May 13, 2025 • 20 mins
In another raw and unfiltered episode, I call bullsh*t on the struggle narrative, the illusion of balance, and the weaponized performance of “empowerment.” If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s done everything right and still feels frustrated, invisible, or exhausted — this is your wake-up call.
Let's unpack why the current definition of success doesn’t work, how empowerment has been hijacked by hustle culture, and why balance is just another marketing scam. You’ll learn why exhaustion isn’t a failure, it’s a signal. And why redefining success, power, and ambition on your terms is the only way forward.
Whether you're a CEO, entrepreneur, or executive, this episode will help you reconnect with your truth and challenge the expectations that keep you over-performing and under-living.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why “balance” is a lie that keeps women blaming themselves
- How empowerment has been commodified into endurance
- The real reason success feels hollow (even when you’ve “won”)
- What happens when self-trust replaces sacrifice as your strategy
- 3 steps to reclaim clarity and redefine success for yourself
Love what you heard? Let’s stay connected!
Subscribe to my newsletter for bold insights on leadership, strategy, and building your legacy — straight to your inbox every week.
Follow me on LinkedIn for more no-nonsense advice on leading with power and purpose.
And if you’re ready to dive even deeper, grab a copy of my book Bite-Sized Blasphemy and ignite your inner fire to do life and business your way.
The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Khanspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello blasphemers,welcome back to the Business
Blasphemy Podcast, the placewhere we don't whisper the truth
.
We shout it out loud and clear.
(00:46):
I want to talk to you aboutsomething that's been sitting
pretty heavy on my chest for thelast little while and, honestly
, if you're like most of thebrilliant, high-achieving,
ambitious, multi-talented womenthat I work with and that I call
friend and that I'm incommunity with, you've probably
felt this too, even if youhaven't had the words for it,
and the reason I want to talkabout it is because I've been
(01:08):
out and about networking withlocal women here, talking to
women in my online networks, andit kind of feels like we're all
in the same place, we're all inthe same boat, so to speak.
Right, but it's this feelingthat something is off, even
though everything looks right,everything looks fantastic on
paper, but there's somethingdeep down that just doesn't feel
(01:31):
like like.
You feel like this, thisconstant feeling of almost an
unsettledness.
You know it's part exhaustion,but it's an exhaustion that
doesn't seem to go away, nomatter how much rest you get, no
matter how many routines orretreats or redirections you try
.
It's like this simmering rageunder the surface because you
(01:53):
have done everything right andit still feels like you're
sprinting on a treadmill and youdon't even like to run.
So let me not sugarcoat it foryou like to run, so let me not
sugarcoat it for you.
Fuck the struggle narrative.
There we go.
I said it.
(02:14):
Fuck the struggle narrative.
Now, before I continue, I know alot of you are listening to
this going.
But, sarah, I don't buy intothe struggle narrative.
Cool, okay, cool, yeah.
Neither do I.
And yet when I sat down andreally thought about it, I don't
know.
You know, as enlightened and asempowered as we are.
A lot of women, especiallyambitious, multi-talented women,
who do a lot of things, wear alot of hats.
(02:35):
We kind of do buy into it, thisidea that we have to do
everything, this idea that I'mthe only one who can do it right
, I'm the only one who can holdit, I'm the only person who
knows exactly how it needs to bedone.
Moms, especially, are reallyfucking guilty of this.
But this is the strugglenarrative, this struggle that we
(02:56):
wear as a badge of honor,because we have been told that
we need to embrace the strugglebecause that's where empowerment
comes from the overcoming ofthe struggle.
But honestly, if empowermentmeans exhaustion and if freedom
means juggling 17 differentfucking balls and identities
(03:17):
without dropping any of theballs, and if your success
requires your silence and yoursacrifice and your
self-abandonment, then what thehell are we fighting for?
So let's dive into this,because I really feel like we
need to talk about this giantfucking elephant in the room.
We have wholesale bought into abig lie, and that lie is that
(03:39):
we can be anything we want andthat we can have anything and
everything that we work for, andwe can do absolutely anything
we set our minds to doingbecause we are fucking awesome.
