In this episode, we sit down with Alli, founder of Work and Thrive HQ, to talk about how you can get trapped in the Chief Everything Officer role where you’re being the default for everything, saying yes by default, stepping in because it’s faster, and staying constantly available until you burn out.
Alli shares how she hit that point as a young director during COVID, working nonstop and realizing she needed outside coaching to change. We break down why “always being on” is one of the sneakiest parts of the loop, how it can feel like good leaders, and how it keeps your nervous system and your team stuck.
You’ll also hear practical ways to untangle your identity from work, including a “superpowers” outreach exercise, a joy-and-energy audit, and modeling boundaries and self-care openly so you can lead strategically and still have a life.
The Chief Everything Officer. Nobody hands you that title.
You earn it slowly, by being the one who jumps in. The one who says yes. The one who handles it because it’s faster, and you’re already good at it, and letting something drop feels more uncomfortable than just doing it yourself.
And you were good at it. That’s the part that makes this hard.
By 28, Alli had a director title, a team, and a six-figure salary. She also had two months of working straight without a single day off. Waking up at 2am. Treating her husband like a roommate.
And missing four consecutive ski weekends with friends, until their new friend looked at Alli’s husband on a chairlift and said,
I think you made her up. I think she’s a figment of your imagination.
That’s the moment Alli sat on her bed staring at the ceiling and asked herself: Is this what I succeeded my way into?
Sit with that for a second.
The loop you can’t see while you’re in it
Here’s what the Chief Everything Officer pattern looks like: you say yes by default. You step in because it’s faster if you just handle it. You defer your own priorities. You stay constantly available. And then you’re so deep in it you can’t see your way out.
Alli’s take on which step is sneakiest? Always being on.
Because it feels like good leadership.
You respond fast, you handle things, and your team thanks you. Your manager sees you as dependable.
The validation keeps coming, and you keep performing the behavior that triggers it. Until the day it stops working and by then, you’ve built your entire sense of self around being the person who can do everything.
And this isn’t only an energy problem. It’s physiological.
When your brain never turns off, your nervous system never gets a break. You’re not just tired. You’re running on a stress response that doesn’t know how to stop.
And when you’re in that state, you lose the ability to step back and see that something needs to change. You have to be out of it to see it. Nobody tells you that part.
Who are you when you stop doing everything?
A lot of the professionals I work with don’t need to do less. They need to figure out who they are when they stop doing everything.
If your sense of worth is built around being the one people call, the one who’s always available, and the one who holds it all together, what happens to that when you stop?
Not to your calendar. To you.
Alli uses two exercises to start that untangling.
The first is a superpowers exercise. You reach out to people in your life who have nothing to do with your job (friends, family, mentors) and ask them what your superpowers are. Not professionally, but as a person.
What do they see in you that has nothing to do with your title?
Most people are surprised by what comes back. It’s been so long since they thought about themselves outside of work that they’ve genuinely forgotten.
The second is a joy and energy audit. Three columns on a piece of paper:
- the activities that bring you joy and energy outside of work,
- a score out of 10 for each one,
- and an honest accounting of how often you’re doing them per month.
What you usually find is that the things you’d rate a nine, you’re doing zero times a month.
When it’s right in front of you on paper, you can’t sweep it under the rug.
Secret self-care and what it costs everyone
Alli shared a story about a client who was hiding her lunchtime yoga and her Friday morning walks.
She wasn’t putting any of it on her calendar because she was afraid of being seen as uncommitted.
If you laughed a little just now, or felt that somewhere in your body, you know exactly what that’s about.
A lot of us came up in environments where taking a real lunch meant you weren’t serious. Where logging off on time meant you weren’t a team player. Where booking a doctor’s appointment during the day was something you apologized for.
Those environments teach you that your needs are a liability. You internalize it. And then you carry it into the next job, and the one after that.
This client started putting these things on her calendar visibly. She named them to her team and explained what she noticed when she protected that time.
Her team started asking questions. They started feeling like they had permission. And guess what? Her productivity didn’t drop.
Visibility matters here in a way that goes beyond your own wellness. If you’re in a leadership role and nobody above you has ever modeled working sustainably, your team doesn’t know it’s possible.
Some of them (the good ones, the ones you need) have already decided they don’t want to advance if advancing means becoming you. That’s a pipeline problem.
One thing to try
Pull out a piece of paper and mark your three columns.
- Activities that bring you joy or energy outside of work
- A score out of 10
- How often you’re doing them
Don’t fix it yet. Just look at it.
Sometimes that’s enough to get you moving.
Subscribe to start making meaningful changes with every episode.
To connect with Alli:
- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonmurphy541/)
- Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/itsallimurphy/)
- Work & Thrive HQ (https://itsallimurphy.com/)
I’m Tara Kermiet — career coach, burnout strategist, and host of The Balanced Badass Podcast®. I help high-achievers and corporate leaders design careers that are successful and sustainable.
Here, you’ll find tactical tools, leadership lessons, and burnout education that just makes sense.
👉 Start by taking my free Burnout Drivers Mini Assessment
😍 Join my community on Instagram (@TaraKermiet) and/or TikTok (@TaraKermiet) so we can stay connected!
