October 14, 2025 • 26 mins
In this powerful, leadership strategist and speaker Sarah Khan dismantles one of the most ingrained forms of conditioning ambitious women face — being the invisible backbone of other people’s success.
Sarah explores how women in midlife have spent decades holding up organizations, leaders, and legacies that rarely hold them back — becoming indispensable but invisible in the process. She unpacks how loyalty, usefulness, and quiet excellence have been weaponized to keep women small, and why recognition, authority, and visibility are not ego, but equity.
Listeners will learn how to:
- Identify where they’ve been supporting instead of leading
- Reclaim authorship over their brilliance and contributions
- Set boundaries that re-educate others on their value
- Redefine visibility beyond performance
- Restructure power dynamics to claim credit, compensation, and authority
This is a call to every midlife woman who’s tired of holding up structures that were never built for her. It’s time to stop being the scaffolding of someone else’s legacy — and start building your own.
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.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Welcome to the business quick on my business.
They're coming.
The normal trends and overallbullshit status quo of
entrepreneurship to uncover whatit really takes to build the
business that you want to buildin a way that honors you, your
(00:24):
life, and your vision for what'spossible, and maybe piss off a
few gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello, blasphemers.
Welcome to Business Blasphemy,where we dismantle the rules of
business and leadership so thatambitious women can lead on
(00:45):
their own terms.
I am Sarah Kahn, speaker,strategist, business advisor,
and your blasphemous host.
All right, all of that aside,uh, there's a phrase that I used
in last week's episode, and Iposted it on social media, and
it's actually garnered a littlebit of hullabaloo.
Now, you may have heard it, youmay not have heard it, you may
(01:06):
have seen it, uh, but I reallywant to talk about that today
because every once in a while Isay something and it's like,
damn, that was good.
So I want to talk about it, butnot like as a sound bite.
I want to talk about it as anethos, as a way of being.
The phrase was women need tostop being the backbone of other
(01:30):
people's brilliance.
Now, before we get into it andbefore I get emails and letters
and text messages and whatever,I'm not by any stretch of the
imagination saying that weshould not support other people.
I'm not saying that we shouldn'tshow up in service of a shared
mission, okay?
Those are all very importantthings.
What I am talking about is alittle bit more nuanced than
that.
And it is the fact that too manyof us have spent our careers
(01:53):
holding up structures that werenever really meant to hold us in
return.
And somewhere along the way, westopped noticing and we started
disappearing in the fuckingprocess.
We became reliable, we becameessential, we became trusted,
but unfortunately, we alsobecame invisible for the most
part.
So this episode is really forthe woman who spent years, maybe
(02:16):
even decades, making sureeverything runs smoothly for
other people, making otherpeople's ideas work, making sure
that, you know, somebody elselooked shiny in the spotlight.
And and and now, you know,quietly, maybe, maybe even a
little bit shamefully, eventhough there should be no shame
around this, they're wonderingif they waited too long to
prioritize their own vision,their own voice, their own
(02:39):
brilliance and ambition andgoals.
Because a lot of us were raisedto be helpful.
That's the conditioning that wegot.
You know, be thoughtful, beuseful, be helpful, be in
service of people.
And we learned very, very earlyon, and it was reinforced in our
workplaces and our schooling anda lot of the social rhetoric,
(02:59):
that our worth was tied to howmuch we could do for other
people.
So we grew up learning toanticipate other people's needs.
We learned to solve problemssometimes even before they
surfaced, right?
We were so hyper-vigilant.
And we were taught to take pridein being the one that everyone
counts on.
I have so many examples of thisin my own life, and I know that
(03:22):
you do too, right?
But I want you to start thinkingabout like where in your past or
even in your current job,personal life, business,
whatever, where have you beenthe reliable one?
The person everybody counts on,the one everyone knows is gonna
be there.
And you know, it does work.
Like being reliable, being theperson anyone can uh trust and
(03:45):
rely on, it does work.
I did become very valuable tothe people who needed me to be
reliable.
And then one day I woke up andrealized, huh, I'm propping up a
thing that I never really wantedto build in the first place.
Sometimes it's somebody else'scareer.
Sometimes it's somebody else'splatform, you know.
(04:07):
But you you you've built thisthing and become the backbone of
this thing that you don'tactually benefit from.
Sometimes you're just buildingsomebody else's brilliance.
And the worst, the worst thingthat can happen is sometimes
it's not anybody else'sbrilliance at all.
It's your own brilliance, butother people are leveraging it
for their own success, right?
When you are the backbone,people learn to lean on you,
(04:28):
obviously.
They learn that you can, thatyou're gonna catch whatever
falls through the cracks andthat you're gonna make it happen
no matter what.
And because you're so freakinggood at it, nobody really stops
to question whether you want tobe the one holding it all
together in the first place.
They just assume that you do.
Every mother knows this, everymother knows this, every spouse
knows this.
(04:48):
We get taken for granted, andthat assumption really slowly
kind of erodes your own sense ofagency.
You you start to confuseusefulness with value, with
purpose.
And over time, what happens?
The line between helping andcaring it disappears, it becomes
(05:09):
a dot in the horizon.
And you start to realize thatyou were never really as valued.
You were valuable, but you werenot as valued as you thought you
were.
But you were still always thereason everything worked out.
And I'm sure that there areexperiences that, you know,
taught you a lot, and that'swonderful, and you don't regret
(05:30):
it.
Like I don't, I don't regret myexperiences.
It's not that simple, right?
It's a very nuanced sort ofsituation.
There is a great sense of pridein being someone else's support,
you know, being somebody elsethat um, somebody that other
people can rely on.
But there's also something underthe surface of that when it's
gone on for a very long time.
There's this kind ofrestlessness, this low grade, I
(05:52):
don't know, resentment, maybe.
