1852: The Upside of a Messy Career and the Myth of Having it All Together

Summary

Episode 1852: The Upside of a Messy Career and the Myth of Having it All Together

Podcast: So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
Host: Farnoosh Torabi
Guest: Mariam Banakaram
Release Date: July 14, 2025

In Episode 1852 of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi, host Farnoosh engages in a candid conversation with Mariam Banakaram, a seasoned C-suite executive turned podcast host. The episode delves deep into the complexities of building a career, the inevitability of messiness, and dismantling the myth of having everything perfectly organized. Below is a detailed summary capturing the key discussions, insights, and notable quotes from their interaction.

Introduction to Mariam Banakaram and Her Journey

Mariam Banakaram, an accomplished C-suite executive with leadership roles at Hyatt, Gannett, and Nextdoor, introduces her latest venture—the podcast "The Messy Parts." This platform aims to shed light on the behind-the-scenes challenges of building a career, balancing family, and maintaining self-identity. Mariam emphasizes the importance of discussing the non-linear and often tumultuous aspects of professional growth.

Embracing a Messy Career Path

The Reality of Non-Linear Careers

Mariam describes her career trajectory as a "tour through media, hospitality, tech, and purpose-driven leadership," highlighting the unpredictability and reinvention that came with each role. She underscores that career paths are seldom straight and that embracing this messiness can lead to authentic growth.

Farnoosh's Personal Insights

Farnoosh resonates with Mariam's perspective, sharing her own experiences of uncertainty and constant reinvention. She remarks:

“What is wrong with not knowing what you want to do?... It’s okay. Your definitions can change, your values can change, the things that you want can change.”
– Farnoosh Torabi [02:35]

This sentiment sets the tone for the episode, encouraging listeners to accept and navigate the uncertainties in their career journeys.

Overcoming Burnout and Building Resilience

The Cost of Success

Mariam and Farnoosh discuss the phenomenon of burnout, especially among entrepreneurs and high-achievers. They reference Mariam's interactions with guests like Cass and Mike Lazarro, who shared the immense personal and professional sacrifices required to achieve substantial financial success.

Strategies for Resilience

Farnoosh emphasizes the importance of resilience, stating:

“The sooner you learn to pick yourself back up, the easier it gets. It’s like riding a bike.”
– Farnoosh Torabi [18:16]

She highlights how successful individuals develop a "muscle memory" for overcoming setbacks, making it easier to navigate future challenges.

The Importance of Community and Support Networks

Building Genuine Connections

Both hosts agree that community and authentic relationships are vital in dealing with career uncertainties. Mariam explains how her op-ed in the New York Times catalyzed the formation of a supportive group for C-suite executives undergoing transitions.

“Community and connecting with others is so important... even just knowing that there are others who've been there, done that, want to help.”
– Farnoosh Torabi [26:09]

Sharing Vulnerabilities

They advocate for open conversations about struggles and failures to foster a sense of belonging and mutual support. Farnoosh shares her experience of inadvertently creating a group of 50 C-suite executives who offer each other advice and reassurance during turbulent times.

Personal Stories and Turning Points

Farnoosh's Sabbatical

Farnoosh recounts a pivotal moment when she chose to take a year and a half off from her role as Global CMO at Nextdoor to focus on personal growth. This decision was influenced by her son’s heartfelt plea:

“Mom, I understand if you take this job. I just want you to know that if you take it, I would miss you.”
– Farnoosh Torabi [29:56]

This sabbatical led her to rediscover her passion for writing, culminating in an op-ed for the New York Times that connected her with like-minded professionals seeking solace and community.

Mariam's Transition into Podcasting

Mariam discusses the challenges of launching a podcast in 2025, where video formats dominate. She advises focusing on niche audiences rather than striving for mass appeal, emphasizing the value of quality over quantity in building a dedicated listener base.

Insights from Other Guests

Anna Gasteyer and Tom Kitt

The episode previews upcoming guests like Anna Gasteyer, who shares her transition from SNL alum to Broadway star, and Tom Kitt, a Broadway composer who navigated multiple show cancellations during COVID-19. Their stories exemplify resilience and adaptability in the face of significant setbacks.

