How to Choose Radical Acceptance as a Mid-Career Woman

There’s that quiet moment when the most accomplished women leaders think:

Why is this still so hard?

As a woman in leadership, you’ve likely built a career through grit and adaptability. You came up in workplaces that didn’t always make room for you and never handed you a roadmap.

And during National Women’s Month, when stories of trailblazing women are everywhere, it can still feel disorienting. You see the milestones and the recognition and wonder why your own experience still feels so challenging.

You start wondering if you’re the only one still struggling. You’re not. This is what growth actually looks like. This part of leadership is rarely discussed. But the topic is getting more attention in the media these days.

The Shared Experience No One Talks About

Here’s what you’re not hearing in the boardrooms. Every leader you admire has experienced doubts.

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They’ve questioned:

• whether they’re making the right call
• whether they’re ready for what’s next
• whether they’re carrying too much

The difference isn’t that they don’t struggle. It’s that they’ve learned to reinterpret the struggle.

Instead of thinking, “This means I’m not ready,” they shift to: “This is what being ready requires of me.”

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President & Founder at Knowledge Coop Ken Perry shares a conversation with brand and AI strategist Katie Shive in Lessons From Last Time about embracing the things she never would have chosen including loss, relocation, and uncertainty, and how they ultimately led to a more varied, fulfilling life.

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Their conversation explores radical acceptance and what it means to stop resisting what burnout is trying to reveal, surrender to uncertainty, and find a new perspective on the other side.

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Change isn’t interrupting your life. It is your life.

Accepting those challenges helped Katie become not only more resilient, but a stronger leader. “I never would have chosen infertility or moving cross-country with a newborn and no support system,” she says.

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Growth at this stage of life and leadership is less about adding more skills and more about becoming more of who you already are. “Those experiences led me to the biggest change for me,” says Katie. “For the first time in my life, I actually like who I am.”

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That same theme shows up again in another episode of Lessons From Last Time, where Ken recognizes that change is not everyone’s favorite thing. “Change is my favorite thing in the world,” Ken says. “But a lot of people don’t love it.”

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He points to companies like Netflix and Amazon, organizations that didn’t resist change, but moved with it while continuing to grow their market share. Leaders who invest time in the ‘why’ create teams that can actually move with change, not against it.

Disruption forces you to:

• Let go of strategies that once worked.
• Redefine success on your own terms.
• Trust your voice in rooms where it’s still not always mirrored back.

If this resonates, explore the conversations: Listen to Ken Perry on Change and Katie Shive on Radical Acceptance. You might hear more of your own story in theirs than you expect.