The Role That’s Burning You Out: Stop Performing and Start Leading as Yourself

For the last four weeks on UnCeiling You, we've been investigating a question:

How can someone who is successful, capable, trusted—and still getting the work done—end up burned out?

We've seen capable people become dependable, dependable people get trusted with more, and extra responsibility slowly become normal. People compensate for unclear ownership, unfinished work, missing decisions, and work that continually finds its way back to them. Because they keep getting it done, the organization adapts.

That's the Trust Tax.

This week, we're asking the question that matters next: What do we do about it?

My guest, Sandra Bargman, spent 35 years as a professional performer. But one of her biggest realizations came when she discovered that performing in front of an audience was easier than standing in front of people and speaking completely in her own voice.

That led us to a fascinating question: How much of what we call leadership is actually performance?

Maybe you're the strong one. The composed one. The agreeable one. The person who never disappoints anyone. The person everyone can count on.

Those roles may have contributed to your success. They may also be costing you more than you realize.

Breaking the Trust Tax Can Take Ten Seconds

Sandra takes us into the tiny moments when these patterns can begin to change.

Someone asks you to take on one more thing. Someone says something you disagree with. You feel yourself wanting to stay quiet, smooth things over, please, perform, or simply take care of it yourself.

Sandra calls our attention to that choice point.

Notice what's happening. Breathe. Give yourself time to respond instead of automatically reacting. Sometimes the first step is nothing more dramatic than saying, "Let me think about that."

We talk about self-betrayal, people-pleasing, disagreement without confrontation, leadership presence, authenticity, and Sandra's concept of ferocious compassion: being compassionate toward others without abandoning yourself.

And Sandra gives us a line worth remembering:

"I don't need to quiet down to make you comfortable."

Contact Sandra Here: https://www.sandrabargman.com/

The Trust Tax Investigation Just Got Personal

For weeks, you've been listening to other people's stories. Now you can start investigating your own patterns.

I'm opening the Trust Tax™ Assessment, a responsibility and leadership assessment designed to identify the patterns most likely to contribute to burnout before burnout becomes the whole story.

The assessment takes about seven minutes, gives you personalized results immediately, and does not require your name or email to see your results.

It also does something I'm particularly excited about: it gives you stories to watch for based on the patterns showing up in your results.

It doesn't tell you what story you're telling yourself. Instead, it gives you clues to listen for. Maybe it's "I can handle one more thing," "It's easier if I just handle it," or "I'm responsible for making this work, even if I don't control the decision."

Those may not be your stories at all. They're things to watch for, not conclusions about you.

The goal is simple: See the pattern. Listen for the story. Decide whether it still serves you.

Take the Trust Tax™ Assessment

From the Trust Tax to Rewrite Your Story

The assessment helps you see the pattern. Sandra helps us recognize the moment when we can choose differently.

Then comes the deeper question:

Where did the story come from—and is it still the story you want to live?

That's where Rewrite Your Story begins.

On October 15 at Walsh College in Troy, Michigan, Merit Kahn and I are bringing this work into the room for Rewrite Your Story: Leadership Workshop + Live Comedy Show.

We'll work on recognizing the stories and leadership identities shaping how we work, lead, and carry responsibility—and deciding what we're ready to change. Then Merit takes the stage with her hilarious one-woman show, Optimistic Personality Disorder™.

The assessment helps you see the pattern. The workshop helps you rewrite the story. The comedy helps you see it differently and let some of it go.

Join us October 15 for Rewrite Your Story

Before your next meeting, notice the moment you're about to say yes, stay silent, smooth something over, or solve something simply because you know you can.

Then ask yourself:

What story am I about to act out?

Maybe breaking the Trust Tax begins right there.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 1:01