And the women who came beforeus, man, they fought so damn
hard so we could have choices.
Now I'm not denying any of that, okay, but somewhere along the
(04:04):
line that truth got twisted andit turned into a performance.
It turned into something thatwas even bigger than we really
anticipated or, honestly, reallyeven wanted it to be.
And I'm telling you now, that isnot liberation, that is
expectation.
Expectation Because we feelthis unspoken requirement.
(04:30):
I don't even know what the wordis, but we feel like they made
this big sacrifice for us, andso now I have to honor it in
some way.
That means being the best thatI can possibly be.
So you are supposed to be theCEO and the gentle parent.
You're supposed to build anempire and keep your marriage
thriving.
You are supposed to be the CEOand the gentle parent.
You're supposed to build anempire and keep your marriage
thriving.
You're supposed to drink thegreen juice journal, walk 10,000
(04:51):
steps, manifest, meditate, getpromoted, hit six figures, nay,
seven and eight figures.
Now I mean I've even heard ninefigures.
Speak up, but be humble.
Lead teams, volunteer, postrelatable content about it on
Instagram without a humble bragand a hashtag that says I woke
up like this, jesus.
I'm tired of just saying allthat.
(05:12):
Look, let me ask you something.
At what point did freedom startto feel like a freaking
checklist and at what point didthe checklist become the
entirety of our identity?
You didn't ask for this script,neither did I.
We just got really, really goodat performing it.
And here's the kicker whenyou're great at something,
people stop asking if it'sactually what you want.
(05:35):
People stop asking if it'sactually working for you.
They just expect you to keepdoing it.
And while we're here, let's goahead and kill another truth the
concept of balance.
We have made out balance to bethis like holy grail of
womanhood work-life balance,balance, balance, whatever you
(05:56):
want to call it.
But we've made balance thisthing that we all have to
somehow magically accomplish inour lives right Because we get
to have it all.
So now we need to balance this,that and the other.
But balance is a scam.
It's just another metric tomeasure your failure, another
moving target that you'resupposed to hit without making a
mess.
(06:17):
Look, here's what balance reallysays If you're burnt out, it's
your own damn fault.
You haven't figured out theright ratio of ambition to
affection, or of grind togratitude.
You just need to time blockbetter, bitch.
You need to meditate more.
You need to say no more.
You need to say yes more often.
Read another friggin book abouthow to be more productive and
(06:37):
peaceful.
That is not balance.
It's a game, and the game isrigged, let me tell you.
And while you're trying to playthe game, you're blaming
yourself for feeling overwhelmed, stretched thin, disconnected
from your own goddamn lifebecause you don't know the rules
.
I'll tell you what I hear.
When people say the word balance, okay, the thing that comes to
mind for me, like the visionthat comes to mind, is a scale.
(06:58):
You know those oldie timeyscales like the lady the law
lady with the scales.
Scales like the lady the lawlady with the scales.
When you put weight on one sideof the scale, what happens?
Eh, imbalance.
Okay, the only way to balanceit now is to put more weight on
the other side.
See what I'm saying.
So what you end up doing whenyou're chasing this fiction of
balance is just adding more andmore and more and more weight to
(07:22):
either side to balance it out.
So maybe we need to offerourselves a different frame for
this.
Maybe balance is not the goal.
Maybe what you need isn't moreequilibrium.
Maybe what you need is to getreally, really clear on what's
actually yours to carry and tocultivate the courage to drop
(07:43):
everything that isn't or neverwas.
We are told we are empowered, wejust have to go out and grab it
right.
But we've dressed empowermentup as a virtue.
It's just another lie.
It's just another thing theywant us to do that actually
keeps us trapped.
Because empowerment has beenmarketed for too long as doing
(08:04):
more, owning more, handling more, mastering more.
It's become this twisted badgeof honor to say I've got it, I'm
fine, I'll figure it out.
I always do, because I'm abadass woman.
We've confused empowerment withendurance.
But endurance is not power,it's survival, and you don't
earn power through suffering.
