Ep. 47 : I'm a Recovering High Performer — Here's What It Actually Cost Me (Part 2)
What happens when you crack the "I've got this" mask, and realize you don't actually know who you are without it? Laura gets uncomfortably honest about the burnout that kept coming back, the grief that finally broke her open, and the identity crisis she didn't see coming.
This is Part 2 of Laura's deep dive into the high performer identity and it gets real fast.
She opens with a story about a work assignment where she was silently doing a daily report on top of her full workload, drowning in resentment and resignation, and when a supplier offered to help, she said no. Because that's what martyr-mode looks like from the inside: someone's throwing you a life raft and you wave it off from your island.
Then comes the grief. Two losses, a cousin at 41, a friend at 36, and Laura describes what it felt like to crawl into a ball on the floor in a lion onesie because it was the closest thing she had to a hug. The second loss cracked something open. A friend looked at her mid-conversation and said, "Wow, Laura, I've never seen you be human." That moment mattered.
But stubbornness has a long half-life, and burnout came back anyway. This time on a job where she'd done everything "right." She collapsed on the floor crying, looked around, and finally said: “I'm the common denominator.”
What followed was an identity reckoning.
Without the overwork, without the lead title, without the performance, she felt like a failure. Lethargic, living in black and white, nothing bringing joy. A 21-day experiment of trying things that used to make her happy, a mentor's question about her professional brand, and one brutal realization: she had been defining herself entirely by her outputs. The shift: from "I produce quality work" to "I have integrity". Sounds small. It wasn't.
What You'll Hear
✔️Laura turned down help from a supplier during a brutal work assignment because she'd fully embraced being the martyr on her island and didn't even clock it until years later.
✔️Two unexpected losses cracked the "I've got this" mask in the most human way possible, and a friend's one-line observation changed everything.
✔️Burnout hit for the fourth time, even after she'd done the work, and Laura finally stopped blaming the job and looked at herself.
✔️The 21-day joy reset that pulled her out of a depressive state, and the mentor question about professional brand that rewired how she defined her entire identity.
"I can't keep blaming these external factors because I'm the common denominator."
— Laura Dionisio
If this episode hit something in you, let's talk about what's actually going on and what your next aligned step looks like.
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You made the move, or maybe you're about to, or maybe you're still in it, showing up, performing, delivering, while something quiet in the background keeps saying, "This is not it." Either way, something has shifted, and you can't un-know it. Here's what nobody tells you. The landing strip is a little rocky once you come down from the high of accomplishment.
There are moments of real excitement, real clarity, like, "Yes, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be." And then night comes, and the anxiety rolls in. The what-ifs, the what am I actually doing? Not because you made the wrong choice, by the way, but because you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming.
Done pretending this is enough, done pushing through, done ignoring the thing that keeps pulling at you. That's exactly where this podcast lives. I'm Laura [00:01:00] Dionisio, founder of Lead Intact, and I've been exactly where you are. The corporate success that stopped feeling like success, the leap that was equal parts terrifying and necessary, the messy, non-linear process of building something that actually fits, and learning to trust yourself through all of it.
This is the pivot point. Real conversations about what's actually happening beneath the surface and what it takes to build a life that feels as good as it looks. Not just the wins, the attempts too. Because I'm not here to romanticize the journey. I'm here to show you what it's really like. Let's get into
it.
High Performer Mask
Laura: A friend of mine who had known me for about six years looked at me one day and was just like, " Wow, this is the first time I've seen you be [00:02:00] human." Welcome back to the Pivot Point.
Laura: Last episode, I started talking about basically pulling back the curtain on what the identity of being a high performer really cost me. I'll do a quick recap, but again, you're gonna wanna listen back to that one.
Laura: So we talked about how identifying as a high performer, it means that your sense of self-worth is externally driven. How in doing that, you develop an I've got this mask with a few other accessories called if I don't do it, no one else will, why am I the only one who cares? And how that mask turns you into an island. And that's what I realized in that moment when my friend turned to me and said, "Oh, you've never seemed human to me before."
Laura: I was like, "Oh, it's because I had turned myself into an island." And let me just give an example of how that looked from a work perspective.
[00:02:53] Work Martyr Story
Laura: I remember a few years back, I was on a work assignment where I temporarily [00:03:00] relocated to a supplier site.
Laura: It was one of those things where I wasn't really given clear instructions on what my intended role was.