Cass and Mike Lazarro

The Lazaro couple discusses the "Billion Dollar Burnout," exploring the emotional and financial pressures of building a highly successful business. Their honesty about the personal costs of entrepreneurship provides valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Notable Quotes

• Farnoosh Torabi:
  “What is wrong with not knowing what you want to do?... It’s okay.”
  [02:35]

• Farnoosh Torabi:
  “The sooner you learn to pick yourself back up, the easier it gets.”
  [18:16]

• Farnoosh Torabi:
  “Community and connecting with others is so important...”
  [26:09]

• Farnoosh Torabi:
  “The number of people who will say to me, oh, the minute I lost that job, my phone stopped ringing is astounding to me.”
  [35:42]

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Episode 1852 of So Money serves as a poignant reminder that careers are inherently messy and non-linear. Farnoosh Torabi and Mariam Banakaram emphasize the importance of embracing uncertainty, building resilient mindsets, and fostering supportive communities. By sharing personal stories and insights from successful individuals who have navigated significant setbacks, the episode encourages listeners to redefine their perceptions of success and find strength in their vulnerabilities.

Key Takeaways:

1. Accept Career Uncertainty: It's normal not to have a clear, linear path. Embrace the twists and turns as opportunities for growth.
2. Build Resilience: Develop strategies to overcome setbacks, making it easier to navigate future challenges.
3. Foster Community: Surround yourself with supportive individuals who understand and can assist you through career transitions.
4. Share Vulnerabilities: Open conversations about struggles can lead to stronger, more authentic connections.
5. Redefine Success: Understand that success doesn't mean having it all perfectly together but finding balance and fulfillment in your journey.

Listeners are encouraged to tune into Mariam Banakaram's new podcast, The Messy Parts, for more in-depth discussions on navigating personal and professional pivots.

Transcript

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[Farnoosh Torabi]

You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Welcome to so Money.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

I want to say something you said, which is Farnoosh doesn't know what she wants to do. She wants to figure it out. What is wrong with not knowing what you want to do? Because by the way, the truth is there are moments we don't know what we want to do. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. What is wrong with that? People, we don't come out of the womb saying I want to be a cmo. Let's just. And so it's okay. And by the way, your definitions can change, your values can change. The things that you want can change.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Welcome to so Money everyone. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi Our guest today is no stranger to reinvention or to messiness. Mariam Banakaram is a powerhouse C Suite executive turned podcast host whose resume reads like a tour through media, hospitality, tech and purpose driven leadership. Maryam has served as global CMO at companies like Hyatt and Gannett and Nextdoor. And in her latest chapter, she's pulling back the curtain on the glossy LinkedIn life and telling the truth. The messy, nonlinear, sometimes gut wrenching truth about what it really takes to build a career, a family and a sense of self. Her new podcast is called the Messy Parts and it is a must listen for all of us navigating personal and professional pivots. It is raw, wise, often hilarious, and features amazing guests like SNL alum Anna Gosteyer, Broadway composer Tom Kitt, and billion dollar founders Cass and Mike Lazzaro. In our time together, Mariam and I discuss everything from career burnout to billion dollar regrets, the emotional toll of job loss, the value of taking a pause, and why being honest about your struggles is the key to building true community. She also shares why she believes now, in this uncertain time in the economy, is the exact right time to have these conversations, and why you don't have to be sleeping under your desk burning the midnight oil to be successful. Let's get into it. Maryam Benny Karam, welcome to Sew Money and congratulations on your new podcast, the Messy Parts. We're going to get into it.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Thank you so much for having me because it's been pretty messy.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Yeah. What's been the messiest part of launching a podcast in 2025? You start and then I'll give you mine because I started one too.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Okay. First of all, how much work it is. It seems so easy. In fact, I was telling somebody yesterday how I had launched a podcast and how hard it was and they were like, it just looks so easy. I was like, you have no idea. The second thing is that podcasts in 2025 have to be video, so they're no longer an audio only format because really YouTube is partly the game and people are confused by that. And then I have to explain to them that young people get their source of information is actually visual, which is today YouTube. You know, there's many, many parts, but the amount of work it was.

