EP117: From Burnout to Bold: The Rebirth of Business Blasphemy

WELCOME BACK, BLASPHEMERS!

I was ready to pull the plug. After 116 episodes of calling out the smoke and mirrors of online entrepreneurship, the spark dimmed and I nearly ended the show. That's when the truth smacked me in the face: I wasn’t tired of the mic. I was tired of orbiting the same problem. The mission had outgrown the format. What started as unapologetic myth-busting now asks for something bigger: building women’s power, leadership, and legacy without apology.

This episode is the turning point. I share the burnout that nudged me toward a sunset, the quiet that delivered clarity, and the TEDx moment that lit a fire I could no longer defer. I get honest about why manipulative tactics thrive online, not just because of bad actors, but because so many of us were conditioned to outsource authority and doubt our own data. Instead of chasing hype cycles, we return to the source: strengthening self-trust, sharpening discernment, and designing strategy that protects agency. I talk candidly about choosing low-hanging fruit (operations, because it’s safe and in-demand) versus answering the call I’ve felt for decades: women’s leadership and thought leadership that move power, not just metrics.

The show remains Business Blasphemy, but the center of gravity shifts. Expect bold truths, practical tools, and real stories from ambitious women building on their own terms. We’ll call out harm when needed, without making harm the headline. We’ll focus on identity, choice, negotiation, structural security, and the kind of operational clarity that lets you take smart risks. The question guiding every topic is simple: does this choice increase your agency?

If you’re ready to stop playing for scraps and start building a legacy that looks like you, hit follow, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your leadership starts here — unapologetic, unfiltered, and fully yours.

Chapters

• 0:30 Welcome And Mission Reminder
• 1:06 Burnout And Considering A Sunset
• 2:24 Letting Go To Find The Answer
• 3:57 Realization: Not The Podcast, The Pattern
• 5:15 Purpose, Fear, And Deferring The Dream
• 7:09 Low-Hanging Fruit Versus True Calling
• 9:04 Pivot To Women’s Leadership
• 10:51 Why The Space Breeds BS
• 12:17 Conditioning, Agency, And Harm
• 14:08 The New Direction And Invitation
• 15:09 Closing Thanks And CTAs