(08:25):
You don't become a leader byproving how much you can
tolerate.
And yet we do.
We keep proving, we keeppushing, we keep performing,
because somewhere deep down westill think that we have to earn
our quote unquote worth.
You don't have to suffer to besignificant, my love, and you
(08:46):
certainly don't have to proveyou can carry it all just to
feel powerful or to prove thatyou have some modicum of power.
Empowerment was always meant tofeel like agency, but for some
reason, for a lot of women itnever has.
It was meant to feel like wehave choice, like we have
alignment, like we have peace,inner peace.
But you know what?
All it's ended up doing ismaking us feel like we're ready
(09:09):
for another damn performancereview.
Did I check all the boxes?
Am I doing all the things I'msupposed to be doing, that
people say I should be doing?
Am I hitting all of the metricsof success that everybody tells
me I have to hit in order toqualify as a badass, ambitious,
high achieving woman?
I did not leave the corporatespace to feel like my life has
(09:30):
to measure up to some fuckingperformance review.
This whole concept of balance,empowerment, high achievement it
started to feel like anobligation.
It's like we've mistaken ourcapacity as our identity, who we
are and what we're capable of.
And honestly, don't get mestarted on being capable,
(09:52):
because being capable hasstarted to mean to us that we're
available to everything and toeveryone at all times.
But that's what happens whenempowerment becomes yet another
brand of capitalism, when evenyour healing and your leadership
(10:12):
and your ambition get turnedinto content and get commodified
, when empowerment starts tofeel like you have something to
prove, and empowerment andbalance and all of these,
they're just another standard noone can meet.
It's a mirage, it's a marketingpitch, it's a fucking guilt
trip in yoga pants, right?
(10:32):
If you're just a little moreorganized, just a little more
disciplined, a little moregrounded, you could do it all.
You could balance, you could bean empowered bitch.
Honey, you're not tired becauseyou're doing it wrong.
You're tired because it wasnever really meant to work.
You don't need balance, youdon't need empowerment, you need
(10:55):
boundaries.
And this is the awakening youstart to have when you wake up
inside a life that you built butdon't start to recognize
yourself in it.
You look around and you seesuccess, you see achievement,
you see everything you said youwanted, but it feels hollow.
It almost feels like a, like avice in your chest, like you've
(11:20):
outgrown it, but you'reterrified of admitting it out
loud.
Because what the hell wouldthat mean?
What would it mean to say thisthing that I've built, all of
these things that I'veaccomplished, I don't fucking
want them?
Does that mean you'reungrateful?
Does it mean you've wasted yourtime, the best years of your
(11:44):
life, man?
Could it possibly mean that youmade a mistake?
No, it means you're a fuckinghuman being and you're evolving,
which is what humans do.
So many of us wake up in thislife that we've built.
(12:06):
But we never really chose.
We followed a script do well inschool, get the degree, get the
job, get promoted.
Or maybe you build a business,build a brand, get married, have
kids, buy a house, keepclimbing the fucking ladder of
(12:27):
success.
Get married, have kids, buy ahouse, keep climbing the fucking
ladder of success, whateverthat ladder is, whatever wall
it's leaned up against.
And now we're here and we'renot okay.
You look around and you realizeyou've architected a life that
matches everyone else'sexpectations and version of
success, except your own.
Like you played the game andyou won.
(12:53):
You won, but you never likedthe game.
Like you can love your work andyou can love your family and
you can love your business andstill, weirdly, feel like you're
not in the room, like you areinvisible in the midst of your
life.
So I want you to hear me when Isay this you are allowed to
(13:16):
outgrow a life that once feltlike a dream.
Let me say that again.
You are allowed to outgrow alife that once felt like a dream
.
You are allowed to questionthings you never thought you
(13:37):
were allowed to question and youare allowed to give up on
things that no longer bring youjoy.
That is not quitting.
That is self-trust.
We've heard people say, yep,you're allowed to change your
mind and it feels so easy andtrue, but it's really one of the
(13:58):
most radical and difficultthings you'll do, particularly
in an environment where there isso much expectation of what
success is supposed to look like.
