Stacy Mayer: The pivot from actor to coach–and how more women can get promoted sooner

Stacy Mayer started her career as an actor. Today, she is a bestselling author and leads an executive coaching company that helps women reach promotions and leadership positions sooner in their career. Stacy and I talk about her jumps from acting, to hedge fund, to teaching yoga, to business owner to bestselling author. And the three pieces of advice she has for women in the corporate world who want to level up.

Q&A

Tell me about the start of your career!

The early stage of my career was always about following my passion and proving other people wrong. I went to a performing arts high school and then a theater program for college. I chose the University of Michigan for college because I wanted to make sure I was getting a well-rounded education and I wanted to prove everybody wrong–meaning that I wanted to be at a “real” school while also being a theater major. I really loved traditional academics so I wanted to have both. 

That decision served me well when I moved to New York CIty as an actress. I founded my own theater company in New York City. But the theater company wasn’t incredibly lucrative as a career choice. So instead of waiting tables like my friends, I decided I was going to work at a hedge fund. Having a traditional degree came in handy because when I was negotiating with Human Resources they gave me a six figure salary right off the bat. It was a beautiful balance of life to work at the hedge fund during the day and have my theater career at night. I was able to do both at the same time, make a good amount of money, and have creative freedom. 

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the hedge fund job. I enjoyed it but it was mostly just a job. I wasn’t looking for opportunities to climb up. And now that I coach women to get promoted, I realize looking back that I didn’t think opportunities were possible for me. It never occurred to me to transition into leadership or do anything else with my career in the huge fund. I just thought, this is what it is. Now I realize that’s absolutely not the case and there could have possibly been many opportunities for me. 

Your work today is very different. You coach women on how to get promoted. How did you get from acting and hedge fund work to executive coaching?

I was living in New York City and doing these two basically full time jobs. I was in my early 30s, which is a transition period where you start looking at your life and the choices you are making. And the choice that I was making was to be incredibly busy. So while I enjoyed what I was doing, I realized that I had to change. I had an opportunity to transfer with the hedge fund to Palo Alto, California. I figured I could still do acting in California and that life would be glorious because, well, it’s California. And also, I’m a big fan of just jumping right in and making a decision. There’s no such thing as forever. I figured I could always come back to New York or do something different. 

So, that was my choice. To come out to California. I was in Northern California, which in terms of acting careers is very different from Los Angeles. I wasn’t surrounded by many people in the arts. So what happened is the hedge fund became the highlight of my career. It became my life. But as I talked about, I wasn’t really looking to climb up at the hedge fund. So at that point, I had a choice. To stay at the hedge fund and make it my career–or to pivot again.

I was always very entrepreneurially minded and I knew I wanted to start a coaching business someday. I wanted to create my own thing. I just didn’t know how I was going to make it happen. I didn’t know what to do next. But as I said, I like jumping right in. And finally I got to the point where I put my two weeks notice in at the hedge fund. I didn’t have any other job lined up. Instead I bought a one way ticket to India with a plan to receive my yoga teacher certification. I remember that when I put in my two weeks notice, my boss was like, you’re going to do what?? But I did it. I bought a one way ticket. I rented out my apartment. And I was out. It was an incredible, soul searching, eye opening pivot and experience. 

That’s a big jump! It’s more common that I see the opposite–very slow, methodical pivots. What was calling to you to make that change so decisively? 

I have two philosophies on life and one is my idea of going big. When I worked at the hedge fund to begin with, I was going big. A lot of my friends were waiting tables and piecing together different jobs. But I had the mindset to think, No, I'm going to work for the best. It was a huge Midtown-Manhattan hedge fund and I thought, I’m going for it. The same with acting. I didn’t just have my acting career, I also founded my own theater company. So I enjoy making these really “large” career choices. It’s the idea of fully investing myself and going all in. So there was no doubt in my mind that I was quitting and going to India. It was a very decisive moment in my life.

And it’s possible that I have some love for drama!

My other philosophy is my belief that everything “happens for a reason” and that “we figure it out as we go.” For example, when I returned from India, the hedge fund offered me my role back with a lot more money and a lot more flexibility at work. At the time that felt like a magical moment. But looking back now, I’m not surprised. I didn’t take it, but I had the opportunity. And so today I try to show my clients that when we make decisions and go all in on something, we are saying to the universe “I’m here, I’m here to do this thing.” And in my case, if it didn’t work out, I felt I would be okay. I knew I had my own back and could catch myself.

