S9E15: Quitting Your Toxic Job with Mercedes Swan

In a season when so many Black women are being laid off, Mercedes Swan makes the case for the women who are choosing to leave: the ones walking away from a job that is quietly making them sick. A career coach with a background in HR and DEI, Mercedes lived it herself, an ADHD diagnosis, depression, and anxiety she traces to a toxic workplace, before building her own business. She and Laura get honest about how to tell when the environment is the problem, how workplace trauma reshapes your relationship with rest and your own worth, and how to break what she calls the toxic job search cycle so you do not flee one bad situation straight into another. Practical, validating, and clear-eyed about the real constraints of bills and family.

In this episode:

How to know a job is toxic, starting with the simplest signal: your discomfort is enough
The toxic job search cycle (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) and how it lands you in the next bad job
The “limiting belief buster” exercise, plus how to plan your exit and recover your energy while you are still inside a hard environment

About Mercedes

Mercedes Swan is the Career Love Coach and creates empowering and safe places for high-performing and purpose-driven Black women. Leveraging her experience in HR and DEI, she has a mission to close the pay, promotion, and inclusion gap for Black women and other historically marginalized groups on the way to collective career liberation. She is the founder of the Black Woman Bliss Community and Career Love, a social impact organization.

Connect with Mercedes

Website: https://www.mercedesswan.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdswan/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mercedes.swan

IG:https://www.instagram.com/mercedes.swan

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFeD9kqBQ53Lg17SaTh1bSQ

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@mercedes.swan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2205202599758678

BWL Resources:

Join Black Woman Leading, The Collective – a membership community. Learn more at https://blackwomanleading.com/the-collective/
Join us at the 2027 Black Woman Leading LIVE! Conference & Retreat. June 1-4, 2027, Clearwater Beach, FL. Save your seat at http://www.BWLretreat.com
Full podcast episodes are now on Youtube. Subscribe to the BWL channel today!
Check out the BWL theme song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l68EqEJjXq0
Check out the BWL line dance tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eui89AmJwUg
Take the free Future-Ready Leader Assessment – https://futureready.blackwomanleading.com/