Episode #444 – Why Highly Competent Women Still Feel Overwhelmed (And What I Built to Help)

This is Episode 444 of the Brilliant Balance podcast: Why Highly Competent Women Still Feel Overwhelmed and What I Built to Help.

I’m so glad you’re here today for what is a pretty exciting episode of this show, if I’m being honest. I want to open it by telling you a little story about a morning that I still think about sometimes. I probably think about this morning more often than you can imagine because, when I look back on it, it was such a pivot point in my life.

It was during my life as an entrepreneur, a few years after I had left my corporate career. I was sitting at my kitchen table. I had been there all morning—I don’t even know how long—reading blog posts and articles, trying to figure out something I had never done before: how to build a program around the coaching work I had been doing.

Up until that time, I had been largely coaching clients one-on-one, and I was trying to figure out how to pull that into some kind of framework or program—and then actually get it in front of people who needed it. At that time, most of my clients were second-degree connections—friends of friends or colleagues who had been referred to me. I had a blog, which was starting to get the word out a little bit, but I didn’t have a great way to reach more people.

I had read so much at that point that my eyes were ready to bleed. I had done a lot of homework. I had notebooks full of ideas, concepts, and highlighted passages. But what I did not have was any idea how to turn that into a tangible plan of action—a series of steps that would get me where I wanted to go.

I remember feeling so frustrated and defeated. That’s not a feeling I spend a lot of time in. I’m a “figure it out” person. When something is hard for me, I don’t shut down—I gear up. I research. I prepare. I don’t usually stay stuck for long. But I was really stuck.

That season of my life was also a lot. We were in the middle of looking for a new house. My husband was navigating a significant job change. We had three young kids. And on top of all that, I was trying to build something from scratch that I had never done before—on a timeline I had set myself (so of course it was too fast) and with knowledge I didn’t yet have.

I didn’t have a clear path forward.

So I did what I probably should have done sooner: I reached out to a woman I had heard about online named Trina. I asked, “Do you know how to do this? Do you know anyone who could help me?” I really wanted to hire her because I had heard she had done this kind of work for well-known people online.

She responded quickly and said, “I do know how, but I’m not doing that anymore.”

I was crushed.

But she added, “I know two guys who do, and I think they’d be a great fit for you.”

I went to their website and honestly thought, “I’m not sure these people are for me.” But there was a scheduling button—an online scheduler. At that point in my life, I had never used one before. This was early 2016, and it genuinely felt like new technology. I felt very sophisticated clicking that button.

I found a time—they could meet the same day. I took my laptop outside to the patio, sat under an umbrella, and got on a call with a man I had never spoken to before. I told him what I was trying to do.

He asked me my financial goal. I told him, and it felt huge to me. I thought he might laugh.

Instead, he said, “Okay, cool. Then what?”

I was completely caught off guard. I had just shared a goal I was struggling to even approach, and he was already asking what came next. To him, it wasn’t a stretch goal. He had seen it before.

I had all this knowledge. I had done marketing at P&G for 15 years. I had an MBA. I knew how to run a business. I had notebooks full of ideas.

But I didn’t have a map.

They did.

I left that conversation feeling so much better. For the first time, what I wanted felt possible—and someone knew how to get me there.

Today, I want to give you something like that. I want to give you your version of that moment.

Because I now see patterns in women who are, by every external measure, incredibly competent. You’ve built meaningful careers. You show up for your families in ways that would exhaust most people. You’re organized, capable, responsible—you’ve figured out very hard things.

And yet, life still feels like a lot.

Not in a chaotic, falling-apart way—but in a constant, low-grade pressure kind of way. Too many decisions. Too many moving parts. Too many things in your head at once, with nowhere to put them down.

You’ve tried to be more efficient, more organized, more disciplined. You’ve read the articles. You’ve listened to the podcasts.

But you still don’t know how to get from here to there.

You’ve exhausted everything you already know how to do. And because pushing harder works—at least temporarily—you keep trying. But it works a little less each time.

Here’s what’s actually going on:

You are not struggling because you’re not capable.

You’re struggling because you’re managing a life that has reached peak complexity with an operating system designed for a much simpler season.

At first, it’s just you—you can handle everything. Then you add a partner. Then more responsibilities. Then kids, a bigger career, a bigger life.

Everything scales—except the way you operate.

No one teaches you how to upgrade.

Eventually, you reach what I call “the peak”—the point of maximum complexity. Everything feels important at once. The demands are coming from every direction.

And you keep adding, because adding is what you’ve always done.

Until it’s not sustainable.

Too often, instead of solving the problem, we normalize it. We commiserate. We say, “It is what it is. I’m just tired all the time.”

But the real question is: What are you going to do about it?

You can hear great ideas—on this podcast or anywhere else—and understand them intellectually. But insight doesn’t automatically become action.

That’s the gap.

And that gap is where so many capable women get stuck.

That’s where I was that morning on the patio. I had the knowledge, but not the application. I needed structure. I needed support. I needed a process—and accountability.

That’s why I built what I’m introducing today: The Coaching Circle.

For the past 15 years, I’ve worked with women one-on-one or in small, high-touch group programs. The results have been incredible—but those formats aren’t accessible to everyone.

So I went back through everything I’ve taught and distilled it into nine core practices. When you truly learn and apply them, they give you the tools to handle almost anything life throws at you.

It’s not about one practice per problem. It’s about learning how to combine them.

Like in The Sound of Music: “When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything.”

That’s what these practices are.

In the Coaching Circle, each month you’ll learn one practice through a live masterclass. Then you’ll apply it in your real life. A couple of weeks later, we’ll come back together for a live coaching call to talk through what happened—your wins, your challenges, and where you got stuck.

That’s where the real shift happens.

Between those sessions, you’ll be part of a private community of women navigating similar complexity. This isn’t about removing ambition or simplifying your life by shrinking it.

It’s about learning how to operate differently within the life you already have.

Because the truth is, a lot of this is structural. The demands on modern life are real. But we still have to decide how we’re going to respond.

This program is for women at the peak of life’s complexity—women who are capable, driven, and stretched thin.

Women like “Lauren”—a composite of many clients I’ve worked with. She has a demanding career, a family, responsibilities at home, and a constant tension between ambition and capacity.

If that sounds like you, hear this:

You do not have to choose between your ambition and your well-being.

You need a better operating system.

That’s what this is designed to give you.

Because when you have structure, coaching, and accountability, you can turn insight into action—and action is what changes your outcomes.

We’re not blowing up your life. We’re improving how you live it.

The first Coaching Circle masterclass is on Thursday, May 7th, and we’re starting with a critical skill: calibrating your capacity.

Understanding what your life can realistically hold—and making decisions from that clarity.

More ease. Less overwhelm.

That’s the goal.

I know what it feels like to sit with all the information in the world and still feel stuck. And I know what it feels like to finally see the path forward.

That’s what I want for you.

Not just once—but as an ongoing way of operating in your life.

Because your life will keep growing, and you deserve a way to run it that actually feels good.

That’s all for today, my friends.

Until next time, let’s be brilliant.