[Mariam Banakaram]

And also joy, yeah, I'm so resistant to the video stuff. I, I, I launched this podcast 10 years ago when it wasn't as difficult. It wasn't because there just weren't. First of all, as many podcasts we Weren't a video first or second podcast. Right. It was like the joy of just being able to open your laptop, hook up a mic, be anywhere and start a business through a podcast was unbelievable. And people were doing it. And so now fast forward. I'm launching this hyperlocal media podcast, Montclair Pod. And I get it that I think what's helped us is that we are not trying to scale and reach the masses. We are trying to reach a very specific audience. Don't be afraid of the riches are in the niches, they say, especially today with any kind of content platform. I think that you're trying to start. Sure. Do we all want Joe Rogan money? Yes. Give me some of that.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

But Alex Cooper money.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Alex Cooper money. Right. Oh, my gosh. Or smart list money. Or. But there's also a lot to be said about being very focused and then you don't have to do. What's that? That CPM model. The cost per melee. You can charge sponsorships just based on the quality and acuteness of your audience. Tomorrow I'm talking to a local coffee shop. They want to sponsor our show and I don't have thousands of listeners yet. The town's only 40,000 people wide. I'd like to get there, but she realizes the value. And even just getting in front of 800 of them. Right. Imagine 800 people walk into your coffee shop tomorrow. They get it. And I think that's. That's my tip, I suppose, before we get into the messy stuff here, but you've had an extraordinary career. C suite roles across so many industries. Media, technology, hospitality. Why launch the Messy Parts podcast now? What was the reason? Right. Because you've been telling a lot of these stories probably behind the scenes. Why do you think it's important for people to hear them now?

[Farnoosh Torabi]

First of all, I think in Covid, when I was at my last official CMO job at Nextdoor, so I'm a big fan of Hyperlocal, I really began to start doing community building. And in part, I think by that point in my career, I'd begun to realize my why, like you, I'm originally Iranian and I think I lost my community in leaving Iran in the middle of the revolution. And I now can look back and say I was always searching for belonging ever since. This is hindsight, right? It's 2020. And I think the reason the nextdoor job was really a good fit for me was because I really cared about community. And hyperlocal community seemed like an obvious choice. It turned out it was, particularly in Covid, when our neighbors were our lifeline. So in that window, I started actually helping New York City, a place I care about deeply because people kept saying New York was dead. So in doing this community building, I began to have this very pure, purpose driven experience at the same time as having a day job. Not to say that there wasn't purpose in the day job, but it just was very pure on this other side. And I just got interested in the fact that we don't tell the true stories out loud to the world, particularly on social media. Right. Somebody said to me they'd listened to the podcast and they were really glad to see people talking about stuff that's not the perfection that they show on LinkedIn. I'm so humble. The humble brag, oh, my God, leave. I just won this award or whatever. Not to say that you shouldn't be proud of those moments, but I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we don't talk about the complexity, the difficulty, the fact that it's not linear, that it's messy, that people get fired, that there are people who are trying to get you at work, all those things. And I remind my children often that despite it being difficult, I always think it was worth it. So I'm not saying I wouldn't do it again. It's more just that I think if we talk about the bumps when other people hit them, they will realize they're not alone. And today we live in a world where falling down is the name of the game. So the sooner you learn to pick yourself back up, what are those tricks? What do people that we deem as successful do in those moments because they've learned how to pick themselves back up because it's happened to them?

[Mariam Banakaram]

Do you feel like when you were starting out in your career, anyone said to you, messiness is going to be part of the journey. Failure and complexity is the name of the game. What was the message when you were starting out?

[Farnoosh Torabi]

