Hey Reader! 👋

This week I learned I've been doing it ALL WRONG.

I'm talking about my stubborn, Gen X internal narrative that I should do it all myself and not ask for help.

It turns out my website structure was not optimized for AI, which cut me out of AI search results. OUCH!!!

Talk about professional suicide. I'm doing all of this incredible work and trying to connect with the people I can best serve, and it turns out I'm walled off from them.

So I asked AI for help. Forty hours later, I have a new website that is not only more up to date with my current work but also more user- and AI-friendly.

Reader, now I am asking you for help, too. I need you to look at my website in the next 48 hours, so Google recognizes that I've made big changes and caches the new updates instead of keeping its cached copies of my old site. It only requires a few minutes: go take a look at my website.

And if you see any issues or have feedback to share, I'd really appreciate it.

In this week's episode of The Story I'm Telling Myself Podcast with Rita Ernst, my guest and I reclaimed the term "professional suicide." We see it as a positive thing because it’s about strategically killing off the old version of your professional self to make room for the life you actually want to live. By no longer holding onto the 'grind, rinse, repeat' story of professional success, we make space for harmony and well-being.

Here's a summary:

Have you ever felt like your career identity was a noose rather than a safety net? Like the very “hyper-responsiveness” and “grind” that got you to the top are now the things keeping you from your life?

In the latest episode of The Story I’m Telling Myself Podcast, host Rita Ernst sits down with Tiffany Ramos Cardwell, a seasoned HR leader with over 30 years of experience, to discuss a radical concept: committing professional suicide. But this isn’t about ending your career; it’s about strategically killing off the old version of your professional self to make room for the life you actually want to live.

Navigating the “Messy Middle”

Tiffany’s journey began three years ago when her father suffered a stroke. As she stepped into the role of caregiver while simultaneously launching her own consulting firm, Simply Cardwell Group Inc., she hit what Rita calls the “messy middle”. It’s that terrifying space filled with doubt, anxiety, and the flashing lightning of a life in transition.

Tiffany admits she was “stressed to the max” and feared that if she didn’t show up at 110%—if she wasn’t “always on”—she was committing professional suicide. She worried, “Who is ever going to want to hire me?”

From the Grind to the Harvest

The breakthrough came when they redefined what it means to be a “professional.” Rita offers a powerful Apple Tree Analogy: After 25 years of building deep roots and nourishing your career, you are a strong, established tree. You don’t need to generate the same frantic energy you did two decades ago. You are now in a season of The Harvest, where the fruit is accessible, and all you have to do is reach up and pluck it.

They also discussed the Emotional Bank Account. For years, Tiffany made constant deposits of relationship capital into her community. When life hit a storm, she had to learn it was okay to “spend down” that capital—to make withdrawals without guilt, knowing her account balance was high enough that people were happy to meet her in her time of need.

Your Action Plan: How to Reclaim Your Life

If you are ready to stop surviving the storm and start building your own version of success, here are the recommended steps from the episode:

1. Trust Your History: Believe in the value of the decades of “reassurance” and expertise you bring to the table. Your history is your currency.
2. Financial Planning: If you are transitioning to consulting or entrepreneurship, “plan, plan, plan.” Creative freedom requires a solid financial foundation.
3. Audit Your Relationships: Be intentional. Focus on the relationships that bring you actual joy rather than just “networking” for the sake of it.
4. Accept (and Ask for) Help: For driven women, this is the hardest step. Recognize that you can get it all done, but ask yourself: at what cost?.
5. Set “Emeritus” Boundaries: You don’t always have to be on the board or the committee. Give yourself permission to be a mentor or an advisor—delivering high impact in smaller, more selective doses.
6. Define Your Own “Success”: Stop chasing “Olympic” or “iconic” standards set by corporate conventions. You don’t need a flashy website to be successful; you need projects that are impactful and meaningful to you.
7. Knife the Internal Thoughts: Commit “suicide” on the specific stories holding you back—the ones that say you aren’t enough if you aren’t grinding.

Ready to evolve? Stop dragging around the old identities that make you miserable. Give yourself permission to step into the free space of building exactly what you want.

​You can catch the whole conversation here or starting tomorrow on your favorite podcast platform.

The journal has a new name: TSITM Episode Activation Guide and this one is SOO GOOD: ​​TSITM Ep65 journal.pdf​

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Enjoy & share this with a friend!

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