[00:01] Valerie Beck: Rise. Renew. Reconnect.
[00:04] Welcome to from the Ashes, a podcast where every episode ignites hope and healing.
[00:09] I'm your host, Valerie Huang Beck, and I'm on a mission to help you embrace your unique potential and become the vibrant visionary you knew you were meant to be.
[00:17] Sabra Meretab: Shimmer fire in the darkest night of Phoenix burns It's ready for flight Shadows may come try to tear you apart but you're the flame that.
[00:29] Valerie Beck: All right, welcome back, everyone.
[00:32] From the Ashes. It's Valerie here and I have my guest today, Sabra Meerhab.
[00:37] So she's a writer. She's calling in from Pennsylvania today. She's a system strategist and a former Silicon Valley powerhouse who spent a decade leading high stakes initiatives in the tech world, most recently as lead technical advisor and chiefs of staff at strike, an organization of over a thousand engineers.
[00:56] However,
[00:58] the this conversation that we are going to be having today is not necessarily about all her of her high achievements, but her journey through burnout and the.
[01:08] The moment of reckoning that she's had because of the way that she's pushed herself through life.
[01:15] And so we are going to be very, very honest today about what it takes to be a high achiever and how to really balance our lives in a way that's more true to us.
[01:23] I love that Sabra approached me for this podcast. After listening to it,
[01:28] I'm looking for burnout and it just, I am really excited to continue this conversation because it's one that we really need to have in order to create a world where we're not only creating harmony for ourselves, but we're actually creating harmony for other people by doing this work and having these conversations.
[01:45] So thank you, Sabra, for being here today to share your story.
[01:49] Sabra Meretab: Awesome. Thank you so much. I'm, I'm very excited to be here.
[01:53] Valerie Beck: Yay. And so before we start, I also want to highlight that she is writing a book right now and she's going to be sharing a little bit about that.
[02:02] And she's also the author of the blog how to feed your soul on substack. Right.
[02:07] Sabra Meretab: Yes.
[02:08] Valerie Beck: If you want to check out some of her work, definitely check that out.
[02:11] But yeah, let's get into it and start with your from the Ashes story.
[02:18] So since I know that you have gone through burnout yourself and you've listened to from the Ashes in your journey,
[02:25] what.
[02:26] Where does your journey start?
[02:28] Sabra Meretab: Yeah,
[02:28] so I think, I think my journey actually starts in childhood, which it's weird to go that far back in time when you think about so much of your Burnout sort of existing in your career.
[02:40] But I think a lot of the habits that end up creating burnout later in your life actually stem from really sort of deep rooted patterns, perhaps in childhood.
[02:51] And for me, you know, a lot of that was sort of this pattern of constantly pushing myself to.
[02:58] To kind of be perfect and to perform at the highest levels, which, to be clear, I think is you know, an excellent thing to strive for.
[03:06] I am. I am very much supportive of the pursuit of excellence and high ambitions.
[03:12] But I think that trait I sort of.
[03:15] I put pressure on myself so young to, you know, always take the hardest classes, to shoot, to get into the top schools, to then get the best internship when I was in college, to then land the best job.
[03:26] And you start sort of l in this place of constantly,
[03:30] you know, future proofing. And when you're constantly future proofing, you live in this fear of disappointment of what could come if you don't do that.
[03:38] You fear what it would mean to sort of fall from grace if you even slightly lift your foot off the pedal.
[03:45] And so that pattern continued to sort of play out when I entered the corporate world.
[03:50] And I found myself, you know,
[03:52] not just striving to be great, but striving to be perfect all the time and sort of putting just tremendous pressure on myself to never let a single ball drop.
[04:04] And that degree of stress was not the fault of my team or my company or anyone around me. I think that was the greatest epiphany. That's not to say that that's the case for everyone, but for me, like, I sort of realized that this was deeply rooted in myself as a trait that felt uncomfortable with,
[04:26] you know, the risk of falling short. And so my burnout was deeply caused by what I could only describe as a type of insecurity.
[04:34] And. And, you know, it took me a long time to. To sort of unroot that.
[04:39] Valerie Beck: Ooh, there are a lot of questions that can stem from that. So I think the first thing that I want to dig into when I hear that is because a lot of us fall into this, like, straight A category, right?
[04:53] We want to be perfect. We. We want to achieve this. These are the values that were instilled into us from a very, very early age.
[05:01] And it's. It's like the definition of good.
[05:05] Like, when you're a small child and you're praised for that, like, that's what you associate as being good. And what's actually being safe,
[05:12] right, is like, your parents are going to approve of you, your teachers are going to Approve of you, everything's going to be good for you.
[05:19] When did you realize that it was not?
[05:23] Sabra Meretab: I think I realized that this sort of obsession wasn't healthy. When I actually started to notice the physiological symptoms.
[05:34] And those symptoms,
[05:36] you know, they sort of crept up on me slowly. And from that perspective, I was almost numb to it for way too long. I mean, this was the kind of thing where I was starting to go to bed each night and just know that insomnia was like a part of my normal night.
[05:51] And I would go to bed each night with a like piercing migraine. And I just thought that it was normal to have a low grain headache throughout, throughout the day.
[06:01] I think,
[06:02] you know, it sort of came in moments when I started to literally notice that there was more hair pooling at the bottom of my shower than before.
[06:09] And I started to realize that like this degree of stress that I was putting in myself working a, you know, working a very intense job, but ultimately, you know, the responsibility sort of sitting with me,
[06:22] that was a.
[06:23] That, that was a problem that,
[06:25] that I could no longer overlook.
[06:27] And it took me witnessing that to believe that this was a problem worthy of me addressing rather than,
[06:35] you know, thinking that more work would solve that anxiety.
