The Corporate Crash Out: #4

The diet coke + doom scroll combo isn't hitting like it used to huh? Ask me how I know.

Not all crashouts are built the same, they're not all dramatic. Some crashouts look like being good at your job, but the thought of going back to work on Monday makes your skin crawl. Sometimes it's laying in bed avoiding the voice at the back of your brain telling you something has to change.

We're taught that "real adults" hold it all together, hold it in and push onward and upward.

Respectfully, f*ck that.

Life is too short to fake the funk, it's too short to auto pilot your way through life.

What if your crash out isn't just a diet coke and doom scroll? What if it was clarity?

I don’t think most crash outs are random. I think they’re data.

Your body notices misalignment before your brain even computes it. Your energy starts pulling away before your brain gives you permission to admit you’re done, in relationships, in work, in your routine. That frustration you feel isn’t failure. It’s information.

It’s the moment you realize the life or career you built no longer feels aligned with who you’re becoming, maybe it never did.

So many of us are building lives that align with society, our parents or the influencers we compare ourselves to online.

Stop doing that. You will not find peace in someone else's dream for you.

Over the last few months, I’ve been getting message after message asking how to work with me. Career strategy. Coaching. Strength training. Mindset. Authenticity. Rebuilding after burnout.

And the truth ism none of these things live in separate boxes. So many of us are doing

How you move impacts how you show up. How you show up impacts what you believe you deserve. What you believe you deserve shapes every decision you make next.

So instead of trying to explain that in DMs, I built something that works without forcing you into a box.

Introducing CrashOutWithMe.Co.

Your personal space to crash out is live. Whether we're crashing out about work, fitness, or life.

I've got you.

Here's what you get:

• Career strategy that actually aligns with who you are now, not who you were taught to be

• Movement and strength coaching to reconnect with your body, confidence, and energy

• Honest coaching conversations that help you turn overwhelm into direction

• Realignment support when you know something has to change but don’t know where to start

• Accountability without shame or hustle culture pressure

• Practical tools for navigating pivots, burnout, and identity shifts

• A space where authenticity isn’t a buzzword, it’s the baseline

Who CrashOutWithMe is for:

CrashOutWithMe is for the high achiever who looks like they have it together on the outside but knows something isn’t working anymore.

It’s for the person who’s successful on paper but feels disconnected from their work, their energy, or themselves.

It’s for the ones who are tired of shrinking to fit corporate expectations, tired of performing professionalism, tired of pretending burnout is just part of the job.

It’s for people in the middle of a pivot, the “I can’t keep doing it like this” moment — who want strategy, structure, and support without losing themselves in the process.

This space is for you if you’re:

• navigating burnout or feeling deeply misaligned with your work

• craving more authenticity without sacrificing ambition

• trying to figure out your next move but overwhelmed by all the options

• rebuilding confidence after being overlooked or underestimated

• ready to reconnect with your body, your voice, and your direction

• done waiting for permission to change your life

It’s a space for people who are ready to stop pretending everything is fine and start turning their crash out into a pivot. This is your moment, bestie. I'm not fixing you. Not forcing you back into a version of success that doesn’t feel good anymore.

We're turning this crash out on its head and using it to sus out what lights you tf up.

Just strategy, movement, and realignment that actually feels like you.

If you’re in your “something has to change” era, you’re not late. You’re right on time.

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A career coach posted about how unprofessional it is to wear long nails, and a plethora of other BS.

In the year of 2026, i need y'all to stop being so loud about being bad at your jobs.

What’s interesting to me is how fast we start policing how people show up at work the second someone decides there’s a “right” way to look professional. The concept of professionalism was build to placate white supremacy.

This conversation shows up every few months just wearing a different outfit and every month we say the same things.

Your biases need to take a back seat, Janet. Good recruiters + good leaders shouldn't be getting distracted by something as silly as nails.

One day it’s nails. Then it’s lashes. Then it’s hairstyles, tattoos, tone, how you speak, how loud you laugh, how much personality you bring into a room.

Tell me, who are you really trying to keep out of the conversation?

stares in annoyed Black woman

A lot of us learned early that professionalism meant filtering ourselves down to the safest version possible. Be polished. Be easy. Don’t be too much. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

And again, respectfully, f*ck that noise. Because constantly managing perception is exhausting. And for a lot of high performers, that’s where the disconnect starts, you’re doing everything right but still don’t fully feel seen because you don't even have the space to fully see you.

I’m not here to argue about nails. Wear them or don’t. That’s not the point. The real question is why we’re still equating professionalism with sameness.

The best leaders I know don’t shrink themselves to fit someone else’s comfort level. They lead with clarity, confidence, and alignment., and they look like themselves while doing it.

The conversation isn’t about what’s professional, it’s about who we’ve decided professionalism was built for in the first place.

And in case you were wondering, i wear my nails long AF and lift heavy AF with them.

Meet Erika Chestnut.

Erika Chestnut is a leadership strategist and executive coach who helps high-performing women in tech stop being overlooked and start fully owning their influence. Her work focuses on executive presence, political capital, and helping women build real, sustainable power inside complex corporate environments. Her approach is practical, structured, and deeply identity-driven, because growth isn’t just about working harder, it’s about positioning yourself in a way that reflects your value.

