You know when you find the perfect Monster Truck cake recipe on Pinterest for your grandchild’s birthday, the one that will make his whole face light up?
You follow the recipe exactly. Every ingredient measured. Every step in order.
It rises beautifully in the oven, and it smells like it is going to be perfect.
Then you pull it out.
The center drops.
The edges are burnt, and the middle is raw.
The texture is dry and crumbly everywhere else.
You did nothing wrong. You followed the recipe exactly as written. What you didn’t know is that the recipe was never built for the Mile High City of Colorado. High altitude changes everything, and no one told you that before you started.
Now think about your career.
You have read the books. You have taken all the courses. You have followed the exact recipe the person in the webinar swore by, the one that got them the promotion in six weeks. You didn’t substitute one single ingredient.
And when you stood before the interview panel, your stomach dropped when they started talking about salary.
All that practicing you did in front of the mirror - you know the salary negotiations where you got exactly what you wanted - crumbled. You said, “yes” when everything inside you was screaming “no.”
This is not a YOU problem.
This is a recipe altitude problem.
Most career advice is built for a nervous system that lives at sea level.
It assumes that if you follow the recipe exactly, you will be successful, but they don’t account for the constrictions of a “high altitude” nervous system that impact everything you do.
Your career might look good on the surface.
It might smell good to those around you, but when you remove it from the workplace oven, your center drops.
You feel burnt out, and your insides feel raw.
Your family is counting on you. What are you going to do?
Are you going to do the same thing you did before and expect different results? Because that is the very definition of insanity.
No. Instead, you are going to find someone who can help you adjust for your “high altitude” nervous system so your monster truck career cake will steal the show.
High-Altitude Career Development
As a trauma survivor, I spent decades following career recipes that did not account for the high-altitude nervous system that trauma left on my doorstep.
I repeated the same things over and over again, thinking I had done something wrong and messed up the recipe.
When I was sure that I followed the recipe to perfection, and it still didn’t turn out right, I came to the conclusion that it must be me.
I must not be a great baker after all because nothing I ever try ever turns out right.
I felt defeated, but I was relentless in my pursuit of success because my family was counting on me.
So, I went back to the drawing board, did a lot of research, and discovered that it was the “high altitude” where I lived that was impacting everything I did on the career front.
The “high altitude” of trauma affected every career recipe I ever tried.
When I made that discovery, it gave me so much hope, because it wasn’t me after all. I wasn’t a bad baker; I just hadn’t accounted for how the “high altitude” of trauma impacted my recipe for success.
I experimented with adjustments. I tweaked the settings until I found just the right answer to the career challenges I was having.
And once I finally got the recipe right for my altitude, I couldn’t keep it to myself.
I built the Resilient Career Academy, so no one else would have to spend decades thinking they were the problem when it was the recipe all along.
That discovery became a framework, one built specifically for a high-altitude nervous system instead of pretending everyone bakes at sea level. I call it the Resilient Career Advancement Framework, five adjustments that work together instead of against each other:
Recognize the Pattern. Before you can adjust the recipe, you have to see exactly where it keeps failing, without deciding that means you’re a bad baker.
Root Out the Cause. Most high-altitude reactions didn’t start in your current job. I help you find where the altitude actually began.
Rebuild the Response. Once you understand the pattern and where it came from, we adjust the recipe itself, measurement by measurement, until it’s built for where you actually live.
Rehearse It Live. A new recipe needs test batches in a kitchen that feels safe before it needs to work in front of the interview panel.
Reinforce for Good. Old recipes don’t disappear just because you found a better one. This step makes sure the new one becomes the one your hands reach for automatically.
This isn’t a framework that tells you to ignore your altitude and bake like everyone at sea level. It’s a framework that adjusts for it, so that the next time salary comes up, or the room goes quiet and waits for you to speak, your “yes” and your “no” finally match what you actually mean.
Take the Disappointment and Turn It Into a Recipe That Works
That disappointment and frustration have a name.
It is called a high-altitude nervous system, and it is not a character flaw.
It is a body that adjusted to survive a long time ago, still running the only recipe it was ever given.
I built a self-paced course called Emotional Regulation in the Workplace for exactly this moment, the moment your center starts to drop before your mind even knows what happened.
It gives you real tools to adjust in real time, so you are not fighting your own altitude every time something hard comes up at work.
You followed the recipe. It still did not turn out right. That was never about your baking. It was about the altitude. I invite you to try this one adjustment to your recipe, and see where it leads you. Emotional Regulation in the Workplace is a place to begin.
Thank you, as a high achieving professional from a foster care background, I have often had to take alternate paths to success, or recovering from setbacks as an adult. Conventional wisdom has not always worked for me. I really enjoy your trauma informed lens. It reminds me that regular advice might not work because I need something else!
listened, followed and posted to LinkedIn. Great concept.