Headspace for the Workplace with Dr. Sally: Helping Leaders Build Human-Centered Workplaces

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Dr. Virna Little, co-founder and CEO of Zero Overdose, a national initiative bringing overdose safety planning into workplaces, healthcare systems, schools, and communities. Dr. Little and I share a long history through the Zero Suicide Initiative, which aspires to eliminate suicide deaths in healthcare systems. This episode brings th...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Alicia Scovill, President of Scovill Construction & Contracting Services, a veteran herself, and a construction workplace mental health expert. We open with a sobering reality: veterans in the United States die by suicide at rates higher than the general population, and most are working at the time of their death, or have immediat...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Mitch Wallis, the founder of Heart on My Sleeve and one of the world's leading experts on connection capability in the workplace. Mitch has worked with over 200 companies, most of them Fortune 500, across four continents, including Microsoft, KPMG, Lend Lease, and American Express, training more than 10,000 leaders on how to navigate...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sat down with psychologist, author, and organizational consultant Dr. Abby Medcalf who spent years working with executives in mergers and acquisitions to address substance use at the leadership level. The conversation centers on one of the most common and least-discussed dynamics in high-performance workplaces: leaders who are quietly reconsidering...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Nick Freud, founder of Fellow Humans - a platform built on a simple but radical idea: the most powerful support a person can receive during a difficult transition isn't clinical expertise. It's lived experience wisdom from someone who has already walked the same path. Nick's journey into this work began when he hit clinical depression...

This special episode of Headspace for the Workplace is produced in partnership with the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) Workplace Special Interest Group, co-chaired by Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas and Jørgen Gullestrup. It is part of an ongoing series examining work-related suicide - cases where workplace factors contribute, in whole or in part, to a suicide death - a topic tha...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Aaron Witt, founder of BuildWitt, a people-first training and development company on a mission to build the construction industry's next generation of leaders. The conversation centers on one of the most persistent tensions in business, especially in high-pressure industries like construction: how do you drive growth, performance, and...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I tackle one of the most underestimated safety risks in high-risk industries: sleep deprivation driven by mental health. Drawing on my own experience with sleep disruption and the latest research, I explore how depression, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, and substance use disorders all compromise sleep quality and how that degraded sleep shows up on the job s...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I am joined by my longtime colleague and friend Sarah Gaer to explore a concept that goes deeper than burnout: soul exhaustion. Sarah, co-author of the newly released Soul Exhaustion and Soul Care Workbook (with Cassie Kelly), brings both lived experience and decades of professional expertise to a conversation that is equal parts personal and practic...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I am joined by Anne Moss Rogers - a nationally recognized suicide prevention advocate, keynote speaker, and brain tumor survivor who has channeled the devastating loss of her son Charles into a powerful career helping others heal. Charles died by suicide in 2015 at age 20 after struggling with depression, anxiety, and heroin addiction. Together, Anne...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Cheri Skelding, Clinical Director of Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, to explore one of the most evidence-backed and underused tools in suicide prevention: caring contacts. Caring contacts are brief, non-demanding outreach moments, such as a text, a voicemail, or a handwritten note, that communicate to someone: “I see you. I’m here. Yo...

In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with workplace wellbeing expert Laura Putnam to explore one of the most overlooked drivers of mental health at work: managers. We move beyond traditional mental health approaches—like EAPs and awareness training—and focus on what actually shifts culture: how leaders show up every day. Laura shares why workplace wellbeing is less about fixi...

When a critical incident strikes a workplace — whether a natural disaster, an act of violence, a sudden death, or a large-scale social disruption — leaders are thrust into decisions that carry enormous human and organizational consequences. In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I speak with Jeff Gorter, Vice President of Clinical Crisis Response at R3 Continuum , about what effective cri...

We say we are human beings, but most days at work, we live like human doings. Meeting to meeting. Task to task. Crisis to crisis. In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with “Dr. B,” a meaning-centered psychotherapist and logotherapist, to explore “A Void Dance,” the subtle but powerful ways individuals and organizations stay busy to avoid the uncomfortable truths at the center...

With the Super Bowl lighting up screens this weekend, football metaphors are everywhere. But beneath the bright lights and highlight reels is a quieter truth every great team understands: games are won in the trenches, by a defensive line that protects, communicates, and does its job together. In this timely episode of Headspace for the Workplace, Chris and Martha Thomas — parents, advocates, and...

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are among the most common workplace mental health benefits and among the most misunderstood. In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I am joined by David Nix, a nationally respected EAP leader with more than two decades of experience supporting the oil & gas industry, working on military bases in Iraq, and supporting remote oil fields in Alaska. Toge...

Fly-In Fly-Out (FIFO) work can quietly erode mental health, strain families, and elevate suicide risk if workplaces aren’t designed with human realities in mind. In this special episode of Headspace for the Workplace, we relaunch a powerful conversation from the IASP Work-Related Suicide Series featuring Francisco “Fran” Valenzuela, CRSP, a safety leader, lived-experience advocate, and systems-lev...

In this special year-in-review episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I reflect on a year of advancing workplace mental health and suicide prevention across high-risk industries, global conferences, and organizational systems. The episode blends practical insights for leaders with candid reflections on burnout, leadership pressure, and what it takes to stay human while building cultures of care a...

What if paid time off (PTO) isn’t a perk but essential health infrastructure? In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Daniel Oates, a longtime construction leader at Flintco, to unpack the psychological, neurobiological, and organizational benefits of structured, work-free time away from work. Drawing from more than two decades in the construction industry and grounded in a...

Silence around suicide and mental health in the workplace carries a steep price -- measured not only in human suffering, but also in productivity loss, legal exposure, reputational harm, and missed opportunities for early intervention. In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Canadian guest Tara Adams, a leading voice in workplace suicide prevention, to unpack the business c...

In this emotionally resonant episode of Headspace for the Workplace, Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas talks with Dr. Colleen Saringer, a former organizational health leader, speaker, and spouse of a construction business owner, about one of the most overlooked realities of workplace mental health: the spillover of job stress into family life. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspe...

Most workplaces measure safety by one number: injuries. But what if some of the real drivers of safety are invisible? In this episode, I sit down with Bill Sims Jr., one of the National Safety Council’s “Top 10 Global Keynote Speakers” and the author of the widely acclaimed book Green Beans & Ice Cream: The Remarkable Power of Positive Reinforcement. Bill has spent more than 30 years designing...

In safety-focused industries, leaders are trained to identify physical hazards before they cause harm. But what if those same situational awareness skills could be used to support mental well-being? In this energizing episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with  Alex Willis,  a former NFL player and founder of  Leadership Surge , to explore how organizations can apply the core principl...

What if we trained for mental fitness the same way we train for physical fitness? In high-intensity jobs like firefighting, healthcare, and construction, resilience is a survival skill. But the cultural story of “toughness” often silences the very people we count on to save lives. In this powerful episode, I chat with retired firefighter and mental health researcher Brandon Evans, founder of Fire...

Ever wonder why some workplace mental-health campaigns land flat even when the intention is in the right place? In this episode, I sit down with Monica Kramer McConkey, an agricultural mental-health specialist who has spent three decades helping rural and blue-collar communities thrive. Together they unpack a truth many leaders miss: mental health efforts fail when we ask workers to enter our worl...