But it's this really quiet sortof ache, this impending feeling
of like, when is it gonna be myturn?
When am I gonna be seen?
When am I gonna be valued formore than what I can do?
Because I'm really fucking smartand I know a lot of things.
And it kind of just manifestsitself as this feeling of being
(06:13):
tired, really.
And I know all of my womenlistening who are like 40 plus,
you know exactly what I'mtalking about.
We talk about burnout, we talkabout, you know, midlife
exhaustion.
Maybe it's because we've beenfucking propping shit up for so
long and we've not actuallybenefited from any of it to the
degree that we have earned thebenefit.
And the longer you hold up theweight of other people's
(06:35):
legacies without building yourown, the heavier that weight
gets until one day you wake upand it doesn't feel noble
anymore.
It just feels like a depletingbag of shit, honestly.
So I want you to think aboutwhere in your life you're
contributing to something thatat this point is probably not
going to be able to run withoutyou.
But it also doesn't get yourecognized either.
(06:58):
Like, where are you essential toeverything and everyone except
your own vision and ambition?
Because that is the quiet tax ofinvisibility.
And that is a tax that too manywomen are still paying and keep
paying throughout their careers.
And then they bring that intotheir businesses and they pay it
there.
So you got a lot of women whostay in situations, whether it's
(07:20):
like roles or partnerships orcollaborations, because we have
been taught, we have beenconditioned to equate loyalty
with integrity.
We have been told that goodwomen don't quit, that we don't
make it about ourselves, that westay until the end, we see it
through.
And I really want to underscorethe fact that, you know what,
you can honor what you've builtand still choose a point to move
(07:44):
forward from towards somethingthat honors you back.
You can love your team, you canlove your boss, you can love
your clients, you can love yourbusiness, you can, you can love
your job, and you can stillrecognize the point where you
have outgrown the role everybodysees you in.
There's nothing noble aboutloyalty that costs your own
(08:04):
ambition.
So, so many women, especiallywomen in midlife, are sitting on
an enormous mountain ofbrilliance that they have never
claimed out loud.
Like you know how to lead,you've done the work, you've
built entire fucking businessesand systems and teams and
families and empires, you'vebeen the engine behind all of
(08:27):
that.
But when it comes time to centeryourself, what do you do?
You hesitate, you defer, youdownplay, you downplay the
excellence because that's howwe've been trained to see it.
And a lot of the time, it'sbecause stepping into that
vision, right?
That our own vision, after yearsof supporting somebody else, it
(08:51):
can feel really unfamiliar andreally uncomfortable.
It feels like you're breakingsome sort of unspoken rule,
right?
Like we've been told probablyour whole lives, don't take up
too much space, don't be toobig, don't be too demanding,
don't outshine the people you'rehelping.
I've worked with clients who hada major problem with me because
of the work I was doing outsideof my client work.
(09:12):
Hell, I remember I was evenoffered a job and I've done an
episode about it.
You can go back and listen toit.
It's, I think it was January of2023.
But I was offered a job as anexecutive coach.
And when I said I was going tokeep my podcast and still do my
speaking engagements, becauselike literally that was the only
thing I wanted to do.
They were not in conflict withthe job itself.
I confirmed that at thebeginning of the six-week-long
(09:34):
freaking interview process.
But I confirmed it.
But when push came to shove atthe end, like I was ready to
burn my whole business down forthis woman, but then she was
like, absolutely not.
You can't keep doing yourpodcast or speaking because then
you're not fully bought into myvision.
But everybody knew it was reallyabout keeping me quiet.
It was about keeping me behindthe curtain because who am I to
(09:55):
outshine the person whose nameis on the fucking building?
Meanwhile, I would have beenworking day and night to drive
people to her business, to trainher in her methodology.
We get so caught up in the egoside of it and it's ridiculous.
So instead, you know, we weshrink, we tell ourselves we're
being thoughtful or humble orstrategic or whatever.
(10:20):
And sometimes we're just afraid,especially when we're around
personalities that are reallybig and really boisterous.
We're afraid that if we stepforward, no one's gonna follow
us.
We're afraid that withoutsomeone else's name or clout to
anchor ourselves to, we're notgonna be seen as credible enough
(10:44):
on our own.
Let me tell you something, and Iwant you to hear me really
clearly.
Your brilliance, your excellenceis not borrowed.
It is not a reflection of whoyou have helped.
It's yours.
It's yours.
(11:04):
You own it.
It was born of you.
Now again, I I want toreiterate, I am not saying that
there is something wrong withworking for somebody else.
Not at all, not even a littlebit, okay?
There's nothing wrong withchoosing to support a founder or
(11:25):
a CEO or a visionary becauseleadership doesn't always look
like having your own company,right?
Sometimes leadership is in howyou show up for a mission that
isn't your own, but it's stillfully and totally aligned with
who you are.
You don't have to want thespotlight.
That's totally fine.
Not every woman wants to be theface of a brand or stand on
(11:45):
stage, but this is the hill thatI'm I'm planting a flag in.
Every woman deserves ownershipof their work, and they deserve
authority over how they show upin the work.
Do you want to be public?
Fine, don't be public.
But invisibility shouldn't bethe price of peace.
The choice has to beintentional, not expected or
assumed or inherited.
And also, you deserve to beappropriately compensated,
(12:08):
whether it's monetarily orthrough other things.
You deserve to be respectedpublicly.
And you deserve to be creditedvery clearly for the work that
is yours.
Too many women I've worked withhave told me the same story in a
number of different ways, right?
Oh, I was doing the work of aVP, but I had the title of an
assistant.
Or, you know, I was going todevelop a strategy.
(12:30):
And when it came time to talkabout it, like I wasn't even
included in the decision-makingprocess.
Or, you know, they called me theright hand, but a lot of the
time I was just an afterthought.
