Loneliness Was the Cost | Celeste Warren on the Hidden Cost of Being the Strong One

Celeste Warren spent nearly four decades in corporate global companies rising to Vice President and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at a Fortune 100 company. She was the woman who walked into the most difficult rooms. The one who held space for conversations nobody else wanted to have. Who helped other people process their discomfort, navigate change and find common ground.

 

From the outside she was the woman who had all the answers.

 

What most people did not see was that she went home to an empty apartment, rocked in bed with her pillow, and cried alone. That the cost of always being the strong one was insomnia, stomach problems, nausea and a very specific kind of loneliness that came from never having anyone to pour into when the advice-giving was done.

 

She told Rachel before they recorded: I've always been someone people came to for answers. What they didn't see was that I didn't always have a place to take my own questions.

 

In this conversation Celeste and Rachel talk about what it costs to be the first. The only woman in the room. The one who had to work twice as hard to get half as far and then somehow also hold space for everyone else's discomfort. About the fishbowl feeling of making a mistake when everyone is watching. About what loneliness actually felt like in a body that was carrying too much. And about what it means to get up in your pyjamas at 9.30am and decide to go to the gym just because you want to.

 

Celeste leads Celeste Warren Consulting and is the author of The Truth About Equity.

Links to connect with Celeste:Website:  www.CRWDiversity.comLink to book on