If you’re not familiar with air plants, let me explain: they’re basically the houseplant equivalent of a participation trophy. They don’t need soil. They barely need water. They survive on literal air and the occasional misting.
And I killed one.
It was sitting there on my kitchen counter, brown and crispy, when my family walked in. The laughter started immediately. Not mean-spirited, just… familiar. “Mom’s thumb of death strikes again!” My husband grinned. The kids shook their heads, already moving on to the next thing.
Everyone was laughing at the predictability of it. At the running joke that had defined me for years.
And something inside me snapped.
Not anger, exactly. Defiance.
I don’t like to lose. And I’d been losing at plants for so long that I’d stopped questioning it. I’d just… accepted it. Laughed along. Made self-deprecating jokes about my “thumb of death” instead of my green thumb.
But standing there in my kitchen, staring at that dead air plant, I realized something:
I’d surrendered to a narrative that wasn’t even true.
I’m fully capable of figuring things out. That’s literally what I do for a living — help people solve complex problems. But somehow, I’d decided plants were different. That THIS was just “not my thing.”
So I went out and bought one plant. Just one.
I researched it. I learned what it needed. I paid attention.
And it thrived.
The relief I felt watching that first plant grow? The satisfaction? It wasn’t really about the plant at all.
It was about realizing I’d been living inside a story someone else wrote about me — and I’d just… believed it.
Now I have eight thriving plants in my home. I can barely tell you what kind they are (green, safe for my cat, alive… that’s about all I’ve got). It’s not an area of strong interest for me.
But I love that I changed the narrative. I love that I have them.
This experience has made me think differently about the work I do with my clients.
Because here’s what I know after 25+ years of hiring, leading, and coaching senior professionals: the narratives that hold people back at work are almost never about capability. They’re about interpretation.
Somewhere along the way, someone categorized you. Maybe it was an HR system that slotted you into a lane. Maybe it was a manager who saw one version of you and decided that was the whole story. Maybe it was you — absorbing a piece of feedback in a vulnerable moment and turning it into a permanent identity.
“I’m not good at self-promotion.” “I’m just not visible.” “I’m a behind-the-scenes person.” “I’m not leadership material.”
These narratives feel true because you’ve lived with them so long. Because other people reinforced them. Because it’s easier to accept the label than to challenge it.
But I want you to sit with this for a moment:
What if the thing you think is holding you back isn’t a limitation at all — it’s just a story you stopped questioning?
I watch this happen constantly. A client will come to me convinced they’re “not good at executive presence.” But when we dig into it, what actually happened was one bad presentation three years ago and a manager who said “you’re more of a doer than a leader.” That one sentence became a belief. That belief became a behavior. And that behavior became a ceiling.
The limitation wasn’t real. But the impact of believing it was.
This is what I mean when I say your value isn’t a performance problem — it’s an interpretation problem. Decision-makers aren’t seeing you clearly, and often that’s because you’re not seeing you clearly either. You’re operating inside a narrative that limits what you put forward, how you show up, and what you believe is available to you.
The professionals who break through aren’t the ones who work harder. They’re the ones who change the story.
They stop accepting the label. They get specific about what’s actually true versus what they’ve simply absorbed. And they start showing up as the person they actually are — not the version that was convenient for someone else’s org chart.
That’s what I did with the plant. And it’s what my clients do with their careers.
What is the work that actually energizes you?
What would you do more of if you weren’t living inside someone else’s definition of who you are?
What narrative are you ready to change?
You don’t have to become a plant expert. You don’t even have to love it.
You just have to decide you’re done accepting the limitations.
Start with one thing. One story you’ve been telling yourself that maybe, just maybe, isn’t true.
And see what grows.
I’d love to hear what comes up for you. Reply to this email or leave a comment — I read every one.
P.S. — In this week’s paid post, I break down the exact 5-step framework I use with my clients to identify, test, and dismantle these limiting narratives. If you recognized yourself anywhere in this piece, that’s the next step. Read the framework →
This is The Next Chapter with Laurie.
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