Self-Awareness, Walking Away, & The Courage to Choose Yourself with Jodi Sweetbaum
There's a particular kind of courage that it takes for a leader to walk away from their business - particularly, a wildly successful business, something respected, and something that most people would kill to have.
I've sat across from a lot of leaders who are stuck - not because they don't know what they want, but because they've confused their personal integrity with loyalty to their company. They've convinced themselves that staying is the noble choice, that the team needs them, or that walking away would mean failure.
Jodi Sweetbaum blew that story up completely.
Jodi spent 26 years as Partner and President of Lloyd & Co., a creative agency that shaped some of the most iconic brands in the world: Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Madewell, Adidas. She built something extraordinary, and then one day she left. Not because it fell apart, but because she couldn't be herself anymore.
She didn't leave for a new company. She didn't leave for a title or a roadmap or a big idea waiting in the wings.
“It was the possibility of happiness that drove me. Not the possibility of making a new company or writing a great script or baking a cake. It was the possibility that I could lead with happiness again.”
In this episode, we talk about:
Why Jodi stayed at Lloyd & Co for 26 years - and what finally pushed her out the door
The identity trap that keeps most leaders stuck long past their sell-by date
What integrity actually means when your values and your behaviors stop matching
The difference between walking away and running away - and why it's everything
How to make sure you don't fall into the same traps in your next chapter
What 80-year-old Jodi would want her to know
My Key Takeaways from Sarah Laird:
1. Self-awareness is the most underrated leadership skill.
Jodi said it plainly, “ Not strategy. Not execution. Not vision. Self-awareness - knowing when something isn't working for you mentally, creatively, energetically - that's what enables every other good decision. Without it, you stay stuck and call it loyalty.
2. Staying when you've stopped showing up is its own form of dishonesty.
Jodi talked about integrity as the alignment between what you say, what you do, and what you value. When those three things fall out of sync and you stay anyway - you're not being loyal. You're performing loyalty. And the people around you can feel it.
3. The chicks in the nest can be a trap.
Jodi described herself as a mother by nature - walking into the office feeling responsible for feeding all the chicks. That loyalty kept her going for years. It also kept her there longer than she should have been. Taking projects that weren't right. Not pushing people out when they needed it. Loyalty without discernment isn't always the gift you think it is to the people you're trying to protect.
4. There's a difference between walking away and running away.
This one stopped me cold. Jodi said she had always been running - away from what was behind her, toward what was next. What she wants now is to walk. To stay still long enough to try. To not have to sprint toward the next thing just to avoid the silence of where you are. That's not a leadership insight. That's a life insight.
5. You don't have to have the whole vision to make the leap.
When Jodi left Lloyd & Co., she didn't have a clear plan. She had ideas bubbling up that she was terrified to act on, and one driving feeling - a possibility of happiness. Not a new company, not a five-year roadmap. That took more trust than any business strategy I've ever seen.
I've coached a lot of leaders through leaving and every single time the thing that holds them back isn't logistics - it's the story they're telling themselves about what leaving means. Jodi is the perfect example that sometimes leaving can be the most authentic thing you ever do.
Listen to the Full Conversation:
Connect with Jodi :
Instagram: https:llwww.instgram.com/lojoswe
Email: jodi@all-purpose.industries
Connect with Clay stelzer:
Website: https://15sixty.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claystelzer
Email: info@15sixty.com
If you have a topic or guest you'd love to see on Fearful Giants, reach out to me at info@15sixty.com
Clay
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