2.4 When You've Done Everything Right and Still Feel Empty | Burnout, Identity & Alignment for Women Leaders

You've climbed the ladder. Checked every box. Earned the title, the salary, the seat at the table. And somewhere in the middle of all of it... you lost yourself.

This episode is for the high-achieving woman who's not burned out from working too hard. She's burned out from performing a version of herself that no longer fits.

Allie gets honest about what it really felt like to be a multi-hospital CEO and regional VP before 40, to lead through a pandemic with zero support from above, to watch her innovation get stolen and her team dismissed as "bench warmers." She stayed too long. She shrunk herself too small. And she shares exactly what it cost her.

In this episode, she walks through five lessons that nobody warned her about on the way up:

When achievement and alignment split apart, success starts to feel like a prison. Women aren't just hitting a breaking point; they're suffocating under impossible double standards that were never designed for them. Your identity and your job title are not the same thing, and one of them is about to disappear. There's a kind of grief that comes with outgrowing the life you killed yourself to build, and most people never name it. Your anxiety might not be a problem. It might be the most honest thing about you.

If any of that landed somewhere real, Allie's free ebook "It's About Damn Time" is a self-assessment that will make you look at your life with the kind of honesty most people spend years avoiding.

Download it here: https://go.allietrimblelozano.com/damned-time-or

You weren't put on this earth to spend your life proving your worth to systems that profit from your self-abandonment.

