Be the C.E.O. of Your Career: Map and Launch Your Career Strategy with Susan Barber
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Be the C.E.O. of Your Career: Map and Launch Your Career Strategy with Susan Barber
Map and Launch: Turning Career Clarity into Action
Knowing what you want next in your career can bring a tremendous sense of clarity, but clarity alone doesn't create change. Eventually, there comes a point when reflection and exploration have to become action. In the fourth episode of the Be the CEO of Your Career summer series, Tammy Gooler Loeb explores Map and Launch Your Career Strategy, the practice of building a realistic plan and putting it into motion. The goal isn't to create a perfect plan for an ideal life, but one grounded in a person's actual goals, values, resources, and circumstances.
Tammy revisits her conversation with Susan Barber, whose career journey demonstrates how one difficult piece of feedback can become the beginning of a new direction. Susan had built a successful career in corporate leadership and was recognized as a top performer, yet she often stayed quiet, sat in the background, and hesitated to speak up. Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-doubt had contributed to a pattern of playing it safe, even when the evidence suggested she was highly capable.
When Susan was told that she wasn't visible enough, the feedback was difficult to hear. But instead of dismissing it, she brought it to a business mentor who helped her understand what she could do differently. Susan began to see that visibility wasn't about bragging or becoming someone she wasn't. Speaking up meant sharing information that could help leaders make better decisions and ensuring that her team's work wasn't invisible. She started preparing differently, taking her place at the table, and helping her team become more visible as well.
That experience eventually became the foundation for Susan's work as an executive coach and author. When she later made the transition from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship, she didn't leap without considering the realities of her life. She had resources, support, and circumstances that made the move possible, and she built her strategy around them. But creating the plan was only part of the process. Susan also had to recognize when her instinct to quietly build a website and wait was simply her old pattern of staying hidden appearing in a new form.
Susan's story is a reminder that career strategy requires both planning and courage. A meaningful plan must fit real life, but eventually it also needs to be launched. For Tammy, that's the heart of this fourth practice: once a direction becomes clear, the next step is deciding how to move toward it and then allowing others to see that movement. This week's CEO of Your Career Move asks listeners to identify one part of their plan that may still be hidden and put it somewhere it can be seen. Sometimes, the most important career move isn't creating another plan; it's taking the one that's already there and putting it into action.
In This Week's Podcast, Learn More About:
What it means to Map and Launch Your Career Strategy
Why career clarity must eventually turn into action
Creating a plan grounded in both goals and practical realities
Why readiness doesn't always feel like confidence
How difficult feedback can become a catalyst for change
Recognizing when staying safe is keeping you hidden
The difference between visibility and self-promotion
Why speaking up can benefit your team as well as your career
How Susan reframed feedback into concrete action
Preparing in advance to show up with greater confidence
Building a career strategy around your actual resources and circumstances
Why launching a plan requires more than quietly preparing behind the scenes
How becoming visible can create new opportunities
Learn more:
Your CEO of Your Career Move:
Look at your career plan honestly.
Is there a piece of it you've built quietly in a way that's still keeping you hidden?
Maybe you've updated your résumé but haven't told anyone you're exploring new opportunities.
Maybe you've created a website but haven't shared it.
Maybe you've developed a skill but haven't shown anyone what you can do.
Maybe you've decided what you want next but haven't had the conversation that could move you toward it.
Pick one piece of your plan this week and put it somewhere it can be seen.
A strategy doesn't become real simply because you've created it.
At some point, you have to launch.
Interested in individual or group coaching with Tammy? Learn more about her coaching service.
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About Tammy, host of
Work from the Inside Out
Before launching my coaching practice, I worked in mental health, higher education, public policy, and fundraising. Those experiences showed me how deeply our work shapes our sense of purpose—and now I help clients navigate change and growth so they can feel more fulfilled and aligned in what they do