Like I will never forget Iworked for a private design firm
in Europe, and I was given theopportunity to spearhead an
entire new division that I hadthought of, like I had come up
with it as a way to diversifythe market share.
(12:53):
And so I built this entiredivision with my own hands from
the ground up, right?
I hired the people, brought themin, put them in the right place,
marketed everything.
And within six months of goingto market, we grossed over 1
million pounds sterling.
When I tell you that is fuckingamazing, it's fucking amazing.
And yes, I'm going to sit hereand toot my own goddamn horn for
(13:14):
a second.
And so we took the idea back tothe founders because this was
like a trial run, right?
They they gave us the leeway torun this as a trial.
And so I brought it back to thefounders and I was like, all
right, let's bring this into thebusiness as a full-time thing.
And they were like, absolutely.
And guess who got made executivedirector of this division?
Not me.
I was thrown back into thetrenches to do more work because
(13:37):
I was more valuable there.
There you go.
And the division is still there,it's still making money.
But my name, nowhere in thehistory books, not even a
friggin' footnote.
But I stayed.
Despite that huge slap in theface, I stayed.
(13:57):
And it wasn't because I didn'tknow better, but I truly
believed eventually my hard workwould pay off.
Maybe that wasn't enough.
Maybe I need to work harder.
And then somebody will noticeand somebody will finally say,
Oh my God, she's the reason allof this works.
Like, yeah, there were instancesin my past where, you know,
people did say that, you know,hey, you you're the reason this
(14:19):
works.
But more often than not, theydidn't.
And my entire career is riddledwith examples like this because
people don't change theirnarrative unless you force them
to.
And I know there are a lot ofpeople listening today who have
very similar experiences.
So forcing that narrative changemeans stepping out of the role
(14:40):
that keeps you small, even ifyou're really, really good at
it.
Especially if you're really,really good at it.
We've been taught, I guess, thatasking for recognition is
somehow vanity, that needingyour name on something makes you
selfish, that it's full of ego,that you know, your if your
(15:02):
motives were pure, you wouldn'tcare about the credit.
Who benefits from that belief?
Certainly not the women doingthe work.
Wanting your contributionsrecognized is not ego.
Wanting to be listened to is notego.
It's about being visible in thespaces that you helped create
(15:22):
and build.
It's about showing up for yourown success, not just enabling
success for other people.
If you're writing a strategy,why aren't you speaking about
it?
If you're driving outcomes, whyaren't you part of their
leadership team?
If you're shaping vision, whyare you still sitting in the
back?
Recognition is not a fuckingtrophy and it's not a fucking
(15:42):
reward.
It's people deferring to yourjudgment because they recognize
your excellence.
And you know what?
Maybe that looks like being inthose decision-making rooms,
being compensated, proportionateto your contribution.
Maybe it's people acknowledgingthe work that you helped create.
It all starts with one reallyconsistent act of
(16:03):
self-leadership.
And I want you to hear this.
Start naming what is true.
Do not soften it, do notminimize it, don't package it
for palatability.
I when you say I led thatproject, you are not bragging.
You are documenting fact.
When you say this idea came frommy research, you are not being
arrogant, you are beingaccurate.
(16:25):
It is clarity, and claritycommands respect.
You do not need to be aggressiveabout it.
You don't need to shout atpeople, but you do need to take
ownership.
Because if people only see youas a support, they're only ever
going to treat you as a resourceand never the actual source of
the excellence.
(16:46):
Now, part of this is reclaimingthe power that you, I mean,
inherently have, but has leakedout over the years.
And you reclaim that power byholding better boundaries before
you get to the breaking point,you know?
You start saying things like I'mno longer available for roles
that depend on me staying small.
It's it's a decision, aconscious, intentional decision
(17:09):
you make to stop being theWizard of Oz behind the curtain
and assuming that everyone andeverything will just keep
running.
I want you to start askingyourself, what am I building?
Who sees me clearly?
Where is my name going to be inthe legacy that I'm hoping to
leave?
So those boundaries, let's talkabout those boundaries.
I know a lot of people think theboundaries are walls or
(17:30):
barriers.
They're not.
They're not there to keep peopleout.
They're actually filters.
They show you exactly whorespects your time and your
talent.
And in a lot of cases, just yourhumanity.
They're educational tools.
They teach people how to engagewith you.
So I want you to get somepractice in starting
(17:51):
communicating your boundariesout loud.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm notavailable for actually, no,
nope, nope.
I wouldn't even say I'm sorry.
I'm gonna take that back.
Communicate your boundaries likeI'm not available for that
last-minute turnaround.
My strategic input should becredited.
My role includes decision-makingauthority, not just execution.
Yes, I'm happy to contribute tothis project, but I need my work
(18:14):
attributed.
And my absolute favorite.
I'm not gonna stay late unlessI'm compensated for it.
Because how many times have westayed late and not been
compensated for it?
And now when you start settingboundaries, it's gonna shift the
dynamic to the point wherepeople start getting
uncomfortable because you havestopped overgiving and they're
gonna notice when you stopsaying yes to things.
(18:36):
They're gonna start pushing backbecause that's what happens,
right?
Because they realize that accessthat they've had a free-for-all
to, it's no longer available.
Fucking let them.
That discomfort is not a signthat you're doing something
wrong.
That's exactly the point of theboundaries.
The people who truly value youare not gonna be threatened by
(18:56):
them.
Whether they are new boundariesor boundaries that are old
boundaries and you're juststarting to reinforce or enforce
them at all.
Some people will respect themand they'll adjust and they'll
meet you where you are.
And then the ones who arethreatened, well, now you know
who was never really on yourside to begin with.
And it's always the people whoare benefiting from stepping
over you.
A lot of the time when womenstart implementing changes like
(19:18):
this, one of the big fears thatcomes up is uh, oh, people are
gonna think that I've changed.
