Beyond 'Good Enough': Building a Legacy Through Strategic Self-Advocacy
- Feb 12
- 3 min read
By Susan Berishaj
The moment that changed everything came quietly, over a cup of coffee with a colleague applying to Harvard Business School. She'd paid a premium consulting firm thousands of dollars to help craft her application. When she asked me to review her essays, I expected strategic positioning from this accomplished professional. Instead, I found her resume rewritten in paragraph form. Achievements listed chronologically, but no strategic narrative and no ownership of her unique value.
The deeper problem wasn't the essay quality. She had fundamentally diminished herself without realizing it.
She became my inspiration as an archetype. Over eight years, I've seen her walk through my door hundreds of times: accomplished professionals, women especially, who can analyze markets, lead teams, and drive results, but who've never been taught to articulate their strategic value with the same rigor. Each one reminds me why this work matters. The support gap is real, persistent, and has lifelong consequences.
When I founded Sia Admissions, I built it on a principle that would become our differentiator: everything must be goals-driven, not application-focused.
An MBA is a strategic career investment, not an achievement to collect. Every decision must align with long-term career objectives. The application process became my vehicle to teach strategic self-advocacy as a transferable skill.
We coach individuals through rigorous strategic self-assessment: What is your value add? Not your title or responsibilities, but your specific, differentiated contribution. How do your experiences connect to form a coherent narrative? What future are you building toward, and how does every element serve that vision?
At Sia Admissions, we banned the phrase "good enough" from day one because strategic positioning requires exactness. In my own life, nothing was handed to me. I learned early that you fight for opportunities by articulating exactly what you bring. That discipline became our standard.
Some clients arrive with resumes full of accomplishments but struggle to articulate their differentiated value. In conversation, they're magnetic, speaking passionately about challenges tackled, teams built, insights generated. Then I read their written materials, and the disconnect is jarring. Everything flattens into corporate platitudes. "Led cross-functional team." "Drove revenue growth." The admissions committee will never see the compelling person underneath.
Other clients arrive without clarity on their goals. For them, we teach the goals-first methodology from the ground up. Either way, they learn a repeatable framework they'll use throughout their careers as objectives evolve.
Through our coaching, they learn to write the way they think. They identify the narrative thread connecting their experiences and position their unique perspective as differentiated value. They develop frameworks to articulate their worth in any context: job negotiations, investor pitches, board presentations, every high-stakes communication ahead.
Yes, our clients gain admission to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and other top business schools. But they leave with something more foundational: clarity on what they want, where they're going, and how to assess their skill gaps. From that foundation, they leverage business school and every opportunity after strategically. Former clients reach out years later, reflecting on how that clarity shaped their trajectory.
When I think about what I'm building through Sia Admissions, I think about that colleague with the hollow essay and every version of her I've met since. I think about how many capable people never learn to position themselves strategically and miss opportunities to be in rooms that move markets and sectors. This is the biggest injustice and why I teach young professionals to advocate for themselves.
The skill itself is the legacy. Teaching individuals to fight for what they want by learning to articulate exactly what they bring, one rigorous transformation at a time.
Connect With Susan
Business Instagram: @sia_admissions
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