Morning Brew: Sometimes People Just Want to Be Seen
7 min
Most people don't want feedback. They want validation that you see them
About the show
The Leading Yourself Podcast is your go-to space for personal growth, career and leadership development, habits, relationships, and more. Each episode delivers practical insights, tools, and strategies to help you unlock your potential and become the best version of yourself. Join me for real conversations, tough love, and actionable advice designed to help you take meaningful steps toward the life you want. No fluff, just the mindset shifts, habits, and strategies that lead to real results. If you’re ready to stop waiting and start growing, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to The Leading Yourself Podcast!
Newest episodes
381: Ambition without the Hustle
31 min
Week 2 of Sustainable Ambition moves from the personal to your career. Once you know what success means to you, the next question is how fast you chase it, and how long you plan to keep that pace up. In this episode, we will separate ambition from hustle, then takes a second look at two beliefs I hear from driven professionals constantly: "If I slow down, I will fall behind" and "If I am not always available, I will lose my relevance." In this episode: The difference between ambition (a direction) and hustle (a speed)One question to ask when you notice yourself rushing: what is this speed for?A short exercise to find the two or three priorities that move your careerWhy reliable and promotable are not the same thingFour ways to define availability, protect thinking time, hand off work and talk about resultsWord-for-word language for workplace conversations
Morning Brew: The Balance Between Success and Happiness
8 min
“Success depends on high expectations. Happiness hinges on modest expectations.”
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The newest 50 of 621 episodes
Morning Brew: Sometimes People Just Want to Be Seen
7 min
Most people don't want feedback. They want validation that you see them
381: Ambition without the Hustle
31 min
Week 2 of Sustainable Ambition moves from the personal to your career. Once you know what success means to you, the next question is how fast you chase it, and how long you plan to keep that pace up. In this episode, we will separate ambition from hustle, then takes a second look at two beliefs I hear from driven professionals constantly: "If I slow down, I will fall behind" and "If I am not always available, I will lose my relevance." In this episode: The difference between ambition (a direction) and hustle (a speed)One question to ask when you notice yourself rushing: what is this speed for?A short exercise to find the two or three priorities that move your careerWhy reliable and promotable are not the same thingFour ways to define availability, protect thinking time, hand off work and talk about resultsWord-for-word language for workplace conversations
Morning Brew: The Balance Between Success and Happiness
8 min
“Success depends on high expectations. Happiness hinges on modest expectations.”
380: Sustainable Ambition
32 min
Welcome to November: Sustainable Ambition. This month is about achieving without burning out, and it starts with the most personal question of all. Whose definition of success are you living in? Somewhere along the way, most of us absorbed an idea of what a successful person looks like. From home. From our first bosses. From the crowd. In this episode, We'll talk through where that definition came from, and why it matters most right now, at the loudest point of the year. In this episode: Three places your definition of success probably came fromThree questions to trace any belief back to its sourceFour tells that a goal is inherited, not chosenA simple exercise: Keep, Set Down, QuestionPermission to want success and rest, both Your one assignment this week: finish the sentence, "Right now, success for me looks like..."
Morning Brew: The Real Reason You Overthink
8 min
Harsh truth: People overthink because they don’t trust themselves to make a decision
379: Where Do You Want More Influence?
22 min
Imagine it’s the end of a long week. We’re sitting together over a cup of coffee, and I ask you one question: where do you want more influence? Not where you have a gap to fix. Where do you want to matter more, be heard more, and shape more of what happens? This is the final episode of our October series on influence without authority, and I’m slowing things down on purpose. I’ll walk you through it like a one-on-one coaching conversation. Over the past three weeks, we covered the influence you’re already having without knowing it, four ways to build more without formal authority, and the skills of reading a room and understanding how influence really moves. Now you point all of it somewhere on purpose. In this episode, you will: Find the one room where you want your voice to countName what’s in the way: an outside obstacle, a story you’ve been telling yourself, or discomfort with influence itselfChoose one small move to make this week Then I take three listener questions: How do you build influence when you’re the most junior person in the room and you freeze when it’s time to speak?What do you do when your manager is the one blocking you?How do you read a room when the room is a grid of video tiles? Come with a coffee and a little time to yourself.
