We recently connected with Danielle Roberts and have shared our conversation below.

Danielle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Though I didn’t realize it yet, the seeds of my business were planted in one of the darkest moments of my life in 2013, when my mom passed away just nine weeks after her cancer diagnosis. With a $28,000 per year salary and student loan payments, I couldn’t afford to take FMLA while caregiving, so I worked in hospital waiting rooms and throughout hospice, and was back at my desk after just three days of my allotted bereavement leave.

Like so many of us, I had been conditioned to believe that working harder was the answer to everything. Not knowing how to process my grief, I threw myself even deeper into work because it felt like the one thing I could control.

This pattern of overworking continued for years. I jumped from one demanding role to the next, believing that if I’d eventually find the happiness I was chasing but feeling like a failure every time I didn’t. My breaking point finally came in 2021 when, after successfully building demand for an edtech product to accommodate the pandemic-era shifts to online learning, I was suddenly laid off just one month after moving 1,000 miles away from home.

That was my wakeup call into the reality that so many people face: you can dedicate your whole career to playing by the rules and still end up losing.

The real problem wasn’t people failing at work—it was work failing people. And so my business was born.

I’d spent nearly a decade working in career development with professionals across generations who felt trapped in careers they’d outgrown but didn’t know how to pivot. I saw how deeply people tied their identity to their jobs, how scared they were to ask, “What do I actually want?” because they weren’t sure they were allowed to. Despite their diverse backgrounds and industries, they all felt trapped in a system that valued productivity over humanity. And I saw how companies kept repeating the same empty engagement strategies, completely missing the mark on what people actually needed to thrive.

The career advice out there was either outdated or designed to keep people playing small. So I built my business as a direct challenge to that. While plenty of voices were talking about skills, productivity, and performance, few were addressing the human cost of our current work culture or offering practical, human-centered solutions for change. I saw an opportunity to bridge this gap by helping both organizations and individuals reimagine their relationship with work.

I knew this would work because I wasn’t selling a “dream job”—I was teaching self-advocacy skills. I was speaking directly to the people who were tired of trying to win a game that was rigged against them and were ready to play by their own rules.

My unique approach lies in addressing both individual and systemic change. Instead of just helping people cope with burnout or teaching companies to boost productivity, I guide them in fundamentally reimagining how work can enhance rather than deplete wellbeing. What excites me most is that we’re not just improving individual lives – we’re contributing to a larger transformation in how companies and workers relate to each other, building cultures where both profit and purpose coexist.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a dynamic advocate for a human-first future of work who speaks and writes about career development, workplace dynamics, work-life balance, and finding purpose in a world that optimizes for productivity.

I believe the way we think about work and define success is fundamentally and systemically broken. Known online as the Anti-Career Coach®, I’ve built an engaged community of 70k+ across social media by challenging the toxic “dream job” narrative. Instead of promising quick fixes or perpetuating hustle culture, I help people recognize that fulfillment doesn’t come from finding the perfect job—it comes from building the confidence to advocate for what you need, regardless of your title or role.

With a certification in Life Design from a class taught in the same name at Stanford University and a decade of experience in career development, I bring a fresh, psychology-backed approach to improving workplace dynamics. My work spans three key areas:

1. My signature program helps individuals and groups increase their “intrapreneurial power”—the ability to create positive change from any position within an organization. Rather than waiting for permission or promotion, participants learn to leverage their unique strengths to drive innovation and improvement, making their current roles work better for them.

2. I also partner with forward-thinking organizations on culture change initiatives, focusing on career and leadership development that prioritizes human wellbeing alongside business outcomes. This work is about creating sustainable success rather than just short-term productivity gains.

3. As a speaker, I bring these insights to broader audiences through in-person and virtual events, conferences, workshops, and media appearances. One of my proudest moments was delivering a TEDx talk entitled “Why Working Harder Isn’t Working,” where I discuss what hustle culture is costing us on an individual, organizational, and societal level and how we can regenerate company cultures where profit and purpose coexist.

As a millennial, my inquisitive nature and direct communication style help cut through corporate jargon to address the real intergenerational issues holding people and organizations back from creating meaningful change: building trust, belonging, and impact.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I started my business, it was one of the biggest pivots I’ve made in my career! I had spent over a decade working in social media marketing across agency, higher education, and tech, before experiencing a layoff one month after moving 1,000 miles away from my friends and family. I found myself without a job, without a paycheck, and without a support system, too burnt out to even consider throwing myself into yet another corporate position.

In that moment of complete upheaval, I realized I couldn’t keep working in the same industry, chasing a definition of success that was never mine to begin with. Instead of immediately jumping into the next thing, I decided to do something that felt radical at the time: I slowed down, turned inward, and reflected.

I reached out to personal and professional connections, asking what they thought my biggest strengths were. As I analyzed the highs and lows throughout my own career and life, clear themes emerged: I thrived when empowering others, I had a natural gift for strategic storytelling, and I felt deeply driven to push for systemic change.

These insights led to the first iteration of my business: career coaching. I leveraged my background in marketing and marketing psychology to help others navigate their career transitions, strategically positioning them as solutions to specific problems companies were trying to solve.

But as I worked with more clients, a deeper pattern emerged. I saw how we’d all been caught in the same trap – brilliant people shrinking themselves to fit into workplaces that weren’t built for them. This revelation pushed my business to evolve into something more fundamental: helping organizations and individuals reimagine their relationship with work itself. Today, this vision comes to life through coaching, speaking, writing, and consulting.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that life is a series of pivots. Nothing is permanent, and that’s actually beautiful. Our careers should evolve alongside us, and I look forward to future iterations of my business as it continues to grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of the workplace.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I’m a lifelong learner and avid reader! These resources have helped shape my philosophy that true success isn’t about optimizing every moment for productivity, but about creating sustainable systems that honor our humanity while driving meaningful results.

“The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield was revolutionary in helping me understand the nature of creative resistance. Pressfield’s concept of “The Resistance” – that force that prevents us from doing our most important work – helped me recognize how often we self-sabotage out of fear, and how to push through it.

Several books have shaped my understanding of how rest is crucial for both productivity and well-being. “Rest Is Resistance” by Tricia Hersey radically reframes rest as a form of social justice and resistance against hustle culture. “Set Boundaries, Find Peace” by Nedra Glover Tawwab and “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price helped me challenge deeply ingrained beliefs about productivity and worth.

Oliver Burkeman’s “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” transformed how I think about time. Rather than trying to squeeze more productivity out of every minute, Burkeman suggests accepting our finite time and choosing what truly matters. “Deep Work” by Cal Newport complemented this by showing how to create space for meaningful work in a distracted world.

For understanding systemic change, “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux opened my eyes to new possibilities for how companies can operate. “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown, “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott, and “Immunity to Change” by Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskow Lahey have been instrumental in developing my approach to leadership development.

Also, don’t discount the power of rest, recreation, and daydreaming. Some of my best ideas have come from giving myself space to relax, play, and create instead of constantly consuming new information!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://danielleroberts.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imdanielleroberts
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imdanielleroberts
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielleroberts/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@imdanielleroberts

Image Credits

TEDx photos provided by TEDxEustis