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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 people reduce their alcohol intake or quit drinking altogether. With six million downloads and research partnerships at Emory and Harvard, Reframe was built on a simple but powerful idea: you have agency over your behavior, and the path to change is built through neuroscience, habit loops, and self-efficacy, not shame and labels.
Vedant and Tess go deep on the 12-step model's core assumption, that you are powerless, and why it may be the very thing that keeps people stuck. They explore what it actually looks like when you stop avoiding triggers and start rewiring the loops underneath them. They also get into the surprising data on private drinking and loneliness in younger generations, why "Damp January" outperforms "Dry January" for lasting change, and what GLP-1 medications might do for addiction treatment the way SSRIs did for mental health.
What listeners will learn:00:00 Introduction: Who Is Vedant Pradeep and What Is Reframe
01:14 Origin Story: From OCD Research to Spotting a Gap in Alcohol Support
03:27 Why Reframe Chose Neuroscience Over the 12-Step Model
06:23 The Spectrum of Alcohol Use: Mindful Moderation vs. Abstinence
09:56 How Neural Pathways Drive Drinking Habits (And How to Rewire Them)
11:26 The Identity Shift: "I Don't Drink" vs. "I Can't Drink"
12:19 Gen Z, Loneliness, and the Rise of Private Drinking
17:07 The Moment That Starts Change: Relationship Crisis as Catalyst
22:10 Why Damp January Works Better Than Dry January for Most People
28:32 The Insurance Problem: Why 28-Day Programs Fall Short of the Science
35:12 What's Next for Reframe: Peak Human Condition and Reframe Med
43:00 GLP-1 Medications and the Future of Addiction Treatment
GUEST AND RESOURCE CREDITSGuest: Vedant Pradeep, Co-Founder, Reframe
App: Reframe available on iOS and Android
Download/site: reframeapp.com
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 armor itself. It's what happened when they started wearing it like a medal.
Drawing on research into latchkey kids, family systems theory, and Trevor Noah's concept that we can only dream in the shape of what we've actually seen, Tess unpacks where the "I don't need anything" posture came from, what it built, and how it impacts the day to day lives of Gen X and the people they care about.
What listeners will learn:
00:00 Introduction + Dear Gen Mess Newsletter Announcement
01:32 What It Really Means to Say "I'm Fine": The Gen X Identity
02:00 The Research: Latchkey Kids and What Self-Reliance Actually Built
03:42 You Can Only Dream in the Shape of What You've Seen
05:18 The Armor: Why "I Don't Care" Was Never Indifference
06:45 Bowen's Family Systems Theory: Overfunctioning and the Anxiety Underneath It
08:15 Why Gen Z Irritates Gen X (It's Not What You Think)
09:24 What Gen X Actually Cares About — And Never Got Permission to Say
10:15 When Do You Get to Put the Armor Down?
11:00 The Reflection Exercise: A Question to Sit With This Week
Listen now, and subscribe to The Gen Mess with Tess for weekly episodes.
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 contributor, and author of several books on relationships, including her upcoming title Was It Something I Said? Understanding Family Estrangement. With over two decades of teaching and clinical work, Dr. Degges-White brings a perspective on Gen Z that is both deeply researched and genuinely compassionate.
What follows is a wide-ranging conversation about why this generation struggles to decide, what the infodemic is doing to young people's ability to think deeply, what Gen Z actually learned by watching millennials burn out, and what both sides of a family estrangement need to hear before it's too late.
