CEO, Highland & Haskill Creek • Founder of Classy (acq. by GoFundMe) • Founder of nonprofit, Save Farmland

Every week I tackle management, operations & startup topics that are helping 250,000+ people. Sign up free: www.scotchisholm.com

I also run a leadership accelerator that helps founders develop into top CEOs. Apply here: https://joinhighland.com/apply/

My backstory: 

🚀 Founder of Classy, SaaS for nonprofits raising billions per year

🎗️ Acquired by GoFundMe in ‘22 to create largest giving platform in the world

🌲 Investor in dozens of startups out of family fund, Tall Timbers Holding Co, (Ripple, FanDuel, Hubble, Casetext, etc.)

🏔️ Founder of Highland, leadership accelerator & community for founders

🏡 Co-founder of Haskill Creek, modernized & healthier version of a Walgreens or CVS 

⚽️ Co-owner of Albion Soccer Club, top youth soccer club in country

🧑🏼‍🌾 Founder of Save Farmland, a nonprofit protecting local farmland & food 

⚙️ Industrial engineer & lean six sigma nerd, UMass Amherst grad 

❤️ Board experience: Nature Conservancy, Abundant Montana, Team Rubicon, Street Soccer USA, Montana Pediatric Cancer Foundation

It's been a wild ride. If you're interested in any of the above, please visit my website and reach out to me there. 

www.scotchisholm.com

Scot Chisholm

I turn career breakdowns into breakthroughs | Careerquake™ = Breakdown → Reinvention | I help you rebuild your career and identity | Ready to start over stronger? Join my Careerquake™ Program.

I was raised in a small Malaysian town where expectations were loud and options were few. From a young age, I knew I wanted more, but I didn’t have the language for it yet. What I did have was grit, curiosity, and an unshakable belief that reinvention was possible, even if no one had shown me how.

Today, I’m the architect of RAW leadership - Reinvent, Amplify, and Win on your own terms.

As a multi-hyphenate founder, creator, and keynote speaker, I build companies, platforms, and conversations that challenge outdated definitions of success. After 20+ years leading billion-dollar tech businesses across Asia Pacific and Japan, I chose to walk away from the corporate script and build a life that integrates ambition, soul, and impact.

I now work across industries and borders—advising leaders, launching ventures, delivering keynotes, and designing tools that help people communicate with power, lead with courage, and take up space without apology.

I work across reinvention, visibility, and voice—especially for those who’ve been overlooked or underestimated. Whether it's helping women navigate career pivots, speak with presence, or lead through transitions, I focus on the real stuff most people avoid. No fluff. No jargon. Just honest tools for bold moves.

I don’t believe in following old scripts.
I believe in rewriting them—with clarity, courage, and your own damn pen.

Uma Thana Balasingam

I don't know most of you. But you've told me things you haven't told anyone else.

👉To the person reading this at 6 am before anyone else is awake
💙 You've been here all year. Quietly. Consistently. I notice.

👉 To the husband who shared my perimenopause post with his wife because she's not on LinkedIn
💙 You asked where else you could find my content. That question meant more than you know.

👉 To the woman who went back and read her bloodwork after one of my posts
💙 You found things your doctor missed. You followed up. You advocated for yourself. That wasn't me. That was you.

👉 To the man who messaged me on a Monday morning because he's going through a careerquake and can't explain to his family why he feels the way he feels
💙 You said my words helped you understand you're not alone. You're not.

👉 To the former COO who walked away from a CEO offer and now feels invisible 
💙 You said my post gave you hope at a moment you really needed it. I'm still thinking about that.

👉 To the woman who read my careerquake post, printed it out, and put it on her wall
💙 I don't know what to say. Except: thank you.

👉 To the 6-foot gym fanatic Aussie bloke who said he teared up reading my posts
💙 You made me laugh and cry in the same message. That's rare.

👉 To the man who lies in bed imagining what it would feel like to lose his job, with two kids heading to college
💙 You said it feels like death approaching. And that you took strength from my words about becoming unshakable. I carry that message with me.