Laura: It was basically just like, "We just need you there. Make sure that things happen." But the one thing that- Nobody else except for me really felt the pressure on is that because I was the person, the representative on site, I was expected to give a daily report.
Laura: I started to feel really, really resentful. "Wow, I'm not the reason we're in this, but why am I, and only me, why am I the only one who has to be put under a microscope?" But then I just kind of felt resigned.
Laura: Like, you know what? It is what it is. I'm gonna accept that this is my role. I wanna make sure that whatever information the supplier needs from the rest of my team, that I give it to them, and also vice versa, whatever information from my supplier that my team needs I'll just be the go-between, and I will just accept that on top of all my other work...
Laura: Because, by the way, [00:04:00] I wasn't just the go-between. I had my own work I needed to do. I was supporting other projects at the same time. I was like, on top of all that, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do this daily report. And I didn't realize until looking back, I kind of had, like, the martyr identity going on.
Laura: And I say that because when I went on vacation, I was gone for a week, I remember going to our supplier team and asking one person in particular , "Hey, can you just write this report for me? Because I'm gonna be gone for five days for vacation, and the higher-ups expect this."
Laura: And then the supplier looked at me and was like, " You mean you've been doing this every day?" I was like, "Yes." I didn't want to show my resentment because, of course, I'm not gonna go complain about, my own team to the supplier, right? I just felt that was unprofessional.
Laura: So I just said, "Yes, because this is a high visibility project, given the scope of it with the schedule and the budget constraints, I've been asked to do a daily report." [00:05:00] So the supplier team just looked at me and was like, " Okay, would you like me to just give you a daily update even after you get back on vacation just to help you out?"
Laura: And you know what my response was, Martyr Laura? And by the way, genuinely I understand where I was coming from. I said no, because you are already doing what you can to make sure that the project is running smoothly. I really appreciate it, but this is just like, basically this is my cross to bear, so to speak.
Laura: It's almost like somebody was in a life raft coming towards my island and, and was like, "Hey, Laura, do you need some help?"
Laura: And I was just like, "Oh, no, thank you. I will just stay on my island." That's basically what was going on.
[00:05:40] Loneliness Under Pressure
Laura: So all that to say, I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster from resentment to resignation, and then underneath it all, loneliness. Because, you know, that project I remember feeling such a great sense of camaraderie because I really felt like between the supplier team and also my internal team, aside from the higher-ups, [00:06:00] we all were just very much we will do what it takes to get this done, and I really enjoyed that.
Laura: And by nature of my role there, I was surrounded by people. I was talking to people constantly. My team, their team, higher-ups, right? And underneath it all was this feeling of loneliness ... Because I had never talked about the pressure of that job, even to my team lead, because I just felt like, no, this is my cross to bear.
Laura: This is what I signed up for. This is what I volunteered for. I had never admitted to... To be honest, like early on in that, in that journey, I started having panic attacks because of all the pressure I was under. I never talked about any of that, not even really to my friends. I was just kinda like, "Oh yeah, it's stressful, but you know, that's just how it is."
Laura: You know, again, with the resignation.
[00:06:44] Grief Cracks Open
Laura: And I remember on a personal level so I mentioned in the last episode that my cousin had passed away unexpectedly at age 41 or, or 42. And a little over a year [00:07:00] later a friend of mine- Passed away via an accident. He was 36. And I will give credit to the me at the time.
Laura: I felt that same level of devastation, but I just remembered how I responded when my cousin passed, and that feeling of just aloneness, of just devastation, of just me crawling into, like, a fetal position in a ball on the floor in a lion onesie because that was the closest I felt to having a hug. And I was just like, I'm not letting myself go that deep in the hole again."
Laura: And so to the credit of, honestly, the me of, I don't know, that was, like, maybe seven years ago or so, it was the first time that it was like imagine me in an island where I've got this, right? High performer island. And it was the first time I kind of like sent out flares, so to speak, of like, "Help me." Now, I want to point out, I think this is really important, that I didn't suddenly learn how to ask for [00:08:00] help or receive support the way that I, I would today.
Laura: What I wanna point out is that it was the attempt that mattered. I was still a little clumsy at it, so to speak. You know, imagine, like, a toddler who's learning to walk for the first time. They stand up and they stumble a few steps, they don't just suddenly stand up and walk across the room with finesse and all that.
Laura: That's kind of equivalent of how I was reaching outside of my island for the first time. So what I mean by that is whereas when my cousin had passed, I basically left myself alone in that feeling of devastation and didn't really talk to anyone about it, and it was so, so hard. And when my friend passed, it was still so, so hard.