And my answer to that is alwaysthe same.
You have changed.
That is the fucking point.
You are not the same personwho's gonna say yes to
everything out of obligation.
You are not the same personwho's gonna confuse helping with
belonging.
You are not the same personwho's gonna who believes that
(19:40):
being indispensable means beingvalued.
Change is the outcome ofawareness.
And once you make people aware,things will start to change.
Once you see the system that youhave been maintaining through
sweat equity, you can't unseeit.
The goal is not to stop servingothers, it's to stop centering
(20:03):
them.
So you can still collaborate,you can still contribute, you
can still support, but you do itfrom a position of power.
You do it from a position ofleverage.
So, how do we do this inpractice?
All right, well, the first thingyou do is you start naming your
impact.
So, like I said earlier, andthen I got sidetracked, document
(20:26):
it, write it down, track it,speak it out loud, keep a record
of what you do and the resultsyou create and how your presence
changes things.
That's not ego, it's data, anddata becomes leverage.
When people say, like, wecouldn't have done this without
you, I want you to start askingthem, really, so how are we
(20:49):
showing that in my title?
How are we showing that in mypay?
How are we showing that in mydecision-making authority?
That's what I want you to do.
So start tracking it, write itdown, name your impact, give it
words.
The second thing I want you todo, redefine what visibility
actually means.
Okay?
We have taken it to meanperformance.
Being on social media, being outthere, that's not visibility.
(21:11):
Visibility means being known forsomething very specific.
So decide what it is that youdo, what you want to be known
for.
Maybe it's how discerning youare, maybe it's your strategic
mind, maybe it's how well youlead under pressure.
I don't care.
It doesn't matter.
I mean it does matter, but youknow what I mean.
Whatever it is, figure it outand then communicate that
clearly and consistently.
(21:32):
Okay?
Clearly, consistently.
That's what we're going for.
Credibility, not spectacle.
And then number three, I wantyou to restructure the power
dynamic as a whole.
I want you to stop acceptingthank you as a substitute for
influence and your ability toinfluence.
Yeah, there are always going tobe certain occasions where thank
(21:54):
you is appropriate and enough,but you'll know when it's not.
You know, if you're alreadyoperating at higher levels, then
I want you to start asking forauthority that matches that.
Yeah, you might have torenegotiate your role or your
title or your decision rights oryour boundaries or your pay.
Isn't it time you took yourrightful seat at the table you
fucking helped build?
And then finally, I want you todiversify who gets your energy.
(22:17):
This is really, reallyimportant, okay?
If all of your time and yourbrilliance and your emotional
labor go to one team or oneperson or one organization,
you're building dependency, notjust for them, but for you.
And that is not leadership, thatis not agency, that is not
choice.
Start looking for opportunitiesto mentor elsewhere.
(22:38):
Look for opportunities to speakon panels, look for
opportunities to collaboratewith peers.
Start your own initiative, rightin your industry, in your niche,
in your field, whatever.
When your contributions arespread across spaces, that's how
your authority multiplies.
That's how your brilliance is nolonger contained in one person
or team or organization.
(22:59):
So, what do I want this to leadto?
What am I no longer availablefor?
Where do I need to be seen andrespected?
Because that's the differencebetween being a backbone and
being a builder.
At some point, you're going toreach a line, okay?
And you're going to realize thatthe version of the life that
you're living right now is waytoo small for the woman you've
become.
When that happens, you have twooptions.
(23:22):
You stay and you keep givingyour brilliance away, or you
leave with a plan.
A real exit strategy is notreactive.
It's not like throwing yourpapers in the air, you know,
fuck this, I'm out.
You're not kicking over desks.
No, it's thoughtful.
And we've talked about what thatlooks like.
And what I know is thateventually every woman who's
(23:42):
been the backbone reaches apoint of choice.
Do I continue holding upstructures that don't hold me,
or do I build my own?
Like at the end of the day, theform doesn't actually even
matter.
The agency does.
You can build something foryourself inside the system or
(24:03):
outside the system.
It doesn't matter.
Either way, it's time to stopliving in the belief one day
someone else will give youpermission to be an authority.
You've always been a leader.
Now it's just time to make thatleadership visible.
First to yourself, then toeverybody else.
(24:24):
But whatever it looks like, itstarts the minute you decide
that you're no longer availableto just be the backbone.
You're not an option.
You're not support.
You're the reason it works atall.
We spend our one life makingsomeone else's dreams come true.
It's time for you to own yourvoice.
It's time for you to own yourvision, your authority, your
(24:45):
desire to be recognized, yourambition.
It's time to refuse to stayquiet about it anymore.
Oh, you know, and before youstart second-guessing yourself,
let me just say this.
You don't need to prove yourselfone more time in order to do any
of this.
You don't need anothercertification or another degree
or another year of experience.
You already fucking proven it.
You've been proving it foryears.
(25:06):
The proof is in every late nightyou spent at the office, or
every morning you woke upearlier, every every time you
were in bed with your phoneanswering emails or whatever,
every crisis you solved, everyproject you saved, every person
you made look brilliant.
So now go and start collectingthe credit for it.
Go collect the compensation, theauthority, the recognition, all
(25:29):
of the shit that you've alreadyearned 10 times over.
And if you want help, this iswhere we need to talk.
Sign up for the strategicfreedom snapshot.
The link is in the show notes,but it's a 90-minute session
where we map out where you'vebeen operating from obligation,
where your value is no longerreflected, and what needs to
(25:51):
structurally shift, notemotionally, it's not mindset
work.
What needs to structurally shiftso that your brilliance starts
working for you, not justthrough you.
When we make a plan so that youstop waiting for permission, you
stop hoping to be seen, you geta clear and grounded strategy
that honors where you are todayand what you're looking to do
next.
(26:11):
Or go relisten to this podcast,write down those five points
that I made, and start doingthem.
