UNSHAKEABLE HER: Real-World Leadership, Influence and Promotion for Ambitious Women.

UNSHAKEABLE HER: Real-World Leadership, Influence and Promotion for Ambitious Women.

By Caroline Esterson: Leadership, Influence and Promotion Coach.BusinessEducationSelf-ImprovementCareersManagement
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UNSHAKEABLE HER: Real-World Leadership, Influence and Promotion for Ambitious Women. episodes

  • #138 | The “Clean Run” Myth That Stalls Leadership Progress and Promotion.

    What if the reason you're struggling to make progress isn't a lack of discipline—but the fact that you're waiting for a stretch of uninterrupted time that simply isn't coming?

    In this episode, we dig into the science behind why small, triggered actions can move you further than the big uninterrupted work session you're waiting for. From nearly 12,000 daily diary entries to research on scarcity, habits, small wins, and “if-then” planning, you'll discover why progress doesn't have to look impressive to be powerful.

    You'll also explore what this means when you're leading other people—and how the way you structure work can either support capable people or quietly leave them waiting for a “clean run.”

    1. Understand why small progress has such a powerful effect on motivation — discover why tiny wins can have a disproportionately positive impact, while periods of stalled progress can erode your confidence.
    2. Stop treating messy circumstances as a character flaw — learn why habits can collapse when your circumstances change and how changing your cues and reducing the size of the task can help you keep moving.
    3. Learn how to make progress more resilient to real life — use smaller actions and “if-then” plans to create momentum, and discover how to apply the same thinking when you're leading a team.

    If you're ready to stop waiting for the perfect conditions and learn how to keep making meaningful progress when life gets messy, listen to the full episode.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    15 min
  • #137 | Waiting for the “Right Time” Could Cost You the Leadership Opportunity You Worked For.

    What if the leadership opportunity you’ve worked toward finally arrives—but your life is already completely full?

    When you're ambitious, it's easy to believe you need a clear diary, uninterrupted time, and the right conditions before you can step into a bigger opportunity. But life rarely creates that kind of space. In this episode, you'll follow Cara as a major leadership opportunity arrives just as family, work, and everyday life become impossibly messy.

    You'll discover why waiting for the “clear run” can quietly cost you opportunities—and how to start moving forward even when you only have fragments of time.

    1. Recognize the pattern that can stall your leadership growth — spot what happens when an opportunity arrives, life gets busy, and waiting starts to look like ambivalence to everyone else.
    2. Rewrite the three unspoken rules holding capable women back — challenge the belief that you need to hide your personal life, have uninterrupted time, or start perfectly before your work counts.
    3. Learn how to turn tiny fragments of time into meaningful progress — use a simple first step to create momentum instead of waiting for the 90 minutes you may never get.

    If you're ready to stop waiting for life to become less messy and start moving on the leadership opportunities you've worked for, listen to the full episode.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    17 min
  • #136 | 3 Leadership Moves That Protect Your Time & Mean You're Never "Too Busy" to Think Strategically Again.

    What if the biggest thing stopping you from doing your best work isn’t a lack of time — but what you’re allowing into your best thinking hours?

    When your calendar is packed with meetings, messages and operational demands, strategic thinking gets pushed into whatever scraps of time remain. But becoming a more effective leader doesn’t mean squeezing even more into your day. It means protecting the conditions that allow your strategic thinking, deep work and flow to happen in the first place.

    In this episode, you’ll discover how to identify the hours when your brain works at its best and start treating that time as the valuable professional resource it actually is.

    You’ll learn:

    1. How to identify your peak thinking window so you can match your most important work to the hours when your energy, focus and motivation are strongest.
    2. How to protect time for strategic thinking and deep work without disappearing from your team, restructuring your entire week or waiting for your organization to change.
    3. How to challenge unnecessary meetings and calendar demands so you can recover more time, find your flow and produce better work without simply working longer.

    Listen to discover three practical moves you can use this week to reclaim your calendar, protect your best thinking and create more space for the work that actually makes a difference.

    Discover Your Power Window: Download your free worksheet here!

    Find out when your brain is at its best with Caroline's free Peak & Flow worksheet. Identify your peak focus hours, recognise your energy patterns, and learn to schedule your most important work when you're at your best.


    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    17 min
  • #135 | Busyness Is Stealing Your Best Thinking Time & It’s Hurting Your Leadership, Influence and Promotion Prospects

    When was the last time you had two uninterrupted hours to work on something important—and came out the other side feeling energized rather than exhausted?

