People in Transition 140. Mallory Byers - Ex-Salesforce Recruiter | Founder of The Inner CEO Method™
Welcome to another episode of People in Transition. I’m your host, Bob Gerst.
Today’s conversation is especially relevant for anyone who appears successful on paper—but feels burned out, unsettled, or quietly questioning what’s next.
My guest is Mallory Byers. Mallory spent nearly a decade as a top-performing sales recruiter at Salesforce, where she helped highly driven professionals secure roles at the highest levels. She understood the hiring process inside and out—and by all external measures, she was thriving.
Yet along the way, Mallory began to notice something that fundamentally changed the direction of her work. Even the most capable and accomplished people weren’t stuck because they lacked strategy. They were stuck because deeper forces were at play: long-standing patterns, chronic nervous system overload, and a version of confidence built entirely on performance.
Today, Mallory is a Career Breakthrough and Empowerment Coach who supports high achievers navigating career transitions, burnout, or layoffs. Her work goes far beyond résumés and interviews. She helps clients strengthen the person behind the strategy—by rebuilding self-trust, regulating the nervous system, and untangling subconscious patterns such as people-pleasing, perfectionism, and over-functioning.
Through her signature one-on-one program, The Inner CEO, Mallory helps clients stop outsourcing their worth to job titles and start leading their careers with grounded authority. As she teaches, you are the CEO of your life and your career.
If you’re in a season of transition—or sensing that the next chapter of your career requires a different version of you—this conversation will resonate deeply.
Topics We Discuss in This Episode Include:
- How tying your identity to your job impacts your career—and how to navigate that shift
- What it means to operate from survival mode, and how people-pleasing reinforces it
- Where imposter syndrome shows up and how it quietly influences decisions
- The connection between perfectionism, overthinking, freezing action, scarcity thinking, and a dysregulated nervous system
- How the inner critic drives overwork during a job search—and how to stay grounded without letting others dictate your direction
- Why layoffs are such a disorienting experience, and why “staying in your lane” may not lead to fulfillment or success
- Why you don’t solve issues of the mind with the mind—how working with the body changes the job search process
- What it truly means to take ownership of your career and embody your “Inner CEO”
This is a powerful and insightful episode, and there is so much to take away from Mallory’s perspective.
To learn more about Mallory Byers, connect with her on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachmallorybyers/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mallory-byers-coaching/