The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

Picture the moment discomfort becomes undeniable: the commute that used to be fine suddenly feels unbearable, the office that once felt like home starts to feel outgrown. That is the signal employment lawyer and culture strategist Natalie Holder returns to throughout this conversation about broken workplace culture, unconscious bias in mentoring and promotion, and how introverted women can recognize when it is time to make a career pivot. 

Natalie and Serena unpack the indicators of a broken workplace culture, the bias research behind who gets access to opportunity, and why a personal board of directors matters for anyone weighing their next move.

Questions Answered

• What are the warning signs of a broken workplace culture?
• How does unconscious bias affect who gets mentored and promoted?
• What did the Stanford Common Ground Study reveal about access at work?
• How can introverted women decide if it is time for a career pivot?
• What is a personal board of directors, and who should be on it?
• How can busy leaders build informal mentoring into their day?
• How do you know when to trust a career signal instead of ignoring it?

Key Takeaways

• The discomfort of realizing you’ve outgrown your role, and the courage to notice before it becomes a crisis
• The honesty of admitting that you don’t have to like a co-worker to invest in their growth
• The relief of learning a 15-minute daily check-in is enough for effective informal mentoring
• The reassurance that a career pivot need not be a leap and a fall when visibility is already being built internally and externally

Chapters (approx.)

• 00:00 Introduction to Natalie Holder
• 00:41 A winding path to law, from a serendipitous conversation on holiday in Europe, to a summer interning at a NYC law firm
• 06:08 Three years at the NYC Commission on Human Rights and winning the biggest case in a long time
• 10:24 The pivot toward training and education, and the viral videos she stopped publishing
• 14:31 Writing Exclusion and defining what a broken workplace culture looks like
• 20:54 Cognitive bias, the Stanford Common Ground Study, and who gets access to opportunity
• 25:57 A leadership tip: sharing your own story to build common ground
• 27:05 Advice for introverted women weighing their next career move
• 30:35 The personal board of directors: the CEO, the futurist, the contrarian, the employment lawyer
• 35:53 Natalie's final word on learning to trust the signal

About Natalie Holder

Natalie Holder is an employment lawyer, executive coach, and author of Exclusion: Strategies for Improving Diversity in Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion. Her compliance and culture work has included consent decree-ordered training for Fox News and the New York City Fire Department, and she is at work on her next book, Culture Repair.

Take her strategic pivot assessment at https://strategic-pivot-assessment.base44.app. It's a quick, 5-question, scored assessment designed to help you evaluate your current professional situation, particularly when you're navigating significant workplace change or considering a career pivot. Once you complete it, you immediately receive a complimentary Strategic Pivot Playbook.

Find out more about Natalie’s work: https://natalieholderspeaks.com

About The Quiet Warrior Podcast

The Quiet Warrior Podcast is a show for introverted professional women navigating visibility, leadership, and career and personal growth. If this episode resonated, please rate and review the show on your listening app. Your recommendation helps more introverts and quiet achievers find the show.

At A Career Crossroads?

Career Crossroads Counsel with your host Serena Low is a private 90-minute session for high-achieving introverted women deciding whether to stay  and rebuild, or leave and reinvent.

Get underneath the overthinking. Identify what to preserve, release, and begin — and what your next chapter needs to honour.

Book Career Crossroads Counsel.

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Irene Chan spent her childhood not quite fitting in — too different for the kids in LA's Chinatown, too different for the church her single mother relied on, too different for the unpredictable neighbourhood her mother worked so hard to protect her within. She carried that feeling of being "othered" into an aerospace engineering degree she nearly didn't achieve, and into NASA meeting rooms where she assumed the loudest voice always won. 

In this episode, Irene — a flight planning engineer supporting NASA's International Space Station and Artemis programs — traces the path from an outsider kid with a stack of jigsaw puzzles to a leader who learned belonging was never about matching the room. She and host Serena Low unpack imposter syndrome in male-dominated STEM careers, the resourcefulness of immigrant families, and why the loudest person in a meeting rarely moves the work forward.

Questions Answered

• How do you deal with imposter syndrome as a woman of colour in a male-dominated STEM field?
• What does belonging look like when you don't fit the cultural mould around you?
• How can introverts be heard and visible in extrovert-dominated workplaces like NASA?
• What advice helps students pursue STEM careers despite grades that aren't top of the class?
• How did growing up as a first-generation American shape a career at NASA?