What listeners will learn:
00:00 Introduction: Who Is Dr. Suzanne Degges-White
00:58 Origin Story: Happenstance Theory and the Path to Northern Illinois
04:31 What Is Life Shelving? The Paradox of Choice and Why Young People Are Stalling
08:18 Why Feeling Stuck Feels Like a Personal Failure (And Why It Isn't)
09:30 The Infodemic Effect: Too Much Information, Not Enough Wisdom
11:18 Identity Development in 2026: Why Growing Up Now Takes Until 28
18:25 Public Lives, Public Mistakes: The Fear That Keeps People From Taking Risks
22:48 Gen Z in the Workforce: Self-Care Days, Deadlines, and the Entitlement Debate
27:03 The Push-Pull: Validating Gen Z While Still Holding a Standard
31:00 What Gen Z Learned From Watching Millennials Burn Out
40:36 Friendships: Toxic Patterns, Intergenerational Bonds, and the 10 Unspoken Rules
51:43 Family Estrangement: What the New Book Reveals About Both Sides
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 problem, or a generational weakness. It's a nervous system at capacity. And no amount of rest, yoga, or time off changes that if nothing physiological changes first.
Dr. Bober is the author of Burnout Rewired, which reframes the entire burnout conversation around what she calls cognitive overload and the science of nervous system expansion. Her core message is one most leaders and young workers have never heard: you don't need to be less ambitious. You need a system that can actually support how ambitious you already are.
What you will learn:
00:00 Introduction: Who Is Dr. Suzanne Bober
00:58 Origin Story: From Chiropractic to Nervous System Education
02:48 Cognitive Overload vs. Burnout: Why the Language Matters
04:00 Signs Your Nervous System Is at Capacity (That Most People Miss)
08:48 How Stress Shows Up in the Body: Tension, Breathing, and Immune Suppression
13:05 Why Gen Z Enters Work With the Cup Already Full
14:31 You Don't Need Less Ambition. You Need a Bigger Nervous System.
22:37 Thrival vs. Survival: What Expanded Capacity Actually Feels Like
28:49 Where Your Energy Actually Is (And Why You Can't Access It)
33:16 Doing Less to Get More: Why Your Starting State Changes Everything
37:21 Mental Load, Present-Moment Focus, and Why Multitasking Is a Myth
41:28 Bed Rotting: What It's Really Telling Us About Gen Z
Guest: Dr. Suzanne Bober, Chiropractor, Nervous System Educator, Founder of the Infinite Balance Blueprint
Book: Burnout Rewired (contact Dr. Bober for a free chapter)
Dr. Bober's Energy Quiz: https://thehub-api.mastermind.com/widget/quiz/6FP4OnNCOBAD3egZPgGu
Learn more: https://harbourfrontchiropractic.com/dr-suzanne-bober
Follow The Gen Mess with Tess for weekly conversations about generational challenges in the workplace and our daily lives.
Visit tessbrigham.com to learn more.
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 leaders haven't noticed yet.
In this solo episode, Tess breaks down why the authority structures that ran workplaces for the last century are collapsing, and why Gen Z didn't cause the collapse; they're just the first generation willing to name it out loud.
Exploring how we got into the organizational psychology framework behind the shift (French and Raven's bases of power), what the Harvard Business School trust triangle actually looks like in practice, and the one sentence that explains why so many leaders are struggling with their teams right now: they think they have a respect problem, when what they actually have is a trust problem.
What you'll learn:
00:00 Introduction + Dear Gen Mess Newsletter Announcement
00:40 How Information Used to Be the Ultimate Currency at Work
02:24 The Tortured Genius Deal: Why We Romanticized Difficult Bosses
04:00 French and Raven's Bases of Power (And Why Two of Them Are Failing)
04:41 When Information Stops Being Scarce, Relationship Is All That's Left
06:00 You Don't Have a Respect Problem. You Have a Trust Problem.
07:00 Real Workplace Example: When Control Replaces Relationship
08:00 Gen Z Never Agreed to the Old Deal
09:45 The Trust Triangle: Authenticity, Empathy, and Logic
11:00 One Practical Move Per Trust Leg for Your Next One-on-One
11:36 The Bottom Line: What Leaders Actually Need Now
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak and reached over five million people worldwide with one core argument: empathy isn't soft. It's the hardest, most measurable skill in the room.
