The Educated CEO Podcast

If you've ever looked at someone online with less education, less experience, or fewer credentials confidently selling their expertise and wondered, "How is she so confident when I'm still questioning whether I'm qualified?" this episode is for you!

Because some of the women with the strongest credentials are also the women spending the most time trying to prove that they deserve to be in the room, and that hesitation has a cost.

In this episode, I'm introducing what I call the Imposter Syndrome Tax — the financial, professional, and personal cost educated women pay when they allow self-doubt to influence how they price, position, share, and monetize expertise they've already earned.

The goal isn't to eliminate every moment of self-doubt. It's to stop allowing that doubt to make your business decisions.

In this episode, we cover:

• What the Imposter Syndrome Tax is and how it can quietly cost you income, clients, visibility, experience, and opportunities
• How imposter syndrome can disguise itself as undercharging, over-delivering, over-preparing, and collecting unnecessary credentials
• Why having more education and expertise can sometimes make you more aware of complexity — and more hesitant to confidently communicate what you know
• The difference between intellectual humility and unnecessarily minimizing your expertise
• Why Black women can experience an additional layer of self-doubt after navigating professional environments where their competence has historically been questioned or scrutinized
• How to separate your feelings about your qualifications from the actual evidence of what you've accomplished
• Why you need to establish your own definition of "qualified enough" instead of allowing imposter syndrome to continually move the goalposts
• How to stop waiting for confidence and start building it through action, experience, and evidence

Key takeaway from this episode:

Your expertise does not become valuable the moment you finally feel confident about it. It was valuable before the confidence arrived.

The goal isn't to question yourself again. The goal is to stop requiring the doubt to disappear before you allow yourself to move.

Resources mentioned:

The Smart Way to Identify the Right Offer Hidden Inside Your Expertise (FREE TRAINING!) - watch here

Questions from this episode to help you stop paying the Imposter Syndrome Tax:

• Where have I been undercharging because I'm afraid people won't pay me more?
• Where have I been over-delivering because I feel like I need to prove my value?
• Have I been preparing because preparation is necessary — or because taking action feels uncomfortable?
• Am I pursuing another degree, certification, course, or credential because I genuinely need it, or because I'm hoping it will finally make me feel qualified?
• What problems have people trusted me to solve throughout my career?
• What can I handle today that would have overwhelmed me five years ago?
• What does someone genuinely need to know or have experienced to responsibly help with the problem I want to solve?
• What would I do next if I trusted the evidence of my own expertise?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you recognize how much your own hesitation may have been costing you, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover The Educated CEO Podcast and realize that they don't need to keep collecting evidence that they're qualified. Their education, experience, accomplishments, and years of solving real problems already tell a powerful story about what they're capable of doing.

To leave a review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Tap five stars
4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

If you've spent years building a career you're proud of, leaving your 9-5 can feel a lot more complicated than the freedom-filled version of entrepreneurship we usually hear about online.

Because you're not just leaving a job.

You may be leaving a title, a routine, coworkers, predictable income, professional recognition, and an identity you spent years building. And when you're an educated, high-achieving woman who worked hard for your degree, credentials, and career, deciding that you want something different can bring up emotions you weren't expecting.

In this episode, I'm talking about the identity shift that can happen when you begin moving from employee to entrepreneur — why it can feel like you're losing a part of yourself, why becoming a beginner again can be so uncomfortable, and how to start building an entrepreneurial identity without erasing the woman your career helped you become.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why leaving your 9-5 can feel like an identity loss instead of simply a career change
• How your job title, routine, accomplishments, colleagues, and professional recognition become part of how you understand yourself
• Why educated, high-achieving women may experience the transition into entrepreneurship more intensely
• The additional complexity Black women may experience when education, professional achievement, stability, and family expectations are deeply connected
• Why becoming a beginner again in entrepreneurship doesn't erase the competence you built throughout your career
• How to bring your education, skills, values, experience, and professional identity into the business you're building
• Why you shouldn't replace validation from your job title with validation from your business revenue
• Practical ways to create structure, community, and a new story about who you're becoming as an entrepreneur

Key takeaway from this episode:

You don't have to erase the professional woman you worked so hard to become in order to become an entrepreneur. The container is changing. You aren't disappearing.