Morning Brew: The Relationship Paradox
11 min
The relationship paradox: the happier you are alone, the better your relationships become
378: Reading the Room: The Skill Nobody Taught You
26 min
You’ve felt it: a meeting shifts underneath you, nobody says why, and you have half a second to decide whether to push forward or hold back. Nobody ever taught you how to read that moment. You just learned it the hard way. This week on the podcast we are breaking down the two skills that quietly decide whether good ideas actually land: reading the room in the moment, and understanding the political map underneath your organization over time. You’ll learn how to tell real interest from a polite no, why the quietest person in the room is sometimes the one who actually decides, how to catch an energy shift before it becomes a problem, and when saying nothing is the most useful thing you can do. Then it gets practical: how to map who really holds influence, what people actually need before they’ll say yes, and how to build trust before you ever need to spend it. And the honest part: where savvy crosses the line into something you don’t want to be. If you’ve ever had the right idea land at exactly the wrong moment, this episode is for you.
The Power of Showing Up
12 min
“Consistency isn’t exciting, but it’s how ordinary people get extraordinary results.”
377: Four Ways to Move Things without Authority
19 min
You’ve watched it happen: someone with less context, less experience, maybe even a weaker idea, makes the call, and yours gets quietly set aside. Not because you were wrong. Because you weren’t the one with the title to decide. This week on Leading Yourself, Carolina gets practical: four specific ways to shape decisions, lead projects, and get heard in rooms where the org chart says you shouldn’t have a say, none of which require anyone to change your title first. You’ll learn why asking the right question beats making the strongest statement, why the real decision usually happens before the meeting does, how to attach your idea to someone else’s authority without losing it, and how to write something that travels to rooms you’re never invited into. And then the honest part: what to do with the nagging feeling that none of this counts if your name isn’t on it. If you’ve ever had the right answer and the wrong title, this episode is for you.
Morning Brew: Moments vs. Timelines
9 min
Stop measuring your beginning against someone else’s decade of work.
376: Leading Without a Title, Starting Now
19 min
Most of us were taught that influence looks like the big moment: the promotion, the title, the seat at the table. It doesn't. Real influence is quieter than that, and you're already building it, in rooms you're already in, whether you've noticed or not. This week kicks off a new month on Leading Yourself: four weeks on influence and leadership, built around the reality of Q4, when priorities for next year are being set, and the people who get asked to lead them are chosen from what's already visible, not what's hoped for later. In this episode: why most impact is invisible until someone tells you about it years later, the three things that actually build influence (credibility, attention, and time), the four different ways influence shows up at work, and why "I'm not senior enough yet" is costing you more than you think.
Morning Brew: Gratitude & Ambition
8 min
You can be grateful for your life and still want more for yourself. Appreciation and ambition were never meant to be enemies.
375: The Questions I Hear Most - Career Squad Edition
23 min
This is the last episode of the September series, and I wanted to close it differently. Instead of teaching the framework one more time, I'm answering the nine questions I get asked most, about the Career Squad, about the book, about my own life. Some are practical: where do you even start if most of these nine relationships are missing? Isn't this just networking with a new name? What do you do when the person who should be your sponsor is also your manager? Some are more personal than I usually get into. Which relationship has been hardest for me to build, even now. Whether I've ever watched someone quietly fade out of my own squad. Whether a seat has ever stayed empty for years before the right person finally stepped into it. And I close with the question that's stayed with me the longest: if I could say one thing to my own squad right now, what would it be. I answer it by name. Thank you for driving this road with me this month. The 9 People You Need in Your Career Squad: How to Build the Relationships That Drive Every Career Breakthrough is available now, paperback and Kindle. Get the book: amzn.to/4f4yFtmMore info: https://buildyourcareersquad.comComplete your Career Squad Audit here: https://careersquadaudit.netlify.app/
Morning Brew: When It Doesn’t Work Out
8 min
“No one glows more than someone who didn’t get what they thought they wanted, healed, and realized something better was on the way.”
