UnCeiling You: High-Performance Leadership without Burnout

What if the problem isn't that you can't handle the pressure — it's that the system learned you would?

Toni Will is the General Manager and Governor of the Kalamazoo Wings (ECHL), a TEDx speaker, Ironman triathlete, founder of the Empower Her conference, host of the Women In podcast, and author of the forthcoming book Rebellious Success (August 11, 2026). She is also 2,000+ days alcohol-free — and she'll tell you exactly...

What if the drive that made you successful in your corporate career is the same thing quietly burning out your body?

In this episode of the UnCeiling Zone, Dr. Natalie Luke sits down with Laurel Van Der Toorn — trauma therapist, EMDR specialist, and founder of Laurel Therapy Collective — to go somewhere most leadership conversations don't have the courage to go: into the body.

For high performers, corporat...

You prepped. You delivered. And then someone asked a follow-up question — and something flickered. A half second of blank space where your own thinking should have been.

In this episode, Dr. Natalie Luke sits down with Pav Lertjitbanjong — decision scientist, executive coach, and survivor of 27,000 high-stakes corporate meetings and 15+ restructurings — to unpack two forces that are quietly eroding your judgment at...

What happens when the weight you're carrying was never fully yours to begin with?

In this episode of Unsealing You, Natalie Luke sits down with Joanna Sadowska, PhD, EMBA— a bench scientist turned scientific communicator and entrepreneur — who made one of the hardest pivots a high achiever can make: walking away from a ten-year identity to build something entirely new. While still holding a full-time job.

What Joanna's st...

What happens when a corporate high performer builds everything she worked for — the title, the income, the family, the stability — and still feels empty?

That's exactly where today's guest, Nandita Mahadevan, found herself. After nearly 20 years of climbing the corporate ladder, hitting C-suite, and checking every box of external success, she realized she had been performing success rather than living it. Then perimenopa...

Most people think burnout is about workload. Work too much, rest too little, repeat until you collapse. But employment lawyer Natalie Holder has spent her career watching burnout unfold from a completely different angle — and what she sees is something most organizations refuse to name.

Burnout starts with a broken promise.

In this conversation, Natalie Holder and Natalie Luke go deep on the earliest signals that a workplace is...

If you have ever walked out of a meeting where nothing was assigned — but you already knew you were going to be the one to follow up, fix it, and make sure it actually happened — this episode is for you.

Corporate leadership burnout is at an all-time high. But most conversations stop at the symptoms: overwork, stress, exhaustion. This episode goes deeper. Host Natalie Luke breaks down why the most capable leaders burn ou...

Most people think career burnout comes from doing too much.

But what if the real exhaustion comes from carrying something that was never clearly yours anymore?

In this episode of UnCeiling You, I sit down with former concert cellist turned coach, Kate Kayaian, to unpack what happens when a high-performing career no longer fits—even when it looks successful from the outside.

We go beyond surface-level burnout and into something d...

What if burnout isn’t about workload—but about what you’re carrying?

In this episode of UnCeiling You, Natalie sits down with Nicolette Nierras, a former corporate high achiever turned transformational coach, to explore the real connection between the inner critic, burnout, and career growth.

If you’re navigating a demanding corporate environment, this conversation will challenge how you think about performanc...

What if the reason you feel stuck isn't that you're doing too little — but that you're doing it alone, or applying your effort to the wrong things?

In this episode, Natalie sits down with Dr. Christiane Schroeter — health economist, professor, wellness coach, bestselling author, and TEDx speaker — to explore her signature framework: Petite Practice. It's the idea that small, strategic actions done consistently can ...

A 2025 peer-reviewed study found that one burned-out manager costs their organization over $10,000 per year. But the study measured the cost. This episode names the mechanism that creates it — and what the research says actually fixes it.

Spoiler: it’s not a wellness program. It’s role clarity. And Dr. Natalie Luke walks you through both the individual tool and the organizational intervention that the evidence says...

Have you ever noticed that when a complicated problem appears in a meeting, people slowly start turning toward the same person?

Not necessarily the boss.

But the person who is calm, capable, and able to make sense of uncertainty.

For high-performing professionals, competence often attracts responsibility.

At first, being known as competent feels like trust.

But over time, something subtle begins to happen.

Responsibility starts to accumu...

She walked onto construction sites with a hard hat that never fit — not because she didn't care about safety, but because it was never designed for her. Smita Sahoo is an architect, interior designer, and the founder of a women's PPE innovation initiative. For 20 years, she's designed spaces where people do their best work. And for 20 years, she's held her hard hat on with one hand while sketching with the other. So she decid...

What if the real reason you can't get to your next level isn't a lack of skill? In this conversation with Dr. Candace Steele Flippin, we dive deep into the hidden patterns holding ambitious women back: from Gen Z's hunger for fast growth to millennial leaders carrying the impossible weight of "doing it all," to the one communication skill that's most correlated with career success (hint: most of us struggle with it). Dr. Candace sh...

What if the habits that once kept you safe are the very things now holding you back?

In this episode of UnCeiling You, Natalie sits down with Jennifer Gligoric, ethical entrepreneur, business strategist, and Asgardian Minister, to explore how early survival strategies can quietly shape leadership long after the original threat is gone.

Jennifer shares her journey from teenage homelessness to global leadership spaces, and the moment s...

This week, right before Thanksgiving — a time when so many women already carry the emotional, logistical, and relational load for their families — a major federal rule was announced reclassifying several women-dominated professions as “non-professional.”

Nursing, teaching, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and physician assistant programs will lose access to Gradu...

What if the boldest career move you can make isn’t a yes — but a no?

In this powerful episode of UnCeiling You, Natalie sits down with Stacie Shifflett, a woman who has rewritten what leadership looks like in rooms where she was never “supposed” to hold power.

From turning down multiple offers from Booz Allen…
 to negotiating work on her own terms…
 to helping lead a $50 million a...

Career advancement and leadership development don’t come from pushing harder — they come from learning how to lead with calm clarity. In this episode, we explore what it takes to shift from reacting under pressure to responding with confidence at work so you can grow sustainably without burning out.

This conversation with The Dutch Mentor goes straight to the heart of what overwhelmed high performers face: the invisible ...

You hit every target — but somehow, it still feels like no one sees you.

In this episode of UnCeiling You, host Dr. Natalie Luke sits down with Sharon Ehrlich — executive coach, public speaker, and former IT executive — to unpack why high-performing women can feel invisible even when excelling. Together, they explore the mindset and strategies behind true visibility, confidence at work, and career advancement that ...