Chief Change Officer
#313 Erika Ayers-Baden: No One Cares About Your Career—So Build One That Works for You
Mon, 21 Apr 2025
Erika Ayers Badan isn’t here to polish the truth—she’s here to say it louder. In this first of a two-part series, the current CEO of Food52 and former CEO of Barstool Sports breaks down the raw realities behind her debut book, No One Cares About Your Career. From writing on commuter trains to fielding hundreds of workplace questions a week, Erika shares why her advice hits different—because it’s honest, hard-earned, and hyper-relevant for a Gen X audience still rewriting the rulebook. This isn’t a pep talk. It’s a reset.The Title That Says It All“It’s not just a title—it’s the truth.”Erika reveals how No One Cares About Your Career went from a casual comment to the book’s heartbeat—and why it resonates across industries, generations, and inboxes.When Creativity Gets Crushed“I went from running wild to daily reforecasts and regulatory meetings.”She opens up about the moment corporate structure smothered her spark—and how writing a book on the train became a lifeline back to creative energy.The Mid-Chapter Career Book“This isn’t for the lost or the legends. It’s for the people in the messy middle.”Erika explains who the book is for—and why it’s not another glossy manifesto or three-step self-help trick.The Five Things That Actually Matter at Work“Who you are. What you offer. How you show up. What you do with your time. And how much you care.”Forget the buzzwords. Erika distills 25 years of media, tech, and executive leadership into five brutally simple career rules.Mentoring at Scale“I get 200 questions a week—and I try to answer every one.”She shares how social media became her advice desk, what Gen Z is most worried about, and why transparency—not perfection—is the new leadership currency._____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Erika Ayers Badan --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.15 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>150,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Erika Ayers Badan and what is her career background?
Okay, great, Vince. So I'm Erica. I live right around New York City. I work in New York City. I worked in New York City for, I don't know, 15 years, almost 20 years. I grew up in a really small town in New England. I was born in Colorado, and I'm best known for my last job, which I spent a decade building a company called Barstool Sports, which in the American market is one of, if not the most
wild, fast-growing, creative, dynamic, disruptive companies in sports and media and entertainment in the past two to three decades. So I'm most known for my time at Barstool Sports. Prior to that, I worked at a lot of really big companies like Microsoft and Yahoo and AOL. I worked at a bunch of startups in the fashion space, in the music space.
In the entertainment space, I started my career thinking I wanted to be a lawyer, and I didn't. I had been laid off. I was a receptionist. I had a bunch of career changes. I had a very meandering career path. I worked at a bunch of ad agencies. I've worked all over the world. So I've had, I would say, a really unique career in that I've really tried a lot of different things.
I've worked at a lot of different places. I've learned from a lot of different types of people, all in pursuit of really becoming a better person and a better leader and a better executive and a more interested whole being. And I don't know if that works, Vince, but that's how I would describe it.
So initially, you planned to go to law school, or perhaps it was more of an expectation from your parents. But in the end, you chose a different path. What led you to that decision?
Yes, I had gotten an internship. I went to a liberal arts college in Maine in the U.S. and I had gotten an internship in Boston. And most of my family are teachers and my parents were teachers and educators. My dad was my principal when I was in middle school, which is probably a story for later. And I felt my parents really sacrificed so that my brother and I could go to very good schools.
And I felt a very significant sense of obligation to do something with that. I feel that my parents had sacrificed everything. themselves to give us opportunity, and I felt a very big debt of gratitude on that. And when I had gotten this internship, it was at Fidelity Investments. It was in Boston, Massachusetts, and I loved it. And I got this bug to work in a corporate environment.
No one else in my extended family works in a corporate environment, but I got the bug. And it made me think, oh, I want to go to law school and I'd like to get a business degree. I never ended up doing either of those things. But what I did do is set out to be very successful in the corporate world and to do it the best way I could, which was really learning on the job and as an apprenticeship.
Now it's time to dive into your book. I have to confess to the audience. When Erica and her team reached out to me about doing this interview, I immediately said yes, like no hesitation at all. Why? What drew me in so quickly was the title of the book, which is No One Cares About Your Career. This is punchy title.