Outside of coaching, Erika is also a mom of three (including twin competitive gymnasts), so she understands pressure, performance, and resilience both in the boardroom and in real life. When she’s not helping women command rooms with confidence, you’ll find her living the full gymnastics-meet mom life, roller skating with her family (#QuadsForLife), or trying to negotiate space with the 100lb dog who has decided she’s his person.

Want to become a powerhouse like Erika? Well, here is your chance. PowerHouse Women in Tech (PHWIT)

So many high performers are doing excellent work but still feel overlooked when it comes to influence, promotions, and leadership conversations. That’s exactly why PowerHouse Women in Tech exists, to give ambitious women the strategy, structure, and support they need to stop waiting for permission and start stepping into real power.

PowerHouse WIT™ is a leadership acceleration experience created specifically for women in tech who are done being underestimated. Through executive presence development, career strategy frameworks, strategic positioning, and power-building work, participants learn how to command attention, navigate workplace dynamics with confidence, and move into roles where they’re shaping direction, not just executing tasks.

If this sounds like something you (or someone you know) needs, you can learn more at powerhousewomenintech.com.

Meet Will Holmes.

Will Holmes is a marketing leader and visionary who leads Billboards, Inc. with a focus on creativity, strategic growth, and long-term brand impact. As President, he’s helped evolve the company into a culture-forward marketing brand known for bold ideas, collaboration, and innovation.

At Billboards, Inc., Will oversees integrated, audience-driven campaigns that connect brands with people in meaningful (and memorable) ways. His approach blends immersive real-world billboard activations with strong digital storytelling, creating marketing that feels both physical and cultural. Working closely with cross-functional teams and strategic partners, he’s helped position the company at the forefront of out-of-home and experiential marketing.

Will’s leadership centers on three core pillars: creative innovation, brand growth, and community impact. Under his direction, Billboards, Inc. expanded beyond a traditional agency model and into a nationally featured reality streaming series — bringing even more visibility to the work they do and the stories they tell.

Outside of business strategy, Will is deeply committed to community-centered work. From supporting local businesses and charities to amplifying underrepresented voices through large-format advertising, his focus extends beyond marketing and into meaningful impact. He’s also passionate about mentoring emerging talent and helping shape the next generation of creative leaders.

You may also recognize him as a co-star of Billboards Inc., a reality/docu-series on Tubi that follows four entrepreneurs building a billboard marketing agency while supporting local businesses, charities, and community causes.

Through bold leadership and a strong sense of culture and community, Will continues to grow Billboards, Inc. into an industry-defining brand sitting at the intersection of creativity, storytelling, and real-world impact.

Looking to take your PR to the marketing the sky? https://www.billboards-inc.com/

There is a very specific kind of burnout I keep seeing right now. Not the dramatic kind. Not the can’t-get-out-of-bed version, though that is very real too. The kind that has me convinced I’d like to live in the woods and never speak to another human ever again.

I am talking about the quiet check out. The high performers who are still delivering. Still in the meetings. Still hitting their numbers. Still the ones everyone depends on, because no one tells you how exhausting it is to be the one everyone needs.

Despite being important, something has shifted for alot of us.

We care less. We feel tired in a way that sleep does not fix.
We are starting to question things we used to do on autopilot and wondering if its worth it.

And because the performance still looks good on paper, this moment gets missed all the time. Companies keep praising the output while completely ignoring what is eroding underneath it.

If you your people are experiencing disengagement, it is rarely about laziness. Most of the time it is about misalignment that has been ignored for way too long. It is what happens when capable people spend years over functioning in environments that were never really built to see them fully or grow with them.

Eventually even the highest performers stop overextending themselves for systems that feel one sided. Not because they are weak. Because they are waking up.

Wondering how you can support your employees BEFORE they get to this point?

• Train managers to notice energy shifts, not just performance metrics
• Stop rewarding over functioning and help people find balance
• Create real career path clarity, don’t dangle the carrot, make it actionable
• Build cultures where honest feedback is safe early, not just in exit interviews
• Normalize workload conversations, and allow people to say they are out of spoons
• Measure manager effectiveness by team health and safety, not just by output or revenue
• Actually act on engagement data

The companies that know how to retain people are not the ones with the flashiest perks. They are the ones that notice misalignment early and respond before their top performers start emotionally packing their bags.

There is usually a moment right before a pivot. You might not name it right away, but you feel it in your body. It is the meeting that drains you more than it used to.
The Sunday night that starts feeling scarier and scarier.
The little irritation that keeps showing up louder every week.

For a lot of people, this is the beginning of the crash out. And I want to normalize something. This moment is not a personal failure. It is often your nervous system, your energy, and your intuition all tapping you on both shoulders at the same time.

Something is not fitting the way it used to. Something you tolerated before now feels expensive. Something in you is ready to move differently.

The mistake I see people make over and over is thinking they only have two options. Ignore the feeling or blow their whole life up overnight. And no matter how much I love to blow things up, there are often better ways, more strategic ways.

There is another way. You can listen earlier.
You can move with intention. You can turn the crash out into a pivot instead of a spiral.

This is YOUR story, it should be one you want to read.

Being here counts. Thank you for supporting work that tells the truth. 🖤