[06:39] And I think that's a trap that we often fall into. Like that's quintessential high functioning anxiety is you. You actually become more productive as a way to soothe yourself from the fear of not doing enough.
[06:52] And yet it only comp.
[06:55] Sort of anxious side effects that, that you experience.
[06:59] Valerie Beck: Yeah. And this resonates so much. I mean, you know, even now, having worked through a lot of my,
[07:05] my patterns, this is something that comes up repeatedly is like sometimes I get back into the pattern of I need to work more in order to make things happen.
[07:14] And then I notice myself getting anxious again and not sleeping again. And like, oh, we're back here again.
[07:19] And it is. You said something really significant about personal responsibility. It wasn't your company.
[07:26] Right. It wasn't the people around you that were causing you to this. It was a deeply ingrained pattern.
[07:32] I think we put ourselves in situations that, that align with the reality that we were conditioned to,
[07:41] to survive in. Right.
[07:44] So it's like we're going to become our greatest enabler.
[07:50] But it's very tempting to play the victim and be like,
[07:55] I work in a company that doesn't respect my needs,
[07:59] like, my boss doesn't care about me. I hear this a lot from people and how did you. Did you ever fall into that? And then if so, how did you get out of that.
[08:11] Sabra Meretab: I think,
[08:11] I mean it sounds like similar to you.
[08:14] I think I was pretty sensitive to the fact that this was not a reflection of the people around me.
[08:22] Like, you know, I worked in an extremely fast paced company. We were growing tremendously quickly, we were working on extremely hard and complex problems. And yes, those all contribute to stress, those all require all hands on deck.
[08:36] But that was not the force that was really putting the pressure on me. Like at the end of the day, the buck always stops with you. Like only you can choose how much you work.
[08:48] Only you can choose like how you let those, you know,
[08:52] responsibilities weigh on you and only you can control how you communicate to your team where you need to load balance. And those were all things that I wasn't doing.
[09:02] And I think that it's very tempting to scapegoat sometimes. And that's why you see so many people go through this cycle of like rage quitting their job.
[09:13] And I very much didn't want to do that because I felt deep fellowship with the people that I worked with. I loved many elements of my job. I just didn't love the way I did my job.
[09:26] I didn't love the way I made myself feel.
[09:29] And I think that that doesn't mean we shouldn't hold,
[09:33] you know, companies accountable for building cultures that, you know, that, that discourage burnout and create systems that enable people to better manage their sort of work life calibration.
[09:46] But you know, you can hold, you can hold our systems accountable for that while also recognizing that,
[09:54] that you are part of what makes those cultures like the, you know, you, you feed into whatever, whatever sort of creates the space.
[10:04] And the best way that you can encourage that is by being a part of the change and like communicating what you're feeling, sort of being more transparent, being more thoughtful about how you prioritize your work, which is doing right by yourself and the company in many cases.
[10:20] And that's not to say that it was easy for me to do that, but I did recognize pretty early on that this was a me problem.
[10:28] Valerie Beck: Yeah,
[10:29] I think a lot of us are afraid of if we speak up, what is going to be the reaction from the higher ups or what is going to be the reaction from our coworkers.
[10:38] Because we have a very, you know, we often fall into fixed mindset of like, they're not going to like what I say or there's going to be consequences.
[10:46] I actually have had people tell me like, you know,
[10:49] you can't have boundaries at work because like, you're always just going to have to deal with the nasty co worker. And I was like,
[10:55] but is that true?
[10:56] Like, can, you know, can we take steps? Like, does it have to be such a. Because sometimes it feels like life or death. Right,
[11:04] so how did you navigate that? Did you find yourself feel, feeling fear when you started to notice, like, I need to change the way I'm doing things? And how did.
[11:13] Sabra Meretab: Yeah,
[11:14] yeah,
[11:15] I, I think this, I think a lot of people will have different experiences here and some will feel that they're,
[11:22] you know, work environment is, is,
[11:24] you know, genuinely an unsafe place where they risk retaliation if they share,
[11:31] if they share what they're feeling vulnerably.
[11:33] And that's an awful way to feel. And I think that if you even sense that that's,
[11:38] that that's the nature of your workplace, you need to seek every opportunity to leave it.
[11:44] But, but I think that actually most of us,
[11:47] maybe this is optimistic, but I actually think that most of us tend to work in places that are most like good, kind, reasonable people.
[11:56] And the only reason that we can't unlock more of our own happiness is because we're deeply afraid of revealing that we aren't actually unflappable and that things actually are hard for us.
[12:12] But what I have found is that,
[12:14] you know,
[12:16] maybe more directly to your question, what I've found is that when you do share what you're actually feeling,
[12:22] you are often met with tremendous resonance.
[12:27] And I actually did do that at the last place that I worked.
[12:31] I shared with a lot of my coworkers that I was pretty burnt out that I recognized that the source of my burnout was a lot of my self doubt and imposter syndrome.
[12:42] And what I ended up finding was that nobody sort of threw tomatoes at me from the stands.
[12:49] Everybody actually then responded with their own shared sentiments, like their own insecurities.
[12:55] And that sort of spanned levels, functions. That was the most mind blowing part. We think that this only occurs maybe for junior people, but I actually think extremely senior leaders feel that same sense of just kind of bumbling their way through, figuring out what it means to be,
[13:16] you know, smart and strategic or whatever,
[13:19] you know, what it means to have like business polish.
[13:21] And so I think that we need to let go of that fear that sharing ourselves is weak and that we need to recognize that sharing ourselves will only lead to better outcomes for everyone.
[13:38] And even in a toxic work environment,
[13:41] you know, it requires tremendous bravery to do that,
[13:44] but it will only lead you to where you're meant to go, whether that's reforming the culture of your company or showing you that you need to go elsewhere.
