Your Work Doesn't Speak for Itself: Why High Performers Get Stuck While Others Get Promoted

Week 3 of The Trust Tax Investigation

Most high performers believe one thing:

If I do great work, people will notice.

It sounds reasonable.

It feels fair.

For many of us, it became part of our identity.

Work hard. Deliver results. Keep saying yes. Be the person everyone can count on. Eventually, someone will recognize your contribution.

But what if that story isn't true?

In this episode of The Trust Tax Investigation, I sit down with executive coach and former Chief Talent Officer Courtney Intersimone, who has been in the room where executive succession decisions are actually made.

Not the meeting after the meeting.

The meeting where leaders decide who gets promoted—and who doesn't.

What Courtney reveals challenges one of the biggest beliefs many high performers carry.

Your work doesn't speak for itself.

Organizations don't simply promote the people who produce the best results. They promote the people leaders believe can create value in the future. That means visibility, relationships, positioning, and demonstrating your potential all matter alongside performance. 

For many high achievers, this creates an invisible cycle.

They respond to a lack of recognition by working even harder.

They take on more responsibility.

Become increasingly indispensable.

Wait for someone to notice.

When the recognition doesn't come, they work even harder.

Over time, that story becomes expensive.

Not only because promotions may never come.

But because constantly proving your value quietly becomes the path to burnout.

In this episode you'll discover:

•  Why "your work speaks for itself" is one of the most expensive career myths. 
•  The difference between being valuable and being positioned. 
•  Why being indispensable can sometimes delay advancement. 
•  How relationships and visibility influence promotion decisions. 
•  How identity can become the invisible ceiling above your career. 
•  Why lack of recognition often leads high performers to overwork instead of reposition. 
•  A practical exercise to identify the people who influence your next opportunity. 

The Trust Tax Investigation

This episode reveals another way the Trust Tax quietly grows.

Not because organizations intentionally overlook talented people.

But because many high performers keep living by a story that no longer serves them:

"If I just work harder, eventually someone will notice."

Sometimes they do.

Sometimes they don't.

Either way, continuing to prove your worth by carrying more responsibility comes at a cost.

The Trust Tax isn't simply about working too much.

It's the invisible price we pay when the stories that helped create our success continue driving our decisions long after they've stopped serving us.

Connect with Courtney Intersimone

Learn more about Courtney's work:

🌐 Website: https://courtneyintersimone.com/

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyintersimone/

Rewrite Your Story

October 15, 2026 • Walsh College • Troy, Michigan

If The Trust Tax Investigation has helped you recognize yourself in these conversations, I'd love to invite you to the next step.

Rewrite Your Story is a full-day interactive leadership workshop followed by Merit Kahn's inspiring and hilarious one-woman comedy show, Optimistic Personality Disorder™.

Together we'll explore the stories that shape how we lead, define success, carry responsibility, and experience burnout.

You'll leave with a new understanding of what has been driving your leadership—and the opportunity to intentionally choose a story that creates healthier leadership, stronger relationships, and sustainable success.

Because the story that helped create your success...

doesn't have to define how you lead next.

🎟️ Reserve your seat:
 https://RewriteYourStoryEvent.com

Continue the Investigation

This episode is part of our special five-week series:

Week 1: When Success Becomes a Trap

Week 2: Why Does This Happen?

Week 3: Why Organizations Create It

Week 4: How We Break the Cycle

Connect with Natalie Luke, PhD

🌐 Website:
 https://www.unceilingzone.com

💼 LinkedIn:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieluke/

🎙️ Subscribe to UnCeiling You on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 1:01