You are not locked into aversion of yourself that made
decisions under differentconditions, with different needs
, in a different season of life.
You can decide that what youthought you wanted no longer
fits who you are today, and youcan decide that what you thought
(14:20):
you wanted no longer fits whoyou are today.
And you can decide that who youhad to be in survival mode
isn't who you want to be in yournext chapter.
You don't owe consistency to asystem that was never made for
your evolution.
Most of us do not make spacefor that honesty.
We stay in the thing that's nolonger working for us because
(14:40):
it's familiar, because we'rescared of disappointing people,
because we're scared to startover.
But your life is allowed tochange as you change.
Your ambitions are allowed tochange with the seasons of your
life.
If the cost of staying is yourself-respect and your joy and
your clarity and your peace,then it is already too fucking
(15:01):
expensive.
You are allowed to choosedifferently today than you did
last year, last week or evenfucking yesterday.
You are allowed to evolve pastwhatever identity you built for
safety or success or approval,and you're allowed to say this
version of success no longerserves me and no, you do not
need some rock bottom, pickyourself up off the floor moment
(15:22):
to justify that shift.
You do not need some big momentto be the catalyst.
You don't need to wait untilyour body breaks down.
You don't need to wait untilyour relationships collapse.
You don't need to wait untilyou're so burnt out you can't
fucking breathe.
You can choose somethingdifferent before it breaks.
You can decide that self-trustis the new strategy, not
(15:46):
sacrifice, not performance, notperfection.
You are allowed to change yourmind, and if this mini rant has
stirred something within you,here are a couple of things that
you can do right now.
Today, I want you to audit yourlife without judgment.
Okay, I want you to go throughyour day-to-day, go through your
(16:07):
routines, your calendar, lookat what you're saying yes to and
again, we are not judgingourselves, we're just looking at
what we're saying yes to, andfor each one, I want you to ask
do I want this?
Do I actually want this?
Or am I stuck in a role,performing something I never
consented to?
(16:27):
Or maybe you did consent to it,but it's different now you
don't want to consent to itanymore.
So audit your life withoutjudgment.
Don't rush it, don't justify it, because, again, we're not
judging what.
I just want you to look, I justwant you to notice, because
clarity starts when you stopexplaining your exhaustion and
(16:48):
you start listening to it.
So take the time to do this.
Take yourself out for coffee,go sit at a coffee shop with a
journal in your google calendarand just look and listen as
you're doing the exercise,listen to the feelings that come
up.
And then, on a different daynot the same day, okay on a
different day I want you to take15 minutes and just challenge
(17:09):
the definition of success thatyou've been carrying.
Who defined success for you?
Was it your parents, yourfamily?
Was it growing up in whateverenvironment you grew up you?
Was it your parents, yourfamily?
Was it growing up in whateverenvironment you grew up in?
Was it your industry, yourmentor, your friend group?
Was it fucking Instagram?
Because, god knows, socialmedia has had a really, really
big impact on a lot of our livesand our versions of success.
(17:32):
Let's be completely honest,especially in this online
business space.
So sit with the question whatdoes success feel like for me?
What does a successful lifefeel like, not just look like?
What does it feel like for me?
If your current version ofsuccess does not match that
feeling, guess what you get tochange that definition.
(17:54):
Does life need to feel morespacious for you?
Do you want more time to dothings that you thought
entrepreneurship was going toallow, but you find it hasn't
because you're so busy keepingup?
And then the last thing that Iwould love for you to do I don't
want you to ignore whateverfeelings this episode stirred up
in you, whether it's discomfortor anger or whatever.
(18:16):
I want you to understand that'snot a problem.
It's a red flag, it's a signal.
We really need to startdismantling this entire
narrative, not with more advice,not with another damn strategy
or clarity session, but withhonest to goodness truth that we
(18:36):
source from ourselves.
It is time to burn down whatdoesn't fit anymore and rebuild
something that does, somethingthat is rooted in your
definition of power not mine,not someone else's and if you're
sitting up a little straighterright now if I hit a nerve or
just tickled something.
