The Mental Offload Podcast

As summer winds down, back to school season is winding up. And with it comes so. much. to. do.

It's not just the clothes to buy, backpacks to prepare, and lunches to remember to pack. It's mental, emotional, and actual labor. It's rarely straightforward. And it often falls on mothers.

All of the planning and moving parts can make back-to-school prep a tricky and stressful time.

While you can't erase the fact that it's a major transition, you can lighten the mental load with some savvy planning.

What You'll Learn:

• The best things you can do before, during and after back to school week

• 3 areas to prep that will lighten the load

• How back to school can also be an opportunity to rebalance the load at home

• How to course correct once the school year has already begun

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

Summertime. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times for working mothers. If you're not lucky enough to live in a country that takes childcare seriously, it lays bare the gaps in our caregiving infrastructure.

And who steps in to fill in those gaps? Usually, it's a woman.

And most workplaces aren't as flexible as we need them to be.

On top of that, many of us have a vision in our head of what summer is supposed to be: calm, carefree, magical. Ideally, with present and available to our children.

If you've been trying to parent like you don't have a job, and work like you don't have kids, you're probably falling into the Overgiving Trap.

This week, we talk about the Overgiving Trap, and how to get out from under it.

What You'll Learn:

• How our internalized socialization can land us in the Overgiving Trap

• Why we should reject the "it's just a season" excuse for Overgiving

• Why having a "room of one's own", when it comes to our time, adds to our fulfillment – especially when it doesn't feel possible

• The 1 belief to shift to escape the Overgiving Trap

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Our culture tells women that their most important role in life is as a mother. But too often, the expectation is that we'll do it all, without support. That leaves those of us with a career and a family at a crossroads: feeling like we need to choose between our families, and our ambition…and, so often, doing this in workplaces where we need to navigate gender bias at the same time.

The Mental Offload here to challenge the narrative that working mothers can't be successful. I'm Shawna Samuel, the host of the Mental Offload Podcast, and we're back for Season TWO.

With more actionable strategies on how to manage it all without losing your edge as a leader. I'm not hear to sugarcoat the tough truths. But that doesn't mean we're stuck without options, either. We'll cover back to school transitions, self-sabotage, dealing with bias at work, surviving toxic productivity culture, and so much more this season.

So, if you believe that we need a feminist lens on leadership, you're going to love season 2 of the Mental Offload podcast.

There are two things you can do to make sure you don't miss an episode:

1. Click the "Follow" button in your podcast player, so you get notified of new episodes
2. Sign up to get an email update when a new episode drops. You'll also get The Mental Offload's weekly newsletter, with 1 actionable tip you can use for better balance in a biased world.

Summertime, and the livin' is…easy? It's supposed to be, but around the world, toxic productivity culture and late-stage capitalism are conspiring with a message for employees: don't relax too much, okay?

These messages are subtle, but the impacts aren't. We're sitting on record numbers of unused vacation days, and those who do take off are still feeling pulled to keep an one eye on their work projects.

And yet, almost no one believes this is a good thing. There's widespread acknowledgement that we want more time off, more ability to disconnect, more confidence about leaving work behind for more than a weekend.

Does getting some time off shouldn't mean having to plan a remote off-grid trip. Or have your only "real" break come when you've left one job and haven't yet started the next one.

There must be a better way, right?

This is an issue that's calling out for leaders to lead. It requires a bit of courage and a solid playbook. In this episode, I'll give you the recipe for both.

What You'll Learn:

• How the productivity culture and capitalism undermine our sense of what a "normal" vacation should look like

• Why the number of vacation days your work allows matters less than your mindset around time off

• Why I ignored a lot of professional advice and decided to take a seasonal break with this podcast

• 4 steps to making longer vacations possible – no matter what field you're in

If you listen to this episode, you'll hear how and why I decided to take a month off of podcasting this summer. But fear not, The Mental Offload podcast will be back with Season 2 next month!

Do these two things now so you don't miss the start of Season 2: hit follow/subscribe in your podcast player, so you get new episodes as soon as they're out, and click here to sign up for The Mental Offload Newsletter, so you get the latest news.

You might think that when you finally get that promotion, get your dream house perfectly set up, or have that magic number in your bank account, you'll be set.

Not only will you have achieved a big goal, but you're sure you'll feel better, too! Perhaps you think you'll feel more confident, more secure, more fulfilled…

I used to think that, too.

And then, I had dinner with two billionaires, who could not have been more different from each other. They taught me an important truth: that reaching your biggest and baddest goals will not fundamentally change who you are.

