She had the glass-fronted office. The company car. The fresh flowers on her desk. She was proud of what she had built — and she was quietly falling apart.

In this episode, executive leadership coach Rachael Edmondson-Clarke takes us back to the moment she collapsed on her office floor — not because she had stopped caring, but because she had cared too much, for too long, inside a system that had quietly made her the place where everything landed.

This is not a burnout recovery story. It is a story about what happens before the collapse. About the years of reframing. The responsibility that was never formally assigned. The moment her CEO looked at her across a table and said: it wasn't you. The system let you down.

Rachael is the founder of ellevar and an executive coach working with CEOs and senior leaders across global organizations. She brings neuroscience, biology, and hard-won personal experience to the conversation about what sustainable high performance actually means — and what it is not.

In this episode you will hear:

• Why the traits that make a leader valuable are the same traits that make them a target for invisible responsibility
• What the Trust Tax cascade looks like from the inside — and why the most dangerous stage looks exactly like hard work
• How the biology of leadership determines whether you can actually show up at your best — not as a wellness concept, but as a structural one
• What a CEO said to Rachael that reframed everything — and why more leaders need to hear it
• The one thing high performers are doing this week that makes it worse

If you are still delivering, still the one everyone calls, and something is quietly wrong that you cannot name — this episode is for you.

ABOUT RACHAEL EDMONDSON-CLARKE

Rachael Edmondson-Clarke is the founder of ellevar and an executive leadership coach working with CEOs, senior leaders, and high-performing teams across global organizations. Her work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, biology, and leadership — helping people think clearly, handle pressure well, and lead in a way that works for their performance, their health, and the people around them.

Rachael's philosophy is simple: leadership shouldn't cost you your energy, your confidence, or your peace of mind. There is a better way to perform — and still feel like yourself.

• Website: https://www.ellevar.co.uk
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaeledmondsonclarke/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachaeledmondsonclarke/

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

If tonight you cannot turn your brain off — this is for you:

Reset Tonight™ — Free 7-Minute Containment Tool for Leaders

Your brain is not anxious. It is running an ownership audit. This tool interrupts that loop in under 90 seconds so you can sleep tonight without pretending the work is finished.

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Ready to name what you are actually carrying?

The Trust Tax Diagnostic — Free, 5 Minutes, Immediate Result

Find out your load score, your cascade stage, and the exact language to introduce the structural question in your organization.

https://unceilingzone.com/trust_tax_diagnostic-page

Ready to go deeper?

The Responsibility Reset Notebook — $17

The structured tool for sorting what is genuinely yours, what is shared, and what was never yours to carry in the first place.

https://unceilingzone.com/rrnotebook

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Corporate burnout doesn't happen because someone can't handle pressure — it happens when invisible work quietly piles up with no name, no end date, and no one tracking it. In this episode, Natalie sits down with Renee Carbone Fleming, who makes the case for visibility, ownership, and showing up boldly at work — and the conversation becomes something bigger: how to tell the difference between the kind of stepping-up that builds a career and the kind that just feeds corporate burnout from the inside.

Renee's framework is built around a simple, four-word permission slip: watch me. It's a call to stop waiting to be picked, stop shrinking your visibility, and start claiming your work out loud. Natalie agrees — and then draws a hard line through it: not every "yes" is the same yes. Some stretch work has your name on it. Some of it is just corporate burnout in disguise, dressed up as opportunity.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why corporate burnout is rarely about individual resilience — and what Christina Maslach's research actually says causes it
• Renee's "Watch Me" framework for building visibility and ownership at work
• The difference between claimed stretch work (it has your name on it, it has an endpoint) and unclaimed load — what Natalie calls the Trust Tax — that quietly drives corporate burnout even in high performers
• A real story of a leader who beat corporate burnout not by doing less, but by building something that gave her energy back
• A two-question test you can run on any "yes" before you say it

Featured guest: Renee Carbone Fleming

Resources mentioned:

• Free Trust Tax Diagnostic — get your load score and find out which stage of corporate burnout you're actually in: [Click Here]
• Related episode: Natalie and Nicole Johnston break down how corporate burnout that doesn't always look like burnout: [Click Here]
• Related episode: Natalie and Jennifer talks about doing the thing that fuels you: [Click Here]

Connect:

• Follow UnCeiling You for more on corporate burnout, career ownership, and building work that's actually yours
• Building Your System with Renee
• Natalie's LinkedIn

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Most high-performing women aren't underperforming — they're over-delivering, and the corporation has quietly learned to depend on it. In this episode, Natalie Luke sits down with Nicole Johnston — a 30-year corporate veteran of P&G, Hershey, and Kimberly-Clark, founder of innatePOWER, TEDx speaker, and author of Taboo Topics: Things Women Should Talk About, But Don't — to name the exact mechanism that keeps capable women labeled as the "pro in place" instead of "ready for more."

This conversation covers the corporate burnout that doesn't look like burnout — the kind that hides behind strong performance reviews, a packed calendar, and a reputation for getting it done. Nicole and Natalie unpack the emotional labor tax, the mental load gap, why self-promotion feels impossible (and why it's necessary anyway), the real difference between a coach, a mentor, and a sponsor, and the one calendar shift that changes everything.

If you've ever wondered why doing excellent work hasn't translated into the next role — this episode names exactly what's been missing.

What You'll Learn

• Why strong performance and being seen as "ready for more" are two completely different things inside a corporation
• The behind-the-scenes labor that keeps teams running — and why none of it gets you promoted
• The "high performer tax": how being capable leads to more being added to your plate until burnout becomes the cycle
• The real difference between a coach, a mentor, and a sponsor — and why most women have never built the third one
• How to protect your calendar like Nicole did as a corporate sales leader — "be the barbarian at the gate"
• The mental load gap: why women carry roughly 520 additional unpaid hours a year on top of full-time work
• What Nicole's new book Taboo Topics covers — including the compensation chapter most women have never been taught

Memorable Quotes

Resources Mentioned

📚 Taboo Topics: Things Women Should Talk About, But Don't — Nicole Johnston

🔗 Nicole Johnston / innatePOWER — https://www.innate-power.com/

📊 Free Trust Tax Diagnostic — unceilingzone.com/trust_tax_diagnostic-page

📓 Responsibility Reset Notebook ($17) — unceilingzone.com/rrnotebook

🎙️ Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn

About UnCeiling You

UnCeiling You is a podcast for high-performing corporate women navigating leadership without burnout. Hosted by Natalie Luke, PhD, BCMAS — founder of UnCeiling You and creator of the Trust Tax framework. New episodes explore the invisible patterns that hold capable people back, and what it actually takes to redesign them.

🔗 unceilingzone.com

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