Elsa Arend was a marketing executive with the title, the team and the reputation to match. Then, in front of a thousand people at an Ogilvy meeting in New York, she stood up to speak and nothing came out. No words. A colleague ran a water bottle up to the stage. That silence was the start of everything.
The diagnosis was a rare vocal cord disorder with no cure. But the deeper problem was burnout — the kind that hides inside ambition and calls itself personality. Elsa tried a sabbatical. She tried stepping down. The symptoms kept coming back, because rest alone was never the fix.
In this episode she takes Erica back through the unraveling: the insomnia, the hair falling out, the version of herself she had to grieve. She talks about the coach who helped her see her own blind spots, the calling she heard in her driveway, and the method she now teaches ambitious women — small pattern disruptions, nervous-system regulation and the truth underneath overwork.
It is a story about voice, in every sense — losing it, and finding a truer one.
Executive Producer: Sara Glassman
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Follow Elsa Arend: Instagram @elsa.arend | elsaarend.com
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