[13:53] Valerie Beck: Yeah. And so right now you're not in corporate. Right.
[13:57] So you, you ultimately did make the decision to go elsewhere.
[14:02] What led to that decision? Because it sounds like also you were able to create some change or at least some, you know,
[14:10] your sharing was able to create some empathy within the company that you were in.
[14:15] Sabra Meretab: Absolutely. I, I, I did not actually leave my company for any,
[14:20] you know, for any reason related to my burnout.
[14:24] Over the course of the time that I was there,
[14:27] I,
[14:28] once I started sharing what I was feeling, I actually had a tremendous amount of support and thought partnership in how I could,
[14:37] you know, better prioritize my workload, how I could, you know,
[14:41] work more collaboratively with my team to,
[14:45] you know, to kind of figure out like, where do I lean in and where do I let others lean in?
[14:50] So unlike what some people might experience where they feel like they need to rage, quit their job because the system isn't working for them,
[14:57] I actually pretty intentionally chose to stay at my job until I felt I had sort of cured my burnout, until I felt as though I had like uprooted the self doubt that made me overwork.
[15:10] And so when I actually left the corporate world,
[15:14] I left during my, at my happiest place. I left when I felt, you know, very at peace. I felt very in control of my workload.
[15:23] And,
[15:24] and so actually the reason I left was because I saw that self doubt that had defined so much of my corporate life, my corporate and academic life.
[15:34] I found that that self doubt had sort of migrated somewhere else.
[15:37] And that was a cue to me that it was time to go.
[15:41] Like I had done what I needed to do to grow myself in this one realm in the corporate world. And now I needed to follow where that fear was migrating because I had proven to myself that only good things could come when I leaned into, into my fear.
[15:57] And I found that my fear had migrated into sort of this creative curiosity to pursue writing and a lot of, a lot of self doubt surrounding that about, you know, can I write a book?
[16:10] Will I be a New York Times bestselling author or am I destined to be a, you know, no name failure?
[16:16] So I,
[16:17] I left for perhaps different reasons than, than most.
[16:21] Valerie Beck: Oh, I love that. And I,
[16:23] yeah, okay, you're saying something really powerful because I coach clients on how to align themselves to their greater purpose.
[16:32] And it requires a level of healing.
[16:37] Right. And it requires a level of self awareness. And what you just described to me is that you took the time to face Those challenges that were coming up in the workplace, like, they could have come up any other place too, but in your case, they came up in the workplace and you took that opportunity to sort through your fears.
[16:57] And because of that, you got clarity. And when you have clarity, you realize that like you're,
[17:03] you can create anything. It, you have the, the power to choose your life, actually.
[17:09] And when you realize you have the power to choose your life,
[17:13] that creative spark returns. Because then it's like, what else can I create?
[17:18] And so,
[17:19] you know, I love that you left your job not because you were running away from something, but because you're running towards a greater you.
[17:30] Sabra Meretab: Yes, I think I, I think that's put wonderfully. I mean, I, I love the way that sounds. I hope that is true.
[17:38] And I, I, I long for that to be the truth of my story.
[17:42] And,
[17:43] and I think that there's,
[17:47] you know, when it was so,
[17:50] it was so tempting at times when I was deeply burnt out to want to run away and to try to rationalize to myself that I was taking the brave route.
[18:01] You know, there were many times where I thought about quitting. I would make a pretty good pitch to myself that like, no, no, Sabra, this is the brave thing, like you're going to go be a creative.
[18:11] But I knew deep down there was also a part of me that was really running away from,
[18:18] you know, from again from that fear of like shattering my,
[18:23] my reputation, my brand at work, that, that you know, I had built up something and if I lifted my foot off the gas a little bit or if I told people that like, hey, I actually can't keep all these balls in the air, I just like feared of the whole facade crumbling.
[18:38] And so it really would have been running away if I had quit a day earlier than I did.
[18:44] And because I actually,
[18:47] you know, I guess did the hard thing, like, did the thing that was really uncomfortable and like stayed and communicated with people and like, hey, maybe broke the like perfect crystal image of myself that was, you know, perfect and could take on everything because I,
[19:05] I let that part of me tremble a little bit visibly.
[19:09] I ended up finding so much more peace and work and I ended up working for many more years than I, than I planned to and enjoying so much of it after that inflection point.
[19:21] And then like you said, that clarity that I had of, of, you know, self doubt being the root of this,
[19:28] I was able to just see clearly where that self doubt was perpetuating was popping up in other parts of my life and it was popping up in, you know, in a casual hobby of journaling, that, that I realized I secretly longed to be more than that.
[19:45] And, and,
[19:46] and it gave me insight into where I needed to run to next.
[19:50] Valerie Beck: Yeah,
[19:51] beautiful.
[19:53] I have a question because a couple of weeks ago you wrote an article on your choice of the word insecure in your working title of your book.
[20:04] And you are actually kind of debating with yourself about it, right? Because the word insecure,
[20:11] you know, people perceive it a certain way.
[20:14] Can you go a little bit into it? Because I, I feel like that's getting into some of the, the theme or the, the culture that you wish to shift in the corporate world.
[20:23] Sabra Meretab: Yeah, absolutely.
[20:24] So I have been considering in my memoir using the word insecure in my title, though the title is still a working title.
[20:33] I think the word insecure makes people very uncomfortable and maybe especially high performers,
[20:41] because if you're somebody that has proven that you can thrive in the working world,
[20:46] you don't tend to actually think of yourself as insecure.
[20:49] Like for a long time,
[20:51] that was never a word I would have used to describe myself. Like, when you picture people that are insecure, you just picture these people that stumble over their words or kind of wallow in self pity or avert their eyes when leadership is in the room.
