I was so stressed I thought I was developing dementia.
Three months later I quit my job.
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“I felt like I really efff’d up.”
“I moved my family across the entire country for this awful job. I was getting bad anxiety. It felt like rock bottom - and I needed help.”
This is how Emma Stratton described the situation. Today, Emma is the founder of Punchy - a consulting and training firm that helps fast-growing B2B tech companies win on positioning and messaging.
But before starting her business, she had some major speed-bumps in her journey.
Her family had always wanted to move to the west coast. And when the opportunity came to lead the creative team at a consumer tech company in the South Bay - it seemed like something she couldn't pass up. She went for it.
"I was told that I was going to have creative freedom and I was going to lead this team and it was going to be awesome."
"But what I saw, was actually a poor creative team that was being bullied and victimized by all the different integrated marketing departments. They had no power and also there was a real lack of leadership."
"Our department didn't really have a voice, didn't have that creative freedom. We were at the mercy of whatever different business units or people they were telling us what to do, and we were the order takers."
It only took a few days for her to figure it out.
"They weren't bad people - but they were lying in the interview process. I got hoodwinked - the place was a shit-show."
The environment was tough on Emma's mental health.
"I ended up staying a little over a year and was getting bad anxiety. The further I went, the harder it was one me. And I remember thinking that I was developing early onset dementia!
I was having trouble finding words sometimes when I was talking.
Or I would forget something that I was thinking about. And now I know that that is a really common symptom of prolonged stress, anxiousness, your adrenal glands, being overworked because you're stressed and you're overworking. And so that short term memory weirdness was a symptom of that.
When I left the job, that all went away."
In addition to normalizing the challenges that come from working in a toxic work environment - I was excited to chat with Emma because of her approach to navigating these types of situations.
The mix of personal and professional challenges led her to hire a life coach - to help detangle everything going on. Three months later, quit her job to start her business and began a journey of self-discovery, improvement, and (eventually) professional success.
Emma and I discussed all of it:
How growing up poor led to her having serious money mindset issues after starting her own business - and how she worked through them with the help of NLP.
Why following other people's advice led her to build a business that she hated working in - and how she fixed it.
Overcoming feelings of "I am not enough" after landing the dream client.
The role that hypnosis, tapping, chakra and energy work have played in her professional success.
In our conversation you'll learn a ton of alternative methods for overcoming challenges and adversity.
If you're feeling like you're not living up to your full potential - you’ll love this one!
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