Mom Guilt and Career Change: The Day I Knew Something Had to Shift | #245

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I missed my son’s first birthday. And that moment changed everything in my career. 

In this deeply personal episode of the Second Act Success Podcast, Shannon Russell shares the story of the day she was producing a major MTV shoot at South by Southwest while her baby celebrated his first birthday without her.

On paper, it looked like success. Behind the scenes, it felt like heartbreak.

If you are a working mom feeling stretched thin...
If you love your career but are not where it’s taking you...
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Is this really the life I want?”...

Then this episode #245 will resonate with you.

This episode dives into:

• Working mom guilt and career pressure
• The emotional pull between ambition and family
• Recognizing when your career no longer fits your life
• Early signs it may be time for a midlife career transition
• How one moment can plant the seeds for your second act

Shannon shares how that moment became the catalyst for leaving television, starting a business, and eventually becoming a business coach for women navigating career transitions.

Your turning point might not look dramatic. It might be quiet. It might be emotional. But it matters.

And it might be the beginning of your second act career.

🔗 Get the full show notes here!

Subscribe now for actionable insights on how to shift your mindset, take control of your career, and build a thriving business.

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Transcript

Transcription:

Second Act Success Podcast

Season 1 - Mom Guilt and Career Change: The Day I Knew Something Had to Shift | #245

Episode - #245

Host: Shannon Russell

Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)

[00:00:00] 

I wanna share a story that I've never forgotten. It's a story that changed the course of my life and eventually led to the work that I do. Now it's the story of the day I missed my son's first birthday.

 Welcome back to the second Act Success podcast. I'm your host Shannon Russell, a business coach for women and the author of Start Your Second Act. I want to share the day that I missed my son's first birthday.

Okay, let me set this scene. It was March. I had just been hired to produce a show for MTV at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. It's high energy celebrities, long days, late night. The whole thing, and that is what I began my career doing.

I was in television for over 16 years, and at this point in time I had had my [00:01:00] first son, we had moved from California back to the East coast, and I went back to my roots. I went back to MTV where I had begun my career. And I got an opportunity to go out to this music festival and produce Machine gun Kelly.

And it was my job to produce him doing different standups around South by Southwest.

Don't get me wrong, the crew was great. I love everything about what it is that I get to do when I'm on set. I absolutely love it. That is where my heart really lies,

But personally, during that time, my heart was a thousand miles away

Because I was running this production while my son was at home celebrating his first birthday, his very first without me.

He was with my husband and my parents , being loved of course, but he was not with his mom, instead of being there holding my son and celebrating with him, I was in [00:02:00] Austin standing behind a cameraman and a monitor watching Machine Gun Kelly talking to a camera while my child was at home blowing out a candle, and it was just a moment where I said.

I don't know about this. I don't know if I can do this. It was so much mom guilt. And if you are a parent, you know that feeling really well. Even if you're not, I'm sure you can imagine the guilt, , for any loved one of yours, you know, a parent, a friend, anyone where you missing something really important.

my friends, of course, were really fantastic telling me. Don't worry about it. He will never remember this. , He's at such a age where it doesn't matter. This is the time to go and do these things, yada, yada, yada. I get it. But for me it was a really eye-opening moment. so let's talk about that mom guilt, because it hits you hard.

It hits you like a wave. And I've had moments of mom guilt many, many times since Now that I have two children, but that guilt, it hits you [00:03:00] hard, it's heavy, it's sharp, , it's something that you don't forget. And here I was doing what I wanted to do, what I had worked for my whole career, but it felt wrong.

I wasn't proud or excited of what I was doing. I was heartbroken. if you can relate to any situation in your life where maybe you were,, meant to be at work when you wanted to be with your child, or you wanted to be with a family member, and you just felt that pull between two worlds that were you, that felt like you, but in that moment you didn't know.

Who you were and where you were supposed to be. It was very conflicting. That is when I thought about, well, if this is what success is, then why do I feel so bad?

It was that nature of the career I was in, and knowing that there were going to be many more of these shoots and many more of this travel and these long hours, and I didn't know if I was able to really find that space to balance, both given the [00:04:00] fact that this job was so all encompassing.

Now I knew something needed to change, and I think this was one of the many red flags that were appearing to me since my son was born. The truth is that the wheels for my second act had been in play for some time, but there was something about this particular trip that really was a wake up call for me.

That was what started my turning point. And to be truthful, I didn't start my second act. I didn't leave television officially until after the birth of my second son. Two years later.

but this particular moment in my career trajectory, if you will, really got me thinking about what else is there. I started thinking about saving a little bit of extra money in case I made a change. I started thinking about what else can I do with the skills and the experience that I have grown and accumulated over, almost two decades in this industry.

What else can I do and what kind of life do I want to produce for [00:05:00] me? In my family what is the focus of what I'm really working for?

Cut to today, and my son does not remember this, And when we look back at photos, we see that birthday party that we did before I left, and he sees himself sitting in that high chair with Mickey Ears on and a Mickey Disney theme birthday around him and his loved ones there, including me.

, That's what he sees from those photos. But for me, I remember it and I can remember that that was the moment that things started to change

I think it was then that I realized the quote unquote coolness of what I did for a living didn't match with the person I had become and the person I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be at that juncture and who I am today is a present mom, who could be at all of the things that's where I think that pull comes for a lot of us when we think about.

