The Gen Mess with Tess

Are our educational systems actually built for the people who need them most? For students who are also parents, caregivers, veterans, and full-time workers, the traditional model of higher education was never designed with them in mind. And in the Black community, where those layers of responsibility are often even more pronounced. The gap between who the system was built for and who it needs to...

I had no idea anything was wrong. They seemed fine and then they just quit. This is the most common thing I hear from managers and HR leaders right now. And here is what I need you to understand: The silence is not the problem. The silence is the symptom. In this solo episode, I break down exactly what is happening psychologically when a Gen Z employee goes quiet, why this generation responds to s...

In this episode, I sit down with Laura McDonald, co-founder of Flora Fertility, the first individually owned insurance solution for fertility and women's health. Laura is a bestselling author, former financial media personality, and the founder of Canada's largest financial media company focused on women and wealth, which she built, scaled, and sold. Now she is tackling one of the most urgent and...

When a Gen Z employee says they don't feel safe at work, most leaders have one of two reactions. They either panic, thinking they have a legal problem on their hands, or they get quietly frustrated, assuming they're dealing with an overdramatic employee. In this episode, Tess Brigham, licensed therapist and certified coach, breakd down why both of those reactions miss what's actually happening and...

How to Manage Without Relying on Authority Most managers walk into their first role thinking the job is to tell people what to do and hold them accountable when they don't do it. Jon Dario spent 30 years in retail leadership (Macy's, Gap, Travelex, and Bank of America) learning why that instinct is exactly wrong. Out of that experience came AIM: Action Item Management. This system gives frontline...

Every generation has faced a broken world. Wars, poverty, injustice, economic collapse. None of that is new. So why does this generation feel more hopeless than any that came before? In this episode, Tess makes the case that it is not the world that got worse. It is the exposure. And for the first time in history, there is nowhere to look that is not the world. Tess walks through what the research...

Never before have so many generations shared a workplace at the same time. And never before has the opportunity for both collaboration and conflict been this high. This week, Tess sits down with Meagan Johnson, generational keynote speaker and co-author of the bestselling book Generations, Inc.: Managing the Friction Between Generations at Work , written with her father Larry Johnson. Meagan has s...

Last episode, Tess told you why the toxic workplace pattern repeats, and identified each of the patterns: avoidance, disconnection, and measuring the environment instead of looking inward. This follow up episode provide 3 exercises to disrupt those patterns. These exercises are designed to go to the root of where you actually get stuck. If you haven't listened to Episode 60 yet, start there first....

You left. You reflected. You did the work. You asked better questions, watched for red flags, and turned down offers that didn't feel right. And then six months into the new job, the same feeling came back. This isn't bad luck. And it isn't a failure of effort. It's psychology. In Part 1 of this two-part series, licensed therapist and certified coach, Tess Brigham, breaks down the real reason so m...

You did everything right. The school, the job, the hustle. You followed the path, and you're good at it! So why does it still feel like something's missing? This week, Tess sits down with Malaika Smyth, a coach for high achievers who have checked every box and still find themselves asking a surprisingly hard question: what do I actually want for myself? Malaika brings a rare combination of experie...

You gave the feedback carefully. You were constructive. You even thought through every word. And they still shut down. If you're a manager or HR leader wondering why feedback conversations keep going sideways, this episode is the one you've been waiting for. Tess Brigham breaks down the neuroscience of why feedback feels like a threat, why Gen Z is particularly activated by it (hint: it makes comp...

Is AI really replacing jobs, or are we misunderstanding AI's role at work? In this episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess Brigham sits down with People Operations executive Erin Turnmeyer to break down what leaders, employees, and organizations are getting wrong about AI in the workplace. With 15+ years of experience building talent systems, including time at the Office of the Director of Nation...

No one really warns you how psychologically hard early career can be. You learn how to write a resume, interview, and get hired, but almost no one explains what it feels like once you’re inside the workplace. You're being evaluated constantly, questioning yourself, guessing the rules, and trying to build confidence without experience. In this episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess Brigham explai...

Think you're not a morning person? Think again. This week, Tess sits down with Amy Landino, bestselling author, content creator, and founder of Vlog Boss Studios. Together, they blow up everything you think you know about morning routines, productivity, and what it actually means to start your day on your own terms. Amy's newly expanded book, Good Morning, Good Life , isn't about waking up at 5am...

Why does one vague comment from your boss stay in your head all day? Why does being left off a meeting invite suddenly feel personal? Why can work feel emotionally exhausting even when you’re technically “doing fine”? In this episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess Brigham explains why work is never just about tasks, productivity, or performance—it’s psychological. From feedback and comparison to...

In Episode 53 of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess Brigham sits down with Amy Leneker , founder and CEO of the Center for Joyful Work, to explore why burnout keeps happening even to highly successful leaders who know better. Amy has helped more than 100,000 leaders and teams, including Fortune 100 companies, rethink leadership, workplace stress, and employee well-being. A former public policy executiv...

In Episode 52 of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess explores one of the most misunderstood workplace dynamics right now: why younger employees keep asking for transparency, and why many leaders misread that as entitlement. While transparency is often described as a Gen Z workplace preference, Tess argues it is something much deeper: a psychological response to growing up in a world where trust has beco...

In Episode 51 of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess is joined by Corrine Ishio , founder of My Working Soul, to explore a challenge many fast-growing companies face but rarely talk about: scaling the business faster than the culture can keep up. When organizations grow quickly, hiring often becomes reactive. Leaders focus on roles and results, while the human side of the company quietly gets lost. The...

In Episode 50 of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess explores a dynamic that quietly derails high performers at every level: the moment work starts to feel like a test. When every meeting feels evaluative and every decision feels like it determines your worth, anxiety rises, and performance often drops. Tess unpacks why this happens and why the solution isn’t caring less, but redefining what actually be...

Tess sits down with Trent Cotton - self-described “non-HR HR executive,” author of Sprint Recruiting and High Performance Recruiting , and Head of Talent Insights at iCIMS. Discussing the nuanced conversation about what the data tells us about AI, generational skepticism from Gen Z to Boomers, and what leaders are getting wrong about the future of work, including: Why leaders often hide behind dat...

In Episode 49 of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess tackles a reality many professionals experience but rarely have language for: what to do when your manager does not create psychological safety and you cannot simply walk away. Drawing on the research of Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, who coined the term psychological safety , Tess breaks down the difference between discomfort and ha...

In this episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess is joined by Ashley Herd , founder and CEO of The Manager Method , employment attorney, former HR leader at McKinsey & Company and Yum Brands, co-host of the HR Besties podcast, and author of the newly released book The Manager Method: A Practical Framework to Lead, Support, and Get Results . Ashley brings a rare, inside view of management from...

On this episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess is joined by Jenny Calcoen, CEO and founder of Inner Earthquake LLC, former executive, and private coach to high-achieving women navigating burnout, grief, and major life transitions. Jenny shares her own “inner earthquake” - the moment when outward success no longer matched inner truth - and how a life-altering diagnosis forced her to confront the...

In this solo episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , Tess Brigham explores a surprising social experiment that connected strangers across political divides and why it offers a powerful lesson for today’s leaders in the workplace. Drawing from her background as a therapist and her coaching work with organizations, Tess unpacks what HR leaders and managers are experiencing in 2026: burnout that isn’t dr...

In this solo episode of The Gen Mess with Tess , host Tess Brigham addresses a question she hears from HR leaders, managers, and employees alike: Why does work feel so heavy right now, even when things look better on paper? Drawing from her background as a therapist and her work with organizations, Tess explains the challenges HR leaders are facing in 2026: burnout is no longer just about workload...