I want you to prove to yourself,most of all, that you're ready
for what comes next.
And this is exactly what successwithout all that BS actually
means.
I'll talk to you next week.
(26:34):
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the
meantime, help us sister out bysubscribing, and if you're
feeling extra sensory ratingthis podcast.
And don't forget to share thepodcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblastfamypodcast.com to
connect to this and learn more.
Thanks for listening.
And remember, you can havesuccess without the end.
Welcome to the business quick on my business.
They're coming.
The normal trends and overallbullshit status quo of
entrepreneurship to uncover whatit really takes to build the
business that you want to buildin a way that honors you, your
(00:24):
life, and your vision for what'spossible, and maybe piss off a
few gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello, blasphemers.
Welcome to Business Blasphemy,where we dismantle the rules of
business and leadership so thatambitious women can lead on
(00:45):
their own terms.
I am Sarah Kahn, speaker,strategist, business advisor,
and your blasphemous host.
All right, all of that aside,uh, there's a phrase that I used
in last week's episode, and Iposted it on social media, and
it's actually garnered a littlebit of hullabaloo.
Now, you may have heard it, youmay not have heard it, you may
(01:06):
have seen it, uh, but I reallywant to talk about that today
because every once in a while Isay something and it's like,
damn, that was good.
So I want to talk about it, butnot like as a sound bite.
I want to talk about it as anethos, as a way of being.
The phrase was women need tostop being the backbone of other
(01:30):
people's brilliance.
Now, before we get into it andbefore I get emails and letters
and text messages and whatever,I'm not by any stretch of the
imagination saying that weshould not support other people.
I'm not saying that we shouldn'tshow up in service of a shared
mission, okay?
Those are all very importantthings.
What I am talking about is alittle bit more nuanced than
that.
And it is the fact that too manyof us have spent our careers
(01:53):
holding up structures that werenever really meant to hold us in
return.
And somewhere along the way, westopped noticing and we started
disappearing in the fuckingprocess.
We became reliable, we becameessential, we became trusted,
but unfortunately, we alsobecame invisible for the most
part.
So this episode is really forthe woman who spent years, maybe
(02:16):
even decades, making sureeverything runs smoothly for
other people, making otherpeople's ideas work, making sure
that, you know, somebody elselooked shiny in the spotlight.
And and and now, you know,quietly, maybe, maybe even a
little bit shamefully, eventhough there should be no shame
around this, they're wonderingif they waited too long to
prioritize their own vision,their own voice, their own
(02:39):
brilliance and ambition andgoals.
Because a lot of us were raisedto be helpful.
That's the conditioning that wegot.
You know, be thoughtful, beuseful, be helpful, be in
service of people.
And we learned very, very earlyon, and it was reinforced in our
workplaces and our schooling anda lot of the social rhetoric,
(02:59):
that our worth was tied to howmuch we could do for other
people.
So we grew up learning toanticipate other people's needs.
We learned to solve problemssometimes even before they
surfaced, right?
We were so hyper-vigilant.
And we were taught to take pridein being the one that everyone
counts on.
I have so many examples of thisin my own life, and I know that
(03:22):
you do too, right?
But I want you to start thinkingabout like where in your past or
even in your current job,personal life, business,
whatever, where have you beenthe reliable one?
The person everybody counts on,the one everyone knows is gonna
be there.
And you know, it does work.
Like being reliable, being theperson anyone can uh trust and
(03:45):
rely on, it does work.
I did become very valuable tothe people who needed me to be
reliable.
And then one day I woke up andrealized, huh, I'm propping up a
thing that I never really wantedto build in the first place.
Sometimes it's somebody else'scareer.
Sometimes it's somebody else'splatform, you know.
(04:07):
But you you you've built thisthing and become the backbone of
this thing that you don'tactually benefit from.
Sometimes you're just buildingsomebody else's brilliance.
And the worst, the worst thingthat can happen is sometimes
it's not anybody else'sbrilliance at all.
It's your own brilliance, butother people are leveraging it
for their own success, right?
When you are the backbone,people learn to lean on you,
(04:28):
obviously.
They learn that you can, thatyou're gonna catch whatever
falls through the cracks andthat you're gonna make it happen
no matter what.
And because you're so freakinggood at it, nobody really stops
to question whether you want tobe the one holding it all
together in the first place.
They just assume that you do.
Every mother knows this, everymother knows this, every spouse
knows this.
(04:48):
We get taken for granted, andthat assumption really slowly
kind of erodes your own sense ofagency.
You you start to confuseusefulness with value, with
purpose.
And over time, what happens?
The line between helping andcaring it disappears, it becomes
(05:09):
a dot in the horizon.
And you start to realize thatyou were never really as valued.
You were valuable, but you werenot as valued as you thought you
were.
But you were still always thereason everything worked out.
And I'm sure that there areexperiences that, you know,
taught you a lot, and that'swonderful, and you don't regret
(05:30):
it.
Like I don't, I don't regret myexperiences.
It's not that simple, right?
It's a very nuanced sort ofsituation.
There is a great sense of pridein being someone else's support,
you know, being somebody elsethat um, somebody that other
people can rely on.
But there's also something underthe surface of that when it's
gone on for a very long time.
There's this kind ofrestlessness, this low grade, I
(05:52):
don't know, resentment, maybe.
But it's this really quiet sortof ache, this impending feeling
of like, when is it gonna be myturn?
When am I gonna be seen?
When am I gonna be valued formore than what I can do?
Because I'm really fucking smartand I know a lot of things.
And it kind of just manifestsitself as this feeling of being
(06:13):
tired, really.
And I know all of my womenlistening who are like 40 plus,
you know exactly what I'mtalking about.
We talk about burnout, we talkabout, you know, midlife
exhaustion.
