We were lucky to catch up with Felicia Sullivan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Felicia, thanks for joining us today. Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job?

No leader is infallible. We all make mistakes and cringe-worthy missteps, but it’s how we resolve the mistake that matters. It’s the after that people remember. I was once in a meeting with a direct report who had a habit of shutting down other team members’ contributions when she felt they were wrong. Let’s call her Sarah. I remember another timid team member (let’s call her Cathy) who offered an opinion on a topic. (I was so glad Cathy finally spoke up! My mentorship was working!) Sarah, who didn’t have a problem letting Cathy know that she was wrong, cut her contribution short. I was livid. In response, I used my authority to snap at Sarah, and the whole team fell silent. In the moment, I realized I was wrong and I suspected the team did as well.

Within an hour, I approached Sarah in a conference room and apologized. She burst into tears and said that my lashing out was not okay, and I acknowledged that it wasn’t. I explained that Cathy probably felt the same way, having experienced, on a smaller scale, what Sarah had just experienced. We all deserve to be heard and respected, even if we’re wrong. We need to act from a place of grace in how we treat others.

Later, I apologized to the team in a follow-up meeting. I pointed out that my lashing out at Sarah wasn’t an appropriate way to deal with frustration. After the meeting, Sarah approached me and shared that she had apologized privately to Cathy. Going forward, both of us modified our behavior by allowing team members to contribute without interruption, and we framed our feedback as a way to build upon, rather than erode, the contribution: “That’s a terrific idea! Have you thought about how we can add X to Y?”

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned as a manager, and subsequently as a leader, is that people, regardless of whether they’re conscious of it, will model their behavior off of you. Management is about people, and people come with certain skill sets, quirks, and emotional and professional baggage. One has to consider how to manage them individually and in the context of a team. For me, managing teams reminds me of an orchestra. Collectively, we make beautiful music, but it’s a result of everyone playing their heart out in their individual parts. A great manager manages individually and leads collectively.

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.

For years, I leaned on my marketing sense to build my business. Focus on positioning–what sets you apart from the thousands of other people who do what you do. Focus on packaging a product–keep your offering tight, specific, and measurable. Niche down. Network. Build pitch decks to show what you do, how you’ve done it, and your successes.

For years, I devoted a freelance career to building brands for start-ups and companies going through a revamp or turnaround. I helped them define what makes them shine, how to separate their story from their product story, and all the bits that make a brand unique (values, positioning, benefits, reason to believe, brand story). I was laser-focused and delivered results. However, perhaps I grew bored or didn’t want to put myself in a box even though that box was easier to market that proclaiming you’re an ocean–but I changed.

Now, I tell people I help tell their stories so they can connect with their customers. I use a myriad of tools to get that done from NLP AI analysis, brand equity and segmentation studies, surveys, and social listening. I remind clients that their customers know their brand often better than they do and it bodes well for them to listen.

So, I teach people how to listen and how to tell stories in response to that listening. I use my skills as a marketer and novelist and my experience in data and storytelling to make that crucial connection.

Now, it’s less about a product and more about the tools they need to go on their journey.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should be doing that something. Especially if that something sends you screaming into pillows.

I appreciate anyone who helps me avoid feeding from trash cans. An old friend pitched me for a CMO opportunity for a VC-backed start-up, which is a fancy way of saying I’d be working 18 hours a day for a percentage of my worth to further some rich guy’s exit strategy. But I set aside my deep skepticism for humanity because the company, while targeting people who have cash for kombucha, actually benefits people who suffer from addiction.

The founder loved my background and we scheduled a chat. And believe me when I say I cycled through the gamut of human emotions leading up to the chat. I rewound the tape to when I worked for a sociopath founder. There I was was building Keynote decks at 2:30 in the morning, morphing into the kind of large-time asshole that makes my direct reports cry (I’ve since apologized and I’m no longer an asshole, just severe and alienating). And there I go again five years later as head of strategy for an agency working into the evening and blinding reaching for anything in a takeout container.

There I go again putting someone else’s needs and dreams before my own.

I saw myself tethered to an industry that views marketers as nice-to-haves at best and TikTok content creators at its worst. Chatting about influencers and engagement rates and using terms like “game-changing,” “circle back,” “move the needle” until I punched myself in the face.

Suffice it to say, I backed out of the call. Could I do the job? Easy. Breezy. Cover Girl. Could I use the money as I’m a few months away from dereliction? Of course, I could.

I find this happening again and again. Apparently, it’s easier getting a full-time job than it is a project — possibly because people are hiring toddler CMOs and paying them accordingly. I also can’t work for a company that doesn’t play the long game. Everyone’s so deeply concerned with their socials instead of building a company that will sustain through the dumpster fire that is climate change.

For years, I’ve lamented over the fact that I don’t have a five-star career. I’m making far less money than I used to. I feel like a failure, blah, blah, blah. Until it occurred to me that I could have those things but I chose (and still choose) not to. Except for the money part, which is heartbreaking, but digression. I’ve realized that I like the quieter gigs. I like not being the star of the show. I like to be alone doing the work. No longer do I want top billing, the inhumane hours, and the greed that comes along with capitalism and profit at any cost.

We live in a cult of more. We’re not valuable unless we’re producing, famous, and have legions of followers fawning at our feet. We’re not worthy unless we have fancy titles or the trappings of wealth and prestige. We’re not the smartest if we’re not the loudest in the room.

I say swim agains the tide. Play small if you want to. Walk away from that big job if you know you’ll be sobbing in bathroom stalls. Find the work that pays your bills, nourishes you a little, and leaves you time for the rest of your life. You know, the stuff that matters.

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

In 2016, I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression. Finally, I had the language to describe how I’d felt for most of my life. That year, I lost friends, I lost gigs, I lost myself. People love to say they support people who have mental illness until they are in position where it inconveniences them, makes them feel an iota of discomfort. People want to hear your depression in the context of a comeback story and I didn’t want to preen for social media and friends and colleagues who warned me that I’d lose even more clients if I talked publicly about struggling with mental health. To which I replied–name one time I was late on a deadline. Name one time I delivered anything less than extraordinary.

Instead of receding during that dark time, I double-downed on writing about my mental health on Medium, and it made me realize that some people like the full story. They like to know the human behind the work. Not many, but enough that has sustained me since.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/feliciacsullivan
• Other: felsull.medium.com