Welcome back to Unsealing You. I'm Dr. Natalie Luke, and this is the Trust Tax Investigation. A special five-week series exploring why so many capable, caring, high-performing people end up burned out. Over the last two weeks, we've uncovered two important pieces of the puzzle. In week one, we discovered that burnout rarely begins with a collapse. It begins way earlier. When success quietly becomes heavier than it used to be. Different careers, different lives, yet Danielle Griffin, Zoe Thompson, and Sandra Wood all describe the same turning point. The moment success stopped feeling sustainable. Then, in week two, we asked a different question. How did we get here? Hannah Kerman, Dr. Melanie Gray, and Angela Couric helped us understand that burnout isn't usually caused by one overwhelming event. It develops through small adaptations, meeting everyone's expectations before your own, living in constant high alert, and tying your identity to achievement and responsibility. This week, the investigation takes another turn. Because if these patterns develop inside people, what role do organizations play in reinforcing them? Most organizations don't intend to create burnout. Most leaders genuinely care about their people. So why do the same patterns keep showing up? Why do the most capable people keep becoming the answer to every problem? And why does responsibility keep flowing to the same individuals? And why does success so often come with an invisible cost? This week we explore those questions through three remarkable conversations. Because if we want to reduce burnout, we have to understand not only the people inside the system, but the system itself.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So I just want to be clear.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah. Yes, that is true. Darn it. Now, I, you know, is that always the case? No. Um, but can it be the case at times, which is usually put under a, you know, reasonable and polite veneer of, well, you know, either something equivalent to we, you know, this person just needs a little more time, like it's for the individual's own good versus for their immediate leader's good to have you stay in the same place, right? Like, well, they just need a little more seasoning, or there's this particular initiative that's coming up that they're leading, and it's going to be really important that they knock that out of the park, and or if not knock it out of the park, you know, get that done and use that as another point of demonstration that they're ready for that next order role, right? So it's it's never, it's never going to be said, oh, I shouldn't say never. Let me walk that back. It's far less likely for the person who is the immediate manager of that individual to say, well, I really can't let them go right now. You know, it's usually cloaked in why it's better for the individual that they not go now. Now, having that said, there are times where, you know, all parties in the conversation, which is usually the CEO and the rest of the C-suite, you know, talking about that, those next layers below of talent. You know, there are times when a good quantum of people in the room in the conversation are aware that it would be problematic to move the individual right then and there. And everyone just kind of agrees that we're keeping our eyes on them. We know we want to elevate them into XYZ, but now is not the best time flus. Like it's not because the person needs more development, but they are on some mission critical initiative that we don't have any appropriate alternative pair of hands to take over. So, you know, that does happen, but more more often it's the it's under the cloak of, you know, this person needs a little more something, something before we can move them forward.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah. Great. So we just jumped right into the core of it. So I cannot wait to see what else we're going to going to talk about. And one thing that was kind of striking to me, and I wanted to get your impression before I asked you the next question, is that in literature I have read studies uh that show that often women are are said to have high performance. Like they perform really well, but low potential. Whereas men have lower performance scores, but higher potential. In your experience, have you seen that at all to be the case? The short answer is no. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

