Porsha Ellis On Why Let It Break Is The Reset Women Need: “Burnout Isn’t The Goal”

As women, navigating the complexities of life can often feel like running on a hamster wheel — constantly moving, yet never quite able to pause and catch your breath. Wearing multiple hats every day can be exhausting, especially when it’s layered with the challenge of tending to personal needs, nurturing dreams, and healing old wounds.

But with organizations like Let It Break, the mold is shifting. They’re creating a community of like-minded women who are both vulnerable and strong — a space where honesty is met with support, and where transformation feels not only possible, but sustainable. Savannah James, April McDaniel and Porsha Ellis are the three women behind the scenes creating a safe space for women that is more than a membership — it's a movement.

Ellis serves as the CEO and put it best when speaking with Unbothered, that at its core, the real heart of Let It Break is about creating room to stop, breathe and remind yourself that you don’t have to hold it all alone. Like so many of us, as she put it: "Despite the highs of my career as a marketing executive, I yearned for more—alignment, growth, and the courage to be the most authentic version of myself."

As ambitious, career-centric women striving to achieve excellence and live up to high standards, it becomes less about the next milestone and more about the cost of time, intentionality, personal growth and fulfillment. So instead of only discussing it in the group chat, the trio decided to create something meaningful and worthwhile, designed to interrupt the cycle of burnout and remind women that success and softness can coexist. During our chat, Ellis dropped personal gems while sharing insights and honest reflections. And if you're wondering what's next for the brand, keep reading to learn more.

Porsha Ellis: At Let It Break, we talk a lot about unlearning and about shedding. The journey of personal growth is not a linear process. It's not something that we arrive at. That's what people sometimes think: 'Okay, I've done this and I've made it here, and now everything is fixed.'

It's a constant journey that I find myself on. I've been on [this journey] for a while, and I think for me, the journey started with motherhood and having two daughters, and wanting to think about how I can give them the tools earlier than what I had, and how I can have conversations with them earlier than I had as a kid. For me, the things I'm unlearning are really about surrendering and letting go of the things I can't control. I have a tendency to hold on to things longer than I need to.

I've learned this through the process of being a part of Let It Break that I don't sit still with myself very much. So when life starts, lifing, I like to stay busy doing all the things, but it's a distraction from actually being in touch with my feelings, and understanding what I need in the moment. The other thing I'm unlearning is the idea that I should always be busy. I'm learning to sit still and process whatever I'm going through, which is a significant learning lesson that I'm still working through.

PE: It's such an interesting dynamic. The backstory with the three of us is that April and I have worked together for the last 10 years, and have built a friendship outside of our working relationship. Through that relationship, I worked at her agency, Crown + Conquer, for six and a half years, and we've had a long-standing working relationship, which has also allowed us to develop a personal connection. And April and Savannah were friends outside of the workplace as well, and then, all these things came together. The energy of the three of us is interesting. April is the fiery person. She's not shy about expressing her feelings or thoughts, and people love and respect her for that.

Savannah is on the other end of the spectrum, bringing a sense of calmness and peace, and is very mellow in terms of her personality and how she presents herself. If you've watched their podcast before, they play off of each other really well, and they balance each other out. Then I fit in right in the middle. I can be a little bit more like April, and then I can be a little bit more like Savannah, and it depends on the situation that we're in. If you're into astrology, I'm a Libra. I'm a balancer, so I find the sweet spot between the two of them, and I think it all works really well together when we're coming into a situation of presenting, Let It Break to people, because you really do see the differences in our personality, and that allows a lot of people to connect differently to us.

Although we are three African American women, we share many similar concerns, but we also have different interests, which complement each other, allowing us to connect with a wide range of women. And I love it. The dynamic is really cool, especially when we all come together for what we're building and what our community will eventually look like.

PE: Integrity is really about knowing who we are, as a brand, as a community. What world are we really serving for women, and how are we supporting women and staying true to that, no matter what. I've learned from some advisors that we brought on, who have built other women's membership communities, some of which still exist, some of which don't, is that to build and keep the integrity of a community, it's a little counterintuitive to have this desire to want to be 20,000 members.