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Business Last Free Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, Sarah Cummins, speaker, strategic consultant, and BS Westing Fadast. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends, and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life, and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello, blasphemers. Welcome back. Ah, it has been a minute. There have been no new episodes since July. And let me tell you, it has been a time. Let me cut straight to it because honestly, like I stopped recording episodes in July because I was ready to sunset the podcast. Yeah. I was ready to pack it all in. Because if I'm completely honest, I wasn't enjoying it anymore. I thought maybe the podcast thing had run its course. You know, after all, I'm like 116 episodes in. What more is there left to say? And on top of that, if I'm brutally honest, I was burnt out. I was burned out from the entire process. I've been putting out weekly episodes for four seasons, and I was tired. So I began dreading my mic every week instead of like actually feeling the excitement that I had started with and that I used to have for a very long time. And I know myself enough to know that when I stop enjoying something, that is when it's time to really just walk away. So that was the plan. Um I even I even shared that thought out loud with some friends. I even hired a strategist to help me sunset the podcast effectively so that, you know, it would retain its legacy and like what does it look like uh from a technological perspective and blah, blah, blah. So that was the plan. But for some reason, I just could never bring myself to do it. There was something in my head that kept saying, You're wrong, you do still love this. And I didn't know if I was gaslighting myself or if it was real. So I decided, you know what, maybe I just need to take a break and maybe I just need to like step away for a little while and not completely burn it down. And every single week I promised myself, like, I'm gonna come back to it, I'm gonna come back to it. And I didn't, and again, I know myself well enough to know that whatever answer I was waiting for, whatever answer I was looking for, it was not going to come through sheer force of will, which is how I've often done things in the past, like ruminate on them and plan on them and strategize and like really think and think and think and hope that you can force an answer. And I know that something like this, something that is so integral to how I operate, hell no. I need to just let it go. That is the hardest thing to do for someone like me, someone who is perpetually a control freak, to let it go and just kind of let it arrive when it arrives. That is really hard. So the first thing I want to acknowledge is uh I did it. I let it, I let it come to me. Um, I I just let each week pass by. I didn't think about it. I mean, I thought about it, but I didn't like obsess about it. I just kind of let it go until it got to the point where I was like, maybe I'm actually cool with not recording a podcast every week. But then one morning I woke up to the realization that it wasn't, in fact, the podcast I was tired of at all. It was what the podcast had become. Business blasphemy, my baby, was born out of frustration, to put it nicely. Frustration with the noise, the hustle, the smoke and mirrors bullshit, the cult of entrepreneurship, particularly online entrepreneurship. This this podcast has been my unfiltered space to say the things that I always wanted to say, but was never given the space to, and that a lot of people want to say but are afraid to say out loud. And for 116 episodes, it did its job. The legacy of business blasphemy is established. It's pure. But that morning, I realized it's what the podcast has become that I am no longer comfortable carrying. And I realized I'm not here to circle the drain of online business indefinitely. That is not what my mission is, and and it's not really what it ever was. You know, I I'm not here and I don't want to keep poking holes in a system that I walked away from a long time ago. Now, the experience of my TEDx in January, that really lit a fire under my ass and in my soul, really, to start doing what I've always wanted to do. But honestly, I've been too afraid to do it because it just felt too big. It's a it's a purpose, it's a calling that I've had for as long as I can remember. And I've never pursued it because it just felt too big. And when you have a big, big purpose, right, in your soul, in your heart, that thing that just never leaves your mind because you know that this is what you want to do. It is so easy to keep deferring it and keep getting distracted and keep doing other things like side quests. Because, well, what if you actually do it and it flops? Like what if you finally take the plunge and give it light and you fall on your ass, you fail. That is a really scary thing to admit. And so we never, we never try, right? We just, it's okay. One day, one day, one day. We one day ourselves into never living our truth and never living the thing that we are put here to do. And I think for a lot of us, we default to what is easy and what comes sort of naturally as the result of our training or our experience, and and we get comfortable because we experience success, even if it's not in doing what we want to do, right? It's not what we're called to do, because we've been told to believe that any success is good success, right? You don't look a gift horse in the mouth. But if you don't enjoy it, is it really success? Now the call on my heart for over 20 years has been vastly different. And my TEDx was born of that call, right? That purpose. And finally standing on a stage and speaking to truth, all the things I'd wanted to say and share and hopefully inspire people with. When I finally did it, it was the the catalyst to the most painful unraveling of myself, of my business, uh, and of everything in between. And if you've been following the podcast, you're you're probably familiar with that because I've talked about like my uncertainty over the last few months, and I've talked about the pivots and the and the changes. And I realized I've been I've been operating in a space of quote-unquote low-hanging fruit, right? And what I mean by that is I've been doing what I can do pretty easily, right? Operations was a big part of my career in project management, and I and I took a formal certification in it and at great expense, right? You know, when I became an entrepreneur, I kind of doubled down on that. Ops was never a big lift for me. I enjoy it, I truly