Now the next piece of the story is that after I came back, I spent a year on unemployment wishing I could start a coaching business. And that was not a decisive moment in my career. I came back and was struggling with, well what do I do now? It was hard! So I did feel that dip. And when I say I was wishing to start a business–I was still working a lot. I was building a website, putting offers out, and trying to create a coaching business. I was trying, but it just wasn’t there. I wasn’t trusting myself and I felt a little bit let down. What was also happening–and I talk about this with women I work with on getting promoted–is entitlement. In that first year I felt entitled to have a coaching business. I didn’t feel like it should take time. I was entitled. I needed to get straight with myself. To remember, Stacy, you don’t just “deserve” a business because you want one. 

So I pivoted again and decided to work for other coaches instead. I took a job as the business manager for a few of the top executive coaches in Silicon Valley. And that changed everything. I let go of the feeling of entitlement, or what I thought should have happened for me by now. Instead I thought, why don’t I just learn from the best and see where it leads me? And that couple of years was so crucial. The moment when I started working for the top coaches was when I really started my coaching business for myself. When I got off my butt and really got to work and started learning–it was then that I was actually creating my business. 

You went all in when you quit your job and moved to India. Then later when launching your business, it paid off to move more moderately and work for other coaches before breaking out on your own. How can women know which approach is the right one for the situation?

I think that you're completely spot on—there was a difference. And since I started my coaching business as it exists today, I do take a slower, more methodical approach. When I look back at those moments where I went “all in” and made quick, big decisions–I will say that there was a level of chaos that also happened. What I would tell my younger self to do differently is to take time to stop and slow down. 

When I look back at my big, quick decisions I don’t look back with regret. But I didn’t always take the time I should have to try and make something work. When something wasn’t working for me–I just moved on. And I find that happens with corporate women working for a company. When a boss is not working, or a situation is not working–there’s the impulse to quickly say, I’m out of here.

So how was I able to become more methodical? I think it was because I found meditation, whereas prior to my trip to India I never sat still for more than a few seconds. When I went to India, there was an aspect of stopping the chase. I stopped looking outside myself for fulfillment. And that all helped me to have a more slow, methodical approach. I’m still making incredibly bold decisions. I just wrote a book last year, for example–that was a huge decision. I’m still jumping off the diving board. But it’s from a different starting point and mindset.

That resonates a lot. I talk a lot about women sprinting through their career, but not being prepared for the marathon. For me, settling into a marathon-ready pace came when I “found my lane.” When I knew what I wanted to do long-term instead of feeling directionless. Did you have a similar experience?

I'm going to say no. Because waiting until I have direction or trying to figure everything out before I take action is still outside of me. My coaching business has been successful because I finally realized that everything that I’ve been doing–my personality, my goofiness, my improv comedy experience, the way I dress, the way I talk–all of that is what makes me successful. I have both a desire for material success but also creativity. I’ve always been really good at holding both spaces–that is what makes me successful because the business that I’m creating right now needs both. So the answer wasn’t really about finding the perfect coaching business. Success came when I started trusting myself more.

What are the one or two things you wish more women would do to reach leadership goals and positions of influence?  

My process to gain more influence at work, which is outlined in my book Promotions Made Easy, is a step by step process of essentially three shifts that women can make to get themselves into those higher positions. The first thing is to stop doing only what they're good at. It's the idea that we're relying on what we're really smart at to get ahead. You rely on your expertise–that thing that you did for 20 years that you're really, really good at and you're the only person at your company who can do it. When women do that, the problem is you only get called on when that problem needs to be solved. You just keep finding yourself being slightly disappointed because you feel like I'm only getting called to hypothetically “fix the coffee machine.” When what you really want is to be brought into the conversations, to have a seat at the table. You’re inadvertently shooting yourself in the foot because you're telling them over and over again, I’m good at this one thing. And so I coach women to tell their boss, through their communication and their conversations, all the other ideas that they have outside of the coffee machine. So that's the first thing that I think is important for women to start doing. 

