The Gen Mess with Tess

For decades, there were two options when your drinking became a problem: a 12-step program or a residential treatment center. Both carries stigma, both requires a label, and neither fits the vast majority of people who weren't maybe physically addicted but were drinking more than they wanted to. In this episode, Tess sits down with Vedant Pradeep, co-founder of Reframe, an app for helping peop...

Ask a Gen Xer how they're doing and watch what happens. They'll say they're "fine." Somewhere along the way, a generation turned that into an identity, one that prides itself on low maintenance, toughness, and some who is never going to make a big deal out of anything. Host Tess Brigham makes the case that this isn't actually who Gen X is. It's who they had to become. And the real cost isn't the a...

There's a name for what a lot of young people are doing right now, and it's not laziness. Dr. Suzanne Degges-White calls it life shelving: the decision to put the big stuff on hold because the weight of choosing feels like too much. In this episode, Tess sits down with Dr. Degges-White, licensed counselor, professor of counselor education at Northern Illinois University, longtime Psychology Today...

The burnout conversation has been missing something. Not willpower, not better habits, not the right morning routine. What's actually missing is the body. In this episode, Tess sits down with Dr. Suzanne Bober, chiropractor, nervous system educator, and founder of the Infinite Balance Blueprint, whose 25 years of clinical work led her to one conclusion: burnout isn't a character flaw, a motivation...

For most of modern work, being difficult was something leadership could get away with if they were brilliant enough. We didn't just tolerate the tortured genius, we romanticized them. And there was a logic to it. If someone controlled access to knowledge, skills, or connections you couldn't get anywhere else, you put up with them, because the trade was worth it. That trade is over. And most leader...

We've lost 48% of our empathy in the last 30 years. In a world that's more connected than ever, that's not a coincidence. It's a biology problem. In this episode, I sit down with Mimi Nicklin, bestselling author and founder of Empathy Everywhere, who has spent years traveling the globe training senior leaders to treat empathy as the competitive advantage it actually is. She's shared stages with Bi...

Most people think self-awareness is the goal. It's not. It's the starting line. In this episode, I sit down with Thais Gibson, founder of the Personal Development School, who spent over a decade earning a PhD and 13+ certifications across cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnosis, somatic experiencing, and more to answer one question: How do you actually change what's running your life at the subcons...

Someone corners you at your desk to vent about a coworker. You listen, you nod, you leave them feeling a little lighter. You didn't do anything wrong. But you just became the container for someone else's unresolved conflict. There's a name for this. It's called triangulation. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it. In this solo episode I walk through the psychology of why this pattern is so hard...

Most managers have at least one person on their team who is hard to read. They resist changes. They go quiet after a pivot. They seem disengaged, or they overdeliver one week and disappear the next. And the usual management advice does not seem to reach them. In this episode I sit down with Genie Love, an executive functioning and relationship coach with over 25 years of experience working with ne...

She is the manager first to respond to a message, even outside of normal business hours. She takes on every project nobody else wants. She quietly rewrites deliverables before they go out, even when she technically does not have to. Her team loves her, leadership loves her, she is the best manager you've ever worked with. And she is running on fumes in a way that will never once show up on paper....

Have you ever watched a talented employee just stop trying? They know what to do. They have the skills. And still, nothing. What you are witnessing is not a character flaw. It is a brain event. And until now, most of us have had no name for it. Dr. Kyra Bobinet is a public health physician, scientist, and behavioral designer who has spent her career closing what she calls the know-do gap: the spac...

There is a fear spreading through management right now that nobody is naming out loud. Managers are scared to give feedback to their Gen Z employees. And because it stays unspoken, it is quietly destroying performance culture inside organizations everywhere. In this episode, I walk through exactly why this is happening, what it's costing you, and what works when it comes to delivering feedback to...

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...