do, like, because it's it's easy for me. It's something I've done most of my professional career, and I do enjoy it. And it's safe, right? Everybody needs it, which is honestly also totally hilarious to say because I've talked on the podcast before about all the times, not only myself, but my operations peers have had to literally convince people how important operations are in a business. It's neither here nor there, really. And so that was always something that could be done and had to be done. So it was the safe route. And operations, you know, isn't opinion, it's fact-based. So again, low lift on my part, but also very low risk. But my real passion has always been empowerment and choice for women, which does feel and sound very mindset-y, right? I acknowledge that. And you all know how I feel about the mindset industry as an aside. Obviously, my empowerment work is fully tactical and strategic, but I digress. So I have spent the last few months really restructuring the business and the brand to focus on women's leadership, women's thought leadership in particular, right? The legacy so many of us want to build and leave to the world. That doesn't mean I'm gonna stop doing operations on the side because that pays the bills, but now I'm free to pursue my passion because I've allowed myself the opportunity to fail because the need has become greater than my fear of failure. Because with everything going on in the world right now, and I'm I'm recording this in October of 2025, with everything that's happening, it feels more necessary than ever. It feels like there's a war against women, particularly women of color. And so it's absolutely imperative that women build a foundation of security for themselves. Like I can continue to call out the bullshit in the business space as I see it, but let's be completely honest, after 116 episodes, if people don't see it, they don't want to see it. And honestly, the frame of mind it continually required of me to carry this every week was making it harder and harder for me to really love this space. And I do love this space. I love my business, I love my clients, I love my work, and I want my podcast and the work I do to uplift me as much as the people who come into contact with it. And it's really hard to feel that way when you're constantly looking out for what is wrong. Now, have no fear, all right? I'm not saying the podcast is suddenly going to become all sunshine and fucking rainbows because that's not me or my personality. I'm a sassy bitch and I'm always gonna be one. I'm someone who sees the bullshit and can't help but call it out, but I don't want to seek it out anymore. That's the difference. And what I do feel is more in line with my own growth is focusing on self-leadership, self-betterment for all of us. Because at the end of the day, one of the biggest reasons why so many people fall prey to scammy tactics and bullshit business gurus is because they don't have the level of self-trust and self-leadership required to immunize themselves from it. Now, that is not shade, that is not blame. That is literally how we are all conditioned, especially women, to keep us compliant and keep us needing whatever the fuck they're selling. Now, in May of this year, I started a job uh as a chief of staff with a brilliant doctor who I absolutely love working with and admire the absolute fuck out of. And one of the things she has reframed for me through her own thought leadership is too often because we focus on the like the diagnosis, we don't take the time to consider the why behind it. Now, if the online business space is full of more shit than necessary, why? Why is that? Why is that the case? And instead of trying to single-handedly remove the shit, it's time to return to the source, like the actual issue. Because if there is so much of this crap in the space and people are continually falling prey to it, like women who are incredibly brilliant and savvy, why are we falling prey to it? So let's look at the actual issue. It's how we're conditioned, and that is but one small part, right? The other part is truly a desire in me to just lift women up. All I have ever wanted is for women to have choice, to have freedom, to have autonomy and agency. And back in the early days, that's what so many of us started our businesses for. And when I kept seeing women being drawn into the smoke and mirrors BS, I could I could see it robbing them, not only of that agency and security, but also robbing them of their own self-trust and self-belief. Because honestly, how many people do you know? And hell, you might even be one of them. Goodness knows I am. I was. Right? How many people do you know who've had their head turned by a fantastic coach, aka fantastic marketer, only to have that coach gaslight the shit out of them because their tactics didn't work or they weren't aligned and all they could do is make the person feel bad. Right? Slowly chip away at their confidence. My true purpose has always been about leadership, about identity, power, and the choices ambitious women make when they decide to put their ambition first, their values first, their goals and their truth first. That is the conversation I want to double down on now. So from next week, the podcast will remain business blasphemy, but it's going to amplify bold truths and highlight real strategies for and stories from ambitious women who want power, leadership, and legacy on their own terms, in their own image, unapologetically unfiltered. Because in too many circles, the idea of a woman doing what she wants, how she wants, and actually still winning the game is still blasphemous as fuck. So welcome to this new era of blasphemy. I hope you'll continue to join me, and I hope you'll continue to grow in your own leadership with me, because we cannot continue to play for scraps. We cannot continue to be the backbone of other people's legacies. We cannot continue letting anyone else take the lead in our lives and our businesses. So if you're here for that, if you're ready to talk about power, ambition, and leadership in ways that still feel blasphemous as hell, then you're in the right place. This is the next chapter. Thank you for being here. Thank you for still listening, and thank you for choosing to lead with me. I will see you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help us this her out by subscribing. And if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast. And don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to Business Blasphemy Podcast.com to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening. And remember, you can have success without the BS.