What we get into in this episode is the reframe most leaders desperately need. Mimi breaks down what empathy actually is (it's not what you think), why our brains are physiologically less capable of it under stress, and what the FBI, the US Army, and the CEO of Chanel all have in common. Plus, the four stages of real empathy change, and why you can do this in under 120 seconds.
What you'll learn:
00:00 Introduction: Who Is Mimi Nicklin
00:40 Mimi's Origin Story: From Senior Ad Executive to Empathy Advocate
05:09 Why Empathy Is a Hard Skill (And the Data That Proves It)
07:38 What Empathy Actually Is: Perspective Taking and the Prefrontal Cortex
11:04 Why Being More Connected Is Making Us Less Empathetic
16:20 Empathy Is Not Agreement: Why That Distinction Changes Everything
20:04 The Generational Tension: What Older Leaders and Younger Workers Both Get Wrong
26:17 Listening-Led Leadership and Why Assumption Is the Enemy of Performance
32:26 How Mimi Works: Speaking, Content, and the Four Stages of Change
35:25 Who's Actually Doing This Right: Satya Nadella, Chanel, and Jamil Zaki
39:06 Practice Creates Permanence, Not Perfection
41:03 40 Ways to Connect: Practical Tools Anyone Can Use Today
Guest: Mimi Nicklin
Organization: Empathy Everywhere
Website: empathyeverywhere.co
Follow The Gen Mess with Tess for weekly episodes.
Visit TessBrigham.com to learn more.
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 subconscious level?
Thais grew up with fearful avoidant attachment in a chaotic family environment and spent years learning how to rewire the patterns quietly controlling her decisions, her relationships, and her sense of self. Now she helps people all over the world do the same through a framework that integrates attachment theory, neuroplasticity, CBT, and somatic processing.
We get into the specific mechanics: why affirmations don't work, what the subconscious mind actually responds to, and the exact exercise she uses to rewire a core wound in 21 days. This one gets practical fast.
What you'll learn in this episode:
00:00 Introduction: Who Is Thais Gibson
01:14 Thais' Origin Story: Fearful Avoidant Attachment and a Chaotic Childhood
05:52 The Three Pillars of Healing: Core Wounds, Nervous System, and Identity
09:31 The BTEA Framework: How One Belief Drives Your Entire Day
13:23 Why Rewiring Works: Neuroplasticity and the Subconscious Mind
15:31 The 15 Core Wounds by Attachment Style
17:55 The 21-Day Rewiring Exercise (Step by Step)
21:02 Gen Z, Social Media, and Getting Into This Work Earlier
30:03 Why We Keep Choosing the Same People (The Subconscious Comfort Zone)
32:04 What Actually Makes Something Trauma
40:00 Victimhood vs. Victimization: The Distinction That Changes Everything
46:29 Where to Start: Programs, Resources, and Next Steps
Guest: Thais Gibson, Founder, Personal Development School
Website: personaldevelopmentschool.com
Visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about host Tess Brigham, and sign up for the free weekly Dear Gen Mess Newsletter.
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 to give up, drawing on Murray Bowen's family systems theory and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar's research on gossip as social bonding. I cover the three real reasons people avoid going direct: it's not just conflict avoidance, it's anxiety regulation, it's a genuine need to be seen, and it's risk avoidance around a relationship that actually matters. I also share what happened with a client of mine, I'm calling her Maya, who spent over a year in the same Friday coffee ritual before one sentence to her manager changed everything.
If you've ever been someone's Friday coffee, or if you're a manager wondering why the same tension keeps surfacing on your team quarter after quarter, this episode is for you.
