The Career Breakers Show

Sarah K Peck is a Career Breaker. And she’s back on the show for a second time—this time to exchange career updates for this special Season 4 finale. Together, we reflect on the themes that emerged across our journeys and explore what it looks like to navigate nonlinear careers in real time. This episode is a chance to zoom out, connect the dots from Season 4, and close the season together. If thi...

Bonnie Wan is a Career Breaker. She spent 30 years in the world of advertising and brand strategy, helping companies get clear on who they are, what they value, and where they’re going. On paper, it was a successful, long-standing career. But behind the scenes, she was navigating the same tension many high-achievers face—trying to hold it all together while something deeper felt misaligned. In a m...

Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton is a Career Breaker. Her career never followed a straight line. From studying both art and theory to becoming an educator, researcher, and innovation leader, Sarabeth found herself constantly navigating roles that didn’t quite fit into one clear category. Along the way, she experienced multiple professional identity crises—moments where she questioned not just what she...

Elizabeth Aldana is a Career Breaker. Her career followed a path many ambitious professionals are taught to chase. She worked hard, moved up, took on bigger roles, and built a career that looked successful on paper. But along the way, she began to realize that endurance is not always the same thing as alignment, and that staying too long in something that no longer fits can come at a real cost. In...

Josh Levine is a Career Breaker. His career began in the world of graphic design, working at a small brand strategy firm in the Bay Area. Over time, he realized his strengths extended beyond design into facilitation and helping leaders make meaning together. That realization set him on a path toward building his own business, Great Mondays,. And now he has spent more than 15 years helping organiza...

Jess Weisz is a Career Breaker. Her career began the way many high achievers are taught it should. She started in consulting at McKinsey, moved into strategy at the Bank of Montreal, and followed a path that looked successful on paper. But internally, something wasn’t working, and over time, she began to question the rules she had been following. In this episode, Jess shares how stepping away from...

Andrea Jones is a Career Breaker. Her career began in a fast-paced, high-demand role at Intel, where she worked as a process engineer and followed a path that looked successful on paper. But early on, she knew she wanted something different. She was craving more flexibility, more ownership over her time, and a career that could support the life she wanted to build. In this episode, Andrea shares h...

Lucy Nobles is a Career Breaker. She spent over two decades at Adidas, building a career that didn’t follow a traditional path but was rooted in one clear purpose: creating space for creative teams to do their best work. What started as a temp role turned into a 22-year journey supporting designers, shaping environments, and filling the gaps that organizations often overlook. But after years of ch...

Sarah Beller is a Career Breaker. Her career began in education, arts management, and nonprofit leadership, including work centered on global social justice. On paper, her path was meaningful and aligned. But over time, she began to notice the signs that something wasn’t sustainable. In this episode, Sarah shares how she followed the inner pull toward coaching and community-building, and the pract...

Lee Wilmoth and Emily Holmes are Career Breakers. Both of their careers have unfolded far outside the traditional one-lane career path. Over the years, they’ve built work lives that blend facilitation, strategy, consulting, creativity, and art — not as side hobbies, but as meaningful and intentional parts of how they work and live. What might look “scattered” from the outside has actually become a...

Brian Aquart is a Career Breaker. He began his career on a traditional path in law, first private practice, then city government, with a clear idea of what success was supposed to look like. But after a door closed on the version of his future he thought he needed, Brian slowed down, hired a coach, and reimagined how his skills could translate beyond legal practice. In this episode, Brian shares h...

Elles Skony is a Career Breaker. Elles has what she calls a “classic HR background.” She began as a generalist, took on broader responsibility across talent, recruiting, and learning, and eventually stepped into the role of Chief People Officer at a high-growth startup. Her path followed a progression many HR leaders recognize. But when her company needed to scale down, Elles made an unexpected mo...

Dr. Robin Owens is a Career Breaker. Her career began the way many high achievers are taught it should. She majored in business, landed a leadership role at a bank right out of college, and on paper, she had arrived. But internally, something was off, and eventually her body forced her to pay attention. In this episode, Robin shares how breaking away from early expectations led her through multipl...