(18:57):
Come back and listen to thisepisode again whenever you need
that little loving butt shove.
You know what.
Send this to a woman you knowhas been carrying too much for
too long and let's start thatconversation.
Let this be the thing thatstarts the conversation that has
needed to happen for a longtime.
A conversation that has neededto happen for a long time
(19:17):
Because, like I say every singleweek, you can absolutely have
success without the BS, and nowit's time we define what that
looks like for us.
I'll talk to you next week.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
(19:39):
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
, help a sister out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy, rating thispodcast, and don't forget to
share the podcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblasphemypodcastcom to
connect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Khanspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello blasphemers,welcome back to the Business
Blasphemy Podcast, the placewhere we don't whisper the truth
.
We shout it out loud and clear.
(00:46):
I want to talk to you aboutsomething that's been sitting
pretty heavy on my chest for thelast little while and, honestly
, if you're like most of thebrilliant, high-achieving,
ambitious, multi-talented womenthat I work with and that I call
friend and that I'm incommunity with, you've probably
felt this too, even if youhaven't had the words for it,
and the reason I want to talkabout it is because I've been
(01:08):
out and about networking withlocal women here, talking to
women in my online networks, andit kind of feels like we're all
in the same place, we're all inthe same boat, so to speak.
Right, but it's this feelingthat something is off, even
though everything looks right,everything looks fantastic on
paper, but there's somethingdeep down that just doesn't feel
(01:31):
like like.
You feel like this, thisconstant feeling of almost an
unsettledness.
You know it's part exhaustion,but it's an exhaustion that
doesn't seem to go away, nomatter how much rest you get, no
matter how many routines orretreats or redirections you try
.
It's like this simmering rageunder the surface because you
(01:53):
have done everything right andit still feels like you're
sprinting on a treadmill and youdon't even like to run.
So let me not sugarcoat it foryou like to run, so let me not
sugarcoat it for you.
Fuck the struggle narrative.
There we go.
I said it.
(02:14):
Fuck the struggle narrative.
Now, before I continue, I know alot of you are listening to
this going.
But, sarah, I don't buy intothe struggle narrative.
Cool, okay, cool, yeah.
Neither do I.
And yet when I sat down andreally thought about it, I don't
know.
You know, as enlightened and asempowered as we are.
A lot of women, especiallyambitious, multi-talented women,
who do a lot of things, wear alot of hats.
(02:35):
We kind of do buy into it, thisidea that we have to do
everything, this idea that I'mthe only one who can do it right
, I'm the only one who can holdit, I'm the only person who
knows exactly how it needs to bedone.
Moms, especially, are reallyfucking guilty of this.
But this is the strugglenarrative, this struggle that we
(02:56):
wear as a badge of honor,because we have been told that
we need to embrace the strugglebecause that's where empowerment
comes from the overcoming ofthe struggle.
But honestly, if empowermentmeans exhaustion and if freedom
means juggling 17 differentfucking balls and identities
(03:17):
without dropping any of theballs, and if your success
requires your silence and yoursacrifice and your
self-abandonment, then what thehell are we fighting for?
So let's dive into this,because I really feel like we
need to talk about this giantfucking elephant in the room.
We have wholesale bought into abig lie, and that lie is that
(03:39):
we can be anything we want andthat we can have anything and
everything that we work for, andwe can do absolutely anything
we set our minds to doingbecause we are fucking awesome.
And the women who came beforeus, man, they fought so damn
hard so we could have choices.
Now I'm not denying any of that, okay, but somewhere along the
(04:04):
line that truth got twisted andit turned into a performance.
It turned into something thatwas even bigger than we really
anticipated or, honestly, reallyeven wanted it to be.
And I'm telling you now, that isnot liberation, that is
expectation.
Expectation Because we feelthis unspoken requirement.
(04:30):
I don't even know what the wordis, but we feel like they made
this big sacrifice for us, andso now I have to honor it in
some way.
That means being the best thatI can possibly be.
