What if the life you built to survive is no longer the life you want to live?
In this episode of Ask For An Answer, Jim Fielding sits down with leadership coach, speaker, and author Erin Coupe for a deeply honest conversation about burnout, emotional resilience, childhood trauma, parenting, corporate leadership, and the long process of learning how to stop abandoning yourself.
Erin shares the powerful story behind her transformation from high-performing corporate executive to entrepreneur, coach, and author. Raised in a working-class family while caring for a terminally ill father, Erin learned early how to survive, overfunction, and push through pain. But eventually, survival mode stopped working.
Together, Jim and Erin unpack the hidden cost of people-pleasing, the pressure of always being “the strong one,” and why so many successful people secretly feel disconnected from themselves.
This conversation is about reclaiming your energy, choosing intention over performance, and building a life that actually reflects who you are becoming.
In this episode:
- Erin’s journey from corporate leadership to personal reinvention
- How childhood trauma shapes ambition, perfectionism, and burnout
- Why high achievers often struggle with self-worth
- The leadership lessons hidden inside difficult workplaces
- Parenting, emotional awareness, and breaking generational patterns
- What it means to stop outsourcing your power and energy
Jim and Erin also explore the realities of aging parents, emotional healing, identity shifts, and why growth often begins the moment you stop pretending everything is fine.
Chapter Highlights
00:00 – “I’m no longer going to outsource my power”
01:17 – Erin’s origin story and growing up in survival mode
05:14 – Childhood responsibility, caregiving, and emotional maturity
12:40 – Corporate success, burnout, and searching for something deeper
24:32 – Leadership lessons from difficult managers and toxic workplaces
33:10 – Why vulnerability became central to Erin’s work
42:18 – The cost of constantly performing for others
56:20 – The deeper meaning behind I Can Fit That In
57:50 – Parenting, emotional intelligence, and breaking old patterns
This episode is a reminder that healing is not separate from leadership. The way we work, parent, communicate, and show up in relationships is shaped by the stories we carry and the ones we decide to rewrite.
Follow Erin Coupe:
Instagram: @jauthenticallyec
✨ Follow Jim Fielding & Ask For An Answer:
💼 Instagram: @jimfielding
🌐 Podcast: Ask For An Answer
