Clarity Under Pressure

What would happen if you just didn’t do it? That question completely changed how I think about responsibility, leadership, and the tendency to carry too much. High-performing leaders often become the person who handles everything. You see the problem. You know how to solve it. You can probably do it faster. So you step in. But your ability to solve a problem doesn’t automatically make it your prob...

Doing great work doesn’t guarantee you’ll get promoted, recognized, or offered the opportunities you want. If you want to grow your career, you need more than strong performance. You need a career strategy. In this episode of the Young Professional Survival Guide , Lisa Larson shares the career advice she wishes someone had given her earlier. You’ll learn how to: Get clear on what you actually wan...

What is burnout costing you outside of work? You can still be high-performing, hitting your goals, leading your team, and being the person everyone counts on while burnout quietly shows up somewhere else: your relationships, health, attention, sleep, and the experiences you're missing. In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , Lisa Larson explores the connection between burnout, decision fat...

Most leaders track KPIs, OKRs, and pipeline but nobody measures the quality of the decisions driving all of those numbers. That blind spot is where burnout lives. In this episode, executive and leadership coach Lisa Larson shares the framework she built after burning out herself. She breaks down the five dimensions of Decision Clarity and why measuring decision friction is the most overlooked perf...

Have you ever received a vague message from your boss and immediately started imagining everything that could be wrong? That’s what our brains do when information is incomplete. We fill in the gaps. Under stress and pressure, those assumptions and stories can start influencing our decisions before we even realize it. In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , Lisa Larson introduces the 60-Second...

AI can make you look more experienced than you actually are. But if AI does the work you used to learn from, how do you develop the judgment you'll eventually be paid for? In this episode of the Young Professionals Survival Guide, Lisa Larson shares five practical ways early-career professionals can use AI at work without outsourcing their critical thinking, judgment and professional developme...

You take the vacation. You disconnect. You start sleeping better and thinking more clearly. Then, before you’ve even opened your laptop, the pressure starts coming back. What if the problem isn’t that you need more time off? What if the problem is what you’re coming back to? In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , I explore why vacation can provide relief from burnout without changing what’s c...

Can getting a raise actually make you less financially free? In this episode of the Young Professionals Survival Guide, Lisa Larson explores lifestyle creep as more than a budgeting problem. It's a decision-making problem. As your salary grows, it's easy for your spending to grow with it. A nicer apartment. A new car. More travel. More things influenced by what you see on social media. Eve...

The Hidden Cost of Unfinished Thinking You close your laptop. But your brain keeps working. You replay the conversation from this morning. Think about the decision you still haven't made. Wake up at 2 a.m. trying to solve tomorrow's problem. I call this unfinished thinking . In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , I explore why the mental load we carry may be contributing to what we ex...

Are you worried you're not spending enough time with your kids? As a technology executive, I spent years believing that working harder would create a better future for my family. Instead, I found myself carrying the guilt that so many working parents know all too well. In this episode of Young Professional Survival Guide , I share the personal story that completely changed how I think about pa...

Have you ever looked back at a decision and thought… "I knew that wasn't going to work." "I should have taken that opportunity." "I had that idea first." If you really knew, why didn't you act? In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , Lisa explores how fear quietly influences leadership decisions without us realizing it. Fear rarely tells us to stop. Instea...

Why do great employees leave, even when they're paid well? In this episode of Fitness Friday , Lisa Larson sits down with Chief People Officer and leadership strategist Jenna Keesee to explore what truly drives hiring success, employee retention, leadership effectiveness, and sustainable high performance. Together they unpack why retention isn't an HR problem. It's the result of leader...

You've been working hard, delivering results, and hoping someone will eventually notice. But here's the reality. Most promotions don't happen because leadership discovers your potential. They happen because you've made your career goals visible. In this episode of the Young Professional Survival Guide , I share a powerful story about a young professional who nearly waited too long...

Why do experienced leaders make poor decisions during a crisis? It's rarely because they lack experience, intelligence, or preparation. After leading hundreds of cyber incident response engagements, I discovered something surprising. Organizations spend thousands of hours preparing the playbook, but almost no time preparing the people who have to think clearly when reality doesn't follow t...

Have you ever opened an email and instantly felt defensive? Maybe it started with "Per my last email..." or "As previously discussed..." Suddenly you feel your heart pounding and your hands poised over the keyboard to write an immediate response before you've even finished reading. Your entire day is thrown off course as you ruminate over that email sitting like a weight in your inbox. In this epi...

What happens when leaders stop pretending they have everything under control? After sharing one of the most personal stories of my career, about caring for my mother while leading teams and navigating high-pressure decisions, thousands of people responded with one message: "I thought I was the only one." In this episode, I explore why vulnerability isn't weakness. It's one of the...

Losing your job can shake more than your finances. It can shake your confidence, identity, and sense of direction. If you've recently been laid off, your first instinct may be to update your résumé, open LinkedIn, and apply for every job you can find. Before you do, take five minutes. In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , I share a simple reflection exercise and the G.E.A.R.™ Decision Re...

Do you ever feel like everyone else knows what they're doing except you? In this episode of Young Professional Survival Guide , Lisa Larson tackles one of the most common challenges facing early career professionals: imposter syndrome. From questioning whether you belong in the room to staying silent in meetings because you're afraid of being wrong, these feelings are more common than you...

Behind every employee badge, leadership title, and professional accomplishment may be someone quietly managing a second full-time job: caring for an aging parent. In this deeply personal Fitness Friday episode, Lisa shares her own experience navigating executive leadership responsibilities while caring for her mother during the final years of her life. As the oldest child and only daughter, Lisa f...

Have you ever worked with someone who consistently misses deadlines, creates extra work for everyone else, and somehow still keeps their job? You're not alone. In this episode of the Young Professional Survival Guide, Lisa explores one of the biggest hidden career traps for high performers: becoming distracted by other people's poor performance. While underperforming coworkers can be frust...

Most career advice focuses on skills, certifications, and training. But some of the most important lessons of your career can't be taught in a classroom or learned during a Zoom meeting. In this episode of the Young Professional Survival Guide, Lisa explores why today's young professionals may be missing a critical advantage that previous generations developed through proximity, observatio...

Have you ever made a decision because it felt expected, not because it was the best choice? In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , Lisa explores the hidden forces that quietly influence leadership decisions. The assumptions, expectations, workplace norms, and internal stories that create pressure long before a decision is ever made. You'll learn: Why smart leaders often make reactive deci...

Think office politics is all about gossip, favoritism, and corporate games? Think again. In this episode of the Young Professional Survival Guide, former technology executive Lisa Larson breaks down what office politics really means and why understanding influence, relationships, and decision-making can accelerate your career without sacrificing your integrity. Based on lessons learned over a 25-y...

Have you ever spent the day making important decisions, only to feel completely overwhelmed when someone asks, "What's for dinner?" That's not a motivation problem. It's decision fatigue. In this episode of Clarity Under Pressure , Lisa Larson explores why mentally exhausted leaders, founders, and high performers begin treating every decision as equally important, and how tha...

Ever sit down to rest and immediately feel restless, guilty, or like you should be doing something productive? You may not have a productivity problem. You may have an urgency habit. In this guided Clarity Under Pressure reset, Rasha explores why high performers often struggle to slow down and how chronic stress can condition the nervous system to mistake calm for discomfort. When urgency becomes...