But I think it comes down to, you know, you said you you've read a study, so I would just be Yes. I'm not I'm not trying to quiz you, but I would I would need to look at the study and understand, first of all, how are they devel uh how how is the term potential being defined? Potential is one of those blanket terms that covers a world of of sins, you know, sort of like talking about executive presence. You know, everyone, I'll know it when I see it, but no one can quite, you know, define it. And it's used uh broadly as a as a reason why someone isn't ready yet or whatever. Anyway, so I don't really know what that study's definition of potential is. What it makes me think of is the other off-sided stereotype, which, you know, has some truth to it that says, you know, if you have a woman and a man look at a job description, the woman will be much more likely to only move forward and raise her hand for it if she feels she meets, I don't know what the statistic is, but let's say, you know, north of 90% of the criteria outlined in the in what they're looking for for a candidate for the role, whereas a man wouldn't hesitate to raise his hand if he only met, let's say, 50% of the criteria. So it's if, you know, the this comment is sort of evocative of that to me. Like maybe again, on a on a broad brush basis and stereotypically and based on socialization, you know, of you know, gendered socialization, that we can say that women are more likely to feel like they have to have checked all the boxes, right? Which in in this example would mean delivering really outstanding performance without enough of a show. I'm trying to find a better word, but enough of a demonstration, you know, some some of the other skills that don't necessarily have to do with the bottom line facts of what you delivered or not, but have more to do with the, you know, political relationships, giving the appearance and of the confidence to do that next level role. And that, you know, that there may be some kind of correlation out there this study could be getting at that is gendered in that way. But all that hypothetically, and maybe I was, maybe I had my own blindness around this, I will acknowledge. But as a woman, A, and having sat in the room where these discussions are happening, I just did not find this to be the problem. I found plenty of women who were, you know, that the broader C-suite team was excited about, wanted to keep growing and elevating, women who wanted to take on more. Like I I get a little bit nervous about a self-fulfilling prophecy that gets created by the again, I'm struggling to find the right word. It's not rhetoric is what comes to mind. That may not exactly be it. But there's just like, it's almost like becomes this cottage industry around, you know, why women struggle getting ahead. I've just sort of been like, don't assume that's the case and move forward with confidence and you'll be just fine. Because there's a lot of people who there's a lot in it for them, even if it's just optically that they continue to advance you and move you forward, that you could take advantage of that. I'm probably saying like all kinds of inappropriate things, but I'm just calling it like I see it.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, no, so in every industry I think is different. And to be fair, this particular study was performed in an industry that women tend to come in. A lot of women come in at the ground level, and then not very many men come in, but the men that do come in do rise to the top. And so it's it's one of those types of of industries, not an industry where you have a lot of high, high uh education in order to break into the the base level. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things, so getting back to the original questions to ask you, God, I mean these are the things I was thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. You talk about high performers, because we are talking about on this particular podcast, a specific group of people that are high performers and yet they're hitting an invisible wall. Not because they like lack capability, but because they're playing by rules that no longer apply. What does that wall actually look like from the inside? And why is it so hard to name?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Hard for the people who feel they're hitting it to name. And and not so much so they don't have a problem saying they feel they've hit a wall. The naming problem is what is the wall comprised of? Right. Right. So they don't so I don't really have an answer for you as to why it's difficult necessarily for people to name it, but I would say that it can be comprised of a number of things that are harder to quantify. Um, you know, it's like if you have a certain number of performance goals, you know, sell X number of widgets by the end of the year, you either did or you didn't sell them. It's more objective. The nature of your relationships with other people who are in positions of power, who are in positions to advocate for you, who are in positions alternatively to advocate against you because they just didn't like you, or you didn't support one of their pet initiatives or projects. I mean, I'm what I'm getting into is the whole political realm that has so much to do highest levels of the organization with who moves forward and and who doesn't. I want to be careful here because all these words are all these terms are so highly charged, right? And when we say politics, that brings up a whole lot of connotations for people that usually are not positive, that usually assume that you have to be doing something borderline, unethical. Um, you know, people talk about like, I I don't I don't want to be political, I don't want to have to go against my moral values, yada, yada, yada. Those are really extreme edge cases. What it's about is understanding that we operate in a relational system. It is a social system, it is humans interacting, and relationships, the nature and quality of your relationships, whether there's a positive valence there or a negative valence, how well people even know you, have they even heard of you? If you've been just being, you know, a good little doobie doing what you're supposed to do, only concerning yourself with what your boss thinks and how he or she evaluates what you're doing, but you've never really branched out to understand the bigger nexus of relationships and other people in positions of power and authority and how they feel about your boss and how they see you and your whole function and whether or not you're a threat to their fiefdom, or can you be helpful to them, right? If you've just had your head down like this and you're not thinking about that broader nexus of relationships and what your impact can or cannot be within that broader nexus, that that's the big thing that you're missing. So it's not that you necessarily have to, you know, do something that is, again, you know, unethical or untoward, but you need to appreciate how you are seen and perceived by this broader array of players, what's in it for them, and how you are perceived as either helpful to them, a threat to them. And even if it's indirect, you know, maybe, maybe somebody, you know, you're not the horse they're betting on. They've got someone in their I'm I'm I'm mixing metaphors here. I was gonna say they're stable. That sounds ridiculous, but like, you know, their line of sight and they're advocating for that person instead of you for the same upward role. Does it have anything to do with pound for pound? How effective are you? How high performing are you in your current role? No, it has to do with they've got their favorite horse over here. You just happen to not be it. If you get the job, then they're that by definition, that means their person doesn't get the job. And depending how powerful they are, that other individual is going to want to use their power for their person, not for you. You know, like there's all kinds of things that go well beyond the the you know objective facts of how well did you deliver in the role that you're in today or in the last N number of roles that you've held, you know, during your tenure at the organization. And so that's one thing. The second thing is I see a lot of people assume that their work is going to speak for itself. I mean, we've all heard that phrase and it right, I see the reaction you're having. It's like the big eye roll from those of us who've taken a few punches because that is just not reality. Again, particularly, particularly the higher you go within an organizational hierarchy. For one, it's because everyone is so you're competing for attention with myriad other things that are taking up the mind share of any of the executives above you who will have a say on whether you would advance or not. They're not necessarily always focused on or in the weeds on what you've done for your plot of land. Or how you did it, or what it was about, to your point about how you did it, was it what it was about your particular approach, your way of leading that enabled you to get the outcome that your team got or whatever. There's no way that for them to know unless you make it your business to find a way to educate and broadcast and share those wins, you know, yourself. You have to create and and you have to sort of be your own PR agent. And a lot of people are very uncomfortable with that. Either they grew up, you know, I shouldn't say either, at least in this country, you know, we're all raised in an environment where we go to school and you know that these are the things you have to do to get the A. And if you get all these good grades, then you graduate and then you get an opportunity to go to the, you know, the next great university or whatever. All of that is because you did the work, you got the grade. You didn't have to go on a PR campaign to tell everyone what grade you got. It was just there. Someone could look it up, it was fact. And if you did that, then you, you know, advanced to the next thing. I think because we grow up like that for the first, you know, 12 plus years of our formal education, a lot of high achievers who are first high achievers in an academic setting and as individual contributors, they just get used to, well, I do it, it comes out, I get the grade, everyone can see the grade, I get the next thing. It it inculcates this mindset that my work speaks for itself. It's a meritocracy. When you get out of a, you know, educational setting, that's just again, that's just not reality. Not because people are trying to harm you or ignore you, but because there's this competition for attention, mind share. There's too many things coming in on anyone's desk. They're only dealing with what they have to deal with, their immediate priority. So they don't know maybe what you did over here. And so, but the invisible ceiling comes in because many are still trapped in that mindset of my work speaks for itself. I did good work, don't they see it? Not realizing that maybe they don't see it because you haven't taken the time to educate them. Well, I feel like I shouldn't have to educate them.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Well, you do, you do. The trust tax investigation has been revealing something important. Burnout isn't simply an individual problem. It isn't just about resilience or time management or learning to say no. The people we've spoken to have shown us that burnout grows through the interaction between people and the environments they work in. This week's guests each shine a light on different parts of that environment. How work gets distributed, how responsibility quietly accumulates, how leadership behaviors shape the culture, and how organizations can unintentionally reward the very patterns that eventually leave their best people caring more than they should. The encouraging news? If organizations help create these patterns, organizations can change them. Let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, so I'm glad that you brought all of that forward. And um, it made me think of so I in my career I was in sales at one point, and being at sa in sales, I I equate to it's push, push, push energy. You're out there pushing a product, pushing a pushing towards a goal. And I equate that push to being a hammer. Now at some point, I moved internal and internal, it's internal doing operational things and making sure operationally we perform in such a way that there's no problems that when we launch something, it's like it flows naturally. And so I c equate that to water. And I think of the Grand Canyon, like it'll erode, yeah, it'll carry through water, not from a hammer, you know. So they and when I was in sales, I I never really saw the power of water, you know. I never saw the power of flow. To me, power was just hitting it hard. Push, push, push, yeah, push, push, push. Yeah. And I think now that I'm in an organization where I have to get, I have to understand enough about every department, what they do, what their pressures are, that I can make things flow. And then there's some times when someone from a sales organization with that push energy is like, let's get this done. Get it's like hold hold the phone a second. We want to do this quickly, and if we do it quickly, in order to do it quickly, we need to pay attention to a few things, just step let the professionals analyze for a second. Right, right. And so to me, as I hear you talk about, hey, it's not just enough to do your job, it's uh you have to help others know what you've done, what your impact is, what your impact is, but also pay attention to how people are feeling in the moment when they're with you, when you're working with them. That can you t maybe talk a little bit about your experience with that?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah. So I just want to make sure I'm getting the right thing. You said pay paying attention to how other people are feeling when they're with you.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