The second thing I coach women on is owning their ability to be in a C-suite role someday. A lot of the time women don't see themselves in those really high-level roles. So while they might have ambition, they see somebody else–whether it's a man, or even a woman that works 80 hour weeks that seems to be pulling her hair out. A person that always seems to have to climb and climb and climb. And most women I meet don't want that. So I coach women to create their own version of the C-suite. What does their version of the C-suite role look like? And that's when they’ll also have to learn to set boundaries and delegate and make sure they have a broad seat at the table and aren’t just amplifying their areas of expertise, which causes burnout. 

And the third thing, which is so fun for women in particular, is a process that I created called “15 Minute Ally Meetings.” It's the ultimate way of managing up and building relationships at the higher executive level–one 15 minute meeting at a time. This works so incredibly well for women to talk to their boss's boss's boss, or to have a conversation with their CEO. It’s the same thing that happens for men, without trying, when they just get invited to the golf course or the camping trip or the bar. But as women, especially when we're in that mid level of our career, we don't have time for that. Women have a family or other priorities. Or they don’t have interest in doing it. So everything I coach is about doing this work on women’s terms. It’s women driving those conversations. It gets them in the room with higher level executives and is a way to start building trust. Women also start to see that they don’t have to rely on their subject matter expertise, that specific thing they’re good at. They’re included in the broader conversations. And they start to have a bigger vision for their career. They start to think, I’m ready to be in the C-suite. And the CEO or CFO thinks they’re ready too. It works so beautifully. Especially for women and people who don’t look and act like the rest of the room. 

What value do you think women get out of coaching in general? Some women are still discovering coaching, and it isn’t something they invest in yet. How does coaching help women in their careers? 

There’s a couple of ways executive coaching helps women. We can talk about impostor syndrome, or a terrible boss, or a situation where we’re excluded from our colleagues or spouse. But when you don’t have an executive coach, you tend to stay in that place of complaining for a long time. But what I do with coaching is get women to move toward taking action. What if you are able to negotiate a better salary, with your bad boss, even with your impostor syndrome? What if you were able to walk in there and ask for $25,000 more today? Teaching women to do that, and then seeing them go do it and receive it, is so incredibly powerful.  

There is a woman inside of my Executive Ahead of Time group coaching intensive where I walk women through the three steps I outlined before, who saw that everybody else in the group was negotiating their salaries and making more money. She thought, ”that doesn’t happen in my industry”. But because of what I taught her, she decided to also ask for $25,000 more. And it worked. You could see the light on her face. And just like that, she realized, anything is possible.

So that’s where the coaching comes in. It’s almost like looking at a friend going through a divorce who says she doesn’t want to hire a lawyer. And you look at your friend and think, please do not try to figure this out on your own. Because what we’re doing as coaches is life-changing work. I made the change six years ago for myself. I started hiring coaches because I realized I can’t do this alone. I can’t live my life as powerfully as I want to on my own. I need guides. And quite frankly, every male executive that you know has these guides! They might not talk about it, but they have executive coaches. And their company pays for those coaches. That’s another thing a lot of the women I coach don’t know. When they throw their hat in the ring and ask the company to pay for coaching, they’re blown away when the company says yes. 

Who do you follow for career or leadership advice?

Two people come to mind. The first person is for salary negotiation and it’s Alexandra Carter. She wrote a book called Ask for More and I highly recommend it. Instead of telling you exactly what you need to say in a negotiation, she gives questions you should ask in the negotiation. And then from those questions you plan what to say. And I think this is so instrumental for women so that we don’t come across as aggressive or pigeonholed simply because we asked boldly or at the wrong time. So instead, we can be curious, we can engage, and we can be negotiating constantly. 

The second person is Melody Wilding, who is just a wonderful person, but also wrote a book called Trust Yourself. I was talking earlier about how the biggest pivot or career change that I made was when I started to trust myself and leaned into the belief that I had everything that I needed. That elevated me a lot and very quickly. Melody has a process where she works with a group of people called sensitive strivers–people who think they are too sensitive or too underspoken, who don’t want to speak up and don’t want to be out there, who feel things very deeply. She has a great way of working with people that allows them to trust that their sensitivity is what makes them great. 

Thank you, Stacy, for sharing your story! You can learn more about Stacy’s consulting and coaching work on her website and purchase her book, Promotions Made Easy, on Amazon.

This Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.