Episode 3

The $75,000 Raise That Almost Kept Her in a Job She Hated

Sometimes it isn’t one sign. It’s three.

Melissa Lanz didn’t get one wake-up call. She got three.

The first came standing at her kitchen counter, eating a frozen burrito over the sink after the kids were in bed, BlackBerry in the other hand, when her husband said he needed to talk. What he told her was that he did not really like her anymore.

Most of us would have come out swinging. Melissa took a beat and said, “I don’t like me either.”

That still was not enough to make her go, because she was the breadwinner by a wide margin. So the second call came on a business trip, watching a boss operate in a way that was out of step with everything she believed. And the third came when another boss asked her to fly to Europe at the last minute. She said she would need to sort out childcare. He said, “What? You have kids?” After two years of working together, he did not know she was a mother.

Even then, when she finally told them she was leaving, they put another $75,000 a year on the table. And she said yes.

That is the part almost nobody admits, and it is what this episode is about. The money is what keeps us. It keeps us in jobs where we don’t like who we are, in marriages that are coming apart, in rooms that are out of step with what we actually believe. When you are earning multiple six figures, walking away from that is not a small ask. It takes courage, or it takes believing you can work it out on the other side.

For most women, though, it takes something worse first. Sarah shares her own version: her health, her relationships, the fact that every promotion moved her to a new city where she started over with no friends, and the way she brought the boss-lady version of herself home and watched that fail too.

She also shares what she hears from other women. Blood pressure medication in their early forties. Mental breakdowns. One woman who came apart in the car with her kids in the back seat, and that was the thing that frightened her into moving.

So the question this episode leaves you with is the uncomfortable one. How many messages do you need before you listen? Is it your husband? Your kids saying they wish you would stop being angry and sad all the time? Your boss saying no to the school trip? Is it your health?

Because here is what Melissa proves. She left without a plan. She had no idea what she was going to do next. She started following what Sarah calls the breadcrumbs of joy, doing things for free that people kept asking her for, and built a business out of it.

That is the leap. Not knowing what it looks like on the other side and going anyway, because the cost of staying has finally passed the fear of the unknown.

And you do not have to wait until the pile gets that high. There is a real argument for going earlier, before there is a marriage to repair, a health crisis to climb back from, and a burnout to heal.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• EP 2, the full conversation with Melissa Lanz

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So glad you’re here. I’m Sarah Janzen.

Corporate ladder-climber turned 7-figure entrepreneur. Inspiring and helping other women make their own successful leap. Taking my Fortune 500 sales. & marketing experience + Master Coach credentials to help other women with the clarity, confidence, and strategy to build a business they love.