    That feeling is flow, and your workplace may be making it almost impossible to experience.

    Between back-to-back meetings, notifications, interruptions, and calendars that fill themselves, your best cognitive hours can disappear before you've had the chance to use them. The result isn't necessarily more productivity—it's fragmented attention, slower work, and less opportunity to produce the work that creates real value.

    In this episode, you'll explore what happens when you understand your natural performance cycles and deliberately protect the conditions your brain needs for deep, focused work.

    You'll learn how to:

    1. Identify your peak performance windows so you can stop wasting your best cognitive hours on work that doesn't require them.
    2. Create the conditions for flow by understanding why uninterrupted concentration, clear goals, feedback, and the right level of challenge matter.
    3. Protect more time for deep work and rethink meetings, interruptions, and calendar habits that quietly consume your team's collective cognitive capacity.

    Ready to find your flow? Listen to the episode to discover how to protect your best thinking time, find your flow, and create more value without simply working more hours.

    Want to discover when you do your best thinking and have the most energy for high-value work? Use this workbook to identify your peak working periods and start protecting them in your diary.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    13 min
  • #134 | Stop Wasting Your Best Focus Hours on Meetings, Instead Use Them to Build Leadership, Influence and Value.

    What if your busiest days are actually keeping you from doing the work that gets you noticed?

    If your calendar is packed with meetings, calls, emails, and constant interruptions, it can feel like you're being productive simply because you're busy. But there's a difference between activity and output—and confusing the two can leave your highest-value work sitting on your to-do list for weeks.

    In this episode, you'll follow Cara as she discovers what happens when she stops waiting for an empty calendar and deliberately protects time for the work that actually moves the dial.

    You’ll learn how to:

    1. Identify the high-value work you're continually putting off so you can focus your time and energy on work that creates meaningful impact.
    2. Separate busyness from effectiveness and stop using a full calendar as evidence that you're being productive.
    3. Create protected 90-minute focus blocks that give your brain enough uninterrupted space to think, produce better work, and make your value more visible.

    Ready to stop letting your calendar dictate your priorities? Listen to the episode and find one piece of high-value work to give your next 90-minute focus block.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    10 min
  • #133 | The 3 Step Reset You NEED To Ditch Perfectionism, Build Your Leadership Influence & Protect Your Promotion Potential

    What if the thing keeping you from submitting your work isn't that it needs to be better—but that you're afraid of what happens when it's finally seen?

    If you find yourself endlessly editing, rereading, or delaying work that is already good enough, Perfectionism may be doing more than raising your standards. It may be helping Imposter Syndrome keep you in a cycle where nothing ever feels finished—especially as you step into Bigger Roles.

    In this episode, you'll learn practical ways to interrupt that cycle and create a healthier definition of “done.” You'll discover why the closer you get to completion, the harder it can become to release your work, and how to stop giving your inner perfectionist control over when you move forward.

    You’ll learn:

    1. How to interrupt the perfectionism spiral before you submit using a specific submission time, trusted feedback, and a no-rereading rule. 
    2. How to create your own definition of “done” so you can release work based on its purpose rather than an imaginary standard. 
    3. How to retrain your brain to notice what is already working through the Done Line, One-Read Rule, and Good List. 

    The goal isn't lower standards. It's carrying a lighter shield—and learning that you can release good work without waiting for certainty.

    Listen to the episode and learn how to let your work be done without letting Perfectionism and Imposter Syndrome decide when you're ready to move on.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    14 min
  • #132 | Why Perfectionism Explodes When You Step Into Bigger Leadership Roles & The Imposter Syndrome Trap That Keeps Brilliant Women Playing Small.

    Whose standard are you actually trying to meet—and what is your Perfectionism costing you as you step into Bigger Roles?

    Perfectionism can look like ambition, conscientiousness, and high standards from the outside. But for many women, it can be driven by something much more exhausting: the belief that other people are constantly evaluating whether you’re good enough.

    In this episode, we unpack the research behind three types of perfectionism and explore why socially prescribed perfectionism is particularly important when you’re navigating career growth, visibility, and Bigger Roles. We also examine the connection between Perfectionism, burnout, and the internal pressure that can fuel Imposter Syndrome.