Your education, experience, intelligence, work ethic, relationships, skills, and everything your career taught you get to come with you into whatever you decide to build next.

Resources mentioned:

The Smart Way to Identify the Right Offer Hidden Inside Your Expertise (FREE TRAINING!) - watch here

Questions from this episode to help you navigate the identity shift from employee to entrepreneur:

Who was I in my career beyond my job title?

What did my career give me?

What parts of my identity became connected to my profession?

What am I afraid I'll lose if I leave my career?

What parts of my professional identity do I want to bring into entrepreneurship?

Which skills, values, experiences, and ways of showing up still feel like the truest version of me?

Have I been allowing my job title to determine how valuable or successful I feel?

Am I beginning to use business revenue as another measurement of my personal worth?

Who do I want to become as an entrepreneur?

How do I want my days, work, relationships, and business to feel as I build this next chapter?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you put words to the complicated emotions that can come with leaving a career you worked hard to build, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that wanting something different doesn't erase everything they accomplished in their careers. They can be proud of the professional women they became while still giving themselves permission to build something new.

To leave a review:

• Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
• Scroll to the bottom
• Tap five stars
• Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

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If you've ever written a thesis, capstone project, research paper, case study, curriculum plan, or major academic project and haven't looked at it since graduation, there may be more value sitting on your laptop than you realize.

Because that project wasn't "just an assignment."

You spent weeks or months researching a real problem, analyzing information, developing recommendations, identifying patterns, and forming your own perspective. And while academia taught you how to create that knowledge, it probably never taught you how to package it for the people who could actually benefit from it.

In this episode, I'm breaking down how to look at your old academic work through the eyes of an entrepreneur and identify the ideas, frameworks, findings, and solutions that could potentially become content, digital products, workshops, consulting services, or even a signature offer.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why your thesis, capstone, research paper, or academic project may contain valuable intellectual property you've been overlooking
• How to identify the real-world problem hiding underneath the academic language of your research
• What to look for inside your findings, recommendations, frameworks, implementation plans, and other academic work
• How to translate academic writing into clear, conversational content your audience actually wants to consume
• The different ways your academic work could potentially become a guide, workshop, course, coaching program, book, consulting service, or professional training
• Why simplifying your research for your audience doesn't make your expertise less credible
• How to determine whether there is actually a market for the problem your academic work addresses
• Why monetizing what you learned isn't the same as simply trying to sell your old schoolwork

Key takeaway from this episode:

Your academic work was never "just an assignment." You may have already spent months becoming deeply knowledgeable about a problem that someone else is trying to solve right now.

Before searching for your next business idea, go back and look at what you've already created.

Resources mentioned:

The Smart Way to Identify the Right Offer Hidden Inside Your Expertise (FREE TRAINING!) - watch here

Questions from this episode to help you uncover the business idea inside your academic work:

What real-world problem does my thesis, capstone, research paper, or academic project address?

How would I explain that problem without using academic language?

What is the most important thing my research revealed, argued, or helped me understand?

What recommendations, processes, frameworks, assessments, or practical solutions came from my work?

Which findings could become educational content for my audience?

Who outside of academia would benefit from knowing what I learned?

Is there an audience actively looking for help solving this particular problem?

Could this knowledge become a guide, workshop, podcast series, training, consulting service, course, or another type of offer?

What ethical, confidentiality, copyright, or intellectual-property considerations would I need to address before repurposing my academic work?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode made you want to open that old thesis, capstone, or research paper and finally look at it differently, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that the work they completed to earn their degrees doesn't have to disappear after graduation. Their research, ideas, and expertise can continue creating value long after the final grade.

To Leave a Review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Tap five stars
4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

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If you have a degree in HR, education, healthcare, social work, or another field that doesn't immediately sound "entrepreneurial," you may have wondered whether your background actually translates into the online business world.

It does, probably more than you realize. Some of the skills you've spent years developing inside your profession are the exact skills people are searching for outside of it.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why women with so-called "non-business" degrees have an incredible opportunity to build businesses around their existing expertise without abandoning their professional identity, starting over, or pretending to be something they're not.

