You’re Not Lost. You’ve Just Lost Touch With Yourself: Jen Randle on Self-Trust, Career Burnout and Reclaiming Your Inner Compass

What if the reason you’re feeling stuck in your career isn’t because you lack ambition, discipline or direction? What if you’ve simply spent so much time responding to the expectations of everyone around you that you’ve stopped listening to yourself?

On this episode of Dreams In Drive, Rana Campbell sits down with Jen Randle, strategist, systems thinker and Co-Architect of SGNL, for a thought-provoking conversation about career, identity, self-trust and what it really means to build a life that feels aligned.

Jen’s work centers on a powerful idea: trust is essential to meaningful change. Through SGNL, she works with organizations to understand how trust fractures, erodes and can ultimately become a source of strength. Through her personal practice, Intrinsic Wayfinding, she helps individuals reconnect with their internal compass and navigate life from a place of deeper self-awareness.

But this conversation goes beyond organizational strategy. It explores the personal cost of ambition when we’re constantly trying to meet external expectations.

Why are we so burned out?

Jen explains that today’s exhaustion isn’t necessarily caused by one thing. It’s the combination of increasingly extractive systems, the pressures of modern life, family responsibilities and the way social media allows us to see just how exhausted everyone else is, too.

She also reflects on how the COVID-19 pandemic changed our relationship with time. Many people experienced what it felt like to reclaim their time and make decisions about how they wanted to spend it. Returning to old expectations made the trade-offs of work and life feel even more pronounced.

Why Black women are tired of holding everything together

One of the most powerful parts of this conversation is Jen’s perspective on Black women and the role of the stabilizer.

She describes how Black women are often expected to step into environments, identify what’s broken and hold everything together—even when the systems themselves aren’t working.

She also introduces the concept of translational labor: the additional work of helping different people and groups understand one another while constantly trying to make themselves understood.

Her challenge?

What happens when we stop stepping in to hold everything together? What happens when we let things wobble so others can finally recognize what’s broken?

Reconnecting your head, heart and gut

How do you begin trusting yourself again?

Jen introduces a framework that encourages us to bring three sources of intelligence back into conversation:

• Head: Our rational thinking, logic and ability to create a plan.
• Heart: Our dreams, desires and sense of what’s possible.
• Gut: Our intuition, instincts and ability to sense when something is or isn’t right.

Rather than allowing our logical minds to dominate every decision, Jen encourages us to give our hearts and guts room to contribute.

During the conversation, she walks Rana through a practical five-minute exercise that can be incorporated into an existing daily routine. The goal isn’t to find an immediate answer. It’s to create space to contemplate, dream and explore what a more fulfilling life could look like.

Are you making decisions out of love or fear?

Jen shares two pieces of advice that have shaped how she navigates life and career.

The first came from her college professor: follow your heart because it will never lead you astray.

The second came from a business school classmate: make choices out of love, not fear.

She explains why fear-based decisions can create more fear, while decisions rooted in love can change how we approach challenges and opportunities.

It’s a reminder that building a successful career and life shouldn’t require abandoning yourself in the process.

This episode is for anyone who has ever questioned their direction, felt disconnected from their ambition, struggled to prioritize themselves or wondered whether the life they’re building actually feels like their own.

Sometimes the next step isn’t to push harder. It’s to listen more closely.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why career burnout is about more than just having too much work.
• How external validation influences the decisions we make.
• Why Black women are often expected to be the stabilizers in their environments.
• What it means to let things wobble.
• How to reconnect your head, heart and gut.
• A five-minute daily practice for reconnecting with your dreams.
• How to make more intentional career and life decisions.
• Why you should stop shrinking yourself to fit into spaces.
• The importance of making decisions out of love instead of fear.

About Jen Randle

Jen Randle is a strategist, systems thinker and cultural architect whose work centers on the power of trust. As Co-Architect of SGNL, she partners with organizations navigating complex moments of change, helping them build trust-rich environments and create lasting value.

Her portfolio includes work with Nike, Pinterest, Virgin Brands, Juul Labs, WeWork and Starbucks. She is also the creator of Intrinsic Wayfinding, a practice that helps individuals reconnect with their internal compass and navigate life with greater clarity and alignment.

Connect with Jen at https://trustsignal.com.