“I Thought I Was Dying”: CEO's Wake-Up Call Came from Beyond the Grave. A Conversation with Sara Byers

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Sara Byers spent more than 20 years as a CEO, juggling leadership roles on multiple boards, community initiatives, and motherhood, all while hiding a lifelong battle with anxiety. Her transformation from corporate executive to a spiritually guided writer and podcaster began in 2021 after an unexpected and deeply personal experience forced her to confront what she had long ignored: herself.

"I would just go faster and faster and faster," Byers said in a podcast interview with Karen Hale of NewClevelandRadio.net and Cleveland 13 News. "I was giving a lot of my energy... I wasn’t really filling myself up in any way."

Byers said the moment that changed everything came shortly after the death of her stepfather in 2020. Driving home from hospice, she turned on her car stereo. The display read “Ophelia” by The Lumineers, but Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” played instead. “I just knew in every part of myself that my stepfather was somehow communicating to me,” she recalled. That moment, later validated by a medium, marked the start of what she called her “tandem exploration”, both within herself and beyond the physical world.

That exploration led Byers to reevaluate what success meant. Despite continuing her work in leadership, she now also embraces poetry, spirituality, and personal growth, having written over 3,000 poems in the past four years. She shares her insights and channeled messages on her podcast, Collecting Insight, and through her Instagram account, @DearJoyLove.

The Vermont-based leader described the shift from living by external achievements to honoring her internal world. “It was an insatiable thing,” she said of her former drive for accomplishments. “Even though there were beautiful things happening outside of me, it only filled to sort of put a Band-Aid on wounds that I held inside.”

Byers acknowledged that imposter syndrome followed her throughout her career. Having not completed college due to debilitating anxiety, she said, “I really felt like an imposter... I tend to minimize the things that I am good at.” A fellow CEO helped her reframe this thinking by pointing out, “You’re saying that we are all idiots, that we are not capable of seeing who you really are.”

Now, she says, she’s integrating all parts of herself into her professional life. “I am the board chair, and I am also writing words in the middle of the night, talking to someone on the other side,” she said. “How do I infuse the spaces that I inhabit with all of myself in hopes that other people feel more comfortable being themselves?”

Byers, who now serves on a college board she once would have felt unqualified for, said that watching her daughter’s authenticity has further inspired her transformation. “She does not morph herself for anyone,” she said. “I think she’s who I’m becoming.”

Despite the demands that remain in her life, Byers said she finally feels fulfilled. “Now I receive words in the middle of the night,” she said. “I feel like I’m a radar going through life, beeping with the things that are exciting, that are going to bring me joy.”

To follow her journey, listeners can visit sarasbyers.com, or tune in to her podcast Collecting Insight, or follow her poetry at @DearJoyLove

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