Grace, grit, and a splash of sarcasm. New episodes every week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Somewhere between the corner office, the carpool line, and the third glass of wine, a lot of women lose themselves. Allie Trimble Lizzano, she found her way back, and she's not keeping the roadmap to herself. This is Airing Out Your Vagina. Grace, grit, and a splash of sarcasm. Here's Allie.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Welcome back to Airing Out Your Vagina. Where honesty comes first, comfort comes last, and growth is non-negotiable. I'm Allie, and today we're talking about something that I think is gonna resonate with a whole lot of you. I think we're living through something that nobody's talking about honestly enough, or even talking about at all. I don't think people are just burned out from work anymore. I think people are burned out from performing versions of themselves that no longer fit. And women, high-performing women, high achieving women, especially, yeah, we're carrying the weight of careers, relationships, motherhood, image management, and everyone else's comfort zone while quietly wondering is this really it? Is this all there is? I checked all the boxes and climbed all the ladders and I arrived at success. I was sitting in a multi-hospital CEO, multi-regional VP of operations role at 37. Some people spend their entire lives working towards that goal. And there I was before 40. The picture of success outside looking in. It felt good. Recognition of my hard work and dedication earned me a seat at the big table. Earned me a seat at the big table, a big title and the pay to go with it. I missed that. Leadership and building teams and culture fed my passion. I loved that part. And finding ways to do things differently and better fed my passion too. I was a CEO over a big joint venture in multiple markets. I was leading my way and really delivering at a high level on my terms. And it felt good. It felt actually felt really damn good until it didn't. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunities I was given and the doors that were opened for me. I grew so much in those roles and learned irreplaceable skills. And if I'm being honest, I learned more about myself than most people probably do in a lifetime. No regrets, but man, a lot of very painful lessons learned. And you know me, I share my lessons. Bottom line is we're sold a lie. We're told work hard, go to school, get the degree, or multiple degrees in my case, and the case of many others, climb the ladder, stay loyal, keep pushing, be grateful for the opportunity, even if you're exhausted. Here's the thing though: what happens when you do all of that? You do all the right things, and you're still unfulfilled or even unhappy. I hung up from a particularly bad lashing from a boss that was so far removed from the front line, they had no idea what my job entailed. Literally none. Let alone that any of the people in my charge were struggling or what they needed. It was COVID. And while she was working from her dining room table in a ponytail, no makeup and pajamas, we were struggling to keep enough oxygen supply on hand to treat the overwhelming influx of respiratory patients we were getting. I'd wave the white flag, hell, I'd raise the red flag, and I'd asked repeatedly for support regarding oxygen supply issues. I'd gone all the way to the top of the chain with the concerns and kept being told we're working on it. Uh, that's great. Meanwhile, out in the markets in the facilities, we were drowning, struggling in real time to keep up with the demands for our patients. My medical director had an engineering background, and I'm pretty ingenuitive myself. And so we came up with a way to use liquid oxygen rather than simply tanked gas to drastically increase our reserves. It was a win. We'd rolled it out successfully and most definitely save lives by doing so. But that call, that call from that boss, it wasn't an at a girl or a kudos to my team, or most importantly, uh, hey, show me how you did that. Let's figure it out so that we can replicate it in the other markets where oxygen supply is an issue. Nope. On that call, my boss told me that if I had damaged any hospital equipment in my little experiment, that I'd be held personally responsible. She raged at me nonstop about having overstepped and that this was not me staying in my lane as she had instructed. Just an absolute attack for about 15 minutes before she said, This is gonna cost you dearly, and hung up on me. I shared in my book how our process was eventually rolled out nationally throughout the organization. Of course, by then she'd taken what we rolled out ourselves on the front line and presented it as an incredible example of our company using ingenuity and creativity to innovate during a crisis. Uh, okay. But there was no mention of myself, my medical director, or the market and the team that developed it and found a way to make it work. Just a thrashing and a threatening phone call in the moment, and a celebratory win for her in the end. That same boss, yeah. She was the one that referred to my frontline healthcare workers, you know, the doctors, the nurses, the rad techs, the front desk people, everybody that takes care of patients. She referred to the whole lot as bench warmers at a strategy retreat because they weren't in leadership roles. I was disgusted, infuriated, and feeling absolutely stuck. This boss rode me to a point, it made it impossible for me to lead in the way that I'd built my career on. Trust-based, authentic leadership with a people and patients-first mentality does not align in a profits-over-people environment where top performers are seen as a threat rather than an asset, where fear ruled the day, and a constant game of what I called whack-a-mole literally beat the health and the care out of the entire equation. And those of us struggling in that moment felt stuck. I felt stuck. Or in my case, totally miserable. Maybe less of an aha moment and more of a is this it moment? And in that moment, the realization that I wasn't failing, I was succeeding in a life that no longer aligned with who I was and who I was becoming. Here we go. Lesson one. Achievement without alignment is just a prettier version of burnout. I've shared before that I don't learn lessons easily. It takes multiple bonks on the head for me to finally go, oh, okay. So I stayed several years after that this is it moment. I stayed. After a retreat where I was entirely ignored for two entire days in a room of less than 40 people by the same woman and a couple of her flying monkeys that she'd recruited to cause basically the total and complete isolation of me. I stayed. After a terrible evaluation, I contested, asking for examples. I asked for examples of the long list of failures she noted, and I received a reply that said, agree to disagree. I stayed long after really feeling like I was beating my head against the wall in trying to undo damage she and her well-spun narrative had done. I stayed because my results were phenomenal. The performance of my facilities and teams were second to none in the organization. In the end, I