CEO Reveals The Dark Side of Corporate Life

🌿 Life doesn’t always follow the path we expect, and sometimes it shakes everything we thought we knew about ourselves.

In this insightful episode of The Forties Formula podcast, hosts Jasmin Dhillon and Amanda Lim sit down with UMA THANA BALASINGAM, leadership coach, founder of RAW with Uma, and one of LinkedIn’s top voices in Asia. With raw honesty and courage, Uma shares her journey of identity, visibility, and self-reinvention, guiding women to embrace their full selves beyond societal expectations.

They discuss career quakes and how these moments can become opportunities to rediscover yourself. Uma opens up about leaving a high-powered career, facing personal challenges, and balancing motherhood, all while learning to show up as her most authentic self.

Together, they explore:

• The hidden stories women carry about their identity, appearance, and worth, and how to unlearn them

• How to navigate workplace biases without losing yourself

• Leveraging feminine superpowers to create influence

• Finding grounding through friendships, reflection, and nature

• Uma’s “Three H” approach: being held, being heard, and being helped

• Viewing your 40s as a decade of questions, growth, and reinvention

Your career, your relationships, your body, and your mind are all part of the journey. Sometimes the most valuable insights come when life shakes everything up. Reinvention is about letting go of limiting expectations, and giving yourself permission to be fully seen unapologetically.

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CHAPTERS

00:00 – Episode Snippet

04:22 — Introducing our guest, Uma Thana Balasingam

05:31 — Unlearning damaging narratives

10:20 – Becoming the uncaged version of yourself

12:58 – Why nervousness before posting is a good sign

14:40 – Walking the workplace tightrope: Liked or respected?

17:35 – Turning likability into a strength

19:04 – Living by your expectations, not others’

21:00 – Listening to your soul’s knock

23:30 – Career quakes: earthquakes of identity and purpose

25:24 — Allowing space for grief

29:51 — Meeting yourself again

31:00 — Finding growth in discomfort

32:02 — Redefining life beyond roles

34:15 — Raw with Uma

36:15 – Oversharing and the “scar vs. scab” rule 39:23 – Anchors in chaos: friendship, stillness, and nature

41:57 – The 3H framework: Held, Heard, Helped

44:50 – Thriving in your 40s: Meeting yourself fully

47:53 – A life of questions and answers

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