👉 To the woman who stopped in her tracks, sat down, and prayed after reading one of my posts
💙 I don't take that lightly. I never will.

👉 To the person who stumbled on my content a few days ago, feeling drained and lost, and said something shifted
💙 You're learning how to show up for yourself. That's where it starts.

👉To all the lurkers who've never commented, never liked, never shared
💙 You're still here. That counts. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

👉 To everyone who engaged, commented, argued, pushed back, shared, or just read
💙 You made me a better writer. And a braver one.

I started writing because I had things I needed to say out loud.
I kept writing because you showed up.

My wish for you in 2026:

May you find the words you've been holding back.
May someone show up when you need them.
And may you know - really know - that you're not alone.

THANK YOU, everyone, 🙏 and Happy New Year! 💙

Careerquake™ = Breakdown → Reinvention | Turning career breakdowns to breakthroughs | Join my Careerquake™ Program.

Every year, I sit with the same 8 questions. The answers keep getting harder.

Not goals or resolutions. Hard questions.

Here's what I'm sitting with as 2025 ends:

1. What am I doing when no one is watching?
Not where I think my time goes. Where it actually goes. This question has exposed every lie I've told myself about my priorities.

2. What is the next right move for me?
This one anchors me when life gets hard. When I'm spiraling, I don't need a five-year plan. I just need the next right step. Sometimes this could sound like "getting out of bed".

3. What feels like play to me but work to others?
This is how I know what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. If it drains you but lights me up, I'm probably supposed to be doing it.

4. Who am I spending time with, and why?
This question cost me friends. Some people were in my life out of habit, not intention. I let them go. It was the right call.

5. Am I living the rich life I designed, or drifting from it?
I used to ask "what does my rich life look like?" Now I know. The harder question is whether I'm actually choosing it or just admiring it from a distance.

6. How well am I treating my body, and why?
My body is the only place I have to live. How I treat it tells me everything about how much I actually believe I deserve to be here.

7. What am I still negotiating with that's already over?
This one is new. And it's the hardest. Some thoughts, some relationships, some identities, some versions of myself - they're done. But I keep showing up to the negotiation table anyway. Hoping for a different outcome. There isn't one.

8. Am I building a life I can sustain, or just one people admire?
I've spent years building things that looked impressive. Chasing metrics that meant everything and then suddenly nothing to me. Saying yes to stages I didn't want to be on. I'm banishing performing my life instead of living it.

These questions don't give me answers. They give me clarity.
Even if it's clarity that I don't really want to hear. 

And clarity is what I'm taking into 2026.

What's the question you keep circling but won't answer?

Every woman I know on LinkedIn has a folder of these. Here's mine.

"Hi dear I am interested"

Interested in what? My career coaching? My content?

Nope.

"Dear sister send me your WhatsApp number"
"Me your relationship 💕 and work here 🥰"

This one's obvious.

The dangerous ones aren't. They play the long game - engaging with your posts, asking about your business, seeming genuinely interested in your work. Until they're not.

Some women take those calls. Some even meet them. Then they find out it was never about business. He wanted a date.

And that's not even the worst part.

It's not just the message.

It's the many split seconds where you wonder: did I do something to invite this? Was my post too personal? My photo too friendly? Did I somehow bring this on myself?

That's the tax. The mental and emotional tax women pay just for being visible here.

I used to just delete these. Now I screenshot them. Because apparently, we need receipts to be believed.

This is why women hesitate to grow their presence online. And nobody talks about that cost.

If you're a woman growing your presence online, I hope you know this:

Your visibility is not an invitation.

To the men reading this, thinking "I would never" — have you ever called it out when you saw it? Or just scrolled past?

And to every woman who's ever sent one of these screenshots to a group chat with "you won't believe this one" - I see you. You're not overreacting.

Next time you wonder why there aren't more women visible on this platform, this is part of the answer.

