FRIED. The Burnout Podcast

Dex Randall’s burnout experience was a long time coming. He shares that as a child, right from the beginning, he was always afraid of everything. His parents’ behavior was unpredictable and he learned very quickly that it was not a good idea to trust any person ever. The coping mechanisms that Dex learned as protective measures throughout childhood followed into adulthood. Eventually, this came to...

Even if you do not think you have experienced childhood trauma, there are many ways that childhood experiences can impact your ability to regulate your emotions. Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs include both events that happened to you like abuse or neglect and events that you simply witnessed. Trauma impacts child brain development at an epigenetic level, causing deficiencies in the part of...

Kelley Bonner experienced burnout while working in what she thought would be her forever job. Since she was a little girl, she had dreamed of becoming a prison social worker. As a Black woman and daughter of an immigrant mother, she was inspired by her desire to help Black and Brown people who are disproportionately harmed by the prison system. After nearly three years of working what was supposed...

During burnout, it’s common to not use your resources in the most efficient way. An important step in burnout recovery is to look at how you are using your resources like time, energy, money, and community and see where you could be resourcing more sustainably. In today’s #straightfromcaitandsarah episode, host Cait Donovan and FRIED Burnout Recovery Guide, Sarah Vosen, discuss how to assess, acce...

Karina Schneider spent nearly two decades working in a corporate environment prior to setting up her own private coaching and consulting practice with a focus on helping workplaces become spaces that support employee wellbeing. Now, as a reintegration coach, Karina consults with employees and their leaders as they navigate a return to work after a mental health leave. Karina is uniquely qualified...

When people think about self-care they often picture soaking in a bubble bath, but in reality, self-care is so much more than that. Self-care is an absolutely critical part of burnout recovery. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout speaker, shares the three types of self-care that are crucial for both burnout prevention and recovery.   Cait explains that the number o...

Rebecca Kase is the Owner of Rebecca Kase & CO, LLC as well as a licensed clinical social worker and author of Polyvagal Informed EMDR: A Neuro Informed Approach To Healing. You may remember her burnout story from a previous episode of FRIED. Rebecca began studying polyvagal theory at the start of the pandemic and is now an EMDR consultant and trainer. Today, she discusses the science behind p...

Shelley Kemmerer is a parent, a board certified physician assistant and the founder of Run Tell Mom, LLC. During her clinical year to become a physician’s assistant, Shelley became pregnant. She chose to keep her pregnancy a secret, even while enduring constant sickness. Her child was born right as she was taking her boards and afterward she threw herself into work, extending her hours so that she...

Monica Monfre Scantlebury is a certified life coach, health coach, and yoga instructor, but she did not start that way. Monica spent 8 years working as a teacher at the university level and then another 15 working as a highschool teacher. Even though she loved being a teacher, by year 7 educator burnout was having significant effects on her health and wellbeing. She decided to walk away from teach...

Nikki Hume is an art teacher at an international school in Manila. She taught for 9 years in the states before teaching abroad and attributes her two burnout experiences with helping her to learn very valuable life lessons. Today, Nikki discusses teacher burnout and how it relates to her own experiences teaching internationally.    Educator burnout has a variety of root causes, but one of the larg...

From learning body signals to learning about the link between energy expenditure and finances, over 100 guests have opened up and shared their burnout stories. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout speaker, shares burnout recovery tips from 2 guests from each season of FRIED, including lessons from guests like Ashley Rose, Maggie Reyes, Simone Craig, Dr. Valerie Ryan...

Aesha Tahir is the founder of Tone and Strengthen, a corporate wellness company, as well as an author and exercise physiologist. Her book, Unhunched: Discovering Wellness Through Posture, is set for release this Spring. Today, Aesha shares how posture impacts the stress system and burnout recoverability.    Aesha is no stranger to burnout after having experienced it twice. Her first experience led...

If you used to have an exercise routine before burning out, you may be wondering when it is safe to start exercising again. The truth is that it differs for everyone, and you know your body better than anyone else. Learning to listen to your body and make adjustments based on what it is telling you is key for burnout recovery. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout sp...

Lauren Baptiste is the founder of Acheloa Wellness. She is approaching her 10 year burnout anniversary and attributes much of her healing to the practice of Ayurveda. Today, Lauren shares the magic of small steps for burnout recovery that helped her get to this point.    When Lauren began to burnout, her body reacted in very serious ways. She ended up covered head to toe in hives and needed to go...

During your burnout recovery, you will likely still not be at your original energy level for a while. It takes a different amount of time for everyone, but in Cait’s experience the average time frame has been around 18 months. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout speaker, shares 8 tips for helping to get your energy back during recovery.   Doing too much all at once...

Ewa Błaszczak is a mentor for leaders and teams, an author, professional speaker, and coaching mentor to host Cait Donovan. Recently she wrote a book in Polish that began as a TED talk about the toxicity of sarcasm and developed into a deep dive on how to detoxify communication.    Communication toxins are a natural defense mechanism that developed in response to our reptilian brain’s need for psy...

The steps for healing from burnout are different from what is required to prevent burnout. When you are burnt out and experiencing chronic stress, the part of your brain responsible for executive functioning actually loses neurons. This means that you may struggle more with memory loss and keeping up with all of the day to day responsibilities that come with adulting. In today’s #straightfromcait...

Recovering from burnout requires you to be okay with being uncomfortable. Rest is actually incredibly productive, and even though you might feel restless or guilty about sitting still it is vital for recovery. In today’s #straightfromcaitandsarah episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout speaker, and Sarah Vosen, FRIED burnout coach, answer your most common burnout questions from the FRIED Facebook...

Kute Blackson is an inspirational speaker and transformational teacher. He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a group of 100 of the world’s foremost authorities in the personal development industry. He learned about the power and the magic of surrender when his mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer and his time with her became more precious than ever before.    Surrender is...

Burnout isn’t a personal failure or a lack of resilience. It’s a signal that something in the system, expectations, roles, pace, or support, is out of alignment. Conversations like this one help surface the human experience of burnout, while the broader work continues to explore how organizations can respond more intelligently and sustainably. To explore burnout, leadership, and sustainable perfor...

There are two major theories when it comes to burnout. The first is that it is entirely preventable through a simple shift in workplace culture. The second is that burnout is not always avoidable but can be eliminated through self-care, establishing boundaries, and self-advocacy. According to Cait, the truth is somewhere in the middle. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait, host and burnout s...

Nina Blackshear is an attorney and executive coach who specializes in coaching high power and high potential women to overcome obstacles like imposter syndrome. She experienced burnout while working in a high achieving career at a large pharmaceutical company. Getting let go turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the blinders came off to reveal the toxic environment Nina had been keeping...

Susie Moore is a world renowned life coach, author of Let It Be Easy: Simple Ways to Stop Stressing and Start Living , as well as the host of the Let It Be Easy podcast. Susie’s life growing up was anything but easy. She grew up on welfare, moving frequently between domestic violence shelters, and her main hope for her future was to have stability and financial independence. However, once Susie wa...

Have you been feeling numb and mentally disconnected from your life? This is a very normal way to feel when you are experiencing burnout. There is a natural overlap that occurs between symptoms of burnout and symptoms of depression and anxiety. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait, host and burnout speaker, talks about the debate on whether to use mental health medications to treat the depre...

Julie Brown is a high energy Keynote Speaker who teaches the importance of networking. She is also the author of This Sh*t Works: A No Nonsense Guide to Networking Your Way to More Friends, More Adventures, and More Success , as well as the host of the This Sh*t Works podcast. Prior to her burnout, Julie was overworking herself to the point that she jokingly was jealous of a woman who had awoken f...