You’ve been called superwoman. Reliable. The one who handles it. But that cape you’re wearing? Is hiding your exhaustion, your resentment, and the quiet math you’re doing about how long you can keep this up. Today, I’m naming the wardrobe of capes ambitious women collect, the research showing this labor is literally making us sick, and how to transform the cape into something that actually serves you.
The cape isn’t just a metaphor — it’s costing us our health. I’ll walk you through the UN Women data showing women perform three times more unpaid care work globally (11 billion hours daily), and the 2024 research proving cognitive labor is associated with depression, stress, burnout, and reduced mental health.
My cape collection — from elementary school to corporate to burnout. I’ll share being the kid other kids confided in, the colleague who closed her office door to listen while still hitting her numbers, and what happened when I was drowning in 2019 while everyone thought I was fine.
How to transform the cape instead of burning it. I’ll teach you the three-part framework: take it off and keep it as evidence, pass it on by letting capable people be capable, and recycle it into boundaries that actually serve you.
The women I work with inside Pretty Damn Ambitious are putting down the cape. Letting capable people be capable. Building lives that don’t require them to perform their own drowning.
If you’re tired of being the default solution, tired of saying “I’ve got it” when you don’t, tired of carrying weight that was never yours alone, I’d love to work with you.
This is the exact assessment I used to increase my 2025 revenue by 39%, and the same one women inside Pretty Damn Ambitious use to identify their next breakthrough.
The gap between who you are and who you’re becoming? It’s costing you. Get your baseline score across identity, revenue, sovereignty, and capacity. Stop guessing where to focus. Start knowing.
Instant results. Zero cost.
UN Women (2023): Women perform three times more unpaid care and domestic work than men globally — 11 billion hours collectively per day.
Daminger, A. “The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor” (2019), American Sociological Review
Aviv et al. “Cognitive Household Labor: Gender Disparities and Consequences for Maternal Mental Health” (2024), Archives of Women’s Mental Health
McKinsey & LeanIn.Org Women in the Workplace Report (2025)
Book
Rodsky, Eve. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019.
Know a woman who needs to hear this? Text them this episode. The one who is always “fine.” The one who handles everything. The one who hasn’t asked for help in years. She needs this. When one woman takes off the cape, she models a different way forward for every woman watching.
Subscribe to the newsletter: Join 33K driven professionals redefining ambition with sharp strategies and insights to scale your life and business to achieve aligned success with joyful ambition.
You just put down the cape. Now comes the harder question: Who’s been making decisions about your life while you were busy carrying everything?
Not the obvious ones. The quiet ones. The voices you didn’t even realize you were consulting. The approval you’ve been waiting for that was never coming.
You might not like what you find.
Episode 12 — drops next Tuesday.
Where are you wearing the cape this week? What happens when you imagine taking it off? Drop me a DM:
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.