We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sharon Mayo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sharon, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I blew up my life and started over at 42.

In 2017, I was an overachieving people pleaser who didn’t know when to stop. I was running the Media Management department at HBO and to save costs (and to help the company), I would continue to work at home until midnight, go to bed, wake up at 6am and start getting ready for work. Then I would get to work, work until 6pm or 7pm, get home, then do more work again until midnight.

I did this until mid-2018 where my boss, my boyfriend and HR put me on forced mental health leave because I was suffering from executive burnout. I basically felt like i was constantly feeding tamagotchis (remember that 90s trend?) to make sure none of my digital pets die but at the cost of my mental and physical health. Before my mental breakdown, I was “technically” at the peak of my career — working at my dream company, where I got to build a team, two dogs, the car I dreamt of ( a Mini-Cooper convertible) with a man who loved me and I had been in a relationship since 2007 (which blossomed from a friendship of over 3 years). I had accomplished everything I had set goals for and here I was having a mental and physical breakdown.

During my mental health hiatus, I was set up with a Psychotherapist, a Psychiatrist and a DBT Therapist (DBT for life). Long story short, part of my depression and anxiety was due to a decision I made when I was 28. You see, I wanted to be a filmmaker or a showrunner…something creative in the television space. But, I have no money (my parents are immigrants, no existing wealth to be inherited, just more debt), and no contacts (everyone in my community is in health and science). What I did have was my smarts, my passion and my sense of humor.

I was able to get a job at Avid Technology after I graduated NYU (I figure, let me just make some money and do something RELATED to the industry somehow) and the master plan was to work there for two years. Make money in the daytime. Write, produce and direct some shorts in the nighttime. I ended up working at Avid for almost 5 years and then going freelance. I became so good at my job that I got to work in 48 states and over 15 countries, all on the client’s dime. In the meantime, the financial security made me change my mind — maybe I can chase the money and buy everything else to make me happy.

Cut back to 2021. I had just gotten laid off from HBO due to the pandemic. I felt that I was given a second chance to do the whole thing over again. THIS time, I would not chase the money, I would chase anything creative and see where it would take me. And if it didn’t work out, I would just go back to post and therapy and try to live my life the best I can.

I applied to Columbia School of the Arts (I admired that Kathryn Bigelow went there, so have been following the school ever since and not going to lie, wanted that Ivy League shine if I were to get a Masters Degree) to the Creative Producing program. I broke up with my boyfriend because I wanted to know what it was like to have complete control of my day, energy and time (instead of splitting it, which I did my entire life since I also took care of my siblings since I was 12, and have had 2 jobs since I was 16). I got in. I took out my 401K and decided to pursue creativity full-time.

Now it’s 2024 and I’ve just graduated. In the time that I’ve made this decision I have:
1. Been the brokest I have ever been. I went from making 6 figures to half of my salary and having to sell almost everything I own and living a nomadic life.
2. Worked on over 30 shorts, many which have gone to prestigious film festivals. I got to write, direct and edit two of my own — a comedic satire and an experimental drama, something I always dreamed of doing and never thought I would be able to do.
3. Rewarded with the Arthur Krim Memorial Award for Excellence in Producing in 2023 and the Richard Brick Award for Excellence in Line Producing 2024 at Columbia University.
4. Acquired the Katharina Otto Bernstein Award for Development and Mentorship for my thesis, The Lily & The Scorpion — which has been recently accepted to the Oscar qualifying Edmonton International Film Festival.
5. Did all the aforementioned while working two part-time jobs — post at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and as a teacher’s assistant for the Film Chair at Columbia.
5. Been the most at peace with myself I ever been in my life. Very little stresses me out now because I simply don’t care what other people think of me unless you’re in my inner circle.

All this to say, the biggest risk I took was to bet on myself. I took all my money out and invested in my education and in my self care. I’m living the life I always dreamt of (it really does feel like I’m starting over) after having a great starter life/starter home. I’ll let you know in 5 years if the risk was worth it. Three years in, I think it is.

Sharon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was supposed to be a doctor. Emergency medicine surgery, maybe neurosurgery I think. I wanted something that challenged me and that I needed to be completely immersed in. Again with the overachieving validation, I was a Interdisplinary Double Major at San Diego State University. This means I took 3 minors to make 2 majors. My minors were Sociology, Biology and English (it looks good to medical schools to be well rounded in your majors). As an elective, I took a film class.

LOVED the film class and out of, I’m not sure what? curiousity? I applied to NYU Film School. My thought was if I got in, it was life telling me something and to pursue it. If I didn’t, I would stay and try to become a doctor, get married, have kids blah blah blah. But, I got in and awarded with the Martin Scorsese Trustee Scholarship if I were to accept. YES OF COURSE!