[21:05] And that wasn't me. I mean,
[21:07] I was very comfortable speaking in front of people.
[21:10] You know, I had a reasonably strong presence. I wasn't shy by any means.
[21:14] I like that word because I think that insecurity can encapsulate a lot more than we realize. And the people that resist having insecurity the most are probably the ones that just haven't like dug the deepest into the dark crevices of themselves to realize where that insecurity lingers.
[21:36] So for me, that, that insecurity doesn't take the form of shyness or meekness.
[21:41] It takes the form of maybe like self doubt in the things that I most want to be excellent at.
[21:49] I think it's important to call that out because of how scary it is. Like, it's scary to say aloud when you really, really want something because then it highlights the chasm between you and it.
[22:05] So for a long time it was almost scary for me to say,
[22:08] like, yeah, I want to reach this level in my company,
[22:11] or yeah, I want to write a New York Times bestselling book. Because the moment you put that out vocally,
[22:17] you sort of anchor all eyes on you to then study and see where you are between what you want and,
[22:25] and,
[22:26] and I think that's actually an important place to put yourself in because that is like the, the most incredible act of bravery and the more that you sort of deconstruct all of the like spooky,
[22:41] you know, invisibleness of your fear and the more you give it a name.
[22:46] And for me that was just like self doubt or insecurity that the more it just became less of this taboo thing that I had to let control me. So I actually found great power in taking ownership over, over that word as an adjective for myself.
[23:04] Valerie Beck: I love that. Did you have any backlash?
[23:08] Sabra Meretab: I, I haven't had backlash over it. I think my parents to this day continue to continue to wonder if that's the right word to describe myself, to brand myself that way as, you know, an insecure overachiever.
[23:22] People want to march towards something that inspires them and the word insecure doesn't really inspire,
[23:29] but I do think it's sort of this important foundational truth that you need to understand within yourself and it'll be different from person to person.
[23:41] And I think there's a lot of,
[23:44] you know, force that can provide as, as a launch pad.
[23:48] So I'd say the only,
[23:49] the only backlash, so to speak, is my parents saying. Are you sure you want to describe that way?
[23:54] Valerie Beck: Yeah, yeah, totally. Are you familiar with the term shadow work?
[24:00] Sabra Meretab: No, I'm not.
[24:01] Valerie Beck: Okay,
[24:03] so I guess shadow work is a term that is pretty common in mental health spaces and some spiritual work as well. But it's actually just identifying the patterns of fear that you have from.
[24:19] Mostly from childhood. Right.
[24:21] Where it's like we were conditioned to believe a certain truth. Well, you know, just to conditioned to believe that reality is a certain way. And so shadow work is really,
[24:32] really digging into those fears. Like you said, like digging into the deep, you know, dark crevices of, of your mind and facing those fears head on.
[24:42] When we declare what we want. Which you, you said like it's hard for people to say what they want because we're afraid of owning it. And then also seeing that gap of how far we are from what we actually want.
[24:57] We, we are faced or we are forced to face our shadows.
[25:02] And a lot of it is self doubt.
[25:05] Especially if, if there is such a gap between where we are. Like let's say you want to become a published author and you've never written before.
[25:15] It's easy to be like, I'm not worth it. It's easy to tell yourself I'm never going to get there.
[25:21] Have you built your own toolkit to help you navigate that as you've, you know, you've done the shadow work yourself, which I think you have done a little bit.
[25:30] Sabra Meretab: I think I do have a bit of a toolkit. I think the toolkit is always a work in progress.
[25:34] I think part of that toolkit has, has just been journaling, which when, you know, when somebody first told me to journal, I, I almost cackled out loud. Like, I just, you know, I thought that, I thought that it sounded kind of silly and now it's unfathomable to, to me to think about my life without writing.
[25:53] That's how much I fell in love with it.
[25:55] So I think that journaling is such an important first step.
[25:59] I think the second tool would, would be reading.
[26:02] Like reading about a lot of different experiences, but also reading as a means of,
[26:07] of very low cost exploration.
[26:10] You, you never know what is going to sort of spark your inspiration.
[26:15] And a lot of people long to feel passionate about something and struggle to find it. For me, that was like the greatest frustration of the last, you know, 20 years of my life.
[26:26] It's like I long to be really passionate about something,
[26:29] really called to do something, and I just never felt that for anything.
[26:33] So I think reading is another important tool to just better understand where your passions might live and to sort of feel around in the dark. I think that's actually a really wonderful strategy.
[26:47] Like, you don't need to see the end destination every single time.
[26:50] You just need to start slowly feeling around and you'll, you'll kind of fumble your way. There's.
[26:56] And then I think the third toolkit I would just call out is sort of again, just deeply naming those shadowy fears.
[27:11] And in the case of a lot of people, I think that are weighing what they want to pursue.
[27:16] That fear is often a fear of starting too late.
[27:21] It's a fear that you're a one trick pony, that you may have been wildly successful in one realm, like the corporate world, but you couldn't possibly replicate it again in the creative world.
[27:32] And,
[27:33] and I think that the tool that you need to,
[27:38] you know, recognize in order to combat that is merely the tool of your own agency.
[27:44] And that agency doesn't need to take leaps and bounds.
[27:48] You know, again, it doesn't need to rage, quit its job and flip a table.
[27:52] You know, it needs to start with just micro steps. And it needs to trust that those small steps will lead to something and that the, that the universe is colluding on your behalf.
[28:02] If you actually just spend enough time to,
[28:05] to take small steps in the direction that you want to go.
