When What You Do Isn't Who You Are: Career Identity, Empathy, and Rebuilding After a Major Life Pivot

**Content note: this episode includes a brief mention of workplace assault.**

Melissa Robinson-Winemiller spent years building an identity around music. She was a French horn player. A professor. A classical musician. It wasn't just what she did — it was who she was.

And then everything changed.

After facing a series of painful professional experiences that ultimately forced her out of academia, Melissa spent seven years trying to figure out who she was without the career that had defined her.

What she discovered — through research, coaching, and a doctorate in interdisciplinary leadership — was that the thing she'd been searching for wasn't a new job title.

It was connection.

And that the breakdown in her own career had everything to do with a lack of empathy, starting with herself.

In this conversation, Melissa and I talk about:

• What it actually feels like to disentangle your identity from what you do
• Why self-empathy has to come before you can extend it to anyone else and
• How asking "why does this even apply to me?" can become one of the most freeing questions you've ever asked.

If you've ever found yourself rebuilding from the outside in —changing careers, reinventing your business, starting over — and wondering why it still doesn't feel right, this one is for you.

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Melissa's Instagram: @empathyqueen.eq/

Melissa's Website: https://eqviaempathy.com/

Brittany's Instagram: @catescreative.studio

Brittany's Website: https://catescreativestudio.com/