We've really taken a slow and steady approach to our growth because we want to create something that is sustainable and lasts a long time. When you're building community, you have to do that. You have to keep the intentionality of what the purpose is, of what you want to do. So, if our purpose is to create space for women to be seen, to have a vulnerable space where they can be real and be themselves, and to be in community with other women on a more human level, it's not, 'What can you do for me?' or 'What can I do for you?' We want to support each other, but it's not from a transactional level. It is a more deeply rooted connection. We have to stay true to how we build that community and what type of offerings we have. Everything we do stems from this high-level pillar. For me, integrity is knowing who we are, what space we are taking up, and staying true to that truth.

PE: This is something we talk a good amount about. The biggest thing for me is knowing when to push through and knowing when to pause. There are times in all of our lives when we have to put our heads down and get through whatever it is that's happening or whatever season we're in. But sometimes we push through and push through and push through, and then it's not until we've built up all of these unprocessed emotions that we then implode.

I believe that what we're creating with Let It Break is an opportunity to take inventory of ourselves and where we are at different points and stages of our lives, so that we don't continue to push through, push through, push through, and then come out and say, 'Oh, I have no idea who I am. I have no idea what I want right now.' It is the constant checking in with ourselves and the maintenance, what I like to call the maintenance work of our personal growth and evolution. It's really important to make space to process things, to sit with ourselves, and to take inventory of what a situation looks like for us. I would say, as often as you can pause and reflect.

For me, I'm a big journaler. I write a lot. It helps me process my thoughts and my feelings. It also helps me think about the things I want for my future and manifest them into existence. So, again, it's not realistic to say, 'don't push through anything,' but I do think in the times when you have to push through, how are you tending to yourself outside of that? Pushing through is necessary for all of us at certain phases or times in our lives. But it's not healthy to push through without any light at the end of the tunnel.

Healing is very personal. Some people seek therapy, some meditate, and others have hobbies, which serve as their outlet. I think it's very personal to what you need and what you're going through, and as long as you are in touch with that and are figuring out what that looks like for you, and constantly and intentionally making time to say, 'Okay, let me actually take a step back for a second. I've been heads down for the last month. Do I feel good? How does my body feel?' Check in with yourself because that's a really important part of it that some of us miss often, and then we end up in worse situations than if we had just checked in with ourselves along the way.

PE: The first thing is going back to the pause to take a second. And actually carve out time to take a second and think about what it is that I'm really struggling with, what it is that I'm really dealing with? Sometimes it's not just about what you think. It's about how you actually feel and being in touch with your feelings. If you don't feel like you know what to do, pause and make space to sit, think, and assess what is at the core of what you're dealing with that's really bothering you, because when you think about the layers of something, a lot of people can get to the root of what it might be. Maybe you don't know for sure, and in that case, I would say, seek counsel, or seek guidance from somebody that you trust, and get another opinion. Or if it's something you can identify for yourself, then actively make changes.

Many of us sit and ruminate on things that we know are not healthy, but we try to push through, or we feel like there is something we have to get through to reach the other side. Even when we reach the other side, that thing still exists. It depends on what it is, too, like feeling burnt out. Some of it is a product of feeling like you have to be in a job or feeling like you have to be doing something to prove your worthiness. That's a more deeply rooted issue that you have to take the time to work through, to understand where it comes from and how to move and navigate outside of it.

PE: There's a lot that we're working on, and for us, we do want to figure out a way to expand to another market. We're prioritizing LA and New York because we have physical presence in those cities. The goal is for people to convene in person. Whether we're doing educational pieces or on the community side, we are exploring other ways to connect with people outside of our membership. There may be some things that we roll out in the future that allow external members to be a part of what we're doing, in some way, shape, or form. I'm excited about some partnerships we are working on, which I can't name just yet. However, for us, connecting with mission-aligned brands that truly value supporting women in this way is really important to us.

We just hit our one-year mark, so we're continuing to lay the foundation for what we're building. We're considering another market where we can establish a presence and grow, while expanding our community in the process. Additionally, we have some exciting developments in store, so stay tuned.