EP152: You’re Brilliant at Leading Everyone… Except Yourself

You lead your team.

Your house.

Your clients.

Your family.

Your children.

Sometimes, it feels like you’re leading every bloody person you come into contact with (even if you don't actually know them!)

But when was the last time you properly led yourself?

In this week’s episode, I’m talking about the subtle leadership crisis so many capable, high-achieving people don’t even realise they’re in.

Because there’s a HUGE difference between managing yourself and leading yourself.

You can manage your diary, your inbox, your deadlines and everybody else’s expectations while completely abandoning the person underneath it all.

And the most dangerous part?

Survival doesn’t always look like struggling.

Sometimes it looks organised, productive, respected and incredibly successful.

It just also looks f*cking exhausted.

In this episode, I explore:

• Why high achievers become brilliant at coping
• The difference between self-management and self-leadership
• How success can disguise survival
• Why your business can’t outgrow the identity leading it
• The question I return to whenever life gets difficult: Who do I choose to be?
• Why leadership eventually has to come home to you

I also share some very exciting news.

Tickets are officially on sale for:

Be You Now

The Identity Reinvention Event for Founders & Business Owners

Taking place on Friday 4 September 2026 at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London Tower Bridge, this is a full-day live event for founders, business owners and leaders who know their next level requires more than another strategy.

Because your business won’t outgrow your confidence, courage, standards, visibility or willingness to make difficult decisions.

Eventually, every business bumps into the identity of the person leading it.

Book your ticket here

And while you’re here, come and find me:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Facebook        

Website

The question I want you to sit with after this episode is:

Where have I become so busy leading everyone else that I’ve forgotten to lead myself?

Because the greatest act of leadership isn’t leading a team.

It’s refusing to abandon yourself while you’re doing it.

And you do not have to stay who you’ve always been.

Sarah x

🔥 DOWNLOAD FREEBIES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION

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Transcript

Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Reinvention Era  podcast with me, your host, Sarah Elizabeth Queen of Reinvention. And you know what? I've got to be quite honest with you. This episode very nearly didn't happen. Now I haven't missed one in God three years since I've been doing this podcast, but this week I was like, can I skip it? Because basically I've been really unwell over the last week, all whilst in the middle of rehearsing for founders' dinner and putting the finishing touches to an event and finalising sponsorship packs and building landing pages and launching ticket sales and etc etc, and my body yet again decided to go. Hang on, hang on, just wait a minute. We're going to slow you down again. So today, I've got to be honest. Energy has been low, and I genuinely wondered whether to just skip this week. But then I realised that actually this is the episode. B ecause if there's one thing that I've learned over the last year, especially, is that leadership isn't about showing up when it's easy. It's about leading yourself when nobody else can do it for you, and I think that's the bit that we've forgotten. We've become incredibly fucking good at leading everyone else, right? And we've forgotten ourselves. You know, we've become experts. We lead teams. We lead children and clients and businesses and communities and teams and families and friends, and sometimes even complete fucking strangers. You know, we solve everybody else's problems, but that's us, right? We're reliable. Almost known for it. We're the one people turn to, the one who keeps everything together, the one who always knows what to do. You know, sounds familiar. And the problem is, at some point, we've led all of that, and because two things can be true at once, we slowly stopped leading ourselves. We manage ourselves instead. We don't lead. We manage ourselves. That's a massive difference, because like we manage diaries and deadlines and inboxes and responsibilities, but leadership, leadership, leadership of ourselves, self leadership, that actually asks completely different questions. Like, who am I being? Who am I becoming? What kind of life am I building? What am I no longer available for? Where have I abandoned myself? When was the last time I made a decision that was right for me, rather than because everyone else expected it? Looking at that, that's leadership, self leadership, right? But we end up in this kind of survival trap, you know. Because I think one of the biggest things I've realised throughout my social work career through leadership, through this work with incredible women around reinvention and identity through writing my book, which, by the way, is being published in November. The waiting list will be coming soon. So watch this space? But anyway, what I've realised through all of it is that high achievers are often operating from survival without even bloody knowing it. We become so brilliant at coping, so damn brilliant that everyone assumes that we're thriving, including us. We think we're thriving, including ourselves, because we're organised, right? We're successful as fuck. We're productive. We're busy. We're respected. We're exhausted. Quite honestly, fucking exhausted. Because surviving well doesn't actually look like struggling. Weirdly, it looks like succeeding. It looks amazing to the outside world, so much so that we believe it ourselves, and that's why it's such a dangerous trap. But the hard truth is that you cannot lead a life that you've abandoned. You can't build a business. Bigger than your identity, you can't lead anything from self-abandonment without leading yourself first. You know you can't keep saying yes to everyone else and expect yourself to flourish. At some point, leadership's got to come home. Football World Cup didn't, but leadership can, and it has to start with you. Now I've said it before on this podcast. Oh my god, numerous times you probably just look at me saying it, but this has probably been one of the hardest years of my life, right? Because I left a high-profile, highly paid role without a job to go down, as you do. I broke my arm. No scrap that. I completely fucking shattered my arm. I had extensive surgery followed by really nasty infection. I've had the Crohn's flare-ups. I've written a book. Have I mentioned that? I've kept the podcast going.