    You’ll learn:

    1. How to identify the type of Perfectionism you’re experiencing and recognize when high standards have shifted into an exhausting need for external approval. 
    2. Why women can be particularly vulnerable to socially prescribed Perfectionism and how external expectations can become an internal critical voice. 
    3. How to recognize when Perfectionism is becoming a burnout risk and start separating genuinely high standards from the impossible standards created by Imposter Syndrome. 

    Listen to the episode to understand what’s really driving your Perfectionism—and change the relationship you have with uncertainty, approval, and stepping into Bigger Roles.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    14 min
  • #131 | This ‘High Standards’ Leadership Habit Is Already Damaging Your Influence & Could Be Costing You a Promotion.

    What if the “high standards” you’re so proud of are actually perfectionism in disguise?

    You care deeply about the quality of your work. You want to get things right. You’re conscientious, capable, and used to producing work you can stand behind. But there’s a point where high standards stop being useful—and perfectionism takes over.

    In this episode, we follow Cara as she spends days tweaking work that her boss has already called “exactly what I needed.” Her story reveals the subtle form of perfectionism many high-achieving women experience: not obsessing before the work is finished, but revisiting, questioning, and quietly dismantling it after it’s already done.

    The key distinction? High standards are about the quality of your work. Perfectionism is often about what you fear will happen if the work is wrong.

    You’ll discover:

    1. How to recognize when perfectionism is masquerading as high standards—especially when your work already meets the evidence in front of you. 
    2. Why unfamiliar situations can trigger your inner perfectionist and make you reach for control when you actually need to tolerate uncertainty. 
    3. A more useful question than “Is this good enough?” so you can stop chasing certainty and start recognizing when your work is genuinely done. 

    Listen to the episode to understand the hidden cost of perfectionism—and learn how to choose done and good over perfect and late without lowering the standards that matter to you.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    13 min
  • #130 | STOP Sacrificing Your Leadership and Influence to Work Guilt & 3 Simple Ways to Protect What Matters.

    What happens when your ambition starts to feel like it's costing you the people you love?

    A demanding new role can pull you into survival mode. You focus on proving yourself, carrying the load, and keeping everything moving—and before you realize it, the people closest to you may be getting whatever is left of your time and energy.

    But guilt isn't the solution. The answer is learning how to have the honest conversations, renegotiate what needs to change, and protect what matters while continuing to build the career you want.

    In this episode, you'll learn:

    1. How to have the honest conversation that reveals what has quietly fallen out of balance. 
    2. How to make specific, time-bound requests for support without trying to micromanage how someone else handles them. 
    3. How to protect meaningful time with the people you love so your career doesn't get all the best parts of you. 

    Listen to the full episode to learn how to pursue your career without letting guilt—or your work—run the rest of your life.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    15 min
  • #129 | The Hidden Mental Load That Starts Hurting Your Leadership & Influence Just as Your Career Takes Off.

    What if the thing draining your capacity at work isn’t a lack of ambition, capability, or commitment—but the invisible mental load you’re carrying outside of work?

    As your career accelerates, family and household demands can accelerate at exactly the same time. The result isn't simply “too much to do.” It’s the cognitive cost of constantly anticipating, planning, coordinating, deciding, and monitoring what needs to happen—and that cost can compound when you’re also trying to grow your career.

    In this episode, we explore the science behind the hidden mental load, why women disproportionately carry the invisible work of anticipating and monitoring, and why guilt can be a systemic response rather than evidence that you’re doing something wrong.

    You’ll also learn why asking for “more help” often doesn’t solve the problem—and what a more specific approach to renegotiating responsibility can look like.

    You’ll learn how to:

    1. Recognize the hidden cognitive cost of carrying the mental load alongside a demanding career, so you can distinguish being overloaded from being less capable.
    2. Reframe career-related guilt by understanding the social expectations and structural pressures that can create it, rather than automatically turning it into self-criticism.
    3. Renegotiate responsibilities more effectively by moving from vague requests for help to clear ownership of specific tasks, responsibilities, and territories.

    Listen to the episode to understand the hidden mental load draining your capacity—and discover how to respond more resourcefully as your career accelerates.

    New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

    Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at [email protected] - I read them all.

    And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her.

    Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.


    13 min

About UNSHAKEABLE HER: Real-World Leadership, Influence and Promotion for Ambitious Women.

From the publisher's feed

You're already leading. So why aren't you the one getting promoted?


UNSHAKEABLE HER is the podcast for ambitious women in leadership who want promotion, not just…