Key Takeaways

• The ache of feeling othered in every community Irene belonged to, even the ones meant to protect her
• The quiet relief of being embraced by youth leaders who saw potential she couldn't yet name
• The exhaustion of performing extroversion in early-career meetings just to be taken seriously
• The vindication of learning academic probation was never the end of the story
• The steadying realisation that curiosity, not confidence, keeps careers and relationships moving forward

Chapters

00:00 – Meet Irene Chan, flight planning engineer at NASA 

00:58 – Growing up othered: a first-generation childhood in East LA 

09:57 – The weight of filial piety and bringing honour through grades 

15:44 – Community as classroom: how youth groups shaped her voice 

21:26 – Zigzagging into aerospace: grit, probation, and finding her stride 

29:38 – Imposter syndrome and learning to lead without shouting 

39:08 – Advice for STEM students who worry their grades aren't enough 

44:25 – Closing thoughts and gratitude

About Irene Chan

Irene Chan is a flight planning engineer supporting NASA's International Space Station and Artemis programs, where she collaborates with domestic and international partners to coordinate safe and effective space missions. She brings over 20 years of experience across aerospace engineering, space operations, and flight planning, holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a Master of Aeronautical Science, and is a lifetime member of the Society of Women Engineers and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She is an active advocate for STEM education and outreach. [Guest link to be confirmed before publishing]

About The Quiet Warrior Podcast

The Quiet Warrior Podcast is a show for introverted professional women navigating visibility, leadership, and career and personal growth. If this episode resonated, please rate and review the show on your listening app. Your support helps more introverts become Quiet Warriors.

At A Career Crossroads?

Career Crossroads Counsel with your host Serena Low is a private 90-minute session for high-achieving introverted women deciding whether to stay  and rebuild, or leave and reinvent.

Get underneath the overthinking. Identify what to preserve, release, and begin — and what your next chapter needs to honour.

Book Career Crossroads Counsel.

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

After 24 years of marriage, Bernice McDonald left with no template for who she was outside the roles she'd been performing since childhood. She grew up in a rules-based home where being "good" felt impossible to achieve, and where that constant falling-short curdled into a lifelong sense of not being enough. 

In this episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, Bernice shares how she moved from that place into what she now calls the Tiny Brave Steps method — a way of taking action on fear without needing to feel fearless first. She and Serena Low talk about the introvert-extrovert spectrum, why people-pleasing so often traces back to childhood conditioning, and the bridge metaphor that changed how Bernice thinks about reinvention: you don't leap across the gap between where you are and who you're becoming, you cross it one slat, one small brave step, at a time.

Questions Answered in This Episode

• What is the Tiny Brave Steps method, and how does it help people take action despite fear?
• Why do so many introverted women trace their people-pleasing patterns back to childhood?
• What is the ACT framework (Acknowledge, Claim, Take the step) for moving through fear?
• How can you tell the difference between being introverted and simply lacking confidence?
• Why does comparing your path to someone else's make reinvention harder, not easier?
• How do you rebuild identity and confidence after a major life transition like divorce?

Key Takeaways

• The relief of realizing bravery doesn't require the absence of fear. Bernice reframes courage as taking the next step while still afraid, not waiting for fear to disappear first.
• Recognizing that people-pleasing was never a personality flaw — it was a survival response. Bernice and Serena trace how childhood rule-following becomes an adult pattern of performing for approval.
• The permission to build slowly instead of leaping. The bridge metaphor lands as relief for anyone who's felt shame about moving at their own pace through a transition.
• The quiet confidence of small, repeated evidence. Each tiny step taken becomes proof you can take the next one — courage compounds rather than arriving all at once.
• The freedom in walking your own bridge instead of someone else's. Comparing your path to a path that looks sturdier, newer, or more certain doesn't shortcut the internal work still waiting to be done.

Chapters (approx.)

• 00:00 — Introducing Bernice McDonald and the Tiny Brave Steps method
• 00:51 — Growing up in a rules-based home, and losing herself for years
• 04:00 — The people-pleasing pattern Serena sees in introverted women
• 08:38 — Where Bernice lands on the introvert-extrovert spectrum
• 14:18 — Introducing the Tiny Brave Steps methodology
• 17:06 — The bridge metaphor: one slat, one small step at a time
• 23:04 — The ACT framework — Acknowledge, Claim your identity, Take the step
• 26:02 — Why comparing your bridge to someone else's keeps you stuck
• 29:37 — Where to find Bernice and try her free AI-powered tool

About the Guest

Bernice McDonald helps people find their courage when life doesn't go according to plan. Through her Tiny Brave Steps method, she guides others to stop fighting fear, make peace with it, and take the next small step forward — even while still afraid. She is the author of the Little Books of Courage series and the creator of the Tiny Brave Steps Generator, a free AI-powered tool that helps people find their next small step in under a minute.