Every holiday I took in my corporate career, I logged in. Checked emails. Replied to messages. As if taking a real break would mean coming back to no job at all.

My male colleagues? When they said they were on holiday, they switched off completely. I never felt I had that permission.

The "quiet quitting" conversation misses the point for high-achieving women.

Most of us don't know how to quit.

We weren't taught to pull back. We were taught to be grateful. Grateful for the seat. Grateful for the opportunity. Grateful someone took a chance on us.

So we over-deliver. We over-perform. We say yes when we mean no. We stay late to prove we belong.

And when we finally try to ask for more?

We get penalised for it.

I once asked for a raise and was told I should be grateful for what I already had. I didn't have kids. I was single. Why would I need more? And because there was no one else who looked like me, I should be grateful to have a place on the team at all.

So I stopped asking. I made myself easy.

And then a male colleague says: "Just quiet quit. Do less. Set boundaries."

As if it were that simple.

As if we haven't spent our entire careers being told that doing less means being less. That pulling back means losing the seat we fought so hard to get.

Quiet quitting assumes you feel safe enough to pull back.

Most high-achieving women don't.

We're not burned out because we don't know how to rest. We're burned out because we've been trained to believe rest has to be earned - and we never feel like we've earned enough.

The problem isn't that women need to do less.

The problem is that we've been conditioned to give more than we should, ask for less than we're worth, and feel grateful just to be in the room.

That's not ambition. That's fear dressed up as gratitude.

Three power moves I've learned the hard way:

1️⃣ Say no without a reason. Not "I can't because..." Just "No, that doesn't work for me." Watch how little actually falls apart.

2️⃣ Take a day off and don't tell anyone why. No "doctor's appointment." No "family thing." Just blocked time. Your calendar isn't a confession booth.

3️⃣ Stop rescuing work that isn't yours. Let it fail. Let them feel the gap you've been quietly filling. That's not sabotage.

If this resonates - I built Hidden Talent to Visible Leader for women ready to stop performing gratitude and start owning their place. We launch to the public today, and the cohort starts on Jan 26. Link in comments.

What would change if you stopped feeling like you had to earn your seat every single day?

Humility didn't hold me back. I held me back - and called it humility.

Years ago, I won the biggest account of the year. And when my boss complimented me, I said: "Oh, it was really a team effort."

I'd chased that account for a year. Did the research. Built the relationships. Closed the deal.

My boss and his boss both congratulated me. Senior leaders. Paying attention. My moment.

And I gave it away with one sentence.

I wasn't overlooked. I trained people to overlook me.

Because somewhere along the way I learned: good women don't take up space. They make room for others. Even when the room was theirs.

So I redirected credit I had earned. And I did it with a smile.

We're told to keep our heads down and let our work speak for itself. But work doesn't speak. People do. And if you won't speak for your work, someone else will speak for theirs - and get the promotion you deserved.

There's a difference between being gracious and erasing yourself. I spent years confusing the two.

That's why I built Hidden Talent to Visible Leader - an 8-week programme for women who are done waiting to be noticed.

A woman in the last cohort watched a coveted role go to someone from an acquisition. Instead of staying silent, she walked into a room of senior leaders and asked: "What do I need to demonstrate to be ready when the next role opens? Who should I be engaging with now?" She didn't demand a promotion. She positioned herself for the next one.

We start January 26. Waitlist closes January 7.

If this is you - here's the link.
https://lnkd.in/genBQeKh

What compliment have you deflected that you should have owned?

I was lying in bed at 11:30pm, scrolling LinkedIn, when I saw his promotion. I tapped "Like." Then I froze.

He was younger. Less experienced. I had coached him once.
Now he was leapfrogging me.

I wasn't just frustrated. I wasn't just tired.
I was jealous. And I hated myself for it.

That night, I didn't sleep. I replayed every moment I'd stayed quiet. Every time I'd made myself easy instead of visible.

Invisibility doesn't announce itself. It accumulates.