So Yeah, feeling about themselves, feeling about the project, feeling about the organization.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah. I mean, at a baseline level, who doesn't want to feel good? You know, and and and if you, you know, this isn't the I I've got a few different thoughts running in my head. That's why I'm I'm kind of slowing down here, deciding which direction to take this. I mean, what one thing that's screaming at me that I'll share is a line that uh a mentor and and former boss of mine used to say all the time. I'm sure it's not unique to her, but she would always say, It's not about you. And I remember the first time I heard that, I was like, What are you trying to say? Are you saying that I'm some kind of selfish, you know, egomaniac? Cause like I'm not like that. And you know, you know, this was the dialogue in my mind. I don't think I even said anything to her. I just Was sort of like, oh, okay, yeah, noted. You know, it's not about me. And it wasn't so much that, you know, the her point, I don't think, was about, you know, oh, you're being an egomaniac. It is getting to this thread that I think you're getting at, Natalie, which is, you know, again, so many of us, just by by I guess it's part of the human experience, we're just focused on our own experience. And also like, what do others think of me, you know, like, or do what do they think of my work? Am I doing a good job? You know, blah, blah, blah. You know, and all of that's relevant, but with but what's lost in all of that is this piece around how have you made them feel? How is what you're doing? Are you showing them that what you're doing is of service to them, is of helping them in some form or fashion? You know, are you bringing other people along? Or is it the, you know, the Natalie Luke show? Like nobody really cares about the Natalie Luke or the Courtney Intersimone show. They've got their own show, their own thing that they're running. So, you know, I the other thing that comes to mind in this that I say to my clients all the time in a in a variety of contexts is focus on being the solution. What is it that the person you're sitting across from, what do they need? Not what do you need. Not because this is about being a good person and like it's some sort of moral, you know, high ground. It's not that. It's just that the things that you've got to understand what motivates somebody else. The other person isn't really there worried about are you, did you do your homework right? Are you a good doobie? What that other person cares about is getting their thing accomplished. And if you're a cog in that wheel, did you do the thing that they needed you to do to get their thing accomplished? Did you do it faster? Did you do it easier? Did you make them look good? That's what they care about, not what you want, you know, like what makes you feel good. They care about what makes them feel good. So again, to be crass about it, because I'm not saying I don't think that it's all just as cold as I'm making it sound, but it's helping people remember that again, you are in a social system, you need to be thinking about what motivates other people around if you want to influence them and if you want to be seen as an experience as someone that these other people want around and want to give more to. Because if other people see that whenever I give you X, Y, Z, good things come to me, in essence. Of course, I'm gonna give you more. They're not giving you more because they're trying to reward you. So this is what I'm saying. I think our whole frame of reference gets distorted or or it's just, you know, again, when you're when you're kind of coming up in your life and and it doesn't feel like things are as dependent on other people around you, and it's just do your thing and get your grade.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

