Success Won’t Fix Your Worthiness Problem
Sep 29, 2025What if your worth wasn’t tied to your revenue, your output, or anyone else’s approval? In this episode, Kris takes us deeper into the heart of worthiness and why so many high-achieving women still wrestle with believing in themselves—even after building successful companies, raising families, and achieving goals most people only dream of.
Kris breaks down the difference between self-trust (believing yourself) and self-worth (believing in yourself), and why the latter is the quiet, constant hum that shapes everything you do. She explores how conditional worth shows up in subtle ways—like people pleasing, avoiding difficult conversations, or downplaying your own success—and why guilt over what you’ve built is often a sign you don’t fully own your value yet.
Here’s what we explore in this episode:
- The false scorecards and hidden “supervisors” you’ve been measuring yourself against
- Why women tie worth to achievement, perfection, or proving
- How guilt for your success erodes confidence and leadership
- Why rest can be a radical act of reclaiming value
- What it looks like to live differently when you truly know your worth
This episode is your invitation to stop proving, release guilt, and reclaim the truth: you are already the prize.
Contact Information and Recommended Resources
Your journey starts with clarity. Head to thevisionary.ceo/trust and take the Self-Trust & Self-Worth Index Kris designed to give you immediate insight.
Transcript
All right, welcome back. So now what I want to talk to you about is self-worth. And self-worth is, you know, if we contrast them. Right. Self-trust is believing yourself. Self-worth is believing in yourself. So self-trust tends to be more compass. It's like it's externalized.
It's like in the different circumstances of your life, in the different moments of your life, do you trust yourself? Do you believe yourself? Self-worth is honestly, is the hum. That it's the hum. It's the foundation that is always running. Do I belong? Am I valuable? Is this, Is. Am I worthy of being here? Does my opinion matter? Do I matter? And, you know, I know there's a lot of psychology here that a lot of people need work with. And so I. I'm not going to step into that domain. I'm going to step into where we meet here as an adult.
That the. The first thing that I think is vital that you recognize is that if you don't know if you can rely on yourself, if you are using the litmus test of other people's approval or your production, your impact, your busyness, your size of your business, your size of your house, your size of your car, your size of the ring on your finger, the kinds of trips that you get to take, if you're using those pieces and parts and so many more to show the world that you're. That you're valuable, that you're worthy, that you're important. I want you to know, first of all, you're not alone. I think you would know that, given just the way the world is today. But I also know that I think a lot of us think that once we reach certain points in our lives, we've ditched that. And that has not been my experience. Now, you know, I spent a majority of my work working with women who are dealing with challenges inside of their business.
How to build the business through other people, how to develop the strategic systems and design to achieve results through other people, how to deal with the challenges that come with growing a business and growing a team, and how to really find themselves through that process. And worthiness is a huge part of it, because you can be running a $5 million business and not feel like you have permission or the skill or the competence to go and talk to someone about a mistake that they made. And so how do I know that? Because you're just solving the problem. You're just covering for their mistake rather than addressing it with them. Now, what. What I know you'll tell me is it's just easier If I do it, it's and. Or he gets really defensive and it's just, I don't want to deal with that. So I'm just going to take care of it.
But what you're actually saying is I don't feel I don't believe in myself enough to stand in front of someone who's made a mistake in the company that I created and hold them accountable for it. That's too uncomfortable now. A lot of us throw around people pleasing. Yep. That's what we call things like that. I'm a people pleaser. Why are you a people pleaser? Because you want people to like you. Why do you want people to like you? Because if they don't like you, what does that mean? You're not worthy.
You're going to be outcast. Right. And I always wonder about that. Like, there's some people I would be terrified to be outcasted by. Right? Like my husband, my three kids. Like, if they just wanted nothing to do with me anymore, that, that would. That would destroy me. It would end me.
But pretty much anybody else, I'd be fine. Because I like who I am. I know I belong. Doesn't matter what room I'm in, I'm in it. But you're welcome. You can take that if you like it. But right like that. This has been work I've done for years because I had all the things and this, you know, there's there Michelle, who I is on my team, she does nervous system coaching.
She really helps people understand where some of this. Because some of it's so visceral, you don't even know why this is happening. And then there's coaches who focus on trauma and psychologists who do that and therapists who do that. And I'm not suggesting that's not also important, so don't misunderstand me. But where I meet women at running these successful organizations who are recognized in their field, who are running professional associations, national ones who travel internationally and talk to thousands of people about their area of expertise in their body of work, but they can't sit down in a quiet environment and believe in themselves. That's who I'm talking about. And I know if you're listening to this, I know you know what I mean. Do you believe in your inherent value regardless of your outcome? So if that next idea that you have for your business fails, do you believe you're going to be okay? Do you believe that you're still competent? Are you enough if you don't make any more money, are you Enough.
