Secrets of the Career Game

 Kendall Berg and Katy Culver challenge the job title identity trap that keeps high performers tied to outdated roles, titles, and versions of success. If your career identity is built around overworking, control, weak boundaries, or proving your value through corporate achievement, professional growth starts to feel harder than it needs to. Katy explains how future self work and the "I'm the type...

Hard work alone won't get you promoted; here's what actually drives career progression.  If you've been overlooked, passed over, or stuck wondering why your boss keeps choosing someone else, this video breaks down the real rules of how to get promoted at work. Kendall Berg explains why your career is a game, and pretending the corporate rules don't exist only keeps you playing small.  You'll learn...

Sometimes the job is not the problem. The problem is that we let one role become our identity, our confidence, and our entire sense of security. Henry Nelson-Case, who shares workplace and legal humor online as That Corporate Lawyer, joins me to talk about career confidence, workplace mental health, and why leaving a bad job can feel so terrifying. If you feel stuck, over-attached to your title, o...

Most professionals think selling yourself at work means bragging. A career sales executive says that's exactly wrong. Kendall Berg sits down with her husband, David Berg, a sales executive with 13+ years at AT&T, to break down how to play the corporate game, build executive presence, and communicate your value without feeling fake.  In this episode:  • Why "selling yourself" is actually about list...

There is a very loud version of entrepreneurship online right now: quit the job, burn the safety net, go all in, and figure it out later. I get the appeal. I also think that advice can get expensive very quickly, especially when the business has not been validated yet. Mike Shannon joins me to talk about the much messier, smarter side of starting a business. Mike has built multiple companies, appe...

I will be the first to admit I am pretty good at managing my time. But here is the part nobody wants to say out loud: you still cannot do everything. Every goal, every career move, every family priority, every business idea, and every "quick thing" on your calendar has a tradeoff. Productivity is not about cramming more into your day. It is about deciding what actually deserves your time — and hav...

I know what it feels like to have a "productive" day that somehow leaves you completely disconnected from yourself. You made every meeting, answered every email, handled every priority, and then realized your own health never made it onto the calendar. That is the part of ambition we do not talk about enough. Dr. Shannon Burge joined me on Secrets of the Career Game to talk about what happens when...

I used to think balance meant everything in my life would somehow get equal attention. Career, kids, marriage, health, friendships, ambition, personal goals, all of it perfectly arranged like a very unrealistic calendar invite. The truth is, working mom balance does not work that way. Trying to give everything equal priority is usually how burnout starts. What changed for me was realizing that suc...

What if success isn't the problem — it's that you've outgrown it? Lauren Kerr introduces the concept of "unbecoming": shedding who you were to step into who you're becoming — without burning out in the process. Lauren Kerr is a bestselling author and high-performance coach who helps high-achieving women lead with clarity, recover from burnout, and redefine success — without blowing everything up t...

Hiring managers decide who they want within the first five minutes of an interview. If your answer to "tell me about yourself" sounds like everyone else's, you are already behind. In this episode, I break down how to lead with your personal brand, handle small talk strategically, and explain your experience in a way hiring managers actually remember — so you stop losing offers to people with the s...

You're qualified. So why does it feel like no one notices? The problem usually isn't your experience. It's how you talk about it. In this episode, I sit down with career coach, Amazon best-selling author, and self-proclaimed "interview ologist" Nicolette Hemingway to unpack one of the most costly — and completely fixable — mistakes professionals make: assuming their work speaks for itself. Spoiler...

Too many people wait until work becomes unbearable before they start looking, and that is how smart professionals end up making desperate career moves. I have seen it happen over and over again. A toxic boss, a role that stopped fitting, a project that drains you, and suddenly you are trying to escape fast instead of thinking clearly. A strong job search starts long before you hit that breaking po...