Your background isn't separate from your business. It can become the reason your business works.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why "non-business" degrees can be incredibly valuable when building an online business
• How years of solving real problems in your career can translate into courses, coaching programs, consulting services, and digital offers
• The business opportunities HR professionals can create from their knowledge of hiring, employee relations, leadership, culture, and people operations
• Why educators have a major advantage when creating courses, training programs, and other learning experiences
• How healthcare professionals can leverage their clinical knowledge, communication skills, and credibility to educate and serve people online
• Why social workers' understanding of people, systems, advocacy, trauma, and complex life situations can translate into powerful businesses
• Why the expertise you monetize doesn't always have to be your exact job — sometimes it's the way your profession trained you to think
• How to identify the problems you've already been solving professionally and determine who else could benefit from those solutions

Key takeaway from this episode:

Women with "non-business" degrees aren't building successful businesses in spite of their backgrounds. They're building them because of their backgrounds.

Your degree has already taught you how to solve problems, support people, communicate ideas, navigate complexity, and create change. Entrepreneurship gives you an opportunity to take those skills outside of one organization and use them to create something of your own.

Resources mentioned:

The Smart Way to Identify the Right Offer Hidden Inside Your Expertise - watch here!

Questions from this episode to help you identify the business opportunities inside your professional background:

What problems have I been repeatedly called upon to solve throughout my career?

What skills have become second nature to me because I've used them for years?

What does my profession understand about people, systems, communication, behavior, leadership, or problem-solving that others may not?

What knowledge do I have that a small business owner, professional, organization, or individual might gladly pay to access?

Who outside of my current industry could benefit from the problems I already know how to solve?

Which parts of my professional expertise could become a course, coaching program, consulting service, workshop, or piece of content?

Am I overlooking valuable expertise simply because I consider it "part of my job"?

How did my profession train me to think differently — and how could that perspective become part of my business?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you see your professional background differently and recognize that your degree may contain more business opportunities than you realized, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that they don't have to abandon everything they've worked for in order to become entrepreneurs. Their education and experience can become the foundation of what they build next.

To leave a review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Tap five stars
4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

If you've ever looked at someone successfully building an online business and thought, "Well, of course this works for them. They actually went to school for this," this episode is for you. Maybe your degree is in education, healthcare, human resources, social work, psychology, public health, or something else that doesn't immediately scream "entrepreneurship.That doesn't mean you chose the wrong path.

In fact, the background you've been treating like it has nothing to do with your business may be one of your greatest advantages.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why you don't need a traditional business, marketing, or entrepreneurship background to build a successful online business — and why your education, career experience, and unique way of solving problems can help you stand out in an online space filled with sameness.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why comparing your background to entrepreneurs with business or marketing degrees can make you feel less qualified than you actually are
• How chasing someone else's successful business model can cause you to overlook the expertise you already have
• Why your professional background gives you a unique lens for solving problems that other coaches, consultants, and course creators may not have
• The difference between learning business skills and believing you need to become a business expert before your existing expertise has value
• How constantly pursuing more courses, certifications, and training can become a way of hiding from the discomfort of being visible
• Why the way you talk about your professional background can either strengthen or weaken your positioning
• How to identify the specific problems your degree, career, and life experiences have already trained you to solve
• Why visibility isn't about ego — it's about making it possible for the people who need your expertise to actually find you

Key takeaway from this episode:

You didn't go to school for the wrong thing. Your degree doesn't have to match your business. Your background can become the perspective that makes your business different.

Instead of asking yourself how you can become more like everyone else in your industry, start asking: How does my background change the way I solve this problem?

Resources mentioned:

Episode 55: What No One Tells Educated Women About Online Business - listen here

Episode 57: How to Build Authority In Your Niche Using Your Academic Background - listen here

The Smart Way to Identify the Right Offer Hidden Inside Your Expertise (FREE TRAINING!) - watch here

Questions from this episode to help you recognize the advantage in your background:

Have I been treating my professional background like something I need to leave behind instead of something I can build upon?

What has my degree actually trained me to understand, analyze, or solve?

What skills have become so natural to me that I no longer recognize them as valuable?

How does my professional background change the way I approach problems in my niche?

What do I understand about people, systems, behavior, communication, leadership, or problem-solving because of my career?

Have I been pursuing more education because I genuinely need it, or because learning feels safer than being visible?

Who is five steps behind me and could benefit from what I already know?

