About two or three weeks after Shannon Hendrix left her corporate healthcare leadership career, her husband looked at her and said: I'm glad I got my Shannon back. She did not fully realize, until that moment, just how much of herself she had been spending.

She took eight months off. She played tennis every day. She had lunch dates and coffee with people she had not made time for in years. She watched Netflix. She started Pilates. And by the time she was ready to ease back in, she had decided that she was only going to do work that aligned with who she actually was.

Shannon is now VP of Operations at Serve2Perform, a Fayetteville-based leadership development organization built around connecting people, encouraging service, and growing leaders at every level. Before that she was a registered dietitian, a food service sales rep, a corporate healthcare executive, and the former Chief Administrator of Arkansas Children's Northwest. She is also one of the core people behind the Brooklyn Ray Foundation, which has donated over a million dollars to Arkansas Children's Cancer Research over seven years. In this episode, Angela sits down with Shannon to talk about what it looks like to build a career by staying curious and keeping your options open. In this episode, we get into:

• Why she left a thriving corporate career and what her husband said two weeks after she did
• How she went from registered dietitian to food service sales to healthcare executive, following opportunities instead of a plan
• The advice she gives young professionals: stay curious, find your voice early, and do not lose yourself climbing the ladder
• The practical work-life balance shifts she made, including scheduling joy the same way she schedules meetings
• What NWA connections feel like compared to other places she has lived, and why she believes in connections as collective currency

Shannon talks about what it felt like to realize she had not been doing the things that gave her energy. The tennis. The friendships. The books. The slow mornings. She is clear that work-life balance is not a myth, but it requires intentionality. She now schedules Pilates and tennis on her calendar the way she once scheduled board meetings. She reads with a group of baseball moms. She protects the things that fill her back up because she knows, firsthand, what happens when she does not.

She also says something about NWA community that is worth sitting with. When she left corporate America and reached out to a friend to ask for help figuring out her next move, that person spent an hour making a list of twenty people for her to connect with. She says she has never experienced that kind of generosity in any other community she has lived in. Her take: connections are not just currency here. They are collective currency. When the tide rises, all boats rise.

The Women of All Generations event is June 16, 2026, 3 to 6 PM at the Fayetteville Town Center. Grab your tickets at fayettevillear.com/woag.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Serve2Perform: serve2perform.com
• Brooklyn Ray Foundation (Arkansas Children's Cancer Research): mention in show notes and confirm link with Shannon)
• Arkansas Children's Northwest (Shannon's former employer)
• University of Central Arkansas, Conway (Shannon's alma mater, nutrition degree)
• Women of All Generations event: fayettevillear.com/woag

Connect with Shannon:

• Serve2Perform: serve2perform.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shannon-hendrix

Mentioned in this episode:

Women of All Generations | June 16, 2026

The Women of All Generations event is almost here. Join us June 16, 2026 from 3 to 6 PM at the Fayetteville Town Center for an afternoon of real conversation, connection, and celebration. Tickets and sponsorships are available now. You belong in that room. Grab your spot at fayettevillear.com/woag.