You’re loud about what impresses people and quiet about what you actually want

I think there are a lot of high-achieving women living two lives.

The one they’re proud to introduce to people... and the one they quietly hope becomes successful enough that they’ll finally admit it’s what they wanted all along.

The first version — the performative version — is the impressive one. The one that looks good on paper and has a long list of accomplishments and accolades that have earned her the respect and admiration of everyone around her.

The secret one — the authentic one — rarely gets introduced. She has different dreams, different desires, and a quiet urge to start over because the life she wants doesn’t quite match the one you’ve spent years building.

But before you can ever choose her, you first have to admit she exists.

But the thing is… acknowledging her means acknowledging just how much of your life has been a performance.

This is the story of what I discovered after finally paying attention to the version of myself I’d spent years trying to keep hidden.

I started working in Big 4 Consulting after I graduated from college.

At first, I was on a high — I worked in a fancy high-rise building in the city, I occasionally traveled for work, I had a wellness subsidy that paid for my facials, massages, and tech, I had an AMAZING team, and even the office culture was worth the commute.

And while I initially wasn’t too excited about taking the job (more on that later), I noticed how people would treat me once I told them that I worked in Big 4.

It was as if something clicked in their brain the moment I mentioned my career. I’d watch their eyes widen, their mouth hang open for a second, or they’d do that infamous head tilt with a slight squint, like they were suddenly looking at me through a completely different lens.

Suddenly I was someone worth respecting and taking seriously because of my career.

The sad part is, I didn't want to admit it at the time, but I liked it. I needed it, even.

You see, the reason why I wasn’t too keen on accepting the offer to work in Big 4 was because I knew I didn’t even want to work in corporate. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I’d outgrown my blogging business (which I’d later sell), and the clock had finally run out. I had to make a choice.

I quietly wrestled with that feeling of discontent as I excelled in my career, got promoted, and even as I started making six-figures.

“This is not what I want to do.”

“I have more potential than this.”

“Why can’t I just figure something out already?”

“Maybe I should just be happy where I am. It’s a lot better than where I used to be and even better than what a lot of people have. I should just be grateful.”

“But… I feel like there’s more to my life than this… there has to be.”

“This can’t be it.”

Fast forward to a little over a year into my career, God told me to start a podcast. I knew it was Him because it certainly wasn’t me. I thought I was too reserved and too private for something like that. But it was a nagging thought that wouldn’t go away. So eventually I acquiesced.

It turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. I loved it so much. It finally gave me an outlet for all the drive and passion I had dormant inside of me, waiting for something that would make me feel alive again. And it wasn’t about the podcast itself, it was the mission behind the podcast — a greater sense of purpose.

It was something I actually wanted to do… not something I settled for because it looked good on paper.

So then… why did I struggle to own it because it didn’t look good on paper?…

When I first got the idea, I first ran it by so many people to get a “temperature check” and see how they would react, or what they thought about a podcast in general. I didn’t even admit that *I* was thinking of starting one; I just threw it out there like a concept to gauge how people how people felt.

Well, no one seemed impressed or moved by the “idea…” and suddenly neither was I. At least not openly.

I was secretly obsessed with it, but publicly downplaying it like it was a hobby. It wasn’t impressive enough yet, I thought. Maybe after I grow my platforms and rank on the charts and monetize it, then I’ll really own it…

And that’s how I treated it — like a side quest. The thing I loved was barely acknowledged in public because it wasn’t impressive enough to earn the right to stand beside my career. So I'd quietly obsess over it behind closed doors, but whenever someone asked what I did, I'd talk about my impressive Finance career instead.

And that worked for a while…

Until I left Big 4.

I took a "sabbatical" after nearly three years in Big 4 because I was burned out.

Now, was I actually very burnt out from being in a chronic state of stress, dealing with manufactured urgency over never ending requests for pricing models and reports that all somehow had to be submitted “within the hour” or “by EOD” even though it was already 6:00 PM when the request came in?

ABSOLUTELY.

BUT if I’m really being honest, I framed it as a “sabbatical” because that sounded better than the reality that I really didn't want to work in Corporate America and I wanted to go all in on entrepreneurship, and I actually had a podcast that I really loved that helped women become the best version of themselves... but it wasn't on the charts yet, nor had it replaced my income.

It’s not impressive enough yet… so let’s go with “I’m on a sabbatical right now...”

That was the preview of what would later be my unravelling in 2025.

I realized that all this time, I was protecting my dream until it was impressive enough to avoid judgment. I talked more confidently about the part of my life people respected than the dream I actually cared about.

And it made me feel like I was living two lives: one for approval and validation — the performance — and one that just came naturally — the real me. The person underneath who I thought I had to be.