374: The Two Seats Most People Leave Empty in their Career Squad
31 min
Since 2023 I have talked about the Career Squad Framework with hundreds of people. Two gaps come up more than any other, every single time. The Sponsor is the most common gap people have. The Critic is the rarest relationship most people have ever actually built. That's not a coincidence, and today I'm going deep on both. Not just what these two relationships are, why they're so hard to build in the first place, and exactly how to go build them anyway. How to get visible to the right people, without it feeling like self-promotion. What to actually say when you're finally ready to ask for support. How to find someone who'll tell you the truth, and the exact words that get you a real answer instead of a polite one. This is one of the most personal episodes in the series, including the professional setback that taught me what sponsorship actually costs, and the year I spent unable to hear the truth from someone who was only trying to help me. The 9 People You Need in Your Career Squad: How to Build the Relationships That Drive Every Career Breakthrough is available now, paperback and Kindle. Get the book: https://link.amazon/B06ie96iDLearn more: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
Morning Brew: The Next Level Might Feel Different
7 min
“Your next level might have less to do with working harder and more to do with you finally believing you’re allowed to have a life you actually enjoy.”
371: Live from the Book Launch: Build Your Career Squad with Charlie Ackerman and Andy Storch
1 hr 11 min
What if the most important infrastructure of your career has nothing to do with your skills, your credentials, or your hard work, and everything to do with the people you have intentionally built around you? In this special episode of Leading Yourself, I am sharing the full recording of my live book launch event for Build Your Career Squad: The 9 People You Need in Your Career Squad , the book I have been carrying for a long time and that officially came into the world on September 5th. This is not a typical book launch. It is a real conversation. I walk you through the full Career Squad framework, nine relationships organized into three families that determine not just how far your career goes but how you feel getting there. We do a live assessment together so you can see exactly where your own squad stands right now. And then I sit down with two guests who have built extraordinary careers and who know this framework not because they read the book, but because they lived it. Joining me on the panel: Charlie Ackerman — former SVP of Human Resources at Bosch North America, executive coach, and one of the people in my own Career Squad. Andy Storch — author of Own Your Career Own Your Life, keynote speaker, and host of the Talent Development Hot Seat podcast. Together we talk about what it actually takes to find the right people for your squad, how to onboard a new relationship without it feeling transactional, what it means to show up for someone else's career over a long time, and what most professionals leave on the table in the relationships they already have. Whether you have read the book or this is the first time you are hearing about it, this episode will change how you look at every professional relationship in your life. Grab a copy of the book: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
370: You Were Never Meant to Drive This Road Alone
23 min
This week, I'm doing something different. Instead of talking about the book, I'm reading it to you, straight from the opening chapter. It starts in Honduras, at a wire harness plant, where I was twenty-two years old and had just been handed the wheel of something I'd never driven, HR Manager for a manufacturing facility of 4,200 employees. I had no business being in that role. I didn't tell anyone how terrified I was. What got me through it wasn't talent. It was people. I just didn't have a name for them yet. This is the story behind the whole book, the moment the road trip metaphor was born, and your first real introduction to the idea that no career was ever meant to be driven alone. The 9 People You Need in Your Career Squad: How to Build the Relationships That Drive Every Career Breakthrough is available now, paperback and Kindle. Get the book: https://amzn.to/46abYicLear more: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
Morning Brew: People Who See You
9 min
“The right people won't just celebrate your success. They'll care about who you're becoming along the way.”
