The Corporate Detox with Edilsa

Getting what you thought you wanted doesn’t always mean finding the fulfillment you expected. In this episode, Sweta Govani shares her journey from corporate high-achiever to entrepreneur after being unexpectedly terminated from what she believed was her dream job. We talk about the heartbreak of unmet expectations, why so many ambitious people feel guilty for wanting more, the impact of cultural...

Functioning at work often requires people to separate who they are from how they’re expected to show up. In this episode, I sit down with retail executive Shannon Flanagan to explore what that separation looks like in practice when you’re navigating Bipolar Type II. We talk about the day-to-day reality — the pressure to perform consistently, the experience of self-editing in the workplace, and the...

Building a personal brand online rarely happens the way people think it does. In this episode, Tamara Jacko shares what it actually looks like to create content while maintaining a full-time marketing career. We talk about the slow reality of building an audience from scratch — learning your voice, the grind of reaching your first 5K followers, turning a hobby into a business, and staying consiste...

What if the way you’ve been describing yourself at work isn’t fixed at all, but just one interpretation of what’s going on underneath? In this episode, Rob Gotlieb shares what it looks like to rethink the labels we use at work and what changes when those same traits are reframed through the lens of a late ADHD and autism diagnosis. He takes us inside the lived experience of masking in professional...

Breaking into your first board role rarely happens the way people expect it to. In this episode, Renee Hartmann pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to get, and why most of the conventional advice misses the mark. We unpack the real path in, from why board roles almost never come from job listings, to how early advisory work often starts informally (and sometimes unpaid), to the role y...

Building something from 0 to 1 inside a company rarely looks the way people think it will. In this episode, Jennifer Brown shares what it took to build influencer marketing from the ground up at SHEIN. She breaks down how to build from day one — from creating structure out of ambiguity, to proving and scaling ideas before you have resources, to turning early wins into repeatable systems and teams....

Building companies the traditional way can look right on paper—and still feel completely wrong in practice. In this episode, Freddie Laker shares how a failed company, burnout, and frustration with corporate bureaucracy pushed him to rethink everything, ultimately leading him to build something entirely different: a collective. We get into what a true collective actually is (and what most people g...

There’s a particular kind of discomfort that comes from stepping away from a life you were taught to build, especially when it looks successful on the outside but starts to feel misaligned on the inside. Maria and I get into this space of tension, where ambition, identity, and guilt all overlap: what it feels like to take time off, why it can feel so hard to stop even when you need to, and how muc...

What starts as a search for a tax break can quickly turn into something much bigger. In this episode, Nicole Bansal shares how a moment during maternity leave—sparked by an unexpected tax bill and a deep dive into real estate podcasts—led her to build a short-term rental business alongside her corporate career. She breaks down how she got started without prior experience, why she chose short-term...

Leaving Big Tech can trigger more than a career shift—it can spark a complete rethink of how and where to work. In this episode, Kate Minogue shares what it actually looks like to build a consulting and fractional career after corporate leadership. She discusses how executives land their first consulting gigs, how advisory and fractional roles differ from traditional jobs, and why layoffs can some...

What qualifies me for this conversation? More than a decade inside corporate at brands like Amazon, a degree in marketing and the lived experience of leaving corporate to build something new. Im this podcast, I’ll explore the big questions about work, purpose, and ambition with people who have chosen different paths—and those still figuring it out.