What three skills, problems, or themes have consistently appeared throughout my education, career, and life experience?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you realize that your background isn't something you need to apologize for or move away from, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and recognize that the degrees, careers, skills, and experiences they already have can become the foundation of something much bigger.

To leave a review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Tap five stars
4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

If you've ever told yourself, "I just need to learn a little more first," this episode is going to challenge you to look at what might actually be keeping you from starting. Maybe you're waiting until you finish another certification. Maybe you want to take one more course. Maybe you're waiting for work to calm down, your schedule to open up, or for the perfect time to finally appear.

But what if what you've been calling preparation is actually fear wearing a really professional outfit?

In this episode, I'm breaking down why educated women can spend so much time preparing, researching, learning, and thinking through every possible outcome that they delay taking the very actions that would help them become more confident. Because you don't become confident before you start. You become confident because you start.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why educated professionals are especially prone to overthinking decisions when they don't have complete certainty

• How The Expertise Paradox can cause highly knowledgeable people to underestimate themselves while less-experienced people move forward

• The Confidence Through Action Loop and how knowledge, small actions, experience, confidence, and bigger actions work together to create growth

• Why confidence doesn't come from thinking, planning, or preparing longer — it comes from collecting evidence through experience

• The hidden cost of waiting and what every month of hesitation could be costing you in experience, feedback, visibility, relationships, and income

• How to recognize the difference between strategic waiting and waiting that's rooted in fear

• Why asking "Am I willing?" can move you forward when asking "Am I ready?" keeps you stuck

• How taking the smallest possible next step can help you build momentum without needing to have everything figured out first

Key takeaway from this episode:

You don't become confident before you start. You become confident because you start.

Confidence isn't something you wait to feel. It's something you build through knowledge, action, experience, and the evidence that you can trust yourself to figure things out along the way.

Resources mentioned:

Episode 55: What No One Tells Educated Women About Online Business - listen here

The Smart Way to Identify the Right Offer Hidden Inside Your Expertise (FREE TRAINING) - watch here!

Questions from this episode to help you stop waiting and start taking action:

Have I been preparing, or have I been using preparation to avoid taking action?

Am I waiting because it's strategically the right decision, or because I'm hoping certainty will come first?

What is one action I've been waiting to take?

What dream have I postponed because I've convinced myself that I need more permission?

What am I waiting to feel ready for?

Instead of asking, "Am I ready?" what happens if I ask myself, "Am I willing?"

What is the smallest possible next step I could take?

What could I learn through action that I will never learn through another course, certification, book, or plan?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you realize that confidence isn't something you have to wait for before you begin, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that they don't need another credential, someone else's permission, or perfect confidence before they start building something with the expertise they already have.

To leave a review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts

2. Scroll to the bottom

3. Tap five stars

4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect With Me!

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

If you've ever sat down to create a lead magnet and thought, "I have no idea what I would even give away for free," this episode is going to help you look at your expertise differently. Because chances are, you don't need to come up with another brand-new idea.

You already have ideas.

They're hiding inside the presentations you've created, the coworkers you've trained, the questions you answer repeatedly, the processes you've improved, the resources you've developed, and the problems you've learned how to solve throughout your career.

In this episode, I'm breaking down how to take one small piece of your existing knowledge and experience and turn it into a lead magnet that solves a real problem, builds trust with your audience, and creates a natural path toward your future paid offers.

You don't have an idea problem. You have a packaging problem.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why your best lead magnet may already exist inside work you've done throughout your career
• How to identify presentations, checklists, workflows, templates, training documents, and other resources that could become valuable lead magnets
• The story behind The Expertise Audit Assessment and the specific problem I wanted it to solve
• The Expertise Pyramid and how your knowledge can become a framework, lead magnet, mini offer, and eventually a signature offer
• Why trying to build your business from the top of the Expertise Pyramid can make creating your offers more difficult than necessary
• What makes a great lead magnet and why solving one specific problem is more valuable than trying to teach everything you know
• Why a lead magnet is more than something you create to collect email addresses — it's your audience's first experience with how you teach, think, and solve problems
• How to find the overlap between the questions people ask you, the problems you've solved, the resources you've created, and the quick wins you can help someone achieve

Key takeaway from this episode:

You don't need more ideas. You need a better way to organize the ideas you already have.

Your best lead magnet may already be hiding inside your education, professional experience, processes, resources, and the problems you've spent years learning how to solve.

