Episode 13: When The Going Gets Tough with Maria Garrido 

What happens to you when things get difficult? When the pressure builds, the balance tips, and something has to give? Do you just ‘push through’? Does hardship make you bitter? Or better? When this happens we often start to talk about resilience…. 

In this episode, Maria Garrido – CMO of Deezer and founder of Terranam Wellness Retreats in Spain – offers her own grounded view of tackling hardship. She shares how her own personal and professional challenges led to the conviction that resilience isn’t something you’re born with or not born with: it is simply a muscle – that you can build, hone and strengthen over time.   

Difficulty is part of life for us all. What matters most is how you come through it. And whether that experience leaves you better and stronger, or bitter and diminished. 

For Maria, that understanding didn’t come from theory. It came from navigating a demanding role, facing and resolving personal challenges head-on, raising three children alone, and recognising that constantly putting herself last wasn’t sustainable. She knew she had to strengthen the capacity to meet issues differently.  

She suggests that since hardship is inevitable, knowing that upfront and building the resilience muscle will set you up well in life and work. She shares the four foundation pillars she leans on to build resilience: confidence, a support network that she can truly lean on, a sense of purpose that sits beyond her job title, and the ability to adapt when reality doesn’t match the plan. 

Her own answer didn’t come from stepping away from pressure – but from facing it head on, differently. From no longer putting herself last. From creating something alongside her role – a space in Spain designed to give back, to reconnect, to restore energy. And sometimes, more simply, from doing what she does instinctively to reset: move, dance, start again. 

This is not a conversation about avoiding pressure but about learning how to live and work through challenges without losing yourself.