How Sarah Davidson regained her ‘sparkle’

Sarah Davidson, a wildly successful entrepreneur and podcast host, sees how her life could easily have taken an entirely different path. 

Davidson started her career as a corporate lawyer in a high-powered firm. 

You might think you know how this story goes: Davidson, a young lawyer, leaves her job for one of the ‘standard’ reasons – burnout, long hours, a lack of work/life balance. 

But it’s not that simple. In many ways, Davidson loved being a lawyer.

“I was very gratified by the sense of prestige, the sense of objective success,” she told Helen McCabe as part of FW’s Too Much podcast. 

“As an A-type personality, it’s enormously satisfying to have a hierarchy where you feel like you’re getting promotions and that sense of progress and pay rises,” she added.

“I actually really enjoyed that time of my life”. 

Looking back, however, Davidson described it as “scary” to think how easily she could still be there. 

“I am very good at being a chameleon, which is also dangerous because it means that you can kind of spend a whole lifetime just fitting into other boxes because it gets you approval,” she said

Image credit: Samantha Gash

“I was not by default, argumentative, I am not a naturally assertive person, and I realised those environments are very competitive, extremely cutthroat”.

A clear sign something had to change was when Davidson collapsed at work. 

“I ended up not lasting the distance because my constitution, my talents and my passions unite in a way that isn’t necessarily the best suited for corporate law,” she said. 

She describes herself as “way too gentle” for that world – it drained her of her natural ‘sparkle’. 

“Now if anyone follows me [they know] I’m very fluffy. I love words like ‘yay’, I don’t shake hands, I cuddle … I am a very tactile person and the lightness of life is what I love the most,” she said. 

“And there’s not really a place for that in corporate law, [it] doesn’t get you very far.” 

Davidson recalled how those closest to her could see something was missing, that she had lost her sparkle.

“As a child it’s really clear what makes you sparkle, what makes you special and different,” she said. 

“[Then we spent time] suppressing all that and being someone else … And then you peel back the layers to realise who you were all along. 

“For once I was like, I’m defending my gentleness – the ‘yay’, the playfulness is the point,”

“And often the people around you are sort of like, ‘yeah, we knew that wasn’t you. And now you’re back’.”

Davidson pinned “that sparkle” down to “what makes you feel alive, what makes you not just feel like you’re getting up every day to just do the same thing”.

She realised she could never find it in law, but she could find it in the world of entrepreneurship.

For Davidson, the world of business doesn’t need to be cutthroat. It’s a space where she can also embrace her gentleness and love of people. 

“I love storytelling, and I love the contact with the end consumer to be really direct and really close,” she said. 

She believes this gentleness – the warm nature of her brand, its playfulness and approachability – is her business’ secret superpower.

“For once I was like, I’m defending my gentleness – the ‘yay’, the playfulness is the point,” she said.

“I lost that. I became way too serious, I became all about figures and numbers and titles … [when I needed to also] have that childlike sense of joy”. 

“[It] makes me excited to connect with people and makes people [engage] with what I do now,” she added. 

“It’s weird that in one environment, a trait is just the opposite of what people want. But then, in another, it’s been a great strength that I’ve learned to defend rather than to suppress.”