Resources mentioned:

The Expertise Audit Assessment - download here!

Episode 58: Why More Education Doesn't Always Mean More Income – And What to Do About It - listen here!

Questions from this episode to help you create your lead magnet:

What questions do people ask me repeatedly?

What problems have I solved throughout my career?

What useful resources have I already created?

What presentations, checklists, workflows, templates, or training documents have I created that could be adapted for my audience?

What process have I explained so many times that it now feels like common sense to me?

What resource do people frequently ask me to send them?

What do I wish someone had given me when I was first learning what I know now?

What is my audience struggling to see, understand, decide, or do?

Have I already created, used, or explained something that could help them?

What is one small win I could help someone experience in 15 minutes or less?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you realize that your next lead magnet may already be hiding inside the knowledge, experience, and resources you've accumulated throughout your career, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that they don't have to constantly search for new ideas. Sometimes, the most valuable thing they can create starts with recognizing the expertise they already have.

To leave a review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Tap five stars
4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me!

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

If you've ever thought, "Maybe I just need one more degree, certification, training, or credential before I can finally make more money," this episode is going to challenge that belief. Because education can absolutely increase your knowledge, credibility, and expertise. But education and income operate in two different systems.

Knowledge creates potential. Strategy creates income.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why highly educated professionals can continue learning, earning credentials, and becoming more valuable — while their income barely moves — and what needs to happen if you want your education to create opportunities beyond your paycheck.

This is not an anti-education conversation. It's a conversation about leverage.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why earning another degree or certification doesn't automatically lead to more income
• The Knowledge-to-Wealth Gap and why many educated professionals stop at expertise instead of moving toward leverage and income
• The difference between having knowledge, applying your knowledge at work, and monetizing what you know
• Why educated professionals are often taught to collect credentials instead of package and sell their expertise
• How employers and entrepreneurs assign value to your education in completely different ways
• Why your degree, career experience, systems, and problem-solving skills can become intellectual property and income-producing assets
• How constant learning can quietly become procrastination when it isn't paired with implementation
• The questions to ask yourself when it's time to stop collecting more knowledge and start leveraging what you already know

Key takeaway from this episode:

Education increases your expertise. Leverage increases your income. Those are two different systems.

The goal isn't to stop learning. The goal is to stop assuming that learning alone creates financial growth.

Resources mentioned:

The Expertise Audit Assessment - download here

Episode 57: How to Build Authority In Your Niche Using Your Academic Background - listen here

Questions from this episode to help you close your Knowledge-to-Wealth Gap:

Where am I currently stuck — knowledge, application, or monetization?

What have I already learned that someone else needs?

What questions do people consistently come to me for help answering?

What problems have I solved repeatedly throughout my career?

What processes or systems have I improved over time?

What mistakes have taught me lessons someone else would gladly pay to avoid?

What expertise have I been treating as "just part of my job"?

What do I already know that someone else would gladly pay to learn faster?

What is one thing I already know that I can apply this week?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you realize that you may not need another credential — you may simply need a better strategy for leveraging the expertise you already have — I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review.

Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that their degrees, careers, and years of experience can create value far beyond the salary attached to their job.

To leave a review:

1. Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Tap five stars
4. Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

What makes someone an authority?

Is it having thousands of followers? Being invited to speak on stages? Writing a bestselling book? Having multiple degrees behind their name? Not necessarily.

Because you can have twenty years of experience, multiple degrees, and incredible expertise — and still be overlooked if no one knows what you know or how you can help them.

Authority isn't about becoming famous or sounding smarter than everyone else.

It's about making it easy for the right people to trust you.