Laura: The difference is I remember just being more open about it. I still wasn't at a point where I felt comfortable calling someone when I was breaking down or crying. I was... I remember crying every day for like a week because of just sadness, because of just the abruptness of it, because of guilt. You know?
Laura: [00:09:00] Like, this friend had been asking me, "Hey, do you wanna visit?" And I kept putting it off like, "Oh yeah, next time." You know? All that, right? And it was the first time that I was starting to crack the mask, the I've got this mask because I was like, "I don't got this." And I remember being a little bit more open about it.
Laura: I had posted going to his funeral, and a friend of mine the next day was just like, "Hey, are you okay?" And I was like I'm not. I'm not okay. I'm devastated. I cry every day."
Laura: I went away for a weekend with that one friend who knew me for six years, and I was telling her about... You know, 'cause that friend and I, the one who had passed, used to write emails back and forth to each other, and when he had passed, I wrote him one last email.
Laura: You know, like, thank you for the friendship, that kind of thing. Oh, gosh, it's hard to think about. And as I was telling her the story, that's when you know, I was starting to tear up, and she was like, "Wow, Laura, I've never seen you be human."
Laura: That moment cracked something open in me, but I still had more to learn because I'm a little bit of a stubborn person.
[00:09:59] Burnout Returns Again
Laura: Not long [00:10:00] after, I found myself burnt out again
Laura: And I wanna address this because I implemented the things that I'd learned since the first burnout.
Laura: I made sure- That I didn't have as many expectations beyond my stated responsibility, which was my mistake the first time. I made sure that I communicated when I had needs. And then one day, I remember as I was answering an IM, just got off the phone with someone and checking my email, this meeting notification popped up for a meeting in five minutes.
Laura: But I was already booked for another meeting, and both of them wanted me there as the team lead to represent our project. And I just remember collapsing on the floor crying. And I was just like, " What the fuck? How am I here again?" 'Cause it's not the first time that I have felt these feelings of burnout.
Laura: And so it was the first time that I really assessed, "Okay, I can't keep [00:11:00] blaming the job or the people." Because like I said, the first job I was just like, "Oh, it's because more responsibilities were put on me that were outside of my job description."
Laura: And then I was just like, "Oh, but the reward for good work is more work. Ha ha, that's just corporate life."
Laura: Or I was like, "Maybe if I just let myself fail, they will actually listen to me when I say that I need support
Laura: And I just remember I was just like, "I can't, I can't keep blaming these external factors because I'm the common denominator." And it was the first time that I really had to take a look at myself. I'm like, what is my part in this burnout? Because corp is gonna do what it's gonna do. But what am I doing to contribute to this?
Laura: 'Cause at that point it was like my fourth job maybe, and I'm like, "Fourth time, Laura, burnout again?
[00:11:47] Dropping Ive Got This
Laura: What's going on?" And this is when I first realized that, "Oh, it's because of this mask I was wearing of 'I've got this.' It's actually not serving me anymore." I [00:12:00] used to think that it was vital that I be seen this way, that I show up this way.
Laura: And I started looking back in my, my memories of my other jobs, I'm like, you know what? I-- even when I asked for help in this last job, I always made sure that there was no stress in my voice, that I still had a plan forward, that I still looked like I had my shit together, and actually it's like doing me a disservice.
Laura: So when I finally cracked that mask of, like, I'm no longer gonna have this, I've got this mask, 'cause it's not fucking serving me anymore, I ended up being able to negotiate an out of pay cycle 16% raise, and then got offered another job that was a little bit higher than that. I talk about this in another episode, but just to show that, like, this is why the identity work is so important.
Laura: Once I released it and found a sense of self-worth in basically who I am, and not just who I [00:13:00] presented myself to be, that's when I was able to basically stand up for myself and negotiate what I was worth. So I think that's important to say. So then what ended up happening after that, right? I cracked the mask.
Laura: The mask is no longer there. But the thing is, I didn't address the identity of I am a high performer, 'cause I just thought, I'm like, "Oh, that's a, that's a great thing." At the time, I didn't realize the difference between saying I am a high performer to I'm a person who performs well. That sounds like such a small difference, but when you say, "I am a high performer," think about it.
Laura: When you're no longer, quote-unquote, performing, then who are you? And that's exactly what happened next.
[00:13:40] Identity Crisis After
Laura: I got another job, and I made sure to ask things like, what's the support system? Who can I lean on, et cetera.