Fast forward to working at Avid Technology. It wasn’t filmmaking but… filmmakers use Avid to edit and I would at least get to associate with them somehow. Turns out, I was ALWAYS the only woman of color everywhere in post production. I got a lot of judgment and so to get around it, I learned the CRAP out of everything post production. I kept my head down and learned things that I hated and bored me so I didn’t have to deal with the judgment of being “a girl” or “a minority”. I just wanted to be an expert. After doing my 10, 000 hours, I looked up and found that I could now build a post production facility as a Project Engineer, I could build post production workflows as a Workflow Manager. As a trainer, I could teach master classes to editors, producers and engineers and was requested by name by the biggest shows. I had worked so hard to become an expert, all of a sudden I was THE expert and was constantly hired away by bigger and more impressive companies each year.

The skills that me to that expert level turns out, works in every facet of my life — whether its running a production set, planning a baby shower or playing a video game to get the PS5 platinum award. I realized that the only real competition was with myself.

I think most people associate my brand with being kind but not taking any bullshit. My crazy career has taught me that when I feel judgmental (I am human after all) to take a step back and be kind to everyone because you have no idea what that person is going through.

Lastly, realizing that the more unapologetic you are about how you live your life, the more haters you are going to get because you are doing something they wish they could do. If you are ok with the haterade, then nothing can really stop you except yourself, right?

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I had gotten an offer from a very big show that, at that point, be the biggest paycheck I had ever gotten weekly. I was so excited.

Turns out, the show was pretty racist, but undercover racist. When I first started working there, something felt off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Long story short, people of color were jumping ship from the show left and right. Once I pinpointed the issue (a specific toxic person at a very high position) and tried to rectify it, the toxic environment escalated where this person turned everyone against me and started giving me, one of the last few people of color (the only woman of color actually) the cold shoulder.

Finally, an assistant editor took me aside, in tears. She asked why I was trying to get her fired? Turns out, this person was telling everyone that I was trying to get them fired to get them on her side? Took it to the executive producer. His response was…women always fight with women. Figure it out. It’s too expensive to replace her.

The show runs from April until September. At this point, it was the end of June. By July, I was having panic attacks and anxiety attacks. I just kept thinking if I could just make it to September, these are the biggest paychecks I ever had, I can’t give it up. After I started vomiting every morning for a week for the possibility I would have to see this person, I finally quit. The paychecks weren’t worth it. My sanity was worth it.

If I had been younger (I was in my late 30s then), I would have stayed. If this had been my first job ever, I would have stayed and thought all productions run this way. But the fact that I had already worked 10 other jobs without issue, I knew the issue was the environment and who they employed. For a very long time, I had wished I had never taken that show but in retrospect, I am so glad. It taught me how to identify toxic environments and people IMMEDIATELY and that it isn’t worth my time or effort because there are always better people out there who will appreciate what you offer.

When I quit, I thought the show would have blacklisted me but no matter. Apparently people were waiting in line to work with me next anyway. My next job ended up being for the Tokyo Olympics.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I suppose my existence is driving my creative journey. I’m not sure if this is culture specific anymore, but growing up, being in the arts was foolish and for rich and stupid people who can afford expensive hobbies. Because of this, I kind of kept my creative pursuits very undercover but it would sometimes spill over in work or in life and people would ask about it, which made me think that maybe it wasn’t so foolish.

As people who have known me my entire life know, I’ve been through some tragic and depressing circumstances where I’ve had to be hospitalized in a mental hospital for my second suicide attempt. I realize being creative and having a creative job is a way for me to process, share and transform my tragedy into something positive for society and the generations behind me. Over the last few years, I’ve been trying to define and clarify what kind of storyteller I want to be. I gravitate towards stories that critique societal norms because typically those societal norms equate to “no, you can’t do that.” Every time society says I can’t do something (you can NOT get married? You cannot not want to have kids. you cannot be a filmmaker. you cannot go back to school in your 40s), I always wonder why. The core seems to be control over women, people of color, intellectuals and artists.

It has always been about the creative journey, what became my mission is to defy the people who say I can’t because of I fulfill certain modifiers. I only became aware that it was my mission when I had people — kids and adults, surprisingly — to say they were incredibly inspired by what they knew of my journey and it opened them up to pursue goals they had otherwise given up on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sharonmayo.work/
• Instagram: @shizayo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smayo718
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-mayo-108b047/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sharonmayo718
• Other: podcast: https://www.sharonmayo.work/podcast

Image Credits

Brett Ferster
Sharon Mayo
Mengnan Chu