realized I was spinning my wheels trying to prove myself, to prove something to people who were not interested in the truth. Just what looked good on paper. The only way to survive there in that moment in that organization was to shrink myself as small as I possibly could, keep my head down, keep my mouth shut, and just shut the hell up and execute. I was successful in a big job, making great money, and was executing on all fronts, but I was totally miserable because in order to continue to do so and continue to be in that organization, I'd had to shrink myself to the point I no longer was leading, but rather just kind of hiding in an effort to survive another day. Lesson two. Remain thankful that we made it despite the unbelievable mental load, the never-ending emotional labor, constant caregiving to everyone around us, completely unrealistic corporate expectations, and a requirement for damn close to perfect. Women have become so good at surviving, many of us don't even realize that we're suffering terribly. We're not thriving. Hell, we're not even living. We are legitimately just moving day to day through the motions trying to survive. And then the corporate wake-up call. Tech and AI changing the way we operate entirely with resulting constant restructurings and reorganizations and layoffs. Hell, in my last seven years in that role, I had seven different bosses in just as many years. The constant pressure to prove to the next one my value and worthiness of the position I held, only to start again when someone new the next year shows up. The last few years were the most challenging because those bosses were poisoned against me before they'd ever even met me. They'd never laid eyes on me, but they were full of what they were told and what they perceived to be true. The weaponized incompetent I described earlier damaged me far beyond words. And so many shifts in all of these areas causing tons of economic uncertainty. So people are waking up and we're realizing that the company that gave or that you gave everything to would replace you in an instant. They'd replace you by Monday if it made the quarterly numbers look better. If they could find a cheaper option, even if it's a less qualified, less experienced, cheaper option, a virtual option that they can hire and basically use as a contract instead of an employee, an AI option that they can train, and then it's free going forward. My favorite example I experienced on this topic was that same boss that referred to an iPad on a stand that rolled around. We could take room to room as a nurse on a stick. Now, I am a nurse, and so I feel like I can say that here, maybe without being burned at the stake. But I mean, seriously, an iPad on a card is not a nurse on a stick. AI and tech are incredibly valuable resources, and they should absolutely be part of the equation. But when organizations and their leadership start looking at these advances in technology as a replacement for rather than in support of the human-trained experts, shit, that gets scary and it gets scary fast. So many of us tie our worthiness and identity to a title, a job, a role somewhere. And it's easy to see how because of that, we end up staying somewhere miserable rather than facing change. We just duck our head down, shut our mouths, and execute. We hope, self-included, for better days and we just keep trudging. We tell ourselves that we're being loyal to our teams or the organization, but sadly, often when push comes to shove, that loyalty isn't reciprocated in the end. You're out with the old, in with the new, and they keep right on going. Here's the thing, and not from bitterness, but rather honestly from clarity. No amount of external validation, job security, admiration that you receive for the role that you're in is worth a damn thing if you're not able to be who you are at your core, if you're not living in alignment with your purpose and your plan. That line or this line may sting a little bit, but it is powerful and it is true. Some of you aren't afraid of losing your job. You're afraid of finding out who you are without it. Minus the title. Who's still sitting there? Lesson three. I talked in my book about coattail people, the people who had no interest in being part of my life or helping me or giving me the climb time of day on my climb up. So I didn't have the initials, they weren't there. But sure as shit, as soon as I was a CEO, they were constantly available, wanted proximity, and were always around because you'd made it. Big fans now that you were somebody. I never had any use for the ass kissers and the coattail people. If you weren't just as invested in your relationship with me when I was just playing Allie, then buzz off now that I was Allie CEO. And let me tell you, it's even more painful on the other side because now I've experienced that piece too. The near instant disappearance of so many people who had been mainstays in my life for years now. People who depended on my sponsorship dollars and donations and clout when I was at the top. The folks that couldn't get enough of me when I was covering the tab or helping pay a bill or gave them access to something they didn't otherwise have. The people who I had opened doors for that they'd never even dreamed of. And then I got fired. And suddenly, poof, back to just plain alley without the CEO title. And boy, do those roaches scatter fast. Those friends gone in the blink of an eye. As I rebuild and now and new opportunities come, I am rebuilding and I am rising. And I gotta admit, I am a little bit curious to see how many of those people try to circle back. You know, once I have the right title or the ability to open doors for them or donate the right amount of money to their cause or get them a job somewhere, or, you know, pay for the fancy vacation. I saw an interview that I just kind of fell in love with with Kevin Hart. And he was talking about people that were that way. People that were the fastest to ask for the free tickets to his shows were the exact same people that said he'd never make it, that doubted him and told him, you know what, dude, just get a real job. He said he always makes sure that those people have tickets to his shows on him, comp. And he says he gives them the best tickets. Now I know. Perhaps the day will come that I'll have the opportunity to do the same, but they'll be eating stale popcorn way up high in the nosebleeds because those people, the people that are coattail people, they belong in the cheap seats. The good seats are gonna be for those people who have been there through hell and back through all the seasons, who supported and encouraged and promoted me when it wasn't all that popular, when everything wasn't going right, when I literally had nothing to offer but Ali. Those are my people. So the lesson: make sure you find and hold fast to those people, to your people, your tribe, the believers and the truth tellers in your life that have your back no matter what, when things are good, when things are bad, and all the messy in the middle. Those are your people. Lesson four. Here comes the grief nobody talks about. For me, it was kind of all at once. The