. It’s the anticipation of them. In this episode I talk about what it actually looks like to make a decision that belongs entirely to you — without asking for a panel, without defending yourself before you’re ready, and without owing anyone an explanation you didn’t agree to give. We cover: Why...

You know you need to stop. Your body knows it. Your sleep knows it. But you can't quite give yourself permission to do it. That's not a logistics problem. That's an audacity problem. In this episode I walk through the four things that make pausing feel impossible for high-achieving corporate professionals — and why finding the audacity to slow down is one of the most strategic things you can do. W...

You've been thinking about a career pause for a while. Maybe months. And you still don't know if you're actually ready — or if you're just exhausted. This episode gives you a 7-day plan to find out. Each day has one task, built around the same framework inside the Designed Pause Decision Kit: Take the Designed Pause Quiz Decode your pause type Do your financial reality inventory Map your other obl...

This is a freestyle episode — an honest, unscripted update on what life in St. Lucia actually looks like right now. Deidra shares what she's been learning about being intentional with where she is instead of waiting to get back home, the small but meaningful wins (a nail tech who changed her life, a gym she actually walks to), what's happening with her contracts, and how she genuinely feels after...

Someone asks you what you actually want — not your next career move, not your five-year plan — and you kind of freeze. Maybe you give the polished answer. But inside there's this moment where you think... I'm not sure I know. That's not a you problem. That's what happens when you spend years getting really good at knowing what everyone else needed from you. In this episode, I'm walking you through...

Every time you think about leaving, you do the math. Salary. Benefits. What you'd have to give up. And the number stops you. That math isn't wrong. It's just incomplete. You've been calculating what you'd lose by leaving. You haven't calculated what you're spending by staying. And those are two very different numbers. In this episode, I'm walking you through a four-category framework for the full...