Maybe it's because we've beenfucking propping shit up for so
long and we've not actuallybenefited from any of it to the
degree that we have earned thebenefit.
And the longer you hold up theweight of other people's
(06:35):
legacies without building yourown, the heavier that weight
gets until one day you wake upand it doesn't feel noble
anymore.
It just feels like a depletingbag of shit, honestly.
So I want you to think aboutwhere in your life you're
contributing to something thatat this point is probably not
going to be able to run withoutyou.
But it also doesn't get yourecognized either.
(06:58):
Like, where are you essential toeverything and everyone except
your own vision and ambition?
Because that is the quiet tax ofinvisibility.
And that is a tax that too manywomen are still paying and keep
paying throughout their careers.
And then they bring that intotheir businesses and they pay it
there.
So you got a lot of women whostay in situations, whether it's
(07:20):
like roles or partnerships orcollaborations, because we have
been taught, we have beenconditioned to equate loyalty
with integrity.
We have been told that goodwomen don't quit, that we don't
make it about ourselves, that westay until the end, we see it
through.
And I really want to underscorethe fact that, you know what,
you can honor what you've builtand still choose a point to move
(07:44):
forward from towards somethingthat honors you back.
You can love your team, you canlove your boss, you can love
your clients, you can love yourbusiness, you can, you can love
your job, and you can stillrecognize the point where you
have outgrown the role everybodysees you in.
There's nothing noble aboutloyalty that costs your own
(08:04):
ambition.
So, so many women, especiallywomen in midlife, are sitting on
an enormous mountain ofbrilliance that they have never
claimed out loud.
Like you know how to lead,you've done the work, you've
built entire fucking businessesand systems and teams and
families and empires, you'vebeen the engine behind all of
(08:27):
that.
But when it comes time to centeryourself, what do you do?
You hesitate, you defer, youdownplay, you downplay the
excellence because that's howwe've been trained to see it.
And a lot of the time, it'sbecause stepping into that
vision, right?
That our own vision, after yearsof supporting somebody else, it
(08:51):
can feel really unfamiliar andreally uncomfortable.
It feels like you're breakingsome sort of unspoken rule,
right?
Like we've been told probablyour whole lives, don't take up
too much space, don't be toobig, don't be too demanding,
don't outshine the people you'rehelping.
I've worked with clients who hada major problem with me because
of the work I was doing outsideof my client work.
(09:12):
Hell, I remember I was evenoffered a job and I've done an
episode about it.
You can go back and listen toit.
It's, I think it was January of2023.
But I was offered a job as anexecutive coach.
And when I said I was going tokeep my podcast and still do my
speaking engagements, becauselike literally that was the only
thing I wanted to do.
They were not in conflict withthe job itself.
I confirmed that at thebeginning of the six-week-long
(09:34):
freaking interview process.
But I confirmed it.
But when push came to shove atthe end, like I was ready to
burn my whole business down forthis woman, but then she was
like, absolutely not.
You can't keep doing yourpodcast or speaking because then
you're not fully bought into myvision.
But everybody knew it was reallyabout keeping me quiet.
It was about keeping me behindthe curtain because who am I to
(09:55):
outshine the person whose nameis on the fucking building?
Meanwhile, I would have beenworking day and night to drive
people to her business, to trainher in her methodology.
We get so caught up in the egoside of it and it's ridiculous.
So instead, you know, we weshrink, we tell ourselves we're
being thoughtful or humble orstrategic or whatever.
(10:20):
And sometimes we're just afraid,especially when we're around
personalities that are reallybig and really boisterous.
We're afraid that if we stepforward, no one's gonna follow
us.
We're afraid that withoutsomeone else's name or clout to
anchor ourselves to, we're notgonna be seen as credible enough
(10:44):
on our own.
Let me tell you something, and Iwant you to hear me really
clearly.
Your brilliance, your excellenceis not borrowed.
It is not a reflection of whoyou have helped.
It's yours.
It's yours.
(11:04):
You own it.
It was born of you.
Now again, I I want toreiterate, I am not saying that
there is something wrong withworking for somebody else.
Not at all, not even a littlebit, okay?
There's nothing wrong withchoosing to support a founder or
(11:25):
a CEO or a visionary becauseleadership doesn't always look
like having your own company,right?
Sometimes leadership is in howyou show up for a mission that
isn't your own, but it's stillfully and totally aligned with
who you are.
You don't have to want thespotlight.
That's totally fine.
Not every woman wants to be theface of a brand or stand on
(11:45):
stage, but this is the hill thatI'm I'm planting a flag in.
Every woman deserves ownershipof their work, and they deserve
authority over how they show upin the work.
Do you want to be public?
Fine, don't be public.
But invisibility shouldn't bethe price of peace.
The choice has to beintentional, not expected or
assumed or inherited.
And also, you deserve to beappropriately compensated,
(12:08):
whether it's monetarily orthrough other things.
You deserve to be respectedpublicly.
And you deserve to be creditedvery clearly for the work that
is yours.
Too many women I've worked withhave told me the same story in a
number of different ways, right?
Oh, I was doing the work of aVP, but I had the title of an
assistant.
Or, you know, I was going todevelop a strategy.
(12:30):
And when it came time to talkabout it, like I wasn't even
included in the decision-makingprocess.
Or, you know, they called me theright hand, but a lot of the
time I was just an afterthought.
Like I will never forget Iworked for a private design firm
in Europe, and I was given theopportunity to spearhead an
entire new division that I hadthought of, like I had come up
with it as a way to diversifythe market share.
(12:53):
And so I built this entiredivision with my own hands from
the ground up, right?
I hired the people, brought themin, put them in the right place,
marketed everything.
And within six months of goingto market, we grossed over 1
million pounds sterling.
When I tell you that is fuckingamazing, it's fucking amazing.