369: Ready or Not, We're Driving
28 min
On September 5th something that's lived privately in my head, my laptop, and stolen early mornings for two years becomes a real, my book The 9 People you Need in your Career Squad is launching. In this episode, I'm telling you the truth about launch week that nobody puts in the highlight reel: the pride, the discomfort, and why promoting something you believe in isn't the same as bragging about it. In this episode: The honest, not-so-straight-line story of how a twenty-year-old idea finally got written, two years of early mornings around a full-time job and a family that needed me tooWhy I chose to self-publish instead of chasing a traditional deal, and everything I learned the hard way about editing, formatting, and coversWhat The 9 People You Need in Your Career Squad is actually about, and the one missing piece I kept finding in brilliant, hardworking people who still felt stuckHow the book is built, three parts, nine chapters, one framework, and how to read it depending on where your biggest gap isWhat I hope this book does for you, and the one small thing I'm asking you to do if it does This is Episode 1 of a five-part series walking you through the book alongside the real launch. The book goes live September 5th, paperback and Kindle, wherever you get your books. Join the free Book Launch event. Details here: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
Morning Brew: How Do You Want to Feel?
8 min
“Your dream life isn't just about what you accomplish. It's about how you feel when you wake up every morning.”
368: Leading through Transitions: What Are You Transitioning From, and To?
22 min
One question to close out the month. It sounds simple, and it is not. What are you transitioning from, and what are you transitioning to? Most of us cannot answer that, not because we do not know, but because we have never stopped long enough to ask. So in this series close, we stop and ask it together. Part one is a coaching session: why transition starts with putting something down rather than picking something up, why your TO should be a direction and not a title, and the thread that survives both. Part two is your questions. Three that came up again and again this month: how to lead yourself through a transition you never chose, what to do when you are clear on what you want but cannot make yourself move, and the one I am hearing most right now, you have decided you want to be someone different, with different priorities and a different relationship to your career, and every time you try to shift, fear pulls you back. Plus the From / To reflection to close your month. In this episode: Why you cannot step into what is next while still holding what is overHow to answer the TO question without knowing your destinationWhat travels with you through any transitionLeading yourself through a change you did not chooseClarity without movement and the fear underneath itWhy changing an identity is harder than changing a behaviorThe From / To reflection Check out my new book and join the free launch event here: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
Morning Brew: You Don't Need Their Approval
7 min
“You don't need everyone to understand your decisions. You need to understand why you're making them.”
367: Leading Through Transitions: The Messy Middle
21 min
This is the most personal episode of the series. I share the two years I spent in the middle with this book: writing, deleting, scrapping whole sections, and the quiet stretch where I thought I might not finish. I also share something I am not proud of, that I broke my own pattern and never announced it, because I was afraid I would fail. And I talk about the moment it stopped being a question about the book and became a question about me. Maybe I am not a writer. Maybe I am not the person who writes a book. Then we get practical. The two ways we all get the middle wrong: freeze and thrash, and the three-part anchor that actually gets you through when certainty is not coming: your values, your throughline, and your next honest step. If you are in the foggy, unglamorous, nobody-claps-for-this middle right now , this one is for you. I am in one too. In this episode: Why the middle is where transitions are actually won or lostFreeze and thrash: the two failure modes, and how to tell which one you are inTwo years, one book, and the middle I went through over and overWhen a practical question quietly becomes an identity verdictThe three-part anchor: values, throughline, next honest stepWhy clarity comes from the walking, not before itThe Anchor Card, and two questions to sit with this week Submit questions you would like me to answer live on the next episode here: https://forms.gle/7YdF8VMa3voUnjA69 Subscribe to the Monday Brew here: https://leadingyourself.myflodesk.com/mondaybrew Check out my upcoming book here: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
Morning Brew: Be Different
7 min
“When you can't win by being better, you can win by being different.”