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Chapter 2: Why did Erika write the book 'No One Cares About Your Career'?
Maybe one day you could go down a similar path, turning no one cares about your career into something more, perhaps a teaching platform or a series of courses to help people navigate the modern workplace. What do you think about taking that approach?
I'd love to teach. Yeah, that's what in the, what are my future plans? I would love to teach. I think Principles is an incredible book. It's also really dense. You have to be awake when you're reading it. And I hope for this book was that it was more conversational and in some ways lighter and more digestible. But I love, I too love Principles. I thought it was a really powerful way to think about
building yourself and building a company.
So I started skimming through the first few chapters of your book. As you mentioned, it has a more conversational tone, but it's also packed with real life stories. Tell us more about how your book stands out from other business or career-oriented books.
Oh, I think this book is quite different for a bunch of reasons. Before I wrote it, I went to the bookstore and I went on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and I went and looked at all... I went and looked at the business book article aisle and... I really found two things. The first was a lot of books written by people who were professing to be perfect.
So their heads were on the cover and it was all about me and my perfect career. What I've accomplished, aren't I so great? And the second majority of the books I found were that they were much thinner, much smaller, and much more prescriptive where you're supposed to do a very small set of things to unlock yourself and unlock your career.
And I left the aisle thinking, well, I'm not perfect and I don't have a three step habit that is going to unlock everything for anybody, including myself and my career. What I do have is the receipts where I'm a CEO. I'm in the middle of my career. I have made every mistake in the book. I have learned an incredible amount. I have tried and endeavored to do a whole lot.
And I wanted to speak to people that what I would call in the mid chapter. So it's not people who don't know where to get started. And it's not people who've made it all the way to the end or the top. It's really for the people who are getting up on a Monday morning or a Wednesday morning and they're trying to make the most of their life and they're trying to make the most of their work.
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Chapter 3: What does the title 'No One Cares About Your Career' really mean?
Chapter 4: How did Erika's career experiences shape her leadership and creativity?
Chapter 5: How did the pandemic influence Erika’s approach to communication at work?
Chapter 6: What role did podcasting play in Erika's career and book development?
Chapter 7: How does Erika handle mentoring and career questions at scale?
Maybe one day you could go down a similar path, turning no one cares about your career into something more, perhaps a teaching platform or a series of courses to help people navigate the modern workplace. What do you think about taking that approach?
I'd love to teach. Yeah, that's what in the, what are my future plans? I would love to teach. I think Principles is an incredible book. It's also really dense. You have to be awake when you're reading it. And I hope for this book was that it was more conversational and in some ways lighter and more digestible. But I love, I too love Principles. I thought it was a really powerful way to think about
building yourself and building a company.
So I started skimming through the first few chapters of your book. As you mentioned, it has a more conversational tone, but it's also packed with real life stories. Tell us more about how your book stands out from other business or career-oriented books.
Oh, I think this book is quite different for a bunch of reasons. Before I wrote it, I went to the bookstore and I went on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and I went and looked at all... I went and looked at the business book article aisle and... I really found two things. The first was a lot of books written by people who were professing to be perfect.
So their heads were on the cover and it was all about me and my perfect career. What I've accomplished, aren't I so great? And the second majority of the books I found were that they were much thinner, much smaller, and much more prescriptive where you're supposed to do a very small set of things to unlock yourself and unlock your career.
And I left the aisle thinking, well, I'm not perfect and I don't have a three step habit that is going to unlock everything for anybody, including myself and my career. What I do have is the receipts where I'm a CEO. I'm in the middle of my career. I have made every mistake in the book. I have learned an incredible amount. I have tried and endeavored to do a whole lot.
And I wanted to speak to people that what I would call in the mid chapter. So it's not people who don't know where to get started. And it's not people who've made it all the way to the end or the top. It's really for the people who are getting up on a Monday morning or a Wednesday morning and they're trying to make the most of their life and they're trying to make the most of their work.
And for me, work changed my life. And I really think work is where we spend the vast majority of our time and effort and energy today. And I wanted to write a book like a conversation with someone who is still going through it, who has messed up a whole lot, who has done a whole lot and who is kind enough to shake you, but also to give you a hug and say, you can do this.
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