How hope, anger and collective action can drive change — Our societies are founded on the idea of a social contract. We are led to believe that if we work hard and follow the rules, we will succeed. And yet the truly ‘successful’ — the mega-wealthy and powerful — have become so by shattering the social contract. They break the…

What a burnout expert does when she needs to take a sip of her own medicine. — I crumbled this weekend. I’d reached a low point — a confluence of loneliness, dismay and overwhelm. After a solid cry, I took myself on a wander through the cool, autumnal streets of Amsterdam. As I watch light rain fall on canals and leaves loosen from trees, it dawned on…

To be alive is to be vulnerable. And yet, being vulnerable can feel uncomfortable. Showing who you are and how you feel can seem too risky. So we shut down and close off from others. And in doing so, we do ourselves and others a huge disservice. From an evolutionary…

A guide to helping someone who’s in burnout — and supporting yourself through the process, too — One of the questions I’m asked most frequently when I speak about burnout is: “What can I do to help someone I love who is in burnout?” When I hear this question, my heart immediately goes out to the person who is posing it. Because the answer is neither simple…

You’re not responsible for it: you are responsible for your impact on it. Here’s how to make that impact positive. — Work causes stress. Some of it is healthy — the kind of stress that leads to growth and innovation. Some of it is not, and comes closer to the chronic stress that leads to burnout. And with burnout at record figures, leaders and workplaces are under pressure to take action. …

When you need objectivity, travel isn’t always on the cards. Here’s what is. — I’ve just returned from five days in the French countryside followed by a week in Copenhagen. The French sojourn was for an 18 kilometer run along a river in Champagne with a gorgeous group of friends. Denmark was a work trip. Both were exquisite. Back in Amsterdam, I feel super…

The hybrid work conversation needs to be more nuanced — here’s how to go about it. — In the last few years, many people experienced a significant increase autonomy over how they navigate their workday. For many, this has been a revelation. Autonomy, we quickly learned, feels good. We feel more trusted and tend to be more engaged as a result. As we’ve seen in recent months…

There are birthdays. And then, there are birthdays when you move to a new age bracket when filling in online forms. Bye, ‘40–44’. Hello, ‘45–54’. To my early-teen self, listening to Gish, Debut and Black Sunday back in the nineties, the concept of turning 45 felt about as relevant as…

How healing from ACL surgery helped me finally heal from burnout, too. — Today is exactly two years since I had ACL replacement surgery. A lot has changed since then. I was living in Orange County, California. I was in an unhappy marriage. My husband was away for three months for work, so I was mainly alone. Luckily, the surgery was on my…