No, nobody talked about that. Nobody ever talked about that. Nobody. We didn't talk about emotions then. Right. Mental health wasn't a thing. When I'm 56, I think sleep under your desk. That was the message. Right. I remember early on taking a job. I was a kid with student loans, and so I took a job in investment banking, even though I knew banking wasn't my passion. But I was like, you know, I need to pay my bills. And I remember a summer internship at Nomura and we literally slept under a desk and I couldn't eat Chinese food for several years. After that experience because that's all we ever did on the evenings working on a deal. And I had told myself if I did sort of media investment banking, it'd be closer to what I loved. But the truth is I was miserable. So what did they tell us? They told us that we had to sleep under our desk. I remember my famous story about that one summer is that they hadn't gotten the memo that they were trying to woo you over the summer that you would sign up for the full time job. Somehow Nomura hadn't got that message. We literally worked around the clock. And I remember the only day where I said I had to leave early was my last day at the job. And my supervisor said to me, I need you to stay late. I'd already told her that was the one day I had to go. And she said I canceled my honeymoon from my job. And I said to her, I'm really sorry you did that, but I'm not going to be that person. And she said, you're new. Get a job in this industry. It just was like the craziest thing. So did we know it was messy? It was like, suck it up hard.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Do you think that more women felt the pressure to sleep under their desks? Sounded like this one was, this person was a woman, your boss. It was like I skipped my honeymoon. I feel like women might not get as much of a pass.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Well, first of all, there weren't that many women. I think there was three of us on the entire department. And the MD we work with had all three of us on his business and called us his Charlie's Angels. Things have hopefully progressed since then. I think that there are definitely people who work who recognize that when you get that seat at the table, you have to work doubly hard. Whether you're diverse, if you've never had that seat at the table, you know what that seat means. And so you will work harder because you know that there's no layup, there's no Nepo baby waiting to save you. And so whether you're a woman or any other kind of person who was somehow othered, I think that yeah, you'll be working hard. But the men worked hard too. There were, there was not that many deals. So if you were on a deal, you knew that if your job was going to be saved, you had to work hard. Now the partner liked to leave at 5 o' clock and go to his country club and tell everyone how he had the entire department working for him while he was having drinks. So we but that was the culture. It was like. It's what you saw on tv. You knew that deal?

[Mariam Banakaram]

Yeah. Wow, what a time. I've been browsing your website, the messy parts and one that caught my eye actually a couple that I know years ago, I ran into them through my own. Through our lines of work crossed. It was the Lazaro couple, Cass and Mike. And the title of that episode is the Billion Dollar Burnout. I want to talk about that. I love that they went there with you and talk about essentially they're serial entrepreneurs and the cost of building a very financially successful business. And exit. What were the trade offs of that near billion dollar exit for them?

[Farnoosh Torabi]

I would say that if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to know burnout. So you may not be lucky enough to have a billion dollar exit, but you' having that burnout nonetheless. So I do think that it's worth thinking about the messy parts of entrepreneurship because you have to be self motivated and you don't have sort of the support structure that you do in a lot of these corporate jobs. So burnout, I think is the name of the game in entrepreneurship. So you have to be that kind of crazy. Which they definitely admit to being. And it was amazing to actually have them on. My favorite part of this story was when they talked about going to parent teacher conference and the teacher saying, the principal saying, okay, you're now dismissed, go find your child's teacher. And they looked at each other and were like, we have no idea who the teacher is. And they made a joke about how they took their child by the hand and went around shopping him around being like, is this your teacher? Is this your teacher? And that level of honesty, right. There's a self awareness to be able to look back on that and say that's what happened. Because you could be afraid that somebody's gonna say you're a bad parent. Right. There are many times where people were like, really? Is that a really good decision that you made? There's always that judgment. But if you're gonna. You don't have to be an entrepreneur to have had that kind of a juggle. Right? If you.

[Mariam Banakaram]

That was me this year with my son's fifth grade. And not my fault. His teacher never made himself. Like there's no photo of him anywhere. The one time I could have possibly met him was parent teacher night, which my husband went to instead of me. Cause I had to work and I'm not a billionaire. I am not even close to that.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

And I think if we were more honest and Open about that, we'd all feel just a little less bad because it's not like we don't all have guilt all the time.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Yeah. So you started with a. Sounds like a resistance to messiness in your own career. Partly because that was the message. Right. There's no room for error. There's no. Just, you gotta sleep under your desk. And then sounds like now you have more of a tolerance and appreciation for it. What was the turning point?

[Farnoosh Torabi]