[28:09] And I Think people need to just trust for a bit, Give yourself these small windows of time to just trust that taking some small action will always make you feel better than taking no action at all,
[28:26] even if nothing comes from it. I think that's been the most enlightening part of all of this, is that.
[28:32] And it sounds so cliche when you say it out loud, but it's like I could honestly say in this moment, if my manuscripts were to just sit in a book I printed myself from staples on my shelf for the rest of my life,
[28:46] I would still feel that every single moment of writing it was well worth it. I would still walk past that shelf every single day and look at it and feel such profound fulfillment that could not be simulated or replicated in any other way.
[29:00] And if you just trust that you will actually feel deep pride and joy in the fact that you had the gumption to do the journey, to do the small steps,
[29:12] you will care less and less about the outcome over time as the outcome actually comes closer and closer to you.
[29:20] And that's kind of the incredible part that I think helps you start to build this momentum.
[29:28] So that is my best working toolkit so far.
[29:32] But it's, it's always an iterative process.
[29:36] Valerie Beck: Yeah, I love that because it is really speaking to your, your. What is it?
[29:44] It's speaking to your ability to have choice,
[29:48] right? And to just do the thing, make, make the decision for yourself, to fulfill yourself.
[29:56] And no one can take that away from you, but you actually.
[30:00] And a lot of people do,
[30:02] A lot of people do.
[30:04] You had mentioned earlier, you know, you started to see how this,
[30:08] the, the lack of confidence, the, the, the self doubt leaked into different parts of your life. And this is something that I realized too. And it actually was a crisis of mine in my personal life that pointed me towards how it was also affecting my professional life when I burned out.
[30:25] And that was my personal relationships.
[30:30] And it, I remember like, it was like it.
[30:34] I had no working system.
[30:36] I was always trying to please other people because my conditioning was like, you, you work hard,
[30:43] you be,
[30:44] you do the right thing, you get the good results.
[30:48] And with especially romantic relationships,
[30:52] that doesn't work that way all the time.
[30:55] Like working harder is not working smarter often.
[30:59] And it, it took me seeing finally that it was affecting every single aspect of my life before I was like, oh my God, I am self sabotaging in so many ways.
[31:13] So I want to ask you, like, did you see that happening as well? Like,
[31:18] you know, the self doubt creeping in places that you didn't think that it would,
[31:22] that you would see it.
[31:23] Sabra Meretab: Yeah, I think I did. And, and I, I think I would share your feeling that I did see it creeping into my relationships.
[31:33] I think when I started to be able to name the self doubt that I had in the workplace,
[31:40] I realized how much of it was also tied to my deeply conflict averse nature.
[31:47] And sort of as you put,
[31:51] you know, working, working harder is not always working smarter. And in relationships specifically,
[31:58] you know, being,
[31:59] being conflict diverse can often just,
[32:02] it's, it's playing the short game. Like, you know, it might help you now to create peace and harmony, but over the long run it does not set either of you up for success.
[32:14] And so I would tend to fall back to people pleasing. I would tend to fall back to being overly apologetic for things that perhaps did not warrant it. And that was selling myself short and it was also doing wrong by my partner.
[32:32] And it was not believing that both of us are worth enough to have hard conversations where I express pretty directly and honestly what I'm feeling without leaving room for ambiguity.
[32:48] You know, I think I live too much in the ambiguous, like in that ambiguous state where, where a lot can go unsaid.
[32:55] And,
[32:56] and that was the main,
[32:57] that was the main form factor that I saw of self doubt there. It was really conflict aversion.
[33:04] Valerie Beck: And did you see that shift once you also see, you know, started to make those conscious shifts in your workplace?
[33:10] Sabra Meretab: I did, I did. And so, you know,
[33:13] as I started to sort of debug the conflict aversion that I had in the workplace that ended up looking like me just having more honest conversations with my managers and saying, like, you know,
[33:25] here's what I can and cannot do. Like, here's how I'm thinking about what I should prioritize. Like, here's when my plate is actually overflowing and managing up and telling them, hey, I really need your support on this.
[33:37] As I started to do that more in the workplace,
[33:40] I built a comfort with it. And you know, as with everything, when you start to do more of it, you just,
[33:47] you deconstruct the discomfort and you realize that it's actually not nearly as bad as you forecast it to be in your head and in my personal life too.
[33:57] I just started to fear the outcomes of that and I started to,
[34:04] you know, I started to see and prove to myself more and more how good only comes from having honest conversations.
[34:12] Even when it feels uncomfortable, even if it hurts the other person.
[34:16] Having the transparent conversation will get you what you need and the relationship overall what it needs.
[34:25] Valerie Beck: Absolutely. Yeah. Honesty is definitely best policy. And it's so much of what we are trying to hold in is because we don't want to,
[34:36] we don't want to hurt other people. Right. But then we hurt ourselves in the process.
[34:41] Sabra Meretab: Definitely.
[34:43] Valerie Beck: Okay, so you mentioned something earlier when you, when you contacted me about imposter syndrome and hero syndrome.
[34:50] I have heard very little about hero syndrome, so I'd love to unpack some of that with you and how that plays into your journey.
[34:58] Sabra Meretab: Absolutely, yeah.
[35:00] I don't know if hero syndrome has been coined as a phrase anywhere, but I've certainly been reflecting on it a lot.
[35:07] And the reason I've been reflecting on it is because for a long time I heard about imposter syndrome.
[35:13] This word, especially in the last decade, has been thrown around a lot and validly so. I think a lot of different demographic groups can feel imposter syndrome in the corporate world,
[35:25] but, but it also doesn't really discriminate. You know, anybody can, can feel imposter syndrome.
[35:30] And I, I felt elements of imposter syndrome, as in I, you know, looked around at the company that I was within and I was just slack jawed by how smart these people were.
