Explore every episode of the podcast Her Big Leap with Sarah Janzen

Someone told you, or you told yourself, that your idea isn't a real business. That your industry doesn't pay. That people don't make money doing what you love. And that belief is probably doing more damage than any skill gap ever could.

In this episode, Sarah Janzen breaks down three key takeaways from her conversation with Jemma Chapman, the architect turned artist who built Toonie Stamps in six months and matched her corporate income doing it. Jemma moved to a new country knowing no one, had no network, and was trying to make money in art in a space everyone said couldn't scale. She proved them wrong by rejecting the conventional model entirely. No galleries. No fine art prints. A $2 stamp, sold through vending machines, that turned into a community movement.

Sarah walks through what actually made it work: launching with low enough overhead that failure was survivable, letting go of the corporate instinct to launch perfectly, and finally using the one thing Jemma avoided for months (social media), which changed everything with a single post.

If you've ever talked yourself out of an idea because "nobody makes money doing that," this episode is your reframe.

Listen to the full conversation with Jemma in EP 6.

Connect with Jemma Chapman:Instagram: @ToonieStampsWebsite: tooniestamps.com

Jemma Chapman didn't plan to start a business. She moved to Toronto from the UK with two suitcases, spent months sending out hundreds of job applications in architecture and hearing almost nothing back, and eventually bought a $150 vending machine just to have something to do.

That machine, stocked with $2 miniature prints of Toronto landmarks, snacks, and everyday moments, is now part of a movement.

In this Her Big Leap conversation, Sarah Janzen talks to Jemma about what it actually looks like to build something from nothing in a city where you know almost no one. They cover the moment Jemma knew Toonie Stamps had become a business (hint: the TTC emailed her), why she resisted social media for six months before it changed everything, how she's navigating the tension between building a business and staying true to her values around community and accessibility, and what it felt like to surpass her architect salary six months in selling $2 stamps.

Connect with Jemma Chapman:

Instagram: @ToonieStamps

Website: tooniestamps.com

You didn't leave corporate burnout to rebuild it somewhere you own. But that's exactly what most women do.

In this solo episode, Sarah Janzen draws on 10 years of coaching women through the corporate-to-entrepreneur transition to name the pattern nobody talks about: the high-achieving woman who builds a financially successful business and burns out inside it two or three years in; just like she did in corporate. Sometimes sooner.

The problem isn't the business. It's that most women skip the one question that should come before every business decision: What is the life I actually want? Not the revenue goal. Not the offer. Not the marketing plan. The life.

Sarah shares what happens when women don't ask that question first… they either build a thriving business they come to resent, or one that never takes off because it was never built around what they actually needed. And she walks through what it looks like to design the non-negotiables first (the sacred hours, the school pickups, the slow mornings) and build the business around that life, not the other way around.

This episode is for the woman who's escaping burnout and doesn't want to rebuild it somewhere new.

Lynda Williams has made two leaps, and she is the first to tell you the difference between jumping without a plan and jumping with one.

She spent 15 years in luxury hospitality, moving to Singapore in her late twenties and working her way up to head of marketing and head of PR for hotel groups that sent her around the world. Then she spotted a gap. Nobody in the Asian market was servicing brands the way an in-house team would. So she spent six to eight months on competitor analysis, financial projections and one blunt question, which was how long she could actually live with no money coming in.

Then she resigned. With 18 months of PR experience to her name.

People had opinions. One told her she had only been doing PR for 18 months, and Lynda later found out that woman was envious. Another said there were too many agencies in Asia for her to carve out a niche, and then started her own agency eight years later. She also fielded straightforwardly racist comments about being a white woman selling into an Asian market.

She went anyway. She talked her last employer into becoming her first client, and the floodgates opened.

Then six months into year one, she left her marriage. That meant no spousal income, in one of the most expensive cities in the world, in the first year of a business. She started on just under half her old corporate salary and lived frugally. Within three years she was earning considerably more than she ever had in corporate.

What she credits is not hustle. It is the thing she built before she needed it. Lynda had already come through hard years by the time she resigned, and she treats resilience as something you bank in advance: proof to yourself that you have survived difficult things before, so you trust you will survive the next one. Her line for it is that failure is feedback, feedback is knowledge, and knowledge is power. She also protected her health while she built, with therapy, exercise, walking, yoga and sleep. As she puts it, if you don't work, the dream doesn't work.

She ran that agency for more than 10 years across Singapore and Hong Kong, launching Michelin-starred restaurants, representing conservation brands in Africa, and travelling on safaris and superyachts. She was the go-to name in her market. Then burnout arrived, because the money was there and the purpose was not. An unsolicited offer to buy the business came in, and she turned it down because the terms would have made her an employee for three years and her gut said the buyer was wrong. Then COVID hit and she was representing hotels and restaurants.

