In this Workday Playdate, Erin sits down with Jane Chen to challenge the “always-on” mindset and invite overachievers into something radically different: pause, process, and thrive. Jane is a best-selling author, leadership coach, and social entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Embrace Global.

If you’ve been sprinting toward success at the cost of your well-being, this episode is your reminder that slowing down is exactly how you move forward with intention.

Inside This Episode:

• Pause Before You Push: Why high achievers need to interrupt the cycle of constant doing to reconnect with themselves and avoid burnout.
• The Hidden Cost of Achievement: How chasing impact, success, and validation can quietly deplete your energy, identity, and joy.
• From Impact to Inner Work: Jane’s journey from building a global health company to finding healing through surfing, stillness, and self-reflection.
• Compassion Over Grit: Why resilience isn’t about pushing harder—it’s about practicing self-compassion and emotional awareness.
• Healing Is a Strategy: Exploring powerful modalities like internal family systems (IFS), therapy, and slowing down as tools for sustainable leadership.
• Letting Go of External Validation: Why chasing approval is a losing game—and how anchoring in your values creates lasting fulfillment.
• Ride the Wave: The ocean as a metaphor for life, timing, surrender, and trusting what you can’t control.
• Vulnerability = Strength: How embracing imperfection, fear, and faith can unlock confidence in leadership and public speaking.
• From Burnout to Breakthrough: Why moments of crisis or failure might actually be invitations to realign with your purpose.
• Joy Is Not Optional: How play, nature, and small daily moments of joy are essential for thriving at work and in life.

Who This Episode Is For:

• Overachievers who are tired of running on empty
• Leaders ready to trade burnout for sustainable success
• HR and people leaders focused on well-being and human-centered performance
• High-performing parents and professionals seeking balance without guilt
• Anyone navigating burnout, identity shifts, or a season of rebuilding
• Humans who want to achieve and feel whole while doing it

Your Freebie

You already have strengths that make you a powerful leader. But chances are, one of them is doing more heavy lifting than you realize.

Enter your free resource: The Human Leadership Edge Quiz. In just 10 quick questions, you’ll discover the leadership strength that sets you apart in the age of AI and how to use it more intentionally with your team.

Take the Human Leadership Edge Quiz here.

And thank you to our sponsors Intuit Quickbooks Payroll. To learn more visit:   https://quickbooks.intuit.com/workforce/

Connect with Jane Chen

• Jane’s LinkedIn
• Jane’s website
• Jane’s book, Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself

Connect with Erin Diehl x improve it!

• Leadership Playground online membership community
• Erin’s website
• Erin’s Instagram
• Erin’s TikTok
• Erin’s LinkedIn
• improve it!’s website
• improve it!’s Instagram

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