And if you're an educated professional, there's a good chance you already have far more authority than you realize. You just haven't learned how to communicate it yet.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why the smartest person in the room isn't always the person who gets the opportunity
• The biggest misunderstanding educated professionals have about authority
• Why authority is about earned trust — not followers or popularity
• How my own insecurities about my Southern accent affected the way I thought about authority when I started YouTube
• Why I'm learning to become more comfortable talking about my own education

The three parts of The Authority Triangle:

• Expertise
• Evidence
• Visibility

• Why your expertise includes more than what you learned in school
• The different forms of evidence you already have — even if you don't have client testimonials yet
• Why your career stories, research, presentations, frameworks, mistakes, and teaching experiences can all become evidence of your expertise
• Why visibility isn't vanity — it's making your expertise available to the people who need it
• What your degree communicates beyond the credential itself
• Why earning a degree demonstrates discipline, curiosity, research ability, critical thinking, and the ability to learn complex ideas
• Why I decided to return to school in 2024 and finish my bachelor's degree
• How my education has become part of the mission behind The Educated CEO
• Why I plan to combine academic research with my lived experience as I continue my education
• Why educated professionals need to stop leading with their resumes
• The difference between introducing yourself with a job title and introducing yourself with the transformation you provide
• Why your audience is more interested in the problem you solve than your professional title
• How to uncover the authority hiding inside work you've already done
• Why your research papers, projects, presentations, systems, training materials, templates, processes, and experiences can become intellectual property
• How to identify the overlap between what you know, what you've done, and the problems you can solve

Key takeaway from this episode:

Authority isn't something you earn after people notice you. Authority is something you communicate before they do. Your audience can't value expertise that they never see.

Resources mentioned:

The Expertise Audit Assessment

Questions from this episode to help you uncover your authority:

• What do I know?
• What have I done?
• What problems can I solve?
• What evidence do I already have that demonstrates my expertise?
• What experiences have I been dismissing as "just doing my job"?
• If no one knows what I'm capable of, how will they ever benefit from it?
• What transformation do I provide beyond my job title?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you realize that you don't have to create authority from scratch, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review. Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and recognize that the education, experience, and expertise they've already earned can become the foundation of something much bigger.

To leave a review:

Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts

Scroll to the bottom

Tap five stars

Select "Write a Review" and share your biggest takeaway

Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com

Have you ever received a raise, looked at your paycheck, and thought… "That's it?"

Especially when you know how much value you bring to your organization.

You're solving problems. You're training people. You're the person coworkers come to when they need help. You've developed years of knowledge, skills, and experience but yet somehow, your paycheck doesn't seem to reflect all of it.

There's a reason for that.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why your salary was never designed to measure your worth — and why understanding the difference between what your employer pays you for and the value of your expertise can completely change the way you think about income.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why your salary is not a measurement of your value
• The difference between your worth and the value of the position you were hired to fill
• My experience receiving a 14-cent raise after taking on additional responsibilities at work
• How being passed over for a promotion changed the way I thought about my career
• Why employers pay you for a specific role — not everything you know how to do
• The skills your employer may benefit from without specifically compensating you for them
• Why educated professionals often connect salary, promotions, and job titles to personal value

The three levels of The Income Ceiling:

• Level 1: Time
• Level 2: Knowledge
• Level 3: Transformation

• Why exchanging time for money will always create an income ceiling
• How packaging your knowledge allows you to expand beyond being paid only for your time
• Why people ultimately pay for outcomes and transformation — not just information
• How my own relationship with work, business, and income changed between 2016 and 2024
• Why I stopped thinking only about making enough money to quit my job and started thinking about creating value outside of my employer
• The difference between increasing your income vertically and expanding your income
• Why promotions, raises, and new titles are only one way to increase your earning potential
• Why building a business does not mean you have to abandon your career
• How your education, experience, and problem-solving ability remain yours regardless of where you work
• Why your worth is not waiting on someone else's budget

Key takeaway from this episode:

Your employer doesn't determine your worth. They determine the value of the position they hired you to fill.

Those are two completely different things.

Your salary only tells one story about what you can do. It will never tell the entire story of what you're capable of creating.

Resources mentioned:

The Expertise Audit Assessment

Questions from this episode to help you think differently about your income:

• What skills do I have that my employer benefits from but does not specifically pay me to use?
• If my employer disappeared tomorrow, what expertise would still belong to me?
• What am I currently paid to do?
• What do people consistently come to me for help with?
• Where is the gap between those two lists?
• How could I create value outside of my current role using the expertise I already have?

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!

If this episode helped you separate your salary from the value of your expertise, I'd love for you to leave a 5-star review. Your reviews help more educated women discover the show and realize that their earning potential does not have to stop at what an employer is willing to pay them.

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Open The Educated CEO Podcast in Apple Podcasts

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Connect with me:

Instagram: @symoneredmond

Website: www.symoneredmond.com