So she wound it down, moved back to the UK after nearly two decades abroad, and rebuilt. Six years into coaching, she helps single female entrepreneurs and high achievers build the relationship they have with themselves first.

The second half of this conversation is the part Sarah didn't expect. Lynda explains why high-achieving women can have towering self-esteem and low self-worth at the same time, and why that same gap shows up when a woman sits down to set her prices. If you have ever undercharged, over-given, or failed to set a boundary you knew you needed, this is the mechanism underneath it.

Connect with Lynda Williams

Website: https://www.lyndawilliamscoaching.com/evolved-woman-program

Instagram: @lyndawilliamscoach

You've had the signs. Maybe more than one. And you're still there.

In this solo episode, Sarah Janzen unpacks the three moments that finally pushed Melissa Lanz out of a multiple-six-figure VP role — and why none of them, on their own, were enough. Her husband told her he didn't like her anymore. A boss who'd worked with her for two years didn't know she had kids. A business trip crossed a line she couldn't ignore. And when she finally gave her notice, the company offered her $75,000 more a year to stay.

She took it. Then walked it back two weeks later.

Sarah uses Melissa's story as a mirror for anyone still waiting for the right moment, the right sign, or enough certainty about what's on the other side. Because for most women, it's not one thing. It's a slow accumulation that eventually tips the scale past the point of no return.

When the cost of staying is greater than the fear of the unknown, that's when it's time to make the leap.

This episode is for the woman who's had the signs and keeps explaining them away.

Melissa Lanz walked into her owner's office, told him she was done, and gave herself $2,500 and six months to figure out what came next. No business plan. No safety net. Just a commitment to her husband that if she was leaving, she wasn't going back.

That decision came after three moments hit in quick succession — a boss who didn't know she had kids after two years of working together, a husband who looked her in the eye and said "I don't like you anymore," and a final trip where she called the owner from the road and said she was done. He offered her a $75,000 raise to stay. She took it. Two weeks later, she walked back in and told him it wasn't enough.

What she built with that $2,500 was The Fresh 20 — a meal planning subscription that started at $5 a month, grew to 120,000 active subscribers, landed a HarperCollins cookbook deal, and became an eight-figure business. Her only goal at the start was to keep paying her nanny.

In this episode, Melissa takes Sarah through all of it: the three wake-up calls that forced her hand, the early years where she had no bookkeeping and no P&L but was making seven figures anyway, the hack that wiped out half a million dollars and 75% of her subscribers overnight, and why she never once considered going back to corporate — not even then.

Connect with Melissa Lanz

Website: https://www.melissalanz.com

Instagram: @MelissaBakerLanz.

Most women in corporate aren't stuck because they lack talent, ambition, or a plan. They're stuck because they followed every rule they were given (good grades, right degree, climb the ladder) and ended up in a life that looks successful on paper but feels hollow underneath.

Sarah Janzen knows this firsthand. She spent three years knowing she needed to leave corporate before she finally did, not because she lacked courage, but because she genuinely didn't know what was possible on the other side. Every business owner she knew ran a restaurant, a café, or a professional practice. None of it fit. So she stayed. And the longer she stayed, the more it cost her — her confidence, her health, her relationships.

In this first episode of Her Big Leap, Sarah explains why she built this podcast and what it's designed to do: give you real examples of women who have already made the leap from corporate to business ownership… not the highlight reel, but the full story, highs and lows included. Because after coaching hundreds of women through this transition, she knows the number one thing holding most of them back isn't strategy. It's not knowing what's possible.

If you've been thinking about leaving corporate but can't picture what it looks like for someone like you, this is where it starts.

Sarah Janzen spent over a decade in corporate. She climbed the ranks from her early twenties, collected the promotions, moved cities for the career — and watched her relationships, her health, and her happiness quietly fall apart.

She knew she needed to get out. What she didn't know was what was possible on the other side. All of her friends were in corporate. The only business owners she knew ran restaurants, law firms, or real estate offices. None of it fit. And not knowing what was possible kept her stuck longer than anything else.

That's why she started Her Big Leap.

Every week, Sarah sits down with a woman who left a successful corporate career to build her own business. Not the polished Instagram version; the real first year, the moments of doubt, the hard parts nobody posts about, and the freedom, flexibility, and success waiting on the other side.

Because here's what Sarah has learned coaching hundreds of women through this exact leap: the strategy looks different for everyone. The network, the timing, the skill set; all of it is different. But the one thing every woman who's made it has in common is the belief that it's possible.

Before anyone ran a mile in four minutes, no one thought it could be done — so no one tried. Then one person did, and within a year, dozens followed. Nothing changed except the belief.

Subscribe, follow, come along for the ride, and let's see what's possible.