It's different than when you graduate to the real world, which is do your thing, get the grade, but find a way to make connect the dots for other people in power to show why it's advantageous for them what you were able to do. How did it help them? How did it make them look at all this other kind of stuff? So now I feel like I've kind of gone off the rails a bit here.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

No, because basically what you're trying to do is make a distinction distinction between being valued, you're showing how do you bring the value, but then you also have to think about how to be positioned, and that was what you were saying earlier. Right. And a lot of people conflate those two. They yes, and it's one of the most expensive mistakes a senior leader can make. So could you break that down? What is the actual difference between being valued and being positioned? And what does it cost someone if they don't if they don't have either one of those?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Being valued versus being positioned. I'm just taking your frame of reference on this, um, because I haven't really thought about it quite in that way before. Again, it's the it's the overfocus on you kind of looking out for validation and recognition that you have done something that's valuable. You know, you've added value. There's nothing wrong with seeking that recognition. But are you thinking ahead to how can I show these other individuals here who control whether or not I'm gonna be selected to elevate to the C-suite, let's say that my presence there in the C-suite is going to be beneficial for them or at least not harm them, and is going to get the broader business outcomes that arguably, you know, we're all seeking here. So I don't know, I don't know if I'm quite answering your question, but I just never really thought about it about it being valued versus being positioned. I mean, valued is also like what have you, what have you done? Positioned is what can you do going forward, is sort of the way I think about it. You know what I'm saying? Like what what your position. This is your history, this is what's happened. But now connect the dots for me and explain how this means your position to to do all these things going forward and why I should care about it and why I should take a risk on you doing it versus this person over here.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Right. And and it's showing the transferable skills. That position over there requires this to be done. I don't have the experience of being in that position, but I have the skills, shown the skills that I can do that. So as I could transfer it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