[35:43] I mean, truly, I loved this place and I loved the people in it and I was just in awe of the caliber.
[35:51] And it did make me deeply question whether or not I belonged there or whether or not I had really just, you know, successfully in one moment,
[35:59] you know, fooled people into thinking that I was smart enough to be there.
[36:03] So I felt elements of that imposter syndrome. But in my core, I knew I was worthy. You know, I had, I had enough of the credentials on my resume. I had like, you know, supportive parents that always told me they loved me.
[36:16] I didn't have these sort of deep traumas that I think drive a lot of people to feel unworthy in the ways that sort of imposter syndrome can often manifest for people.
[36:27] So,
[36:28] so I, so I resonated, but it didn't fully hit the mark. And I think when I started to realize that what I was feeling was this combination of imposter syndrome and this lesser talked about hero syndrome, I really started to get a grasp on like who I was.
[36:43] And so hero syndrome,
[36:45] I think as I've defined it,
[36:48] is recognizing that you belong somewhere but still feeling like that belonging is fragile.
[36:57] And even as you have,
[37:00] you know, sort of repeatedly proven yourself, in fact, you've been celebrated, you've been rewarded, you've been praised.
[37:07] Like,
[37:08] even after all of that, it has Only added more to your sense of fear of a fall from grace.
[37:15] And so you are the hero and you want to uphold that hero reputation.
[37:22] And you start to get worried about what it would mean to shatter people's trust in the fact that you're the superhero they can always call upon.
[37:31] And that is just another,
[37:34] you know, that is just another fuel to the fire of your burnout is just fearing what it would mean to suddenly break that reputation of invincibility.
[37:50] And I saw that as a big part of what caused me in some cases to constantly go above and beyond, to just be unwilling to not go above and beyond.
[38:02] And that led me to an awful breaking point,
[38:06] which again, isn't doing right by you or the company is my, Is my true, my true belief.
[38:13] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[38:14] So when you left,
[38:17] did you feel that the threat of the, the disappointing people. Right, because that's kind of what it is, is like you've, you've done so much and like people revere you and all of that and like, then you're thinking of leaving.
[38:31] So did that come up as you were thinking about, like, I'm going to quit and all of this? Like,
[38:36] you know, I'm going to actually let go of all of the stuff that I've built?
[38:41] Sabra Meretab: I think there, there was during that time where I was again deep in my burnout and I was considering running away from it. Like running away from the self doubt.
[38:52] I was, I was thinking about hero syndrome a lot because I think that's what pushes people to jump ship from their jobs really quickly without pausing and thinking about the insecurities that are causing their burnouts.
[39:04] It's like it almost becomes EAS for you to just say, hey, you know what? Rather than having that difficult conversation where I tell my leaders that I need to lighten my load,
[39:16] I would rather just jump ship while I'm ahead, you know, then. Then I'll preserve my reputation in perpetuity. They'll always know. Yep. She was an A student, she was a rock star, and she's just decided to go do something else.
[39:28] But we always knew that, like she could be unbreakable and she could do it all right. It becomes very tempting to leave while you're ahead.
[39:36] And I sort of realized again that that was a fear. That was a fear of breaking the hero syndrome. And the harder thing to do was to let myself be seen as I'm truly feeling and to confront the difficult conversation that was needed for me to have a more gentle grip on my own life,
[40:02] both.
[40:02] Both personally and professionally.
[40:05] So I definitely think that it was intertwined with the thought process around whether or not I wanted to leave my job. And hero syndrome will push you to want to rage, quit.
[40:18] It will discourage you from taking a more tempered approach to lift your foot off the gas.
[40:23] Because that's the thing that actually feels scarier.
[40:28] Valerie Beck: Yeah, because you don't want to be seen as weak, perhaps.
[40:31] Sabra Meretab: Definitely. I think don't want to be seen as weak and don't want to break anyone's sense that you can, that you can do it all.
[40:42] Valerie Beck: So I've never been in the corporate environment actually,
[40:45] you know, looking at it from, from the outside.
[40:48] What are some of the things that you wish would be different?
[40:52] Sabra Meretab: Yeah, I, I mean, I think the first thing that really comes to mind is I wish there was more vulnerability in the corporate world.
[41:05] And this has gotten talked about a decent amount. You know, people talk about like bringing empathy. I think there's like a huge debate around whether or not you should bring your whole self to work or not.
[41:15] However you want to define your whole self.
[41:17] But I continue to fundamentally believe that vulnerability is the foundation of all great leadership.
[41:25] And I can say that there hasn't been any leader I've admired that hasn't also been vulnerable.
[41:31] And I would say vulnerable is another word that kind of scares people because you think it sounds weak to, you know, share your vulnerabilities.
[41:42] I think that's almost because we're getting too caught up in the pedantics of the word. Like when I think of vulnerability, I merely mean sort of sharing yourself, like sharing what you are feeling as a human and sharing what you want, what you hope,
[42:01] what troubles you,
[42:02] what your actual insecurities are not what your sort of polished ones are that you want to frame when you're describing your weaknesses in a job interview. Like the things that feel genuine and authentic.
[42:13] Like I want to hear my leadership express that in addition to our strategic business strategy. Like I want to hear those two side by side.
[42:24] And I think the corporate world should lean into that more. Because vulnerability is the foundation of trust.
[42:35] And trust is what leads to transparency.
[42:38] And transparency is the foundation of all high performing teams.
[42:42] And I mean that very tactically.
[42:44] Like if you are working on a project and that project is off track,
[42:48] high trust teams are transparent. They do not sugarcoat to their leaders. They say, this is off track, we're in a really bad place. Here's what we need to get back on track.
[42:57] Here's what we did wrong, but here's what we're going to do right Going forward,
[43:00] that is the foundation of a great training team.