Connect with Bernice: https://tinybravesteps.com  

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

A woman describes what she feels in her own body to a doctor and is told she isn't a reliable narrator of her own experience. It happens so often that she stops noticing, and she carries that same distrust into every decision after. Executive coach Stephanie Peirolo has watched this pattern in her clients for a decade and named it in her book The Saint and the Drunk: A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life. On this episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, Peirolo joins Serena Low to unpack discernment, a decision-making practice she rebuilt from two unlikely sources, a sixteenth-century saint and a recovering alcoholic, into a framework anyone can use to reclaim their inner knowing.

Questions Answered

• What is the discernment practice behind The Saint and the Drunk?
• How do St. Ignatius of Loyola and Alcoholics Anonymous connect to modern decision-making?
• Why do women and marginalized groups struggle to trust their own judgment?
• What's a practical way to start rebuilding trust in your inner knowing?
• How do you recognize the "superpowers" you take for granted in yourself?
• Why does everyone need someone who can mirror their strengths back to them?
• What's the difference between introversion and shyness?

Key Takeaways

• The quiet damage of being told you're not a reliable narrator of your own life, and a practice for collecting evidence against it.
• Why doing something you're genuinely skilled at can restore your footing after a hard day spent doing something you're not.
• The vulnerability of asking your biggest fan what you do well, harder to sit with than asking for criticism.
• Peirolo's own reckoning with being read as outgoing on stage while quietly depleted underneath.
• The specific courage it takes to make a decision someone in your family doesn't get a vote on, but thinks they do.

Chapters (approx.)

• 00:00 – Meet Stephanie Peirolo, author of The Saint and the Drunk
• 00:35 – From journalism and sales to executive coaching
• 02:01 – Why the path only makes sense in hindsight
• 02:51 – The saint: St. Ignatius of Loyola and the roots of discernment
• 05:21 – The drunk: Bill Wilson, AA, and a higher power for everyone
• 06:11 – Writing a book built to trust the reader's own inner knowing
• 09:54 – The narrative underneath every narrative: "you aren't right about what you want"
• 12:01 – A practice for rebuilding trust in your inner knowing
• 15:59 – The unrecognized superpowers hiding in plain sight
• 18:50 – Why every person needs someone who can mirror their strengths back
• 21:16 – Asking your biggest fan what you do well
• 22:52 – The courage every kind of change requires
• 23:52 – Introversion vs. shyness: where Stephanie really sits on the spectrum
• 26:03 – Stephanie's book, coaching, and where to find her work

About Stephanie Peirolo

Stephanie Peirolo is a board-certified executive coach with a BA from Stanford and an MA in Transformational Leadership from Seattle University. She is the author of The Saint and the Drunk: A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life, host of The Bad Boss Brief podcast, and writes Fierce Grace on Substack. Learn more at speirolo.com.

About The Quiet Warrior Podcast

The Quiet Warrior Podcast is a show for introverted professional women navigating visibility, leadership, and career growth. Host Serena Low is a trauma-informed coach and former lawyer who brings root-cause insight and permission-giving conversation to listeners still in the messy middle.

If this conversation moved you, leave a five-star review and share it with someone who's making a big decision right now.

At A Career Crossroads?

Career Crossroads Counsel with your host Serena Low is a private 90-minute session for high-achieving introverted women deciding whether to stay  and rebuild, or leave and reinvent.

Get underneath the overthinking. Identify what to preserve, release, and begin — and what your next chapter needs to honour.

Book Career Crossroads Counsel:
https://bit.ly/3VflRsJ

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

A Marine Corps ambulance driver is pinned in a burning car, his heart stopped, watching from the ceiling as three doctors walk away. He is seventeen years past a farm accident that nearly took his leg, and decades away from a swimming pool dive that will break his neck in four places and leave him paralyzed from the shoulders down. Jay Setchell — Marine Corps veteran, serial entrepreneur, inventor, and author of The Strength Within You: It's Always Too Soon to Quit — has now survived 73 surgeries. In this episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, he tells Serena Low how a childhood of hard farm labor, a mantra of "why not?" instead of "why," and a faith he never let go of, carried him through four near-fatal accidents and into building business after business, including the training company he runs today for firefighters, military, and law enforcement.