And yes, I'm going to sit hereand toot my own goddamn horn for
(13:14):
a second.
And so we took the idea back tothe founders because this was
like a trial run, right?
They they gave us the leeway torun this as a trial.
And so I brought it back to thefounders and I was like, all
right, let's bring this into thebusiness as a full-time thing.
And they were like, absolutely.
And guess who got made executivedirector of this division?
Not me.
I was thrown back into thetrenches to do more work because
(13:37):
I was more valuable there.
There you go.
And the division is still there,it's still making money.
But my name, nowhere in thehistory books, not even a
friggin' footnote.
But I stayed.
Despite that huge slap in theface, I stayed.
(13:57):
And it wasn't because I didn'tknow better, but I truly
believed eventually my hard workwould pay off.
Maybe that wasn't enough.
Maybe I need to work harder.
And then somebody will noticeand somebody will finally say,
Oh my God, she's the reason allof this works.
Like, yeah, there were instancesin my past where, you know,
people did say that, you know,hey, you you're the reason this
(14:19):
works.
But more often than not, theydidn't.
And my entire career is riddledwith examples like this because
people don't change theirnarrative unless you force them
to.
And I know there are a lot ofpeople listening today who have
very similar experiences.
So forcing that narrative changemeans stepping out of the role
(14:40):
that keeps you small, even ifyou're really, really good at
it.
Especially if you're really,really good at it.
We've been taught, I guess, thatasking for recognition is
somehow vanity, that needingyour name on something makes you
selfish, that it's full of ego,that you know, your if your
(15:02):
motives were pure, you wouldn'tcare about the credit.
Who benefits from that belief?
Certainly not the women doingthe work.
Wanting your contributionsrecognized is not ego.
Wanting to be listened to is notego.
It's about being visible in thespaces that you helped create
(15:22):
and build.
It's about showing up for yourown success, not just enabling
success for other people.
If you're writing a strategy,why aren't you speaking about
it?
If you're driving outcomes, whyaren't you part of their
leadership team?
If you're shaping vision, whyare you still sitting in the
back?
Recognition is not a fuckingtrophy and it's not a fucking
(15:42):
reward.
It's people deferring to yourjudgment because they recognize
your excellence.
And you know what?
Maybe that looks like being inthose decision-making rooms,
being compensated, proportionateto your contribution.
Maybe it's people acknowledgingthe work that you helped create.
It all starts with one reallyconsistent act of
(16:03):
self-leadership.
And I want you to hear this.
Start naming what is true.
Do not soften it, do notminimize it, don't package it
for palatability.
I when you say I led thatproject, you are not bragging.
You are documenting fact.
When you say this idea came frommy research, you are not being
arrogant, you are beingaccurate.
(16:25):
It is clarity, and claritycommands respect.
You do not need to be aggressiveabout it.
You don't need to shout atpeople, but you do need to take
ownership.
Because if people only see youas a support, they're only ever
going to treat you as a resourceand never the actual source of
the excellence.
(16:46):
Now, part of this is reclaimingthe power that you, I mean,
inherently have, but has leakedout over the years.
And you reclaim that power byholding better boundaries before
you get to the breaking point,you know?
You start saying things like I'mno longer available for roles
that depend on me staying small.
It's it's a decision, aconscious, intentional decision
(17:09):
you make to stop being theWizard of Oz behind the curtain
and assuming that everyone andeverything will just keep
running.
I want you to start askingyourself, what am I building?
Who sees me clearly?
Where is my name going to be inthe legacy that I'm hoping to
leave?
So those boundaries, let's talkabout those boundaries.
I know a lot of people think theboundaries are walls or
(17:30):
barriers.
They're not.
They're not there to keep peopleout.
They're actually filters.
They show you exactly whorespects your time and your
talent.
And in a lot of cases, just yourhumanity.
They're educational tools.
They teach people how to engagewith you.
So I want you to get somepractice in starting
(17:51):
communicating your boundariesout loud.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm notavailable for actually, no,
nope, nope.
I wouldn't even say I'm sorry.
I'm gonna take that back.
Communicate your boundaries likeI'm not available for that
last-minute turnaround.
My strategic input should becredited.
My role includes decision-makingauthority, not just execution.
Yes, I'm happy to contribute tothis project, but I need my work
(18:14):
attributed.
And my absolute favorite.
I'm not gonna stay late unlessI'm compensated for it.
Because how many times have westayed late and not been
compensated for it?
And now when you start settingboundaries, it's gonna shift the
dynamic to the point wherepeople start getting
uncomfortable because you havestopped overgiving and they're
gonna notice when you stopsaying yes to things.
(18:36):
They're gonna start pushing backbecause that's what happens,
right?
Because they realize that accessthat they've had a free-for-all
to, it's no longer available.
Fucking let them.
That discomfort is not a signthat you're doing something
wrong.
That's exactly the point of theboundaries.
The people who truly value youare not gonna be threatened by
(18:56):
them.
Whether they are new boundariesor boundaries that are old
boundaries and you're juststarting to reinforce or enforce
them at all.
Some people will respect themand they'll adjust and they'll
meet you where you are.
And then the ones who arethreatened, well, now you know
who was never really on yourside to begin with.
And it's always the people whoare benefiting from stepping
over you.
A lot of the time when womenstart implementing changes like
(19:18):
this, one of the big fears thatcomes up is uh, oh, people are
gonna think that I've changed.
And my answer to that is alwaysthe same.
You have changed.
That is the fucking point.
You are not the same personwho's gonna say yes to
everything out of obligation.
You are not the same personwho's gonna confuse helping with
belonging.
You are not the same personwho's gonna who believes that
(19:40):
being indispensable means beingvalued.
Change is the outcome ofawareness.
And once you make people aware,things will start to change.
Once you see the system that youhave been maintaining through
sweat equity, you can't unseeit.
