After the Exit: What Fiona Macaulay Learned About Identity, Failure, and What Comes Next
What happens when you spend 18 years building a company to $5 million in revenue across 80 countries, finally sell it, and then wake up with no idea who you are without it? Fiona Macaulay knows that moment intimately, and what she built from it is changing how thousands of accomplished women think about what comes next.
In this episode, Lori Adams-Brown sits down with Fiona Macaulay, founder of The Wild Network, co-author of Aim High and Bounce Back, and creator of the Next Chapter Accelerator, to explore the real terrain of midlife reinvention: identity loss after success, the shame women carry around failure, and the practical tools that make starting over less lonely and more intentional.
What you will hear in this episode:
Why selling a thriving company felt like "perceived failure" and what that reveals about how we define success
What being "stuck" actually looks like for accomplished mid-to-senior career women, and how to tell the difference between needing a rest and needing genuine change
The three things every woman in transition needs: process, community, and a new chapter network
Why Fiona takes women on a walking retreat on the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and what movement unlocks that a boardroom simply cannot
The Leadership Fail Lab that sparked a book: what happened when successful women from across the globe started sharing their biggest failures on stage
Four types of failure (including "circumstantial failure" and "perceived failure") and how naming the right one changes your recovery
Why the biggest failure of all is the one you never attempted
About Fiona Macaulay:
Fiona Macaulay is a three-time entrepreneur, global leadership expert, and founder of The Wild Network, a community of 25,000 purpose-driven leaders across 115 countries. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and co-author of Aim High and Bounce Back: A Successful Woman's Guide to Rethinking and Rising Up from Failure.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction: building $5M across 80 countries, then waking up lost
0:38 - Selling Making Sense and the reality of perceived failure
3:25 - What "stuck" looks like for accomplished mid-career women
7:59 - Why walking the Camino de Santiago unlocks what workshops cannot
11:06 - Follow your fascinations: building a new chapter network
13:21 - Experimentation over planning: taking small steps toward big goals
15:57 - Why failure hits women harder: the social science behind the shame
18:00 - The Leadership Fail Lab and the origin of Aim High and Bounce Back
20:22 - Four types of failure and how to name what you are experiencing
22:46 - What successful leaders do differently with failure
24:29 - Where to find Fiona and her work
Find Fiona Macaulay at:
Website: fionamacaulay.com
The Wild Network: thewildnetwork.org
Leadership for Social Impact Forum: wildleadershipforum.org
Next Chapter Accelerator (Camino retreat, 4 spots remaining for late September 2026): nextchapteraccelerator.com
Book: Aim High and Bounce Back, available online and at your local bookstore
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Lori Adams-Brown, Host & Executive Producer
A World of Difference Podcast