366: Leading Through Transitions: The Window You Run Past
27 min
Think about the last time you started something new at work. What did you do in those first few days? If you are like most high performers, you got moving fast, head down, proving you belonged. And you ran right past the one moment that mattered: the quiet window at the very beginning, before anyone had decided who you are here, when you could have asked a different question. Not how do I prove myself. But who do I want to be here? This is week two of Leading Through Transitions, about the loud, visible career changes (new jobs, promotions, pivots) and the ones nobody hands you: the scope you stretch into, the project you raise your hand for, the decision to show up differently. I pick up right where last week left off, and get specific about what I did when I switched companies: I slowed down, blocked time each morning to map how the place actually worked before volunteering, and chose who I wanted to be as a leader before I got busy proving myself. Then I bring back the Four Zones of Work as your compass, and explain why the transitions you choose yourself can be the sneakiest burnout traps of all. If you are starting something new, thinking about raising your hand for something, or just deciding how you want to show up this season, this one is for you. In this episode: Why every new job, team, role, or project is a window, and why it closes fastWhat running past the window actually costs you six months from nowThe question to ask before what do I want to accomplish hereThe concrete slow-start practice I used at a new company, and what it producedThe Four Zones of Work, and why high performers burn out in the Excellence zoneA three-step Four Zones audit you can run today
Morning Brew: The Standard Starts With You
9 min
“Your relationship with yourself sets the standard for every relationship you allow into your life.”
365: Leading Through Transitions: Who You're Becoming
17 min
Have you ever caught yourself describing who you are with a label that is not quite true anymore? Not a job title , a label. The strong one. The reliable one. The one who always says yes. The words come out the way they always have, and somewhere in the middle a small part of you notices: that is not really me anymore. That moment is what an identity shift feels like from the inside. And it is where we start this month's new series: Leading Through Transitions. In this first episode, I open up about the go-to person I used to be, the one who needed to be in every room, involved in every decision, and the honest truth that the need came from two places at once: real drive, and real fear. I share why, after I left and started over, I chose on purpose not to become that person again, and what was left once the fear got quiet. I am more grounded now than I have ever been, and the purpose that was always underneath just takes a different shape. We talk about why we hold onto old labels, why the messy middle is where the real work happens, and how to move through a big change while staying anchored to what is actually true about you. If something in your life is shifting right now, and you are not sure who you are on the other side of it, this one is for you. In this episode: Why you never notice an identity shift while it is happeningThe two things we do to avoid the discomfort, holding on and grabbing aheadA personal story about the label I chose to set downHow to tell the difference between drive and fearA simple three-part way to hold any transitionWhy the unsettled feeling is a marker, not a warningTwo questions to sit with this week Listen to my conversation with Anthony Trucks referenced in today's episode here: 83: Identity Shift with Anthony Trucks
364: The Recalibration I Did Not Plan For
31 min
I almost did not record this episode. Not because I did not have something to say, but because I was not sure it fit. I just got back from six weeks traveling, three of which I spent in Spain. And somewhere between the long lunches that nobody was rushing, the evenings that wound down slowly, and the walks that were not workouts, something shifted. Not in a dramatic way. In the quiet, clarifying way that only happens when you step far enough outside your normal to actually see it. Here is the thing about going back to where you are from after years away. You think you are going home. And you are. But you are also holding up a mirror to the life you built since you left. And some of what I saw in that mirror surprised me. My routines, which I am genuinely proud of, which are one of my real strengths, looked different against that backdrop. Some of them were still serving me. And some of them I was doing out of habit, out of identity, because I am a disciplined person and this is what disciplined people do. Not because I had recently stopped to ask whether they were still the right fit for this season. That question is what this episode is about. In this episode: What three weeks of living at a Spanish pace did to my HRV, and what that data pointed toHow I went hours without looking at my phone and did not even noticeThe difference between a disciplined relationship with food and a healthy oneWhat I am actually changing: walking, meals, mornings, evenings, connection, and the honest reason behind each oneThe "tranquila" mindset and what a different relationship with urgency feels like in your bodyThe question I came home asking myself and have not stopped asking since This is the final episode of our July mid-year recalibration series. And it turned out to be the most personal one.
