In this episode of Restless Excellence, Tonya Richards explores the hidden cost of high performance; the toll excellence can take when it stops being a choice and starts becoming an obligation. Through personal reflection and lived experience, she names what many high achievers feel but struggle to articulate: the exhaustion that doesn’t match the success, the tension that lingers even when you’re doing everything “right.”
This episode examines:
Rather than framing burnout as failure, this conversation reframes it as information. A signal that something about the way success is being pursued is no longer sustainable. You’ll hear why exhaustion often shows up not as collapse, but as continued functioning without joy or presence.
The Cost of Excellence No One Talks About invites listeners to question long-held beliefs about ambition, resilience, and productivity…and to consider a different definition of success. One where rest is not a reward but a responsibility, where boundaries are proactive not reactive, and where excellence does not require you to disappear in the process.
This episode is for anyone who has achieved a great deal and feels quietly worn down by it.
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