Recently on the "Wake Up With Dee Morning Show" Host Dr. Dee Dawkins Haigler spoke with Author and Co-owner of EscovitcheZ, Georgia Wolfe-Samuels, who detailed her 2018 mini-stroke from career burnout, her rise to opening two Jamaican fine-dining restaurants, and her work coaching women to prevent professional collapse.
Ms. Samuels discussed her 2018 breaking point. While working on a high-stakes IPO in public accounting, she ignored relentless fatigue, lack of motivation and an “exhaustion that could not be explained.”
“I got up and I kept going,” Ms. Samuels said, “And then a few months later, I ended up having a mini stroke, what they call a TIA.”
The transient ischemic attack forced a nine- to 15-month recovery. During that period, therapy and faith revealed the root: childhood abandonment by her mother had fused with a professional mask of overachievement. “My burnout was really caused by a wound, a wound I experienced in my childhood from being abandoned by my mom,” she said.
Recovery became reinvention. A month after the TIA, her husband lost his mother; the couple hired a chef for the repast. Impressed, they leveraged their accounting expertise to help him open a restaurant. That spark grew into Escoviches, a Jamaican fine-dining brand with locations in Snellville and Tucker, Ga. The menu features red snapper five ways, oxtails, jerk everything, rum cake and house-made sorrel and soursop drinks.
Ms. Samuels also wrote “Redefining Her,” available on Amazon, and founded Impact Agency. Her 12-week coaching program teaches women to recognize burnout as “data, it’s not failure,” reframe misalignment and build thriving careers.
“Burnout is really data. It’s not failure,” she told listeners.
To listen to the full interview, click the link above.