Becky Sidelinger has spent over three decades running some of the largest industrial businesses in the world. GE, Honeywell, Flex. She went from being the only woman in her electrical engineering class to president of a $4 billion global segment. She’s been to 42 countries. She’s done town halls for 800 people. And by every external measure, she commands a room.
What nobody knew was that for the past three years, she’d been having panic attacks every time she stood up to speak. On stages. On conference calls. On a call with Condoleezza Rice’s consulting firm where all she had to do was introduce herself. She shook uncontrollably. Her heart raced. She couldn’t breathe. She had no idea what was happening.
The trigger wasn’t one thing. It was 40 years of things: a mother who judged everything she said, a first husband who was threatened by how smart she was, a second husband who nearly died on a ventilator for six weeks, and an HR leader who told her to stop talking about her personal life at work. The accumulation broke something open.
In this conversation, Becky talks about the hard hat line she got at 21, what it cost to care too much in a world that called it a weakness, the moment she lost herself and the presentation that helped her find her voice again. She came to At the Brink without her beta blocker. This is the first time she’s saying most of this out loud.
Executive Producer: Sara Glassman
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