Welcome to the Unsealing You podcast. I'm Dr. Natalie Luke, your host, and since July the 20th, we've been conducting what I've called the trust tax investigation. We started with a question. How can someone who is successful, capable, and trusted end up being so burned out? In week one, we looked at when success becomes the trap. We saw how being dependable, capable, and willing to take responsibility can slowly turn into doing more than your share. You keep delivering, so from the outside, everything looks fine, even when it's costing you. Then in week two, we asked, why does this happen? We looked underneath the behavior at the expectations, the identity, the chronic pressure, and the nervous system. We began to see why high performers don't simply wake up one morning and decide to overwork. The pattern develops over time. Eventually, what is unsustainable can start to feel normal. Then in week three, we widened the lens to look at how the organization supports burnout. Because burnout isn't an individual problem. When dependable people repeatedly step in, solve the problem, absorb unfinished work, or compensate for unclear ownership, the organization can begin to rely on the workaround. The work gets done, but the underlying problem doesn't get fixed. And that is where the trust tax becomes expensive for the people, operations, and the business. So now we've reached the most important part of the investigation. What do we do about it? This week is about breaking the cycle. Because once you see the pattern, you have a choice. You can examine the story underneath it, the story being, I have to get it all done, everybody depends on me. I have to prove myself. I can't disappoint them. This is what leadership requires. Instead, you ask, is this story still serving me? And is it keeping the entire system stuck? This week we're going to explore what happens when we change the story, change the behavior, clarify responsibility, communicate differently, and build systems where trust doesn't mean one dependable person has to do it all. We've investigated the trust text. Now it's time to start replacing it with trust, alignment, and sustainable results. I'm talking with Sandra Bardman, a professional performer, storyteller, spiritual leader, and host of the edge of everyday, who spent decades exploring the difference between playing a role and speaking from your own voice. Sandra helps us explore how to break the trust tax by recognizing the moment we're about to please, perform, stay silent, or betray what we know to be true. And learning to pause, regulate ourselves, and choose a response that lets us lead with greater authenticity, courage, and trust. Let's get started. You've spent 35 years as a professional performer, and you've been um other people, basically, for a living. At some point, though, who you were just must have blurred. Was there a moment when you realized that performance didn't stop when you walked off stage?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Well, that's that's such an inter interesting question. I don't know that I I had a moment where I stopped, where I thought that I was not stopping being someone else when I came off stage. I mean, I I consider the role-playing of acting to be very in alignment with with human behavior. It's just actors are more prone to it and get paid to do it, hopefully. Um that being said, I did have a moment um when I was in seminary that was really a defining moment for me to admit that I was not speaking from my own voice. Um, that uh it's a great story. I had um, it was in my first, no, second year of seminary. You know, at your first year you're learning about all the um um religions. This is uh the new seminary for interfaith studies in Manhattan, which is where I live. And we were studying all the world religions. And in year two, we started to move more into creating ritual and ceremony and how to apply all of these, all of this knowledge into ways of working with people. So close to the end of the year, we had to give a sermon, a 20-minute sermon. And my study group, we had a woman who was probably the most shy woman in the entire class, was in my study group. And so we get to the moment we're sitting there, and the the teacher gets up and says, Okay, who wants to go first? And my impulse, of course, is to raise my hand. Yeah, I'll go. But I also know that my medicine is to hold back and allow someone else to step forward. And for me to sit in the no, you don't have to. You can let someone else lead. Go for it. And so, lo and behold, the person who raises her hand is this very shy woman. I was so proud of her. And so she walks up to the podium and she adjusts everything like we'd worked on and opens her script and proceeds to give an extraordinary 20-minute sermon. She's not loud, she's not aggressive, she's just fully embodied, fully in her presence and sharing from her heart. We were laughing, we were crying. It was extraordinary. And so, you know, afterwards, the whole class gives her a standing ovation and her study group runs up and we hug her, and I tell her how great she did, and she pulls back from me and she says, Oh, Sandra, coming from you, that's a big compliment. You know, you're so used to being in front of large audiences. And I said, That may be true, but I am not speaking from my heart, from my words. I am behind a mask of a character, of a costume, of great shoes, the whole nine yards. So it was in that moment that I sort the lens shifted for me. And I could really think about how is it that I first of all want to step more fully into sharing my own voice, and particularly as you know, somebody who's stepping out as a spiritual leader, stepping out of the spiritual closet to uplift people and serve them. But how do I want to help other people do that? And that was really the turning point for me to begin to explore sharing my voice in a bigger way, explore how I wanted to work with other people, to help them not really discover their voice, but to pull away the things that stand in the way of them stepping into their personal power, not trying to be bigger, louder, faster, just trying to be more themselves, more real and more authentic. So that was a real trade point.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

