Underneath The Title: When High Achievers Start Questioning the Success They Built
You did everything right. Built the career. Earned the title. Hit the number. And somewhere along the way, you stopped recognizing the person doing it.
Underneath The Title is a podcast for executives and senior leaders who have experienced a significant exit and are starting to ask the questions they've been too busy to ask: Who am I when the role goes away? What was I actually building toward? Is this it?
Host Kevin Simcock spent 25 years leading creative work for some of the world's most recognized brands at global ad agencies like Y&R, Havas and Ogilvy. He was furloughed from a global VP role at 50, turned down the replacement offer, and chose to figure out what success actually meant to him. What he found changed everything.
Each episode goes beneath the surface of professional identity to explore what drives the decisions we make, the success we chase, and the fulfilment we keep expecting to arrive. Kevin draws on his own experience, his work with senior leaders and business owners navigating major transitions, and his framework, The Dance, which holds that your professional and personal identity were never meant to be separate.
If you're in the middle of a transition, questioning what comes next, or simply wondering why the success you've built feels quieter than you expected, this show was made for you.
New episodes bi-weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Kevin is also the author of Whose Ladder Is This? and an executive advisor working one-to-one with high-achievers navigating identity and transition.
Purchase Kevin Simcock's Book: Whose Ladder Is This?
Available on Amazon Kindle, paperback and hardcover HERE
Barnes & Noble here
Indigo Books here
Visit kevinsimcock.com for more information
LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-simcock/
Underneath The Title: When High Achievers Start Questioning the Success They Built
The Days When Nothing Works
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Some days after a big exit, nothing feels right. You're not inspired. You're not productive. You can't make yourself care. And underneath the flatness, there's a quiet question: is this even what I want to be doing?
In this episode, Kevin Simcock breaks down what's actually happening on those days, and why most people misread them entirely.
After leaving a significant role, there's usually a window of freedom. You travel, you explore, you take meetings about new ventures. But at some point, the exploration starts to feel like searching. And the searching starts to feel like something is missing.
That's when the void shows up. Not as a dramatic breakdown, but as a slow realization that none of the new things have filled the space your old identity used to occupy.
Kevin walks through the arc nobody prepares you for: from post-exit freedom, to quiet emptiness, to the flat days that follow real inner work. He explains why your nervous system needs time to catch up to the changes you've already made, why your old operating system keeps telling you that stillness means failure, and why these "reset days" are actually a sign of progress, not a sign that something is wrong.
If you've been sitting in that flatness wondering whether you're on the wrong path, this episode will reframe what's actually going on.
In this episode:
- The post-exit arc from freedom to searching to void
- Why flat, uninspired days are a nervous system reset, not a crisis
- How your old identity keeps running in the background and misreading the signal
- The difference between procrastination and integration
- Why stillness after an exit isn't failure, it's information
- One question to ask yourself on the days nothing works
Purchase Kevin's book Whose Ladder Is This? Available on:
Amazon (Kindle, paperback, hardcover): https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=whose+ladder+is+this&i=stripbooks
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whose-ladder-is-this-kevin-simcock/1148111984
Indigo Books: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/whose-ladder-is-this/9781069695413.html
Connect with Kevin: Website: https://www.kevinsimcock.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-simcock/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@kevinsimcock
Host: Kevin Simcock