So you are supposed to be theCEO and the gentle parent.
You're supposed to build anempire and keep your marriage
thriving.
You are supposed to be the CEOand the gentle parent.
You're supposed to build anempire and keep your marriage
thriving.
You're supposed to drink thegreen juice journal, walk 10,000
(04:51):
steps, manifest, meditate, getpromoted, hit six figures, nay,
seven and eight figures.
Now I mean I've even heard ninefigures.
Speak up, but be humble.
Lead teams, volunteer, postrelatable content about it on
Instagram without a humble bragand a hashtag that says I woke
up like this, jesus.
I'm tired of just saying allthat.
(05:12):
Look, let me ask you something.
At what point did freedom startto feel like a freaking
checklist and at what point didthe checklist become the
entirety of our identity?
You didn't ask for this script,neither did I.
We just got really, really goodat performing it.
And here's the kicker whenyou're great at something,
people stop asking if it'sactually what you want.
(05:35):
People stop asking if it'sactually working for you.
They just expect you to keepdoing it.
And while we're here, let's goahead and kill another truth the
concept of balance.
We have made out balance to bethis like holy grail of
womanhood work-life balance,balance, balance, whatever you
(05:56):
want to call it.
But we've made balance thisthing that we all have to
somehow magically accomplish inour lives right Because we get
to have it all.
So now we need to balance this,that and the other.
But balance is a scam.
It's just another metric tomeasure your failure, another
moving target that you'resupposed to hit without making a
mess.
(06:17):
Look, here's what balance reallysays If you're burnt out, it's
your own damn fault.
You haven't figured out theright ratio of ambition to
affection, or of grind togratitude.
You just need to time blockbetter, bitch.
You need to meditate more.
You need to say no more.
You need to say yes more often.
Read another friggin book abouthow to be more productive and
(06:37):
peaceful.
That is not balance.
It's a game, and the game isrigged, let me tell you.
And while you're trying to playthe game, you're blaming
yourself for feeling overwhelmed, stretched thin, disconnected
from your own goddamn lifebecause you don't know the rules
.
I'll tell you what I hear.
When people say the word balance, okay, the thing that comes to
mind for me, like the visionthat comes to mind, is a scale.
(06:58):
You know those oldie timeyscales like the lady the law
lady with the scales.
Scales like the lady the lawlady with the scales.
When you put weight on one sideof the scale, what happens?
Eh, imbalance.
Okay, the only way to balanceit now is to put more weight on
the other side.
See what I'm saying.
So what you end up doing whenyou're chasing this fiction of
balance is just adding more andmore and more and more weight to
(07:22):
either side to balance it out.
So maybe we need to offerourselves a different frame for
this.
Maybe balance is not the goal.
Maybe what you need isn't moreequilibrium.
Maybe what you need is to getreally, really clear on what's
actually yours to carry and tocultivate the courage to drop
(07:43):
everything that isn't or neverwas.
We are told we are empowered, wejust have to go out and grab it
right.
But we've dressed empowermentup as a virtue.
It's just another lie.
It's just another thing theywant us to do that actually
keeps us trapped.
Because empowerment has beenmarketed for too long as doing
(08:04):
more, owning more, handling more, mastering more.
It's become this twisted badgeof honor to say I've got it, I'm
fine, I'll figure it out.
I always do, because I'm abadass woman.
We've confused empowerment withendurance.
But endurance is not power,it's survival, and you don't
earn power through suffering.
(08:25):
You don't become a leader byproving how much you can
tolerate.
And yet we do.
We keep proving, we keeppushing, we keep performing,
because somewhere deep down westill think that we have to earn
our quote unquote worth.
You don't have to suffer to besignificant, my love, and you
(08:46):
certainly don't have to proveyou can carry it all just to
feel powerful or to prove thatyou have some modicum of power.
Empowerment was always meant tofeel like agency, but for some
reason, for a lot of women itnever has.
It was meant to feel like wehave choice, like we have
alignment, like we have peace,inner peace.
But you know what?
All it's ended up doing ismaking us feel like we're ready
(09:09):
for another damn performancereview.