In the business world, what we tend to do is we have this vision of what a really great leader is, or what how you should be as a leader, how you should speak, how you should be expressing yourself, asserting yourself. And to that is your performance. It's like you're performing like you're supposed to perform. Right. And here, what I hear you saying is hey, no, you can be powerful yourself.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Indeed. With your own voice, your own vulnerability, your own truthfulness. Yeah, it's all there. It's just a willingness to settle into the comfort of that and the courage to share that, to step forward and to share that. You know, presence, we talk about presence is this really charismatic thing. And and I don't hold that understanding. I realize that, you know, many, many people who have great presence are very charismatic, but also really narcissistic people who don't serve well can be very charismatic. And, you know, that that don't inspire. It's all about them, them, them. Whereas really deep presence does can be big and loud if that's who you are, but it doesn't have to be to be profoundly interesting, engaging, and and uplifting.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah, so so when you're not dedicated to that presence, to that authenticity, and you are living with that mask of what you think a leader is, and you're standing behind it, I feel like you're constantly on vigilance, scanning the room, watching other people's reactions to you. And one of the things you talk about is the nervous system never fully is standing down. What does that actually feel like when you realize your body is still performing when nobody else is really watching?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Well, uh clarify that. Uh, when nobody's really watching, if you're still performing. Um when nobody's really watching.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, because you're always thinking people are looking at you at the way that you do things, and really they just need to get on with their lives. They're not really watching you, but yet you're scanning for them watching you.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, I think, you know, what comes to my mind uh out of the gate is that there's a certain sense of, you know, addiction to the performance of it. You know, if if I'm uh I can't I have to be vigilant and I and I don't know who's not looking. And so I've got to, you know, my entire persona, my identity, you know, one of the great questions I ask on my podcast, The Edge of Every Day, is what identity do you lead with? Because, you know, I think that there's role playing is really powerful. And I think it can be really incredibly helpful for everyone, not only actors, every single person, because it allows you to be playful and to try things on and to give yourself permission to express parts of yourself that you may or may not feel comfortable doing. That being said, that mask that you hide behind, that role that you hide behind, it's a very different thing. So if you're constantly in that somebody's gonna suss me out and somebody's gonna the the uh there's gonna see a crack in my mask, I mean, the vigilance it takes to uphold that in your nervous system is unrelentless. I mean, you're it's just gonna eat away at you because you will be discovered at some point. You will be. It will bleed into all of your relationships, the way people see you leading. It will bleed into trust issues, it will bleed into you know, uh whatchamacallit syndrome, um, imposter syndrome. I mean, all of that stuff. You just it it's a spectrum of ways that will you will never feel on firm ground ever. And I mean, you know, who wants to work? I mean, if that's your jam and you want to go for it, um, if that's more important to you, or if finally stepping into who you really are and sharing from the truth of who you are is gonna it's gonna set you free. I mean, that that the to sit in the the confidence and the willingness to laugh at yourself and you know that's presence. I'm confident in my story, I know my story, I know its flaws, I know its failures, I know its successes, and I can sit in that. You know, I'm not gonna feel offended if somebody says something to me because I'm solid within it. Whereas the other, you're not solid. So the rug will constantly feel like it's being pulled out from underneath you.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

So I feel like uh underneath all of that is a layer of compassion, of self-compassion.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I love that. That's totally it. The layer of self-compassion. Yeah. Of yeah, that makes me think I have a chapter in a book. The chapter's called Ferocious Compassion. And it is in a book called Love Notes 2.0 Stories of Transformation and Healing. And it talks about the self-compassion that it takes to courageously speak your truth and to not self-betray by pretending to be something you're not, or pretending to be something that you, you know, to people please, so you stay belonging, so you don't ruffle any feathers, so you don't get into any confrontation. That sense of self-betrayal over that really, really opens the door to self-flatellation and self-anger and is not self-compassionate. You know, the the real compassionate action towards self is the commitment, even when it's difficult. And you don't have to be you don't have to be a warrior to share your truth. You can share it very tenderly and quietly and very firmly, and still not self-betray, and still have self-compassion for what you truly feel is truthful and correct for you.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

That is so important in the business world, especially as you work with other departments, other people within the departments. There are gonna be times when you've been working on a difficult project and there's decisions that are made, and people forget about the decisions and then claim that the decision was never made or even discussed. And yet at that point, you may feel like I'm afraid to say to that person, no, we discussed this at nauseum. And yet there's so much that has been discussed, it's easy to forget. It takes compassion to come around, or you could just be scared and say, okay, let's let's start discussing it again.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Right. Yeah, and you can find the balance between that where you don't have to make the person completely wrong, but you can but you can still share. No, no, we we did discuss this, and I have great recollection of that, but I'm happy to discuss it again. You know, so you're not you you're do you're move you're not making them incorrect about wanting to at to ask for it, but you haven't self-betrayed. Yes. You have found the courage to speak your truth and to find a solution with this other person.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