The transferability of skills or the one that I think is the most important is demonstrating all the other times in your life when you started something and you didn't know what you were doing and you figured it out and you got a great result. That is the meta capacity that is actually the really important one because it in most cases no one's ever done the thing that they're being asked to do next.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And going back to you don't have to check off all the boxes because what you have to check off is the box of resourcefulness, yeah, learning agility.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I mean, that's like a you know, term of art that you and I might use, but like just are you are you capable of figuring things out? Figuring things out and being confident that I don't and and being confident enough to say, yeah, you're right, I've never done that before. I've done these things that are pretty close to that. There's a lot of analogies, there's a lot of transferable skills. So my experience over here, I can connect the dots for you to show you how it'll enable me to do this here. But the bigger thing is, let me tell you about these, you know, one, two, three other times when I stepped into something that I had no business doing, I didn't really know. But the one thing I was always able to do was learn. I was quick to admit what I didn't know. I had no problem reaching out to n number of individuals who I thought could help me figure it out. I went to these resources, I worked my tail off, I put in the sweat equity to figure it out, whatever it was, and I got it done. And because I've done that time and time again, I know I can do it here as well. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Now you have an episode concept called Who Do You Think You Are? About how identity can make or break a career trajectory. At what point does a high performer's identity become the very thing blocking her to that next level? Oh goodness.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Uh I, you know, I think it i it's part and parcel of what we've been talking about in general here, around if my identity is grounded in I always get the A. And I don't I don't just mean like coming out of academics, but I'm using that as a metaphor. Like I, not that I'm perfect, but like I've got, I've checked most of the boxes, I know how to do this, I feel very confident that I can deliver because I've delivered before. The the the more you rise in the in the hierarchy of a you know large organization, the more likely it is you're gonna be faced with taking on entirely new things where the amount of ambiguity is 10x what you have faced before, and there are no clear answers. And if you're attached to this identity of like, I have to get everything right, I have to score 100 on the test, you might actually feel uncomfortable even raising your hand and positioning yourself for these higher order roles that are going to be like definitionally, they are a morass of ambiguity and lack of clarity and lack of certainty. So I I don't know that that's exactly answering your question about identity, but I do think there's a thread of identity in there, which is like I am committed to being the person who gets the hundred on the test. You know, that's always been my bedrock. I always knew how to study, I knew how to do it, I knew how to get it. Now I don't, now it's really unclear. It's not as straight a path. It's it's there's not a recipe for exactly what I have to do next. And so I'm not sure that I'm able to do that. Now, I I would address the identity thing though, you know, another way, which is, and it can be very personal for some people, like based on their own personal history. I'll use myself as an example. I was always a high achiever. I had great grades. I went to an Ivy League, you know, premiere Ivy League school. Like I had the whole burnished credentials and all of that. Fine. But I was very attached to, I don't know really where I'm going, what I'm doing. I just know that whatever you put in front of me, I'm gonna work really hard. I'm gonna do the assigned task, I'm gonna get it done really well, and you'll praise me and I'll feel good and we'll keep going from there, right? And good things continued to happen. I had people saying to me, like, you, you know, you should be XYZ. You, you know, maybe not right now, but you could be the C-suite, you know, the chief people officer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I don't really see that for me. Why? I don't know if it's because this isn't some sad story. I don't know if it's because I grew up the child of educators. I wasn't even in the business world, like they weren't in the business world, like I had no frame of reference for all of that. I mean, I understood conceptually what it was, but like it just never occurred to me to think that it's like I can be really, really good, but somehow in my mind I operate here, not here.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

And because I had that in my head, from where I don't even, I couldn't even really tell you. I it was only at a certain point that I sort of woke up to the fact that I was limiting myself. Yeah. Because it never even occurred to me that it was reasonable for me to aim for this C-suite level role. And because of that, I didn't fully orient myself to it as early in my career as I could have. Now, I did very well. I ended up, you know, one step away from that role, you know, managing a large global team. Like it don't cry for me, Argentina. But my point is, you know, I think there are a lot of people, and I know I encounter them all the time, who self-limit based on untested assumptions that I do think tie into identity. Like my people, and I don't mean like a full race or something. I just mean like you and your family. Our people don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Our people operate at this level, not like this. I don't come from a background where I'm making, you know, two, three, four, five million dollars a year. That just doesn't, that's just some mystery. I don't know who does that, but it's not necessarily me. And you'd be surprised there are a good number of people who are, you know, have the outward appearance of all the credentials and they look, you know, that they're high performers, high achievers, but in some way they're retarding the potential of their growth. And what my what I have found is when you dig underneath, it usually is not because some outward force is holding them back. It's because in their mind on some level, they don't relate to being the kind of person who could have that job. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 37:08