Unless you allow it to change you right now.

What You'll Learn:

• Why achieving a big goal won't change how you feel about yourself

• The psychological phenomenon of the hedonic treadmill, and why it matters when you're playing big

• How to think about the direction of causality with how we feel about ourselves and our goals

• The key steps you need to take now, while you're still working on a goal that will allow you to feel more confident, more secure, and good enough

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

At work, we're often faced with difficult colleagues. Someone whose way of approaching big decisions (or the smallest email), leaves us feeling frustrated, or downright annoyed.

Sometimes it's not just one individual, but a whole division's way of doing things. It might make us question whether the senior leadership is aware of – or cares about – the chaos we're left to navigate below.

When you're butting heads at work, most problems seem like "people problems": if our colleagues would just stop being so difficult, we could get our work done so much more easily.

This compounds the problem, because if the other person is the problem, then we're powerless to change the situation.

So, let's talk about a framework that's magical for untangling what's truly a people problem, and what's really a process problem.

This episode will change how you lead yourself and those around you. And give you options for how to move forward.

What You'll Learn:

• How to identify people problems versus process problems

• Why framing "process problems" is so effective at getting buy in from difficult stakeholders (and "problem" people)

• Using the framework when managing up and managing downward

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

When overachievers become mothers, something strange can happen. And it's rarely discussed. It's Mom-poster syndrome.

Most people have heard about imposter syndrome. Those feelings of being not good enough, of feeling like a fraud, that can sneak up on us.

We mostly think of imposter syndrome in our professional lives. But our inner critic can also come up around our "other" job as mothers. It might hit when you're expecting, or as a new mom, or at a major developmental transition.

Our inner critic can amplify all of our other worries, doubts and guilt. Left unchecked, Momposter syndrome can send your career off the rails, it can drive a wedge into your marriage, and may even contribute to post-partum mental health struggles.

Let's break down Momposter Syndrome.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Momposter Syndrome seems more prevalent in younger generations and for Type A mothers

• 2 very different ways that Momposter Syndrome can show up for working mothers

• How understanding the lies of the Momposter & inner critic can help us find freedom from it

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

Unless you've been holed up under a rock, you've probably heard about ChatGPT, and the coming artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.

This month alone, ChatGPT (and its AI cousins) have been in the headlines for their uncanny abilities to write a term paper or have a good approximation of a human conversation.

What might happen if we asked AI tools to help us solve for some of the mental load?

From meal planning to summer camp scheduling to figuring out travel plans, we've been putting AI to the test.

AI has produced some shockingly good results…and some truly epic fails.

This week, check out this investigation of outsourcing the mental load to artificial intelligence, and how it compares to having a human brain on the case.

What You'll Learn:

• The 4 types of tasks that benefit from a "second brain"

• What AI can – and can't do – when it comes to the Mental Load

• When a human alternative like a VA is a better bet

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Haters. I don't know anyone who wants to have one at work. Some seem to be content to just make your day-to-day unpleasant, while others seem hellbent on undermining an initiative you're leading…or discrediting you.

Dealing with a hater can range from frustrating to terrifying.

"They're just jealous, ignore them!" or "keep working hard and they'll see how great you are," are okay strategies for the schoolyard. But this advice is unhelpful, and sometimes even damaging, in the working world.

Having haters at work doesn't mean you're failing. In fact, any one who steps out front to lead will attract followers AND haters.

What's key is learning to deal productively with these stakeholders, so that you can continue to advance your ideas with confidence.

What You'll Learn:

• Why having haters can set off an unproductive chain of behavior for women and people pleasers

• The 4 biggest reasons that haters show up that way at work…none of which is jealousy

• How to reframe haters as "blockers" and "influenceables", and the strategies to employ so you don't get derailed

• Helpful reframes to maintain confidence even in the face of blockers

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Women are burned out, stressed out, and still trudging along.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, the hope was that the struggles would be temporary. But three years on, many women are still living in survival mode.

We can't get ahead as long as we're living this way. But our workplaces, our partners, and our society hasn't gotten the memo. And the truth is, many working mothers don't fully understand how burnout creeps in – let alone what to do to prevent it.

We need more than self-care and a hot bath in order to prevent burnout. In this episode, we look at the science of burnout, and how those who are socialized as women are particularly at risk for burnout. And what we can do to turn it around.

What You'll Learn:

• Why burnout looks different for working mothers

• How dealing with micro-aggressions and bias impact our nervous system responses

• Why a burnout prevention plan is a necessity for professional endurance

• Burnout prevention strategies that work, without lots of time

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.