What you'll learn in this episode:
CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Opening hook and introduction to triangulation
01:20 Murray Bowen and family systems theory: why the triangle is more stable than a two-person relationship under stress
02:24 How triangulation shows up at work: managers, HR, and the desk-side vent
03:00 Why the pattern feels good: anxiety reduction and Robin Dunbar on gossip as social bonding
04:47 Why "just talk to them directly" almost never works: you are asking someone to give up something that is working
05:45 Why the pattern never resolves the conflict: relief is real but temporary, and the same tension resurfaces
06:30 The third driver nobody names: risk avoidance and the real cost of going direct
07:50 The Maya story: a year of Friday coffee venting, one question, and one sentence that shifted everything
11:30 What to do when you are the third point in someone else's conflict
11:47 Three concrete things managers can do right now
13:30 The bottom line: conflict avoided is conflict postponed
Visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about fixing the mess in the modern workplace.
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 neurodivergent adults. Genie spent 13 years supporting students with ADHD and autism in schools before shifting to adult coaching, helping people whose brains were never designed for the systems being handed to them.
We talk about why more adults are getting diagnosed with ADHD and autism now, why the apps and planners always fail, and why productivity is the wrong goal entirely. Genie introduces the concept of steadiness as the target instead, and walks through two concrete starting points that actually work for neurodivergent brains. We also get into what managers can realistically do without overhauling everything, and why the accommodations that help neurodivergent employees almost always turn out to help everyone on the team.
What you'll learn in this episode:
CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction and guest bio: Genie Love, executive functioning coach
00:47 Genie's origin story: from physical therapy to 25 years of neurodivergent coaching
04:27 Why more adults are being diagnosed with ADHD and autism now
07:10 The midlife tipping point: when systems that worked before suddenly stop working
10:17 ADHD vs. autism: overlaps and differences in the coaching approach
11:30 Why apps and planners keep failing neurodivergent people
15:12 Productivity vs. steadiness: why the wrong goal is burning people out
20:20 Technology, constant access, and the value of learning to do nothing
24:14 The hard-thing setup protocol, time blocking, and energy blocking
31:38 Mindset advice that backfires and the autistic burnout risk
34:01 Late diagnosis: shame, grief, resources for parents, and why parents need coaching too
43:37 What managers can do: one small change that ends up benefiting everyone
Follow Genie Love & Join Her Newsletter
https://beyondcoaching.pro/
Join the Dear Gen Mess Community to get the weekly download of the generational challenges facing us all.
https://www.tessbrigham.com/podcast
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.
In this solo episode I go deep on a pattern I see repeatedly in my work with high-performing managers, particularly women. This is not about a leadership style or a personality trait. It is about a childhood role that never got put down. And it is quietly running her nervous system every single day at work.
I walk through the psychology of parentification, Murray Bowen's concept of overfunctioning and underfunctioning from family therapy, and why the standard advice, just delegate more, does not just fail these managers. In some cases it actively makes things worse. I also share a composite case study and give both the manager living this pattern and the leaders above her something concrete to do differently.
00:00 Introduction and hook: the manager who seems to handle everything
00:58 What this episode is really about: a childhood role that never got put down
02:10 Parentification: the framework and the story it writes in the brain
03:15 Eldest daughter syndrome: what it is, who it applies to, and why Tess is focusing on women today
04:48 The Sierrico thesis on birth order and caretaking roles, and how they become a management style
05:45 Murray Bowen: overfunctioning and underfunctioning from family therapy
06:30 Why overfunctioning is really about anxiety regulation, not the quality of the work
07:07 Why just delegate more misses the mark and why willpower won't fix a body problem
08:20 Three specific ways telling someone to delegate more backfires
09:25 Meet Rachel: the composite case study and what her day actually looks like
11:20 It does not look like a wound. It looks like competence.
11:41 What actually helps: noticing, pausing, and getting curious before taking back over
12:30 How to give feedback to a manager like Rachel without triggering the old story
13:45 The bottom line: burnout in your best managers is an old role playing out on a new stage
Follow for weekly episodes that aren't just fixing the mess, but teaching you how to live in it. Visit tessbrigham.com for more.
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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