It makes a hundred percent sense. So when you are talking to or when someone's listening today, and if they heard themselves in this conversation throughout, what is the the thought that you would like to leave them with today that they want they should and name one strategy they should try just today, one small little step that they should try today and commit to before the end of this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Well, there's a there's a lot of different directions there, but I think the one the one thing that I would suggest people do is take a look at and literally put pen to paper who are all the decision makers and key influencers who are gonna have a say about whether or not I advance to whatever it is your target advancement is, and then literally do a brief assessment for yourself, scale of one to ten. How well do any of these people know me? When was the last time? You know, what opportunities do I have to educate these individuals on the impact of what, and and I say I, but you're usually leading a team, but like what my team, what we're accomplishing, what's a mechanism by which I could bring them up to speed on a more regular basis? That's part of it. The other part is looking at all those people and starting to keep track of privately for yourself, who are they aligned with? What are their goals and interests? What are their drivers? And how does me elevating over here, how might that align with or or not things that they want done, or who are who are they, you know, putting their chips on in terms of next generation talent? My point is basically mapping the power flows relative to you and your own aspirations and understanding then, you know, where you're going to need to perhaps work harder to get some of those people on side and, you know, advocating for you and what you can do. So that was a lot. That was more than one thing. But the the one thing is taking the time to actually not just think about it up here, but start putting pen to paper again privately, not where anyone is gonna see it. But, you know, for you to really be intentional around who do I have to influence? Who do I need to get on side, and how am I going to do that? And even if that's gonna take me a couple of years, let me start now. Sitting around and just hoping it magically happens, you're giving a lot of your potential power away. So that's what I have to say.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

How do you, Courtney, help people with this?

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Well, I would actually walk someone through it directly. I mean, I've done this with many of my coaching clients. We literally have a spreadsheet. Take them through it. But yeah, the way that I work with people typically is individually. And it's somebody who's like, I know I want that next big thing, but I don't understand why it's not it hasn't already happened or how to get there. And so we I work in a very customized way, one-on-one, with people to look at, you know, how they're telling their story, how they could be telling their story better, getting them comfortable with the influence that politics really is, mapping their, you know, landscape and finding ways to position themselves as the solution for all these other power brokers and what they want and need so that they are more likely to be well positioned when that next big promotion opportunity comes up. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Well, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate you being on the Unsealing You podcast, and um I know that this will be very impactful for folks.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Thank you. Well, it was really fun to talk to you about this, and I'm I'm looking forward to hopefully your audience gets some value out of it. Yes, thank you. All right, take care, Natalie.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

This week the trust tax investigation widened the lens. We asked something bigger. What role do organizations play in creating the conditions where burnout grows? Our guest reminded us that burnout isn't only about individual choices. It's also shaped by the way work is designed, how responsibility is shared, how leaders respond under pressure, and whether organizations develop people or quietly depend on the same people to carry more. Understanding that changes the conversation because burnout isn't solved by asking people to become more resilient. It's reduced when leaders create environments where responsibility is shared, trust grows, and success doesn't depend on a handful of exhausted people. Next week, we bring the investigation to its final chapter. We've uncovered why it happened, we've examined how organizations reinforce it. Now comes the most important question of all. What do we do differently? How do individuals rewrite the stories they've been living? How do leaders create healthier teams? And how do organizations reduce the trust tax before burnout becomes the whole story? That's where we're headed next. Until then, pay attention this week, not just to the people who seemed overwhelmed. Notice the work that always finds the same people. Notice the responsibilities that quietly grow. And then notice the leaders who develop others versus those who simply carry more on themselves. Because the trust tax is rarely hidden once you know what you're looking for. I'll see you on the next Unsealing You episode.