In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend and longtime client, Natalie Lee, Vice President at Louis Vuitton. When we first reconnected as coach and client, Natalie was leading Asia Pacific during the pandemic, pregnant, living in Hong Kong without family nearby, and quietly going through her first real season of burnout.
On the outside, she was still delivering and performing at a high level. On the inside, she was overwhelmed, exhausted, and alone with the pressure.
Over the past three years, Natalie has transformed the way she leads and the way she lives. In our conversation, she shares how she went from constantly “on” and checking emails late into the night to becoming a calm, confident, and deeply empathetic leader who protects her energy, works out at 7 a.m., and leads with intention instead of urgency and guilt.
If you’re a high-achieving woman who looks successful on paper but feels drained, this conversation will speak directly to your heart.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Natalie’s burnout story: leading a big scope across Asia Pacific during the pandemic while pregnant and relocating to Hong Kong.
- How coaching gave her structured reflection time to slow down, see her emotions more clearly, and understand why she reacted so strongly to certain people and situations.
- The moment she connected her frustration with “free riders” at work to an old childhood memory with her aunts — and how releasing that stuck emotion shifted her leadership.
- The small but powerful changes she made:
- Turning off late-night notifications and letting go of the false sense of urgency.
- Moving from “I can’t even take one yoga class at lunch” to working out 4–5 times a week at 7 a.m.
- Breaking the vicious cycle of exhaustion → procrastination → more self-judgment.
- How understanding her own patterns helped her become a more empathetic leader who listens, honors her team members’ values, and defines “growth” differently for each person.
- Why changing jobs doesn’t fix burnout if your internal conditioning and patterns stay the same.
- Natalie’s advice to high-achieving women who are always “on”: start with baby steps, create a little space for yourself, and be much kinder to yourself.
Want to go from Good Girl to Badass Leader—calm, clear, and deeply self-trusting?
I offer a free 60-minute consultation to help you get clear on where you are, where you want to go, and what’s holding you back.
From there, we’ll explore what working together could look like.
Book your call:
https://calendly.com/cocoduancoaching/1-hr-consultation
.