Wanting to be all in at work and then wanting to be all in at home. And it's that pull. Somewhere we are lost in the middle, or [00:06:00] we are stretched so thin that it's not healthy for us, and that's where that stress and overwhelm really comes in. When I decided a couple of years later to make that shift, it was because I knew I couldn't go through those feelings once again.

Now with two kids. I've learned over the years that that realization didn't make me weak. It didn't make me less ambitious. It just made me honest with myself and it opened my eyes and it gave me the opportunity to allow myself to turn inward and really start thinking about.

What I wanted for this life that I am living and how I wanted to show up every day for my kids, and how I could mold everything that I had done in my career into a business that would give me that fulfillment and that flexibility and that challenge that I still needed because I still wanted to work.

I still wanted to bring income into my family, and I wanted to do it [00:07:00] in a way that really fit. If you're feeling that tug, if you're feeling that, feeling of being stretched, know that that is just our growing pains because again, I've said this so many times on the podcast, but

the career we chose in our twenties doesn't always fit when we're in our thirties, forties, fifties. It just doesn't always fit the person that we've become because you change over those decades.

honestly, I'm sharing this because if you are in that state, I want you to know that you're not alone. There are so many of us that can relate I believe that it's acknowledging that uncomfortableness that allows you to be honest with yourself and start building that foundation for what you want your second act to be.

For me, it really did that. It helped plant those seeds that, okay, maybe there is something else out there. And yes, I didn't really pull the plug and start moving towards my second act for a couple of years later.

But those wheels were turning and I was having those inner [00:08:00] conversations with myself about what would it look like if I was able to feel good in my skin and good in my situation, both at work and at home.

Now, today with my coaching business and with this podcast, I'm able to help other women know that it's okay, and I'm able to help other women strategize what they can do using all of those years of experience that they've had so that they can make a plan forward. It's incredible and I'm so blessed, and I'm so grateful to be where I am now and to be able to do this type of work.

It's important for my kids to see that I was able to go from this career running around South by Southwest with a video camera and a crew and a celebrity and all of that stuff to what I'm doing now, helping women build businesses of their own. You can start.

Down one path, make that pivot and continue down another. It just is a way of , bringing you a much fuller life to say, [00:09:00] wow, I was able to do all of these different things, and I'll never have any regrets about not trying and not taking a stab at something new.

It's exciting to be able to do that, to feel that uncomfortableness and move forward anyway, so my friend, if you have ever felt that tug, that one that says, okay, there has to be more than this. What else can I do? How can I make all of these areas of my life work together? If you've ever had that, that guilt that we talked about, that sadness, that burnout.

If you've ever thought, I love what I do, but I don't love where it's taking me now. Then please hear that you are not alone. You're not being dramatic, you're not being ungrateful. You're not throwing away years of work. You are waking up to realize that you can use what you've done to build what you will do.

Feeling this way, you are recognizing that success can look different, your skills can be used in [00:10:00] new ways, your ambition doesn't have to be all in at work, and it doesn't have to be all in at home.

It's also important to realize that you can be ambitious in your career, and that doesn't have to just disappear when you walk in the door at home. It can evolve into who you are as a parent, who you are as a spouse, who you are as a partner, who you are in this second act, whatever you want it to be. you Are evolving.

I remember that this moment almost, gosh, I would say 13 years ago at this point, my son is about to turn 14. and This happened when he was one. So yeah, 13 years ago. This moment really helped shape my mission now, to help women like you do that thing that they want to do, that thing that they are thinking about.

And even if you don't know what that is, we can get you to that point. You just know that you're meant for more than what you're doing at the moment. And [00:11:00] I wish that someone was there to help me back then, but I think that all of those feelings and that transition, those years of figuring it out and what I went through, helps me to help you in redirecting your skills into being a business owner or finding that career that fits your life now,

it allows me to help you make that transition without sacrificing who you are or your family, or your identity or the joy that you want. it helps me to help you and my clients to design a second act that honors every part of who you are back then and now. And so I'm grateful for that guilt that I felt back at that south by Southwest stage because it changed my trajectory, it changed my plan, it gave me the courage to create a life that feels aligned and fulfilling and fully, fully mine today.

 If you are [00:12:00] nodding along and you're listening and you're saying, yes, I feel like I am entering my turning point moment, please know that I'm here I offer a second ACT strategy call. You can book a free 30 minutes with me and we'll talk about your situation and how you can move forward and we can see if working together is an option.

Start thinking about what it is you want to do and start building that life step by step. Start small, but you can get there.

I have clients who are all in and want that business up and running within three to six months. I have other clients who are building a business on the side while they're working full-time. Everybody's journey is different. So I encourage you to look in the show notes below this episode.

Book that free strategy call with me, and let's start talking about your plan. Remember that there is more out there for you and you deserve to find out what it is.

Thank you for listening, my friend, and to any woman who has ever felt that guilt the way that I [00:13:00] did back then 13 years ago. I want you to know that I see you and I am here for you, cheering you on as you figure out your second act. Until next time, keep producing your best life and I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker: Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to second act, success. To view show notes from this episode, visit second act success.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a single episode. Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much.

Thank you again for listening. I'm Shannon Russell. And this is second act success.