Episode 8: The System Isn't Built For Us

EPISODE 8

The System Isn't Built For Us

Radical Recentring with Nonie White

This is Radical Recentring with me, Nonie White. The show for ambitious women who are done pushing, proving and performing, and who are ready to build something unshakeable from who they are at their authentic best. If you're at an inflection point, ready for your next level of success, personal power and impact, and you want to do it differently, you're in the right place. Let's go.

If you've been feeling like you're wading through treacle or you're constantly swimming upstream, like no matter how hard you try you can't make it work, and being successful requires that you completely sacrifice yourself, I want you to hear something. You're not alone and you're not failing. It's the system that you're working in that's failing you.

The system wasn't designed for us. Let's be brutally honest. We're operating in a system, in a model of leadership and success, that was designed for men decades ago. And it makes assumptions that don't match our reality. It assumes that work is your everything and you can be constantly on, and that someone else is going to handle absolutely everything else. The home, the children, the caring, the emotional labour, the life admin, the constant mental load. Someone else is dealing with that because you've got work to do.

Now for many leaders and entrepreneurs, especially women, this just isn't our reality. I co-authored a Forbes-featured report last year in which we spoke to nearly 250 female entrepreneurs. It was called The True Cost of Female Entrepreneurship. It looked at how operating in today's ecosystem impacts us psychologically and in terms of our performance and our results.

The findings weren't really surprising, but it didn't make them any less distressing. 83% of women reported high stress levels. 78% said they had constant worry or anxiety, and over half, 54%, had experienced burnout. The individuals suffered, and so did their work.

But our research also revealed something else very exciting. There were a group of women amongst the women that we interviewed who were experiencing exactly the same systemic pressures, and yet somehow they were flourishing both personally and professionally. In positive psychology, we call these people positive deviants, and we look at what they're doing differently to everyone else. Now these women weren't immune to the challenges, but they were navigating them very differently.

When you find it hard operating in today's ecosystem, this isn't a personal failing, it's a systemic outcome. The system is stacked against you and the struggle is real. You're not alone in it. We all experience it. And there's a path through. Your self-knowledge and your authentic edge is still yours, no matter what system you're operating in. And that's where your real leverage is.

The invisible load. There's a load that we all carry that's completely invisible in traditional models of success. It's the mental load. Women are responsible for up to 75% of the domestic and caring responsibilities. Remembering everything, anticipating needs, planning ahead, the emotional labour, managing relationships, supporting others, holding space, the care responsibilities, children, parents, partners, friends. All the lists to try and keep everything in your head and not drop balls, or not drop too many balls. We have several full time, seriously important jobs. People depend on us. And none of this shows up in our business strategy. None of it's accounted for in the models that we're supposed to follow. You can't optimise your way out of a structural problem. You can't productivity hack your way to sustainability when the system within which you're working is the issue.

So what we tend to do is internalise this and say to ourselves, I should be able to handle this. Others seem fine. They seem to be managing. Maybe it's just me. I'm rubbish. I'm just not cut out for this. But the problem isn't your capacity. It's the model that you're trying to fit.

What this costs. When you try to succeed within a system that wasn't built for you, it comes at a cost. You over function to compensate. You sacrifice your wellbeing and the rest of your life to keep up. You feel guilty. Guilty at work for not doing enough. Guilty at home for not being present enough because you're thinking about work. Guilty everywhere.

One of my clients, let's call her Cassie, is a solo founder building a climate tech startup. Hardware, male dominated industry, no co-founder, no safety net. She's always been a super high achiever. She came to me running on constant action and execution. She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a full week off. She had exceptional standards for herself and everyone around her. And she thought she was dimming her light to make other people comfortable. She told me, people are just like, yeah, you're so strong, you're so strong. I'm just kind of like, I don't want to be strong sometimes. I'm just so tired.

She was doing everything that the system asks of founders, pushing through illness, hustling harder, chasing validation, trying to fit herself into a model of entrepreneurship that was never designed for her. The cost was her energy, her health, her relationships, her sense of self. She was miserable when she came to me.

The radical move. The answer isn't to push harder within a broken model. The answer is to reject the model and build your own model that enables you to flourish. This is Stage 5 of the Unshakeable Method, expression. Designing your life, work and leadership around who you truly are and what you need to thrive.

Cassie came to realise she wanted to live and work differently. She wanted to access who she truly was and lead from a really authentic place. Cassie's turning point came at a pitch competition in Lisbon. She was supposed to deliver a polished investor pitch. Instead, she stood up and she said, I'm freaking tired of fitting in as a woman, a founder and a technical person. So today I'm just speaking to you as me. She realised that was the moment that she stopped performing for the system and she started building from herself at her best instead. She got crystal clear on her values and she started trusting and leading from her own instincts. When she was ill, she took a full week off without guilt for the first time in years. She started investing time and energy in her wellbeing and found that she flourished in her work as a result, as well as feeling happier. As she crafted her life and work to work better for herself, she found that she was magnetising the people, the help and the resources that she needed to her. She was approached by a fantastic mentor. Her prototype got built and tested. Her data confirmed her theory works. And now she's raising her angel round, not by pushing harder, but by leading as herself. She told me, I brought my most authentic self into the picture and the whole picture changed just because of that.

The women I work with who are genuinely thriving, they've stopped trying to fit themselves into systems that weren't designed for them. They've gone against the grain and they've built their own operating systems, ones that work for their life, not against it.

Cassie stopped performing for a system that was never designed for her and started building from her true self instead. This is Stage 5 of the Unshakeable Method, my four month one-to-one coaching programme. If you're ready to stop fitting in and start building something that actually works for your life, the link to find out more about working with me is in the show notes.

So here's my question. What rules are you following that weren't designed for you? What would change if you gave yourself permission to live and work in a way that truly supported you to be and do your best?

In the next episode, we're getting practical. How to design success that works for your life, not against it.

I'm Nonie White. This is Radical Recentring, and I'll see you next time.

Thank you for being here. If today's episode resonated with you, check out the Leadership Identity Quiz. The link is in the show notes. It's free, takes two minutes, has 10 questions, and it will show you exactly how you're leading yourself and others now, as well as which patterns might be stopping you from reaching your next level of success. And if you know you're ready to do this work, there's a link to find out more about the Unshakeable Method, my four-month one-to-one coaching programme. I'm Nonie White. This is Radical Recentring, and I'll see you next time.