Key Takeaways

• Jay traces his refusal to accept limits back to a father who let him think for himself and a grandmother who told him busy hands make a busy mind — the seeds of a lifelong instinct to ask "why not?" instead of "why."
• Nearly dying in a Marine Corps car accident didn't end his story — it revealed his fight. Jay describes watching doctors give up on him from outside his own body, screaming that he was still alive, and being brought back by a surgeon willing to try one more thing.
• A diving accident three weeks into his marriage broke his neck and stole his mobility — and he refused the prognosis. Told he would likely be paralyzed from the shoulders down for life, Jay walked again eight months later, crediting prayer, incremental progress, and a refusal to let go of the image of himself walking.
• Grief and grit sit side by side in his story of the crash that claimed the life of his friend’s wife while he was trying to save her husband — a reminder that his resilience came with a cost.
• Selling was never about the product — it was about being seen and cared for. Making sales calls on crutches and leg braces, he still finished number one in his organization, because his real skill was asking what the other person actually needed.
• Retirement at 41 wasn't the end — it was a pivot into building homes, then building a company that saves lives. From trade show displays to home construction to training simulations used by fire departments and militaries worldwide, Jay kept starting over, even as his body kept changing.
• "It's always too soon to quit" isn't a slogan — it's the argument of a life. Jay's closing reflection is that most people quit one step before the answer that was waiting around the corner.

 
Chapters

• 00:00 — Welcome and introduction: meet Jay Setchell
• 00:45 — The one word that defines him: stubborn
• 02:28 — Childhood on a seventh-generation farm and learning responsibility young
• 08:44 — The feeding auger accident at seventeen
• 09:54 — Dying in a Marine Corps car crash and the out-of-body experience
• 14:39 — A year in the hospital, total self-reliance, and rebuilding a working life
• 19:35 — A second near-fatal accident on the road
• 22:24 — Career at a major telecom, and the diving accident that broke his neck
• 24:59 — Faith, prayer, and defying the paralysis prognosis
• 28:47 — Back to work on crutches, and the real meaning of selling
• 31:46 — Forced retirement at 41 — and starting over anyway
• 34:33 — Building homes, then building a life-saving training company
• 41:14 — The mantra behind it all: don't ask why, ask why not
• 53:23 — Lived experience versus learned experience
• 54:56 — Closing reflections and the ripple effect of one story

About Jay Setchell

Jay Setchell is a Marine Corps veteran, serial entrepreneur, inventor, and author of The Strength Within You: It's Always Too Soon to Quit. Raised on a seventh-generation family farm, he has survived four near-fatal accidents and 73 surgeries, including a broken neck that left him temporarily paralyzed from the shoulders down. He has built businesses spanning trucking, trade show displays, wide-format printing, home construction, and — most recently — a national and international training company supplying realistic smoke, sound, and simulation products to fire departments, military units, and law enforcement agencies. 
https://neverquittrying.com/

Work with Serena

Standing at a career crossroads?

If you’re successful on paper but quietly asking, “Is this still the life I want?”, Career Crossroads Counsel is a private 90-minute session designed to help you get underneath the overthinking and understand the decision you’re actually facing.

Together, we’ll explore:

Preserve — what still matters
Release — what may be complete
Recognise — what wants to begin
Choose — what your next chapter needs to honour

You’ll leave with a clearer map of your crossroads and your next moves.

Book your Career Crossroads Counsel session HERE.

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

What happens when we expect our workplace to meet emotional needs that it was never designed to meet?

In this episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, I speak with Katie Jean Hadiaris, founder of Work Is Not Family, about the hidden expectations we bring into our careers—and how those expectations can leave us vulnerable to burnout, overwork and workplace harm.

Many of us were taught that being a good worker means being productive, helpful, agreeable and willing to go the extra mile. For women especially, childhood conditioning around being the “good girl” can make it difficult to question expectations, set boundaries or put our own wellbeing first.

Katie offers a different way of looking at work: work is an agreement, not a family.

That perspective does not mean relationships, connection or healthy workplace cultures are unimportant. It means becoming clearer about what an employer and employee actually owe each other—and recognising that our identity, emotional wellbeing and sense of worth cannot safely depend entirely on an organisation.

We explore:

• Why we can become emotionally attached to our workplaces
• How childhood conditioning and protective behaviours show up at work
• The difference between doing your job and “quiet quitting”
• Why workplace visibility can become complicated for introverts
• How toxic work environments affect the body and nervous system
• Why high performers may ignore warning signs and push through
• The guilt that can arise when taking leave or prioritising personal needs
• What trauma-informed leadership looks like in practice
• Why leaders should stop labelling behaviour without considering what may be beneath it
• How employees can distinguish between a current workplace problem and past experiences being triggered
• Why clear expectations, autonomy and respect matter in healthy workplaces
• How to begin paying attention to what your body is telling you

One of the most important reminders in this conversation is that we bring our whole lives to work. We cannot simply leave our emotions, histories and nervous systems at the door. At the same time, we can learn to recognise our own responses, establish boundaries and make more conscious decisions about how we navigate work.