grief of outgrowing a life I had literally killed myself to build. Outgrowing a marriage to someone who was a great friend, but never became the husband and the partner that I thought he would. Outgrowing a career. I'd spent two decades painstakingly constructing only to blow it all up. What came next was the realization that I was literally and figuratively outgrowing old versions of myself. The one that tolerated breadcrumbs when I gave the whole damn bakery to the people around me. The one who thought if I shrunk myself enough, I'd be more palatable and less intimidating and finally accepted. I was outgrowing the version of me that had laid myself down as the doormat in order to keep everyone else's feet dry while crossing whatever puddle might be on the path. That growth, the outgrowing, is some painful shit. I mean, girl, it feels like loss long before it feels like freedom. Lesson four: choosing yourself sometimes comes with mourning the version of you that kept everybody else comfortable. And that is crunchy as hell. Let me ask you something. Give you something to ponder for a minute here. What if nothing is wrong with you? What if you're not broken? What if you're just finally waking up? What if that constant hum of anxiety is awareness that something's off? That this is no longer your path, regardless of how good it may look to others outside looking in or how hard you worked to get to where you got. What if the discomfort is simply truth? What if the restlessness in your soul asking for something more? It's just asking for something different. That realization is life-altering. I mean, seriously. You can stay where you are, you can numb the anxiety, deny the discomfort, quiet the restlessness. Do you know anyone, or maybe I'm calling you out here, that can be alone for five minutes? What about the people that can't be alone for five minutes? Has to be busy all the time, cannot sit with themselves for even the briefest moment without some form of distraction. I had a close friend for several years before I woke up that she was that way. I could never understand it because I've always been the type of person that must have my alone time, to the point that I'm actually a total fucking nightmare to be around when I don't get that time by myself, that reset. She, on the other hand, could not be alone ever. I remember during the pandemic, she tested positive for COVID. And it was back when, based on the knowledge that we had at the time, people were advised or actually required, whatever, to quarantine and stay alone for I think it was 10 days after the last symptoms. Funny, not funny, but I remember honestly being a tiny bit jealous because she wasn't sick at all. And I remember thinking I'd give just about anything for. A week or two, all by my damn self. Not her. At that point, I was still running multiple hospitals during the worst healthcare crisis our modern world has ever seen. So the idea of a week alone locked in my house seemed like heaven. She, on the other hand, saw that same requirement of alone time as nearly a death summons. I remember her calling me for like the 50th time on day two. And she'd really already kind of lost it. She was ordering paint because she decided she was going to repaint the entire inside of her house. She'd ordered a ton of gym equipment just to keep herself busy. All of this stuff, she'd been home for two days. And I remember thinking, how are you going to survive this? By day four, she was literally climbing the walls and on the verge of a complete and total mental breakdown. What I didn't realize at the time was that her nervous system had been so overfunctioning at, like, I don't know, a million miles an hour for so long as a coping mechanism and an avoidance tactic. If she just kept moving nonstop and was never alone for a single moment, she never had to really look at anything going on in her life and evaluate the situation. So she just stayed busy all the time. Do you know people like that? Does that sound like someone you know? Or uh-oh, does it sound like you? If so, maybe it's time for some alone time, some quiet time, no distractions, no numbing, just you, yourself, and you feeling into that anxiety and identifying its origin, where is it coming from? Leaning into that discomfort in an attempt to understand the truth it is trying to relay. Opening yourself up to that restlessness in your soul to identify what's missing? Why does this job, this relationship, this career path, this friendship help your overall life path? Why does this no longer feel good? Why does it no longer feel like you're on the right path or living the right purpose? Lesson five. What if the problem isn't that you're changing? What if the problem is you've stayed the same for too damn long? And now your intuition is literally screaming at you to do something about it, make a change, figure it out. I say all of this because I think we're witnessing a massive shift right now. People aren't just quitting their jobs, they're quitting entire versions of themselves. They're questioning what success actually means to them. I mean, way down deep inside, they're realizing that surviving and living are not the same thing. I think it started personally. I think it started with the great resignation during the pandemic. People looked around and were like, if I may be dying soon or the world is ending, I am not staying in this miserable job for one more second. Then it happened in relationships, friendships, it spread. It rebounded a little bit and recovered to a degree after COVID, but nowhere near pre-pandemic levels. People are far less bullshit tolerant. People are sick and tired of being sick and tired over their job. So, my advice if you've been feeling that pull lately, that feeling, that I don't know, life, the life that you built, all of this no longer fits, don't ignore it. Because the most dangerous thing you can do isn't starting over. Trust me, I'm doing that. It's scary as hell. But the most dangerous thing is spending another decade convincing yourself you're happy when you know damn well you're not. Life is too short to fake it till you make it. I actually hate that saying. I can't stand it. It's okay to not always be okay, but we've got to listen to those alarm bells and hear what they are trying to tell us and then act on it before it's done for us through illness, termination, whatever it is. We act or somebody else acts for us. If this episode hit you somewhere deep, share it with another woman who's caring more than anyone may realize. And if you've reached the point where you're done performing success and you're ready to create alignment, grab my it's about damn time checklist. It's a self-checklist. And it'll make you evaluate things in a way that you might not do otherwise. Or schedule, pardon me, schedule an alleyvention call. Let's figure out whether you're ready for the unfiltered leader because you weren't put on this earth to spend your life proving your worth to somebody else, to systems that profit from your self abandonment. Remember, growth starts with honesty. And honesty sometimes requires airing things out. I'll see you next week.