Here are the signs you've been invisible too long:

1️⃣ You're fixing someone else's work at 11pm - again.
Fourth late night that week. The presentation wasn't mine. But somehow, I was the one pulling it together. Because I was "dependable." Because I could be trusted to fix it. I hit send at 11:47pm and felt nothing but weight.

2️⃣ You share an idea. Someone cuts you off. A man repeats it five minutes later - to applause.
You sit there, silently fuming, wondering if your voice even matters. Then you tell yourself it's fine. It's not fine.

3️⃣ Your boss calls you his "secret weapon."
I used to take that as a compliment. Until the day he introduced someone else as "the future of the business" - in front of the executive team I'd been quietly keeping afloat for over a year.

4️⃣ You're praised for being "low drama."
Meanwhile, others are spotlighted for taking risks. I once got feedback that I was "steady and reliable." It was meant as a compliment. It felt like a ceiling.

5️⃣ You stand at after-work drinks, smiling at jokes you don't understand.
Nodding. Laughing when you think it's appropriate. But inside? Completely alone. You go home wondering if you even belong.

6️⃣ You've stopped expecting to be seen.
This is the one that breaks my heart. When invisibility becomes so normal you stop noticing it. You stop hoping. You stop asking.

What I've learned is this:

Invisibility isn't always done to you.
Sometimes you help build the system that takes you for granted.

Because you didn't believe you had permission to ask for more.

The shift happens when you stop waiting to be noticed and start deciding to be seen.

You're not broken for feeling this. You just stopped believing you had permission.

If you're reading this and thinking, "This is me," I'm starting something January 26 for women who are ready to be seen. The waitlist has closed, but my DMs are open.

What's one moment you realized you'd stopped expecting to be seen?

I sat in that meeting, smiling, as they announced his promotion. The man I had trained. My face didn't move. My stomach did.

He was more visible. That's it.

That's when I stopped treating promotions like rewards and started running them like political campaigns.

Your promotion is not a gold star for hard work. It's a PR campaign you run for yourself.

If you're not running it, someone else is. And they might be positioning you as "reliable" when you want to be seen as "next in line."

We call it "politics." Men call it strategy.

If you think you're "above" it - congratulations. You just took yourself out of the race.

Here's the playbook I wish someone had given me:

1️⃣ Make visibility your oxygen. If the right people don't see your results, they don't exist. I used to send updates to my direct manager. Then I made sure my work reached 2–3 levels above.

2️⃣ Build a sponsor portfolio. Mentors give advice. Sponsors act. I had plenty of mentors. None of them got me promoted. The sponsor who did? I asked him directly.

3️⃣ Own your narrative. If you don't tell people who you are and what you do, they'll guess, and they'll be wrong. I once let someone describe me as "great with details." I wanted to be known for strategy. My fault for not correcting it sooner.

4️⃣ Start the campaign before you need it. By the time a role is posted, the shortlist is already forming. If you're not being discussed months ahead, you're already behind.

5️⃣ Engineer proximity. Decisions happen in informal settings: pre-meeting chats, offsite dinners, hallway conversations. I started showing up early to everywhere just to be in the room when the real conversations happened.

6️⃣ Yes, appearances matter. Multiple studies show women who present polished earn measurably more - one report a 20-40% premium. Sexist? Absolutely. Ignorable? Not if you want the job and the pay. I only learned makeup in my 30s. Showed up polished. Not because I wanted to, but because I watched less qualified men get ahead while I waited for merit to matter. It didn't.

I played the game I didn't want to play. And it worked.

Talent gets you in the room. Visibility gets you the seat.

Everything I learned the hard way, I put into Hidden Talent to Visible Leader. Link in comments. Cohort starts January 26. 

Which one feels hardest to do - even though you know it works?

I loved my job. I still dreaded January.


Every December, something would whisper. Something I kept pushing down.

I'd count the days until that first Monday. Wishing for more hours. Trying to squeeze every last drop out of the break before the starting gun went off again.

Here we go. Another year. Same race.