If you have ever felt that your workplace expects more and more from you—or if you have struggled to separate your professional identity from your personal worth—this conversation offers a different lens through which to understand your experience.

About Katie Hadiaris

Katie Jean Hadiaris is the founder of Work Is Not Family, a workplace philosophy centred on the idea that healthy workplaces and healthy families operate by fundamentally different expectations. She works with professionals who have been blindsided, betrayed or broken by work, helping them make sense of what happened, reconnect with themselves and move forward. Katie offers free resources and one-on-one coaching to help people understand their nervous systems, work through triggers and navigate work in healthier ways.

https://workisnotfamily.com

Work with Serena

Are you an introverted woman feeling stuck at the career crossroads? 

Before deciding if your next move is stay/go, take the SEEN Career Clarity Diagnostic. 

Four questions to help you reflect on where your career holds up against the four pillars of a sustainable career for introverts: Safety - Energy - Ethos - Need.

Once you have completed the diagnostic, you will be invited to book a Clarity Consultation, during which I will share what I've observed and your options for moving forward.

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

There is a particular kind of dread that shows up around a first performance review, a first networking event, a first job where nobody hands you a manual. For introverted professional women who spent years being praised for grades and credentials, the workplace often demands a different currency entirely — people skills, self-advocacy, the ability to connect without performing extroversion. Nobody taught this. It was never on the syllabus.

That is the gap Rob Heller has spent two decades trying to close. After a 40-year business career and selling his insurance firm for eight figures to a publicly held company, Heller founded the Boost Program — a curriculum built around what he calls the three legs of the stool: people skills, character, and a healthy mindset. In this conversation, Heller and Serena Low talk about why 85 percent of what employers say they want is soft skills nobody is systematically teaching, why phone and social media use functions like a genuine addiction for the 14-24 age group, and why introverts do not need to become extroverts to master connection — they simply need the skills nobody gave them the language for.

Questions Answered

• Why do young people leave school without the people skills employers say matter most?
• What are the three "legs of the stool" in Rob Heller's Boost Program?
• Is phone and social media use actually an addiction, and how does the Boost Program address it?
• Can introverts build strong people skills without becoming extroverts?
• Why did Rob Heller create Boost after selling his insurance company for eight figures?
• What role do parents play in reinforcing the skills their teens learn in a program like Boost?
• What is a growth mindset and why does it matter for connection and resilience?
• How does the attention economy affect teens' ability to build real relationships?

Key Takeaways

• The gap between "employable" and "prepared" is wider than most parents realize. Heller names it directly: employers report that 85 percent of what they are hiring for is soft skills, yet schools spend nowhere close to that proportion of time teaching them. The dissonance between what a transcript proves and what a workplace actually requires is the quiet crisis sitting underneath a lot of early-career anxiety.
• Naming an addiction as an addiction, without shame, changes how people respond to it. Heller does not lecture teens about willpower. He walks them through how deliberately phones and algorithms are engineered to keep them hooked, and he includes himself in that struggle rather than standing above it — a move that turns a shame-based topic into a shared, workable problem.
• Social media's distortion is not a discipline problem — it is a highlight-reel problem. Heller's framing that social feeds show only the equivalent of a basketball player's best dunks, never the misses, gives language to something many quiet achievers already feel: the comparison trap is not a personal failing, it is a design flaw in what gets shown.
• Introversion is not the obstacle to connection — it is a different route to it. Heller is explicit that his students do not need to become the loudest person in the room. Curiosity about the other person, active listening, and small consistent behaviors build connection just as effectively, without requiring anyone to perform a personality that is not theirs.
• A growth mindset reframes struggle from evidence of inadequacy into evidence of growth. For the perfectionist, quiet achiever who assumes discomfort means something has gone wrong, Heller's reminder that discomfort is a normal, necessary part of developing any skill offers a genuinely different relationship to struggle.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introducing Rob Heller: entrepreneur, youth development innovator, founder of the Boost Program
• 00:56 — From an eight-figure insurance exit to noticing the skills gap at home
• 04:32 — Why Boost went on hold for fifteen years, and what brought it back during the pandemic
• 06:03 — The three legs of the stool: people skills, character, and a healthy mindset
• 08:15 — Why Boost focuses on ages 14 to 24, and the neuroscience behind that window
• 09:59 — "The Missing Course": why schools teach math and science but not the skills that determine a life
• 11:41 — Soft skills aren't soft: why leadership, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence are actually hard
• 15:04 — You don't have to be an extrovert: introverts, effectiveness, and connection
• 15:36 — Naming the phone and social media addiction without shame
• 20:01 — How Boost spreads: schools, workforce development, and building a peer community for organizations
• 22:10 — What engagement looks like when a program actually lands with teens
• 23:32 — Parents as the head coach, Boost as the assistant coach
• 25:39 — Rob's message to introverted listeners: you don't have to change who you are to build these skills
• 27:05 — Wired to connect: why relationships, not achievement, predict a good life
• 27:35 — Growth mindset as the third pillar of a healthy mind