I never had a separation between my personal and professional life. And also, I think I presented myself as young. Like, I remember once showing up at a job. I was an svp, and we went to lunch with the interns and the team, and one of the interns looked at me and said, what college are you from? Like, I just presented myself as approachable, which was not my. Of my generation. Right. My generation was very, like, working nine to five, like the bow. Bow tie outfits and things like that. So I think for me, I was. Because there was no separation between my personal professional life. If you were close to me, as in, we worked together, you saw the mess, you knew that, you know, I had two kids and there was a juggle, and sometimes I'd bring my kids with me on different work trips because I had no choice. So I never hid that. But I found that my peer set definitely had more of a. You know, it was all very perfect and polished. Sometimes I wondered, was that how I would have to be in order to succeed? But honestly, my mess was so overwhelming at all times that I had no choice but to just barrel through. Now, the lucky thing is that I really ended up in the corporate world. I was an entrepreneur in a corporate setting, so I always did change and turnaround. So I always did. Like, you were all in jobs that were really messy and all consuming. There was just chaos in all directions at all times. So it wasn't so much a question for me and people. I think you either got me or you didn't get me. I wasn't gonna ever be kind of a person. But what I find is that when I'm with other people, we talk about those things that are messy, and they often don't talk about that out loud. And I actually think that's the place where, first of all, that vulnerability is where you build real relationship. It's where you build community. And frankly, like, why don't we talk about that stuff? There's this whole bullshit of, oh, failure is good, but how many times does somebody fail and get fired? That's just the truth, Right?

[Mariam Banakaram]

Yeah.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Well, these like, cliches that we talk about in Parrot, like, I'd like everybody's opinions and then you give an opinion that differs from your boss and you get fired. Like, these things happen. They sound good on a LinkedIn post or on somebody's description of the kind of leader they are, but it's not really the reality. Most times we're living in a world.

[Mariam Banakaram]

The economy is so fragile, people are calling it a white collar recession. We could be in an actual recession as we record, we're already halfway there, one quarter of negative GDP growth. We just need one more. And we're, we're in it. And many are already feeling it. And so things are going to get messy for a lot of us if they haven't already, job wise, financially. What's your best piece of advice? Maybe something that came across your podcast desk recently as you were talking to so many interesting people.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

While I've released five to date, I've interviewed 13 people and a lot of different people, from Anna Gasteyer, who was one of the early women on SNL and then went on to be Elphaba and Wicked. So talk about a major transition.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Oh, really? I just saw Wicked for the first time last weekend on Broadway.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

To Elphaba, big transition. To Vanessa, who is the founder of another Tomorrow, but before that worked at Morgan Stanley on the trading desk. To Katie Storino, who's an entrepreneur and a social influencer. To Fede Garcia, who talked about being fired at the top of his game at a big agency, a big WPP agency. What they all have in common is the ability to pick themselves back up.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Yeah.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

And I think that the truth is, I mean, I'm old enough to have lived through multiple recessions. There's always going to be ebbs and flows and peaks and valleys. The question is, the sooner you learn to pick yourself back up, the easier it gets. It's like riding a bike, right? And as a kid who had a lot of disruption in her life, revolution, my father dying, all kinds of things. It's not the kind of thing you wish for your own child. But what happens is you learn. It's either roll up like a ball or figure out how to pick yourself back up. Right. And so if you learn that early, it sort of becomes like a muscle memory. And the themes are pretty consistent. They all work really hard, really hard. Not to say that's enough, but they definitely all work. They're workers. The other thing is they learn to believe in themselves and trust their instincts, which is hard. And they Become very good at being resilient. Like, you'll have to listen to Anna Gasser. It's funny. She talks about what happens when she has a bad day or something goes wrong. How do you pick yourself back up? That's a question I often ask. And she has a funny story about how she gives herself 24 hours to pick herself to feel bad, but then to pick herself back up. Tom Kitt came on. He's a big Broadway producer, orchestrator, and composer. He's won many awards. He talks about the first time he got on his show on Broadway. He thought he'd made it. He had kids. This was a big moment. 11 shows and the show gets canceled. It's devastating. And Tom and I really got to know each other in Covid. He had three shows on Broadway at the same time. Covid hits. They all close. Those are major bumps. They're not small bumps. So how do you pick yourself back up? How do you not want to just get in bed and not get back out?

[Mariam Banakaram]