But that side of me stayed private because it required my vulnerabilities and imperfections to be visible, and at the time, that wasn't a risk I was willing to take.

I hadn’t figured out who I really was yet. For as long as I could remember, I’ve had expectations placed on me to excel, so that’s what I did.

I treated “success” — vanity metrics, income, accolades — as the permission I needed to finally be honest about what I was passionate about all along.

But the irony is... the permission I was waiting for those things to give me was mine to give myself all along.

If there's one thing I hope you take away from my story, it's this:

Don’t give success, accolades, and vanity metrics the power to determine when you’re finally allowed to be honest about the life you actually want. You don’t have to wait until your dream is impressive before you’re allowed to fully own it.

And don’t be hard on yourself either because it’s not your fault. You likely didn’t even realize you were doing this. How could you? Everything in your life seemed to be going great. You looked great on paper. You made all the right decisions and, for the most part, had your life together.

It makes sense why you’d keep the thing you’re most passionate about to yourself. Why you’d downplay it like it’s not really a big deal. Because it doesn’t have the external measures to validate that it is yet. And when you’ve spent your whole life deriving your worth from impressive achievements, it feels almost exposing to publicly claim something that hasn’t “made it” yet.

The things we're most passionate about usually hold our heart. They're the parts of us we're still learning to fully believe in ourselves. Sharing them isn't just putting an idea out into the world. It's letting people see the part of you that's still tender… still vulnerable.

So when people dismiss it, don’t take it seriously, or don’t see what you see, it doesn’t just feel like they’re rejecting the idea. It feels like they’re rejecting you.

And why would you willingly risk that when you can just hide behind the thing that's already earned you respect?

Why would you open yourself up and risk scrutiny when you could wait until the metrics, accolades, and success make it feel safe to share?

Why give people the opportunity to confirm a fear you were already secretly trying to overcome? Because the fear wasn’t that they wouldn’t like or support your work. It was:

“Maybe it really isn’t good enough. Maybe *I’m* not good enough. Maybe I’m just embarrassing myself.”

But maybe…

Just maybe…

Maybe this is all a part of the process.

Maybe that was the whole point — being brave enough to share your heart with the world. Learning to believe in your dream before anyone else did.

Maybe the point was never becoming more impressive, but rather, more authentic.

You may have had to perform and excel to gain approval or even survive. But it was never meant to become your identity.

Maybe the reason that desire buried so deep inside of you keeps getting louder is because it's tired of living in the shadows of the life you've built to protect yourself by being impressive.

Maybe it's tired of being introduced as the side quest while the performance gets center stage.

Maybe it's tired of waiting for permission to be acknowledged until it's finally impressive enough.

Because there comes a point where you can't keep living two lives — one for approval and validation, and one that actually feels like you. At some point, the two worlds will collide, and the woman underneath the performance will demand to be acknowledged. Not privately, where it's safe, but publicly, where it requires conviction.

The dreams you've been whispering about to yourself will eventually ask to be spoken out loud. The passions you’ve been hiding behind impressive titles will eventually refuse to remain in the background.

And the life you’ve been fantasizing about will eventually asks to be lived.

The version of you who gets to experience that reality isn’t the one who’s still trying to maintain an image. She isn’t constantly running her desires through the filter of “What will they think of me?” or “Maybe I'll just wait until it's more established before I tell people.”

She owns what she wants long before there’s enough proof for other people to understand it. She doesn’t shape-shift to preserve an image that no longer serves her. She doesn’t keep introducing herself by the life she’s trying to leave behind because it sounds better on paper than the one she’s quietly praying for.

If you keep trying to build the life you actually want while remaining loyal to the version of yourself that was built to perform, you’ll only ever get so close before you sabotage it.

Because that version of you has one job — preserve the image… Keep everything looking impressive. Protect yourself from the vulnerability of being seen before you’ve “made it” or “figured things out.” And as long as she’s in charge, she’ll always convince you to stay with what’s validated over what’s aligned.

And maybe that’s why, despite everything you’ve accomplished, that knowing in your heart has never gone away. It wasn’t asking for another achievement, another promotion, or another accolade. It was asking you to finally become the woman who’s willing to fully own what she wants, even before anyone else understands it.

Because in the end, you really only have two options: continue becoming more impressive by everyone else’s standards while quietly failing by your own... or become the woman you’ve secretly wanted to be all along.

If you decide to become her, Become You 2.0 is how you close that gap.

It’s for you if you’ve ever caught yourself downplaying what you really want because it isn’t impressive enough yet, or waiting for success to give you permission to finally own it.

Inside, we work on the deeper conditioning that makes achievement, approval, and other people’s perception feel like prerequisites for owning what you actually want. You’ll learn how to stop performing that impressive version of you that earns approval and start making decisions that align with the life you actually want.

Enroll in Become You 2.0