See, and that is, I think, practical right now. And you coach, this is this is a moment when people have to stay calm in meetings, uh, stay true to themselves and be kind to themselves. So you said that that kind of mastery comes with its own trap. What are you actually talking about if if you haven't mastered staying calm in the meeting? And what kind of trap does staying calm provide?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I wouldn't think of it as a trap. I think of it as, I think, you know, by not speaking up, you're you're in that trap and you're in that people-pleasing trap. And I need to stay, I need to agree, I need to belong. I can't ruffle any feathers, I may lose my job. All of those things that people may think. I think the the work begins with breath work, you know, everything I do, like totally lands on breath work. It all starts with the breath and and the the connection with the nervous system. And, you know, people pleasing, as we know, as we've learned, is a trauma response. You know, it's a way of feeling safe. That sometime in we learned that it is for me to stay safe, for me to stay in belonging in this particular tribe, whatever it may be, and you know, even in some very dangerous situations. But you for those of us who learned it not in dangerous situations, but in just social settings, we've learned to people please as a trauma response. Um, so if you can know that and know identify it, begin to one of the first steps to changing this is noticing in the moment, that moment you decide. I mean, it's it's there where you make a choice to self-betray. Okay, so when you're right in that moment, feel that tension within you and make a different choice to not people please, that tiny, you don't have to say a thing. It's just the beginning to notice it and to notice what's happening in your body. Take a big breath into it, just begin to learn how that shows up in your body, that reaction, that desire to move forward in a way that selves betray you. And as you begin to work with that, and that begins to expand within you, you will start to feel it, the tension of that moment beginning to subside. It can be take that great deep breath, and out, flood your body with oxygen, flood your nervous system, make a different choice, and and and you know, it doesn't you don't have to come back like no, I disagree, da la la la la. You can just come back with a simple let me think about that. Very neutral. So you've worked on your nervous system, you've noticed everything that's that that is w grinding inside of you that you want to learn how to open up and unpack, that desire to react as opposed to responding, deep breath and responding, and you can stay neutral. Let me think about that. That muscle begins to grow too. And then before you know it, you can start to say, you know, I think I have a different opinion. Or I experienced that differently. Or can you clarify that for me? That wasn't my experience. You can begin to develop the courage to share those kinds of responses.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

For the past four weeks, the trust tax investigation has been following a pattern. A capable person becomes what others can depend on. More responsibility follows. They adapt, they compensate, they find ways to keep everything moving. And because the work keeps getting done, the pattern can become almost invisible. But this week, we're not just investigating the pattern. We're asking, how do we break it? And what we're hearing from our guests is breaking the cycle, it doesn't mean caring less, achieving less, or becoming less dependable. It means doing something differently. It can mean communicating for connection instead of trying to get everything exactly right. It can mean stopping the need to prove your value by how much you carry and advocating for the value you already create. It can mean separating your identity from being the person everybody needs and developing others instead of continually stepping in. And sometimes it happens in a single moment when you notice yourself about to please, perform, stay silent, or take something on that isn't yours. And choose differently. That's where rewriting your story begins. Because the story may say, I have to do it, and leave me. It's easier if I just took care of it. But when we change the story, we change the behavior. And when enough behaviors change, we begin changing the system. So see the story, change the belief, set the boundary, build trust, lead differently. That's how we begin replacing the trust tax with trust alignment and sustained impact. Now, let's get back to the conversation. Sometimes you might make a mistake, and then it's tempting to possibly cover up the mistake because you're afraid of other people's reactions to it. And so even in that, you can exercise some self-compassion, communicate, don't shove it under the wall, but communicate what had happened with your self-compassion and yet let other people have their reaction to it, knowing that reactions kind of are like waves, they come and go to the point where you guys can solve the problem.

unknown 24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Absolutely. Yeah, you can absolutely do that and own up to gently own up to it and share how much you learned. That the mistake is is just a learning process. It's just a learning step on the on the way, on the journey to success. Exactly. We're so productivity oriented, it's just just it can be. Crushing.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah, it can be. And so that's where your ferocious compassion comes in once again, because it's not only outward, it's not only aimed towards yourself, but it's also aimed towards others. Yes. Because yes, they're gonna have their reactions. It's uh they're allowed to have their reactions. And so it becomes a turning point.