Right.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Real things. And so when you hear. Because as you're describing, it's a really tough job market out there. I must do an informational once a day these days, whether it's people coming out of college who are having a really hard time landing that first job to people who are getting laid off. I mean, I spoke to somebody this morning whose company's focused on a different market. So her and a big part of the US Team were let go to people who are in their third stage who are trying to figure out, like, how they pivot and become still be relevant. So that's a real thing that we're going to be experiencing in the job market. And that's not even talking about how AI is disrupting things, which, as we all know, is a real thing as well. I think the other thing I would say is just be curious and a lifelong learner. All of them were willing to start over, right? To be like, okay, yeah, I was on SNL and I was at the top. She was an early woman on that show. And to leave that, to just go do something totally different, that's a big risk. So that sense of being willing to pivot and try something else, I remind myself of that as I try my hand at podcasting. It would be. In a lot of ways, it'd be easier to go find another CMO job, Right? I have a track record. I've done it. There are days I say to myself, oh, my God, why am I not doing that? Take the job. That sounds really exciting. I'm like, maybe I should have gone for that. We all have that narrative. But I say to myself, okay, you know what? There's I'm going to be sorry if I don't try the thing I've wanted to try for a long time, and it's going to be a marathon and not a sprint. I'm definitely a sprinter, so there's many days it makes me uncomfortable, but I'm learning so many new things, right? And that what I've discovered is they all have that like, desire to learn new things. Like, why are Mike and Cass now writing a book and going on a tour and giving talks and helping other founders? They could just be enjoying their billions of dollars. That's not what motivates them. And people want impact. People want to feel relevant and to have a purpose. And you can find that in a lot of different ways.

[Mariam Banakaram]

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[Farnoosh Torabi]

My favorite is the title of their book, Shoveling Shit, A Love Story. The book arrived, it had a little plastic shovel with it. It was apropos. I do think that willingness to be open about that kind of a thing really does become a game changer for other people. And life is not a zero sum game. You don't have to just hoard it. You can share your experience. You can. You can be willing to help. I do think in general. I remember when I was at Next Door, the data was something like 80% of people want to help, 20% are willing to ask for help. It's actually hard to ask for help.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Yeah.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

You know, it's interesting. I accidentally, organically have started a group where there's a whole group of C suite executives going through either sabbatical or transition. And when we started, there was a couple people. Now there's 50 people. And it just tells you how much need there is and how much flux there is in the world. But the thing that also happens, and these are people who are incredibly successful, right. Who reach many peaks and across lots of industries. But there's always shame and uncertainty. When you show up to a party and people say, what do you do? And you've been the CEO of X, Y and Z, and all of a sudden you don't know how to answer that question. Yeah. I mean, it's not because you were fired. Maybe it was because you decided to take a pause, or maybe it was because you were fired. It's just uncomfortable.

[Mariam Banakaram]

You were at the forefront of this pause revolution, I remember. And I was maybe. I don't know exactly the year. It was definitely before COVID you wrote an op ed. I think it was in the New York Times. You suddenly at a point in your career where you weren't the. In a C suite, you were on your own, and you were like, hey, everyone, maybe this is okay. Maybe taking an intentional pause is what we all need in our careers. I think about even just me. I have not stopped working since I was 19. And in all through that, the recessions, Covid working doubly hard. And so this idea that now in my midlife, I'm like, a little tired and want to be more reflective, to then be better, intentional in the next 20 years, like, there There needs to be a slowdown and it's an ebb and flow and it's not failure and it's not a setback and it's not. Farnish doesn't know what she wants. It's like, I have to take inventory. This. Can we talk about that? Can we, can you talk about that? Actually, I want you to talk about how back then you came out with this radical idea of taking a pause in your career. I remember reading it and going. And feeling a little bit of fear.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

I want to say something you said, which is Farnoosh doesn't know what she wants to do. She wants to figure it out. What is wrong with not knowing what you want to do? Because by the way, the truth is there are moments we don't know what we want to do. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. What is wrong with that? People, we don't come out of the womb saying, I want to be a cmo. Let's just. And so it's okay. And by the way, your definitions can change, your values can change, the things that you want can change. So one, I want to come back and say, no, you're allowed to actually not know what you want to do. That's okay. Second of all, like you, I had worked non stop since I was 16. I was with a group of founders all, many of whom had had these billion dollar exits. I was the oddball out and they were talking about the next mountain they wanted to climb. And one gentleman said, founders are like comedians, they're broken souls. And I just thought that was so interesting, right? Because that drive comes from something. It's why I love a good origin story, like, what's behind it all for me. I was a kid who had financial insecurity, who'd left, who had landed someplace else. And I was trying to fit in the best way possible. And so I found my way through, I don't know, many different ways into this, like, role of CMO eventually and having this 20 year career. But to talk about that article, I was at Hyatt and I'd moved a 9th grader and an 11th grader to Chicago. That is definitely messy.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Wow.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