LISTENER SURVEY Audrey Blankenship is a Career Breaker. Audrey’s career has taken her across sales, training, and tech, with plenty of pivots along the way. Today, she works in sales enablement, supporting teams at a cybersecurity company. Like many people navigating work right now, she’s experienced moments of uncertainty, including a layoff that invited her to pause and think differently about w...

Jessica Wan is a Career Breaker. After a successful career rising through marketing roles across design, the arts, and tech, Jessica reached a moment when the path ahead looked clear but no longer felt right. She craved deeper conversations, more meaningful impact, and a way of working that honored all the parts of who she is. In this episode, Jessica shares how she stepped away from a role she lo...

Deb Manning is a Career Breaker. Deb's career has spanned multiple chapters, first pausing when her children were young, then rising into senior marketing leader in the tech world. Most recently, she spent 12 years in a role she describes as "full, fast, and fulfilling." She loved her team, loved the work, and yet something inside her knew it was time to pause again. In this episode,...

Amy Petricek is a Career Breaker. Over the last four years, Amy has navigated three unexpected layoffs. Each one arrived abruptly and outside her control, yet these career disruptions became moments that reshaped how she thinks about work, identity, and growth. In this episode, Amy shares how she rebuilt confidence by activating her network, treating her job search like a sales process, and invest...

SJ Tudor is a Career Breaker. After nearly a decade freelancing and enjoying the freedom and flexibility of running her own creative business, SJ started to feel the limits of hustling alone. SJ had big ambitions, including becoming a creative director for a global brand, and she realized she needed new experiences, bigger teams, and a different kind of environment to get there. In this episode, S...

Atalay Ozsoy is a Career Breaker. After a decade in corporate sales at companies like Coca-Cola and Amazon, Atalay found himself craving work that felt more meaningful than closing deals. Football had always been an important part of his life but it wasn’t until corporate asked him to choose between returning to the office or continuing to coach on the side that he realized what mattered most. In...

Rebecca Goldcrump is a Career Breaker. She began her career as a CPA, following a predictable and stable path. Over time, she realized she wanted work that felt more connected to people and purpose, which led her to pursue an MBA and co-found The Impact Collective, a company helping individuals and organizations actualize their vision of a better world, one where the strength of the collective dri...

Emily Lily is a Career Breaker. After more than a decade leading culture, people, and organizational development, including serving as Director of Culture at a Portland startup, Emily felt a pull to step away. What began as a quiet whisper to leave became a full-body call for expansion. They left, but their break took an unexpected turn through two ovarian tumor surgeries, surgical menopause, and...

Travis Wilson is a Career Breaker. After years building a career in leadership and learning development, helping teams grow across industries like higher education, healthcare, aerospace, and tech manufacturing, Travis made a pivot. In 2023, he stepped away from corporate life to become the Lead Dad in his household while his wife, an academic physician, pursued her work in oncology. In this episo...

Krista Vaught is a Career Breaker. After graduating from law school, Krista made the bold decision to not practice law, setting her on a completely different path. Guided by curiosity and a desire to connect people with the resources they need to thrive, she built a career spanning higher education, leadership development, and employee experience. Today, she’s a Principal Advisor at Frontier Desig...

Wendy Kleinfeldt is a Career Breaker. After rising through leadership and Learning & Development roles in tech, Wendy reached a breaking point. She realized the the “golden handcuffs” weren’t worth the cost to her self-respect or well-being. Drawing on a lifelong third-culture perspective and a strong mind–body intuition, she chose to walk away from corporate life and redesign work on her own...

Todd Sattersten is a Career Breaker. Todd started his career in engineering and fabrication, but his interest in business books led him down a new path. What began as blogging and interviewing authors led him into publishing, first supporting authors with book launches, speaking, and events, and eventually taking over Bard Press, a Portland, Oregon-based book publisher. In this episode, Todd share...