Did I check all the boxes?
Am I doing all the things I'msupposed to be doing, that
people say I should be doing?
Am I hitting all of the metricsof success that everybody tells
me I have to hit in order toqualify as a badass, ambitious,
high achieving woman?
I did not leave the corporatespace to feel like my life has
(09:30):
to measure up to some fuckingperformance review.
This whole concept of balance,empowerment, high achievement it
started to feel like anobligation.
It's like we've mistaken ourcapacity as our identity, who we
are and what we're capable of.
And honestly, don't get mestarted on being capable,
(09:52):
because being capable hasstarted to mean to us that we're
available to everything and toeveryone at all times.
But that's what happens whenempowerment becomes yet another
brand of capitalism, when evenyour healing and your leadership
(10:12):
and your ambition get turnedinto content and get commodified
, when empowerment starts tofeel like you have something to
prove, and empowerment andbalance and all of these,
they're just another standard noone can meet.
It's a mirage, it's a marketingpitch, it's a fucking guilt
trip in yoga pants, right?
(10:32):
If you're just a little moreorganized, just a little more
disciplined, a little moregrounded, you could do it all.
You could balance, you could bean empowered bitch.
Honey, you're not tired becauseyou're doing it wrong.
You're tired because it wasnever really meant to work.
You don't need balance, youdon't need empowerment, you need
(10:55):
boundaries.
And this is the awakening youstart to have when you wake up
inside a life that you built butdon't start to recognize
yourself in it.
You look around and you seesuccess, you see achievement,
you see everything you said youwanted, but it feels hollow.
It almost feels like a, like avice in your chest, like you've
(11:20):
outgrown it, but you'reterrified of admitting it out
loud.
Because what the hell wouldthat mean?
What would it mean to say thisthing that I've built, all of
these things that I'veaccomplished, I don't fucking
want them?
Does that mean you'reungrateful?
Does it mean you've wasted yourtime, the best years of your
(11:44):
life, man?
Could it possibly mean that youmade a mistake?
No, it means you're a fuckinghuman being and you're evolving,
which is what humans do.
So many of us wake up in thislife that we've built.
(12:06):
But we never really chose.
We followed a script do well inschool, get the degree, get the
job, get promoted.
Or maybe you build a business,build a brand, get married, have
kids, buy a house, keepclimbing the fucking ladder of
(12:27):
success.
Get married, have kids, buy ahouse, keep climbing the fucking
ladder of success, whateverthat ladder is, whatever wall
it's leaned up against.
And now we're here and we'renot okay.
You look around and you realizeyou've architected a life that
matches everyone else'sexpectations and version of
success, except your own.
Like you played the game andyou won.
(12:53):
You won, but you never likedthe game.
Like you can love your work andyou can love your family and
you can love your business andstill, weirdly, feel like you're
not in the room, like you areinvisible in the midst of your
life.
So I want you to hear me when Isay this you are allowed to
(13:16):
outgrow a life that once feltlike a dream.
Let me say that again.
You are allowed to outgrow alife that once felt like a dream
.
You are allowed to questionthings you never thought you
(13:37):
were allowed to question and youare allowed to give up on
things that no longer bring youjoy.
That is not quitting.
That is self-trust.
We've heard people say, yep,you're allowed to change your
mind and it feels so easy andtrue, but it's really one of the
(13:58):
most radical and difficultthings you'll do, particularly
in an environment where there isso much expectation of what
success is supposed to look like.
You are not locked into aversion of yourself that made
decisions under differentconditions, with different needs
, in a different season of life.
You can decide that what youthought you wanted no longer
fits who you are today, and youcan decide that what you thought
(14:20):
you wanted no longer fits whoyou are today.
And you can decide that who youhad to be in survival mode
isn't who you want to be in yournext chapter.
You don't owe consistency to asystem that was never made for
your evolution.
Most of us do not make spacefor that honesty.
We stay in the thing that's nolonger working for us because
(14:40):
it's familiar, because we'rescared of disappointing people,
because we're scared to startover.