If you lost it all, are you personally enough or are we gauging our personal value on our collective collections? This is not segmented out by the domains I mentioned in the last podcast. Visionary Trust, Love Trust, Relationship Trust, Communication Trust, Leadership Trust, Transformation Trust, Communication Trust. This is not separated out by that because worthiness is, like I said, it's like this foundation that follows up wherever we go. And so if I question my value, it's because what that looks like is we attach value to achievement, we attach value to production. But really value is because you breathed air when you were born and now you're here and that's it. You are worthy, because you are. And it's, you know, it's interesting there. I did a master coach certification training on behalf of the Life Coach School several years ago, and we were in a room with aspiring master coaches, and one of the women in that room is a distinguished doctor trained at, I think Harvard or Princeton.
Very accomplished, successful woman, author, and also accomplished in this kind of space. Understanding, you know, positive thinking, happiness, joy, you know, life fulfillment type of work. And so of all the people in the room, I was the most shocked when she was like, but what do I have to do to really feel worthy of all that I have? And I looked at her and I said, you just are. It doesn't come from anyone else. It doesn't come from anything you've done and it never will. And if you're seeking that, you'll never be sated. And she looked at me like, what? And I thought, oh, okay, this is good. This is good for her.
And this is good for all of us to recognize that for a successful and powerful and productive and all these people, all of you listening, that you have already, like, tried and tried and continue to try to prove to yourself how worthy you are, how smart you are, how capable you are through your hyper over functioning, exhaustive production. How about we just do those kinds of things because we love them, not because we need to prove to ourselves and other people that we matter. My goal for anyone listening to this is that you believe in yourself, that you believe that the space that you take is for you. You don't need to ask for permission ever again. You don't need someone's blessing, you don't need someone's permission, and you certainly don't need their praise and recognition. Your guilt for your success is an indication that you do not believe you are worthy of it. Because I see your success as a model for what is possible for other people. And rather than you Feel guilt.
I would love for you to feel pride. Be proud of what you've built so that others can follow and learn from you. Be the sage. You know, I moved into the Sage work several years ago because I want women to give. Give to one another and I want us to share wisdom as much as we share tactic. I think we're really good at sharing tactics because that's where we think our value is. But I think wisdom is so much richer and we have a lot of catching up to do in that space. There's so much more I could talk about, but I can't.
So you're going to have to join Sage to hear the rest of it. Okay. So as we move through self-worth, we have to recognize that we have conditional self-worth that we question. Like, if I'm not doing this and I'm not producing, who am I? That's what my whole last podcast series was about. Beyond the CEO. It's like, why so many women stay in a business they no longer love. They don't exit. They don't have a strategy, they don't build on their own.
They don't capitalize on what they've created because they don't know who they'd be without it. Their identity is completely wrapped in it. Rather than self-worth and identity being based on who you are inside. But we've had our head down so long, we don't even know who she is. We have to look at the false metrics that we've used to assess our worth. The scorecards that you have. I used to say, who are you working for? Because a lot of people still have someone in their mind that they're doing this all for. Could be their grandfather, could be their former boss, but there's like this supervisor in your brain that you have.
Like, I'm going to show them I can do it. Well, who is this person? Who are these people? Confront the the false metrics you've been using to tell yourself you're doing a good job. You're already amazing. Look at you. If you're running a M A business that's over a million dollars a year in production, you are in two the 2% of women in the world. Not that you need that to feel worthy, but could you, like, give yourself a break? You're pretty amazing. No, I think you are. I like you to believe that you are.
So I'm going to ask you to believe it until you don't. We have to start to reclaim our value. I'm worthy because I was born we have to start to regard ourselves in a way that treats ourselves like the prize. You're not chasing it. You are it. You don't have anything to do to say I'm worthy of attention, of love, of money, of. Of success, of acknowledgment, of rest. I hear so many women who think they don't deserve to be restful.
They think it's weak. I think there's tremendous strength in rest. And I will tell you, this work, this body of work is coming to you because I rested. I took a month and I didn't produce. I just rested, I listened, I went to retreats, I played pickleball, I spent time with my family. I rested. And out of that, I created more clarity for myself than I have in three years. We have to become a woman who honors who she is and how she lives.
And lastly, we start integrating this, right? How do you live differently when you really and truly know your own value? How does that impact. Impact the decisions that you make, the people you have in your life, etc. So in the next, I think, two episodes, we're going to just talk about how this kind of shows up in your real life and what I hope you can do about it.