I'm Ellen Nguyen, a community builder, content creator, writer, author, podcast host, having built a corporate career to the Director level in London. This newsletter is my space to explore and express depth, featuring personal essays written entirely by me, with no AI. But I do use it as a thinking partner that helps critique my writing.

When I heard stories about women doing labour for men in relationships, honestly, I could never relate. I understand it’s common, it’s happening, but it was never a reality to me. Even when I dated absolute assholes, avoidants and narcissists, I would never find myself doing anything out of my way for them. I could count on one hand the number of times I paid for a date or cooked for a man - there I said it. I was always quick to realise something fundamental was missing, voice my needs and ask for more. Because of this, none of my relationships before my husband lasted more than a few months. Once I realised my needs weren’t met, I would self-sabotage so bad that there was never a chance of dragging it on into a self-sustaining toxic dynamic.

And now in my marriage, I’m one pampered wife. I do nothing, and I feel no guilt about it. I’ve never had any problem receiving or avoiding physical labour or overly investing in romantic relationships. And I realise why it is. Guess what – it’s because of my mum. Her parenting saved me from this gendered domestic trap.

Growing up in Vietnam, she raised me the exact opposite of what was expected of a woman there back then. I was never asked to cook or clean. I was never taught to please a man or my future in-laws. I was never conditioned to base my self-worth on being needed by a man. My only priority was to study while she made sure everything was served to me like a little king. And then she sent me abroad to expand my options, betting on me getting a sponsored job in the UK even when the graduate visa route was removed.

One thing she couldn’t anticipate, though, was that while she saved me from patriarchal men and abusive romantic relationships, another big problem had arisen alongside: The educational system in Vietnam and the corporate system in the UK for immigrant women.

My self-worth is safe from being defined by my usefulness to men, but it is not safe from these systems conditioning women like me to base my worth on being hard-working, useful, and agreeable. I became vulnerable to extraction in a different context – my career – and what’s at risk is my mind, my energy, my presence, my skills, my emotional and intellectual labour. Back in Vietnam, I studied like a robot in a competitive environment that rewarded being the top and punished falling behind. I built my identity around my academic achievements. Then, when I moved to the UK, I soon realised nobody cared about your A-level grades, and the dangling carrot became the corporate praises, the promotion, the salary increase, the £100K milestone. And that was what kept me in a box made of four concrete walls and a soundproof glass lid.

Being on a student visa and work visa meant playing safe, not rocking the boat, letting problems slide, staying small for fear of being sent back home. There was no way to set boundaries because the consequence of removing myself and walking away did not exist. It meant for most of my life in the UK, over ten years, I’d never got to properly train the muscles to speak up, demand more, negotiate, take risks, and push back at work. Meanwhile, the intensely competitive educational system in Vietnam had set the stage well for me to keep pushing to be the top performer, take on extra projects, fix other people’s problems, over-deliver on minimal resources at my own expense, and feel guilty for any second of rest.

While I was lucky to have managers who gave me promotions or paid me well, the system is something much more sophisticated and insidious in its exploitation that a few individuals with some acts of sponsorship can’t possibly solve, and sometimes they perpetuate the system, looking the other way. When I got the promotion, I found myself underpaid. When I was well-paid (as well as under-paid), I found myself doing three jobs in one with limited support and structural recognition, and at more senior levels, I was also exposed to leadership dysfunction and had to absorb the avoidance of people up the chain – the emotional labour was immense and never acknowledged. I was expected to be the fixer on a Friday at 5 pm, and I would say, “yes I’ll sort it”, with a smile on my face, and get a “thank you so much” back. Why didn’t I just say no? Well, I was praised, I was paid. I didn’t know “no” was an option. I was trapped, and it felt like I only had myself to blame.

I didn’t pay for dates or cook for a man. Instead, I have paid and laboured for the systems they run, in ways that are much harder to call out but deeply exploitative and corrosive. And today, I feel tired. Burnt out. Done. After 10 years of working and climbing in corporate, I’m slowly learning to detach my self-worth from the system, from being useful and needed. I’m learning to be ok with being unproductive or even useless. I want to work less, within boundaries I set. I want to spend most of my time on what matters, on building things that can scale and truly support me, on people who see me and can meet me at my level. I don’t want to always be busy anymore. I’m sick of censoring or shrinking myself to manage other people’s discomfort. Never again.

Honestly, I really admire female business owners who build sustainable, beneficial systems for themselves and other people. An independent ecosystem with them as the default. A work environment that they have control over, that runs on their values. I’m seriously on that journey now. Building it myself outside of the system feels a lot more feasible than trying to change the system. And frankly, I’m not willing to sacrifice more of myself to get to a higher position of corporate power, and I don’t believe that would actually solve anything materially. There’s a reason I can hardly see anyone who looks like me at the top. I swear. It’s depressing, but I understand why now.

I’ve attempted doing my own things in the past, but something feels different this time. Perhaps it’s because it’s a fundamental shift in worldview based on data and an informed calculation of risks and rewards. Previously, there was still hope, still a desire to discover, to find out more. Now I move forward with both eyes wide open, with self-knowledge, and real evidence of what worked and what didn’t. And I know I need to be conscious and intentional about what I build next so that it’s healthy, sustainable, and nurturing, not another trap of my own making.

For those who want to understand the system and how to progress and protect themselves while they’re still in it, join me on 20 June 2026 for a half-day in-person event for early- and mid-career women looking to progress their corporate careers in the UK. We'll get into the unspoken stuff most people never get coached on.

🎤 Fireside with a senior woman corporate leader: the reality of climbing the corporate ladder, what actually gets people promoted, what she wishes someone had told her earlier 

💬 Peer discussion led by me: the lessons from my journey candidly, and an honest conversation among peers about what we're all sitting with 

🎭 Live coaching role-plays with executive coach Natasha Neeson: asking for a promotion, negotiating salary, asking for sponsorship, pushing back when credit is taken, navigating a pivot

📍 London 📅 20 June 2026

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