Burnout, Bravery, and the Business of Becoming

Reflections from my Escape Velocity conversation with Traci Schubert Barrett

🎙 Episode Link: Listen now to the full podcast episode →

Every once in a while, I have a conversation that stops me in my tracks. This episode of Escape Velocity with Traci Schubert Barrett was one of those moments.

There’s a popular story arc we hear a lot. Someone “walks away from success” to live a more meaningful life. But in the case of Traci Schubert Barrett, that narrative misses the point.

She didn’t walk away from success.

She walked toward significance.

Traci was part of the original team that launched HGTV. She helped transform a bold, untested concept into a billion-dollar media brand. She climbed quickly, led big teams, and built a career that anyone looking in from the outside would consider a dream.

But at some point, she realized she was no longer energized by the version of success she had achieved. It looked right. But it didn’t feel right.

And instead of pushing through, she paused. She started asking better questions. And then, she did something most people never do. She changed course.

From growth at all costs to growth with clarity.

Traci didn’t leave success behind. She redefined it. She earned a master’s degree in professional psychology to better understand how to serve her team. She launched a leadership consulting firm, Navigate the Journey, where she coaches executive teams and business owners on how to grow with intention. And she wrote the best-selling book What If There’s More? Finding Significance Beyond Success to help others navigate similar shifts and inflection points.

Her work now focuses on helping leaders close the gap between where they are and where they want to be, without losing sight of what matters most. She brings emotional intelligence, strategic insight, and decades of high-level experience into every room she enters.

This episode of Escape Velocity is a window into how she thinks, how she works, and why her message is hitting home for so many.

Redefining success isn’t giving up. It’s leveling up.

“Success is a feeling,” Traci told me. “If you feel successful, you are. But if you haven’t defined what success means to you, someone else already has.”

That line stuck with me. Because how many of us are operating off definitions we didn’t write? Or chasing a version of success that no longer fits?

Traci’s story isn’t about throwing away ambition. It’s about realigning it with purpose. It’s about replacing someone else’s finish line with your own.

Burnout doesn’t come from working too hard. It comes from carrying the wrong kind of pressure.

Traci made this distinction clear. You can work long hours and still feel energized if you’re aligned with your purpose. Burnout comes from misalignment, from carrying invisible weight, from performing success instead of experiencing it.

It reminded me of something I read in a Harvard Business Review study. Burnout is often caused not by workload, but by lack of control, lack of community, and lack of meaning. Traci sees it every day in the leaders she coaches. They are not tired from the work itself. They are tired from the pressure, the fear, and the silence.

And as she put it, business is personal. It always was.

Emotional intelligence is not a bonus. It’s a requirement.

Traci didn’t study psychology as a side hobby. She pursued it while still at HGTV, because she realized that leading through complexity requires more than strategy. It requires emotional insight.

Now, through Navigate the Journey, she works with companies to embed emotional intelligence into the heart of their leadership. She teaches teams how to communicate clearly, hold healthy tension, and actually talk about the things that matter. She helps people lead from their values instead of their fear.

When leaders avoid the hard conversations, or lead by managing rather than trusting, teams lose momentum. Culture suffers. Growth stalls. And people burn out.

Emotional intelligence isn’t soft. It’s what keeps the whole thing running.

What you give your energy to—grows.

This was one of the most powerful ideas from our conversation.

Traci said, “Whatever you feed will grow.” Fear, resentment, comparison — they will expand if you let them. But so will purpose, trust, creativity, and courage. It’s not just an inspirational quote. It is a psychological principle backed by neuroscience. Our brains strengthen the patterns we repeat.

So if your energy is constantly going to anxiety, urgency, or the need to prove yourself, those are the things that will run your life. But you can make a different choice. You can redirect that energy toward building something that feels aligned with who you actually are.

That begins by paying attention.

Leadership is not just about direction. It is about becoming.

One of the most honest parts of our conversation was about how leadership changes you. The betrayals. The heartbreak. The way you evolve not through the easy seasons, but through the hard ones.

“When we stop trusting, we stop leading,” Traci said. “We just become managers.”

Leadership will challenge your identity. It will stretch your emotional capacity. It will invite you to grow, even when you’d rather retreat. But if you do it well, it will also reveal who you really are — and who you’re capable of becoming.

Final thought: Be ambitious. Just make sure it’s your ambition.

Traci Barrett didn’t burn her past to the ground. She built on it. She used everything she learned in corporate America to create a second chapter that feels more like her — and helps others do the same.

She is not anti-growth. She is pro-alignment.

And if you’re someone navigating disruption, reinvention, or burnout, her message is simple and important: You don’t have to lose your soul to grow your business. You don’t have to sacrifice your values to scale.

You just have to decide what matters. Then build around that.

Want more from Traci?

Pick up her book What If There’s More? and explore her work at NavigateTheJourney.com. Whether you’re leading a company or simply trying to lead your own life with more intention, her insights are worth your time.

And if this episode resonated, share it with someone who might need to hear it. Chances are, they’re carrying more than they’re letting on.

Because the truth is, many of us are not looking to escape success.

We’re just ready to define it on our own terms.