And I'd taken a job where I was the global CMO of this big company and I was never home. I was like, Dubai, 24 hours, Tokyo, 48 hours. I barely knew where anything was in Chicago. And I actually, this was. A lot of things ended up happening. It was an interesting time to be at Hyatt. And I began to realize I wanted to actually pivot and take another job. And we had moved from New York, we hadn't sold our house, we'd rented it because we knew we were going to come back. And I started looking for another job. And I was close to a job in New York. And my son, who had one more year of high school, came home that day and I just come back from the final round of the interviews. And he said, mom, I understand if you take this job. I just want you to know that if you take it, I would miss you. Because I was going to reverse commute because the job was a New York based job because I knew I wasn't going to stay in Chicago. And he and my husband were going to stay in Chicago predominantly by themselves. My daughter was already off to college. And honestly, that just stopped me in my tracks. And I thought to myself, what am I doing? And so I called and said, I'm pulling out. Like I'm not going to be able to do that. I left Hyde and I took what ended up being a year and a half off. It was really hard. It was really hard. And then as it just happened is I. I met a gentleman, actually. I was interviewing for a job. I always said yes to interviews. I don't know, it's like a disease. And he said to me, he was a CEO of a big company in the uk. He said to me, treat your time off like a gap year. Your type A, which many people are, treat it like a gap year and say to yourself, I'm going to do these three things on my time because you'll find. My son said to me, you're the busiest unemployed person I know. You are not going to have a hard time filling your day. So I said I was going to go back and go back to writing, which is something I'd done earlier in my life. And so all type A's. I looked for the perfect writing class, which was crazy. And then finally I was like, what am I doing? I'm just going to take the one that fits into my schedule. And I took this one at Second City. It was called memoir writing. And it was me and six strangers. One of them was writing through the voice of her dog. The whole thing was amazing. And the teacher said the first day, write 60 pages. She said, I think write 10 pages, come back. I showed up with 60 pages. And my husband said, this woman does not know what is coming her way. She said to me, you don't need to write anymore. We're just going to batch this over the course because she wasn't getting paid enough to read that manipula. But that muscle got me to write again. And I. One of the things besides writing I promised myself I would do was spend time with my grandmother who lived out in California. So we rented a place in Venice beach, and I wanted to be by the water near her. So here I am. This is a place of privilege, which I very much want to be clear about. I'd gotten to the point where I could afford to do this. I'd taken the summer. We were living at a beach house on the canals in Venice, and a friend called, and she basically said, what are you doing? What do you mean? You're taking time off? And she was like, that's really brave. And what she meant is, you're effing crazy. What are you doing? You're never going to get back in the game. And I remember just being like, this is such a moment of privilege. I'm sitting here writing, like, on the canals, like, seeing my grandmother, who then passed away, not shortly after that. And so I just sat there, and I'd been. My muscle of writing had come back, and I wrote that piece and I sent it into the Times. Never in a million years did I think that they were going to buy it. Fast forward a couple months, and I get a phone call from the Times saying, if you haven't sold this article, we'd like to buy it. It was so crazy. I was like, wait, what? And I had that moment of, am I really going to put this out into the world? Because it was scary to say those things. And I consulted with my sister and my husband, and they're like, just go for it. And so I said yes. And I took the check, which I wasn't even gonna cash. My sister said, take a picture and cash the check. So that.

[Mariam Banakaram]

What do they pay, by the way, for an op ed at the New York Times?

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Do you remember? Honestly, I can't remember. It was maybe like, $500.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Oh, okay.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

But the thing that then happened is people started finding me from that article. People would be like, I'm from Minnesota. We don't read the Times, but I found your article, and here's my story. And I started meeting with strangers, People who had the privilege of taking time off and people who did not. And it was just this interesting experience of just being open to the universe and having these conversations. And this group that I was mentioning of the C Suite executives is really born out of that article because somebody read that article and Said to me, can I talk to you about that? Because I, as you can tell, I just say it all like it is. So I was like. She was like, people don't really talk about that. And I said, sure, let's talk about that. And I said to her, there's other people like you who are going through this transition. Do you want me to connect you? And so I connected her to two people. And then before long, the two of us now have this group of 50 people. And it just shows you what a need there is to actually have community. And it doesn't matter if you're starting out or if you've been in the C suite, like we all need, like this peer set who's going to remind you when you have a bad moment that it's okay, or if you need advice to be like, here's how you negotiate that contract, or, oh, that person's out to get you. Here was my experience. Cause we've all been there.

