Earlier this year at ELEVATE, I sat on stage with three women I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with for many years. As I listened to Suzanne, Rachel and Tracy talk about where they had started, what they had created and what they wanted next, I was struck by something that I think every successful person eventually has to confront.

At some point, the version of you who created your current success has done their job.

They got you here. They built the business, developed the career, raised the family, learned the lessons, took the risks and created results you may once have only imagined. But if you want your life to continue expanding, you have to be willing to expand beyond the identity that created what you already have.

I call this the succession of you.

It’s particularly relevant when you’ve already achieved a great deal because growth doesn’t always begin with something being wrong. Sometimes your life is good. The business is successful. You’re grateful for what you’ve created. And yet there is a persistent sense that there is more of you to express.

That was something I heard in all three women’s stories.

Your success can grow faster than your self-image

 

When I first met Suzanne in 2018, she was established in a corporate marketing career but found herself wondering, What’s next? During our early work together, she wrote about a completely different picture for her life – living in the country and running a luxury cabin retreat. Life moved on, she met her partner and for a period that vision sat in the background. Then the question returned, and years after first writing about it, she and her partner bought the property that is now becoming part of that life.

What I found particularly interesting was what happened next. Suzanne initially felt as though she had two separate identities: the successful corporate woman she had spent years becoming and the woman who would create this new life in the country. Trying to hold them separately became exhausting.

The shift came when she realised she didn’t have to wait for the future to arrive before becoming that person. She began bringing the energy of her future self into her current life, even using her morning walk through the Roma Street Parklands to imagine herself walking through her property, seeing the cabins and experiencing that life as though it were already real. Interestingly, rather than making her current career feel less fulfilling, she told me she began enjoying her work more than ever.

She had stopped splitting herself between who she was and who she was becoming.

I think we do this more often than we realise. We imagine the next version of ourselves belongs somewhere in the future, after the business grows, the opportunity arrives, the money changes or the circumstances are right. But the internal succession has to begin before the external evidence appears.

Sometimes you have to let go of who you thought you were

 

Tracy’s succession looked very different. When she first came to work with me, she had left teaching and was trying to find her place in the family pork-production business she shared with her husband. She thought she was coming to me to learn about business and quickly discovered the bigger work was going to be on herself.

At the time, she was doing bookkeeping a couple of days a week. Today, she is clearly established as CEO. The business has grown its revenue approximately sixfold, now employs more than ten people and has created opportunities for the next generation of their family to become involved. Tracy and her husband are now also thinking about how they can step back and create greater freedom for themselves.

When I asked her what she’d needed to let go of to become that leader, she didn’t talk about learning more about pigs or becoming better at business strategy. She talked about letting go of the belief that she wasn’t good enough and didn’t know enough.

Years ago, she would walk into industry events dominated by men and question whether she belonged there. Today she chairs a significant industry organisation, is an Australian pork delegate and sits on numerous industry panels. She had to develop what she described as an inner knowing: I’m enough. I know enough. I deserve to be here.

The opportunity wasn’t necessarily beyond her capability. Her self-image had to expand enough to allow her to occupy it.

Your next chapter may look nothing like the one you planned

 

Rachel and I actually went to school together, and when we reconnected years later she had already lived several different professional chapters. Through our work together she started her own local business directory, which was growing successfully, before an old real-estate licence resurfaced while she was going through some paperwork.

Real estate had been something she’d stepped away from when she was very young, but this time she saw the opportunity differently. She returned to the industry and now runs the Port Lincoln office of Harris Real Estate. At ELEVATE, I shared that she had recently ranked among the top five agents in the Harris group and had settled 14 properties in Port Lincoln in the previous month.

What I love about Rachel’s story is that her succession hasn’t required her to become somebody else’s idea of a successful real-estate agent. She has found ways of working that are distinctly her own, while also thinking much bigger about what comes next; greater income and business growth, but also a four-day week, extended family holidays, trips with her daughter, time with friends and more freedom.

And I think that’s an important point.

Your next level doesn’t necessarily mean doing more of what made you successful at the last one.

Your definition of success is allowed to evolve too.

Who succeeds the current version of you?

 

Towards the end of our conversation, I asked all three women what they would say to someone who had already achieved a great deal but knew they wanted more.

Their answers were different, but together they captured the work beautifully.

Tracy spoke about continuing to ask what’s next? rather than allowing comfort to become the end point. Rachel came back to self-image and the importance of expanding the picture you hold of yourself and your life. Suzanne came back to decision: when you recognise something you really want, decide you’re going for it and move with your intuition rather than spending too long dwelling on it.

Growth. Self-image. Decision.

I’ve watched those three things underpin extraordinary changes in people’s lives for years.

So perhaps the question isn’t simply, What do I want to achieve next?

Ask yourself:

Who is the version of me who created what I have today, and who do I need to become for what I want next?

You don’t need to diminish or discard the person who brought you here. Honour them. They did a magnificent job.

And then give yourself permission to grow again.

That’s the succession of you.

Watch the full conversation

This panel was recorded live at ELEVATE 2026, where Suzanne, Rachel and Tracy joined me on stage to share much more about their own succession, the changes they’ve made and what they’re creating next.

WATCH THE FULL PANEL DISCUSSION 

 

Join us at ELEVATE 2027

If you’d like to experience these conversations in the room with us, ELEVATE returns to The Langham, Gold Coast on 5–6 February 2027.

Two days to step away from the day-to-day, think differently about what you really want next and surround yourself with people who are committed to continuing to grow.

BOOK YOUR ELEVATE 2027 TICKETS → www.karenbrook.com/elevate