363: Course-Correcting Without Starting Over
21 min
You did the assessment. You saw what needs to change. And now the question sitting underneath everything is: how do I actually change it without blowing up everything that is working? That is what this episode is about. In Week 3 of the mid-year recalibration series, we are going to get practical. Not the inspiration version of change, the real version. The one that happens inside a full life, with real constraints, over actual time. We will start by naming the cognitive trap that derails most recalibration before it begins: the instinct to conflate seeing something that needs to change with needing to start over entirely. Then I will walk you through the four specific failure points where recalibration breaks down, not because people lack motivation, but because the process itself has predictable places it goes wrong. And we will close with a five-step framework for what sustained course-correction actually looks like: how to sort what you found, find the highest-leverage adjustment, define the smallest version of change that still matters, build the anchor before you move, and give it long enough to actually take hold. This is the episode for anyone who has done the inner work and keeps stalling at the step where it becomes real. In this episode: Why the brain jumps to starting over, and why that instinct usually costs more than it fixesThe difference between a verdict and a signal and why it changes everything about how you respondFour failure points that derail recalibration even when the motivation is realHow to tell whether you are dealing with an external problem or an internal patternWhy changing everything at once is not commitment, it is a setup for collapseWhat anchoring actually means and why it is the step most people skipThe minimum viable change framework: small and sustained versus large and abandonedWhy six weeks is the real timeline and six days tells you almost nothing
362: Your Career at the Halfway Point
15 min
Most professionals do a version of a mid-year check-in that looks like this: count what got done, calculate what is left, get back to work. That is a performance review. Not a recalibration. In this episode, Week 2 of our July mid-year recalibration series, I am going to walk through the four areas of a real career check-in. The kind that goes past whether you hit your targets and into whether you are still growing, still visible, still in the right fit, and still on a trajectory that actually makes sense for where you want to go. This one is for anyone who has been performing fine on paper but feeling something underneath that has been hard to name. Or anyone who has been so busy in the first half of the year that they have not had a chance to look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is worth looking at. In this episode: The difference between a performance review and a real career recalibrationFour areas every professional should assess at the halfway point: growth, visibility, fit, and trajectoryWhy you can be performing well and still be drifting and how to catch itThe visibility question most people have not asked themselves since MayWhat the excellence zone trap looks like from the insideA simple three-category framework for what to do with what you findOne question to take into the second half of the year
361: The Life Check-In You Have Been Skipping
15 min
Half the year is gone. Before you sprint into the second half, stop for a minute and actually look at where you are. This week on Leading Yourself, we are kicking off July with a mid-year recalibration series : Are You Still on Your Path? And we start where it matters most: your life. Not your goals list. Not your KPIs. Your actual life. In this episode, I walk you through a five-area life check-in that goes deeper than the usual reflection prompts. We cover energy, relationships, health, joy, and alignment, and I give you the questions that actually surface what you have been not-looking-at, and close with two questions that are simple enough to actually use and honest enough to matter. If you have been feeling like you are moving but not quite sure toward what, this one is for you. In this episode: Why we skip the check-in, and what it costs usA five-area framework for an honest mid-year life assessmentThe energy question most people never ask themselvesWhat relationship drift looks like and how to catch it before it compoundsWhy joy is data, not a luxuryThe alignment question that changes everythingTwo practical questions to walk away withThis is Week 1 of the July series. Next week: your career at the halfway point.
Morning Brew: The Power of Coming Home
7 min
After almost 3 weeks in Spain visiting my parents, siblings, family, and lifelong friends, I’m back with a full heart, and a powerful reminder. In this special episode of Morning Brew, I share what this trip taught me about rest, belonging, connection, and why some of the greatest things we can do for our health have nothing to do with another workout, supplement, or productivity hack. Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to return to the people, places, and rhythms that remind you who you are. Grab your coffee and join me for a personal conversation about coming home and what it means to truly come back to yourself.