[Mariam Banakaram]

One thing you said earlier, just about how some people do see the world as a zero sum game, the number of times I've encountered that mentality, it's just always interesting to me. And it's really more of a reminder that the world is actually very abundant. There's enough room in the sand lot for all of us to play. There's enough sand in the world for all of us to play. And I could not be where I am without those who did say, here's how you do it, or here's an open door, here's the back door. And there, there are more people like that, as it turns out, than people who are. Have a more scarcity mentality. But they're still out there. And I feel really bad for them.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

I don't know, they might be the majority, I don't know, or think they're the majority. I think there's plenty of people who feel like there's a scarcity game. And I think there's many people who view the world as a transaction and not a relationship. The number of people who will say to me, oh, the minute I lost that job, my phone stopped ringing is astounding to me all the time. And it, by the way it happens, I've lived it myself. I know plenty of people who've had that experience or people who call you and just want something from you, but aren't actually genuinely interested in having a relationship. So that exists, right? But you get to choose who you want to surround yourself with, right? You get to choose the kind of decisions you make. And who you prioritize and what you give space to. And that's one of the things I loved about a lot of the people who said yes. I didn't have a podcast. I'd never done it before. Like people who said yes. The first 13 people who said yes, many of them I knew, some of them I didn't know. And that was a chance that they took to come on a podcast where I'm learning the ropes of how do you actually shoot something like, oh my God, this is gonna look weird or oh, we shot in the. The video is terrible. So now we're gonna launch this one as an audio only. Good thing we called it Messy Parts. Cause it was plenty messy.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Oh, how about you forgot to hit record. I'm raising my hand.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Yes. Or wait, we went too long and now she doesn't have time to do a social clip. There's just millions of them. But I think that what I've begun to realize is that, you know, as we started doing community building in New York around Covid, I just. My circle of people who were sharers, who actually cared about purpose, who actually cared about community just expanded. And so the more I do those kinds of things, the more I find those kinds of people, which is what you're describing.

[Mariam Banakaram]

I want everyone to check out your podcast. It's so needed. It's called the Messy Parts. You can go to the Messy Parts podcast and what do you have coming.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Up on the show this Monday, we're launching Anna Gasteyer. Like I said, amazing story. Fede Garcia, who talks about, actually how I met Fede is that he posted on LinkedIn about six months after he'd been fired from his job about how he was just gonna change the game and he was gonna play tennis and do different kinds of things. And I just reached out to him, I reposted a story and reached out to him and he came on. He's now living in Spain and doing different things. We have Vanessa from another Tomorrow, also an amazing story. Honestly, there's no shortage of good stories. There's plenty of people really strived and done amazing things, but who've lived through the mess and are willing to come on and talk about it. So there's a good lineup. We shot those 13 and we're gonna start shooting again come August. So if there's other people you wanna hear from, let me know.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Mariam, thank you so much. Maryam Bennicaram, Have a great rest of your day.

[Farnoosh Torabi]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Mariam Banakaram]

Thanks so much to Marianne Bennicaram for joining us. Her podcast again is called the Messy Parts and I'll be on it soon later this fall. Be sure you're subscribed. I'll see you back here on Wednesday. And I hope your day is so money when your workforce, tech stack and business needs are evolving all at once, you need HCM software that moves just as fast. That's why Paylocity builds what's Next, providing innovative and simplified solutions for clients to tackle the real challenges they face every day. From AI driven insights to automated workflows across hr, finance and it, Paylocity's platform doesn't just keep up, it leads. It's time to simplify complexity, drive results, and move forward together. Start [e-mail] simplified hey, it's Maya and Sim from the Girls that Invest podcast. If you are an IT or security pro, you know managing devices, identities and applications can feel overwhelming and honestly risky. That's where Trelica by1Password comes in. It helps conquer SaaS, sprawl and shadow it by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. With pre built app profiles, you can assess risk, manage access, and even optimize your software spend. Plus, IT simplifies onboarding, offboarding and compliance, all while cutting costs by eliminating unused licenses. Take the first step to better security for your team. Learn more at 1Password.com special offer.