[43:03] And you only find that when there's deep psychological safety and trust and in, in the team. So I think that vulnerability in the corporate world actually builds resilience in the company to withstand the ebbs and flows of hard problems and difficult times.
[43:23] Valerie Beck: Have you ever seen a project crash and burn because of lack of vulnerability?
[43:28] Sabra Meretab: Absolutely,
[43:29] I definitely have.
[43:32] I mean, I think that in those cases it has come down to individuals feeling as though they couldn't share the truth of the status of the project or the effort.
[43:43] They feared,
[43:45] you know, they feared how it would reflect on them,
[43:49] exposing where they had blundered. That's not to say that,
[43:52] you know, companies need to, you know, companies need to perform, companies need to make money and, you know, and, and employees will be judged on their performance, of course, like, this is how systems function in order to work.
[44:04] Well,
[44:05] people,
[44:06] I think that people are mistaken when they think that sharing the transparent state and owning the errors,
[44:15] I think they're mistaken when they think that that won't actually just reflect positively on them over the long run, you know, because I've also witnessed many examples where a project has crashed and burned or been on track to crash and burn,
[44:29] and the leadership of that project,
[44:32] like, had huge ownership over it.
[44:34] They, you know, they kind of came with a detailed explanation of where they had messed up, what factors were within their control, what factors were not within their control, but that they, you know, perhaps should have been more attuned to.
[44:48] And that distillation did not make leadership go and look at them and wag their finger as though they're wrong. It only built trust. Wow. This person gets it. This person really knows what went wrong.
[45:00] They really understand what it would take to do it better next time.
[45:04] And they are the ones that are going to give it to us straight. They are not going to, you know, sugarcoat the realities of what it takes for us to be successful in this business.
[45:13] And those are the people that I want to work with, those are the people that I would want to hire, and those are the people that I admire working for.
[45:20] Valerie Beck: Yes, absolutely.
[45:22] Yeah, thank you for that insight.
[45:25] So let's shift over to your life now because you're now a writer, right? You've been writing this beautiful blog. I, I read your posted. I think it was today on Blueberry.
[45:36] Sabra Meretab: Yes.
[45:38] Valerie Beck: And yeah, you've been really writing from the heart. So what,
[45:43] you know, paint a picture of what life is now. What are you committed to now creating now that you've shifted over to A more,
[45:50] you know, creative role in your life.
[45:53] Sabra Meretab: Yeah,
[45:54] so I have taken time off from the corporate world mainly to finish writing the book that I've been working on for a couple of years. And I can do that at a much faster pace now that I'm not also working a job,
[46:07] and then to also kind of work on my blog, which is purely a creative and fun outlet.
[46:14] And so I think my objective within this time is,
[46:20] again, I would just put it in the category of sort of exploration and sort of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
[46:28] And I know that I will feel tremendous pride in just completing that book.
[46:37] And so that would be my sort of meta objective in all of this.
[46:41] But along the way,
[46:43] it's been a lot of fun to just write blog posts about whatever strikes me. And so I think that a sub goal to this time would just be to be more present and to observe,
[46:57] you know, more of my life that.
[46:59] Because I have the headspace and the time to.
[47:01] And so it's really been this.
[47:04] This lesson in giving myself permission to live life a little more slowly and to see what comes from it. And what I found is that when you do give yourself a little more time to take a step back,
[47:19] you give yourself the space to follow wherever your curiosity takes you. And for me, I end up sort of expressing that curiosity through blog posts, which tend to just be observations of my life.
[47:32] But I think it could be anything for anyone. It could be picking up new hobbies or activities or creative callings.
[47:39] And that really has been a parallel objective of mine, to just be present and see what sparks my creative curiosity.
[47:50] Valerie Beck: So as, you know, someone who's lived with this really high achievement mindset, does it ever creep back into your consciousness of, like,
[47:59] I should be working a job or I should be doing this?
[48:02] Sabra Meretab: Okay, absolutely.
[48:04] Valerie Beck: Yeah.
[48:05] How do you. How do you deal with that? Because, like, this is something I. I also am. Like,
[48:10] sometimes I do feel like I should be doing something different, but I know that it's old conditioning.
[48:15] Yeah,
[48:16] yeah.
[48:17] Sabra Meretab: I mean, I think there are always two sides to taking a creative route.
[48:23] I think one is the factual side, as in, what do you need to support yourself?
[48:32] And the other is sort of like the sociological side, as in,
[48:36] what pressures are you feeling from the world around you that are actually kind of imagined?
[48:41] So there's the real stuff and the imagined stuff.
[48:46] I think,
[48:47] you know, I.
[48:48] And I feel. I feel the weight of both. I think everybody does.
[48:51] I think on the real side,
[48:53] you know,
[48:54] I think financial autonomy sort of underpins so much angst and fear that so many people feel. And it's a valid.
[49:05] It's a valid discomfort.
[49:07] But I also think it's very important to sort of look at that in actual terms and make sure that you aren't just fearing in the abstract and so getting really clear with yourself about, like, how much money do I need, like, to support the lifestyle that I want?
[49:24] What does this look like over the next 15 years?
[49:28] Very rarely do we actually dig into that calculus. You know, we just sort of think in the abstract that, like, more money is always better, and so then it becomes this, like, moving target for the rest of your life.
[49:39] So I sometimes think about those real terms,
[49:42] but. But. But more often, I think what I feel.
[49:46] What I feel is. Is.
[49:48] Is more of that social weight of should I be.
[49:54] Should I be sort of using the momentum that I built and. And every moment that I stay away from the corporate world, am I sacrificing,
[50:04] making it irrevocably difficult for me to get back to that?