About the Guest

Rob Heller is an entrepreneur, youth development innovator, and founder of the Boost Program, a curriculum built to teach teens and young adults the people skills, character development, and mental health tools that traditional education often leaves out. After a 40-year business career, including selling his insurance firm for eight figures to a publicly held company, Heller returned to the program he first started twenty years earlier as a parent trying to give his own children a skill set no school course offered. He is the author of The Missing Course for Today's Youth: 26 Skills That Matter — How The Boost Program Fills The Gap.

https://boostprogram.com/

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Are you at a career crossroads? 

Before deciding if your next career move is stay/go, take the SEEN Career Clarity Diagnostic. 4 questions to help you reflect on where your career holds up in relation to Safety - Energy - Ethos - Need: the four pillars of a sustainable career for introverts. Once you have completed the diagnostic, you will be invited to book a Clarity Consultation, during which I will share what I've observed and your options for moving forward.

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

For twenty-nine years, Mia Hanks believed that if she just held on a little longer, things would eventually get better. They never did. Behind a marriage that looked, to the outside world, like a life with a charming, generous man was a quieter reality: a husband who grew angry when she was sick, controlled every dollar she touched, and slowly convinced her that she was the one who was too sensitive, too much, too wrong.

That is covert narcissism, and Mia Hanks understands its texture better than most. A survivor of narcissistic abuse and author of the memoir Bridesmaid, Hanks joins the Quiet Warrior Podcast to describe what nearly three decades inside that marriage actually looked like, and why understanding the difference between covert and overt narcissism, financial abuse, and the isolating effects of a smear campaign can help someone still inside a relationship like hers recognize the door long before they walk through it.

Questions Answered

• What is covert narcissism, and how is it different from overt narcissism?
• Why do empaths and introverts often make easy targets for narcissistic abuse?
• What are the early warning signs of a covert narcissist?
• Why does it take so long, sometimes decades, to leave a narcissistic relationship?
• How does financial abuse keep survivors trapped in a marriage?
• What is narcissistic personality disorder, and is it a diagnosable condition?
• How does a smear campaign work once a survivor leaves, and why do mutual friends often side with the narcissist?
• How can someone begin planning a safe financial exit from a relationship with a narcissist?

Key Takeaways

• The quiet strangeness of being met with anger instead of care whenever she was sick, and how that one small, repeated moment was an early sign of a much larger pattern
• The relief of finally being validated by a therapist after twenty-eight years of believing she was the problem
• The specific ache of watching mutual friends side with the person who caused harm, and the slow realization that those friendships were never truly hers to lose
• Recognizing that the cage door had never been locked, and why that truth did not make leaving any easier
• The quiet, practical courage of setting aside small amounts of cash at the grocery store, one of the first steps toward an eventual exit
• Understanding narcissism as a pattern that worsens with age rather than one that resolves itself with time, patience, or the next phase of life

Chapters (approx.)

• 00:00 — Introducing Mia Hanks and her story
• 00:19 — Where Mia sits on the introversion-extroversion spectrum
• 01:29 — What narcissism actually is, and why empaths make easy targets
• 03:03 — Covert versus overt narcissism: why the covert type is harder to spot
• 04:05 — The first red flags, and why they were easy to explain away
• 06:28 — The turning point: declining health and a therapist's validation
• 09:25 — How family support made a difference
• 10:23 — Why it took twenty-nine years to leave
• 13:23 — Financial control and financial abuse inside the marriage
• 14:22 — How the children experienced the marriage
• 15:37 — The smear campaign, and losing mutual friends after the divorce
• 19:41 — The cage metaphor: why an unlocked door isn't the same as an open one
• 22:06 — Writing Bridesmaid: filling the gap left by clinical, academic accounts
• 23:40 — What she wishes her younger self had known
• 24:26 — Advice for anyone currently in a relationship with a narcissist
• 25:39 — Planning a financial exit, one small step at a time
• 26:50 — Where to find Mia Hanks and her books

About Mia Hanks

Mia Hanks is a survivor of narcissistic abuse and the author of the memoir Bridesmaid, which shares a first-hand account of life inside a marriage to a covert narcissist. In April, she released a follow-up memoir chronicling her healing journey. Both books are available in paperback and e-book through her website, miajhanks.com, where listeners can also find links to purchase on Amazon.