That whisper wasn't dread of the work. It was dread of ignoring what I already knew.

Maybe you know this feeling.

Not excitement when you think about work. Not even neutrality.
Dread.

The kind you can't explain to anyone because on paper, everything looks fine.
Good job. Good title. Good paycheck.
So why does the thought of going back feel like walking into a room you've outgrown?

Here's what I've learned:

Dread is data.

It's not laziness.
It's not ingratitude.
It's not a character flaw.

It's your body telling you something your mind hasn't caught up with yet.

And January is when it gets loud. Because the holidays gave you a taste of something — space, rest, maybe even joy. And now you're being asked to pretend that didn't happen.

Here's the thing: Vague dread keeps you stuck. Specific dread shows you the door.

So before you push through another year on autopilot, try this:

→ Name what you're actually dreading. Not "work." The commute? The meetings? A particular person? The version of yourself you become in that building? Get specific.

→ Read what the dread is telling you. Dread on Sunday night = misalignment with the work itself. Dread about specific people = environment problem, not a you problem. Dread that disappears when you imagine quitting = you already know the answer.

→ Ask the harder questions. What part of my work still has life in it — and what's already dead? Am I dreading the job, or the identity I've built around it? What did I feel over the holidays that I don't want to lose?

→ You don't need to blow up your life. Just stop lying to yourself about what you're feeling. Pay attention. Write it down. Let the data accumulate.

The dread isn't a problem to fix.
It's a signal to follow.

That whisper I kept pushing down? It was right.

What's yours telling you?

Everyone talks about career "pivots" like they're one brave leap. Mine wasn't. It was a series of micro-reinventions.

Nine years ago, I co-founded a non-profit in Singapore to help women progress in the workplace. I wasn't trying to build a career. I was just giving away everything I'd figured out.

That was the first micro-reinvention. I didn't know it yet.

Then came my last redundancy. I saw it coming. And instead of panicking, I used the time differently.

I took a board director's program. Started thinking about what a group of companies I would create could look like. Began building before I had to.

The third was the hardest. I forced myself to get visible. Writing on LinkedIn five times a week for a year. Not because I was good at it. Because I knew I needed to build an audience.

Most of those early posts? Crickets. I kept going anyway.

Somewhere in that year, something shifted. I stopped writing to be visible. I started writing because I loved it.

That led to a magazine column. Then op-eds for the national paper. Then other publications. And now, my first book.

None of this was a grand plan.

It was one small experiment after another. Each one building on the last. Each one showing me something I didn't know I wanted.

What I've figured out (so far):

Reinvention doesn't require burning it all down. It requires paying attention to what pulls you forward - and following that thread, even when it feels small.

The pivot isn't one moment. It's a hundred tiny ones you only see looking back.

What's one small thing you've started that turned into something bigger than you expected?

If you know something needs to change but can't see the next step, send me a message. I work with people navigating exactly this.

📷 Working out of Malta this week

In my 20s and 30s, my body just showed up. I didn't think about it. I didn't have to. Then my 40s arrived, and the invoices started coming in.

The weight crept on every year, without me changing anything. One afternoon, my rotator cuff locked. My cholesterol climbed. My body started keeping score in ways it never had before.

A friend texted me last week about her mammogram, a gynae procedure, a thickening uterus lining. She said: "By the time I'm through with one, the next batch starts."

I read it and nodded furiously.

It's the stuff my mum and aunts didn't warn me about.

Not the hot flashes or the sleepless nights. Those get talked about on social media now.

It's the sheer TIME it takes to stay well. The appointments. The research. The supplements. The bloodwork. The follow-ups. The figuring out what's causing what. Connecting one doctor's narrative with another. 

It's not a checklist. It feels like a second job.

And most of us are doing it in silence. Between meetings. After the kids are asleep. While pretending everything is fine.

I got tired of drowning in it. So I changed how I approached it.

👉 I stopped waiting for symptoms to get "bad" before booking appointments. Prevention is not paranoia.