The goal is not to stop servingothers, it's to stop centering
(20:03):
them.
So you can still collaborate,you can still contribute, you
can still support, but you do itfrom a position of power.
You do it from a position ofleverage.
So, how do we do this inpractice?
All right, well, the first thingyou do is you start naming your
impact.
So, like I said earlier, andthen I got sidetracked, document
(20:26):
it, write it down, track it,speak it out loud, keep a record
of what you do and the resultsyou create and how your presence
changes things.
That's not ego, it's data, anddata becomes leverage.
When people say, like, wecouldn't have done this without
you, I want you to start askingthem, really, so how are we
(20:49):
showing that in my title?
How are we showing that in mypay?
How are we showing that in mydecision-making authority?
That's what I want you to do.
So start tracking it, write itdown, name your impact, give it
words.
The second thing I want you todo, redefine what visibility
actually means.
Okay?
We have taken it to meanperformance.
Being on social media, being outthere, that's not visibility.
(21:11):
Visibility means being known forsomething very specific.
So decide what it is that youdo, what you want to be known
for.
Maybe it's how discerning youare, maybe it's your strategic
mind, maybe it's how well youlead under pressure.
I don't care.
It doesn't matter.
I mean it does matter, but youknow what I mean.
Whatever it is, figure it outand then communicate that
clearly and consistently.
(21:32):
Okay?
Clearly, consistently.
That's what we're going for.
Credibility, not spectacle.
And then number three, I wantyou to restructure the power
dynamic as a whole.
I want you to stop acceptingthank you as a substitute for
influence and your ability toinfluence.
Yeah, there are always going tobe certain occasions where thank
(21:54):
you is appropriate and enough,but you'll know when it's not.
You know, if you're alreadyoperating at higher levels, then
I want you to start asking forauthority that matches that.
Yeah, you might have torenegotiate your role or your
title or your decision rights oryour boundaries or your pay.
Isn't it time you took yourrightful seat at the table you
fucking helped build?
And then finally, I want you todiversify who gets your energy.
(22:17):
This is really, reallyimportant, okay?
If all of your time and yourbrilliance and your emotional
labor go to one team or oneperson or one organization,
you're building dependency, notjust for them, but for you.
And that is not leadership, thatis not agency, that is not
choice.
Start looking for opportunitiesto mentor elsewhere.
(22:38):
Look for opportunities to speakon panels, look for
opportunities to collaboratewith peers.
Start your own initiative, rightin your industry, in your niche,
in your field, whatever.
When your contributions arespread across spaces, that's how
your authority multiplies.
That's how your brilliance is nolonger contained in one person
or team or organization.
(22:59):
So, what do I want this to leadto?
What am I no longer availablefor?
Where do I need to be seen andrespected?
Because that's the differencebetween being a backbone and
being a builder.
At some point, you're going toreach a line, okay?
And you're going to realize thatthe version of the life that
you're living right now is waytoo small for the woman you've
become.
When that happens, you have twooptions.
(23:22):
You stay and you keep givingyour brilliance away, or you
leave with a plan.
A real exit strategy is notreactive.
It's not like throwing yourpapers in the air, you know,
fuck this, I'm out.
You're not kicking over desks.
No, it's thoughtful.
And we've talked about what thatlooks like.
And what I know is thateventually every woman who's
(23:42):
been the backbone reaches apoint of choice.
Do I continue holding upstructures that don't hold me,
or do I build my own?
Like at the end of the day, theform doesn't actually even
matter.
The agency does.
You can build something foryourself inside the system or
(24:03):
outside the system.
It doesn't matter.
Either way, it's time to stopliving in the belief one day
someone else will give youpermission to be an authority.
You've always been a leader.
Now it's just time to make thatleadership visible.
First to yourself, then toeverybody else.
(24:24):
But whatever it looks like, itstarts the minute you decide
that you're no longer availableto just be the backbone.
You're not an option.
You're not support.
You're the reason it works atall.
We spend our one life makingsomeone else's dreams come true.
It's time for you to own yourvoice.
It's time for you to own yourvision, your authority, your
(24:45):
desire to be recognized, yourambition.
It's time to refuse to stayquiet about it anymore.
Oh, you know, and before youstart second-guessing yourself,
let me just say this.
You don't need to prove yourselfone more time in order to do any
of this.
You don't need anothercertification or another degree
or another year of experience.
You already fucking proven it.
You've been proving it foryears.
(25:06):
The proof is in every late nightyou spent at the office, or
every morning you woke upearlier, every every time you
were in bed with your phoneanswering emails or whatever,
every crisis you solved, everyproject you saved, every person
you made look brilliant.
So now go and start collectingthe credit for it.
Go collect the compensation, theauthority, the recognition, all
(25:29):
of the shit that you've alreadyearned 10 times over.
And if you want help, this iswhere we need to talk.
Sign up for the strategicfreedom snapshot.
The link is in the show notes,but it's a 90-minute session
where we map out where you'vebeen operating from obligation,
where your value is no longerreflected, and what needs to
(25:51):
structurally shift, notemotionally, it's not mindset
work.
What needs to structurally shiftso that your brilliance starts
working for you, not justthrough you.
When we make a plan so that youstop waiting for permission, you
stop hoping to be seen, you geta clear and grounded strategy
that honors where you are todayand what you're looking to do
next.
(26:11):
Or go relisten to this podcast,write down those five points
that I made, and start doingthem.
I want you to prove to yourself,most of all, that you're ready
for what comes next.
And this is exactly what successwithout all that BS actually
means.
I'll talk to you next week.
(26:34):
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the
meantime, help us sister out bysubscribing, and if you're
feeling extra sensory ratingthis podcast.
And don't forget to share thepodcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblastfamypodcast.com to
connect to this and learn more.
Thanks for listening.
And remember, you can havesuccess without the end.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.