360: Build your Career Squad
38 min
Back in February 2023, I recorded an episode that I had no idea would become one of the ones you all keep coming back to. I've gotten so many messages about this one, people sending it to a friend going through something hard, listening to it during a tough season, or just telling me it stuck with them. I'm rebroadcasting it today from Spain, where I'm on vacation with my family and with a full heart, because this episode is the reason my first book exists. The 9 People You Need in Your Career Squad comes out September 5th, and every story, every chapter, every person in it started right here. If this episode resonates with you, the book goes even deeper including stories I've never shared publicly before. Pre-order here: https://buildyourcareersquad.com
Morning Brew: The People Who Change Us
5 min
“Be careful with the idea that everyone is replaceable. Some people only come into your life once.”
359: What conversations are you still avoiding?
25 min
Four weeks. A lot of ground covered. And one honest question to close it out: What conversation are you still avoiding? This week's episode is the June series closer, in two parts. Part 1 is a coaching session. Carolina sits with you and gets honest about where people actually get stuck at the end of a month like this. Three places: The person who understood everything and has not moved yetThe person who tried, and the conversation did not go wellThe person who realized the conversation they are most afraid to have is with themselvesPlus three things to carry forward , not as homework, but as a different way of living with this going forward. Part 2 is community Q&A. Four real questions, full coaching answers: How to stop freezing or backing down when you finally get into the roomWhat to do when you asked for the promotion and got vague feedback instead of a yesHow to handle the aftermath when a hard conversation made things awkwardHow to think through the risk when the conversation you need to have is with your bossIf you have been listening all month, this is the episode that makes it real. If this is your first episode of June, it is a complete coaching session that stands on its own.
Morning Brew: Forgive. Act. Adapt.
6 min
“Be forgiving with your past self. Be strict with your present self. Be flexible with your future self.”
358: The Three-Phase Framework for Difficult Conversations
28 min
Most hard conversations do not go wrong because of what gets said. They go wrong because the person went in without knowing what they actually needed to say. Or they said the hard thing and immediately walked it back. Or the other person got defensive and they lost their footing. Or the conversation ended without a close, a commitment, or any shared sense of what comes next. This week on Leading Yourself, Carolina gives you the framework she uses with every coaching client before a hard conversation, and goes deep into what actually goes wrong at each stage. In this episode: The four failure points in hard conversations, and why the conversation itself is almost never the problemPhase 1: Prep. How to get clear on the one thing you need to say, what you actually want to happen, and how to name the fear before it shows up sidewaysPhase 2: Delivery. How to open without apologizing or presenting evidence, what to do in the silence after you say the hard thing, how to stay in the room when the other person gets defensive or emotional, and how to come back when the conversation goes sidewaysPhase 3: Follow-up. How to close a conversation so it actually produces something, why follow-through signals whether the conversation was real, and how to read the check-in to find out what actually landedWhat the framework is actually for, and the change it produces over time beyond any single conversationThis episode stands completely on its own. If you know someone sitting with a hard conversation right now, this is the one to share. This week's practice: run the conversation you have been avoiding through the prep phase. Write it out, all three parts. Then identify which phase you personally tend to skip. That is where your work is.
Morning Brew: Fall in Love with Boring
6 min
“The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.”
357: The Ask You Keep Not Making
35 min
For years, I was the highest-performing person at my level. Recognized constantly. Delivering results her peers were copying. And significantly underpaid. I knew it. I felt it. And I said nothing. In this episode, I share the story I have never told publicly, and then opens up the bigger pattern it represents. Because staying silent about what you have earned is not just a salary problem. It shows up every time you believe you are ready for a promotion and say nothing. Every time a role opens and you talk yourself out of raising your hand. Every time you take on more and wait to be recognized instead of asking for it. This episode is for you if: You know you are underpaid but have not said anythingYou have been waiting to be promoted instead of asking for itYou have watched an opportunity go to someone else and wondered why you were not consideredYou have tried to have this conversation before and it did not go wellWe talk about why high performers stay silent, what that silence costs beyond the paycheck, and how to go into the ask, whatever the ask is, with a real case, clear language, and a plan for what comes next. This week's practice: Is there something you have earned: a salary adjustment, a promotion, a role, an opportunity, that you have not asked for? Write it down. Then ask yourself: what am I waiting for? Have question you would like me to answer, submit them here: https://forms.gle/cUeffahjV7DAYZBQ8
Morning Brew: Who Are You Becoming?