👉 I started treating health admin like a recurring calendar block, not an afterthought I squeeze in when things fall apart.

👉 I found a GP who actually listens. That took three tries. Worth every awkward "this isn't working for me" conversation.

👉 And the biggest one: I stopped being annoyed at how much time it takes to simply live well.

No doubt, on some days, I feel like throwing my phone in the garbage or burning it every time a reminder pops up (my least favourite one is taking creatine, but this one is SO important!). 

But......

This is the job now. Not a disruption to my life - just part of it.

If you know someone carrying this alone, send it to her.

Anyone else nodding furiously right now?
Or is this just me?

📢 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 - 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘐𝘯. 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘴, 𝘴𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰.

I was 25, alone in that big IBM office late at night, crying out of desperation.

I thought asking for help meant I wasn't cut out for this.

That's what we never admit. The crying. The fear. The weight we carry home.

The nights you hold it together in public and fall apart in private. The fear that struggling means failing.

We're taught that excellence is armour. That if we just deliver enough, stay late enough, prove ourselves enough, someone will finally see.

So we do. And we carry it alone.

For years. Until we can't anymore.

I know this story because I lived it. And I hear it every week from women who message me:

"I cried silent tears throughout the flight. So yes, I have grieved."

And then, weeks later: "My body truly caught up and exhaled."

These are the things we only say when we trust someone's listening. Women who've done everything right - and still feel like they're carrying it alone.

One woman in the last cohort had been denied growth for a decade. Ten years of delivering, being passed over, second-guessing herself.

Then she realised: her current manager had seen her all along. Called her performance "F1 car level."

Ten years of her life. Because she'd stopped believing anyone was watching.

Her work now? Stop second-guessing. Start owning that level openly.

That's what Hidden Talent to Visible Leader does.

It's a room where you finally get to say it out loud. Other women who get it without you having to explain. Who've carried the same weight. Who are done pretending they're fine.

You stop hiding what you're really thinking. You stop carrying it alone. You start building strength instead of performing it.

Waitlist closes tonight (January 7). We start January 26.

This is the last day.

Time to exhale.

https://lnkd.in/genBQeKh

What would you finally say if you knew someone was listening?

She held the team together through the hardest year. They promoted someone else.

I know this story. I lived it for 12 years — working hard, doing everything right, giving exactly 0% of my energy to being seen.

And I hear it every week from women who message me:

👉 "I'm the silent workhorse."

👉 "I held the team through the hardest year. They're still not convinced I'm ready."

👉 "Sometimes I feel I need to shrink to be effective. Particularly when others might feel threatened. It's exhausting."

👉 "I was raised to believe a minority woman could only become successful from working harder than everyone else. That belief kept me heads-down, delivering, but invisible."

👉 "Safe but invisible."

These aren't complaints. They're patterns.

High-performing women who deliver, solve, hold teams together — and still get passed over.

I used to think this was a "me" problem.
It's not. It's a positioning problem.
And no one teaches us this.

So we work harder. Stay later. Hope someone notices.

Until one day we realise: the noticing isn't coming.

This is the trap.
And January is when it gets loud.

Because you just had two weeks away from it. And now you're walking back in, wondering if this is really how you want to spend another year.

If you recognise yourself in these words, you're not failing.
You're just playing by rules that were never going to get you there.

I built Hidden Talent to Visible Leader for the woman I used to be — an 8-week programme to stop waiting to be noticed and start being positioned for what's next.

Last cohort, one woman went from "workhorse" to winning Global Mobility Professional of the Year. Another used what she learned to negotiate 17% higher than the first offer.

We start January 26.
Waitlist closes January 7.

If this is you, the waitlist link is here - https://lnkd.in/genBQeKh.

What have you been waiting for someone else to notice?

taplio

The Battle

Scot Chisholm

Uma Thana Balasingam

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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taplio

The Battle

Scot Chisholm

Uma Thana Balasingam

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Uma Thana Balasingam's LinkedIn Performance

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