EP 83: Demoted at Deliveroo: Alice Ter Haar's Career-Shaking Failure

Careers rarely implode on schedule, but what you do next can change everything. When Alice Ter Haar was demoted at Deliveroo, right as the rocket ship was taking off she refused to hide. Instead, she told the truth, turned a career low into an origin story, and built Badass Unicorn to help high-growth teams find confidence, resilience, and psychological safety without the buzzwords or the fluff.We dig into how to reframe shame into signal, why morale rises when people spend more time in their energising strengths, and how psychological safety unlocks better ideas, faster decisions, and real accountability. Alice breaks down imposter syndrome with disarming clarity, spotting the perfectionist and workaholic archetypes, reframing nerves as excitement, and giving your inner critic a name so you can thank it and then do the work anyway. Her BRAVE method makes resilience practical: protect the body, invest in relationships, acknowledge reality, venture into your circle of control, and be easier on yourself so you can try again sooner.Along the way, we talk leadership style and culture fit, the trap of the arrival fallacy, and the power of “wince-and-send” micro-actions that compound into a career you actually want. If you’re building a high-growth team or navigating your own squiggly path, you’ll leave with tools to boost morale, set fair expectations, and create the conditions where people speak up and do their best work. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs this, and leave a review to tell us which idea you’ll try first.Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show.Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈Follow Chris:X, TikTok, LinkedInFollow Will:LinkedInFollow The Show:TikTok, YouTube