5 min
"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be"
356: The Conversation That Changes Everything
17 min
There is a conversation you have been avoiding. Maybe for weeks. Maybe longer. You tell yourself the timing is not right, things are fine, it is not a big deal. But it is sitting there. Taking up space. Quietly changing how you show up. This week on Leading Yourself, we kick off June's Difficult Conversations series with the most personal kind, the hard talks in relationships. The ones with the people who matter most. In this episode: Why the conversations we avoid with the people we love are often the hardest ones of allThe four real reasons we stay quiet, and why 'protecting the relationship' is often a cover storyWhat avoidance actually costs (beyond just the frustration)Three things that can help you actually have the conversation you have been putting offThe honest truth about outcomes, and why having it is almost always better than notThis is Week 1 of a four-week series, moving from personal relationships to career conversations, to a full framework, to a reflection on what you are still holding back. If you have been keeping the peace at the cost of your truth, this one is for you. This week's practice: finish this sentence: "There is something I have not said to __________ about __________." Write it down. You do not have to do anything with it yet. Just name it.
Morning Brew: Stay Long Enough to be Found
5 min
“A lesson I wish I learned earlier: you get opportunities by showing up long enough for the right people to find you.”
355: Your Visibility Inventory
28 min
Four weeks. Three dimensions. One through-line: you are worth being seen. Fully. Strategically. Without apology. This is the finale of the May Visibility series, and it is built differently than any other episode this month. Two parts. Part one is a coaching session. Carolina walks you through three categories: your worth, your visibility practice, and your strategy, and for every question, she tells you what your answer actually reveals and exactly what to do with it. This is not a reflection exercise. Grab something to write with. Part two is listener Q&A. Three real questions from the Leading Yourself community, answered honestly. In this episode: The visibility gap isn't where you think it is, and what you are actually looking for in the inventoryWorth: the question that reveals whether you are letting yourself see your own value clearlyVisibility Practice: activity vs. impact language and whether the right people have a current picture of what you are doingStrategy: the five people whose opinion shapes your trajectory, and how well they actually know youThe integration question: what would the version of you from four weeks ago notice about who you are today? Listener Q&A: The anchoring habit still feels incredibly awkward, how long until it stops?My manager told me I'm seen as an executor, not a strategic thinker. How do I change that?I keep meaning to have the career conversation with my manager and never do. What is actually stopping me? SERIES: May | Visibility: From Invisible to Unmistakable Week 1: Owning Your Worth Without Apologizing Week 2: Making Your Work Visible Without Feeling Like You're Bragging Week 3: Why Good Work Isn't Enough Week 4: Your Visibility Inventory
Morning Brew: Think Big, Move Small
5 min
“When making plans, think big. When making progress, think small.”
354: Why Good Work Isn't Enough: The Third Piece Most High Achievers Are Missing
31 min
She owns her worth. She makes her work visible. She shows up, delivers, and has stopped waiting quietly in the background. And she is still not getting where she wants to go. Sound familiar? Then this is the episode you have been waiting for. In Week 3 of the Visibility series, we'll name the third piece of the equation that most high-achievers are missing, the strategic layer that transforms good performance and visible work into real career momentum. It comes down to three things: relationships (who actually knows you, not just what you do), reputation (what people say when you are not in the room, and whether it is moving you forward or keeping you in place), and positioning (being deliberate about where you are going and making sure the right people know it). This is where everything from the last three weeks connects into a picture you can actually act on. In this episode: The three-part visibility equation: worth + visibility + strategyWhy reliable is not always the reputation that gets you to the next levelThe five people whose opinion most shapes your career and how to invest in those relationships intentionallyHow to find out what you are actually known for (and the question most people never ask)Positioning: how to tell the right people where you are going, and why most people never doThree practices, one for each piece, to start this week
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