unknown 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah, and it's great. It really takes the pain out of if you understand from a spiritual standpoint that compassion is really just about allowing, like the highest vibration of compassion is allowing people, those in your life, to make the decisions for their own path. Period. What I think about what you do is of no significance to you unless you would like it to be. But that's your choice. All the choices are yours to make. So when you think that, when someone disagrees with you, if you're confident within your own choices and you've done the internal work and you're solid within yourself, then you can just meet that person where they are. Yes, you're allowed to feel that. You're allowed to feel that. Doesn't make me wrong. You're allowed to feel these things. That's your choice. But we do not have to be in agreement. I can be courageous enough to understand that not having the same opinion is is not an outright confrontation. You know, people always want to be in agreement, and if we're not in agreement, that it's somehow a confrontation. It's stress-invoking. It's just a difference of opinion. And if you're confident within yourself, it will roll right off your back.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Right. I like that. My husband and I were having a a uh, I guess, a loud discussion, and I felt like I felt like we were fighting because we had a difference of opinion on something. And part of the reason why we had a difference of opinion is he did not have as much experience in this particular topic, and I was trying to fill in the gaps. And after the discussion was over, I'm like, I'm glad that fight was over. And he's like, What fight? I'm like, weren't we fighting? And he's like, No, I felt like we were hashing it out. Like I have I myself, no, I do not have as much experience in that particular world. And I was asking these pointed questions, why not this? Why not that? Because I wanted to understand what your viewpoint is, and so I call that hashing it out. I found that I love it his viewpoint very enlightening. I'm like, let's hash out some other things.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Well, I have to say, some people are are more d prone or tuned into speaking passionately about things. You know, my husband has shared with me through the course of we've been married 33, oh my god, years I was married, I was married at 12. Um, and we were together a good five years prior to that. And, you know, I am very passionate in my conversation and very, you know, very curious and very passionate. And it can, particularly in a woman, you who in our society, that can be misinterpreted as aggressiveness or, you know, outright confrontation. And, you know, and I refuse to own that, particularly at my age. You know, I've done the lifelong female work of coming to terms with that and letting that's not my problem. I am not aggressive, I can be. But when I speak passionately about something, I am not picking a fight. And and I will speak with great authority in the moment if necessary. And if that is perceived as aggressive, that's not on me. Again, I've done the internal work. That's on you. If you're offended, if you're triggered, that's your cue to go do some internal work, not mine. I don't need to quiet down to make you comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

I think that we're gonna accentuate that point. It is an important one. And so that kind of leads me to the next question about stories that we carry in ourselves that have been handed to us by systems, maybe organizations, culture, institutes, not really chosen by us. And so that also becomes a point of of uh performance that we're doing when we're hanging on to these stories. How can we decouple these stories and uncouple our identity from the roles so that we're really teasing it apart and becoming solid within ourselves?

SPEAKER_01 29:27

That's a great question. The first thing that, you know, it's so related to identity. You know, there are two stories that I think about crafting. It's the story that we tell about ourselves that isn't necessarily true. It's this maybe the story that we tell about ourselves that's that we're bad or we're this or we're that. And this, you know, it can look like you can take on the story of the tribe that you're a part of. Like, for instance, a political party. You can begin to take on that story, even though it may or may not suit you, because when you take on that story, it is your identity, and therefore you are belonging to this group. And as long as I believe that story, I get to stay a part of this story. I mean, you look at our look at the United States, we have two different stories we're telling right now. Two very different stories we're telling about who we are, what our history is, and what we want for our people. Vastly different stories. So uh how do you uncouple from that? Um I mean, that's a great question. Um it appears that it's very difficult for some people to uncouple from that. We've learned in today's world, but I think the work begins in you have have to be willing to self-assess. And I have learned that not everyone is right there. You have to be willing to do the difficult work of self-assessment, emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence. The great Greek maxim, know thyself, that it is at the heart of the creative journey, the spiritual journey, and the leadership journey. You must be able to be go within and be truthful to yourself. You will not be able to uncouple unless you can see yourself as separate from. Can you talk about the benefit of doing that? Oh my lord, I it's freedom. It's freedom, it's complete and utter internal freedom. The benefit of well, let me let me first focus on some of the th reasons people wouldn't want to do it. Okay. You think about think about companies you're part of. Think about families you're a part of. I mean, in psychology, the the the black sheep of the family, or the one who is really intuitive that gets all of the grief of the family. That that, you know, the entire family is one political system and believes one thing politically, and the one who is the scapegoat does not, and they sort of get heaped on. So what do they do? Here's their choice: do they learn to put the mask on to get along to stay in this group? Or do they follow the internal calling that they must leave the tribe, despite how scary it may be, and go out and find who they are. Now, the benefit of that the scary thing is they they may lose those relationships. They may not lose them entirely, but they may lose some portion of them, some safety from being in that group. But the benefit is it gets back to that sense of have I am one with my own personal view on the world, with my own inner truth. The alignment, the spiritual and emotional alignment, the sense of authority, sense of confidence that that brings in you, that you've had the courage to say no to something that you know is unhealthy. I mean, that kind of self keeping oneself down that causes health issues. Yes. You know, women who don't show their anger. There's data out there now that the squelching of them sharing their truth gives all of these autoimmune diseases have occurred in women. You know, I don't have the stats off the uh, you know, I should have had the stats at my fingertips if I had thought I was gonna talk about it, but but the data's out there, just with a quick little Google. The benefits outweigh anything, but you have to be in a place where you can no longer self-betray and override what you know to be who you are, to serve in the system that isn't serving you. It isn't uplifting you, that isn't seeing you for who you really are. And that may s all sound a little uh a little spiritually out there, but it's really the truth. There's, you know, that's the benefit. You get to be secure and confident in who you are as a human being, and you've started your hero journey out of that bondage.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