Laura: I thought I was setting myself up for success. Here's what happened. So now I'm working regular 40-hour weeks, and I took a break from being a lead. I wasn't a lead in this [00:14:00] position. So I was just like, "Oh, I should be cruising, should be happy. Let me just, chill for a bit." What I didn't expect to happen is that I found myself in a depressed state.
Laura: I wasn't formally diagnosed that way, but looking back, it certainly seemed like I was displaying the symptoms because I was lethargic, didn't want to get out of bed. Things that used to take me 15 minutes took an hour. I genuinely felt like I was living in black and white. The things that used to bring me joy was not bringing me joy anymore. And I was just like, "Uh-oh, this is not great." So I talked about it with my therapist.
[00:14:41] 21 Day Joy Reset
Laura: I basically ended up talking to another friend who was going through something similar and convinced her, "Hey, let's just do this 21 day of activities that used to bring us joy." And the whole point with that, I think this is important to share, is that not that we need to find something that brought us joy every day, but that we had to try.
Laura: [00:15:00] So for example, walks used to bring me joy. Playing the ukulele used to bring me joy. And so every day I would pick something that used to bring me joy, and the point wasn't if I felt joyous or not. It was that I tried. And if there was a day where I didn't do it, the next day I just try again. So I did that for 21 days, and it was enough to lift me out of that state to be able to assess, "Okay, what's going on here?"
Laura: And that's when I realized, my identity is so wrapped around being a high performer, my idea of success was so wrapped around overworking, to be honest, that when I was no longer working at the rate that I used to, which by the way was a conscious decision because I knew that the way I was working before was leading me to burnout, I didn't know who I was anymore.
Laura: I felt like a failure. I felt lazy. I felt like a piece of shit, to be honest.
[00:15:53] Redefining Your Brand
Laura: And what really helped me is I was going through formal mentorship at the time, [00:16:00] and my, my mentor at the time Asked a question of what is your professional brand? And the me before all this happened would've been like hard worker, produces quality work, high performer, reliable.
Laura: And notice how all of those had to do with an output, things that I'm providing. And because I was going through all this, it was honestly like divine timing. I thought to myself, "Who am I beyond what I just provide? Who am I beyond my outputs?" And I started to think about it. I'm like, "I'm fun, I'm creative, I am curious and inquisitive, I'm a team player."
Laura: Instead of saying I produce quality work, I made it something like I have integrity. Do you notice a difference? The difference there is that I now was defining myself about who my values are on the inside, and not what was, quote unquote, "expected of me" or what the output looked like.
Laura: Because the person who has those values that I talked about will produce quality [00:17:00] work. So rather than saying, "I am a high quality work producer," or, "I'm a high performer," or high achiever, whatever you wanna say, that just happens to be an output. But the real identity is because I have high integrity, I'm a team player, like whatever it is.
[00:17:15] Who Are You Beyond
Laura: So listener, if this is resonating with you, if you're seeing yourself in my stories, I invite you to take this time to think through who am I beyond what I can provide for others. It may not be an easy exercise at first. It brought me to tears because at first I was just like, "I don't fucking know."
Laura: And if so, let the tears come. Let the feelings come. It's okay. And I invite you, if that is your experience, reframe it to, "I'm so curious to get to know me again. I'm so curious." Because the point isn't in having a beautiful list of who am I.
Laura: The point is in the journey, in the uncovering, and then [00:18:00] the embodiment once you rediscover who you are.
[00:18:03] Closing And Support
Laura: If this episode spoke to you,
Laura: if you are looking for support to go through your own journey, I'd be so happy to walk your journey with you. Book a free 20-minute clarity call with me at www.leadintact.com/booking. And with that, I'll see you next time
If this episode hit something in you, good. That's not an accident. The discomfort you're feeling isn't a sign that something's wrong with you. It's a sign that you're done. Done living in the eh, done waiting for it to magically feel better, done being really good at a life that doesn't actually fit you anymore.
Speaker 5: And if good enough stopped being good enough a long time ago, that's exactly who I work with. I'm Laura Dionisio. I'm a coach for high achievers who are done pretending that checking the boxes is enough, and are [00:19:00] ready to do something about it. If that's you, let's talk. Book a free clarity call at leadandtact.com/booking.
We'll figure out together what's actually going on and what your next aligned step looks like. And if you're not quite there yet, that's okay too. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it. You probably already know exactly who that is. And with that, I'll see you next time.