[50:08] And that is,
[50:10] again, I think, more of an imagined fear than an actual fear.
[50:14] And that answer will vary for different people. Everyone's at different stages of their career. They have different skill sets. They have different levels of financial comfort.
[50:26] But I think it's really important to bifurcate those two in your mind and know which one is controlling you in the moment.
[50:33] Because some elements of it are more rational than others.
[50:37] Valerie Beck: Absolutely.
[50:39] Yeah. And it's something that, like,
[50:41] it's very hard to escape it. Right. Because we're always under some kind of pressure, and we do have to support ourselves. That's the reality.
[50:48] But to remind ourselves, like, yes, we are safe and, like, to really be present, as you said,
[50:54] can really help us to stay grounded in what we're committed to right now.
[50:58] Sabra Meretab: Absolutely.
[51:00] Valerie Beck: So, as a wellness professional, I do want to ask you, what is the role of health and maintaining health and you're being able to sustain your life?
[51:10] Sabra Meretab: I really like that question because I think that.
[51:13] I think that health and wellness was something I didn't take seriously enough for a long time.
[51:21] I didn't.
[51:23] I didn't trust that being in touch with my body would actually make me happier. And that sounds so absurd to say out loud. Like, you know, when I hear that played back to myself, I'm like, that sounds crazy.
[51:35] You sound insane. How could you not think that feeling better in your body would make you feel better all around?
[51:40] And yet, I think so many people, on a daily basis actually pretty consistently make decisions that go against that, because it's just too easy to. It's just too easy to, to constantly deprioritize these other things that again, seem to abstractly feed wellness because deep down you don't trust that that'll make you happier over the long run.
[52:02] And you can see the very immediate costs,
[52:06] let's say, of you needing to push out doing an assignment or push out a deadline or something like that. Those costs feel very tangible and immediate. And sometimes the greater health and wellness costs that perhaps unfold over the course of years in, in terms of like your psychological and physical health,
[52:24] those feel just, just loftier initially.
[52:29] But, but I've since,
[52:31] with, with more of this time and, and even before I left my job, I had, I, as part of my recovery from burnout, I had in many ways become a new person in terms of sort of,
[52:44] sort of pursuing all of these ways to make myself live more embodied. And that took the form of like going on walks. It took the form of going to the gym with regularity.
[52:55] It took the form of,
[52:57] in some ways, like fixing my relationship with food. Like, you know, just really,
[53:03] you know, not sort of not undervaluing what it would feel like in my headspace to,
[53:12] to just be more oxygenated, to feel physically stronger, literally with more muscle mass, ***.
[53:19] And that,
[53:21] that is a huge part of actually what I do now with my time is like, I go on so many walks and I go to the gym a lot because it feels, it feels great.
[53:30] And, and I've been trying to just learn more about that whole health and wellness space.
[53:35] Valerie Beck: Beautiful.
[53:36] All right, so we're going to wrap up our interview and the last thing that I want to go over is I want you to talk a little bit about your memoir,
[53:45] who it's for.
[53:46] Right. And what can, what lessons can we expect from reading that?
[53:52] Sabra Meretab: Yes.
[53:53] So I think, you know, this, this memoir might be my personal story,
[54:01] but I think it's actually the story of what so many people wrestle with. And, and specifically, I think that audience is, is people that would self describe as,
[54:13] you know, hungry high performers that are ambitious and yet deeply long to find what calls to them.
[54:24] They have proven that they can thrive in the traditionally celebrated realms of the world. Investment banking, consulting, tech, like whatever it may be, the doctors and the lawyers,
[54:38] they've thrived in these celebrated environments,
[54:41] and yet they know deep down that they hunger to feel genuinely called towards something.
[54:50] And they haven't been able to unpack why. They haven't been. Been able to find what that is.
[54:56] And so this is a story for people that want,
[55:02] that want,
[55:03] I guess a bit of a playbook for how to find that.
[55:06] And,
[55:08] and it's a story that says you don't need to rage, quit your job.
[55:12] You can actually discover this in parallel and you can uncover whatever that calling may be.
[55:20] And it will require you excavating a lot of your self doubts.
[55:25] It will require you confronting conflict with perhaps the people in your life or perhaps the conflict the most within yourself.
[55:33] It will require you to sort of lean into your intuition and to trust that that's actually a voice you can really listen to.
[55:44] And I think that the ultimate message for people is your self doubt is not working against you.
[55:52] It is often the greatest compass pointing you towards what you secretly want.
[55:57] And the more you can describe it and name it and identify the spaces in which that self doubt just bites at you,
[56:06] the greater clarity you will have into that, you know, into that nebulous space of what you might be truly, truly passionate about.
[56:18] And I hope this story encourages people to pursue that quest and to find the courage to take the first steps in going after it.
[56:31] Valerie Beck: Lovely. Thank you, Sabra. I think that's an excellent takeaway because imagine a world where everybody is pursuing their passions with joy and feeling a hundred percent themselves. So really look forward to having that book come out.
[56:49] Sabra Meretab: Awesome. Thank you, Valerie.
[56:51] Valerie Beck: Thank you. All right, thank you for being on here. We'll see you next time.
[56:56] Sabra Meretab: Soar to the sky.
[56:59] Valerie Beck: Thanks for tuning in to from the Ashes. If this episode sparks something in you, I want you to know your evolution matters and we're rooting for you all the way.
[57:07] For coaching, community and resources to help you rise into your full potential,
[57:11] visit intrepidwellness Life and check out what we have to offer.
[57:15] If you love the episode, please leave a comment, share it with a friend or tag me on Instagram ntrapidwellness Val,
[57:23] because I'd love to hear what resonated for you.
[57:25] Until next time, keep rising.
