Why You Keep Getting Passed Over for Promotion (And It's Not Sexism)

I was on a call recently with a woman who was eight years in at her company, consistently a top performer, and told twice that she was "next in line."

She'd just been passed over, AGAIN, and she couldn't understand why the f*ck this kept happening to her.

She felt like she outworked everyone else, and there was no reason why it shouldn't be her. Also, from my POV, she was EXTRAORDINARY at her job.

Butttt...after also working with her for a few sessions and just reading her intake form, I also knew that she was carrying a lot of resentment towards men. And we have to talk about the way this can affect your success in your career.

Because the stats are there, and I don't want you falling behind because you're not aware of this:

• Senior-level men are 9x more hesitant to travel with a woman than with another man
• They're 6x more likely to skip a work dinner with one
• 12x more hesitant to meet one-on-one with a junior woman than a junior man
• 60% of male managers say they're nervous about being wrongly accused of something (usually harassment)
• 36% completely avoid women in junior-level positions to protect themselves and their families

These are good men. These are dads, brothers, uncles, mentors—the kind of men who used to pull women up the corporate ladder. The kind whose feedback could change a woman's trajectory in a single conversation.

I've worked with high-performing women for over 9 years, and I know how this is showing up at the executive level.

Women are being promoted more slowly, mentored less, invited to fewer high-stakes rooms, and talked over more often.

Then we wonder why they hit a ceiling that men in the same role just don't hit.

What pisses me off is that the second wave of #MeToo, while necessary in some cases, has caused massive collateral damage to good men and the women they would have been mentoring.

Decent men who are terrified that an innocent action will be misinterpreted, their reputation destroyed, their family's stability gone overnight.

I've heard from men (and you would have read this if you read my book) who had their jobs stripped away while HR admitted they couldn't be seen as siding with him, even though they knew he'd done nothing wrong.

They're afraid one misinterpreted moment will end a career, a marriage, a reputation, a friendship circle.

So they've stopped mentoring, stopped opening doors, stopped giving honest feedback, and stopped putting their reputation on the line for a woman they believe in.

And the woman paying the price is YOU.

Your hyper-independence is a wound that's costing you money, and healing it is part of your career development. It's a money skill, and the women I've been working with 1:1 over the last 9 years literally see the impact it has on their SALARY, promotions, their influence at work, etc. It's incredible.

When you understand how men actually think—what they need to feel safe, what makes them want to pull someone up, why they said XYZ, and that they're not being rude; they're just being men... You have a competitive edge that 95% of women in your industry don't have.

You know how to speak to them in a way that makes them feel understood. You become the woman a senior man wants to mentor, advocate for, and bring into rooms that will get you to your next level.

Instead of always complaining about the system and "sexism," why don't you learn how to bypass it? To get around it?

Fighting is just going to keep you angry.

Your hyper-masculinity was never a badge of honour. It's a wound, and it's costing you money because we aren’t made to work like men; we need to work like women.

Healing the root of where this started is what I guide my clients through inside my signature 9-month intimate container, Soft & Ambitious.

This is application-only, so that you can rest assured the other women in the room are exactly like you, asking powerful questions (no victims), and no one is putting you on a pedestal.

And remember, this experience is designed with busy women and mothers in mind. We will have a 60-min trauma healing call every 2-3 weeks, which means lots of time for integration and for life to happen.

If you feel pulled to Soft & Ambitious, but are holding back because you feel like you are "too busy" or "have too much on" right now, that is the EXACT reason you need the program.