Qualified professionals are getting rejected for jobs they should absolutely be landing. That's why I wanted to chat with fellow career coach Irina Posan. We've both seen too many smart, ambitious professionals treat interviews like a memory test instead of a strategy exercise. Irina knows this world well as a former HR director and the host of the Career Cravings podcast. In our conversation, we...

Applying to more jobs is not the answer if your search has no strategy behind it. Too many smart professionals spend weeks applying, tweaking, and refreshing their LinkedIn profiles, yet still feel nothing is moving. In this episode, I talk about why a scattered job search creates more frustration, not better results, and what to focus on instead if you want to land the right role. I walk through...

Everyone looks rich online. New houses, European summers, luxury cars, and somehow no one ever mentions what it costs or whether it is intentionally helping you build the life you actually want. We work 40 hours a week, so of course we want to treat ourselves to nice dinners and beautiful trips. The difference is not whether we spend, but how we approach those decisions so we can build generationa...

Your personal brand is going to be the single most important investment that you make this year. Not your resume, not another certification, not even your performance review. Your personal brand is essentially your professional reputation personified. It shapes what senior leaders, peers, and stakeholders say about you when you are not in the room, and those conversations directly influence your o...

Making a career pivot without clarity is how smart professionals end up in the wrong job twice. Before you make a career change, you need a clear destination. That's exactly why I wanted to interview Michelle Schaefer, bestselling author of Cultivating Career Growth, to talk about what actually creates a successful career transition. We walk through the five questions that create real career direc...

You've probably left a meeting thinking, I said all the right things… so why did nothing move? I've been there. I once had an executive tell me that talking to me felt like drinking from a fire hydrant. I was giving context. I was giving data. I was giving analysis. What I wasn't giving was clarity on what I needed. In senior rooms, information is not influence. Alignment is. In this episode of Se...

If your team can't move without you, you don't have leadership; you have dependence. Kendall Berg sits down with Leah Marone to unpack the Support, Don't Solve leadership model. This is the shift that stops constant interruption. It also builds real ownership. Leah explains why leaders often jump in too quickly, how this creates a dependency loop, and what to do instead. You will hear the first mo...

You didn't get the raise or promotion you wanted, and suddenly quitting feels like the only way to get unstuck. Kendall Berg explains why that reaction is exactly how people end up hurting their long-term careers. She breaks down the difference between staying too long because of empty promises and leaving too fast without using all the information available to you. Kendall talks about the trap so...

High performance rarely looks calm from the inside, especially for the people who are doing everything "right." Promotions, praise, and visible wins don't always translate into ease. For many high achievers, success comes with constant pressure, blurred boundaries, and a lingering fear of slowing down. Kendall Berg and Dr. Margie Warrell name what's driving this pattern: the insecure overachiever...

Impossible goals are rarely impossible. They just require a different way of thinking, acting, and deciding when things stop feeling obvious. Kendall Berg sits down with Sarah Arnold Hall to unpack why most people abandon big dreams right at the moment progress actually begins. They break down why obstacles are not a signal to pivot, quit, or start over. Obstacles are part of the process. Sarah ex...

Success doesn't stall because you are bad at your job. It stalls because your work becomes invisible by the time it actually matters. Kendall Berg breaks down why high performers forget months of work by review season and how that gap quietly costs them recognition, leverage, and momentum. This episode explains how to track your accomplishments in a way that saves time later instead of creating la...

Hitting every goal should feel like progress. Instead, it often leaves high performers stuck, frustrated, and quietly falling behind. Kendall Berg breaks down why traditional goal setting systems like OKRs and KPIs reward performance optics while hiding the problems leaders actually need to see. In this conversation with Radhika Dutt, author of Radical Product Thinking, Kendall challenges the beli...

Being busy is not the same thing as moving forward in your career. In 2026, growth comes from alignment, not effort. If your goals are not tied to what your company is actually measured on, they will not move your career forward. Kendall breaks down how to set career goals that match company priorities like AI, efficiency, and revenue so your work gets noticed and rewarded. This episode lays out a...