But your life is allowed tochange as you change.
Your ambitions are allowed tochange with the seasons of your
life.
If the cost of staying is yourself-respect and your joy and
your clarity and your peace,then it is already too fucking
(15:01):
expensive.
You are allowed to choosedifferently today than you did
last year, last week or evenfucking yesterday.
You are allowed to evolve pastwhatever identity you built for
safety or success or approval,and you're allowed to say this
version of success no longerserves me and no, you do not
need some rock bottom, pickyourself up off the floor moment
(15:22):
to justify that shift.
You do not need some big momentto be the catalyst.
You don't need to wait untilyour body breaks down.
You don't need to wait untilyour relationships collapse.
You don't need to wait untilyou're so burnt out you can't
fucking breathe.
You can choose somethingdifferent before it breaks.
You can decide that self-trustis the new strategy, not
(15:46):
sacrifice, not performance, notperfection.
You are allowed to change yourmind, and if this mini rant has
stirred something within you,here are a couple of things that
you can do right now.
Today, I want you to audit yourlife without judgment.
Okay, I want you to go throughyour day-to-day, go through your
(16:07):
routines, your calendar, lookat what you're saying yes to and
again, we are not judgingourselves, we're just looking at
what we're saying yes to, andfor each one, I want you to ask
do I want this?
Do I actually want this?
Or am I stuck in a role,performing something I never
consented to?
(16:27):
Or maybe you did consent to it,but it's different now you
don't want to consent to itanymore.
So audit your life withoutjudgment.
Don't rush it, don't justify it, because, again, we're not
judging what.
I just want you to look, I justwant you to notice, because
clarity starts when you stopexplaining your exhaustion and
(16:48):
you start listening to it.
So take the time to do this.
Take yourself out for coffee,go sit at a coffee shop with a
journal in your google calendarand just look and listen as
you're doing the exercise,listen to the feelings that come
up.
And then, on a different daynot the same day, okay on a
different day I want you to take15 minutes and just challenge
(17:09):
the definition of success thatyou've been carrying.
Who defined success for you?
Was it your parents, yourfamily?
Was it growing up in whateverenvironment you grew up you?
Was it your parents, yourfamily?
Was it growing up in whateverenvironment you grew up in?
Was it your industry, yourmentor, your friend group?
Was it fucking Instagram?
Because, god knows, socialmedia has had a really, really
big impact on a lot of our livesand our versions of success.
(17:32):
Let's be completely honest,especially in this online
business space.
So sit with the question whatdoes success feel like for me?
What does a successful lifefeel like, not just look like?
What does it feel like for me?
If your current version ofsuccess does not match that
feeling, guess what you get tochange that definition.
(17:54):
Does life need to feel morespacious for you?
Do you want more time to dothings that you thought
entrepreneurship was going toallow, but you find it hasn't
because you're so busy keepingup?
And then the last thing that Iwould love for you to do I don't
want you to ignore whateverfeelings this episode stirred up
in you, whether it's discomfortor anger or whatever.
(18:16):
I want you to understand that'snot a problem.
It's a red flag, it's a signal.
We really need to startdismantling this entire
narrative, not with more advice,not with another damn strategy
or clarity session, but withhonest to goodness truth that we
(18:36):
source from ourselves.
It is time to burn down whatdoesn't fit anymore and rebuild
something that does, somethingthat is rooted in your
definition of power not mine,not someone else's and if you're
sitting up a little straighterright now if I hit a nerve or
just tickled something.
(18:57):
Come back and listen to thisepisode again whenever you need
that little loving butt shove.
You know what.
Send this to a woman you knowhas been carrying too much for
too long and let's start thatconversation.
Let this be the thing thatstarts the conversation that has
needed to happen for a longtime.
A conversation that has neededto happen for a long time
(19:17):
Because, like I say every singleweek, you can absolutely have
success without the BS, and nowit's time we define what that
looks like for us.
I'll talk to you next week.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
(19:39):
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
, help a sister out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy, rating thispodcast, and don't forget to
share the podcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblasphemypodcastcom to
connect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
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