So for the leader who's listening right now, the one who has mastered looking composed while running on empty, what is one thing you want them to know before we leave this this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Well, you know, I I would suggest that that you get take a look at what composure is. Is it is it always neatly tied in with a ribbon, or is it authentically sharing who you are and and being able to meet each moment with your full self rather than this sort of masked shallow way of meeting each moment? I mean, you get the benefit of actually responding, actually being in a real relationship as opposed to only reacting to what comes to you and never really engaging fully with the people that you lead. And the people that you lead are gonna love your truer self far more than this overly composed, packaged, boda person. It's just it's quite frankly not interesting. We love interesting. Exactly. Be who you are, yeah, share that with the world, inspire people. There you go. Is there any how do people get a hold of you and learn more? Well, my website is sandrabargeman.com, b-ar-g-m-dot com. You can go to magicthreadmedia.com and you can book a 20-minute complimentary conversation to find out how you could work with me on voice presence and storytelling. You can find me across social media. You can purchase my uh purchase Love Notes 2.0 if you want to read about ferocious compassion. And my other chapter is Anger and the Reluctant Leader. And that is in the book On the Shoulders of Mighty Women. You can find both of those at Amazon or you can request them at your local independent bookstore. And you can find my podcast, The Edge of Everyday, uh, on all your favorite podcast platforms, and it's housed at Magic Thread Media.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming onto the Unsealing You podcast.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Thank you, Natalie. It's been a great pleasure speaking with you, and thanks to your listeners for listening in.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

About four weeks ago, we started this investigation with a question: How does success become a trap? And after these conversations, I don't think the answer is that high performers simply need to become more resilient. The trust tax showed us something more complicated. It can begin when a person proves dependable. People trust them with more. Extra responsibilities become normal. And because the person keeps getting the work done, the organization may never see what their success is concealing. Unclear ownership, unfinished work, broken processes, poor communication, or responsibilities that keep routing to the same people. Eventually, the workaround becomes the way the organization operates. The person pays through overwork, lost energy, disengagement, or burnout. The organization pays through rework, higher cost, turnover, lost capacity, and the problems that remain hidden because someone keeps compensating for them. But throughout this investigation, we discovered something underneath all of it. There is often a story keeping the pattern alive. I have to get it done. Everybody depends on me. If I don't step in, who will? I need to prove that I belong here. Leadership means caring more. These stories have helped us to become successful, but they can also keep us and the people around us stuck. And that is why the trust tax investigation leads directly to the Rewrite Your Story event. On October 15th at Walsh College in Troy, Michigan, Merritt Kahn and I are bringing this work into the room for a full-day leadership experience, followed by Merritt's live one-woman theatrical comedy show optimistic personality disorder. Makes me smile every time I say it. Because understanding the pattern is only the beginning. At Rewrite Your Story, we're gonna see the story that's driving your patterns, changing the beliefs that keep it going, and setting boundaries to clarify ownership, building systems of trust instead of systems that depend on someone continually rescuing them and ultimately learning how to create results without burning out the people responsible for producing them. The workshop helps you see the story. The comedy helps you let it go. And maybe that's the most important thing this investigation has shown us. You don't have to abandon your ambition. You don't have to stop being dependable, and you don't have to care less. You can rewrite the story that says your value comes from how much you carry. You can develop other people, you can share responsibility, you can build trust without becoming trapped by it. And you can lead in a way that lifts others and releases you. Rewrite your story, break the cycle, lead differently. I'd love to see you and your team on October the 15th at Walsh College in Troy, Michigan.