Help Us Grow 

If today's conversation with Mia resonated, leave a 5-star review on your podcasting app and share the episode with an introvert you know. Your reviews help more introverts grow into Quiet Warriors.

Work with Serena

Before deciding if your next career move is stay/go, take the SEEN Career Clarity Diagnostic. The diagnostic helps you reflect on where your career sits in relation to the four pillars of sustainability for introverts: Safety - Energy - Ethos - Need. Once you have completed the diagnostic, you will be invited to book a Clarity Consultation, during which I will share what I've observed from your responses and your options for moving forward.

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Joel Bein still remembers the exact feeling of trying to control something he could never control: standing in front of an orchestra, arms raised, believing the gesture had to look right rather than simply be true in the moment. Letting go of that grip, he says, was the same letting go he later had to learn in his own healing work. 

In this episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, host Serena Low talks with Joel Bein, founder of Human Liberation and host of The Joel Bein Show, about being an INFJ in leadership, the concept of psychological visibility, and the belief-clearing method he uses to free entrepreneurs from stress, self-doubt, and generational trauma passed down through childhood conditioning.

Questions Answered

• What is psychological visibility and why do introverts crave it?
• What is the Human Liberation belief-clearing method?
• How do childhood beliefs create adult anxiety, imposter syndrome, and money stress?
• Why does letting go of control reduce anxiety and perfectionism?
• How does generational trauma pass from parent to child?
• How does internal family systems (IFS) work relate to clearing limiting beliefs?

Key Takeaways

• The relief in realizing you are only truly "seen" by people who know your core values, not just your presence
• The chest-tightening recognition that a parent's frustration at a child's "no" is often an old, unprocessed wound resurfacing
• The freeing moment of discovering a belief like "money is hard" or "I'm not enough" was never proven by real experience, only assumed
• The quiet that settles in once a limiting belief is fully released, described as the noise in the head dropping close to zero

Chapters (Approx.)

00:00 — Introduction: introverted entrepreneurs and belief clearing

00:29 — Joel's place on the introversion-extroversion spectrum, being INFJ 04:06 — What psychological visibility means and where it comes from

10:02 — Classical music as an outlet for unprocessed emotion

16:51 — Letting go of control as a conductor, and in life

20:54 — Childhood hypervigilance, safety, and reading the room

27:01 — Generational trauma and the beliefs parents pass to children

36:05 — Inside the Human Liberation belief-clearing method

44:27 — Where to find Joel and closing thoughts

About Joel Bein

Joel Bein is the founder of Human Liberation and host of The Joel Bein Show, where he explores new paradigms for personal growth, child-rearing, and a more voluntary, flourishing humanity. He works with entrepreneurs to permanently clear the subconscious limiting beliefs beneath stress, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome. 

Learn more at https://thehumanliberation.co.

About The Quiet Warrior Podcast

The Quiet Warrior Podcast is a show for introverted professional women navigating visibility, leadership, and career and personal growth. If this episode resonated, please rate and review the show on your listening app. Your support helps more quiet achievers become Quiet Warriors.

Work with Serena

Host Serena Low is a trauma-informed coach who guides introverted high-achieving professional women to understand what’s keeping them stuck, so they can make their next career move from clarity – not confusion.

https://serenalow.com.au

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

At nine years old, Laura Bratton was told she would go blind. The diagnosis landed softly at first — the way impossibly hard truths sometimes do with children, held at a distance by the mercy of a young mind that couldn't yet process what was coming. The real reckoning came in eighth grade, when the sight loss accelerated and the grief hit with full force: panic attacks, debilitating depression, and the particular ache of becoming invisible to the people around her — not through cruelty, but through the silence of others who simply didn't know what to say.