Sarah Elizabeth  06:02

I've started building a completely different business, and this week, this week, today, I'm launching the event I've wanted to create for so long, and I'm doing that anyway. Has it all been graceful? Abso-f ucking lutely not. Have there been days that I've wondered what on earth I'm doing? Definitely, 100% But every single decision has come back to one question: Who do I choose to be? Not what do I feel like doing? Not what's easiest. Not what will everyone else think. Who am I choosing to be? Because your identity will always, always win. That always wins out, and that's why I created the event. And actually, that's why I've created specifically the Be You Now, which is an identity reinvention event for founders, for business owners, for leaders, because there are hundreds of business events that will teach you strategy. Oh my god, I've been to loads of them, been to an opening for fucking envelope. If it comes to business strategy funnels, marketing, AI. AI sales lead gen scaling offline online and look they are all important absofuckinglutely . You do need strategies and also because two things can be true at once. I've realised something else, particularly over the last year, that almost nobody is talking about the identity of the person leading the business, because if you are a business owner, your business will never ever outgrow you? It won't outgrow your confidence. It won't outgrow your courage, your standards, your willingness to make really difficult decisions, your capacity and ability to be visible, your ability to hear no and keep the fuck going, because eventually every business will bump or more like crash at first into the identity of the person leading it. And if the identity of the person leading it is down here, the business ain't ever going to be up here, and that's what this event is about. It's not about becoming somebody else. It's just giving you permission to stop leading everybody else long enough to lead yourself. So, if you're listening to this podcast this week, whether you're a founder, a parent, a teacher, a manager, a consultant, a nurse, a social worker, whatever you do, well, that's actually a whole other podcast. Because by the way, what you do is not who you are. But in any event, just ask yourself this question. Question: Where have I become so busy leading everyone else that I've forgotten to lead myself? And sit with that. Where have I become so busy leading everyone else that I've forgotten to lead myself because I genuinely believe your answer to that-that's where your next chapter starts, love. Now, a little bit of exciting news as this episode. Life tickets for Be You Now, the Identity Reinvention Event 2026 are officially on sale. Yes, they are. Yesterday evening, I hosted a founders dinner to relaunch the Queen of Reinvention because after this whole last year, you know, if anyone was going to reinvent reinvention, it's going to be the queen of reinvention. And actually, it was one of those evenings where I looked around the moment and thought, "This is exactly why I'm doing this. This is why I'm doing this. So, if you are a founder or a business owner, or just someone who knows you're ready for your next fucking level of leadership. I would absolutely love to see you there. I'd love to see you there. You'll find all the details in the show notes. But come and follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all the either Sarah Elizabeth or Queen of Reinvention, but everything's in the show notes that you need, and just come and have a look and see if it's for you because I genuinely believe it's going to be fucking amazing. It's in London on the fourth of September, 2026 at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London Tower Bridge, and it's from 10 till five. Absolutely love you to be there. Oh, can't wait! And in the meantime, I'll leave you with this. Right, we spend a significant part of our lives, trying to become better leaders, better parents, better partners, better business owners, better managers. Only the greatest act of leadership isn't leading a team; it's refusing to abandon yourself while you're doing it, so maybe the next level isn't about leading everybody else better.

Sarah Elizabeth  12:06

Maybe it's about finally leading yourself, because you don't have to stay who you've always been. I'll say that a little bit louder for those at the back. You don't have to stay who you've always been. That's my message. So I will leave you with that for this week. Thank you for listening. As always, I will be back in your beaut, badass earbuds again next week. So until then, I am sending you so much love. Bye.