The Cost of Playing Small: What Happens When Making Things Look Perfect Keeps You From Being Real with Sarah Albritton

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The Cost of Playing Small: What Happens When Making Things Look Perfect Keeps You From Being Real with Sarah Albritton

5d ago 1:01:39

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You've built something impressive. From the outside, it all looks good. But if you're honest with yourself, you've been playing small. Making things look perfect so no one sees the truth underneath. Smiling through the exhaustion. Saying "I'm just" when someone recognizes your power. Shrinking yourself so others feel comfortable.

Today's guest knows this pattern intimately because she lived it for years.

Sarah Albritton has spent over 30 years as the trusted catalyst for high-impact leaders who've achieved massive success but know something's still missing. She works with CEOs, founders, and senior executives who look unstoppable from the outside yet privately feel their compass spinning. Her clients include billion-dollar business leaders and visionary founders who've realized the old playbook isn't working anymore.

But before she was coaching the world's most accomplished leaders, Sarah was the woman who made everything look perfect while quietly crumbling inside. The high achiever with imposter syndrome who spent 20 years in a marriage where she wasn't fully present. The capable woman who carried chronic back pain because her body was screaming what she wouldn't say out loud. The leader who walked into rooms full of elite coaches and heard herself say "I'm just a coach here, just like everybody else" in that high-pitched little voice, watching doors close behind people's eyes.

Until the day she couldn't keep playing small anymore.

In this raw, vulnerable conversation, Sarah reveals what it actually costs to make things look perfect when you're not being real. The physical pain her body carried from years of inauthenticity. The devastating betrayal when her entire friend group turned on her during her divorce, not just walking away but actively trying to destroy her. The moment at a coaching seminar when she caught herself shrinking and made the conscious choice to show up bigger. And how learning to treat her body as her hero instead of her villain changed everything.

In this conversation, Sarah shares:

The real cost of playing small: how making things look perfect on the outside creates chronic pain, exhaustion, and a complete erosion of self-trust
Why imposter syndrome isn't humility, it's hiding your power, and the exact moment she chose to stop shrinking
What happens to your body when you spend years being inauthentic (and why her chronic back pain disappeared the moment she got real)
The difference between corporate leaders who've been conditioned not to trust themselves and entrepreneurs who struggle to trust anyone else
Why "who, question mark, me, exclamation point" is the energy shift that changes everything
The devastating cost of betrayal and how therapy helped her see that other people's reactions to her getting real had nothing to do with her
What her 15-year-old son said that made her realize the gift of getting real: "When you decided to get real, you made it possible for the rest of us to get real"
How she went from chasing dean positions and status to redefining success as "not needing a definition of success"
Why humans are terrible judges of their own impact and what becomes available when you stop needing proof
The work she's building now: Leading with Backbone, helping both business leaders and coaches show up courageously instead of hiding behind neutrality

This episode is for you if you've ever:

Caught yourself saying "I'm just" when someone recognized your power or capability
Made everything look perfect on the outside while quietly crumbling on the inside
Felt chronic pain, exhaustion, or physical symptoms you can't explain (and wondered if your body is trying to tell you something)
Played small so others would feel comfortable, then resented yourself for shrinking
Built a life that looks impressive but doesn't feel real, doesn't feel like you
Lost trust in yourself after betrayal and wondered if you'll ever feel safe again
Known you're capable of so much more but kept yourself small to stay safe
Wondered what would happen if you actually showed up as big as you really are

Sarah Albritton is a transformational coach and leadership catalyst who has spent over 30 years working with the world's most accomplished leaders. She's known for her rare ability to deliver what she calls "catalytic jolts of clarity," helping CEOs, founders, and senior executives torch limiting patterns and reclaim aligned leadership. Working from deep 1:1 coaching to transformative team sessions to soul-awakening retreats at her North Carolina farm, Sarah balances self-compassion with radical candor and a refusal to sugarcoat. Her new program, Leading with Backbone, helps both business leaders and coaches show up courageously with truth. Find her at sarahcalbritton.com and on LinkedIn and Instagram @sarahcalbritton.

Ready to stop playing small?

If Sarah's story hit close to home, it's because you're living some version of it right now. You've built something that looks good on the outside. People think you have it together. But you know the truth. You're playing smaller than you're capable of. Making things look perfect so no one sees how exhausted you really are. Shrinking yourself so others feel comfortable while your body carries the weight of everything you're not saying.

Here's what that costs you: your energy, your presence, your health, your relationships, and your ability to actually feel the success you've built. You collapse into bed exhausted but can't sleep because your mind won't stop racing. You snap at the people you love most, then feel guilty for not being present. You know you should take better care of yourself but you always run out of time and energy. You've built a life people admire but inside it doesn't feel congruent.

The Congruency Audit is where we look at the gap between the success you've built on the outside and what you're actually feeling on the inside. We'll identify the exact patterns keeping you stuck in playing small, the wounds driving your need to make things look perfect, and what it's going to take for you to finally show up as big as you actually are. This isn't about optimizing the version of yourself you built to survive. It's about creating congruence so the life you've built doesn't just look good, it finally feels right.

Book your Congruency Audit: lisacarpenter.ca/audit

Success that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.

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