In this episode, Laura joins Serena Low on The Quiet Warrior Podcast to trace the path from that wilderness — through survival mode and years of deliberate inner work — to the grit and gratitude framework at the heart of her book, Harnessing Courage, and her organization, Ubi Global. What emerges is a conversation about confidence as something built rather than born, invisibility as something that happens not just to those with visible differences but to quiet achievers everywhere, and grief as a doorway — one that has to be walked through slowly, not bypassed on the way to the solution.

This episode speaks directly to introverted professional women who have ever felt overlooked, underestimated, or afraid that their presence doesn't quite register.

Questions Answered in This Episode

• What does it actually feel like to face a life-changing diagnosis — and when does the emotional reality finally land?
• Why do people ignore or sideline those who are different, and what is really at the root of that behavior?
• What is the simplest, most respectful thing you can say to someone whose experience you don't understand?
• How are fear of others and lack of self-confidence connected — and what does confident people's behavior look like in practice?
• Is confidence something you are born with, or something you build?
• What is the difference between grit and toxic positivity — and how do you practice gratitude without bypassing the pain?
• Why is healing not a destination, and what does it mean to recommit to a practice every single day?
• How do you begin to move through grief without skipping the part that actually gives you the strength to move forward?

Key Takeaways

• Fear of the unknown, not indifference, is usually the reason people don't reach out. The root isn't that others don't care. It's that they are afraid of saying the wrong thing — so they say nothing. And the silence widens into distance.
• The simplest bridge is naming the discomfort out loud. Laura's friend said: "I don't know the best way to help you. Let me know what you need." That was enough. The conversation moved on. Genuine curiosity — asked in a tone of care, not interrogation — is the bridge most people never think to build.
• Confidence belongs to neither introverts nor extroverts — it belongs to anyone willing to build it. Laura is clear: confidence is not a personality type. It is a capacity. The people most willing to ask how to help, she has noticed, are the ones already comfortable in their own skin.
• Grit and gratitude are not traits you acquire and keep. They are a daily choice. Laura has practiced gratitude for 25 years and is still practicing. On the days she doesn't, she feels the difference. Recommitting every morning is not a sign of failing to heal. It is what healing looks like.
• Healing is not a destination. Releasing the idea of an arrival point — the day everything is finally better — is itself an act of healing. One good day at a time is not a consolation prize. It is the framework that takes the pressure off and makes the next step possible.

Memorable Quote

"I used to think of healing as a destination. It took me a long time to learn — it's about progress. It's about recommitting every single day. There's no end." — Laura Bratton

 Episode Chapters aprox.

• 00:00 — Introduction: Laura Bratton, Harnessing Courage, and Ubi Global
• 00:46 — The diagnosis at nine: why the reality didn't land until years later
• 01:43 — High school, grief, depression, and survival mode
• 02:18 — How sight loss affected studies and friendships — and what invisibility really felt like
• 07:06 — Why this happens everywhere, not just in school
• 07:27 — The root of the problem: fear of the unknown, not indifference
• 09:01 — The simplest bridge: how to reach someone whose experience you don't understand
• 10:41 — A real-world example: what Laura's friend said that made everything easy
• 13:00 — The connection between self-confidence and willingness to show up for others
• 14:07 — The introvert-extrovert conversation: where does Laura sit?
• 15:48 — Is confidence innate or built? Laura's answer
• 17:06 — Grit and gratitude: the two words that became the foundation of her healing
• 18:59 — Why these aren't words you master once — they are a daily practice
• 20:43 — Healing as a journey, not a destination
• 21:25 — Recovery, one good day at a time
• 23:03 — What to do when you are in the middle of grief or major transition
• 25:06 — How to find Laura and her book

About Laura Bratton

Laura Bratton is the author of Harnessing Courage and the founder of Ubi Global, an organization dedicated to empowering people to overcome challenges and obstacles through grit and gratitude. Diagnosed with an eye disease at nine, Laura navigated the traumatic transition to full blindness through her teen years and has spent the years since turning that experience into a framework for resilience that she shares through speaking and coaching worldwide.

Connect with Laura and find her book at laurabratton.com.

About The Quiet Warrior Podcast

The Quiet Warrior Podcast is a show for introverted professionals navigating visibility challenges and what leadership looks like when you’re quiet by nature.

If this episode resonated, please rate and review the show on your listening app. Your support helps more introverts become Quiet Warriors.

Work with Serena

Host Serena Low is a trauma-informed coach and former lawyer who brings lived wisdom to every conversation, meeting quiet women leaders at the edge of their career crossroads, and guiding them towards clarity and congruence.

Book a Diagnostic Call with Serena to determine what's preventing you from making a decision: https://calendly.com/careerchangeconfidence/connect

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions