Is there a voice in your head telling you that your story isn't interesting, that your idea isn't good enough, or that everyone else is somehow doing it better? Then this is the episode you've been waiting for.

You'll meet Francesca Donner, who spent two decades in the biggest newsrooms in the country — The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, editing the paper's pioneering In Her Words newsletter — watching women's stories get buried on page 50 of the paper.

Two years ago, Francesa got fed up with the lack of women's stories in the news and launched her own media company, The Persistent, with zero business background. And promptly won two Webbys.

In this conversation, Francesca and Unbehaved host Meghan French Dunbar unpack why so many of us have been conditioned to believe our stories don't matter. Francesca also tells the story of the "failed" mug email that became her favorite permission slip, why she says clarity only ever comes in motion, and the game-changing practice she gave herself this year for silencing the negative talk that runs in every high-achieving woman's head.

Francesca Donner is the founder and editor of The Persistent. She has worked in newsrooms including The New York Times, where she was the gender director and the editor of In Her Words, and The Wall Street Journal, where she was a deputy editor. The Persistent won two Webby Awards for Independent Publisher — the People's Voice Award and the judge-selected award — in 2026.

Find her at https://www.thepersistent.com/

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"We don't see our stories on the front page of XYZ newspaper, because our stories aren't told, because they're relegated to page 50 of the paper, because they're told on the second day, because they're told as an afterthought or a sidebar. That is why. We can't believe that we've got a story to tell because we're so rarely in the center of the story." — Francesca Donner

"Until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it. Until you have pointed out the fact that men are quoted as experts in news stories about 75% of the time." — Francesca Donner

"I'm so boring. Nobody wants to hear from me. I'm da da da da da da. Right? And around and around in circles." — Francesca Donner, on the voice in her head when her team asked her to start telling her story

"That particular email had a 97% open rate. And do you know how many people upgraded to paid? Zero. Zero. Absolutely not one person." — Francesca Donner, on the now-legendary mug email

"Everything is a stepping stone. So many things are mistakes — but mistakes are data." — Francesca Donner

"If we had not won these awards — if we'd been only a finalist, or hadn't been in consideration at all — do you know how much brain space I would have given to that? I would have spent days and days thinking about all the things wrong. Instead of just saying, okay." — Francesca Donner

"Give yourself some grace. Give others some grace. We are all doing our best. We're all muddling through." — Francesca Donner

"Clarity comes in motion. As soon as you stop thinking and start doing, that's where the clarity comes." — Meghan French Dunbar, quoting Amina AlTai

"Everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. Everyone's story is valid and interesting. And we are so conditioned to believe that it is not — including you and me, literally storytellers." — Meghan French Dunbar

People + companies referenced:

Statistics referenced:

Final edit — includes cold open, Meghan's intro, and the six Unbehaved Lessons of the Day.

Francesca Donner (00:00): We don't see our stories on the front page of XYZ newspaper, because our stories aren't told, because they're relegated to page 50 of the paper, because they're told on the second day, because they're told as an afterthought or a sidebar. That is why. We can't believe that we've got a story to tell because we're so rarely in the center of the story.

Meghan French Dunbar (00:24): I'm Meghan French Dunbar, and welcome to Unbehaved.

You just heard from Francesca Donner, founder and editor of The Persistent, a media company dedicated to amplifying women's voices.

And I'm gonna be honest here, folks — I was kind of nervous heading into this interview because Francesca is pretty fancy. She's the former gender director for the New York frickin' Times, editor of the Times' pioneering newsletter In Her Words, and the former deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal — just among other things.

So I made some assumptions. Like that she'd be super serious and kind of posh and that she wouldn't really appreciate my whole unbehaved vibe.

How very wrong I was. I think I may have laughed more on this episode than any other one to date.

Francesca is refreshingly open, humble, hilarious, and deeply charming. And in this episode, we discuss how she launched a business with zero business background, the gift of failure — including the now legendary mug email that flopped so spectacularly it sent us both into a fit of giggles — why so many of us are taught to think our stories don't matter, and how to use your voice, no matter your role, to bring attention to issues that truly matter.

I'm so grateful you're here, and I can't wait for you to hear Francesca's inspiring story.

Let's get into it.

Meghan French Dunbar (01:46): So, if we could have the nutshell of the career journey and how it has led to The Persistent.

Francesca Donner (01:53): So my career begins quite a few years ago now because I'm older than I once was. It happens.

Meghan French Dunbar: If we're lucky, it happens.

Francesca Donner: My career journey begins a couple of decades back, when I began working in newsrooms — big mainstream newsrooms. I'd always been interested in media and the idea of editing. I had a brief stint at GQ, which was not the ideal fit for me, but was very eye-opening. From GQ to The Persistent — covering women for a change. Educational, right?

I started out in magazines and then rapidly shifted over to news and newsrooms, and that was really where I found my fit. One of my first big grown-up jobs was at the Wall Street Journal. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't know how many of your audience have worked in newsrooms, but there is definitely an energy in there that just feels so good and kind of addictive in a positive way.

I started at the Journal, and almost immediately I started thinking about how we were covering women — or not covering women. This was probably around 2007, 2008, right before the financial crisis.

I was thinking a lot about why were there just no women in our stories? You could turn page after page of the Wall Street Journal and not find any women's voices at all. And sure, you can sit there and say, well, business is so male-dominated, most men are running all the companies — which is true, and still kind of true today. But it still felt really, really lopsided and problematic.

So while I was there, I started thinking about how we could make a more concerted effort to cover women. Which was a good idea that was way, way before its time. People weren't really ready for this idea. People were still thinking, "there is no difference between women and men, we'll just wear those awkward 1980s ties with big shoulder pads and no one will notice the difference."

What I was frustrated with was really just not seeing women in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. And I got pushback — pushback from readers, pushback even in the newsroom itself. The reader pushback came from this idea of, "well, are you just saying women should only read these stories? Are you just saying women only belong in a single section of the Wall Street Journal?" And I was saying — no. No. That's not the intention. The intention is: if we don't make a concerted effort to cover women, women just won't really be covered at all.

Eventually I ended up at the New York Times. And long after the sort of 2007, 2008 "how are we covering women?" question, I ended up joining something at the New York Times called the Gender Initiative. When they asked me to join, I thought, "oh my God, I don't know if I have the stomach to do this again. I was so scarred."

But what's so interesting is: I was scarred because of the reader pushback, but it was so inherent in me — how I was reporting on stories, how I was editing, how I was thinking about who got covered and who got voiced and who didn't. It was really integral in how I edited already.

So at the New York Times, we started the Gender Initiative around 2016, right around the time that Trump was getting elected into office the first time. It was a really groundbreaking moment for women, for women's stories to be centered. The Me Too movement had basically put all of this stuff that everyone knew was happening — but no one was talking about — center stage. You couldn't look away from it. It was a completely different time to be deliberately covering women.

While I was at the Times, among many projects, we ended up launching a newsletter called In Her Words. Really trying to center women in the story. Ran that for a couple of years. I think we did a really good job, but ultimately the Times decided that it was no longer needed. So that was Sunset.

I ended up leaving the Times, took a job in sort of business journalism briefly. But at the end of the day, I really felt like there are so many stories waiting to be told. When you look at mainstream journalism, women's stories tend to be told — if they're told at all — as an afterthought, as the sidebar, delivered with a giant dose of eye roll, or a cute pat on the head, or "this is all really nice and cutesy, but we'll put it on page 50 of the paper." Not delivered with the seriousness of purpose that it deserves.

Because women's issues — and I hate even that term because it sounds belittling — but women's issues are everyone issues. They're economic. The gender pay gap. Unpaid labor. If women weren't doing the unpaid labor, there would be no global economy at all.

And that sort of brings you up to today. And then I launched The Persistent — and we can talk about that.

Meghan French Dunbar (08:17): Okay. The Wall Street Journal — if you were to think of the most curmudgeonly old-white-man thing in journalism, I'd be like, "meh, probably the Wall Street Journal." And there's also the social conditioning that many women have around not making people uncomfortable. We don't want to be the squeaky wheel. And yet, you're there way before your time being the squeaky wheel. Where does this come from — the courage to stand up for the thing that you think is right, even in a historic institution that is so counter to what you're advocating for?

Francesca Donner (08:54): So, firstly — the Wall Street Journal might appear on the outside to be curmudgeonly, but inside, it's filled with fantastic reporters and editors. I truly, truly enjoyed working there. I recognize that the opinion pages may be a little radical — they are completely separate from the newsroom. In my time, it was filled with fantastic journalists doing fantastic work, getting the story no matter what — tenacious and smart.

In terms of being the squeaky wheel — I don't think this is Journal-specific. Any time anyone says, "hey, what are we doing about covering women?" there's this knee-jerk reaction of, "oh my God, here comes the gender police. They're coming to tell us we're doing everything wrong. We don't want to hear from them at all." I don't think it's a Journal thing. I think it's an everywhere thing.

I call it the DNA of the newsroom. The choices people make about stories, the hierarchy of things they think are important. At the Journal, the hierarchy of important things was markets, economics, politics, business — and down the list it went. If you're deliberately covering women, it tends to muck up the DNA and the hierarchy and the way things are done.

And this is the secret, I think: Until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it. Until you have it pointed out that men are quoted as experts in news stories about 75% of the time. Until you start looking at who's writing the story, who's taking the photographs, who's represented in the photographs — is it man, man, man, man, man? Beyond women — are there people of color? Disabled bodies? Trans people? Until you start looking for that, you don't see it. Because we are all socialized to see the world the way we've been taught to see it.

When I was at the Journal, I had an amazing mentor — Carol Hymowitz. She said, "Francesca, we've got this real issue because we're not covering women enough." And I thought — what are you talking about? Then you start looking critically. Turn the pages. Are there any stories about women? There aren't. Where are their voices? Why are women always the people in the story to whom things happen? Why are men always positioned as the hero? Once you start to see it, it's really hard to unsee.

And it's the same thing in our lives. In meetings — men tend to speak more. Women are asked to take notes. Women are spoken over. Their ideas are co-opted and presented as someone else's idea. And if someone doesn't point out those things, you just bobble along and think, "oh, that's just the way a meeting is."

Meghan French Dunbar (13:38): A couple things come up — one is being armed with data. Here's the fact, so it's irrefutable. And two — some of the things we might feel are obvious still need to be pointed out. They're obvious to us because they're happening to us. But they are not obvious to the other people who are not having that happen to them. Which is something I feel like I need to remind myself of constantly — not assuming any sort of knowledge on anyone's part.

Francesca Donner (14:10): This is so interesting — because it's not obvious. So we have to point it out. But even after we point it out, there's a tendency among certain people to say, "well, that's fine, but what's in it for me?" I get that women aren't being paid as much as men, or that they're not escalating in their jobs the same way, or that there's a motherhood penalty — but what's in it for me if I try and correct that? Is there any incentive?

Even when you show the data — actually, more diverse teams make more money, more diverse teams yield better ideas and better products — there's still this heels-stuck-in-the-mud part of people. "Yeah, but I don't know, I don't believe it. Other people can do that, but not on my watch."

Meghan French Dunbar (15:47): With the Wall Street Journal — you mentioned pushback. Did you feel there were parts of your efforts that were successful?

Francesca Donner (15:57): Look — I was a really, really young editor at the time. I don't want to say they didn't take me seriously, because that would be unfair. It's not like I was running the paper. I think we were successful insofar as we even started the conversation. Even saying, "have you thought about this? Could that change how you report something?" — planting the seed. Maybe that's a bit generous. But if nothing else, it planted the seed in my own head and became the through line of my career.

Meghan French Dunbar (16:45): I feel like a lot of women come and talk to me about an idea or something they want to change in their workplace. And they run into: what if it doesn't work? My response is always — everything you do is data. Even efforts I've undertaken that were 100% values-aligned that didn't pan out — 10 years later I look back and go, "oh, now I understand. I have this knowledge or experience I wouldn't have had if I hadn't tried the thing." So it makes the idea of quote-failure a little more palatable. Do you feel what you did at the Wall Street Journal ultimately was part of the reason you were able to move into that role at the New York Times?

Francesca Donner (17:48): Absolutely. Everything is a stepping stone. So many things are mistakes — but mistakes are data. I'm not scared to make mistakes because at the end of the day, we're not sending COVID vaccines around the world. We're not making sure astronauts in space stay alive. We're just doing this publication. I say to my team all the time — let's give it a go. If it's a disaster, guess what? We won't do it again. We really won't.

And I'm happy to talk about a mistake. It was a mistake, but it was a learning. So — one of the challenges I'm facing right now: I'm a media company. It's very, very, very hard to get people to pay for media. People will pay for their food, their clothes, their rent, concert tickets, water, electricity, their car. Other than the air they breathe — and sometimes even that — they're paying for everything except media. That's where people draw the line.

We were looking at our subscribers, and we found this really passionate cohort. We have a big universe of free subscribers, of which a portion pays. And we found a special cohort of people who were absolutely addicted to The Persistent. They were opening it at 100%.

Meghan French Dunbar (19:48): Yes, I love these people.

Francesca Donner (19:49): Okay, love them. They are literally the very heart and soul of what we do. But they weren't paying. So we thought — let's see if we can encourage these people to pay. Small cohort — maybe 650 people. Special. We sent them an email: "We know how much you love The Persistent. We thought you might want to consider upgrading your subscription to paid. And if you do, we're going to send you a free Persistent mug. Who wouldn't want that, right?"

That particular email had — as will be no surprise to you — a 97% open rate. And do you know how many people upgraded to paid?

Meghan French Dunbar (21:08): Four. Zero. No.

Francesca Donner (21:09): Zero. Zero. Absolutely not one person. And I got two lovely emails from two women who said, "I love the idea of a free mug, but I'm not in a position to be able to pay for The Persistent." And that was it. That was the beginning and the end.

You can sit here and say, gosh, what a failure. Or — gosh, what a learning. Maybe a mug isn't going to make people upgrade. Maybe our offerings aren't quite right. Maybe we need to do something really different to encourage people to pay for media. But if we hadn't tried it, we wouldn't know, right?

And now I know a lot about those 650 people. They're still opening every email. So maybe there's something different we can do with them. I only raise it because that was a big fail. Zero percent uptake is almost impressively bad. It would be worse.

We won't do that again. But I'm glad we did it. And I can laugh about it. The stakes were low enough — it was sending one email — and we learned a lot. There's such a double standard, as you well know, for people of color and women making mistakes. The minute a woman or a person of color makes a mistake, it's "well, you see, we shouldn't have hired her." The rubber band springs back to the safe white male candidates. When a man makes a mistake, he's not noticeable because he's just one of many. We internalize it so deeply that we feel like "our mistakes are so awful."

But if the stakes are low enough — like the mug email — we can just have the courage to do it, then talk about it and say, "guess what? That was a big F fail. But it wasn't really, because now I know."

Meghan French Dunbar (24:15): I love this. For everyone's context — this is Francesca and I's first time meeting. We haven't compared notes about our careers. But the hilarious overlap: launching our own media companies. Mine was Conscious Company Magazine from 2015 to 2020. I was exhausted watching business stories that only celebrated companies because they made the most money. So I launched that ridiculous magazine — I shouldn't say ridiculous —

Francesca Donner (24:54): That was a mistake. That was a mistake.

Meghan French Dunbar: That unbelievable magazine. Our first issue got put in every Whole Foods, Target, Barnes and Noble. Built the whole media company. And I was like — this is the stupidest business model on the face of the planet, because even if 100% of people buy our products on the shelves, we still have to get advertisers. It was exhausting. But I used to say to my team, "we're not neurosurgeons. No one's going to die today if we don't get this to the printer." So 10 years later — I guess this was eight years later when you launched — how? Why? Why did you launch a media company, Francesca? Why did you do it?

Francesca Donner (25:43): I don't know. I launched The Persistent in 2024 because it was so important to me. I knew from the work I'd done at the New York Times running In Her Words — the traction we'd built. And the Times is a completely different animal. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to explain the brand. You can pop something on the New York Times homepage and people are reading it whether they're interested or not.

But so many readers felt seen. They felt heard. They felt we were going to places other publications really weren't going. When the Times shut down In Her Words, I had hundreds and hundreds of readers writing to me — "I'm very upset. What else can I read in this space?" I tried to write back to everyone and say, "well, there's this and that." But I kind of realized the space just felt so empty.

The work people were doing in the space was really, really fantastic. My whole mission at The Persistent and in life is to amplify and uplift — because we get much better results if we celebrate each other than if we elbow each other out. But as I looked at that space, I thought, "this is so empty. You could hear a pin drop. That is not good enough for me."

I also felt a deep sense of frustration with the stories being told broadly across media. That there was this oversight, or the idea that "these kinds of stories aren't that interesting." Certain topics are so saturated, certain people covered over and over. But there are so many remarkable women doing amazing things, with brilliant stories that just weren't being told. And whether you love him or don't love him — I'm not sure the world needs more Trump stories. He's very well covered.

I didn't know anything about starting a media company. It wasn't on my dream list or bucket list. But I sure as hell knew how to edit. I knew what made a good story. I brought with me the arrogance, I guess, of assuming people would want to talk to us — because I'd been in such big newsrooms before, where people were always like, "yes, we'd love to be in the Journal, we'd love to be in the Times."

In terms of starting a company, as you no doubt discovered — it's so bonkers. Everything from "should this be an LLC? How do I get a business account? How do I pay people? How do I write a contract? Should I pay them by the hour? On retainer?" And nobody tells you. You just muddle through and get to the end of the week and go, "okay, we're still here, that's great."

I realized I could sit there all day making plans and explaining it to people. "Yes, it's going to be a newsletter." — "Okay, everyone has a newsletter." — "Yes, but it's going to cover women." — "Okay, so do all these magazines cover women." — "Yes, but it's going to be really well done." — "Okay, I'll believe it when I see it."

It became really clear to me that I just had to get it out there and do it. Rather than talking and thinking and wondering. You can wonder all day, but it's only with the doing — and the making of mistakes and the realizing "oh my God, I'll never do that again" — that you actually move forward. Even now, two years in, the evolution is significant from what we thought at the beginning. But here it is in the world. It just kind of had to be born.

Meghan French Dunbar (31:14): My friend Amina, who was on the show recently, said that clarity comes in motion. As soon as you stop thinking and start doing, that's where the clarity comes. So just keep putting one foot after the other.

Francesca Donner (31:25): I love that. That's really true — because you can focus-group every single problem until you're blue in the face. But it's the mug email — only in the doing did we get clarity around it. We just did it.

Meghan French Dunbar (31:51): So how have the first two years been? What's happening? What's going well? What are we struggling with?

Francesca Donner (31:57): Well, two years old — I like to think that if this were a baby, it would be toddling around, covered in snot, with a dribble napkin around its neck, falling down but making progress. It can walk and sort of feed itself if you don't mind getting food everywhere.

It's been such fun. Being able to tell stories, looking back at what we've done over two years — the work we've produced just piles up in the best way. And you sit there and think, "oh, I remember that story. I remember working with this writer." It produces this wonderful body of work of which I'm so incredibly proud.

We actually just won some awards, which is really cool.

Meghan French Dunbar (33:06): Like such as?

Francesca Donner (33:08): So we won two Webby Awards for independent publisher. We won the People's Voice Award, which is the one everybody votes for, and we also won the one chosen by the judges. So it felt gratifying to have people rally and vote for us, and also to be chosen by the judges. When we launched, there was definitely an expectation of "oh, that's so great, we'll see if you're there a month from now." But we launched go-big-or-go-home. You are getting this newsletter out twice a week, come hell or high water. And we've done it.

Two years in, it's like — wow. This is here. The slight shifts in the wind. PR people coming and saying, "how about this? How about that?" Collaborations with other media companies — in the beginning it was, "that's nice, you look kind of cute." But now it's, "no, no — we're kind of here."

The really wonderful things: growing our pool of writers. We work with a lot of writers by design because I want that multiplicity of voices. A lot of illustrators — our illustrations are really quite beautiful.

The hard bit — which I've already been through — is: how do you make people pay for media? This was even a problem when I was at the New York Times. Essentially the consumer will read a story — it takes them about 30 seconds, maybe two whole minutes. But it could have been a story that took two photographers and a reporter three nights sleeping under tents in the Amazon. All of that mountain of work, condensed into a little tiny story that someone would be like, "yeah, okay, that's interesting."

Meghan French Dunbar (37:15): Editor-wise — you're kind of the person behind the scenes helping someone else shine. And you had the double benefit of being excellent at what you do plus the New York Times behind you. Now you're stepping out on your own without the backing of the prestigious name. And you're still the editor, but now you're the founder — the face of the thing. How has this been for you in terms of stepping into your own voice as you're giving other women more of a voice? Pros — and what's been kind of scary?

Francesca Donner (38:07): I love this question. Listen — we had to have some talks early on because we, the team —

Meghan French Dunbar: Yeah, I was like, "is this the proverbial we?"

Francesca Donner (38:22): So yes — the editor is behind the scenes. My job — and I am an editor who cannot help being an editor. I love being an editor. I love working with writers. I love making their work the very best it can be. That's just who I am.

When I started The Persistent, one of the things I thought very clearly was: this is not Francesca Donner's Substack. That's not very interesting. This is bringing in writers. It's bringing in perspectives. The very mission of The Persistent is to amplify women's voices, stories, perspectives, and ideas. And I mean that in every sense. If we're working with writers, I want people to sign up for their Substack. Buy their book. Listen to their podcast. I put bios of writers at the bottom of every piece. Bios of illustrators — so someone might find an illustrator and go look at their Instagram and maybe commission them. Everything is in the service of amplifying.

So when I started, I thought — everything is amplifying everybody else. I'm just the enabler. I've created this table and I want to bring everybody up to it. Within reason — you have to be a very good writer. That's my only snobby part. And a very good illustrator. Really I was saying — I'll create the space, and everybody else is the part that shines.

And as I said, we had to have some talks, because my team was like, "okay, for Francesca that's great. But people actually want to hear from you."

Meghan French Dunbar (39:57): That's a cute idea.

Francesca Donner: "That's nice — but people really want to hear from you." And you know, I'm sure you can guess what my instant gut reaction to that was. Can you?

Meghan French Dunbar: "I'm not that interesting. I have no story to tell."

Francesca Donner (40:13): I'm so boring. Nobody wants to hear from me. I'm da da da da da da. Right? And around and around in circles. And they're like, "sorry, but they do want to hear from you."

So I thought — okay, fine. I'll start telling my story. Under the table, my knees are doing knee-jerk reactions going "but your story is not that interesting." As I even say that, I'm trying to stop myself. "And I know my story is not that interesting." Okay. It's really interesting. As you can tell, I'm not shy. I can be theatrical enough to make it interesting. But I realized I just have to tell the story — and if it's not interesting to someone, they can go read something else.

The other thing I did, which I've ended up loving: at the top of every newsletter I put a teeny tiny editor's note. A mini reflection — what I loved in the story, something the story sparked in me, how I met the writer, why we commissioned it. Some little piece of connective tissue at the top.

A lot of readers have said, "I really love your little editor's note." It's this little thumbprint — "hello, I'm Francesca. This is the reporter. This is the piece. Here's all the big stuff. But there's just a little thumbprint from me." A wave. And that's a nice connection of the dots, because we work with so many different writers and cover so many different topics — sports one time, politics the next, wealth and money after. Because of that diverse range, the thumbprint is a sort of familiarity.

Meghan French Dunbar (42:32): We have had such interesting parallel stories. I wish I'd had the team that helped me feel my story was worth telling at Conscious Company Media. We had the CCM social media — but I didn't have my own. Same thing. "Nobody wants to hear from me. It's about the brand." Then when I got the book deal in 2023, they were like, "you have to have social media." And I was like — I hate — I do not — I don't want to do this. Really hate it. But like your editor's notes, I'm finding ways to do it my own way that feels palatable to me. But my God.

Francesca Donner (43:15): I hear you. But I'm here on the other side — I'm going to encourage you. You've got such a voice, such a personality. I know your job as host is to be host and just be quiet — but your personality is bubbling over the top of it anyway. So give yourself some grace and some credit. I think everyone is interesting other than myself, obviously.

Meghan French Dunbar: See?

Francesca Donner (43:43): Everyone has such a cool story to tell. I'm sitting here going — I'm dying to read about the magazine project and what happened. And we're all kind of struggling and muddling through. So I want to hear — how was it for you? What have you learned? This is really off-piste, but — we all have stories. Everyone listening to this has a story. They all do. We're all trying to figure it out. And we're all interesting other than you and me.

Meghan French Dunbar (44:13): Including you.

I had all the events my business partner Jocelyn and I used to host — women-only events, two or three hundred women in a room for three days. And at the beginning, one of our community practices we invited everyone to steep in was: everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. Everyone's story is valid and interesting. And we are so conditioned to believe that it is not — including you and me, literally storytellers.

Francesca Donner (44:54): Wait — I know you're going to be mad, but I have to add something. Why are we conditioned to believe it's not? Because to go full circle back in this conversation — because we don't see our stories on the front page of XYZ newspaper. Because our stories aren't told. Because they're relegated to page 50 of the paper. Because they're told on the second day. Because they're told as an afterthought or a sidebar. That is why. We can't believe that we've got a story to tell because we're so rarely in the center of the story.

Meghan French Dunbar (45:29): My book is called This Isn't Working — and I have the prop. Everyone — I mean, I love you, and this is my podcast, so I talk about it all the time.

Francesca Donner: Why don't — can you just show the book so everyone can see? Okay, everyone — buy the book. And then get one for your friend.

Meghan French Dunbar (45:50): Oh, we're nailing this. In the book, I told my editor — I want to only interview women and fluid leaders. And my editor initially was like, "is there going to be enough of them?" And I was like — oh. I have nearly 100 in the book that I got to talk to. And I said no to a ton of people. There are so many stories to tell. Everyone go buy The Persistent now. Okay — we're gonna just be schlepping each other's products for the rest of the time. Keep listening.

If you were able to give women a permission slip to do something in a kind of unbehaved way — not behaving by the standards that we typically set for ourselves — what would be one permission you would give to people?

Francesca Donner (46:46): You sprung this question upon me. This is the permission — I already touched on it — but this is the permission I gave myself at the beginning of this year. Give yourself some grace. Give yourself some grace. Give others some grace. We are all doing our best. We're all muddling through.

Life is complicated. Families are complicated. The sandwich generation is complicated. Starting a business is complicated. Working is complicated. There are so many times when we go wrong, or say something that was foot-in-the-mouth, or make a mistake, or something that didn't work out the way we wanted it to, or we accidentally hurt someone's feelings, or someone accidentally hurt ours. In those moments — just say, "I'm going to give that person some grace. I'm going to give myself some grace. They were really super annoying, but you know what? They didn't mean to. I made a stupid mistake, but you know what? That's okay."

We hold ourselves to these impossibly high standards. We are really rough with ourselves when we make mistakes. Really rough. "How could you? What's wrong with you? Why are you so stupid? You shouldn't be doing this. You don't deserve it." It's incredible how many upsetting and insulting things we can say to ourselves instead of, "it's okay. It's okay."

Remember earlier in this podcast — you asked what's gone right, and I said, well, I won these two Webbys, isn't that cool? So cool. After I won them, lots of friends and people said, "my gosh, it's so exciting. Tell me all about it." And I said, well — it's great, we won these awards, that's so great. I thought about it and I thought — I have nothing to say about it other than how nice it is. Slap a smile on my face and moving on.

If we had not won these awards — if we'd been only a finalist, or hadn't been in consideration at all — do you know how much brain space I would have given to that? "We didn't measure up. We're not good enough. Those other people are so much better. How are we going to do it? I don't think we've got enough supporters. We couldn't make it on the people's vote. The judges thought we were lousy. What we're doing is no good. Maybe we should shut this up." I would have spent days and days thinking about all the things wrong.

And that is how the brain works. We think about all the things we did wrong. Everything bad. All the failures. All the disasters. Instead of just saying, "okay." So instead of beating ourselves up — the negative, negative, negative ticker tape going on in our heads — just say, "it's okay. Moving on. I give myself some grace."

Meghan French Dunbar (49:56): I love this. I'm actually realizing my cheeks are hurting right now because of how much I've been smiling for a full hour straight. You are so freaking lovely. How do humans find you? How do we support you?

Francesca Donner (50:17): Bless. Come find The Persistent — you can Google it, "The Persistent covering women for a change." You'll find our website. We have a variety of subscription offerings — if you'd like to try and taste The Persistent for free, that's okay. But if you'd like to pay for this fantastic work, I certainly won't complain. Once you subscribe, send it to your friends. Tell 10 or 20 or 50 of your friends. Share the stories. Talk about the stories. Put them on social media. Spread the word.

Meghan French Dunbar (51:04): Yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is incredible. I'm so happy to have gotten an hour with you. Your story is exceptional.

Francesca Donner: It's so good.

Meghan (51:17): All right, before we wrap up, let's do our Unbehaved lessons of the day.

Number one — your story matters. You've just been conditioned to believe it doesn't. That you're not interesting, that no one wants to hear from you, or that you should just amplify everyone else. Even Francesca — a former New York Times editor with two Webbys on her shelf — still hears "I'm so boring, nobody wants to hear from me" in her head. You're not alone in that voice. But it isn't right. Your story is interesting, and it's important. So start telling it.

Lesson number two — there's often opportunity in your frustration. Pay attention to what you wish were different. That gap might just be your next thing. Francesca launched The Persistent because she was furious that women's stories were being buried on page 50 of the paper. She didn't have a business background, but she dove in anyway. Two years later, she has an award-winning media company. You don't have to know everything to get started. You can figure things out as you go.

Lesson number three — clarity comes from taking action. You can focus-group a decision to death. You can plan the pros and the cons and think about all the things that could go wrong. But clarity comes from taking action. Francesca launched The Persistent before she'd figured out whether to be an LLC, or how to write a contract, or how to make people even pay for media. She figured it out by doing it. And the failed mug email — that gave her more clarity in like five minutes than five months of theorizing what would have worked. So if you've been thinking about the thing for a while, this is your permission slip to just get started. Just put one foot in front of the other and start doing things.

Lesson number four — until something's pointed out, we tend not to notice it. Things that are obvious to you might not be obvious to everyone else. Simply starting the conversation and planting the seed matters. Like Francesca did at the Wall Street Journal. Even if you don't see the fruit of your labor right away, it can impact others in unexpected ways — and it can also grow into something that shapes the rest of your career.

Lesson number five — give yourself some damn grace. The Persistent won two Webby Awards, people, and Francesca barely celebrated. But if they had lost, she said she would have spent days spiraling on everything that her team did wrong. That imbalance is how so many of us are wired. We give hours of brain space to what went wrong and blaming ourselves — and only seconds to what went right. So give yourself some grace. Give other people some grace. We're all doing our best. We're all muddling through — and that includes you, my friend.

And lesson number six — pay for good quality journalism. This one's on us, listeners. We need to start paying for good media. Put your money where your values are. If you want more stories like the ones Francesca is telling, we need to pay people for them.

That's all for today. Thanks so much for joining me. See you next time.

[End of transcript]

Every once in a while you meet someone who is so unapologetically themselves that just being near them gives you permission to be your full self as well. Kirsten Ludwig is that person.

Co-founder of the brand agency In Good Co, veteran of Ralph Lauren, American Eagle, Anthropologie, Fred Siegel, and Stella & Dot, and co-creator of the 17,000-subscriber Substack Good Thinking — Kirsten's career reads like a masterclass. But that's not why Meghan invited her on the show.

She invited her because Kirsten is the kind of woman who, at a fancy CEO summit years ago, stood up and mama-beared Meghan (then five weeks pregnant and dying inside) out of a conversation after a man wouldn't stop talking. That story opens the episode — and it's the perfect setup for everything that follows.

This one is about the courage to stop shrinking. Kirsten's signature framework — lean into the cringe — is the idea that the uncomfortable, courageous move almost always pays off tenfold what you were avoiding. She and Meghan get into the two-week maternity leave she still carries shame about, the friendship-based business partnership with her co-founder Chris, the "one pizza can feed" team philosophy at In Good Co, and the permission slip that all of us need to hear. 

Quick heads up: Kirsten and Meghan 100% set a new Unbehaved record for cursing in this one. If that's your love language, buckle in. If it's not your vibe, no hard feelings — this one might not be your jam.

Kirsten Ludwig is the co-founder of In Good Co, a B Corp brand agency, and the co-creator of Good Thinking, a 17K-subscriber Substack and podcast on brand, trends, and culture. A veteran of Ralph Lauren, American Eagle, Anthropologie, Fred Siegel, and Stella & Dot, she now works with brands like Sex with Emily on the conversations most people are too afraid to have.

"The more that I lean into what I call the cringe — the uncomfortable moments — that is where I find the beauty. And on the other side is tenfold whatever I've experienced prior." — Kirsten Ludwig

"This idea that you can have it all and balance all the things is complete bullshit. Somebody's always gonna lose. So at least make that decision intentional." — Kirsten Ludwig

"The shame doesn't come from that I don't feel bonded with my daughter. The shame comes from being that example. The fact that I, as chief creative officer of this agency, was an example to all of these women and men to say, this is okay." — Kirsten Ludwig on taking two weeks of maternity leave

"You didn't have to be an asshole to make money. You could be a good fucking human and also make money. Two things can be true." — Kirsten Ludwig

"We always wanted to be the size of team that one pizza can feed." — Kirsten Ludwig, on In Good Co's team philosophy

"We do the work in the relationship. Something comes up, we don't let it fester. We bring it up. It's a beautiful soup of all the parts and pieces, and there isn't anything that's off limits." — Kirsten Ludwig on her partnership with co-founder Chris

"Let's remove the shame — and not only remove it and make it okay, but let's make it empowering. And how do we do that, and how do you create inspiration within all that? Those are the conversations. That's the unlock." — Kirsten Ludwig

"I just wanna have a conversation and talk heart to heart. I don't wanna have this bullshit exterior. It's gonna be one of those conversations that you can feel something — versus like, 'well, I've accomplished this and I've done this.' Great, but tell me about you." — Kirsten Ludwig

"I want people to live their best life. Have the most fun, have the most sense of freedom, do all the things. Whatever is your truth. And to show people — like, shine fucking bright, babe." — Kirsten Ludwig

"Ask for forgiveness, not permission. That's it. Don't even think about permission. Do the thing that lights you up. And if someone calls you on it, deal with it then." — Kirsten Ludwig's permission slip

People + companies referenced:

[Editor's note: Lightly cleaned for readability. Preserves original voice + delivery.]

Kirsten Ludwig (00:00): I want people to live their best life. Have the most fun, have the most sense of freedom, do all the things. Whatever is your truth. Everybody's truth is different. The life I lead is too crazy or whatever for a lot of people — they don't want to lead that life. Cool. But whatever their version is, I want to give people permission or inspiration or whatever it might be to lead their best version of that. And I think that's exactly what you do. And to show people — like, shine fucking bright, babe.

Meghan French Dunbar (00:29): Hello, lovely human. My name is Meghan French Dunbar, and welcome to Unbehaved. You just heard from the force of nature that is Kirsten Ludwig. Kirsten's the co-founder of In Good Co — a B Corp certified brand agency — and her professional background is pretty much a laundry list of the who's who in the fashion world: Ralph Lauren, Anthropologie, Stella & Dot, and many more.

But her impressive career isn't why I invited her on the show today. I wanted to talk to Kirsten because she's someone I've always looked up to. She and I met a number of years ago through the B Corp and Conscious Capitalism communities, and we shared a mutual passion for using business as a force for good.

And I don't know if you've ever come across someone like this — but every time I saw Kirsten, she was just so unapologetically herself. She said what she wanted to say. She wore what she wanted to wear. She stood up for the things she believed in. And it was so inspiring — especially back then, when I was a young female founder who thought I had to shrink myself or mold myself into something I wasn't in order to succeed.

So that's what we're gonna talk about today: how to nurture your individual light so it shines at its very brightest, instead of constantly trying to dim yourself for others. How leaning into the cringe — the uncomfortable, courageous moves — often pay off ten times bigger than whatever you were avoiding. The single biggest regret Kirsten has from her career. And what it looks like to stop putting up with the corporate BS and build the company that you'd want to work for instead.

And just a quick heads up — Kirsten and I 100% set a new Unbehaved record for cursing in this particular episode. So if that's your love language, buckle in. If it's not your vibe, no hard feelings. This one just might not be your jam.

Let's get into it.

Meghan French Dunbar (02:21): So I'm going to start this with a story — which is actually the last time you and I saw each other. It was a moment of unbehaving. We were sitting at a super fancy schmancy CEO summit with all these mostly men. And you and I were sitting at a picnic table outside, and we were listening to a man talk to us. And he stopped mid-conversation, looked at me, and said something like, "I can tell by your face that I'm just totally boring you."

And I was like, "I'm sorry, I'm five weeks pregnant and I feel like I'm about to die."

And you just mama-beared. You stood up and you evacuated me out of the situation. You were like, "You need to go to bed. What are you doing?"

What was happening for me was — I was 34 at the time, and I was still really holding on to the people-pleasing. I'm at this conference. Even though I literally feel like I'm about to throw up, I need to listen to this man and try to pretend I'm engaged. And you were just like, "Fuck no. We are not doing that. We're not pretending." And you just got me out of there.

Kirsten Ludwig: Love it.

Meghan French Dunbar: This has been how I've always experienced you — as someone who is just a bit courageous in the ability to do things differently and to not care how it's making other people uncomfortable or the societal scripts. Where does this come from?

Kirsten Ludwig (03:40): Well, first of all, thank you. That compliment means the world to me. Honestly, Meghan, that is everything I aspire and hope to be. The honest answer is — I don't know. But what I do know is that was six or seven years ago, right? I was going through a pivotal time in my life then — a full awakening, divorce, all the things.

And I think one thing I know absolutely certain is that the more I lean into what I call the cringe — the uncomfortable moments — that is where I find the beauty. And on the other side is tenfold whatever I've experienced prior. When I really lean into the thing that is courageous, the thing that is uncomfortable — on the other side of that, there are great, great rewards.

And so for sure, I do that more and more. Not just to be an asshole or do things that make people uncomfortable — though that has its own — but really about what do we all need in this moment, listening more to our truth, and empowering myself and others to identify that and speak it.

Meghan French Dunbar (04:55): Do you have good examples of that? Good stories?

Kirsten Ludwig: I think motherhood, right? My kids are now 11 and 14. And motherhood kind of forces us — or that's when we come to realize — what decision are you making? Because it's very, very clear. And this idea that you can have it all and do all the things and balance all the things is complete bullshit. Somebody's always gonna lose. So at least make that decision intentional.

Sometimes it's a work trip. Sometimes it's, "Hey guys, I'm going and doing this — you're with your dad at this time and here's what's gonna happen." But there is then growth for them, and independence, and all the things on that end. And then I'll go and do work. And sometimes it's telling my business partner, "Hey, this has come up with my kids. Can you cover for me? I've got to focus on this." For me, it's just really about being intentional around that decision-making.

Meghan French Dunbar (06:01): Is there anything that helps you remain clear on what your intention is?

Kirsten Ludwig: I think self-evolution. I'm somebody who has realized — initially it was just self-help books, and then it became a lot of other things: plant medicine, therapy, divorce, all of it — that for me, becoming a better version of myself tomorrow than today is a great objective and goal. It's not to say I'm not comfortable with who I am today. It's just to say that's exciting to me — interesting to see and explore what that growth looks like.

My values are very much around freedom, empowerment, aspiration, being kind. Those things come from establishing work, establishing families, establishing my independence, establishing myself as a woman — all the parts and pieces have happened probably fairly organically through my life path. But not without fight, and not without intention.

The older I get, the more I really understand that leaning into the cringe, leaning into the discomfort, just greatly expands who I am, what I can do, how confident I feel, how empowered I am, and the magic I can do in the world.

Meghan French Dunbar (07:20): The evolution you talk about of getting older and expanding — are there certain stories or beliefs you used to have that you had to release or unlearn in the process?

Kirsten Ludwig (07:38): Oh man, so many, so many. I just talked to somebody this week who's pregnant and reached out to a group I'm in for advice. And I said, "Listen, let's chat. I'm always happy to give my experience." I feel like I've done it in both really great ways and really shitty ways, right?

One of the biggest shames that comes up for me work-wise is — with my son, I worked with this amazing company called Stella & Dot. They hired me at five months pregnant. I had three months maternity leave and it was pro-moms.

That was actually an interesting experience because I'd come from what was more of a boys' club — where you'd have meetings till like 7 and 8 at night. It was just a bunch of men sitting around and you'd realize, well, they probably didn't want to go home to their wives.

And then in contrast, I came to Stella & Dot, and it was a company really run by badass women. And these women were like, "We gotta get this shit done. We gotta get out by 5, 5:30, because we've got families to go home to." The contrast of that was like, wow. Fuck. That was a great learning.

Then I go, okay — what version do I wanna lean into when I create my company? And that to me was very clear. So that's kind of an example of how that evolution has happened.

So I had this great three months of proper maternity with my son. And then with my daughter, I was building up an agency as the chief creative officer — and I took two weeks.

And here's the thing — the shame doesn't come from that I don't feel bonded with my daughter. We're very, very close. There was nothing lost in that experience — she was tethered to me, I was flying around and doing meetings and she was tethered to me. But the shame, the negative experience, comes from being that example.

The fact that I, as chief creative officer of this agency, was an example to all of these women and men to say — this is okay. That's really where the shame is. That was a lesson learned. So many of my lessons — I think many people's are what not to do. Especially in career. And so I've learned it. And very much I tell that story so people understand — it's not something I would do again, but I learned from doing the shitty version of it.

The negativity was really telling people that that was okay, even though on the inside I was fighting for internal change within the company. People didn't necessarily know or see. But that didn't matter. What mattered was what I was representing.

Meghan French Dunbar (10:33): Was the pressure to only take two weeks coming mainly from yourself or from the group you were working with?

Kirsten Ludwig: Yeah — the group.

Meghan French Dunbar (10:45): [laughing] I'm gonna set my rage aside. So — your own agency. I wanna hear the story. This is a story I've actually never heard from you. How did In Good Co start? Tell us the journey.

Kirsten Ludwig (10:57): Sure. So my background's been mainly on the fashion and retail side. I worked in-house at Ralph Lauren, American Eagle Outfitters, Anthro, Fred Siegel — then moved to Stella & Dot, and then moved to the agency side.

That was my first foray into the agency world. I built up an experiential agency. We went through hyper-growth — in under three years, we started at about 30 people and when I left, we were 230. We went from one office to four, including London through an acquisition. Hyper, hyper growth.

My first foray into the agency world — it can be quite intense. I learned a lot of lessons, many of them good, many of them bad. And I came out of that leaning into my idealism and my optimism and saying, I only want to do it if I can do it this way. I want the culture to be the most important thing.

I wanted to give people the space, the creativity, and the inspiration to do their best work. That doesn't look like working in a cubicle. That looks like working in an office like The Wing when it was around, or Soho House. It looks like giving people not an hour to say "be creative and do this project," but giving people the space to be like, "Oh, you need to go to a park today to get inspired for this project? Great, go do that."

So it was really built around: what does the culture look like that I want to be working in, that the team wants to be working in, and how do we create that? Because knowing that's going to lead to the best work. That's the opposite of a business plan. If you do the thing where the creatives, the team, the strategists are in a space to create the best work — the clients, the money, all of that will come.

Meghan French Dunbar (12:41): So a lot of the women I talk to who are on the corporate treadmill have gotten to certain levels in the executive C-suite. They can say things like, "We've got four offices in London," all the fancy things. And there's a sense of self-worth tied up in that role — how large the entity is, how established they are. So they just stay there, even though there are so many things they wish they could change.

How did you find the courage to just not stay in the easy, comfortable space of the big agency — and set out on your own, and not just say you wanted to do it differently, but actually do it?

Kirsten Ludwig (13:24): Well — I don't know if I set off on my own. It was a bit by force. That relationship ended quite dramatically. We had positioned and sold the company — my now business partner at In Good Co and my right-hand — we'd led that process. And then it all imploded for me after we properly and successfully positioned and sold. That's another story.

Like anything in my life — maybe it's come about in extremes. It just becomes very, very obvious. That was the beginning of an awakening for me: what is happening? Is this the life you want? What do you want to be doing?

I came out of that and said, okay, what do I want to do? I took a minute — literally about a minute — and moved out of New York. We had been ready to go back to LA, where my family was, all my kids' dad's family was, ready to go back to California lifestyle.

Thought about what I wanted to do. Do I go back to an agency? Do I go back on the brand side? One thing I realized was — I love fashion because of the innovation behind it. At that time, innovation was really behind social. What Instagram was doing, what Facebook was doing. This was 12 years ago. So I went and started interviewing with those guys, and that kind of felt like meh.

Then it was like, well, do I start my own thing? So much of what I love doing is having a team, inspiring the team — but also being smart enough to get the fuck out of their way.

I started up, and very shortly thereafter connected with who my right-hand was at the agency — one of the smartest, coolest, most intentional people I've ever met. Our brains think very, very similarly. We've always had a shorthand.

She and I created In Good Co. with this very optimistic, we only want to do it if we can do it this way mentality. I think it's who I am in my soul. The things I've gone through have chipped away at the armor and led me more toward my truth — really leaning into optimism, doing the right thing, being empowered. Knowing there is a better path — and maybe not choosing this path or that path, but finding my own and forging my own. Everything I go through, from career to divorce to whatever — helped me see that.

The path isn't already there. But I can instinctually lead it. And then other people are going to come with me on my path. Rad, let's do this.

Meghan French Dunbar (16:25): So one thing you touched on is something that's been evolving for me over the last few years: reimagining my idea of success. One of the central pillars for me is autonomy. I get to choose how I work, who I work with, what I'm working on, when I'm working, how I feel while I'm working. I'm a solopreneur. I don't even have a team at this point. And yes, there's the financial stability part, which sometimes is more stressful. But the trade-off of extreme autonomy — to live in alignment with my values, do the things I want to do, say no to people I don't want to work with — completely changed my life. I'm hearing that in your story too. How has your definition of success changed?

Kirsten Ludwig (17:09): It's a great point. And it goes back to your question around the title, right? For me — I think it's age, but who knows, maybe slash experience. The time when I finally had the title, whether it was creative director, chief creative officer, whatever — it didn't matter anymore. Maybe it was because I had it, or maybe it was age or experience — but it just stopped mattering.

Similarly with success. Sure, there's a financial component. I transparently lean into that. Part of what I wanted to do with In Good Co is show that you didn't have to be an asshole to make money. And I know you have that with Conscious Magazine — you have the exact same — which is probably why we identified and connected so early on. You can be a good fucking human, but also make money. Two things can be true.

So success does have a financial component. But it's also — I travel whenever I want. My business partner is one of my best friends. I'm able to do and live in a way that leans into everything I want to do and be. There's not this sectioning of, "Oh shit, I got the Sunday scaries because I've got to go into the office." It's, "Oh great, I get to do this."

Autonomy, freedom, choosing my own hours. My calendar is a crazy person's calendar. I have business partners in Europe, so I'll work in the morning, then go for a workout, then come back and do some work, then depending on if I have my kids or not I'll be with them or go for another workout. It's a very me calendar of what I want to be doing with my time. Then of course however I show up, I'm a better version of myself because I really want to be there for whatever I'm doing.

For me, autonomy and freedom is at the top of what success looks like. Because it's time. What else is there really?

Meghan French Dunbar (19:05): I'm curious — the ways you wanted to build the company differently, what does it actually look like? And what are the ways you're running things that you're hoping other business owners could start paying attention to?

Kirsten Ludwig (19:22): So we are a B Corp, and we've been a B Corp since inception. Like anything I do, it was never really a business development ploy — not to say that's good or bad, I'm just not great at that. It's really about what do I think is the right thing to do, and what do I want to do?

We'd actually set up our ethos before we even found out what a B Corp was. My mom gave me an article — the CEO of Patagonia was on the cover of Fortune. She was like, "Look at this thing." I was like, B Corp, what's a B Corp? Found all about it. And then just to find that there was literally a certification that matched what I wanted to be — felt good and aligned.

How we work today is very different than how we were before. We had a mix of a curated team and an in-house team. Then in COVID, we played the whole dance of — do we get the loan? Do we not get the loan? — and that coincided with ultimately having to let go. We had a pretty small team and we never wanted to be large. We always wanted to be the size of team that one pizza can feed — that was our philosophy.

[Meghan laughs]

We had no interest in being a ginormous agency. We'd experienced that and determined it was not for us. So we played that dance through COVID, which was rough. It was quite a blow for me. And a blow for the team, because we'd built so much around culture. That was the inception and the belief.

Ego-wise — how I defined myself as, look, I've been able to be successful, create this company, have this team of people that's inspired, excited — part of our Monday call was a personal check-in of "how the fuck are you?" Because asking that question and really listening determines how you're going to show up at work, how I can support you, how you can support me. "All right, let's talk about that project that's due in an hour." — "Fuck that. Let's talk about how you are and who you are, and how you can show up, and how I can support that." It was built into everything.

So letting go of that, letting go of people — was really, really hard. That was a terrible moment. But like anything in my life — when you lean into the discomfort, on the other side of it, beautiful things happen. The team has gone on to do amazing things on their own and with other companies.

We have a model now that's a consultant base. These are people we've worked with for years. As I'm sure you know — the best people are not in-house anymore. They're all independent contractors. And now we get to do these great projects where we get to reach out individually and say, "Hey Diane, we have this rad pet company we're working on. You're in love with dogs and your dog has a great story. Do you want to come help us do copy and strategy?" And then they get to raise their hand and say, "Yeah, I want to work on that particular project" — versus, "Hey Joe, you're sitting around, can you jump on this Nike project that came in?" It feels much different — much more intentional, much more inspired.

Meghan French Dunbar (22:32): And it also gives people flexibility to say yes to the things they actually want to work on — or tone down the amount of work they're doing if they need caregiving or other things.

Kirsten Ludwig: Totally, totally. And it makes the work better because they're excited about what they're signing up for. That makes all the difference in the world.

And then about two years ago, my business partner Chris started writing a Substack. She was always reading everything trends-based, and we'd be sharing this with a particular client, and she'd be Slacking or texting me about it. She was always in the know. She finally was like, "I'm consuming too much." After a breakthrough with her therapist, she was told she had to figure out a medium to do this. So she created a newsletter on Substack — because she knew two years ago that was where things were moving.

That's become Good Thinking, which is really a media platform for us now. Certainly didn't start that way, but it's a Substack now with about 17,000 subscribers. It's around brand and trends and culture. Then we have a podcast off of that. We do talks. Happy hours. Dinners. We're hosting a CMO dinner at Cannes coming up. When we lean into where the flow is, and where the fun is, and what's really working — that's where the magic happens.

Meghan French Dunbar (23:59): With Chris — co-founder relationships are real tough. They're often one of the primary reasons companies go under. How have you built such a solid relationship with Chris? What have you done right? And what's one thing you did wrong?

Kirsten Ludwig (24:17): Great question. We talk about our partnership a lot, because it's one of the things people should just talk about more. The good and the bad, for sure.

But I've been really lucky. We've been really lucky in this. And I think, quite honestly — because it's friendship-based first. We met through work. She was the first person I hired at the agency. She was my right-hand. We instantly created a shorthand.

Quickly thereafter, her and her then-boyfriend, now-husband, were around in Brooklyn. We ran into each other, came and joined us — we just got drunk one day at a Mexican bar, and the rest is history.

That friendship base is everything. She has been through all of the things with me. She's literally one of my absolute best friends. I confide in her all the time. She's the person I probably talk to the most. She's my work wife.

And I think the most recent thing I've identified — we do the work in it. We have this great connection. There are lots of advantages in having a business partner — it scales it, it allows you to bounce ideas off of somebody. I don't know if we'd still be here if it was just one of us. Being an entrepreneur is rough. There's great parts, but there's also really challenging parts. So it's nice to have somebody you trust so much, who has your back in those moments.

But — we do the work in the relationship. Something comes up, we don't let it fester. We bring it up. "Hey, on our last trip, something was up for you, something was going on — let's talk about that." We're both people who want to talk about it and get it out. Sometimes it's like, "Oh shit — you felt that from me? I didn't realize I was doing that." That helps me to think about it for two days.

We're constantly like an ADD mess of talking about all the work things, all the personal things, all the issues coming up with kids or whatever it might be personally. It's a beautiful soup of all those parts and pieces, and there isn't anything that's off limits.

Meghan French Dunbar (26:43): What a gift. I want to go back to one thing — fashion. You mentioned the innovation that's inherent in that industry. How did it shape the way you think about your body image? The things fashion has influenced with how women tell ourselves certain stories?

Kirsten Ludwig (27:02): This is my perspective, and this is just how my brain is built — which leans toward more optimism. It's not something I try to be. It's just what comes into my head.

I'm a huge believer that fashion is creative expression. I dress based on my mood — so who knows how it's gonna show up. The more we lean into whatever we're trying to express creatively — through writing, through arts, through whatever — I think fashion for me is a huge part of that.

The challenges I've had in the fashion industry — I don't necessarily think they're particular to fashion — but they've been more about "this has been a boys' club" or "this is the way we've always done things, so this is the way we should always do things." And I've always been like, huh, that doesn't feel right to me. Maybe we should look at that.

I've been fortunate — anytime I've been in a corporate environment, I've had more of an entrepreneurial position. I've had an agency as my team, or something that gave me outside perspective. So I've been able to push and be in more forward-thinking positions. In Anthro, I was brought in to make the brand cooler, give it more of an edge. So I'd try to push that through.

To me, it's just — what is the best version of yourself? Fashion can be part of helping you tell that story. It can lead to confidence, self-expression, so many parts and pieces. The more I lean into that — and not into huh, what should I wear to the corporate office is a success — I mean, I'm 52, so I'm in it. And it's really leaning into: yeah, of course I wanna look the best version of myself. Of course I wanna work out. Of course I want to get facials and figure out the best hydrating skincare. I don't shame myself for wanting to do those things. I don't shame my 11-year-old daughter for wanting to learn more about skincare, as long as it's safe.

I always skew on all of those things to pull out just the things that are empowering me, that are inspiring me. I'm not shaming myself in any way for wanting to look the best version. If that's younger — my biological age is almost 10 years younger — great, I'm doing something right. I lean into those things with inspiration versus a "fuck, am I getting old? Am I getting past it?" mentality.

Meghan French Dunbar (29:41): I love that. So some of the brands you work with now, like Sex with Emily — there's this counterculture, "we don't talk about women's pleasure and women's power." What has working with those brands done, or helped you see, or changed your mindset in any way?

Kirsten Ludwig (30:01): So much. It's been so transformational. It's one of my favorite topics because it's about shame. We have so much fucking shame. And the brands that are leaning into those things, I think, are the most exciting for us right now — or the brands that are at the precipice of that. It's really unlocking something.

When you can lean in and give voice to the shadow conversations, the whisper conversations — the things nobody's saying but the shame everybody's feeling. And not just say, "Hey, it's okay, we're all doing it, everybody's thinking that." To say — not just it's okay, but also to actually empower people to do it. Yeah, you should feel good having sex. Whatever the empowerment is.

Emily's a rad human, and she is empowering men and women and anybody to feel good about how they're approaching sex and whatever that looks like for them. For us to be a part of those conversations, a part of a brand that can really connect with somebody — and not just say "it's okay," but actually move that okay into empowerment — I'm here for all of those conversations. Menopause, anything around sex, sexuality.

Chris is really into the aging conversation. Think about Silvers — how we thought about people at like, no, it's gotta go up now — 75. Think about how we thought about all these people. The Golden Girls comparison, the meme that we all see. Demi Moore's killing it, and she's not going anywhere.

Let's take all of those stories, let's remove the shame — and not only remove it and make it okay, but let's make it empowering. How do we do that, and how do we create inspiration within all that? Those are the conversations. That's the unlock. Because when somebody feels that from a brand, from a person, from anything — that does something, and you connect with that. Those are the brands, those are the stories, those are the things we want to be a part of.

Meghan French Dunbar (32:22): Leaning into the cringe, naming the shame — these feel very complementary, if not the same thing. They both very much require vulnerability. Go, go, go — say whatever's coming up with the big breath.

Kirsten Ludwig (32:38): Vulnerability is probably my favorite word. Chris will send me so many memes about it. I'm a Scorpio — all we want to do is have the really deep, vulnerable conversations. Which is true.

The more I've done my own work — all I wanna do is take off all the masks and get deeper and deeper into my truth. And that's all I wanna do with you, right? I just wanna have a conversation and talk heart to heart with you, Meghan. I don't wanna have this bullshit exterior. I'm not interested in those conversations, and I know you're not either. That's why, honestly, it's one of the reasons I was so excited this morning. I was like — I get to talk to Meghan, and we haven't caught up in forever, and it's gonna be so great. Because you know it's gonna be one of those conversations where you can feel something. Where we're really both present and excited to be in — versus like, "Well, I've accomplished this and I've done this." Great, but tell me about you.

The conversations I'm most interested in — the ones that really cut through, the only ones I want to have — are the heartfelt ones. I don't think it's something that requires a specific question to unlock. But I can tell you — I jump on a handful of calls almost every day, and it could be somebody I've never met before. You both end up cutting through the bullshit — but somebody does it first. Somebody leans in and exposes themselves first. Be that person.

For me, it's a constant evolution — of taking off the mask, getting closer to vulnerability, finding more of my truth. The more I do the work, the more interesting it is. That's how I want to show up with people. Those are the people I want to be around. How about you?

Meghan French Dunbar (34:18): What comes up for me is — the more you are leaning into your truth and living out loud as your highest and best self, the more you're modeling that as the way people can be. It's giving permission for people to not have to be cookie cutter and homogenous and playing by the same script. Giving people the permission to actually just be authentic. Live into what they want to be.

The more I do it, the more other people feel like they can do it as well. And that keeps helping me return back to it.

I gave a little talk in New York recently, and I came off the stage and this wonderful student at Fordham University where I was speaking came up and said, "I'm always afraid that my light is too bright. But then I just saw you shining so brightly on the stage that it encouraged me — like, you can be successful and be really different." And I was like — fuck yes. That was so awesome.

Kirsten Ludwig (35:18): That's fucking great. That's fucking great. Like — that's a life moment. God, are you afraid your light's... I mean, I hope nobody is. But of course, if —

Meghan French Dunbar: I think most of us are. I don't know. I have been my whole life. Like — yeah. Anyway. That's a whole other story.

Kirsten Ludwig (35:38): But it's a great point — especially if she's thinking it, people are thinking that. And especially as women, we have an onus. We need to do that more, because as people who have a platform and the ability to articulate it — I think we have an onus to share that. It's giving people permission to do the thing.

I want people to live their best life. Have the most fun, have the most sense of freedom, do all the things. Whatever is your truth. Everybody's truth is different. The life I lead is too crazy or whatever for a lot of people. Cool. But whatever their version is — I want to give people permission or inspiration or whatever it might be to lead their best version of that. And I think that's exactly what you do. To show people — like, shine fucking bright, babe.

Meghan French Dunbar (36:36): Yes. Ooh. Well — I guess the question I have there is the likability conversation. Of, am I too much? It feels to me — the story I tell myself about you is that ship has sailed. You are just not interested in being liked. You are very much who you are — take it or leave it. Does that feel true? And how long has that been true for you?

Kirsten Ludwig (37:05): Yes, yes, yes. That feels true for me. It's something I've leaned into more and more. And I do think it's true that once you hit 50, you give zero fucks. You really, really give — you're like, "I don't care." Not in an offensive way like "I'm just going to fucking offend everybody" — but more in a way of being able to lean into my truth more and more, and really know what that is.

There's a confidence and a commitment and an ability that comes with that. And then a lessening of caring what people think. It's really that balance for me — leaning more into my truth, being able to really identify it, really know it, and a confidence that comes with that. Giving shit less what people think. And then you hit 50 and you're like — I give zero fucks. Zero fucks. And it's really true.

Meghan French Dunbar (38:07): Aging is awesome. I'm really enjoying it.

Kirsten Ludwig: It really is. I'm in. I'm in. Cause also — the alternative's not great.

Meghan French Dunbar (38:19): Right. All right — is there anything that you wish I had asked you about that we didn't talk about?

Kirsten Ludwig (38:26): For me — the things that continue to blur the lines are my personal journey and my work journey. They're one and the same, because certainly one affects the other. I don't know how much people are still kind of coming up and believing that "well, this is separate from this, and you can still have it all and you do this and separate those things."

I think that's one of the things I like about LinkedIn — I like when people tell their personal stories. I like to know more about people versus "hey, I just won this award, I just got this." You get to know more about people when they share that. Weaving together and really understanding where somebody is today is really about that personal journey.

That's an hour-long conversation, ideally over a bottle or two of wine, that we need to do. But it's the journey of the becoming, the undoing. The idea of the unbehaving — we should be doing all of that more.

As somebody who has an 11-year-old daughter — what do I want her to do and think about? It's not to get permission from me. It's not, "Mom, do you think this is okay?" I want her to grow up with her own sense of self and know: this is what I want to do, and I'm going to go do it — respectfully, but whether people like it or not.

Those are the type of women that I think we need more of. Things are not even. We don't have enough of a voice. The more we can lean into raising and creating and supporting and mentoring those abilities — that's the world I want to live in.

Meghan French Dunbar (40:15): I have a four-year-old daughter, and she is a spicy little meatball. And I am so excited to nurture her wild flame instead of trying to crush it. The experience of getting to reparent her and just let her go be her wildest, most beautiful, spirited soul in this world — instead of telling her that it's wrong. That's some of the work that I'm here to do on this planet. That's one of the reasons I feel like I'm here. It's so fucking beautiful.

Kirsten Ludwig (40:44): Totally. But isn't that amazing — to go through and have a moment? I go through and have those moments and I identify them with her. But then I also go — what if I, instead of having to relearn that, just learned that that was okay? What if I just learned to lean into that? What if I learned that sensitivity is a superpower versus don't be so sensitive? What if you had a complete reframe on all of this?

We have the ability and onus to do that. With our daughters. And in the workforce — being people who are visible, sharing that. You're certainly doing that on your podcast, with your book, all the places. We need to be that platform. We need to mentor. We need to support. We need to empower. We need to inspire. That's the work we all collectively are doing.

Once you break down any kind of societal norm — they kind of all come crushing down. Menopause. Aging. Sexuality. Divorce. It's all of the things. Once you break down one, you're like — did they all really exist? Were any of these real? And it's like — fuck no. They weren't real.

Meghan French Dunbar (41:56): Permission slip. If you were giving listeners a permission slip — what is the permission you give people to start unbehaving in some certain way?

Kirsten Ludwig (42:07): I would tell them to ask for forgiveness, not permission. That's it. Don't even think about permission. It's more about — do the thing that lights you up. And then if you needed permission, you can ask for forgiveness if anybody calls you on it.

Meghan French Dunbar (42:28): How do people find you and support you and learn about all your work — besides Substack, Good Thinking, the podcast? Where are the places people find you?

Kirsten Ludwig (42:37): Yeah — sign up on our Substack, Good Thinking, for the podcast and the Substack. And hit me up on LinkedIn.

Meghan French Dunbar (42:43): Yay. Thank you, thank you. My heart feels so damn full. I'm just in awe of you, and I adore you, and I'm so grateful.

Kirsten Ludwig (42:53): Thank you, thank you for having me. It was so, so good to catch up with you.

Meghan French Dunbar (42:56): All right, my friend — before we wrap up completely, here are my key Unbehaved lessons of the day from Kirsten.

Lesson number one: Lean into the cringe. Kirsten highlighted the fact that it's often when we lean into those uncomfortable, courageous moves — instead of avoiding them — that there's something beautiful on the other side. She said the reward is often tenfold whatever it is you are avoiding. It made me wonder — what things am I avoiding right now that I might need to lean into instead? And I would ask the same question of you.

Lesson number two: "You can have it all and balance it all" — the whole thing is bullshit. Be intentional instead. I love how Kirsten reframed this for us — the unbehaving move isn't pretending you can do it all. It's being conscious and intentional about the trade-off that matters. How can you go on that work trip in a good way? What do you communicate to the people you love in those moments when you have to prioritize your work for a bit? That's the good stuff.

Lesson number three: Model the behavior you want other people to feel permission to do. Kirsten talked about the fact that the two-week maternity leave shame wasn't about the bond with her daughter. It was about modeling that only taking two weeks off is okay. I felt this one in my bones. Oftentimes setting healthy boundaries, prioritizing what matters, or even just taking care of yourself — isn't just benefiting you. It's giving other people permission, and sometimes even a blueprint, to do the same thing themselves.

Lesson number four — an oldie but a goodie: Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Kirsten's permission slip right at the end. Just don't overthink it. Unapologetically do the thing that lights you up. And if someone calls you on it, deal with it then — but stop waiting for approval before you just do the damn thing.

That's all for today, my friends. If you enjoyed the episode, maybe share it with a friend or leave a good review. Any support for the show means more to me than I can ever express.

Until next time.

There's a job you've thought about leaving. A sabbatical you'd take if you weren't worried about being judged for it. Something you want to write, or start, or say out loud — and the thing stopping you isn't whether you want to do it. It's what other people will think.

In this episode of Unbehaved, you’ll hear from Al and Leanne Elliott — the married couple behind the UK's #1 management podcast, Truth, Lies and Work — who’ve built one of the most enviable-looking lives you'll come across. Digital nomads for six years. Working together. Making a living doing what they love. All because they refuse to build a life based on what other people think. 

At 19, Al Elliott sat across from a deputy headmaster who told him that if he worked hard for twenty years, he could have that man's job and earn £28,000. Al's internal response: f*ck this. He walked out of teaching and never went back.

Leanne spent from 28 to 35 waiting for the maternal feeling everyone promised was coming. It never arrived. It took her mother saying "that's okay" for her to believe it might be.

Between them, Al and Leanne have refused nearly every script they were handed — about careers, children, where to live, and whether you should ever go into business with your spouse. 

In this conversation, they walk through exactly what it looks like to stop making decisions based on what other people think — and start listening to what YOU want instead.

Content note: this episode includes a story about a suicide-in-progress call, at around the six-minute mark. Resources at the bottom.

Al & Leanne Elliott host Truth, Lies & Work, part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. Leanne is a business psychologist; Al is a serial entrepreneur. truthliesandwork.com — and find Leanne on LinkedIn, where she answers every single comment.

"Stop behaving in the way you think other people expect. Stop trying to make decisions based on what you think other people think is right or is the norm. Make decisions based on what YOU want and what works for you and your values." — Leanne Elliott

"If you work as hard as you seem to be working right now, then in about 20 years time, you can be sitting in my seat and you can be earning upwards of 28,000 pounds a year. And I sat there and I went, fuck this." — Al Elliott

"The way we talk on microphone is the way we talk in real life. That's kind of what people say when they meet us — you're just exactly the same as you sound on the pod. Yeah. Because we enjoy doing it." — Al Elliott

"Nothing is wasted. Even when you find yourself in a situation doing work on something you're not really getting paid for or not very much for and it's taking more of your time. Our mantra is always nothing is wasted, because we're learning something. We're making a connection here." — Leanne Elliott

"The voice that tells you you're wrong and it's a stupid idea — try and identify whose voice that is. Because if that's your parents, that's your grandparents, that's a friend — that's probably the person who's holding you back the most." — Al Elliott

"The fact is you've got to fall in love with the medium. If you hate it, it's like writing blogs — you're not going to stick at it. You absolutely have to love it." — Al Elliott

"If they've got my phone number, then they should really be talking to me. If they've not — I don't know them, whatever. And I think that's kind of how when you're creating content and putting stuff out into the world, it needs to be about, I don't know you, whatever." — Al Elliott (on trolls)

"It's almost like a bank account. If I've paid into somebody's bank account with goodwill and helping them over the years, and they certainly need to make a withdrawal, they're much more likely to be there to help me. That's how the world should work." — Leanne Elliott

"Just because you're a manager doesn't mean you're that important. You're not that important. You're disposable if you don't do a good job. He was right. Brutal, but right." — Al Elliott (hardest truth he's had to accept)

00:00 Cold open: "Fuck this"

00:35 Welcome + episode setup

02:55 The interview begins: how did you build this life?

03:55 How they met on an overnight shift at the Samaritans

04:51 The suicide-in-progress call

07:20 The 6am callback that changed everything

08:44 Why they were volunteering in the first place

10:13 Fast-forward: marriage, moving to Spain, Brexit, becoming digital nomads

12:12 Expert host vs. unexpert host: how their paths converged

14:37 Working with your spouse: the boundaries + osmosis framework

17:34 The honest truth about building a podcast from nothing

22:00 The 1% better principle

23:10 Childhood stories of success: what you were handed

26:00 Al's "fuck this" £28K teaching moment

27:30 Stories they had to let go of (money for Al, having kids for Leanne)

30:50 Currently in Bosnia — permission to live wherever

33:00 A typical week + how the podcast provides livelihood

35:14 Transactional vs. relational: being of service

36:13 The "nothing is wasted" mantra + the Nico story

41:30 Patterns in 2026: AI fear, DEI pushback, polarization

45:20 How to deal with trolls

47:54 Rapid fire: hardest truth

48:53 Rapid fire: biggest lie

50:43 Most outdated work norm

51:14 The permission slip to unbehave

52:32 Where to find Al and Leanne

53:14 Meghan's Unbehaved Lessons of the Day

Content note referenced in the episode:

Podcast: Truth, Lies and Work

Leanne on LinkedIn

Al on LinkedIn

CONNECT WITH MEGHAN + UNBEHAVED:

Website

Substack: Unbehaved

Book: This Isn't Working

LinkedIn: @meghanfrenchdunbar

Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar

Lightly edited for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Al's, Leanne's, and Meghan's voices preserved throughout.

[Cold Open — Al]

I remember distinctly, I was sitting in front of the deputy headmaster. I must have been what, 19, on my first teaching practice? And the deputy master says, "If you work as hard as you seem to be working right now, then in about 20 years time, you can be sitting in my seat and you can be earning upwards of 28,000 pounds a year." And I sat there and I went — fuck this.

Meghan: (laughing) Hard pass.

Al: There's gotta be a better life than that.

[Meghan — Welcome]

Hello there, lovely human, and welcome to Unbehaved. I'm Meghan French Dunbar, and that was Al Elliott — one half of the extraordinary duo I get to talk to today. The other half is his wife, Leanne.

One of the reasons I'm so excited about this episode is that Al and Leanne are going to walk us through what it actually looks like to stop making decisions based on what other people think.

And I don't know about you, but this is something that shows up in so many aspects of my life. That tension where you know you want to do something, but then you start questioning yourself because you're worried about what other people might think. Maybe it's the job you want to leave, but you don't quite know what your colleagues are gonna say. Maybe it's the sabbatical you'd like to take, but you're worried you'll be judged for taking time off. Or the Substack or the podcast or the content that you want to start putting out there, but you're worried about what other people are going to think about what you have to say.

Whatever it is, I hear this from so many people — they aren't living the life they actually want because of other people's opinions.

Today, Al and Leanne are gonna show us what it looks like to listen to what YOU want instead of what others want for you. And for them, it's resulted in the two of them leading a pretty epic life. Together, they co-host the UK's #1 management podcast, Truth, Lies, and Work, which they record and produce from wherever they want. In the last decade, they've lived in different European countries pretty much every few months.

So today I got to turn the tables on them and ask them the questions. And our conversation surfaced one of the most touching meet-cute stories I've ever heard that I totally wasn't expecting. It also brought up refreshingly honest wisdom for anyone who's trying to build something from the ground up — whether it's a small business, an art studio, anything in between. We also talk about one potentially overlooked practice they lean on (and I do as well) that has become foundational to their success.

One quick heads up before we dive in: this episode opens with a story about a suicide-in-progress call from Al and Leanne's early days as volunteers at the Samaritans, a crisis listening service in the UK. If that's not something you're up for today, feel free to skip ahead — it's at about the six-minute mark in the interview. Resources are also in the show notes.

Otherwise, let's get into it.

Meghan: From where I'm sitting here in Boulder, Colorado, it seems as though you two have nailed life. You get to live wherever you want, you work together, you've got this free-flowing, gorgeous number one show in the UK — all the things. What the fuck? How did you do this? I want the unedited version of how you built the number one management show in the UK as a couple. Go.

Al: Pure dumb luck after one too many whiskeys.

Meghan: Same answer as all entrepreneurs. Okay, cool.

Al: Well, Leanne, tell the story. There's a whole story before Truth, Lies and Work happened…

Meghan: Let's start there. Do it. I want it all.

Al: Where's a logical place to start?

Meghan: How did you two meet? And then how did the show become a thing? Let's do that.

Leanne: This is a good story. Go, Lee. So I met Al when we were both volunteering for a charity called the Samaritans in the UK. We worked at the Manchester and Salford branch — it's a listening service for people who are in distress or despair and maybe feeling suicidal. I went in for an overnight shift, 11pm to 7am.

I met in the corridor a guy called Rob, who was the chairman of our branch. He was like, "You're all right — oh, you're on with Elliott tonight. I think you'll like him." I went, "Oh yeah? Is he all right?" "Yeah, yeah, he's into property, he's really sound, quite funny. I think you'll really like him." I said, "Oh, nice — it's always good to do an overnight shift with someone you get on with, isn't it?" He went, "No, but I think you two will really get on. I think you'll really like him." I was like, "All right, Rob. This isn't blind date."

Meghan: No pressure.

Leanne: So I walked into the room and I laid eyes on him — and I know they sound so cheesy — but I looked, and I was like, huh. Okay. Yeah. All right. There's something here. Okay.

We sat down at separate phones doing our calls. And then Al got a call about 4am.

Al: Leanne was my boss, basically. I'm nearly 50 now, Leanne's just turned 40, so there's a big age difference. Leanne was my supervisor for the night, looking out for me, training me. I get a call. It's the most serious kind of call — you only get maybe one a week across a thousand calls or so. It's a suicide-in-progress.

By the way, you may have to put some triggers on this. The woman said, "I don't want to live anymore." I won't go into too much detail, but basically it was a long — an hour-long call — where she was in the process of ending her life.

I was like, oh my God, what do I do? So I threw a paper airplane to Leanne — I opened it up on her side and it said "help." And Leanne came across. She's able to listen in but not speak. So she was giving me notes on what to say and stuff.

Without going too much into the gory details, the line went dead. After about five minutes of silence, I put the phone down and I was like, wow. It was one of the most impactful moments of my life.

We went to the kitchen, we got a cup of tea. Leanne's like, "How do you feel?" I said, "I don't know — this has never happened to me before." Leanne was great. She was talking me down, asking me questions. The idea of the Samaritans is that if you take a difficult call, then another Samaritan will ask you about it and almost take some of the pressure off you.

Leanne: So that all happened. About an hour later, I got a phone call. The Samaritans is a national organization, but they typically try and route calls to the local branch. On an overnight shift, that's hard, because only maybe 30% of branches in the country are open 24 hours. So it's really rare that you hear any outcome to a suicide-in-progress call — either way, whatever happened. And it's very rare that you'll get a call back into the same branch on an overnight shift.

The phone rings at about 6am. I answer. It's the same woman that Al had been speaking to. And she said, "I don't know if it's possible, but if you can find the man I was chatting to, can you please tell him thank you? I've woken up, I've been sick, and I feel hope. I've called an ambulance and I'm going to try and live."

Every goosebump on me just popped out of my body. Al was on another call, so I couldn't even grab him over to listen. So I probably only talked to her for a couple of minutes. The ambulance arrived and took her away.

Afterward, we'd shared not only this first incredibly intense moment — and it sounds so weird to people who maybe aren't ingrained in the Samaritans philosophy, but we're trained that it's a privilege to share that vulnerable moment with somebody. So to have shared that moment — and then to have shared an outcome that we rarely, rarely hear about, and for it to be such a positive outcome — it was very much a bonding experience.

That was the beginning. There you go. That's probably not the story you expected, was it?

Meghan: That's the best meeting story I've ever heard. I'm so glad we went there. Also — how old were you two when you met?

Al: I was 22. So I was 29.

Meghan: What type of humans are you that at 22 and 29 you're volunteering to stay up all night and help people in crisis? I mean, I know you're wonderful human beings — but this is deepening my love for you.

Leanne: I need to hold my hand up, Meghan. My reason was not selfless. I was doing my undergrad in psychology at the time — I thought I wanted to go into clinical counseling, and I was advised by someone at university to join a listening service. So I joined the Samaritans. I quickly realized I didn't want to go into that area of psychology because the emotional labor is so high — but I loved the work and stayed with the Samaritans for five years, long after I graduated. So my initial reason for joining wasn't that altruistic. Whereas yours was.

Al: No, she's being British. It was probably 70% altruistic and 30% — what's the opposite of altruistic? Whatever that is. Edit that back in. Put a fancy word in there, Meg.

But really briefly — it was the Year of the Volunteer 2007, I think it was, in the UK. And they were like, you should go and volunteer. It was like tithing of your money — 10% of your income going to the church. They were like, well, what if 10% of your working week went to volunteering? So I did a couple of volunteering things.

But anyway, being British — let's move on. Because that's a cool story, and we're very proud of the way we met, and we don't often tell it. In fact, this might be the first time, Meghan, we've told that story on somebody else's podcast.

Meghan: So honored. So how did we get from there to where we are now? Because this is now almost 20 years later?

Al: Yeah. Thank you for that, Meghan. We feel great.

Meghan: My husband and I just had the 17th anniversary of our first date. We can be — I'm not even gonna say middle-aged, I love this age, this is the fabulous age. We can be fabulous age together.

Al: You beautiful women are very far from middle-aged. I'm knocking on the door of 50, so I'm definitely middle-aged. I can't get out of bed without making noises. Real quick — please don't click that and take it out of context. Fast-forward.

So — 2007 to about 2012, ish. We were dating, living together, got married in Gibraltar, which is a tiny little enclave in the corner of Spain. Had a reception in Spain. Then a year later decided to basically put our life into the huge blender of random and say, right — we're going to go live in Europe. So we went to Spain and lived there for five years. And then Brexit happened.

Now, in case anyone's not sure — Brexit essentially meant that we, as Brits, couldn't live in Europe long-term. We still live in the UK. That'd be weird if we couldn't live in the UK.

Meghan: Right, that wasn't my understanding.

Al: Maybe I'm not qualified to explain what Brexit is. Basically, it would be much harder for us to stay in Europe long-term. So I had this idea: what if — because Brexit was going to take a couple of years to go through — what if we tried to visit every country in Europe before it becomes really hard for us to do that?

So we became what the kids call digital nomads. It was meant to be a six-to-twelve-month thing. We did it for six years, which is awesome. We traveled around Europe, went to Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand. It was wonderful. We were working remotely, but working remotely separately. And then around COVID time, we started working together. We set up Oblong, our consultancy — and then Truth, Lies and Work came from that.

Meghan: On the website it says Leanne, you're the expert host, and Al, you're the unexpert host. There's a bit of research and data on one side and the real-world experience on the other. How did the paths deviate and then come back together in terms of what you both were doing at that time?

Leanne: I was mainly working freelance for an Australian company doing recruitment management training for a fully remote team. Around COVID, unsurprisingly, I was getting asked more about remote work and how to manage teams that way. That's when I kind of started freelance.

Al and I would always talk about work, as any couple does over a glass of wine in the evening. And we realized that a lot of what we do is the same thing, but coming from a different perspective. Al was very much into sales and marketing as a serial entrepreneur — how do we sell a dream to people, how do we engage people in a product or an organization we want to sell, how do we create an experience they love and thrive from?

So it became clear that we were talking about the same thing, but from different perspectives. My concern with organizational psychology is that sometimes the lack of commercial focus makes it less relevant to smaller organizations. So we saw this as an opportunity to bring our skills together and make a way of working that traditionally lived in very large corporate or public sector available to entrepreneur-led businesses that are agile and enjoy change and experimenting with new things.

Al: Just to add to that — the books I read, Leanne thinks are boring and ridiculous, because they're all about how you can make a million dollars in an hour. And the books Leanne reads are boring to me because they use words and statistics I don't understand, and the people who write them have more names after their name than are in my name.

So we were like, hang on a minute. I translate what Leanne does, but Leanne keeps me on track to ensure it's rooted in science. That's been a really good partnership. It seems to have done us quite well, I think.

Meghan: So as you're thinking about building a consultancy together AND doing the show, every human around you is probably saying some version of, "What are you guys thinking? Don't work with your spouse. It's a terrible idea." How was it imagining, "I'm going to do this with you"? Did you have any agreements at the beginning about how the relationship would continue and how you would cultivate it while also working together?

Leanne: That's a good question. From a starting point, Al and I are in a slightly different position than maybe the majority of couples that might go into business together — because as I mentioned, we're digital nomads. So we were traveling together, living together, without much of a social network around us for big chunks of time. We were very used to spending every hour together and, when not working with each other, literally working next to each other. So we were already kind of used to that level of intensity.

When we started working together, it was pretty soon after that Al was like, "I think we might need to talk about boundaries" — which was impressive as a psychologist. I know, I know.

Al: I didn't really understand what the word meant. But we kind of said, well, I'm in charge of this bit and I have a budget for this bit, and Leanne's in charge of this bit and that's her realm.

However, what's been interesting over the last five years — and I'm going to use another word I'm not sure I know the meaning of — osmosis. Leanne will start saying stuff and I'm like, "How the hell do you know that?" I'm like, "Because I've sat opposite you for 310 episodes and you've talked amazing stuff." And then she'll go, "I've got a great idea for a potential product." And I'm like, "How do you know how to create a product?" She's like, "Well, because I've been with you for 17, 18 years."

The key thing is: define your boundaries, allow osmosis, and then don't hold on. Don't make your entire ego around "I'm the sales and marketing guy" or "I'm the product management guy." Because then if your partner comes in and says, "I've got a great idea," your instincts go, "No, no, no — stick to your lane." But if you've got a great relationship and a great working relationship, you're like, "Cool. Tell me." And you're a bit like, "I wish I'd thought of that, but God, I'm glad one of us did."

One of the best things we did in terms of trying to separate work and life — we're not always very good at it — but one thing we've consistently done for the last five years is every evening, if we're just sat chilling out, Al will say (or I will say), "Are you okay to talk about work?" And it's absolutely fine for the other person to go, "No, can we talk about it tomorrow?" Yep, no worries. If it's out of hours, you need to ask permission — and if permission isn't granted, that's okay.

Meghan: So you're like, "We're gonna do a podcast." And at the moment I came on your show, it was the #1 management show in the UK. I'm sure that just happened overnight — just super easy success, like it was just luck. How did you actually do that? Especially for baby podcasters such as myself who are dreaming of one day having a full-time podcast and getting paid to do this thing that we love — I'm asking for all the other podcasters, not myself. I'm totally asking for myself.

How do you stick with it at the beginning, in the building stages, when you have a story of how much momentum you "should" have and all the things you "should" be doing — and actually get to a place where you have significant numbers and are making a serious impact?

Al: Can I take this for a second? First of all, if you ask us how we grew from zero to where we are now — six figures — we have no fricking idea. We've got guesses. But there's a famous quote: "I know that 10 of my advertising dollars out of a hundred work very well. I just don't know which 10." I think it's kind of that. So we just threw a lot of the proverbial at the wall. Some of it stuck.

Leanne is phenomenal on LinkedIn — that's one thing that really helped. There's lots more we can do. We should be clipping more. We should be posting more.

What I can say categorically is that the majority of baby podcasters (using your words — I'm not being provocative) get to episode 30 and go, "It's not working, let's not do it." Our first podcast, we got to episode 120 and nobody was listening. We got like 20,000 listeners in total over three years. But we LOVED having our podcast. We loved doing it. I'll be honest, probably a full 60 of those episodes, we were quite drunk. But we really enjoyed the medium and we built and honed our craft.

Just to be clear, our first podcast was about travel when we were nomading. It wasn't that we were talking about serious business stuff — a couple of bottles of wine, talking about travel.

Leanne: One bottle of wine. Let's tone that down.

Al: With the second one, one of the things that kept us going was that very early on, I applied for the HubSpot podcast network. It's kind of like VC where you get like a seed round, a Series A, and so on. I was exuberant and cocky, and I jumped on the website and applied. To my surprise, they replied — and it wasn't the reply I was expecting, which was going to have profanity. They said, "Yeah, we'd like to talk to you more about this." We chatted more and more. We went on maybe about episode nine.

That's what kept us going. We had to do it, because we were contracted to. We probably would have kept doing it — but I can't imagine we would have tried to make it better every single episode. Whereas genuinely from episode 20, we've looked at every single facet of it. We want every episode to be 1% better than the previous one. That's what drives us.

Also — the way we talk on microphone is the way we talk in real life. That's what people say when they meet us: "You're just exactly the same as you sound on the pod." We're like, "Yeah — because we enjoy doing it." This is not, "Oh my God, I'm going to sit down, record a pod, I hate my own voice, editing is so much work." The fact is: you've got to fall in love with the medium.

If you hate it, it's like writing blogs. People who don't like writing blogs, you're not going to stick at it. You absolutely have to love it. You need the consistency. You need the momentum.

Not everyone is going to be able to just apply to a network and get on to get the initial funding, accountability, support, and mentoring. We were very fortunate to get that so early. But what you CAN replicate is accountability. Partner up with other podcasters trying to build a show and commit to the schedule.

Network is so important. Just talk to anyone who loves podcasting or wants to be on podcasting — they'll share your podcast with everybody. One thing that worked really well for us was in-person events. We did three in-person events over 12 months where we literally turned up with a pod and recorded from there. I'm not exaggerating when I say each event doubled our numbers — because so many eyes in our audience. It was wellbeing shows, people and culture shows. They were our audience, watching our people do what we do in real life. That made a huge difference.

Leanne: But the reality is we love it. We have so much fun doing it. And it's really, really fricking hard. There are as many days we don't want to do it as we do. When you're 310 episodes in, it gets a little relentless. But you've got to find that joy, and you've got to find the conversation you're excited about.

Meghan: The thing about your show is: there's research and real-world experience. There's business acumen where you're getting insights, and there's humor and warmth and quirkiness and playfulness. I feel like it speaks to the broader theme I see from both of you, which is simply letting the old playbook go — this idea that business has to be serious. And there's the old paradigm story that you need to have a stable job and live in the same place, blah blah blah. And you all haven't done that either.

So this goes all the way back to your childhood. What was the story of success you were handed as a child? How has it evolved to present day, and why?

Leanne: Oh man. I think I have clear ones actually. Two things: I was the youngest of three girls. My dad was born in Liverpool in England to Irish Catholic parents who got divorced. He came from a very poor upbringing, with a lot of judgment at the time — solo parent family, Catholic Irish, there's a lot in there. So he worked really hard to get an apprenticeship, get himself to university, become an electrical engineer.

I always say my dad is the first feminist I ever met. He was like, "I've got three girls, and you can do whatever you want. You don't need to rely on a man. You don't need to rely on anybody. You pick your profession, you work hard, you make sure you can stand on your own two feet." And his belief was that education was behind that. So education was important. We were expected to go to school, to university, to pick a profession. And we all did. My eldest sister is a head teacher, my middle sister is a chartered accountant, I'm a psychologist. Education was baked in as a lever of success.

The second thing: there's a bit of an age gap between me and my sisters. Before I was born, my family spent five years living in Saudi Arabia, where my dad worked as an electrical engineer. The stories I heard from that and the adventures they had living abroad — that was something I always wanted to do. That was another pillar of success for me: being able to work abroad and take your life somewhere else while building your career.

Those are the two things from my childhood I took with me. What were yours?

Al: Similar kind of thing with education — my parents were pushing me. Well, I say pushing — encouraging me to become a teacher. This was the early 90s. I did my GCSEs (which is like year 11, kind of like freshman year in the US — about 16 years old). I did all right in them. And they said, "Right, you're going to be a teacher." I was like, "Okay." They said, "Go and do these A-levels."

So I did four A-levels and I failed three of them and got an E in maths. So I was going to be a maths teacher, because that's the only level I passed. I scraped into university in the North, and they were like, "Okay, yeah, I suppose you can come in."

And I remember distinctly — I was sitting in front of the deputy headmaster. I must have been 19 on my first teaching practice. We were in a school, doing eight weeks teaching practice. And the deputy master says, "If you work as hard as you seem to be working right now, then in about 20 years time you can be sitting in my seat and you can be earning upwards of 28,000 pounds a year."

And I sat there and I went — fuck this.

Meghan: (laughing) Hard pass.

Al: There's got to be a better life than that. And I hate kids as well. So I was like, yeah, let's not do that. I blew it all up, left university, went into sales for like three years — door-to-door, phone sales, all that kind of stuff. Started a business, went well, didn't go well, went bankrupt. That story is on the episode you referenced when we first chatted. But basically I was like, "No — I'm not having that kind of life. Thank you very much."

Meghan: Were there any stories that you were handed as children, adolescents, that you had to let go of — or that held you back from actually living into the life you have right now?

Al: Yes. I want to be really careful when I say this — I'm not blaming anyone in my family. But we came from a family where it was forbidden to talk about money, particularly at the dining table. It was rude to ask how much someone earned. Money was something nobody ever talked about. And I have to be honest — that's something I rebelled so hard against, and went way too far the other way. Because that story of "money is dirty" — I had to work with, like…

I read something — I'm sure it was Norman Vincent Peale or Jim Rohn or Tony Robbins — where they said, look at how the people around you describe money. They say, "He or she is filthy rich." They say, "Money is the root of all evil," when the quote is actually "the love of money is the root of all evil." There's resentment, all that — and you have to let it all go.

Deepak Chopra, I think, said that money is like a river. As soon as you try to keep it, it stagnates and damages the entire cash fund. But if it's like a river where you can dip in anytime you want, take as much as you want, then it's cool. So that's why: when you get money, spend money, give it away. Don't feel like it's something you're never going to get again.

That was really freaking tough. Took me 10 years of reading all these wanky self-help books to understand and change my language and thoughts around it. I don't blame my parents — that's just the way stories are handed down. But that was mine.

Leanne: I was pretty fortunate, actually, as the youngest. By the time it got to me, my parents were like, whatever — as long as you go to university, you're cool. So probably the only thing was around having a family. I guess I — I'm an old millennial, I'm 41 — I always assumed I was gonna have kids. Go to school, to uni, get a job, have children, maybe go back to work part-time, or try to figure out that dynamic. And as I got older, I was waiting for that desire to kick in — "I'm ready to have kids, I want to have kids now."

And it never really did.

I felt really uncomfortable, probably from age 28 to 35, when it's like — this is the time — and it never kicked in. I remember driving to see my friend, and my mom was with me, and my friend had just had a baby. My mom just said to me, "Do you ever think you'll have children?" And at that point, I was probably about 35. I said, "I've been waiting for that feeling to kick in — that maternal feeling — and it just hasn't happened." And she said, "That's okay."

I think that was a moment where I said, "Okay, maybe it IS okay. All right then." Since then, it's just been something that isn't going to be a part of my life. At this point, I don't think it was ever meant to be. But when I was younger, I guess I assumed — or felt pressured — that it should be.

Meghan: Sometimes it's the stories where we need someone else to just say "that's okay." And sometimes it's ourselves who need to say that's okay for you to just do the thing that you want to do. Where do you live currently?

Leanne: Bosnia and Herzegovina, near Croatia.

Meghan: Every time I talk to you, you're in a different place. Do you feel like you've had to give yourselves permission to do this? Or has it ever been something you've worried about?

Al: I'm not sure I've ever worried about that. Have you? What I've worried about is that a lot of our friends will describe our life as, "It sounds amazing. I mean, it's not for me." And that is a very odd thing to hear — someone go, "Well, it clearly sounds cool. Not for me." It took me a long while to realize that they were essentially closing that door so they didn't feel like they were missing out. That's my interpretation.

This is typical white male privilege, isn't it? Deciding how other people are thinking. But this is what I was thinking — that potentially that's what they're doing. Just like I've probably done the same with children. I've gone, "It's not for me," because then I don't need to worry about it anymore, don't need to regret it. I'd rather regret not having children than regret having them. So — okay, cool.

I suppose the bit that did bother me at first was — I was one of those ex-pat idiots who'd come back and be like, "I forgot the name for this. What is it? I knew the Spanish word for it." I was trying to make it work too hard. So I was a bit unbearable.

Leanne: I think during that time — maybe it was my context — I was working for Fleur, and the MD and her husband were in business together and working remotely and traveled. Members of the team traveled and lived in different places. So I was in an environment where lots of people were doing it. It didn't feel like I was very unique in that. Within our friendship group, yes — but not in terms of people in my work world.

Meghan: How is your livelihood made up right now? Are you working full-time? What does a typical day or week look like?

Al: When we first started doing the pod, we were doing 30 hours each a week on the podcast. I had Final Cut Pro up with side chains, adding effects, cutting everything. We've realized there's an 80-20 to that, and we've managed to get it down to probably 10 to 15 hours each week. Typically Monday and Tuesday are podcast days — we record, we do two episodes a week, so we record those, prep whatever we need for the coming week. We'll maybe do two to three interviews a week. So it's part-time, the podcast.

Leanne: Consultancy rolls in and rolls out as the nature of any consultancy or freelancer will know. Sometimes it's busy, sometimes it's not. The key thing for us in that downtime is constantly thinking about three things:

One — how do we improve the podcast? How do we continue to innovate it and make it interesting so people still listen? What formats are getting tired? How do we appeal to a broader audience? Do we go back to video? All these big questions. We probably spend as much time talking about podcasts as we do creating it, in terms of how we can make it better, who we want on as guests, what we want to be talking about. That includes a lot of research and reading what's happening in the news and the world of work.

The second thing is products for our consultancy clients. We have our own employee engagement product that we've had for a while. We're currently developing a management training product, which has been taking up some of our time.

The third thing, if I'm being honest, is around life planning. How and where do we want to live is a fair conversation we have most weeks — especially when you live abroad and you're battling with visas and the Foreign Office doesn't know and you have to leave the country for three months and go to Bulgaria. Some of our choices and our working week is filled up with, "How do we stay in this country we're currently in?"

That's how our time is split. And being completely transparent financially — right now, the majority comes from the podcast.

Meghan: That's a dream. One thing you mentioned on the podcast I listened to — I'll put it in the show notes — was that you see the show as a vehicle for highlighting other people and celebrating them and making them look good. I feel like this is a common thread throughout a lot of what I've heard both of you talking about, all the way from the Samaritans through where we are today — which is helping other people.

It's part of a transition I advocate for — moving from transactional to relational, being of service to people and not trying to squeeze the most out of everyone you meet. For the humans out there who want to push back and say, "Well, you could get more out of those relationships" — how do we help people understand the profound beauty and value of being relational instead of transactional?

Al: First of all — read your book, because your story around the magazine you built, everything you've done — it just seems so relational.

I think a lot of people are self-centered — because that's the nature of being human. You have to look out for yourself. But if you can start to expand away from that and go, "Right — I'm going to be okay if I can help as many other people be okay as possible," magical things happen. That quote I keep saying and cringing every time — something like, "The quickest way to get what you want is to help other people get what they want."

Think about sales. Demonstrate you can help someone by actually helping them. If I went to you and you said, "I want to grow my pod," and I said, "Tell you what — have a look at your analytics next week," and suddenly you had an extra 5,000 listeners and I said, "I did that. Do you want to give me five grand a month and I'll get you another 10,000?" — you may or may not say yes, but you're certainly not going to tell me to go away. You're going to consider it. Because I've helped you. I've demonstrated I can help you BY actually helping you.

I feel like I've gone a little bit 70s hippie here — we should be passing around a wet cigarette. Lee, can you put a little skin on those bones?

Leanne: A mantra Al and I have is: nothing is wasted. Even when you find yourself doing work on something you're not really getting paid for — or not very much for — and it's taking more of your time, our mantra is: nothing is wasted. Because we're learning something. We're making a connection.

There have been so many examples where later down the line, by nurturing that relationship, by giving that time to somebody, it has come back — in terms of either a paid job, or a connection to somebody else who becomes a client, or just the opportunity to have conversations with people who feed you, especially in times like this. Even in the bad times, nothing is wasted.

I'm a big fan of positive psychology, and I can get a little bit woo with it. I don't get woo often — but I do with this. Because you have to train yourself to be positive. You have to train yourself to be grateful. And you have to train yourself, through that, to be resilient.

Like I joked before about getting kicked out of Bosnia and having to move to Bulgaria for three months — we did that last summer, and we had two days notice to uproot our entire life in a house we'd rented for nine months and wouldn't get the money back for. We had to find somewhere.

Three years before that, when we were nomading, we were in Bulgaria with a guy called Nico — lovely, a bit chaotic, a bit crazy. I loved him. Describe him as a toddler with wine — and a helicopter. Crazy guy. We put our time in with him. We really enjoyed spending time with him — though I think he enjoyed spending time with us more than we did with him at times. But we welcomed him in and kept that relationship going.

So when this happened to us — and we hadn't seen him for three or four years — we messaged him: "Nico, bit of a pickle, we need to leave the country. Any chance we can stay in that house you rented to us six years ago?" He's like, "Yeah, of course you can. See you in a week."

There are always things you're going to come back to when you need help. If you've helped somebody, if you're paying it forward — it sounds so cheesy — but it's just the way humanity works. It's almost like a bank account. If I've paid into somebody's bank account with goodwill and helping them over the years, when they need to make a withdrawal, they're much more likely to be there to help me. And that's how the world should work.

Al: I like that. So you're saying: pay into your bank account before you try to make a withdrawal, or they should be overdrawn on goodwill. That should be a book.

Leanne: I think it probably is. I think I stole it from somebody else.

Al: Also, just a really quick practical thing for your listeners: if anyone's considering creating a podcast, or already has a nascent one — stop making it about you and getting your name out there. Make it about getting other people. The number of people who — you can email them and they're like your Level 4 and they're Level 100, and you go, "Would you like to come on the podcast?" And they go, "Sure." And you're like, "How the hell am I speaking to this person I've been worshipping my entire life?" You're obviously nodding. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Meghan: I mean — I was 29 years old and I sent a cold email to John Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods, and said, "Do you want to be on the cover of my business magazine? PS, it doesn't even exist yet. I'm gonna crowdfund it this summer." And he was like, "Sure." And I was like, "Okay. Cool cool cool cool." And then I had to do it. And then he was on the cover of the damn magazine — and that's how we got into every Whole Foods in the country.

Meghan: Speaking of helping people — you all take lots of people's questions in your workplace surgery segment. What are some of the patterns or trends you're seeing in 2026 that feel different than the last couple of years?

Leanne: Fear around AI. And I mean fear — it's not stress, it's not insecurity, it's fear. The livelihoods, the professions, the identities people have built over decades being taken away by something we don't quite know. I think that's been a big shift.

More nuanced — a couple of years ago, talking about wellbeing and DEI was a very positive space to be. Now, wellbeing has become a bit of a buzzword. DEI — the pushback is brutal. People are feeling that. We had one recently about somebody whose DEI programs were being rolled back and values being changed on the website and how do they respond?

A lot around identity. Before, work was part of our identity — with things wrapped up in that, especially around burnout, which could be very difficult for entrepreneurs to deal with. But in terms of threats to identity, a depth I've not seen in my career.

Al: I'd add to that — the polarization that's happened. It happened on social media. Now it's happening at work, where people ask, "I'm now working for a boomer. How am I supposed to deal with a boomer, because I'm a Gen Z?" And it's like — you probably have grandparents. How do you deal with them? You have to go over and reset their router, replace the batteries in the remote control. But otherwise, you know how to talk to them.

Why are we making it all about "them and us"? That's one of the things that's so sad about the DEI stuff — DEI was meant to bring us together. Now it seems like, "They're the kind of company that does DEI, but we're not, because we are smart." And then you see it all like — you know, that man, are you against that man? Are you this? Are you that? Boomers versus this? Pick a side.

People say, "Stop being sheep." It's like — hold on a minute. Sheep is lovely. Sheep is how we existed for 10,000 years — as an entire herd of people, of organizations. That's how we protected ourselves. Now we're going, "Well, Europe's crap because they do this," and then Europe's going, "Yeah, but if we break our leg, it doesn't cost us anything, does it?" Wait — aren't we all just nice people trying to get along in the world and do the best with what we've got?

That's where we get most of our — we don't get trolled very often, unless we mention certain words. The T word. Every time — trolled. Even if it's just been passing.

Leanne: For engagement, though.

Al: Yeah, it's good for engagement.

Leanne: But we get trolled on things we more recently — anything around diversity, inclusion, belonging. We did an episode on transgender rights. My goodness — the comments we had on that episode. Between 2022 and 2024, we would talk about these things openly and people would be supportive, would comment, share. Now all of those topics have become — you're absolutely right — points of divide. People just want to stamp where they stand. And it's a bit frightening.

Meghan: How do you deal with the trolls?

Al: First of all — when we start getting trolls, it means we're getting attention. It means we've probably made it. Yeah, no — we don't mean like "made it," but you know what I mean. The opposite of love isn't hate — it's ambivalence. So we're still on the spectrum of love and hate. We're on that side. People care enough to sit there and go, "I'm going to write to these very strange English people and tell them the man has got a face like a melted candle."

Leanne: The only trolls I ever rise to are the ones who question the evidence. If it's a point of opinion — that's fine. Unless it's discrimination or hatred. Then you're not welcome here. I think I've only ever deleted a handful of comments, and most of those were on the transgender episode — because they just don't need to be in the world and our guests don't need to see that. But it's around the evidence.

So I get into arguments with people who — like, I'll talk about diverse teams and how diverse thinking and demographic diversity can also be good for team performance. And someone was like, "Cite your source." And I was like — fair. I didn't mention my source. Here you go. Hold my beer.

Meghan: Yep. Receipt, receipt, receipt.

Leanne: Exactly. So that's how I push back — with evidence. Otherwise, it's people's opinions. Unless it's discrimination or hatred, which we just delete and remove. As Al said — let them go. It's engagement. They tend to tie themselves in knots more than we do. They don't need our intervention most of the time.

Also, Meghan — you probably notice this yourself. I know you're nowhere near as old as us, but when you get a little older, you're sort of like, "I don't really care what you think, if the truth be told." If I know you, I still probably don't care much about what you think about me. But if I don't know you? I couldn't give a shiny shite.

Al: I saw Tom Holland — I'm not a big fan, but I don't dislike the guy, I don't know him — he was on Instagram and somebody asked him about handling criticism. He said, "If somebody says something bad about me, my only concern is: have they got my phone number? If they've got my phone number, then they should really be talking to me and saying, 'That's my face.' If they've not — I don't know them, whatever." I think that's kind of how, when you're creating content and putting stuff out into the world, it needs to be about — I don't know you, whatever.

Meghan: Also, Leanne and I are exactly the same age. So I just got into the "genuinely couldn't give two shits" stage. And it is glorious and wonderful.

Meghan: All right, we have our rapid-fire round. Truth, lies, work. Hardest truth you've ever had to come to terms with.

Al: You're not that important. When I got my first management job, my HR director sat me down and went, "Just because you're a manager doesn't mean you're that important. You're not that important. You're disposable if you don't do a good job." He was right. Brutal, but right.

Leanne: Wow. That is so much better than mine. Mine's really cheesy — money doesn't make you happy. The lack of money doesn't make you happy. Yeah. I'm going to leave it there. There's so many tones on that I don't need to go into.

Meghan: Okay. The biggest lie you've ever been told. Or the best lie you've ever told. We both look at Al.

Al: Okay — biggest lie I ever told, Meghan, was that I was running a legal off-license that delivered alcohol. When in actual fact, what I'd done is basically ordered everything for every single person in the world and printed out an order sheet. I had literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper. So if the police came in and said, "Why did Meghan order three bottles of wine?" I'd go, "Give me a minute, I'll go find it." And I proved it. That's probably the biggest lie I've ever told.

Meghan: This was to get around licensing restrictions.

Al: Sorry — yes, I should have given that context. That's also very niche because that's English licensing law from like 2001. Who cares about that? The point is, the licensing man said no. And I went, "Hold my beer. I will print out every possible order should I ever get audited." If you can imagine me as a much more British, not as good-looking, slightly less cool Mike Ross from Suits — that was my role in that business.

Leanne: I'm not sure anyone told me this, but I think it's a lie that I believed to be a thing — that psychologists have to be very professional and put-together and speak well and not swear and remember the big words and present themselves to the world in an Oxford, Cambridge, Ivy League way. I've learned very recently that that's a lie. People want authenticity — how it is. And I don't use the big words, because I can't remember them. And I'm from the north of England, so I don't sound posh and fancy. But hopefully I can talk about psychology in a way that makes sense to people who aren't psychologists.

Meghan: Most outdated work norm or practice that you wish people would change.

Leanne: Myers-Briggs. Myers-Briggs. Please, for the love of everything in the world — can we put Myers-Briggs in the bin already, please?

Al: Yes, I think you know what Leanne feels about that. I would probably say the whole return-to-office thing — where offices in certain cases do make a big difference, if you're in a very creative environment where you need to be around people. Mad Men, for example, wouldn't have worked if they all worked at home.

Meghan: If you were to give people a permission slip to unbehave around anything — a societal script, a workplace script, whatever — what is the permission slip you wish you could give people to stop behaving in one certain way?

Leanne: Stop behaving in the way you think other people expect. Whether it's in your life, your career, where you live, how you work, what you do. Stop trying to make decisions based on what you think other people think is right or is the norm. So — you have my permission slip: make decisions based on what YOU want and what works for you and your values and the way you want to live. Do that.

Al: Wow. I cannot beat that. So I'm just going to add the tiny thing of — if you say, "I'm going to go and live in [not Bali, but] Lombok, or something. I'm going to go for nine months to Germany," and the voice that tells you you're wrong and it's a stupid idea — try and identify whose voice that is. Because if that's your parents, that's your grandparents, that's a friend — that's probably the person who's holding you back the most.

Permission to pursue the stupid ideas.

Meghan: Look at that mic drop.

Meghan: We've mentioned the podcast many times. Where do people find you? How do people best support you?

Al: Basically just search online — Truth, Lies and Work. We come up any way you look. The website's truthliesandwork.com. Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, search for Truth, Lies and Work. And more importantly — go search for Leanne Elliott on LinkedIn, because she is the LinkedIn queen. She responds to every single comment, good or bad. Don't search for me. Eventually, it sometimes takes me a little while — but that's where you should go.

Meghan: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Al & Leanne: Thank you so much for having me. Amazing questions. We love you so much. We do love you so much.

Meghan: I love you guys.

[Meghan — Outro / Unbehaved Lessons of the Day]

Alright, my friend — before I sign off for the day, here are my key Unbehaved Lessons that I took away from today's episode.

Number one: sometimes that "fuck this" moment is the most important career decision you're ever gonna make. Al's moment sitting in front of the deputy headmaster at age 19, hearing about his £28,000 future and firmly saying "nope," is pretty much the seed of what he and Leanne have built — the ability to listen to that voice inside of you that pushes back and tells you something is wrong or not for you, no matter what you feel like you should be doing.

Number two: authenticity is the name of the game. Al put it best: "The way we talk on the microphone is the way we talk in real life." That's what draws people to their show. Every attempt to manufacture a more professional version of yourself is a barrier between you and the people who would actually resonate with you. This is how they built the UK's #1 management podcast — by refusing to sound like every other management podcast out there. Leanne's closing line speaks to this as well: "Stop behaving in the way you think other people expect. Make decisions based on what YOU want, what works for you, and your values." That IS authenticity. It's the whole shift. Every big decision that changed their lives came from letting go of seeking external approval.

Number three: true success is built on being relational instead of transactional. Leanne talking about how nothing is wasted, especially when it's in service of other people or helping someone else — you never know when it's gonna come back around. Think of it as paying into that bank account with goodwill. Every relationship you nurture without expectation of return compounds and creates a better future for you AND the other person you're helping.

Number four: when you're in the trenches building something new and it starts to feel hard — the key steps they brought up were: fall in love with what you're doing, make sure you're having fun, strive for continual improvement (just getting 1% better each time), and do it your own way.

That's all for today. If you liked the episode, maybe share it with someone who needs it. And check out Truth, Lies and Work and Unbehaved on any major podcast platform. And maybe even subscribe or write something nice. It would make my entire damn day.

Until next time.

Deb Liu — former CEO of Ancestry, creator of Facebook Marketplace, and a household name in the tech industry — spent decades being underestimated in every room she walked into.

In this episode of Unbehaved, she shares exactly how she unlearned the "play small, stay safe" survival strategy that shaped her early career, and the deliberate practices she used to become a leader who now owns the room.

If you've ever been talked over in a meeting, struggled to speak up for yourself, or watched someone else get credit for your idea, this episode is for you.

Deb Liu is the author of Take Back Your Power and is currently writing her next book about navigating career and life transitions. Her companion Substack piece for this episode dropped today at debliu.substack.com.

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"I made myself smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter over the years. I just thought — if I just play along, it's going to be okay."

"You outgrow the systems of coping that you have and then they actually work against you."

"I said, well, I'm an introvert, I can't do that. Right? So you're playing against yourself. Instead, I said — I'm going to treat this like a skill, like learning pickleball or playing piano or learning a foreign language."

"The secret bias no one talks about is that those who speak the fastest, speak the most, and show up are given disproportionate influence."

"If we never make it awkward, if we never raise our hand and say actually — then we're doing a disservice to everyone who comes after. Because no one updates their priors."

"It's not for you. It's not self-advocacy, it's not self-promotion. It is paying it forward to the next generation of people who would otherwise be in the same situation."

"Every woman in America has a 13% lifetime chance of getting diagnosed with breast cancer. That is one in eight. Catching it a year or two early can make the difference between a very complicated outcome and a very good outcome."

"I never let myself sit in the silence. And that's where you find who you really are — in that uncomfortable space."

"Often the stories we tell ourselves are the wrong version. And then that affects our behavior in a negative way. I give you the permission to rewrite the story."

00:00 — Cold open: "I made myself smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter"

00:30 — Welcome + episode setup

02:15 — Growing up in South Carolina: the only Chinese family in town 04:00 — What Deb tells her own children about belonging

04:35 — When "playing small" starts holding you back 06:30 — Extroversion as a skill: the pickleball framework

08:45 — The Secret Bias No One Talks About

09:30 — Money 2020: the "Make It Awkward" pact

11:15 — When the CEO across the table doesn't realize you're the buyer

12:45 — Supreme Court research on female justices being interrupted

15:10 — Why staying silent is a disservice to the next woman in the room

16:00 — Reframing self-advocacy as an act of generosity

18:10 — Coming from betterment, not anger

19:50 — The moment Deb was mistaken for the assistant — as CEO of Ancestry

21:15 — The breast cancer diagnosis and why Deb chose to share it

23:40 — "Drawing the Cancer Card" — 100K LinkedIn reactions and the ripple effect

25:20 — Leaving Ancestry while going through cancer treatment

27:15 — The origin of the Blank Name Tag Club

28:45 — Why the unmooring is the whole point

30:35 — Sitting in the silence: why you don't need to sprint to the next thing

32:00 — Writing a mother-daughter column with her 17-year-old

34:00 — The moving story: kids and grief and why they wouldn't pack

35:45 — What matters most to Deb right now

37:20 — The permission slip: rewrite the story before it rewrites you

39:20 — Where to find Deb 

Companion Substack pieces :

Lightly edited for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Deb's and Meghan's voices preserved throughout.

Meghan French Dunbar: All right, Deb. So you and I met in September through TEDx San Diego — we were in the same speaker cohort. You gave an incredible talk that I still think about to this day about owning your awkward. Let's Make It Awkward. We're going to get into that. But the thing I want to start with is the origin story — growing up in the South and the ways you learned how to be safe and protect yourself by staying small. Can you take us there? Help us understand where the story came from.

Deborah Liu: Yeah. I was born in New York City. My parents were immigrants — they'd come to the US for college, met here, and we lived in Queens. And then, inexplicably, when I was six years old, my parents decided to move to South Carolina. I later found out it was because my dad was being discriminated against at work, and his friend and colleague had moved south and worked for the government and said, I can get you a job with the US government.

It turned out they were the only Indian family and we were the only Chinese family in the town we moved to. You can only imagine the shock of growing up in a place like that. It was just being so different. I kept playing small because I thought, if people just don't see me, maybe they'll stop making comments. People would walk up to my parents in the street or the mall and say, go back to where you came from. It was a very different place. At the time it was maybe half a percent Asian — less than one percent. We were like aliens that had landed on a different planet.

I just remember feeling like I need to hide, and no one would comment. So I made myself smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter over the years. I just thought — if I just play along, it's going to be okay.

Meghan: And was that behavior something you just picked up, or was that what you were told to do by your parents?

Deb: My parents said, just ignore them. They're just ignorant. They lived an American dream that was really hard for me to reconcile. They came from Hong Kong, where it was very crowded, and here they had a big house with a big yard. For them, the price of the American dream was just not belonging — and that was okay.

I really struggled with that because I was like, I was born in America. I'm just as American as any of these kids. Why am I seen as a foreigner? The forever outsider, the forever foreigner — it was such a piece of who I was growing up. And it was so hard for me to reconcile. So they just said, ignore them, just don't pay attention. And I tried to do that. But it's not like people are silent because you're quieter. I realized that strategy was just not working — but I didn't know what else to do.

Meghan: I'm curious about your own children — we were just talking about them. It's a very different day and age, but I assume they've experienced some level of exclusion, whether based on marginalized identity or something else. What do you say to them versus what your parents told you?

Deb: What's really interesting is I live in the Bay Area now, and my kids go to a high school that's 40% Asian, 40% white, and 20% everybody else. So they live a very different life. My daughter, we were at a couple of events recently, and she said, I experienced what you experienced growing up for the first time — where I felt like I didn't belong.

She's 17. She graduated from high school yesterday. She said, I never experienced this once in my entire life. Now I understand what you're talking about. And I said, it took you 17 years to experience this. So in a lot of ways it's a blessing that she didn't have to go through it — but it's super interesting because when we explain what it felt like, my husband and I both grew up in the South (he's Chinese too, from North Carolina). Being the forever foreigner was just a part of who we were.

And my kids say, we've never felt this before. It's just so interesting to see how demographics change over time. They can't even imagine when I describe what it was like growing up.

Meghan: So this stay-small, play-it-safe, protect-yourself, put-your-head-down strategy — I understand how scary it would be as a child in that situation. And as you're growing in your career, at some point it turns from a way to stay safe to something that I'm assuming held you back, despite your incredible success. How did that conditioning inform your career, and how did it hold you back?

Deb: Well, things work until they don't work. You outgrow the systems of coping that you have and then they actually work against you. The quote is what gets you here won't get you to the next place. And I absolutely experienced that.

Playing small is great when you're in school and there's objective criteria — you take the test, you get the A, you go to college. I studied engineering, so you didn't have to participate. Then I got into consulting and I was like — I never got the highest rating, and objectively I'm pretty good at what I do. So I went to one of the partners, and he said, you're kind of bad at the client part of client service. It's really about talking and engaging with the client. It's not the analysis.

I realized I was playing it small. Then I got to business school, and class participation is 30 to 50% of your grade. I thought, yeah, this is going to be difficult. I had to really figure out — how do you change everything about yourself that's worked for you and protected you for so long?

Even when I got to tech, there were very few women in the spaces I was working in. So again, you feel like safety is in keeping your head down — when actually, having influence means speaking up. It was that dynamic tension I spent a long time with.

Meghan: Was there anything you can pinpoint that helped you let go of these things that had served you? You said it took a long time to condition yourself in a new way. How did you do that?

Deb: Part of it was I have this thing where I believe everything is a skill to be learned. In America there's research that says 30% of teachers think they're bad at math. My parents told me — no, in Asian schools, there's no such thing as bad at math. They just aren't trying hard enough. And I did research it, and they were right. If you didn't understand math, it's because you didn't try hard enough and you need more help. Not that you were naturally bad at it.

I have this rule about everything: you can learn everything if you try hard enough. You're not going to be the best at it. I have to say — foreign languages is not my thing. Music: seven years of piano lessons, and I can kind of play the piano. But it is a skill to be honed.

I realized that treating speaking up, having influence, being more extroverted — that was a skill I had to learn. I had to figure it out because I wrote this article called The Secret Bias No One Talks About. And the secret bias is that those who speak the fastest, speak the most, and show up are given disproportionate influence. How many times, as an executive, does the person who speaks first and loudest take up all the oxygen in the room? Who's that going to be? It wasn't going to be me.

So often we have this desire to have influence, and yet we say — well, I'm an introvert, I can't do that. Right? So you're playing against yourself. Instead, what I said was — I'm going to figure out, if I treated this like a skill, like learning pickleball or playing piano or learning a foreign language, what is the skill I need and how do I get there? I broke it down like a problem to be solved. I'm an engineer by training. These are solvable problems.

Nowadays I get a lot of people saying, well, I wish I could do what you do, but I'm an introvert. I'm like, actually — right?

Meghan: I love this. One of the things I wrote about in the book is how I used to be so conflict avoidant that it erred on the side of dishonesty. I'd withhold truth from people because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. And I always told myself, I'm just not good at conflict. And I finally did the exact same thing — I said, I'm going to teach myself healthy conflict. I'm going to practice with people I trust. I'm going to do it small. It doesn't have to be tomorrow that I'm incredible at this. It's 2% better every day. Stacking these things on top of each other.

So hearing this — that this can be done from the lens of introversion to someone who can own a room — is something a lot of people need to hear. You talked in your TEDx about Money 2020. Can you help us understand that story? It's going to set up a lot of what comes next.

Deb: So I was the head of payments at Facebook for many years. I'd started at PayPal, so I'd been in payments for a while. I would go to Money 2020, which is the preeminent payments conference. I'd go with my head of partnerships. I was the head of product and engineering — basically the GM of the space. Usually the first day we'd walk the floor and talk to partners.

I noticed something. Whoever would meet us would greet us, and then slowly edge me out of the conversation. It went from a three-way conversation to a two-way conversation. I'd be standing awkwardly on the side, kind of nodding my head. Very awkward. I just wouldn't say anything. But I usually keynoted on the second day. And suddenly, once I keynoted, everyone would come up to me. Suddenly they wanted to talk to me because they felt I had influence. But before that, they'd just assumed I was the assistant.

I realized I never wanted to make it awkward. I remember telling the story to a bunch of folks at a Women in Product dinner and I said, I just don't want to make it awkward. And everyone was like, yeah. And then someone said — no. We're going to make a pact right here. We're going to make it awkward. Because if they're going to underestimate us, if they always assume we're the assistant or the more junior person, they will never change their priors. They will never break the stereotype if none of us ever say — actually, she's in charge.

One of the people I was very close to — this happened to me all the time. We were trying to acquire a company, and the CEO was sitting at the end of the table. He literally spent 20 out of 30 minutes speaking to my colleague. Finally, 20 minutes in, my colleague points to me and says, you know, she decides whether or not we buy your company, right? The CEO was so embarrassed. He'd looked us up beforehand. It wasn't a secret.

But it's just a natural inclination. I don't think that person was malicious or even wrong. In his mind, he's like — in a room like this, there's two people, I'm going to speak to the one I naturally have more rapport with, somebody who seems like the more natural leader. If he were playing the odds, he would be right.

But if we never make it awkward, if we never raise our hand and say actually — then are we doing a disservice to everyone who comes after? Because the assumption is that we're not the leader, and then nobody updates their priors.

Meghan: There's an element of self-advocacy for yourself in that. And there's also this — I don't know if it's a responsibility or a hope — that the other people in the room will advocate for you. But when you're often the quiet one, the person who's not owning the room, people can assume you don't need to be advocated for. Was that person someone who'd advocated for you before? And is there a way to help people in the office understand how to make it awkward for the people who are often marginalized?

Deb: He's always been an incredible ally. He's somebody I worked with and known for many years — he was on my team, and we had a great rapport. What was super interesting was that he even noticed. This happens a lot and people don't even notice.

At one point I was sitting in a room and there was a person who was presenting who didn't come up to the table — so they were sitting in the back because there were no more seats. Myself and this other woman offered our seats up because we noticed. There were only two women in the room. And somebody points out — wait, why are the two women the two who offered their seats up to this person who's presenting? Nobody else noticed.

I think a lot of women in particular are trained to be helpers. To look for opportunities to be helpful. Whereas others are just living their life, and I get it. I don't think anybody in that room did something wrong. But it's really that awareness that's missing often.

There was a study about Supreme Court justices where the women justices were interrupted more and spoke less. Right? These are people at the top of the legal game in America — nine of them — and yet they spoke way less. And to change that dynamic, they actually changed the rules where they now ask questions in order of seniority. And now they looked at the time each spent, and they all speak much more equally.

You think — the data wasn't missing. It's just no one looked at it. Somebody published a paper and said, this is what happened. And suddenly the hidden is revealed. You can change the system to make it more fair for everybody. It wasn't that the lesser justices had less to say. It was just that the dynamics of the room were structured that way. And it also brought forward some other justices — men — who didn't speak as much either.

So you think about those nine people who work together every day and are filmed. Now you see that data. What is happening in the quiet rooms where nobody is filming?

Meghan: An element of owning your awkward is that you're actually helping highlight and helping the people in the room be more aware of the dynamics at play. Whereas when you remain silent, they don't learn. If no one is ever showing them what's happening, they don't have the opportunity to understand what that looks like in a room.

I know you've been practicing owning your awkward after the Women in Product dinner. What does it actually look like? What are we saying? Especially as women — my experience has been that I'm supposed to prioritize everyone else's comfort over my own. And making other people uncomfortable is something I used to be incredibly uncomfortable with. As you're practicing that skill, what are some of the stories where you were owning your awkward for the first time? And how did it feel?

Deb: Well, being willing to make other people uncomfortable is something I was unwilling to do. Even people who would say really hostile and racist things to me — I didn't want to make anybody else uncomfortable.

Meghan: I understand why we're conditioned like that.

Deb: Yes. We're conditioned to be helpers. To play along, to be nice. And often when you play nice, you're actually not speaking up and changing things.

It's basically like getting into good trouble. There are times when the awkwardness will force people to re-evaluate all the assumptions they have. The goal is not to make them uncomfortable — the goal is to make them see a side of something they had never seen before.

I coach a lot of women, and one of the things I say is: you need to write your self-evaluation first. You need to amplify the work that you're doing. And the first response I often get is — I'm really bad at self-promotion. And the thing is, if you treat it as self-promotion, you're not going to do it because you see it as a negative.

What if I said — actually, sharing what you're doing is education. It's going to get your team more resources. It's going to get you more support. It's going to amplify the work you do within the company so you can access more resources to reach more customers. Suddenly you've changed the message.

The same is true of this. What if it's not for you? What if correcting the record that you're the CEO when someone underestimates you — or telling the story of that person who made you uncomfortable but apologized later — is actually for the next 20 women that man works with? It's not for you. It's not self-advocacy. It's not self-promotion. It is paying it forward to the next generation of people who would otherwise be in the same situation.

Meghan: I had this experience at a highly male-dominated conference while I was writing the book. I'm researching patriarchy and getting quite angry as I'm writing. I went to this conference — 85% men, 400-ish people — and I walked in like it was my singular mission to eradicate patriarchy with cutting remarks. I was coming at it from a place of anger and wanting to shame the men. And I walked out of that conference feeling pretty crappy about myself. That didn't feel good.

What I understood later was that when you come from anger and shame and wanting to be right — at least for me — it's not in alignment with my values. It's not my highest and best self. What I'm hearing you talk about here is coming from a place of educating people, of benevolence, of wanting things to be better instead of being frustrated and angry. When it comes from a place of betterment, it's more effective and feels a lot better.

You went all the way up to CEO of Ancestry. You had to really step into the limelight. How was that experience for you? What surprised you about sitting in the CEO chair?

Deb: The biggest thing is that a lot of being in the CEO chair is really channeling the organization and culture. That was super important to me — I really cared about it. Alignment of values is critical to me, and Ancestry is one of those really high value, high culture companies. I loved that about it.

I think the biggest challenge was — I shared this in the TEDx talk — we were having a conversation with a partner at a consulting firm we were hiring to do a project. When I introduced myself, they seemed visibly startled that I would be the CEO. My CFO was so deeply offended on my behalf. I realized you can reach a certain place — and I'm sure this person did the research before coming to the meeting, because we're paying him an unbelievable amount of money — and it still happens at all levels.

Whether it's the woman coming into a conference who feels like she doesn't belong, or the woman in the C-suite — let's normalize having women in the C-suite. If we normalize it more, it's a lot easier. For so long we just didn't say anything. That's why the whole make it awkward thing is really about forcing people to confront their biases, correct them, and then go forth so the next 20, 50, 100 people they work with aren't going to face the same thing.

Meghan: The public reason for leaving Ancestry was a breast cancer diagnosis. This is something you wrote about — which I feel like the status quo tells leaders we shouldn't share everything, we should be infallible. Many people don't talk openly about things like having breast cancer. What was the decision for you when you were leaving to just be open and transparent about what was going on?

Deb: Well, there were a number of reasons — but I think that put me over the edge. It was a challenging time. My mom had just passed away. She was in hospice at my house, and I'd traveled 24 weeks that year. It was just a lot. Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I'd just lost my in-laws too. We were building a house so we could live together. There was a lot happening in my life. I just realized I couldn't do one more thing. I couldn't get past that.

I basically shared this very openly because of the person who encouraged me to get a mammogram. My friend Mara Finley — for her 50th birthday, I asked her what she wanted because I was going to miss her party, and she said, I want you to get a mammogram. I'd never gotten a mammogram before. I was 47, 48. She said, just get a mammogram. She had had breast cancer at 48.

I got a mammogram and it was clean. Then the next year I missed her party again. She said, just get another mammogram. So I got another mammogram — kind of late. And immediately: you're getting a biopsy today. They moved me to a room, and I knew exactly what was happening at that moment.

I called Mara. I thanked her for helping me through this process. She said, the only thing I ask of you — tell everybody they need to get screening. You need to be really open about it because you have a platform. Lots of people hear from you. If you share this, it will encourage other people to get screening.

What was really fascinating was after I posted it — I wrote an article called Drawing the Cancer Card and posted on LinkedIn. A hundred thousand people liked it. And dozens and dozens of women reached out to me and said, I had been putting this off. I thought I was not at risk. People who had not scheduled their biopsy after a suspicious mammogram reached out. I was thinking, what are you doing?

I realized — I think everyone has every right to be private. But if we never share the story, how do people know? Every woman in America has a 13% lifetime chance of getting diagnosed with breast cancer. That's one in eight. And by the way, catching it a year or two early can make the difference between a very complicated outcome and a very good outcome. I happened to catch it super early, but it was very aggressive. They said my chances of recurrence were very high, so I needed to be much more aggressive in the radiation and everything.

The point is — if I had not listened to Mara, I would not be in the same situation. That's something I wish we were more open about. Because paying it forward to those 50, 60, 70 women who reached out to me — 13% of them will be diagnosed at some point. And if you can just get them in a year or two earlier, it makes all the difference.

Meghan: I love Mara. I'm literally scheduling my mammogram after we get off. I had my last one a year and a half ago — I need to do it again.

How was it to be contending with all these things and also making the decision to leave as CEO? That's so much to handle.

Deb: I left exactly at four years. I felt like I'd had an incredible experience there — wonderful company, great people, and I'm still in touch with a lot of them. So I felt like the end of that journey and the start of the next one happened, and it coincided with some personal things.

It also gave me the mental freedom to actually take the cancer journey — where you're not just trying to fit everything in between. It was pretty challenging. I'm on the other side of it now — a year and a few months out. I'm very fortunate to have a very supportive husband and the ability to get to the other side.

I don't know how people do this every day — dealing with health insurance, dealing with cancer, dealing with treatment while they're working. One of the things I hope for is that we have better treatment options for women. Our healthcare system fails a lot of people. I happen to have great health insurance — but if you don't, one of the things I hope for is a world where people don't have to worry about their job when they're getting surgery and radiation.

Meghan: You talking about this openly is essentially you owning your awkward on the largest platform. All the things you talk about — disrupting the status quo, raising awareness — happened on a massive scale. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for continuing to talk about it.

My experience leaving my teeny tiny company that I co-founded as CEO was that my sense of self-worth and identity was very wrapped up in the CEO title. It sounds like you had a lot of other things going on. I'm curious about the identity question — you've left Ancestry, you're starting this new journey. What surprised you about not having the CEO title any longer?

Deb: It's funny — after I left Ancestry, I had a party at my house for Women in Product. A friend of mine who had left Google after two decades was writing her name on her name tag, and she said, what do we put under our name? And then another woman who had also just left her job came in — she was on a health journey — and my friend said, hey, come join the Blank Name Tag Club.

So often our identity isn't just our name. It's the company we're associated with. Our role. Our title. All the accoutrements of modern society tied up in this. It's your LinkedIn profile. This is actually what prompted me to start writing my next book — which is about transitions.

It's almost — I call it the unmooring. You feel untethered. Somebody was describing this — she'd just left her company that she'd founded and sold, and she said, I just feel like I'm in the gray. I don't know what to do with myself. When she described that, I said — that's exactly the moment when you should do the journey of self-discovery of who you really are. Because she'd been tied to that company for so many years — almost a decade — and she was like, who am I without that? Without being the founder of this company?

But she's an incredible person who has interests and value beyond tying to that one company. We have so much of our self-identity tied to those things. What if that goes away?

If we can't sit with that — if we can't be the person who sits in the silence — then maybe we're doing the wrong things. Part of my book on transformation is about ending one chapter and starting the next one, and not just flipping the page and going to the next thing. I was one of those people — I graduated from school, I started my first job like a week later. I did all the things. Between jobs I would take the weekend off. I just kept going and going and going.

I realized — I never let myself sit in the silence. And that's where you find who you really are. In that uncomfortable space.

One of the things I encourage people — I have this worksheet I'm happy to share with your audience — is to actually take the moment and hit reset.

Meghan: Yes, please.

Deb: And by the way — for people who are laid off, it's even harder. It's not even your choice. When you're laid off, you're cut off from all your friends at work, all the communication. It's like getting your arm chopped off. What do you do with yourself the day after a layoff? You're literally doing a thing, and then — silence.

So I created this process, and I've given it to a lot of people. Hit the reset button and give yourself time to reflect before you rush into the next thing. Then reimagine — what did you like? What did you not like?

Too often — I was talking to a friend yesterday who'd been laid off after many years at a big tech company. She said, I'm starting to interview. I'm like — it's literally been four days. Do you really need another job? If you have the space, give yourself a little bit of grace and let yourself get to the other side.

Meghan: I've talked to a lot of people about this. I just talked to Deepa Purushothaman — she's an incredible author. Both of us — it took nearly two years to wade through this transitory period. My therapist called it the interstice. She said, you have to wade through it to get to the other side. There is no fast forward. But once you get to the other side, that's the place you want to be.

I was like — I hate it. I hate the gray. I hate the untethered. I've never been untethered because I'm a high achiever. I've always had my goals, my external motivation, the things that help me understand why I'm worthy and how to orient myself. Without it, I was completely lost. But it's one of the best times of my entire life in terms of what it's produced today.

Speaking of things produced in your transition — you have this column with your daughter, all about Asian Americans and high achievement and behaving. Which of course, un-behaving is my thing. Where did this come from? And what are some of the key learnings so far?

Deb: She started that column with her grandmother. She'd interviewed her grandmother for an essay contest, and she said, I want to turn this into a column. So she pitched her grandmother — my mother-in-law — who was very excited to do this. They started writing their first column, and she passed away suddenly.

She was like, do I give this up? What do I do? She said, maybe I can get you or dad to write with us. I thought she'd pick her dad. But she said, no, I want you to do this with me, mom. So we call it Tiger Mom and Her Cub.

It's about intergenerational — immigrant families have a very different dynamic. Asian American families have a very different dynamic. We talk about our views on dating. I said, I have the same rule my parents had for me — you cannot date anyone until your sophomore year in college. And she wrote a column about how actually high school relationships teach you something. And I'm like, I don't want you to date until your second year of college.

We often talk about difficult things. It's a form of therapy for us. She'll often say things in the column that I had no idea she was thinking. We walk the dog together every night and talk about the column, then she'll write something and I'll be completely surprised.

A lot of kids and parents read this together and tell us — I wish my kids would be this open. I say, I wish my kids would be this open too. But because she has to submit the column, she's way more open about sharing some of the challenges.

For example — my kids refused to move from our old house to our new house. They're adjacent — literally back to back. And they refused to pack. They refused to even go to the new house when we were building it. We asked them to pick colors for the room — they refused. It was like a filibuster in our house. And we could not figure out what was wrong.

My son played along and ended up going off to college before we moved in — he said, just move my stuff, I'll show up on the other side. But my girls just refused. Finally I wrote a column and said — this month we're going to talk about moving.

I basically had movers move the furniture and three loads of laundry, and left everything else in the old house. Then I said, why don't you come back and get the stuff you want? And finally I asked them — why don't you want to move?

And they said, because this is where we lived with our grandma. Their other grandmother — this is where she passed. And they were afraid they were going to lose all their memories of her. They would never tell me. My husband and I were like, why are they fighting us? They said they were worried because they'd spent their whole childhood in this one house. This is where we made all our memories with our family.

That was the first time she'd actually shared what she really thought. I asked my other daughter — the younger one — and she said, yeah, absolutely. She would literally go back with our dog to just sit on the old couch. We were going to get rid of it, so that was the only thing left in the house. She'd go sit on the couch to remember.

Kids are much deeper and more insightful than you think — but often they don't share it with you.

Meghan: That's so beautiful. I mentioned I have a four-year-old daughter, and I'm imagining in 10, 15 years us doing this together. That's such a beautiful project.

So now — you have the Substack, you've got all these other things going on. What feels most important to you right now?

Deb: You reach a different point in your life where — there's the striving point of your life. You're climbing the corporate ladder, you're wondering when's the next promotion. Once you reach a certain place, you're like — when does the climbing stop? When do you actually enjoy the plateau and just look around?

I feel like I've reached that place where I'm much more comfortable with myself than I've ever been before. It's actually a great place to be. But it took me a long time to get here. And like you — you spent two years trying to process your previous journey of 15 years. That's an interesting journey to go on.

I feel like I was able to do that. I took time off for the first time. No appointments, no meetings, no obligations. Instead, I just enjoyed the time. I learned AI during that time. I ended up founding a company. But I felt like I never gave myself space to explore things because I was always chasing the next thing. Next meeting, next project, next.

For everybody who is a high achiever and spent their lives hitting every goal — it's actually great to not have to strive for something for a period of time. So that you know what you really, really value.

Meghan: We're going to get to the final question — the permission slip. I think we already have the permission slip to own our awkward. So a different permission slip: to unbehave, unlearn, or let go of a story you're holding. What would it be?

Deb: I love the last thing you said — retelling your story. I wrote about this recently. I talked to three people who had recently been laid off for very different reasons — all very justifiable, things that happened in the company, corporate restructurings, things that had nothing to do with them. And each of them told a story that made it seem like they thought they deserved to be laid off. I pointed it out. I said, why do you think that?

They said, well, if I had just known X. If I had tried harder with Y. And I said, or this was a corporate restructuring. They eliminated the job. A new CEO came in and brought in their own team. It was out of their control.

When I tell people my dad died of cancer, they say — what kind? I say lung cancer. And they say — did he smoke? Because in our heads, if he smoked, then we're not at risk. We have control over not smoking. But no, he actually did not smoke. Both of his brothers also died of lung cancer, and they didn't smoke either. It's a long-standing thing in Asian American communities — non-smokers actually have a much higher rate than the average population in the US.

The point is — our minds look for justification and patterns. What if it was outside of your control? What I worry about is that you're fighting the last war. If I had just tried harder. You're beating yourself up over something that was outside of your hands. And then you're going into the next conversation with that in the back of your head.

Instead — what if you opened up the opportunity and thought, hey, this happened. I'm going to unpack it. I'm going to put it away. And I'm going to seek the next thing. I give you the permission to rewrite the story. Because often the stories we tell ourselves are the wrong version. And then that affects our behavior in a negative way.

Meghan: Love it. All right — when can we get the book? The next book?

Deb: I will send you my framework. I'm happy to share it with your audience — I love hearing feedback. I've been testing it with dozens of people. It's a way for you to process. It's a couple of pages — a questionnaire. You just need to take the time as you go through transitions.

I'm working on the book now. Hopefully it'll come out in the next year or two. You see so many people in the process of transitions, and it's hard. Right now, when everyone feels so unsettled by AI, when people feel like their jobs are on the line, when everything feels fraught — this is a time when we need more solid ground. So I use this process to help people find their solid ground.

If you want to find me — I have a newsletter on Substack called Perspectives. It's debliu.substack. I'm also on LinkedIn. And I'm happy if anybody wants to reach out.

Meghan: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Happy Friday. And thank you for doing this after being up at 2:00 in the morning waiting for your darling daughter after her graduation party. I appreciate it and I just appreciate you very, very much.

Deb: Thanks for the invitation. See you again.

Meghan: Yay.

A few weeks ago, I laid down on a futon in Denver, drank orange juice with three grams of psilocybin in it, and spent eight hours next to a licensed therapist named Mikki Vogt. I recently told you what happened for me during that session. This week, you get to meet the woman who held the container.

Mikki Vogt is a licensed counselor, co-founder of one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers, and one of the people who co-wrote the safety screening protocols for psilocybin-assisted therapy now used across Colorado and Oregon. Before she was any of that, she spent years working in prisons and community mental health before deciding to start facilitating psilocybin sessions as a harm reduction provider. Before it was legal. When it could have cost her everything.

This is Mikki's first podcast interview. She's spent years training other facilitators and building the regulatory framework other states are now adopting. But this is the first time she's sat down for a long-form public conversation about how psilocybin therapy actually works, why it seems to break through what traditional therapy can't, and what it really takes to make this field safe.

In this conversation, we get into why she made the call to do this work before it was legal, why traditional talk therapy hits a ceiling that psychedelic-assisted therapy seems to break through, the story of a young man who'd had daily seizures for 17 years and what happened during his psilocybin session with her, what a bad trip actually is versus a challenging one, and why the model of legal psilocybin therapy that we're building in this country — the model Mikki helped write — needs public support to survive. 

If you listened to Part 1 and wondered how any of this is actually possible, this is the episode that answers that question. And if you haven't heard Part 1 and are just curious about the current landscape and real benefits of psilocybin-assisted therapy, you'll walk away with everything you need to understand what's happening in this field right now.

Mikki Vogt is a licensed professional counselor, licensed addictions counselor, and natural medicine facilitator with a master's degree in forensic psychology. She's the co-founder and clinical director of one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers, has facilitated 300-500 psilocybin sessions over the last five years, and co-authored the standardized safety screening protocols now used across Colorado and adopted in Oregon. She trains other facilitators in psilocybin-assisted therapy through her work with the Psychedelic Public Policy Partnership. She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children. You can find more about her and her work at neuroalchemycenter.com.

"I called my mom and I said, Mom, I just had the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my entire life. I feel like I have finally found where I'm supposed to be, what I was born to do, what my life's purpose and calling is."

"If regulatory agencies don't like the way that I'm doing it, then maybe I don't need the regulatory agency. And that was kind of — I don't know if that was stupid or courageous, or maybe a little bit of both."

"I know I'm smart. I know I'm likable. I know I'm worthy of taking up space. People tell them to me every day. And there is a part of me that knows that rationally to be true. But the belief system that I have developed in experiential, repetitive, time-based learning throughout my life is I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable, everybody will abandon me, and I will never be somebody's first pick."

"Psychedelics are unique in that they seem to be this bridge between what I rationally know insightfully up in my brain and what I at a gut instinct, gut level, feel to be true."

"You can't take the medicine out of the ecosystem and expect it to do the same thing. We need to remember that what we're trying to do is rejoin the ecosystem — we're shifting, not the medicine."

"It's as if I can see an entity or a form trying to push the seizure toward my body." (from the seizure patient during his psilocybin session) 

"Any time I go to journey, I'm nervous as fuck. Like, my gosh. And that's great — because that's our nervous system doing its job. It's a reminder that I am functioning the way I'm supposed to function."

"We are self-healing systems — biologically, physiologically, emotionally, soulfully, spiritually. That's how we were created. And we live in a self-healing ecosystem, our world." 

"If we want this to be safe, we need to make it familiar. What makes things unsafe is a lack of familiarity."

"It's the mushrooms. Like, you find the person you're connected with who you can trust to keep you safe. But the awareness gained, the insight, the self-love and acceptance — that's your inner healer and the mushrooms. That has nothing to do with me."

00:00 — Cold open: "the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my life"

00:28 — Welcome + episode setup

02:13 — Mikki's origin story: her first facilitated session

03:59 — From forensic psychology to prisons and community mental health

08:30 — Discovering psychedelic research and starting private practice

10:12 — Facilitating psilocybin sessions before it was legal

13:12 — Why she risked her practice to do this work

15:21 — Why traditional therapy hits a ceiling: rational vs. felt-sense

19:16 — What the research is showing

22:00 — Why we need to rejoin the ecosystem

23:57 — The seizure story: 17 years of daily seizures

28:52 — The second session and integration

31:00 — Bridging the sacred and the clinical

33:38 — Meghan's fear of vulnerability

35:00 — Mikki's response: "I'm nervous as fuck"

38:04 — Prep and integration protocol

40:58 — Adverse events and the three tiers of safety

43:00 — Bad trip vs. challenging experience

44:43 — How Colorado built the psilocybin program

49:15 — Mikki's role in co-writing the safety protocols

49:34 — Why psilocybin isn't more accessible

53:17 — Business leaders and the mental health thesis

54:44 — How to help others step into this work

57:00 — The funding critique

59:37 — How people can support the work

Companion episode:

Written versions on Meghan's Substack:

Lightly cleaned for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Mikki's and Meghan's voices preserved throughout.

[Cold Open — Mikki]

The first time I ever did a facilitated session for somebody — at the end of the session, when she was gone, I'm packing my stuff. I get in the car, and tears just started streaming down my face. And I called my mom and I said, Mom, I just had the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my entire life. I feel like I have finally found where I'm supposed to be, what I was born to do, what my life's purpose and calling is.

[Meghan — Welcome]

Welcome to Unbehaved. I'm Meghan French Dunbar, and you just heard from the incredible Mikki Vogt. And if you listened to Part 1 of the series last week — yes, this is that Mikki. If you haven't had a chance to listen to the previous episode yet, Mikki is the facilitator who did my psilocybin-assisted therapy session that I detail in Part 1. But Mikki's story is so much bigger than my experience with her. 

Mikki is a licensed counselor and entrepreneur, co-founder of one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers, and one of the people who literally co-wrote the safety screening protocols used in Colorado for psilocybin-assisted therapy that have now been adopted in Oregon as well. Before she was any of that, she spent years working in prisons, then in community mental health, before deciding to start facilitating psilocybin sessions as a harm reduction provider. But that was before it was even legal — when it could have cost her everything. 

In this conversation, we get into why she made that call. Why traditional therapy hits a ceiling that psychedelic-assisted therapy seems to break through. The story of a young man who'd had daily seizures for 17 years and what happened during his psilocybin session with her. What a bad trip actually is versus a challenging one. And why the model of legal psilocybin therapy that we're building in this country — the model Mikki helped write — needs public support to survive.

If you've been listening to Part 1 and wondering how any of this is actually possible, this is the episode that answers that question. And even if you haven't listened to Part 1 and are just curious about the current landscape and benefits of psilocybin-assisted therapy, you'll learn everything you want to know and more in this episode.

Let's get into it. 

Meghan: Mikki, Mikki, Mikki. My experience with you is that you are doing the thing that you are lit up about. You're passionate about it, you're excellent at it, and you care about it. How did you come to be in this very unique profession? 

Mikki: That is a great question.

I am lit up about it. I'm super passionate about it. It feels like for the last five or six years, I've been living, breathing, sleeping, eating this. And I remember the first time I ever did a facilitated session for somebody. It had been a client of mine who knew it was the first time for me and trusted me to hold that container for her — which was in and of itself just beautiful. And I remember at the end of the session, when she was gone, I'm packing my stuff. I get in the car, and tears just started streaming down my face. And I called my mom and I said, Mom, I just had the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my entire life. I feel like I have finally found where I'm supposed to be, what I was born to do, what my life's purpose and calling is.

That was probably about six years ago now. And I had told myself, not everyone you do is going to be like this. Over time, it's not going to be as exciting, it's not going to feel the same way. And I was so wrong. Every single one of these I do is beautiful and profound. The connection I have with the journeyer is probably one of the greatest gifts I'll ever experience. And getting to witness such a sacred experience for them is just such an honor. 

Every single one, it fills me up. I'm super jazzed. I'm rejuvenated. I come home on a total high. And I haven't even touched the medicine myself.

So I absolutely love what I do. I would have never thought that I would be here.

My master's degree is in forensic psychology. And so when I first started working in the field, I was primarily working in prisons, jails, correctional facilities, community re-entry programs — working with really severe pervasive mental illness, dual diagnosis, co-occurring substance abuse disorders, incarceration, all of that kind of stuff. High rates of recidivism, high rates of homelessness, high rates of emergency system use. 

So I got to work with the real nitty-gritty. And in doing so, I got to create these amazing relationships with populations that are so typically unseen and disregarded and stigmatized. In getting to work with these individuals, it really was a reminder that we are all just human — trying to survive, trying to make our way through this planet and the life that we're dealt. 

These people are just like you and me. They have learned a set of coping responses. They have learned how to survive in a way that keeps them moving forward. And while the behaviors they've chosen might be maladaptive and cause a lot of consequences, the need is relevant. If we can see them as humans with relevant needs that are the same as yours and mine, all of a sudden they're not this bad, terrible person. They're somebody who has been wounded by society and needs repair. Needs support. Needs to be seen. Needs love and affection and attention.

When they start to receive that, it's a completely different version of them that you get to work with. That was just a totally amazing experience for me, and really confirmed why I do this work.

At some point, I did get really tired of going to prison every day for work. I am a colorful person. I'm very bubbly. And it really started to wear on me — going through the whole check-in process, hearing the gates and the bars closing behind me, being in this drab, poorly lit place. It got to be a bit overwhelming, and I started to burn out. Which wasn't fair to the people I was working with.

So I decided to transition into community mental health — high-intensity treatment settings and community-based services. Very similar populations, still did a lot of the community re-entry stuff. Where I was getting to work with people I had worked in corrections with as they were coming out. Supporting them in stabilization, mental health treatment, housing, vocational support. 

That was where I really got to see the power of interdisciplinary wraparound services and how important community is, in general, for health and wellness. 

During this period, I started tracking all of the research going on with MDMA and veterans and PTSD. I was blown away by some of the outcomes we were seeing. I was facing a reality that I really wanted to work in that psychedelic realm, but was not going to be able to do so within community mental health — that's all state government funding and evidence-based practices, and that's not where psychedelics were at the time.

So I started to develop my own private practice on the side. Not working with psychedelics yet — just building a practice, learning how to manage it, figuring out the ins and outs of being a business owner. Because as a clinician, I'm not inherently an entrepreneur — which people find very surprising when they meet me and are like, wow, you own three businesses. That's definitely been the hard way. Which seems to be my forte: doing things the hard way.

Right before COVID, I fully transitioned to private practice. Never looked back. Got myself credentialed with insurance and Medicaid because I still wanted to promote accessibility. And then really dove into research on psychedelics — experimenting with my own relationship.

I got to have a really beautiful experience with an underground practitioner who held space for me. Such a transformative experience. I'd used mushrooms, MDMA, psychedelics before, and already knew there was something significant there. But then having that specific container being held in such an intentional way — I got to see what the outcomes can be when you bring intention and mindfulness into it, have the safe space to have the experience, and then really focus on integration afterwards. 

It's also an experience that taught me some of the risks of doing this in an unregulated setting. Coming to that as a clinician, I'm familiar with best practices and ethics, and wasn't seeing all of those being championed in that space. I felt like — okay, yes, I really want this for my clients, but I want to do this in a way that is ethical and safe.

So at that point I started hammering out my own safety screening protocols in alignment with what I'd been taught as a therapist and addictions counselor. Looking at the research about drug interactions, doing my best to screen out anybody that wasn't relevant for this. And at this time I only started to offer this to clients in my private practice who I'd been working with for quite some time. 

Meghan: Is it still technically illegal at this point?

Mikki: Technically, this was not yet decriminalized. And so I was doing this as a harm reduction provider as an addictions counselor. I would go into details with my clients about what that meant, what kind of services I was providing, clarity that I'm not the one giving them the medicine — the medicine is being sourced from somewhere else by them, and they're just asking me to sit with them for harm reduction purposes. All of those things to try to keep it as up-and-up as possible.

When people were asking me, well, what if you get grieved? What if you get reported? I said, that's a risk I'm willing to take. Because at that point I was taking significant safety precautions, had consulted with other people to really understand the risks I was taking on when it came to health and wellness for the clients I was working with. 

At any point, the client being considered was only pursued if I felt very strongly that the potential benefits outweighed any obvious risks after doing all the screening and assessments. In the idea of taking an oath to do no harm, my thought was: if I've been working with a client for so long and they've tried treatment with me and treatment with others and different modalities and haven't gotten to where they want to be — and I've now screened them and shown that the risk of doing this is significantly low and the potential benefit is there — then would withholding something I know would work and wouldn't be harmful itself be doing harm? 

In my head, it felt like it would be. 

If I know something works, and I know they're eligible for it, and it's not going to put them in danger — why wouldn't we try it? Especially given psilocybin has such a high safety profile. It's one of the safest molecules we have. It's even safer than Benadryl. It doesn't have any risk of dependence. There's no risk of overdose. It's not going to give you stomach ulcers or ruin your kidneys like Tylenol. If we're so willing to put all these other things into our bodies without a second thought — why wouldn't we use a natural medicine, plant medicine that is shown to have one of the highest safety profiles? 

It just didn't make a lot of sense to me. So that's where I decided: I came here to do a job. I came here to help people and support people and see them as a person, not just a file or a client number. And I'm going to continue doing that. And if regulatory agencies don't like the way I'm doing it, then maybe I don't need the regulatory agency. 

And that was kind of — I don't know if that was stupid or courageous. Or maybe a little bit of both.

Meghan: Those are the best decisions, in my opinion. And this is the first time I'm hearing this story. I feel in awe of what you did, because you were so convinced of the efficacy of this and you understood the risks and you understood the literature — but you were putting your own private practice on the line to do this.

Mikki: It took — yeah, it took... I mean, there were definitely moments where I was questioning why am I doing this? And what kept coming back to me was: because I really believe in this.

I didn't start doing it with people until after I'd already received training. At that point we didn't have DORA-approved training programs, but there were absolutely training providers out there for harm reduction purposes providing courses in psilocybin and harm reduction services. So I did a lot of training from various different providers. A lot of apprenticing, shadowing, seeing how other people were doing it. A lot of understanding of the indigenous roots of the medicine — what does ceremony mean, who am I and who am I not, what is my own lineage with natural medicine.

I really explored all of those things before ever feeling like I was in a position where I could confidently do this with somebody else. So by the time I did start doing it, I felt pretty convinced: if I'm going to get reported or grieved, I have a good argument. And if they decide they're not on the bandwagon with this, then I'll find a different way to make a living. 

I don't know. I say that out loud and I'm like — and I'm a mom and a wife, and they probably were not very appreciative that I was willing to risk everything.

Meghan: That also speaks to how powerful this is. You talked about your first time facilitating and calling your mom and crying. What did you experience in those first few sessions in terms of the healing that people were able to do that felt so different than all the work you'd done before? 

Mikki: What I was getting to see is — in traditional therapy, even when we start using somatic experiencing therapies like EMDR, where we're really trying to approach the whole system, not just the cognitive approach — it seemed like you would get to this point where we have the insight. 

I know I'm smart. I know I'm likable. I know I'm worthy of taking up space. I know I can be successful. I know I'm competent. I know I'm significant. I know these things up here. People tell them to me every day. And there is a part of me that knows that rationally to be true. 

But the belief system that I have developed in experiential, repetitive, time-based learning throughout my life is not the insight. The belief system is: I'm not worthy. I'm not lovable. Everybody will abandon me. I will always have to try again. I will never be somebody's first pick. 

Right? That's the felt-sense belief. Which is ultimately what ends up guiding the way we experience ourselves, others, and the world around us. We see everything through this colored lens of the belief system — not of rational insight. There's this disconnect. 

EMDR seems to get us a little bit closer to bridging those two things, but I was still finding that clients were falling short. Maybe I'm just not doing the EMDR effectively — I don't want to blame any modality for not working. There are so many great modalities out there. But I think psychedelics specifically are unique in that they seem to be this bridge between what I rationally know insightfully up in my brain and what I at a gut instinct, gut level, feel to be true. In my nervous system, in my body, in my heart, in my soul.

When we can bridge those two things, all of a sudden I'm able to experience myself, others, and the world around me in a completely different light. I'm able to engage with information that has always been up there, but see it in so many different ways. My consciousness now has become so expanded that I can consider so many different things and choose what I want for myself. Not feel like I've got these blinders on that only allow me to see one path forward.

That's what I think is so profound about psychedelics. And what I love is that the research is showing this. It's going in and creating this high level of entropy or chaos in the brain, which is allowing us to break free of all these rigid belief patterns, neural pathways, and connections that dictate how we organize information about the world and ourselves. We ascend above that. We get to see everything as fluid and say — how would I like to organize information moving forward? Not this is the way, I have to believe this. 

Sometimes that's small things. Sometimes that's huge things — the philosophical meaning of life versus the routine I want to engage with every morning. 

Acknowledging these other modalities, I really think that psychedelics is one more tool in our tool belt that should be used in conjunction with other approaches to transformation, healing, expanded consciousness. If you're going to get trained in something like IFS or somatic experiencing, why not also get trained in this? It's not for everybody, in the same way that those modalities are not for everybody. It's just one more tool.

Meghan: All right, I want to keep going on the research part. Is there anything research-wise that blew you away at the start that you were like, I have to engage with this? What is the research telling us? 

Mikki: I was really lucky in that I got to work as a therapist on the CU Anschutz clinical trials focusing on using psilocybin to address depression and existential distress related to end-of-life and cancer diagnoses. That's where I really got to see how this addresses more existential experiencing — the things that contribute to some of the distress we walk through life with. 

What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to live a full life? What does it mean to die? What is a legacy? What do I believe happens next? What do I believe makes this life worth it? Who do I want to be in this world? How do I want to be remembered? 

All of those things come up in these sessions when that's the intention. And in that clinical setting, it was profound. I got to witness people going from this place of severe depression and just devastation and defeat to feeling like they could go through the active stage of dying — because that's just one stage of our cyclical life — with agency, with hope, with optimism about what that process was going to look like, how it was going to feel, what values they were championing during that process. 

They weren't just focused on the end. They were focused on processing time left. That really changes a lot of things for people. 

The other thing with the research: these individuals are coming in with a significant sense of hope, and in these double-blind, random control trials, they may or may not be getting the medicine. There's a fifty percent chance they're going to end up in the placebo group. So it was also a reminder of how hopeful other people are — that even at that point in life, they're willing to engage with this, not knowing what outcome will be for them, just because they're hopeful enough. 

That's a big chunk of the research — end-of-life palliative care. But we're also seeing research in PTSD, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, traumatic brain injury. Dementia and Alzheimer's. Chronic pain management like fibromyalgia and chronic pain from injury. Regaining movement after paralysis from West Nile virus. Seizure disorders. 

There's research coming out about so many different areas that when people say, what can you use this for?, I'm starting to find the list is shorter to acknowledge what we probably couldn't use this for. Which is exciting. 

I say that with a caveat: these medicines have been stewarded by peoples for thousands and thousands of years. It's an ancient wisdom and an ancient practice. And the molecule is not doing this alone.

In all of these settings, but specifically in the original — the OG, where did this come from — what makes this profound is the community. It's the preparation, the container, the integration happening afterward. It's the connection with self and others. It's experiencing that you matter in a greater system, that people see you, and that your transformation is worthy of being witnessed. 

When you look at indigenous cultures who have been doing this — we talk about prep and integration. It's not talked about there, not because it's absent, but because that's the lived experience. They do this in a communal setting with family members, with community members. Their living preparation, then their living integration. It's built in. They wouldn't consider doing this outside of that. They wouldn't consider just going into the doctor, taking it, and then going home and not talking to anybody about it. 

We use this language — prep, integration — as a way to streamline this into the system we're familiar with. But we have to understand that we can't use natural medicines, which work in an ecosystem we are a part of, and expect to take the medicine out of the ecosystem and have it do the same thing. We need to remember that what we're trying to do is rejoin the ecosystem. We're shifting — not the medicine.

Meghan: You mentioned epilepsy. And at the end of our session together, you were telling my husband and me a story about a gentleman you worked with with epilepsy. I would love to help bring the research to life a little bit. Can you help us understand what happened? 

Mikki: Yes — and I want to put out there, this is anecdotal. And it's profound. 

This gentleman contracted an infection — an illness that turned into a brain infection at the age of 10 or 11. With that, he started experiencing severe seizures. Five, six seizures a day. Full seizures. Totally disruptive to his life.

His family took him to doctors and treatment teams. He went through all this imaging. Different medical teams were in disagreement about the origin site of the seizures. You'd think they would have approached this with conservatism since the boy was so young and they didn't really know what was going on. Unfortunately, what we think should happen is not always what happens. This poor gentleman went through three brain resections and five depth probes — all before he was 13 years old. 

It did not make anything better. It only made things worse. It severely slowed down his cognitive processing. It made it so he couldn't get through a whole day of school. It really disrupted life. 

Now he's in his late 20s. He's been dealing with this for 15 to 17 years — daily seizures.

He tried different medications. He finally got on a medication that reduced the seizures down to two or three a day. Significant improvement, but still not great. And then his neurologist had been reading about psilocybin and the potential of what it's doing. His neurologist and his parents reached out to me and said, how do you feel about working with him? We know you can't guarantee anything, but per what the neurologist was reading, it might be interesting to try to do this once every three months and see what might happen. 

So I started working with this individual. We did a lot of prep. For this individual, it wasn't like two prep sessions and then we're in. We did a lot of prep. I got to know him, his family, his story, his background — what his dreams and aspirations were, what supports were already available, what he wanted life to look like moving forward. Truly amazing individual. 

We got to his first administration session, December 2025. I had gone over the safety plan and emergency response plan for if a seizure starts during the session. His mom stayed on site. I had direct contact with his neurologist. We had all the safety things in place. 

We get an hour in, and he is smiling and relaxed in ways I've never gotten to witness him in the last several months. It was beautiful. 

Because of that, we're like, let's go ahead and do the booster. So we give him a small booster dose. And within about 15 minutes of giving him the booster, I witness his body seize and just lock up. He does this quick inhale. And I'm thinking in my head, oh God, here we go. I'm getting really nervous. 

Per our safety plan, his mom had said, don't administer the emergency medicine until the seizure has lasted longer than five minutes. So I see him lock up. I see the breath. I see his eyes glaze. And I start the timer. 

Here's what's interesting. Up to this point he had been talking to me with his eyes closed. And he said: "It's as if I can see an entity or a form trying to push the seizure toward my body." And then he seized. He locked up. He starts to seize and twitch. 

Eight seconds go by.

And it stops. He breathes out. And he says: "And I'm able to just push the form away from my body, and it pushes the seizure out." 

And then he dropped back into his journey. 

Which had nothing to do with his seizures. He journeyed for the next six hours with no seizure at all. Completely calm. His body completely relaxed. His hands — he had one hand that was really tight and painful. By the end, it was completely loose and he was using it, saying my gosh, my hand.

Between that session and March, which is when we did his second session, he had one seizure. One. 

We did his second administration in March. Almost the exact same thing happened. First hour in, everything's great. I give him a booster. About seven minutes after the booster, we see the seizure onset. I start the timer. Eleven seconds in, it's finished. And he drops back into his journey.

I've been doing ongoing integration with him, working with his neurologist. It's an ongoing care plan. He's got a lot of wraparound support. He's in vocational stuff, art, a coding program. Part of that integration is that while he's in that state of neuroplasticity, we're really putting in all the other supports that are going to benefit him in learning new skills and starting new behaviors. And it's just been profound. The outcome — he's now in a coding program. He's teaching art classes. It's really amazing. Truly amazing.

Meghan: With the seizure he had between the first and second sessions, even though he wasn't using the medicine — was it still the same experience for him where he could see the entity and push it away? 

Mikki: Yes. Yes. In integration I had him draw out the entity — the form he had seen. It was like this metal sphere thing. He drew it out, and we started doing imagery exercises. When he starts to feel the aura or the tremors — because there's always some kind of sign — he starts imagining the form he saw in the journey bringing the seizure to his body. And he immediately starts this imagery of pushing back toward it, both physically and energetically.

The seizure he had between sessions, we think was actually brought on by significant heat. He was at the gym, sitting in the sauna. But that one lasted for maybe two minutes, and then he was fine.

So this is where I like to acknowledge — we need to bridge the sacred with the clinical. 

I think that's a really good example. We can say we're going to be able to see a lot through science. Through imaging, blood work, pre- and post-measurements, assessments, evaluations. That's amazing. And ultimately, there is something at work here that is ancient and profound and sacred that I truly believe will never be caught in an image, will not be caught in a random control trial. There is something greater that happens when you reconnect with Earth and the ecosystem you're a very natural part of.

When we're in right relationship with the system we originated from, that in and of itself is going to change how we're experiencing self and the world and our health and wellness. 

We know that mindset is profound. We look at a lot of research where cancer patients who have a really hopeful mindset and do a lot of visualization during chemo — their prognosis is better, they have better outcomes. Whereas those who go into it with a really poor mindset and have succumbed to defeat don't get the same results.

There is this piece of how connected do I feel with this? How much do I believe in it? And also realizing again — it's not just the molecule. It is our relationship with it and what we're willing to do. Are we willing to be a contributing party to our self-healing?

Are we willing to acknowledge and return to the reality that we are self-healing systems? Biologically, physiologically, emotionally, soulfully, spiritually — we are self-healing systems. That's how we were created. We live in a self-healing ecosystem, our world.

It's only been in recent hundreds of years that we've started to externalize this source of expertise — on how many letters are at the end of somebody's name, so they can tell me about me instead of my body and my mind and my soul telling me about me. Now I need somebody who's gone through eight years of medical school and who doesn't know me, but they're going to tell me about me. 

Instead of saying, no. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna work with this natural medicine that is of the earth, that has really low risk to it, and I'm going to unlock communication with that medicine with my inner healing wisdom. And the medicine and my inner healer are going to do for me what needs to be done. And they're gonna show me what I need to do to use insight and awareness gained and turn it into embodied lasting change. 

That's the work that I will do.

Meghan: So I did a journey with you, and I've talked to quite a few people about it because for me it was profound. When I talk to people about this, a lot of people say — I want to contribute to my self-healing, but I'm afraid of letting go of control.

I understand that. Especially if you've never even experimented with these things recreationally. Which I had beforehand — so I had some level of comfort. And I was like — so Mikki, you're saying you're going to give me the largest dose of mushrooms I've ever had in my entire life, and then I'm going to sit with you in a room for six to eight hours while you are stone cold sober, and be just tripping balls and like the most vulnerable version of myself. And you're just going to sit there and watch me?

I was like, I am not comfortable with that level of vulnerability. And you were like, this is what I do. You helped me work through it. So for the folks who are on the I don't want to let go of control, I'm terrified of being that vulnerable in front of another human train — what do we say to them?

Mikki: I would say — that checks out. You're human. 

If you're not nervous at all about this experience, I kind of ask you — are you familiar with what we will be doing? 

Even in my shoes, when I think about being the journeyer, no matter how many times I've done this — facilitated or journeyed myself — any time I go to journey, I'm nervous as fuck. Like, my gosh. 

Even in my head, there's that rational part, the insightful part that says, Mikki, you've done this, you're familiar with it, you know what it is, you're gonna come out on the other side. But then there's the felt sense that's like — but I'm giving up control, and I don't know where I'm going to go, and I don't know what I'm going to see, and I don't know if I feel equipped for that. 

And I don't. It's all the uncertainty that inherently breeds anxiety. And that's great, because that's our nervous system — from an IFS perspective, our protectors doing their job to protect us. It's a reminder that I am functioning the way I'm supposed to function. 

In that place, I say — it's good that you're nervous. It means that you're invested in this. You care about your wellness and well-being. You want to be careful that you're not doing something in which the risk outweighs any benefit.

That's why I'm here. My role is to promise that I'm going to do everything I can — screening-wise, preparation-wise, day-of and follow-up — to ensure that you're having the safest experience possible. That we're minimizing as much harm and discomfort as possible. Giving you a safe container in which you can shift your relationship with distress. So that that idea of not always being in control is not as scary moving forward.

Not being in total control in and of itself is not a life threat. Is it anxiety-provoking? For sure. There are a lot of variables I need to be prepared for that I don't control, but I need to be able to respond to. But when we can change our relationship to distress and say — distress in and of itself is not a bad thing. When I respond to distress effectively, the way I'm supposed to, distress is helpful — I don't need to get distressed that I'm distressed. 

That's the importance of prep.

What I'm hearing you say is — you don't trust me enough yet to be that vulnerable in front of me. That's fine. Let's do a few more sessions. What do you need to know about me? Would you like to meet here in the space where we're going to journey? What do you want to know about my background, my relationship with medicine? 

Let me walk you through the approach and what's going to happen the day of. What do you need to feel ready? What do your parts need to feel ready? What are your protectors saying they're concerned is going to happen? Let's address that directly, so that the whole system of you is coming on this journey — and that we are, for the first time in your life, not steamrolling any part of you and making them suck it.

Meghan: Such a way of putting things in a way that my brain is like — thank you. So my experience: we did three prep calls on Zoom where I literally came with notes. Here's all the intellectual insights I've done in six years of therapy. I have them in chronological order. Here's all my garbage. Then we did a full day of the plant medicine. I arrived at nine. I left around 3:30 when my husband picked me up. And then we did three integration Zoom calls afterwards. Is that pretty standard? 

Mikki: My bare minimum that I insist upon is two prep, two integration. The container, I think, is the most crucial part of this experience. How well are you prepping them for the experience so they can be equipped to navigate any uncertainty, any destabilization or dysregulation that happens. And then the integration — they know they have support, they can talk about the awareness gained, the confusion of anything that came up. They can create meaning. 

You work together to create a tangible plan for movement forward. How do I want to apply this awareness? What am I changing in a day-to-day that will help me embody greater change, a higher quality of life, a more fulfilling experience?

Minimum of two on each side. Ideally, I believe that three to four integrations is absolutely wonderful. And it's about having community. Even if you're not doing more than two to three integrations with me, we've got you set up in a community that supports you — where you have places and other people you can talk to about it and process through it. Whether that's another therapist, a coach, a yogi, a best friend, a community integration circle that meets once a month.

A community activity where you've got individuals who are like-minded, and as you're transforming and becoming what you want to be, a community that's going to support you in that — and not question why you need to change, but just cheerlead the change. 

Okay, I'm seen. I'm heard. There's a place for me to go, and I'm a part of something greater.

The integration is huge. The community piece — having a psychedelic family — I think is one of the most important parts. I've said this before: we're going to treat an individual over and over and over again. We're going to continue to do the same thing over and over until we treat the community that continues to wound the individual. If we're not approaching this in a community way, we're not learning anything from the medicine.

Meghan: So how many journeys have you facilitated, and through all of those, have you ever had a negative response — health issues, calling the hospital, something very bad? 

Mikki: Over the last five years, I've probably facilitated somewhere between three to five hundred sessions. Some have been repeat journeys where we've done multiple sessions; some are people who only do it once or twice.

When it comes to adverse events, what I teach my learners is that there are three tiers you want to consider.

The first is acute expected effects of psilocybin. Things like transient high blood pressure, feelings of queasiness, feelings of anxiety, distress, crying, sadness, grief. Yes — in fact, I'm hoping some of these things happen for you so we can change your relationship with distress. I don't want you to have a terrible time. I want you to have a meaningful time. So I'm hoping for some of those things.

Then it's when you take a lot of those acute expected effects and they become very severe, or you've got a combination of them — sweating, higher blood pressure, flushing in the skin — where then I'm like, ooh, do we have a cardiovascular event risk right now? This is where you need to use clinical judgment, listen to your intuition, know their medical background and history, have done all the consulting and safety clearances. So you can determine when an acute effect combined with other things or heightened in severity becomes an adverse event where there needs to be some type of intervention. 

Then what takes that from an adverse event you're dealing with in the session to a reportable adverse event — calling DORA, calling EMS, getting outside emergency medical services involved. That would be a full-on adverse event. I've never — knock on wood — had to do that. 

If you're diligently following best practices and ethical standards, screening, considering background, asking about medications, asking the hard questions, and not facilitating through a scarcity mindset — meaning you're willing to say no to people — that's not going to happen. You've screened out the possibility for it to happen. So I've never had to deal with that. 

I think there's a difference between a bad trip and a challenging experience. And again — set and setting and prep and integration are the biggest factors that delineate between those two things. 

You're likely going to have a challenging experience with me. I hope you do. That's really what I want you to have.

What we do with that challenging experience is what makes it not a bad trip. The way I respond to you in your challenging experience and support you in that moment. What we do in integration with that experience — finding the meaning in it, how we're using the awareness gained. That's what makes it not a bad trip. 

A bad trip happens when we're not in a safe container. We don't have somebody who's holding space for our safety. We have mixed it with other substances. We haven't set an intention. We haven't gone through informed consent. We don't know what the risks are. We don't know how much we're taking. We don't know if the medicine is pure or what its potency is. We don't have mental health support. We have nobody to talk to afterwards.

That is the recipe for a bad trip. That's not what we work on in the regulated space.

Meghan: Speaking of the regulated space — I believe Colorado, Oregon, and New Mexico are the only places where we can do this at this point. How did this come to be? How are we so lucky to be in Colorado? And what was your role? 

Mikki: We passed Senate Bill 290 back in 2022. That established the Natural Medicine Health Act, which decriminalized psilocybin among four other natural plant medicines and set up an advisory board to create the regulated program. 

What sets us apart from New Mexico is that we don't do this in just a medical or clinical setting. You don't have to have a diagnosis to do this. There doesn't need to be a referral from a treatment provider. You can come for spirituality purposes, consciousness expansion, personal transformation. You don't need to be pathologized in order to be relevant.

I love that about how we've set that up. Psilocybin is not supposed to be a mental health medicine. It never was. It's not here to treat mental health. It's here to reconnect us with the soul that we are, and the light that we're here to shine — quoting David Anka. That's what psilocybin is supposed to do. It's not about resolving a diagnostic pathology. 

We started with that bill. Created the advisory board. Set up the regulations. Got the program started. It went live January 1st, 2025, when people were able to apply to be licensed facilitators. They could apply as natural medicine businesses to get licensed as healing centers, cultivators, manufacturers. You can get a licensed natural medicine handler license to provide support services in a healing center.

There are all these different roles you can play within the system. DORA oversees licensing for facilitators and training programs. The Natural Medicine Division at DOR oversees licensing for natural medicine businesses — healing centers, cultivators, manufacturers. So DOR is the business side. DORA is the individual side and the education side. Those two agencies have come together and are overseeing. 

We've also brought in Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. They do the data collection for the program and oversee licensing for testing labs. All regulated medicine goes through testing, so we understand the purity and potency of each thing and know exactly to the milligram how much medicine we're giving an individual, and how much of the other alkaloids are present.

I came into this having been working on the research at CU Anschutz. I became a part of an organization called the Psychedelic Public Policy Partnership — PPPP, lots of Ps. All volunteers, passionate about this, believing in it, volunteering our time. We started doing white papers and research to help advise and inform the advisory board on the regulatory rules and requirements. 

Then I took the safety screening I had already created in my private practice, and with two other volunteers — Erica Messenger and Kristen Speer, two women I have a lot of admiration for — we co-authored the standardized safety screening now used throughout Colorado and adopted by Oregon. Erica is in medicine and Kristen is in pharmacy, so they built out the pharmacological and medical areas while I continued to build out the mental health area. 

We really promoted that being something that was always going to be free and available — not a for-cost thing. We wanted to reduce anything that was going to increase barriers to access.

Now there's a board overseeing the updates and maintenance of that screening form. Because psychedelic research is moving quickly and we're learning new things every day. That form at the minimum is going to need to be updated on an annual basis. We've got this board committed to doing that.

Meghan: You volunteered to do this. You have your own business. You have kids. You are just like everyone else — very busy. And you believe in this so much that you decided, yeah, I'm going to volunteer my time to make sure this is as safe as possible. Thank you. Period. Thank you.

Meghan: Why isn't this more accessible in the United States? Why are we one of the only states that has this? 

Mikki: There are a lot of reasons.

From a policy legal standpoint — we had the war on drugs and all these substances got put on the FDA's Schedule One. I could go into the politics and theories behind why psilocybin ended up on that list, but that's a completely different podcast episode. Psilocybin is considered a Schedule One substance by the FDA and so is federally illegal, and has not yet been rescheduled. So it's on a state-by-state basis that we're creating these acts and regulatory programs — that the state is approving under the awareness that federally, it's still illegal.

For doctors who hold DEA licenses, there's a level of liability and risk that some people are just not willing to take on. Which I completely understand. 

I also think there's a huge stigma against psychedelics because of the war on drugs era. The propaganda that was put out — ice cream scoops out of your brain, your brain melting into your spinal cord, this is your brain on drugs, the scrambled egg. That's not true. But we were so inundated with that. Previous generations were so inundated with those images and beliefs, that's what was taught to us: this is a drug, drugs are bad, this is going to kill you. 

Part of what we're having to do is this whole education initiative. Overcoming the false stigma, the false narratives about what this is, what we're doing, why it's useful, and the context in which it's relevant. 

You'll never hear me say this is not relevant in a fun social recreational setting. Psilocybin at a musical venue, listening to some soulful thing, is going to be extremely powerful and profound all on its own. Be with people you trust. Be in a safe setting. Know what you're doing beforehand. Get it from a trusted source. Test your medicine. All the things.

That is still a relevant experience. But it's acknowledging — you're not coming to your therapist's office or facilitator's office to party. That's not what's happening. Your facilitator is not engaging in the medicine with you. We're not raving. There are no light shows. You've prepped. We've come to intention. You've created a really deep connection with your facilitator, who is holding this safe container for you. And you're journeying inward.  

It's not about your external environment. You've got the eyemask on. You've got the headphones on. There's no wrong way to journey — you can take those off, it's fine, but it helps you drop in. You're journeying internally. You're going to places within you've never been before. You're peeling back the veil so you can see beyond the rigidity of what has been propagated unto you.

I think there are groups out there who do believe in some of the old information, and so they are afraid — afraid for their kids, for their animals, for their communities. I get it. We're afraid of the unknown. Understandable.

We just need to educate. And no — it's not for everybody. This medicine, like anything else, is not for everybody. There are some people who won't respond well to this and shouldn't be messing with it. They will find that out in the regulated setting. Whereas in the unregulated setting, there's a high risk they won't — until it's too late.

Meghan: The thing that comes over me when I bring this back to my work of business leaders and making work better is this statistic: 70% of people say that their manager or leader at work has as much or more of an impact on their mental health as their spouse does. And we have a lot of people heading into the workplace, in charge of other people, who have not done any healing work themselves. So they're bringing their own shit into the office. And that disproportionately impacts the people around them.

I've had people be like — my God, are you going to talk about this on the podcast? I'm like — absolutely. Because for me, when you talk about reconnecting with the soul — there were lingering pockets of deep insecurity that I have held, that I've been aware of, that I have not been able to extricate myself from through six years of therapy and EMDR and all these things. No matter what I do, I am still bringing those into professional spaces. How I respond to people. The way I'm showing up in the world.

If I can't heal those parts of myself, it is going to impact the people around me. We know it's effective. We're watching how much this is healing people. There's tons of data and research and anecdotal evidence. How do we convince other people? And I'm not being like — how do we browbeat people into doing this? But for someone listening who's like I don't know what people are going to think of me, but I'd like to try it — how do we help them step into this and do their own work in this way?

Mikki: It's things like what we're doing right now — talking about it openly and calmly and without fear. Having the recent legislation and policy and programs that have been created is a major help. It legitimizes and gives credibility to what we're doing here. It makes professionals more willing to speak freely about what they are and have been doing for a while.

We need to talk about this just like we talk about any other medication or substance — with ourselves, with our kids, with our coworkers, with teachers. 

If we want this to be safe, we need to make it familiar. What makes things unsafe is a lack of familiarity. Do I want my 16-year-old tripping on shrooms right now? Absolutely not. But do I want her to think that they're a drug to be partied with? No. I need her to be aware of what those things are before she goes to college. I want her to understand the sacred roots of this. I want her to understand this isn't a toy to play with. I want her to understand this is for profound self-transformation and expansion — and that when she's at a point in her life where she'd like to do that, this is available to her with no judgment, with support.

But I don't want her partying with it with her 16-year-old friends in the backyard. No.

The more we can talk about this like anything else we talk about and normalize it in that way, the more we reduce the stigma by increasing familiarity with what this is — and acknowledging what it isn't.

The more people we can get at the table, the more collaboration and community partnerships we have. That's how to steward this in a really safe way.

Which brings me back to your access question — why is this not more accessible? 

Because of the fear. Because of the legal setting. Right now there's no coverage for it, there's no funding for it. People are really scared. It's hard to even get insurance as a facilitator to do this work. Everything is really pricey because everybody sees this huge sense of liability and risk — because they're not understanding that when done effectively, prep is amazing. You just really need to make sure that your providers are doing prep and integration, and then you don't have to worry about what happens during the administration session. 

Because there is no funding, all of this is personally funded by those of us in the industry. If I want to go home and feed my family and be able to continue to sustain doing this, I have to charge out of pocket for it. And I have to charge for an entire day of my time, plus all the hours for prep, all the hours for integration. 

I have to pay for regulated medicine. Are mushrooms inexpensive to grow? They absolutely are. Can anybody grow their own mushrooms? They absolutely can, and I encourage you to do so. But to get them tested, cultivators are having to take huge portions of their flushes — a flush is what you gather from one harvest — to homogenize and send to the lab and have it all tested. They're paying for that. Then it gets sent back to them, and they have to pay for compliant packaging, driving it everywhere. All of that cost gets added to the medicine.

Then I have to pay for the medicine. I have to pay for my training. I have to pay for my licensing. 

Because this program is not funded — how are we paying the regulators overseeing the program? Through our licensing fees. As a healing center, I have to pay for a license. As an owner, I have to pay for a license. As a clinical facilitator, I have to pay for a license. As a training program, I have to pay for a license. And all of those licenses have to be renewed every single year.

On top of that, I have to pay for insurance, which right now is not less than $6,000 a year. For the majority of us, we're used to paying about $600 a year. 

When you look at all of these as annual expenses — and then I need the space to do this in — when we talk about why are the costs so high? People keep complaining that the costs are so high, it's inaccessible. Right now, until we get funding, until people understand what this is and get on this bandwagon, it's going to be hard to streamline and reduce costs. Because the people in the program are the people funding the program.

Meghan: All right. That'll bring us to our last question. Someone's listening — they don't live in Colorado or Oregon, and they're like I want to do the thing. Can they come to Colorado and do this? What's the future of the space? And how can people help make it so that you're not funding the whole damn thing yourself? 

Mikki: Yes, they can absolutely come to Colorado and do this. 

For supporting the work — I'd suggest going to the Healing Advocacy Fund website. There's a lot of information there on what this is, how to get involved, how to support the programs, what different states are doing. Great resource.

Inform yourselves. Inform your colleagues. If you run a group practice, invite a trained facilitator or a natural medicine educator to come in and inform your group practice on what it is and what type of clients they'd be referring to it.

Contribute to research if you're willing to be a research participant. All of the data from research is what we're giving to the FDA for rescheduling. The more likely we are to get it rescheduled, the more likely it is to get this covered by insurance, to demonstrate cost effectiveness.

For those of us who are already doing this — demonstrating how this has reduced expenditure on other high-level services that come from taxpayer money and other funding sources. So those funding sources say — hey, we're already spending this money, we're going to spend it on this because it's more efficient.

All those ways — we can start to gather and contribute to the evidence that this is more effective, more efficient, and less dangerous than almost anything else we have available to us. That's how we can get this in. And we need to understand the languages we're speaking depending on which audience is in front of us.

Meghan: Lovely humans — Mikki Vogt. I will just underscore how profound this was for me. For my husband. For our relationship. For our relationship with our children. For my entire life. And to hear just a smidge of what you have done to bring this to the world.

The individual experience I had with you was immense. I literally saw you in person last night and ran up to you and hugged you like I was embracing my long-lost friend. It deepened the connection I have with you. It deepened the connection I have with myself. It is profound. I have a deep and unending well of gratitude for all that you have done to bring this to space and to help people. It is incredible. 

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Mikki: I am so glad. I'm so glad. That makes my heart sing. It was so beautiful to see last night. That connection is so real. And imagine that being so much greater amongst so many more people — what our world would be like.

So yeah. I just thank you. I'm glad the experience was so amazing for you.

And it's the mushrooms, right? Like — you find the person you're connected with who you can trust to keep you safe. But the awareness gained, the insight, the self-love and acceptance — that's your inner healer and the mushrooms. That has nothing to do with me.

A few months ago, I laid down on a futon in Denver, drank a glass of orange juice with three grams of psilocybin in it, and spent the entire day tripping balls next to a licensed therapist who took notes for eight hours.

I did it legally. In Colorado. With medical supervision. And it did more for my mental health in one day than six years of therapy, antidepressants, ADHD medication, and every self-help book I've ever read had done combined.

This is the episode I've been quietly wanting to make for months.

In this solo episode of Unbehaved, I share my full experience with psilocybin-assisted therapy — what led me there, the current legal landscape, the research on its effectiveness, and what genuinely shifted for me and my husband afterward. We cover why psilocybin became illegal in the first place (spoiler: it wasn't the science), how Colorado and Oregon are running ahead of federal law, who this is NOT for, the specific insecurity I couldn't therapy my way out of, the car manual analogy that changed how I think about myself, and why healing yourself is leadership work.

The old playbook of mental health goes like this: talk therapy for years, add an SSRI, hope something moves. That playbook has helped a lot of people — and I'm not knocking it. But I'm a case study for what happens when the old playbook is all you have and it stops being enough. The new playbook says the mind isn't the whole system, your body carries what your mind can't process, and root-cause healing is possible on a timeline that isn't decades. Psilocybin is one tool in that new playbook. Not the only one — but it's the one that finally worked for me.

Part 2 of this series will be a full conversation with Mikki Vogt, my psilocybin therapist and one of the people who co-wrote Colorado's safety protocols. Coming next week.

"I laid down on a futon, drank a cup of orange juice filled with a bunch of magic mushrooms, and then spent the entire day just tripping balls with a licensed therapist named Mikki sitting right next to me taking notes the entire time."

"It wasn't because scientists had discovered that these substances were dangerous. Actually, the exact opposite was happening. Research effectively shut down for 40 years as a result of this — not because the science was bad, but because the politics were."

"The mind isn't actually the whole system. Our bodies carry things that the mind can't process. Our nervous system is running the show oftentimes more than our conscious brain is."

"I always have this little voice that says, is this okay? … And at some point it transitioned from is this okay to say? to you are okay."

 "We are given a user manual that is not the one that works for our fucking car."

"For the first time in my life, I experienced what it felt like to just feel happy as I am. And I don't know if any of the people that I have in my life ever have. I don't know if any of us do."

"Healing yourself in this way. It is leadership work. It is parenting work. It is community work. It is friend work. It helps us be better in relationships — which is really what so much of life is built on." 

"I find that unbehaving — that pushing back on that status quo narrative about what we, quote, should do — that is where the real magic actually happens. It's where the transformation happens. It's where the healing happens."

00:00 — Cold open: the futon, the orange juice, the mushrooms

01:15 — Why this episode exists

03:40 — Meeting my neighbor Avi + Colorado's Prop 122

05:20 — The current legal landscape across states

07:15 — Why psilocybin became illegal (Nixon, Ehrlichman, and the war on drugs)

09:40 — How research restarted: FDA breakthrough designation, state laws, bipartisan support 12:00 — Watching Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind 

14:20 — What the research actually shows (Johns Hopkins, NYU, Compass Pathways)

17:00 — Responsible messenger: who psilocybin therapy is NOT for 20:15 — Root cause healing vs. changing your mind

22:00 — The social judgment I had to work through

25:30 — My husband Scott's psilocybin session

30:00 — Deciding to do it myself + prep with Mikki

34:00 — Day of: the healing center, the orange juice, the ayahuasca callback

38:00 — The journey: "Is this okay?" → "You are okay"

43:00 — The anger release + "Fuck you, Mikki"

46:00 — The car manual analogy

49:30 — Integration: parenting, marriage, and the birthday reframe

55:00 — The Glastonbury retreat and authentic leadership

58:00 — Why unbehaving is where the good stuff happens

Written companions:

Lightly cleaned for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Meghan's voice and phrasing preserved throughout.

Alright, my friends. A couple of months ago, I did something absolutely wild. I laid down on a futon, drank a cup of orange juice filled with a bunch of magic mushrooms, and then spent the entire day just tripping balls with a licensed therapist named Mikki sitting right next to me taking notes the entire time.

I laughed. I cried. At one point, I may or may not have lost the ability to use my legs and stand up to get to the bathroom. And I had one of the most transformational experiences of my entire life.

I was doing an entirely legal psilocybin-assisted therapy session. And that's what we're going to talk about today: the emerging world of psilocybin-assisted therapy, including the legal landscape, the history, the research on its profound benefits. And I'm going to talk about why I did it personally and what some of the impacts were for both me and my husband, who also did a session. 

Welcome to Unbehaved. My name is Meghan French Dunbar, and I am so thrilled that you are here — especially for this episode, because this one feels really important to me.

Why? Well, the more that we heal ourselves and do the inner work that's necessary to let go of some of those harmful stories that we carry around every single day, the better we can show up in the world. For ourselves, and also for others. For our friends and family, for our workplaces, as leaders in our communities. The way that we show up matters — and the way that we feel about ourselves, and our ability to let go of these rampant insecurities that drive so much of our behavior, is actually really important to the way that we show up every day.

And at least in my experience, and based on loads of contemporary research, psilocybin just might be one of the best tools we have right now to help people truly heal — to get over those internal barriers that are holding people back from being the best version of themselves. 

I mean, on my end: I have been in therapy for six years. I'm on antidepressants. I was diagnosed with ADHD, and I'm on medication for that. I've read every single book on the inner journey. I've interviewed mental health experts. And I wrote an entire damn book, This Isn't Working, all about how high achievers can actually thrive.

And yet, there was still something missing for me. I had plateaued in my own healing journey, and I was still carrying around deeply held insecurities that no matter how much work I did, I just couldn't let go of — until I did the psilocybin-assisted therapy. 

So if you're listening and searching for something new that might help you get to the next level when it comes to your own inner work, or are interested in healing work in general, or have been curious about psilocybin-assisted therapy — this episode is for you. Let's get into it.

So a few years ago, we had new neighbors move into our community. We have a little public park behind our house, so all of us hang out in the park a lot as neighbors and hang out with the kids in the playground. It's a whole vibe. Our new neighbors, Avi and Jenna, we became really close with them.

And one night I was out on the playground hanging out with Avi. We were watching our kids play, and he mentioned that he had been at a training to learn how to use psilocybin — or magic mushrooms — in his therapy.

At this point, he's a licensed therapist. I knew he had a private practice. He was a professional at what he did. And I was a little concerned. I was like, Avi, aren't mushrooms illegal? What are you doing? You're gonna risk your professional reputation and potentially your entire business by doing something that you're not allowed to do as a therapist.

And Avi, as he does, just very casually looked at me and said, no, I'm not worried.  

I was like — what's the deal?

Well, it turns out in 2022, Colorado voters approved Proposition 122, becoming the second US state behind Oregon to legalize supervised psilocybin use. There are two parts of this. One, it decriminalized certain psychedelics, including psilocybin, for personal use by adults 21 and older. Great. Two, it established a regulated framework for adults to access psilocybin-assisted therapy at licensed healing centers under the supervision of trained and licensed facilitators. So that's why Avi was getting trained. He wanted to be a licensed facilitator.

The current landscape as of right now: Oregon has done the same thing as Colorado. New Mexico is on its way to follow suit. Eighteen other states have active legislation pending, and five states have trigger laws that mean it will automatically become legal if psilocybin is legalized at the federal level — which may be happening far sooner than many of us think.

Compass Pathways is actually in Phase 3 of a trial, the final large-scale clinical trial required for FDA approval on psilocybin-assisted therapy. This trial demonstrates that the drug works, and this is the first time in history that a classical psychedelic has cleared that bar. It's paving the way for potential federal legalization as early as 2027.

The dam is finally starting to break on psychedelics becoming legalized. And it's important to understand why the dam was there in the first place — because mushrooms have gotten a really bad rap. They've been something that's been illegal and very taboo and counterculture, something that only hippies and ravers do. And there's a reason they're illegal.

In the United States, psilocybin became illegal in 1970 when Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act. And it wasn't because scientists had discovered that these substances were dangerous. Actually, the exact opposite was happening. Researchers in the 50s and 60s were doing promising research showing the benefit of not just psilocybin, but LSD and mescaline as well. This was real science, real results.

But by the late 60s, psychedelics had become associated with the anti-war movement and counterculture ideas. And Nixon's own domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, later admitted that the war on drugs that they waged was designed to disrupt these communities — the anti-war counterculture communities. Not because the science said the substances were dangerous. Because the politics said the movement was dangerous. That's why they became illegal.

So psilocybin gets classified as a Schedule I substance — the same category as heroin — meaning it's deemed as highly addictive with no accepted medical use. And this is despite all of the research that was already showing that it actually had promising benefits in many categories. And if you know anything about psilocybin, you know that it being addictive is objectively wrong.

Research effectively shut down for 40 years as a result of this — not because the science was bad, but because the politics were.

Which raises the question: if psilocybin has been a Schedule I for fifty-five frickin' years, how the hell did I just do this legally? And how are places like Johns Hopkins and NYU actually running clinical trials on this right now?

Well, it turns out the science was too good to ignore. Starting in the early 2000s, a handful of researchers — most notably the late Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins — got special DEA licenses to study Schedule I substances again. And the results were stunning. Depression, addiction, end-of-life anxiety — outcomes that traditional pharmaceutical companies had been chasing for decades were showing up in one or two guided psilocybin sessions.

The FDA responded by granting psilocybin therapy something called Breakthrough Therapy Designation. This actually happened twice — in 2018 and again in 2019. That's pretty much the FDA saying: this is important enough that we're going to help fast-track it toward approval.

At the same time, this is when statewide voters were starting to get ahead of the federal government. Oregon passed Measure 109 in 2020. Colorado passed Prop 122 in 2022. Which is how what I did was legal, even though psilocybin on the federal level is still classified as a Schedule I.

The crazy thing about this is that it's actually bipartisan. Rick Perry — yeah, that Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, presidential nominee Rick Perry — is one of the most vocal advocates for psilocybin-assisted therapy and other psychedelics, especially for addressing PTSD for veterans, because it is so effective.

So this is not a fringe movement anymore. It's real, it's well-funded. The medical community is in agreement that this works. It is legitimate. And it's happening at the state level, and hopefully at the federal level soon.

Because it's been so taboo, a lot of people haven't been talking about this — which is why I wanted to talk about it today. So let's dive into just a little of the research to understand how this is benefiting people before we go into how my experience transformed me.

Within about a year of that conversation with Avi, my husband and I sat down and watched Michael Pollan's docuseries on Netflix, How to Change Your Mind. This was based on his book of the same title.

Each episode profiled the history and therapeutic benefits of certain hallucinogenics, including MDMA, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin — aka magic mushrooms. This was the first time that I'd actually seen this in a research-based context. Seeing someone like Michael Pollan, who's a professional writer and researcher (and I've read many of his books), I was thinking — okay, this is particularly interesting.

On the episode where they were talking about the impacts of psilocybin, they were using it in the context of people who had terminal cancer diagnoses and were at the end of life, dealing with profound depression and anxiety and feelings of hopelessness. And it turns out that using psilocybin in a therapeutic context was making tremendous impacts in addressing their depression, and making them feel like they could face the end of life with dignity and grace and acceptance rather than hopelessness.

And at the time, this was very salient for me — because my dad was in the midst of cancer treatment. I had seen not just the physical toll that all the chemo and surgeries had taken on his body, but the mental toll of the fear and anxiety of dealing with looking at your own mortality. 

So seeing the positive impact that psilocybin was having on these cancer patients — it felt personal, and it felt inspiring, and I felt really excited about it. All of a sudden, I started seeing what Avi was doing in a very different way.

And then I started paying attention to some of the research that had been coming out. Psilocybin is not just something that helps terminally ill cancer patients. It treats a vast spectrum of conditions.

Research is now showing that it has a positive impact on depression, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, alcohol use disorder, nicotine addiction, possibly anorexia — and there are active trials right now on opioid use disorder. There are anecdotal signals that it's working on things like seizures, fibromyalgia, and dementia.

It's just a staggering list.

And not only is it a wide spectrum, it has long-lasting, permanent impacts — which is the thing that blows my mind. Some of the research: two doses of psilocybin produced sustained remission in 58% of patients with major depression at the 12-month mark in a Johns Hopkins study. A single high-dose session reduced cancer patients' depression and anxiety at rates near 80%, and those effects were still present four and a half years later, based on research done at NYU.

The reason it's having such long-lasting impacts is that psilocybin actually impacts how the brain organizes itself. It's been shown to flatten the default mode network, reduce our sense of ego, and increase neuroplasticity. This is why it's so effective — especially with things like therapy — because it's helping us examine our beliefs and stories without all of the judgment and emotions. And when you do that, it also can reshape the circuits in your brain.

This is why it's impactful in therapy, but also why it's having such profound and long-lasting impacts with these other conditions. It's changing the very chemistry of our brains.

So you can tell I'm a little excited about the topic. The research is there. And I had my own experience.

Before we go any further, I feel obligated to be a responsible messenger here — because I don't want people hearing my story and then running out to do this, especially if it's not right for them. Psilocybin-assisted therapy is not for everyone. 

If you or anyone in your immediate family has a history of psychosis, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder — this is probably not for you. If you're currently on SSRIs (which I am), you need to have a careful conversation about tapering down before your session and what it means to be on those drugs when you do the therapy. Also, if you have certain heart conditions, you shouldn't be doing this. 

These aren't soft consult your doctor disclaimers. These are real screens that legitimate facilitators are — or should be — using.

And this gets to the second part: it's not just about screening yourself. You need to be working with a medical professional. There are absolutely unqualified facilitators out there doing actual harm because they don't know the safety protocols. And there are extraordinary people out there who are doing the deep work, who understand this in a deep way, who can guide you safely. 

If you plan on exploring this at all, with a potential facilitator, you need to be asking them: where did you do your training? Who did you train with? How many sessions have you facilitated historically? What's your screening process? What are your safety protocols? What does your integration support look like after the session?

If they can't easily answer questions like these, that should not be a person you're working with. Do your research, take your time. This is not something to be casual about.

For me, I found that it was right for me because it was the first time in my life that I actually experienced what I would call root-cause healing.

Everything I'd been doing up until this point was really focused on getting me to think about things in a different way. Therapy, SSRIs, reading books, talking to mental health experts — it was all trying to change my mind.

But the mind isn't actually the whole system. Our bodies carry things that the mind can't process. Our nervous system is running the show oftentimes more than our conscious brain is. And doing something that goes beyond the mind is often necessary for pushing us past that place where the mind has completely stalled out.

And that's where I was. I felt like I'd plateaued.

All that said, I also know that doing something new can be scary — especially when it comes to the context of doing a lot of drugs, especially if you've never done them before. Most of the conversations I have go one of two ways. People often say that sounds great, but I would be worried about giving up control. Other people say I have never even really done drugs, so starting with a macro dose of psilocybin seems like a crazy thing to do.

I hear those concerns. If those are concerns, you can feel them. I'm not shaming anyone in any way here. Both my husband and I were very nervous. It's very legitimate. If you're trying something new and doing something for the first time, it'd be weird if you weren't nervous.

Oftentimes I have found that it's those points that make us nervous where we push past our comfort zone that growth actually happens. And that was my experience with this. So there's no part of me that's like, you should 100% do this if you have extreme reservations. And there's also a bit of an invitation: maybe you need to lose control for a bit, in a controlled environment, so that you can break through and actually experience true growth.

Beyond all these concerns, there's also just a lot of concern about social judgment. And I was experiencing this in a pretty serious way when I was just thinking about doing the psilocybin-assisted therapy.

My friend Nathan and I used to take CEOs to different companies for a day — companies who had best-in-class practices from sustainability to people management — and we'd do a full deep dive the next day to help them implement these practices at their company. We were on one of these retreats at the airport, all of us heading out, and we had about twelve CEOs with us. 

One of the CEOs at the airport over lunch, we're all just chit-chatting, and she said: I just heard the most interesting story on NPR. It was about moms who do drugs. And I think it was probably about something like psilocybin-based therapy. But her knee-jerk reaction — and she was a mom herself — was: Can you imagine a parent who does drugs? How irresponsible is that?

It was one of those little societal stories: yeah, it's very inappropriate for a mom to do drugs.

There were also things like — I mentioned to a colleague I was considering doing psilocybin-based therapy, and they literally said: just don't let them take any pictures of you. If that were to get out in a public way, you might have clients that never want to work with you again. That might risk your professional reputation. 

So there was the professional side. There was the mom shame. And then even just in my family — my dad literally still brags to this day, as someone who went to college in the 70s, that he's never "tooked the dope." We grew up in a very traditional, strict, no-drugs-allowed household. Drugs have always been something taboo.

There were all of these competing levels of shame about how I needed to behave as a professional, a mom, a family member, and a community member. We don't do drugs. And we definitely don't do drugs and then talk about it. 

I let all of these competing stories really hold me back from taking the leap myself.

That actually all changed at the beginning of this year. 

I noticed that my husband was really struggling in some of those really hard, crunchy moments when — if you have kids, especially young kids (we have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old), they occasionally struggle with emotional regulation and have these moments that are incredibly frustrating when you're a parent. 

I was noticing in some of these moments that I felt like my husband wasn't quite living up to the father that I knew he wanted to be. He wasn't snapping at them or anything. He was just getting really frustrated, and I felt like he wasn't giving himself or the kids the grace and compassion and patience that I know he wants to be able to give.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back of me being like, I need to talk to you about this. I'm noticing this frustration and anger that you're holding. And I've also seen some anxiety that you're holding around some certain stuff in our life. And I've talked to you about these things many times and I don't think I'm equipped to be able to help you. Maybe it's worth considering going and doing the psilocybin-based therapy with Avi — with one of the therapists at their center.

He was just like, yeah, I think I'm going to.

The next day he called Avi. Avi got him set up with the perfect therapist for him — his business partner, Vince. Because in the interim between the time I had talked to Avi, watched the docuseries — all the things — Avi had actually set up one of Colorado's first healing centers with his business partners, Vince, Mikki, and Cindi. They're all trained facilitators. They're in this incredible group.

So Avi said, I've got the guy for you: Vince. I watched my husband go through the entire process of talking to Vince in advance on Zoom to get his family history and understand his concerns. And then the day of — it's a full-day journey. You're given a macro dose of psilocybin, you sit with the therapist for the entire day, and you just process your shit. All sorts of stuff comes up. Which also means you need someone who can pick you up. So I was the one who went and picked Scott up. 

Even before I got into the session, as part of his prep, Vince asked to have a phone call with me. Which felt very different, but I loved it. He talked to me about what concerns I had with Scott, the behaviors I was seeing, and what my hopes and dreams would be for Scott. As we were getting off that call, and Vince was giving me instructions on how to pick him up, he said: when you pick up your husband, he's going to be an entirely new man.

And I was like — seems like potentially over-promising and setting me up to be disappointed, but I'm just going to go with it. 

So this is the context in which I pick Scott up. I show up at like 3:30 or 4 down to the healing center in Denver. Vince greets me at the door and does a 30-minute debrief with me, talking about all the things that came up for Scott (which he had gotten Scott's permission to talk to me about). And then he leads me back to the room where I find my husband in quite a state.

I would say he was wrecked. He'd been crying for most of the day. You could see his eyes were all puffy. He was like this big mushy marshmallow. He just kept talking to me about how much he loved me and the kids and — I would have to say, this wasn't exactly the "new man" I was expecting or hoping for.

Turned out that wasn't the state he stayed in. But he was in that state for about the next 24 hours. Vince warned me about it, told me that he needed to take the weekend to really just be quiet and process and journal. So that weekend I took the kids a lot and let Scott do his thing.

After they did the integration sessions — Scott talked with Vince on Zoom once a week for the next three weeks to really unearth and process all the stuff that had come up during the full-day session — I really started to see a transformation in my husband. 

One of the things he talked to me about was anxiety. He is a very anxious person. We've been together for 17 years — it's not like this was new to me. I also didn't understand the depths that his anxiety had gotten to. There was so much stuff going on in the back of his head that he often wasn't even talking to me about. And there was stuff he would talk to me about. 

All of that anxiety — it was just gone.

He was calm and grounded — that perfect higher version of himself that I knew he wanted to be with our kids. That was how he was able to show up: patient, emotionally regulated, calm and grounded. It was like I owed Vince a bit of an apology. It was like seeing him as a new version of himself — not different, just upleveled. All of the ways I knew that he really wanted to show up, he was able to really step into those. 

Based on watching that, I was like — I think that I need to do this myself.

In my own personal journey, I mentioned at the top: I've been in therapy for six years. That all started during COVID.

I had postpartum depression. I had just left my own organization that I co-founded in February of 2020. So I'd lost my sense of purpose and my sense of self-worth. I had become a full-time mom unexpectedly because we lost our childcare. We were socially isolated. There was just so much going on. It was a really awful time. 

I started finally working with my therapist, Lynn. First session, she was like: you are a textbook clinically depressed. I would highly recommend we get on antidepressants. So I started getting on those, felt instantly better. In the first couple years of us working together, we just unpacked so much stuff — just through talk therapy. I also did a couple of EMDR sessions, and it was transformational. I was feeling myself healing. 

I was diagnosed in I think 2023 with ADHD after meeting with a psychiatrist, so I got medicated for that. That felt like it really brought me to this next level. And I'd still have significant moments of insecurity. Like I couldn't get to the next level. 

After seeing all of this research coming out, I was like — well, maybe this is the thing. That could break through and finally help me release some of these stories that I've been carrying around with me for decades. Stories that are really holding me back from being the leader or the mom or the partner or the friend, or even just how I feel about myself on a daily basis. That seemed to be preventing me from really loving myself unconditionally.

What would it look like, or what would it feel like, to just love myself today? That like — I had never ever experienced that state. 

So I decided to jump right on in.

I texted Avi and was like, I want to do it too. He said, I've got the perfect person for you. I want you to work with Mikki. I was like, why Mikki? And he just said, you'll see.

I was like, okay — that's an incredibly vague statement, but I'm intrigued, and I trust you, Avi. 

I had my first call with Mikki and I 100% vibed with her in the first call. She walked me through the process, which was the same as my husband: you do three to four preparation sessions virtually. So we talk for about an hour. We walk through family history, past experiences, beliefs. You talk about your intentions, what you want to do. Then you have the full-day session, and then you have three to four integration sessions on the back end.

I just watched my husband do it — I was familiar. We got this. Scheduled everything on that first phone call. She was like, you're gonna go May 1st, that's gonna be your full-day session.

I literally showed up to my first prep appointment with notes in chronological order. Like: here's all my trauma. Here's the source of this insecurity. And here's this. And here's this. I just dumped all of that on her. She took rigorous notes, asked lots of questions.

We talked about my intentions, which were: to maybe understand true self-acceptance without any of the external judgment, and to be able to move forward in the world from a place that felt more intentional and more at peace than the day-to-day stuff I was dealing with.

We literally talked about the different strains of psilocybin, which had names — and I shit you not, she was reading me a list. She was like, we're going to talk about Shakti, Albino Bluey Vuitton, Wormhole, and Golden Teacher.

Apparently each of the different strains of psilocybin has a very specific way that it interacts with people psychologically and physically. One of the ones she was talking about, she said: this one is like a bitchy goddess. She's gonna take you to some really challenging places. You're gonna unearth some stuff that you don't want to look at, but it's what you need to look at, and it's gonna be a hard experience.

I was like — hmmmm.

And then she was talking about Albino Bluey Vuitton, and I believe she said, she's like a drunk sorority girl. I was like, say more. She said, she's gonna bring up all sorts of stuff, kind of in a chaotic way. But she's gonna be encouraging — but also saying some stuff that maybe you don't really want to hear, but in a fun, light way.

I was like, yeah, let's go with that.

So we chose Albino Bluey Vuitton for the journey.

She also told me in advance to make a playlist — to go through and think of all of the relevant, really meaningful songs from my life and put them on a playlist. Even just take a minute and think about this for your own journey. What would that look like? Music can just bring you back, even without the psilocybin. Going back and listening to songs from your life — I have explicit core memories that are tied to certain songs. Jimmy Buffett's Cheeseburger in Paradise — I am 100% eight years old sitting in my dad's Suzuki Sidekick singing that at the top of my lungs with my dad. 

So I made my playlist — had some bangers on there, some Van Morrison, Jimmy Buffett, all sorts of good stuff. I sent it off to her in advance of the full-day journey.

She told me to pack a little backpack with maybe my pillow if I wanted to be comfy, and changes of clothes because she said everyone has different physical reactions — from getting really hot to getting really cold, to maybe both. She said to expect to cry a lot, that lots of people have lots of snot — like your body is flushing stuff out. So bring clothes that can support that experience, and maybe a cute little talisman.

I brought this bracelet I had gotten in the Amazon, and a couple of my kids' little snuggly stuffies. I don't even know what else was in there. The day of, I literally had my little backpack, my pillow. I look like a kid going to summer camp.

Avi texted me the day of, like, how are you feeling? I sent him a picture like, here I am. And to be honest, I felt terrified, nervous, scared — terrified. But also a little excited. I call this a state of being anxited. I knew it was going to be something that was going to be good. And it's also really scary to just hand over control like this.

For reference, I have done magic mushrooms outside of a therapeutic context before. I've had great experiences on them. For those previous experiences, I'd taken about one gram of mushrooms. For the therapy, you do a macro dose. So I was going to be doing just over three grams. 

Part of this is you're just handing over control of the situation. I was like — I'm going to be taking the most amount of drugs I've ever taken in my life and then sitting in a room with a sober person for an entire day. Who knows what happens both mentally and physically to me. I lose control of my mental faculties and spew all of my trauma and process all of my garbage in front of a person who I've just met one month ago. We're just gonna do that and feel great about it.

That is not how I was feeling.

I mentioned all this to Mikki when I arrived at the healing center, and she said, if you didn't feel like that, I would be concerned. It is 100% natural to feel all of those feelings. And I was like, okay, good. 

So feeling all those feelings, I arrived at the healing center — which is quite literally in Denver, in a nondescript office building on top of a Wells Fargo across the street from an old mall. I was like — this is not the environment I was expecting. But I trust them.

I went in. Met Mikki at the lobby. She takes me back, and she's completely transformed her office space. It's a very long, large room. She has these gorgeous sheets of fabric all over the ceiling. These gorgeous moving lamps putting purple and yellow lights out. Comfy futon with little blankets and pillows. There's a couch that has a healing light mat on it. Little tables and chairs. All sorts of stuff. It just felt so magical and comfortable and delightful. 

So I was like, okay, this feels much better.

We sit down. Mikki reviews the safety protocols. Mikki is quite literally one of the people who co-wrote the safety protocols for psilocybin-assisted therapy for the state of Colorado — which have now been adopted in Oregon as well. She knows her shit. 

There are safety protocols in case anything happens from a medical standpoint. She walks me through what's gonna happen in case I have an adverse reaction. She also told me that after doing more than 500 of these sessions, she has never had an adverse reaction that required EMTs or any sort of medical professionals to have to step in. So I felt safe. 

We talked back through the intentions. She also gave me some guidance which was really helpful. She said that a lot of people say they have this internal dialogue going on. All sorts of thoughts are coming up, and they end up holding back on telling Mikki about them because they're worried about how it'll be perceived. Then at the end, they typically say they wish they had said more of the stuff that was happening in their brains out loud, so Mikki could record it and they could process it later. 

Because you don't get to a place where you're unconscious. You're not blacking out. It's not like drinking so much alcohol that you're incapacitated. You are conscious. You remember every single thing that happens. And at least in my experience, there's so much that happens that having someone there to record as much as humanly possible is extraordinarily helpful.

She gives me these instructions. Her wonderful business partner Cindi brings in a little tray. It's got a glass of orange juice, exactly three grams of the Shakti Bluey Vuitton ground up. Putting the mushrooms in the orange juice actually makes it so they integrate faster into your system — and often you don't feel the kind of queasiness that's sometimes associated with taking psilocybin.

I take a big breath. I'm like, I think I'm ready for this. And I'm still feeling very nervous.

At this moment, I had a little bit of a flashback.

I got the incredible experience of once flying on a float plane into the middle of the Amazon rainforest to stay with the Achuar tribe for over a week. It's an indigenous tribe at the head of the Amazon River in the middle of the rainforest. One of the parts of that was doing plant medicine. We did ayahuasca with the shaman. And I was also terrified of losing control of my body and my brain and all the things.

The shaman told us that this medicine is of the earth. It has the earth's wisdom in it. And part of that is that it knows exactly what you need. Your role here is just to trust the medicine — that whatever comes up is exactly what you need to heal right now.

That was incredibly helpful. It was the thing that got me to take the ayahuasca, which was a transformational experience in itself.

I took that in mind: this is a medicine of the earth. It knows what I need.

Mikki talked me through the psychology and the reverence that she has for this incredible medicine, and then she spoke to it. She told the medicine our intentions — and I was like, what is even happening here? Then she asked me if I wanted to talk to the medicine, and I felt ridiculous talking to a bowl of mushrooms. But I was also like, you know what? When in Rome. I am just going to get over myself. I'm going to go ahead and talk to them. Give them my thanks, my gratitude, my love. And tell them what I'm looking for. 

So I spoke my intentions straight to them. Put them in the orange juice. Bottoms up.

Immediately, Mikki was like, I would advise that you might want to lay down. So I laid down on my back. I would imagine within 20 minutes, I was seeing gorgeous fractal patterns starting to show up in the fabric on the ceiling. And I was like, okay, here we go.

For the next few hours, I was transported to a mystical place. And I will say here — to try to explain what this feels like to someone who has not done this before — it is like trying to tell someone who cannot smell what the smell of mint smells like. It is impossible. 

So I'll try to walk you through a little of what happened and go into some of the insights, because that's really some of the important stuff. With the caveat that this is a really hard thing to try to explain — I'm not even going to get most of the experience in here. But we'll just go with what we've got. 

I'm laying down, and within — I'm imagining it's the first 45 minutes or so — things are starting to float into my brain. Deep truths that are in my subconscious that need to be spoken out loud, or that I haven't ever given voice to. I'm going through past stories in my head and seeing them from different ways. And they're cycling through, one after the other after the other. 

I'm noticing right away that I'm having this feeling Mikki had mentioned, of not wanting to say stuff out loud. Part of it was, I don't know if my mouth is going to work right now. And part of it was — I still had a little bit of that, what is she gonna think of me when I say this. 

And that moment right there — what is she gonna think of me — made me realize that I had this little voice in my head. Before I spoke a word — and this wasn't just in this room with Mikki. This was in every relationship in my life, with maybe the exception of like two. I always have this little voice that says: is this okay?

The is this okay question speaks multitudes. It's: is this gonna make the person angry? Are they gonna judge me? Are they gonna think less of me? Am I stupid? Does this sound stupid? There's so much judgment wrapped up in there. 

And if something around this sounds kind of similar — I'm imagining you might have a similar voice as well. It comes as no surprise, because so many of us are conditioned to put other people's comfort over our own, to doubt our contributions, to worry about the way in which we're perceived. Are we doing things that are societally acceptable?

We create these coping mechanisms — things that help us stay within the parameters of what's socially acceptable. This little voice is there. She's just trying to protect us, trying to make sure that we are accepted and don't get kicked out of the tribe.

And the more that I started thinking about this little voice and why it was there, the easier it felt to just kind of let the voice go.

At some point, it transitioned from saying is this okay? Is this okay to say? to: you are okay.

You are okay.

Your thoughts, your needs — they are just thoughts and needs. They are not wrong. They are okay. They have a right to exist. They have a right to be expressed. You are okay.

Like — mind completely blown. Honestly, y'all. I had never experienced this feeling of just sitting in a place of feeling like I was okay. And that something I was doing wasn't wrong or wasn't gonna piss someone off. I knew that little voice had been born from trying to manage immense emotional volatility and manage other people's emotions when I was young.

And all of a sudden, I was able to just let that voice go. It was the most profound experience, honestly.

Once the voice was like you are okay, it gave me the ability to just keep talking. Everything that needed to come out started coming out. Oftentimes, Mikki would just sit there and write down notes and capture things. All the while, my playlist is going on in the background. So oftentimes I'd be in the middle of one thing and then the playlist would come on and it would transport me back to some other part of my life. And I'd start processing that and start tying them in together — and just — this is coming out.

I'm sobbing through most of this. A lot of snot is coming out. I'm a hot mess. 

Mikki would occasionally lob in some little questions to help me go further, which I would say were met with a wide spectrum of reactions on my side. Sometimes I would answer her.

And sometimes — like in the case when she said, Meghan, what do you think the anger is trying to tell you? — I literally turned my head, looked her dead in the eye, and just said, fuck you, Mikki. And then we both broke down into complete hysterical laughter. Just stomach-clutching laughter where I couldn't even breathe, I was laughing so hard.

So it was ups and downs. I said I laughed and I cried at the beginning — I was not joking.

We just went through this cycle for hours, of just getting all this stuff out — until I had to relieve myself. And I'd been laying on my back for hours at this point. It seemed impossible.

I knew that my body had needs, but my body was offline. I felt like my bones had been replaced with gummy worms. And my muscles were made of pudding. I couldn't move. I told Mikki, I need to go to the bathroom. She was like, okay. This was not her first rodeo. She knew this was coming.

And this was the hardest thing that I did the entire day. Honestly. I didn't really have a conception of time, but I'm imagining it was more than half an hour of me flubbering on the ground like a beached whale, trying to just get my muscles to fire — or anything to happen that wasn't just jiggling.

Mikki just patiently standing by the door, waiting for me to stand up. She'd very gently keep giving me encouragement, letting me know that this happens to everyone. And she'd also help keep me on track. I'd be laying there, trying my best to get my body to move online — and then all of a sudden I'd be like, I can see my intellect energy and my humor energy, and I feel like I need to braid them together more. And she'd just be like, I hear you, sweetie. And the bathroom — we need to do the bathroom thing.

At some point, I finally remembered my pregnancy training and was like — aha! From the back to the side, then push it up. And then I stood up. 

I bambied my way down the hall. Her incredible business partner Cindi came in, and they were escorting me. I was worried I was gonna crush them both because they were these teeny little women and I am not that. But I was able to use my legs. It was all right. 

I made it to the bathroom. But right before I got to the bathroom, both of them were like — whatever you do, do NOT look in the mirror.

And I'm like — is something wrong with my face? Is this like a Beetlejuice situation? I'm unclear about what is happening. But I do not want to risk it.

So I put my horse blinders on and walked into the bathroom. Went to the bathroom. Washed my hands. Didn't look in the mirror. Made it out. Made it back.

Probably my biggest accomplishment of my life — making it to the bathroom while on mushrooms in that office.

From there, it just continues. I go back, lay back down, and the insights keep coming. I'm still in the space.

As I mentioned at the top, they've shown that psilocybin is able to suppress our ego. And for me, this was an incredible experience because it was helping me see some of my past experiences from a more objective place — without the ego and without the emotions.

One of the things that happened for me — which apparently I needed — was that I realized when I looked at these old stories with a new lens, I'd been often giving other people who, in past situations, had caused me a tremendous amount of harm from their actions and behaviors — I'd given them the benefit of the doubt. I'd extended compassion. There was always this part of me that was like, well, I can understand kind of why they did it. Because I understood maybe why they had been traumatized over here, and so that's why they acted out in this way.

But I wouldn't extend that same thing to myself. And because I understood maybe why they did it, it made it so I didn't allow myself to ever feel angry about it on behalf of my younger self. 

So much of my experience was regressing back and feeling like I was almost living the stories again — but with deep compassion for myself. I started feeling very protective of my younger self and started seeing her as someone to protect and not someone to blame.

And I got enraged. Like so mad. There was so much anger coming out, and it was anger that I had been repressing apparently for like decades.

Mikki was saying things like, I feel like you're pulling down the dam with all the anger stored behind it. I need you to keep pulling down the dam. This is when she asked me about what the anger was trying to tell me. And I told her to go fuck herself. But I needed to experience the anger.

It was the thing that, in many cases, was like the missing element I had been waiting for — for the six years of trying to process some of this stuff in therapy. Just experiencing the anger for myself was the thing that helped me actually let the story go. And not for it to have so much hold on me.

No clue why. But it was incredible.

So that was one other major insight. And the last one — at one point, I was talking to Mikki a lot about the ways in which some of my ADHD behaviors — I often feel like I am wrong because of the way that I am built. My brain works in a different way, and a lot of times it's a source of shame, or it makes me feel like I should be built differently, I should work differently. 

And Mikki dropped an analogy on me that completely changed my entire freaking life.

She said: Meghan, you are a high-performance race car. You are built with different components. You are built to go as fast as humanly possible, to be at the highest echelon of performance. You have very specific maintenance needs. You have different parts. You have an entire different operating system. And with that, you have your own user manual on how you need to be maintained and taken care of in order for you to operate in the way that you're supposed to.

She's like, are you following? I'm like, I have no clue what you're talking about, really. But I'm here for it. I love your vibe. Let's keep going with the race car thing.

She's like, okay. So all of us are different cars. We're all built with different components. We all have different user manuals. The problem is we often try to push our user manual onto someone else. 

Someone who's like a 1990 Ford comes over and is like, I'm gonna try to take Meghan out for the day. And imposes their user manual on you. And gives you the wrong oil. Puts on tires that are too big for your wheel wells. Gives you the wrong parts in your engine. And then expects you to go out on the track and perform at your best. And you don't. Is that your fault?

I was like — no.

 No, I don't think it is, right? I'm seeing clouds in the sky. The shades are still rippling in and out. I'm having crazy visuals. But I don't think it's my fault, right, Mikki? 

She's like, you're right. It is not your fault. If you are trying, or if someone else is trying to impose a user manual on you that is not yours, and you do not work properly — that does not mean you are wrong. 

My brain just couldn't even handle this information. 

As I started thinking about this, I was like — my God, so many of us are handed a user manual that doesn't work for our fucking car. And this is especially true for women. We're handed a user manual on how to look, how to behave, how to perform, what success is — all of these things we're supposed to do.

And the kicker is: that is a manual that was made up by men under patriarchy. For a non-existent car that doesn't even work. And that is the instruction manual that all of us are trying to use — and wondering why we feel like we're wrong every day of our lives. Why we're deficient. Why we're broken.

It's because we are given a user manual that is not the one that works for our fucking car.

So between the car manual situation and realizing I had this little voice in my head who had now transformed from is this okay? to you are okay — and being so angry on behalf of my younger self and seeing these stories in a more objective way — I felt like by the end of the session, I was sitting in a place of self-acceptance.

Of knowing that I was not broken or wrong. That I was okay. That I am built the exact way that I am, and there's nothing wrong with it, and that I love how I'm built.

I had never in my life experienced what it felt like to just feel happy as I am. And I don't know if any of the people I have in my life ever have. I don't know if any of us do.

The more they talk about this publicly, the more I'm realizing that most of us are walking around driven by these deep insecurities and concerns about ourselves. About being wrong. About being broken. About things we need to change. Things we need to fix. And very few of us actually have this experience of knowing what it feels like to just purely accept ourselves as we are. To revel. To marvel. To be in awe of the person that we are. Full stop.

I still can't really explain how profound this was for me to experience this. And then I found myself being like — I just want everyone to feel like this. 

So many of us are walking around every day letting our insecurities drive our behavior, drive the way that we think about ourselves, drive the way that we treat other people. It's impacting our leadership, our parenting, the way we show up as friends and family members and community. And the more of us that could feel this way — of just feeling whole and loving ourselves as we are — it would change the way that we show up. The way that our communities are built.

It's like my deepest wish that this is something other people could experience more often. And I remember at the top when I talked about how this felt like something that was so important to share — this is why. Because of unlocking something as profound as this. Of healing these core wounds and feeling whole. What a gift that could be. And how this is what the psilocybin unlocked for me.

So that was a bit of my journey of the day.

Scott, my husband, picked me up around 3:30. Similar to how I found him — I was a wreck. I don't think I spoke a word the entire ride home. I just went straight to bed when I walked in. I was so excited to see my kids and gave them kisses because I loved them so much and just wanted to smush their little faces. And then I went right to bed at like 5 o'clock at night.

That weekend, I followed Mikki's instructions. I took a lot of alone time and journaling, just trying to get some of the stuff to process and integrate. Mikki and I did our first virtual integration session that Monday — so three days later. We had two more the following two weeks.

There were a few specific areas that I was able to see it right away. One being my parenting. I was just more present and patient with my children. I could see them for the gorgeous little squishy awesome beings that they were, and I was able to regulate my emotions a lot easier. The little things — like doing bedtime stories or taking them to school — instead of being something I had to get through, it became something I got to do. Something I enjoyed. I just savored every time they'd ask me to watch their dance or listen to the thing they learned. All those things that sometimes I just feel so busy that I don't fully pay attention to — I was just there with them, enjoying them, soaking them in. And it has been the way that I felt pretty much this entire time since.

My relationship with my husband — I took the car manual and I ran with it. Over the three weeks that I was really integrating all this, I quite literally wrote down my own user manual. My husband and I had a date night, and I took him out and walked him through my user manual, step by step. I wrote down things that are benefits of this way that I operate and how I'm built, and things that might be really challenging. Here's the ways in which I see how I am built on this particular issue, where I see that you are different, and where I see that that might cause tension between us.

It helped me get to this point of understanding how much you can deepen a relationship when: one, you understand your own user manual and help your partner understand it. And when you understand theirs. Instead of seeing those areas where you're different as areas of contention, or times where you're trying to change each other to fit each other's user manual, you can just respect and honor and appreciate that this is how the other person's built.

By the end of the dinner, my husband was like, I feel like I have such a better understanding of you. This is so helpful for me to know. And I felt the same thing about him. It was a way to deepen our relationship and feel more connected, and help us navigate things that oftentimes used to be issues where we'd get in little spats. It's incredible.

The third thing that had a really lasting impact for me was a bit of insecurity around my birthday.

My very first memory of my birthday is my mom sitting me down to tell me that pretty much everyone I'd invited to my birthday party couldn't come. My birthday is on June 27th, and most families are traveling for summer vacation and around the July 4th holiday — it's always the worst. And this became a pattern for my entire life, of just people never being able to come to my birthday. Which I of course then associated with — people don't actually like me. I don't have friends because nobody shows up for my birthday party. I'd share my little puppy cake with two other kids from my school that I barely even knew, or try to beat down a piñata with one other person.

They were sad birthday parties. They weren't great. And I attached a story to them — a story that I carried pretty much for the rest of my life. That people don't actually like me. So my birthdays became this thing that I not only didn't look forward to, but actively just hated.

A few weeks ago, it was my birthday. Early June. My husband sent out some feeler texts to some of our close friends to see if anyone would be available for my birthday dinner. And, surprising absolutely nobody, no one was in town. Not a single human. 

And instead of this becoming a thing — for the first time in my life, I just received it as information. Not an indictment of my character or proof that nobody loves me. Just like — damn, that sucks. People are out of town. Okay. Like — move on.

What? What? It rewired my brain to stop giving a shit about people not being able to come to my birthday party.

Thank you, psilocybin. Check.

Moving on from the birthday. One of the other impacts — the last one that I'll talk about — is I talked about my little internal voice who had switched from is this okay? to you are okay. That has just stayed with me.

It showed up at the end of May. I flew to the UK to go on a leadership retreat in Glastonbury with 12 other leaders from around the world in this little community that I'm a part of. And I did not know a soul — not a single soul — heading into the trip. We were doing 72 hours of deep work with this incredible philosopher, Tim Freke.

Normally, this would have been the type of situation that made me feel incredibly insecure. Where I would very much hold myself back and wait on the outside of the group to see what the dynamics were before I really let anyone see who I actually am. Read people first.

And I just didn't care. I was so grounded. So joyful. So delighted in myself. Trusting myself. Whatever was coming up, whatever I wanted to do. And it was incredible. 

Not only did it feel wonderful to just check the insecurity at the door — but it drew people to me. I was just showing up as my full, authentic, genuine, grounded self from moment one. And people were here for it. Gorgeous connections. Deep friendships. I felt so much happier, so much healthier, so much more whole being there as this authentic version of myself.

And as someone who quite literally wrote an entire chapter in my book about authentic leadership, I was like — we really can't step into full authentic leadership until we have really navigated and put our deep insecurities to bed.

To any of you who are listening who are managers or leaders in your organizations, or parents, or partners — if you have that little voice that holds you back in certain circumstances, that makes you act differently in a room based on who's in the room with you — it's holding you back. People around you? They feel it. 

Healing yourself in this way. It is leadership work. It is parenting work. It is community work. It is friend work. It helps us be better in relationships — which is really what so much of life is built on.

So. That's the whole thing.  

I guess you can say doing an absolute boatload of drugs was one of the best things I've ever done in my life. Yeah. I'll stand behind that statement.

And throughout the whole process, I have thought about how much I would have missed out on if I had let that little story that told me to, quote, behave — to be a good mom and a good wife and a good professional. If I had let that voice win. If I'd feared. If I'd shied away from this for fear of judgment or fear of shame or fear of this being too taboo.

What I would have missed out on. But yet again, I find that unbehaving — that pushing back on that status quo narrative about what we, quote, should do — that is where the real magic actually happens. It's where the transformation happens. It's where the healing happens. It's where the good stuff happens.

At least for me. That's the place I want to be. I want you to be there with me too. And that's why I talked about this today.

Part 2, we're gonna talk to Mikki, my extraordinary therapist, about the legalization process, about some of the research, about all sorts of incredible stuff that she has unearthed in the years she has been in this space.

So that's all we have for today. If you want the full written version of all this, it's on the Substack. Part 1 is called To Shroom or Not to Shroom? and Part 2 is called Why I'm a Mom Who Does Drugs. Those are there for you under Unbehaved.

If this resonated — obviously, please leave a comment, reach out, LinkedIn, email, whatever it is. I love hearing from you. I love hearing your questions.

Until next time.

Most people think the cure for "not feeling enough" is to achieve more. To work harder, climb higher, and one day arrive at the version of success that finally proves you belong.

Shirin Eskandani spent her whole life chasing that version. She trained at one of the most competitive music programs in North America. She built the career most opera singers spend their entire lives hoping for. And then she got the call she'd been dreaming of since she was eight years old — the Metropolitan Opera. Carmen. Her dream role, her dream opera house, exactly the contract she'd imagined.

The moment she hung up the phone, the only thought in her mind was: you're not good enough for this. You don't deserve this.

That moment cracked open everything. In this episode, Shirin shares the year-and-a-half of inner work that followed — the therapy, the coaching, the realization that nothing external was ever going to heal the wound she'd been outsourcing. And how, after she finally sang at the Met and enjoyed every moment of it, she realized she didn't want to be a singer anymore.

Today she's a coach who built one of the few decolonized coaching certifications in the field. We talk about perfectionism as a coping mechanism (not a virtue), the two-year test that's saved Meghan from at least three career decisions she would have regretted, what real courage actually looks like (hint: it's the email, not the leap), joy as a discipline rather than a feeling, and the line that may be the headline of the entire episode — our dreams are colonized.

This is a conversation for anyone who's ever achieved something they worked their whole life for and then quietly wondered why it didn't fix the thing they thought it would fix.

Shirin Eskandani is a coach, former opera singer, and the founder of Wholehearted Coaching and the Wholehearted Certification — a decolonized life coaching certification program now in its fifth cohort. She trained at the Manhattan School of Music, performed at the Metropolitan Opera, and walked away from her singing career to build a coaching practice rooted in mindfulness, somatics, and the work of dismantling oppressive systems within and around us. She lives and works at the intersection of inner work and structural awareness.

"I'd always imagined that if I ever got to work at the Met, I would finally realize I was good enough. And the only thought in my mind was: you're not good enough for this. You don't deserve this."

"Nothing outside of me was ever going to heal that wound."

"My greatest achievement isn't singing at the Met. It was singing at the Met and enjoying every part of the process."

"Courage isn't the big monumental shift — it's emailing the person, looking at the website, journaling the idea. The tip of the courage iceberg is the public moment. Everything underneath is what actually got you there."

"Just sitting with a question starts to change the neuroplasticity of your brain. You don't need the answer. The question itself is doing the work."

"Our dreams are colonized. We're dreaming within a box of possibility shaped by what people have told us is possible for people like us."

"Joy is what we need to sustain ourselves through times like these. And we are the exact folks who tend not to prioritize joy — because we're too busy writing our congressperson to look at the magnolia bloom. Yes, AND look at the bloom. Because that is what's going to sustain you to keep writing."

"The permission to not care what people think. That's it. This is your life."

00:31 — Welcome + Shirin's story 01:22 — Immigrating from Iran, belonging, and the perfectionism trap

04:31 — First opera, the dream of singing at the Met

05:51 — Manhattan School of Music and doubling down 07:30 — The Met phone call ("you're not good enough for this")

09:30 — A year and a half of inner work

11:00 — Singing at the Met and enjoying every moment of it

11:31 — Realizing she didn't want to be a singer anymore

13:51 — Where the perfectionism stories actually come from

17:21 — Mindset work, somatics, and the books that shifted everything

21:15 — The two-year test and the courage iceberg

26:54 — Micro-courage and the power of sitting with a question

28:14 — Joy as a discipline (and the magnolia bloom)

31:22 — Building a decolonized coaching certification

36:41 — How to bring this work to clients who aren't ready for the language

39:37 — Our dreams are colonized

41:59 — The permission slip

42:48 — Where to find Shirin

Lightly edited for readability — verbal tics, false starts, and cross-talk artifacts removed. Substance preserved.

Meghan French Dunbar: We had the chance to meet at a dinner and I heard the briefest bit of your story and was immediately like, my gosh, I want to know more. Now is my moment. Can we hear a little about your journey? How did you get to where you are today — perhaps with the lens of the ways you've been told to behave throughout your life, and the stories that's brought up for you?

Shirin Eskandani: My goodness. First, thank you so much for having me. I'm so thrilled to be having this conversation with you and to meet your community. Yeah — there's been a lot of unruly behavior when I look at my history, and I foresee a lot more of it in the future.

Let's start at the beginning. My family immigrated from Iran to Canada when I was four years old. We moved to Vancouver, to a part of the city that was predominantly white. For me, being one of a handful of children of color in my neighborhood was a really formative experience — and I know we usually use "formative" in a positive way, but it really did form a lot of the ideas and beliefs I had about myself. I think a lot of folks can identify with what I'm about to share. I felt like I didn't have a sense of belonging. I couldn't see myself in a lot of spaces.

What I discovered as a young girl was that when I was well-behaved, when I was excellent at what I did, when I was as perfect as I could possibly be — that was when I was seen. So this narrative shaped so much of my early life: as long as I am the best, as long as I am trying my hardest, as long as I am being perfect, I will belong, I will have value, I am worthy. Which sounds like a nightmare. But at the time, it was working.

What's really tough about perfectionism, about being a hard worker, about being your quote-unquote "best" — these are coping mechanisms. But what we generally call them is values. They're incredibly celebrated in our society. So it's a negative cycle.

One of the spaces in which I actually did feel like I belonged when I was young — without having to be perfect, without having to work super hard — was when I was on stage, singing. In first grade I was singing with other kids and a teacher said, wait, this girl's got some pipes on her, and told my mom. I come from a really musical family — my grandmother and great-grandmother were famous singers in Iran who were very unbehaved in what they were doing. So when this teacher told my parents, they put me in choirs. They allowed me to express myself this way. It really was where I felt most me.

I don't remember exactly when, but I saw my first opera and I was like, that is what I'm going to do. I am going to be an opera singer. I am going to move to New York. I am going to sing at the Met. I put that into the universe at the age of eight.

As I got older, I kept getting better as a singer. But at the same time, those qualities of perfectionism and overworking were creeping into my singing. I got accepted into a really great school in Canada for my undergrad and was a big fish in a little pond. For my masters, I decided I was going to apply to the top five music schools in the US and Canada. I got accepted to the Manhattan School of Music. I thought, this is it. It's happening. I'm moving to New York. I'm going to be singing at the Met in no time.

And I arrived in New York and realized there was nothing special about me. Everyone at my school was talented. Everyone was hardworking. Some of them weren't even hardworking and they were still amazing at what they did. The whole identity I'd built started to crumble underneath me. I didn't have the wisdom to say hey, do some internal work and unpack some of this. This was 20 years ago. I was young. The answer, in my mind, was to double down on the hustle — double down on working hard, double down on being perfect, double down on being the best.

And that did work for a while. I graduated and was one of the few in my class working right away. I was singing at different opera houses, apprenticing, working in Europe. If you'd written my career on a piece of paper, this was exactly it. Everyone from the outside was like, wow, look at Shirin. She's living the dream. And Meghan, it was anything but.

The way I was doing it was unkind and unforgiving. I was getting work, but all I could focus on was the work I wasn't getting. I was singing really well, but all I could focus on was what I wasn't doing well vocally. The how was making me miserable and exhausted in a field that's already demanding. I reached a point where I was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Which was terrifying — I had poured so much of myself into this. It had been my whole identity since I was a girl. I couldn't imagine not doing it. And I also couldn't imagine continuing the way I was doing it. I didn't know how else to do it.

At that very low point, I got the call I had quite literally been waiting for my entire life. A year earlier I'd had an audition at the Metropolitan Opera that I thought I'd totally botched. My agent called and said, Shirin, the Metropolitan Opera wants you to sing in Carmen next season. My dream role. Dream opera house. Dream opera. Really good pay. I, of course, said yes.

But I'll never forget — I hung up the phone, and I had imagined and dreamed of this moment for so long, and I had always imagined that if I ever got to work at the Met, I would finally realize I was good enough. I would finally realize I'd made it. I'd finally feel confident. And I will never forget hanging up that phone and realizing I felt none of those things. The only thought in my mind was: you're not good enough for this. You don't deserve this.

In that moment, I woke up. I realized nothing outside of me was ever going to heal that wound. Nothing was ever going to convince me I was good enough, that I belonged, that I was worthy. Here I was with the perfect external thing — I couldn't have changed a single thing to make it more perfect — and even that couldn't fill the hole. I told myself: you need help.

I had a year and a half to prepare for the role. Of course I worked on my voice. But what I had never worked on before, and really started working on, was myself. I went to therapy. I started working with a coach. That shifted everything.

I always say my greatest achievement in life isn't singing at the Met — it was singing at the Met and enjoying every part of the process. When I stood on that stage to take a bow every night, I knew in my bones that I belonged there. When a performance wasn't as optimal, it didn't matter. I had the inner resilience and the tools to ground myself and stay present. It was an enjoyable, amazing experience — in a very high-pressure environment. Imagine going to the Olympics. I was able to be in the joy of it.

In that process, I rediscovered my love of singing. I rediscovered myself. And I discovered that I no longer wanted to be a singer. Which is like — wait, that's not where the story is supposed to go.

I work with a lot of clients who are in career transition. I deeply believe that if we can get back to what we used to love about a thing and why we cared about it so much, we can make a really clear decision about whether to stay or go — a decision we don't regret. Even when you're ready to leave something, it's hard. We know this from relationships. Even when you're so done, it's still challenging.

I was able to see the career with clear eyes — not through a narrative of I'm leaving because I'm not good enough or I can't handle it. None of that. I saw it for what it was. And it wasn't a career that aligned with what I wanted anymore. The values I had as a 30-year-old woman, the things I wanted in life — I couldn't create those there.

It sounds silly because most people would say opera singing is unconventional. But it wasn't to me. I had my master's. I had poured so much of myself into it, with so much diligence and work ethic, so much money and time and tears. I was like — no, this isn't it anymore. That realization was terrifying.

Through working with my coach, I realized I wanted to be a coach. At the time, I felt like a total millennial stereotype. Am I going to go to the circus and be a juggler next? Take up papier-mâché? It felt so out of left field. But it was real. So I looked into certifications, found what I liked, got certified, and yada yada — became a coach. Not linear. Lots of ups and downs. But yeah. That's a little bit of my story.

Meghan: Such a cool story. Who do you think was writing those early narratives — the ones about perfection, achievement, needing to outsource your self-worth? Where were the stories coming from?

Shirin: Everywhere. And inside the house, too. When you look at young kids who have the privilege of being raised in a household with emotional safety and present, loving parents, most have a really high regard for themselves. They think greatly of themselves — as we all should. But things chip away at it.

For me a lot of that came from not belonging — in the way I looked, in the way my culture was, in the way my family was. And then noticing: in society, it seems like when you do these things, you're accepted. You're not on the outliers. We all just want belonging.

Another big piece, for me and for a lot of my clients who are immigrants or people of color, is the deep guilt. My family left Iran because of the revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. We were lucky we could immigrate — we weren't refugees. But there's a deep sense that your family uprooted themselves for you. It was never voiced explicitly in my family, but I felt it: you better make the best of this. They quite literally left for you. So you want to give them the ROI. Prove them right. Look at what we're doing with our lives.

For me that came through doing all of those perfect things — and also through wanting to be ease. The less of a problem I could be to my parents, the easier this would be for all of us. Kids are perceptive. You realize this isn't easy.

And then there's society, of course — patriarchy, white supremacy, all the things that uphold perfectionism and overworking, that say your value is in how much you produce. And we as humans all have a part that questions our worth. So you internalize all of that and conclude: I guess the answer is being perfect. Easy peasy. Let's go.

Meghan: Between getting the call from the Met and singing at the Met, there's a year and a half. You get a therapist, a coach, and a significant transformation happens. What were the specifics for people in the early part of that story? It probably isn't as easy as just go grab a therapist. What were the actual things that moved you toward self-acceptance?

Shirin: So many things. One of the big ones for me was that I was never conscious of my inner narrative. It was there. It was happening. It was having a huge effect. But I had never actually sat down to think: how am I thinking? I had certainly never questioned how I was thinking. I just thought my thoughts were my thoughts.

Mindset work gets a bad rap because of how it's often explained in the coaching world — it sounds like it's supposed to be positive thinking. It's not. It's very deep work. It's about awareness of what is my mind making me think about myself, and then sitting with that realization — which is sometimes not a nice place to be — before we even get to changing it.

And then beyond the mind, there's the body. Your mind may be on board with something but your body may not feel safe about it. Suddenly you realize: there are all these parts of me that need to be part of this conversation.

I was working with a therapist — a lot of talking, unpacking my past, understanding why these behaviors weren't virtues but coping mechanisms. There's a lot of grief in that. But so much freedom on the other side. I always say I'm a recovering perfectionist, because once you've been one, there's always a part of you that wants to know if you can do this better. It's always there.

Then somatics — meditation, breath work, tapping (emotional freedom technique, which I love). And I was reading every book you can think of. Some of them in retrospect had stuff that was a little toxic. But there was also some really great material. This was 20 years ago — the rise of the modern self-help world. I'd have epiphanies that I had to be very silent about.

I want to say too: this process of healing doesn't have to involve a lot of money. I can't tell you how many podcasts I listened to, how many books I read that shifted something within me. It doesn't have to be expensive.

Meghan: I'm thinking about the move from I'm an opera singer at the Met to I'm going to be a coach. These seem very different. I talk to a lot of people who stay in a role or at a company because of the sunk-cost fallacy — I've invested so much, I've moved up. Or it's too late to change, or what are people going to think? What did that transition actually look like? Where was the courage coming from?

Shirin: Great question. First — it's messy. It's not linear. But there's something I did then and still do, and I give it to all my clients: my two-year test. You ask yourself: if nothing changes in my life two years from now — if I'm quite literally living the same life I'm living today — how does my body, spirit, and mind feel about that?

The answer is usually instantaneous. There has to be a version of you that's courageous enough to ease the load for future versions of you. Maybe this is the version today.

I also think we have a misconception about courage. We see courage as these big acts — somebody quit their job, somebody moved across the country, somebody divorced their partner. That is courage. But it's just the tip of the courage iceberg. Underneath that big monumental shift were all these tiny, even more courageous decisions — emailing the person, looking at the website, thinking about the thing, journaling the idea. Those are pivotal moments.

Related: I was listening to a podcast recently where they said in science, they've shown that just sitting with a question starts to change the neuroplasticity of your brain. Not answering it. People come to me because they want the answer. The magic is in sitting with the question. What would life maybe look like? What could possibly happen? Where could I go? You don't need to know the answer. The question itself is shifting things.

For me, looking back at that time, it was a lot of that. A lot of sitting with questions. Small but very large, courageous inquiries and moves.

I had Amina on your podcast in mind — she talks about purpose. I'd fallen into the belief that your job is your purpose. So if I leave opera, what's my purpose now? Through my coach, I realized: when I was singing, that wasn't my purpose. It was one way I expressed my purpose. And now that vehicle is coaching. That realization — this isn't a huge jump, this is me following the North Star — meant my purpose was transforming people through joy. I used to do it on stage; now I get to do it coaching.

That eased the part of me worried about the time and money. Every skill, every ability still applies. The stories I'm most inspired by are people who change their lives up — either things crumble or they decide it's got to change. Those are the stories I want to listen to. I was like — wait. That gets to be my story too. Mine doesn't have to be I just did this for 50 years. Mine gets to be as compelling and exciting as those stories.

That was a big leap, though. A big leap.

Meghan: What comes up for me is the moments of micro-courage that really are the courage. When I had the insane idea to launch a print magazine, it was those little things — buying the domain, setting up the email address, sending the email to John Mackey to see if he wanted to be on the cover. I have a mentee who wanted to launch a side hustle, and I told her: just post one thing on your website. Just one step. It doesn't have to feel so gigantic.

You also mentioned joy. What an exceptional purpose — helping people transform through joy. Six years ago I realized I was very disconnected from my joy. I find a lot of times that ambitious, high-performing people put joy on the sidelines — we'll do that in God knows how many years after we get through this busy season. Which has turned into an entire busy life. How are you seeing people experience joy right now, and how do you tap into your own?

Shirin: Especially with everything going on in the world — which I feel like I've been saying for a while now — joy is something we have to be very consciously creating. It's something we can easily lose touch with.

I always say happiness happens to you. Happiness is seeing your favorite friend. Happiness is getting to eat a cupcake when you didn't think you would. Joy is something more intrinsic. Joy has a lot to do with being able to accept your life exactly as it is — with all of its beauty and all of its mess. To not be judging, pushing against, or ignoring it. Especially not ignoring the beauty. Joy is about being in awe, being in gratitude.

For instance — as I'm talking, in front of my desk there's a magnolia tree. All the flowers have fallen because magnolia trees only really bloom for one week. But there's one little bloom still there. And I'm like — that's joy. Being able to see that one bloom amidst all of this.

Joy is something we have to be diligent about. It's also incredibly necessary, because joy is what propels us. Joy is what we need to sustain ourselves through times like these. If we're compassionate beings, if we want to make an impact, if we want to be engaged and present and changing things — we need joy. And we are the exact folks who tend not to prioritize it. Because we're like, I don't have time to look at that magnolia bloom, Shirin, because I need to write my congressperson. Yes — AND look at the bloom. Because that is what's going to sustain you to keep writing.

So for me it's a constant practice. I call it stop, pause, savor. Stop what you're doing. Pause in the moment. Savor whatever is around you. The more mundane the environment, the better — there really is something to savor about that moment. As people doing big, brave, courageous things, we can overlook those things because we're trying to get to the next thing, solve the next thing, create the next thing. It's like — wait a second. Right here, there's something to be appreciated.

Meghan: One of the things I heard you talk about earlier was looking for decolonized approaches to coaching — and saying, I cannot find it, so I will build it. Tell us about this. For someone asking, what does this even mean?

Shirin: This is part of my unbehaved journey, too. When I was first trying to find coaching certifications 10 years ago, it was so hard for me to find something that really reflected my values. I wanted a certification that would offer me skills to work with diverse folks from diverse backgrounds. I found something that ticked off most of the boxes but knew I'd need to do more education to really serve the communities I wanted to work with in a way I thought was helpful and in integrity.

A couple years ago I was looking at certifications again because so many people were asking me where I'd been trained. And I realized: not a lot has changed since I started 10 years ago. I thought to myself, somebody should create a decolonized coaching certification. And I was like — somebody, hello. Oh. That person is me.

It was wild at the time. I had a thriving one-on-one and group coaching business. I didn't have time to build and run a certification. But it was my purpose — that North Star. I created the certification about four years ago. We're starting our fifth cohort now.

I know "decolonized approach to life coaching" sounds like what does that actually look like? Coaching is an incredibly transformational modality. It can absolutely change people's lives. It's also an industry full of toxicity and harm. It's hard for folks to figure out what's safe — especially when the more harmful spaces use marketing techniques that prey on your vulnerabilities and your scarcity. Even me, knowing so much, has signed up for things over the years that I later realized were not safe spaces.

Decolonizing coaching is about how we really understand all the parts of who we are as a coach, accept that, and allow it to be part of our practice — and also do that for our clients. We can't help people transform if we can't be with who we are and who is in front of us.

The folks I know who want to be coaches want to work with diverse folks with diverse backgrounds and needs. That means we need a toolbox to do that. We need trauma-informed care. We need to know how to work with neurodivergent communities, with the entire LGBTQIA spectrum. It doesn't mean that's always who we're serving — but we need to be able to hold space for it. We also need to understand that so much of how we think and move in the world upholds oppressive systems. Not because we want to. But the perfectionism, the over-working — those things affect our coaching practice and how we run our coaching businesses.

So the last two months of our certification focuses on building a sustainable, successful coaching practice that allows you to thrive. People leave their jobs because they're burnt out, then start their own thing — and perpetuate the same damn patterns. No boundaries, not paying themselves well. We need to dismantle this in all the different ways.

I feel like I'm the little black sheep of the coaching community. The work is so needed. The coaches who've graduated are doing amazing work. But sometimes I feel a little on the periphery. I'm okay being there now. Really okay.

Meghan: I'm so happy you're there. The language of oppressive systems has been relegated to "woke land." When people can take a step back and approach things with curiosity and actually wanting to understand, these concepts can be revelatory. How are you getting around the resistance to the language — to help people understand that understanding these systems makes us better leaders, better family members, better community members?

Shirin: We have this conversation often in the certification. Coaches will ask, how do I explain to people that I'm a decolonized coach? And often I tell them: you don't need to. The way you're going to hold space is going to be transformational for them. We meet our clients where they're at. If I'm working with a corporate client and I say we're going to be doing decolonized coaching, they're going to say, no thank you. But if I say we're going to work toward your goals, and in order to get there we also need to understand what's going on inside — because in order to sustain anything without me telling you what to do, we need to figure out what's in the way internally and externally — that lands.

Everything I believe in will come into play as we do the work together. When people hear "decolonize," "white supremacy," "capitalism" — they assume we're sticking it to the man all day. But these things are quite literally the air we breathe. So as we coach, it's part of the work intrinsically and at the heart of it.

Same with words like mindfulness. A lot of my practice is rooted in mindfulness, but if I tell a client that, they think we're going to meditate for 45 minutes. So it's about how you talk about things in a way clients can actually understand: this is of benefit to me. Certain terms — trauma-informed — people are increasingly understanding. Others, we're still working on.

Meghan: Has anything been particularly surprising for you as the certification has developed?

Shirin: What's surprised me — and not surprised me — is that the curriculum has been transformational for myself and for everyone who's gone through it. Coaches finish saying I am a completely different human. Because we're not just looking at healing from the useful angles like mindset and somatics. We're also looking at how the world we live in shapes how we think, how we dream.

One of my favorite modules — and the coaches' too — is on goal setting. When I first started coaching, I realized so many of my clients had very similar goals. I can't tell you how many people came to me wanting to get an MBA. Which is fine, totally fine. But I was like — what is going on here? And I realized: we are dreaming within a box of possibility. Our dreams are colonized. They're shaped by what people have told us is possible for people like us. By what we've seen is possible for people like us.

If a client says MBA, cool — let's go with it. But in the process, how can we go deeper? How can we expand their imagination? Maybe at the end we're still at the MBA but with a deeper why. Or maybe it's somewhere we could have never imagined. To me, that is incredible coaching — where you can go somewhere with a client that in session one, in that discovery call, you could have never realized.

So much of how we perceive ourselves and dream and think is rooted in oppressive systems. But it's okay. We can dismantle it. And we don't have to do it aggressively. It can be loving. It can be compassionate. It can be deeply healing.

Meghan: Last question. If there was a permission slip you could give everyone today, what would it be?

Shirin: The first thing that came to mind is the permission to not care what other people think. That's it. I'm not even going to add to it. The things we think other people are thinking — they're not. But if they are, this isn't their life. This is your life.

Meghan: Where do people find you? What are you working on?

Shirin: Instagram: @wholeheartedcoaching. My personal site is wholehearted-coaching.com and the certification is wholeheartedcertification.com. We just opened applications for the September cohort of the certification — open until the end of June. And — knock on wood — we just submitted our application to the ICF to become ICF accredited. We should hear about that in early summer.

Meghan: Go sign up! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited to know you and to hear more about your work. It's extraordinary.

Shirin: Thank you, Meghan. I think the same of you. Thank you for letting me have this beautiful conversation with you.

We spend more time at work than we do with our families. So why do we tolerate things from our employers — broken trust, withholding information, being told everything's fine when it clearly isn't — that we'd never tolerate from a partner?

In this episode of Unbehaved, we sit down with bestselling author Minda Harts, bestselling author ofTalk to Me Nice and The Memo, to ask why workplace trust is so often broken, why we accept it, and — most importantly — what to actually do about it.

If you're a leader trying to build a team people want to stay on, or someone navigating a workplace that doesn't feel safe, this episode reframes one of the most under-talked-about elements of work into the actual business imperative it's always been.

Minda Harts is the bestselling author of The Memo and Talk to Me Nice, a TEDx speaker, and a workplace equity advocate whose work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Time, and Forbes. She's the founder of The Memo LLC and one of the most influential voices in workplace culture today — and a self-described former member of the Church of Rumination. Talk to Me Nice is available wherever books are sold.

Find her at MindaHarts.com and on LinkedIn.

"If you expect trust in your romantic and platonics, then you should expect that at a place you're going to spend 90,000 hours of your life at." — Minda Harts

"Trust could be there at nine and be gone by nine-oh-three." — Minda Harts

"It's not selfish for me to tell you what I need. It's selfless." — Minda Harts

 "Humans are the ones making these decisions. We are the ones opting in." — Minda Harts

"As a woman, I've benefited from so many women that I will never know their names. So many people that fought for pay equity. So many people that fought for voting. I may never know who they were — but I know I'm a beneficiary of that courage." — Minda Harts

"Someone will be a beneficiary of my courage. And so I keep shaking the tables. Because I know that if I don't, then somebody doesn't get what they need later down the line." — Minda Harts

"Success is peace." — Minda Harts

Cleaned for clarity. Filler words and audio artifacts removed; conversational cadence preserved. Speaker labels and timestamps as recorded.

Meghan French Dunbar (02:15) All right, Minda, you and I have something in common that I don't think you know about — because I've never told you about it. Cheating ex-boyfriends. Both of us legit surprising our boyfriends and coming home to find them with other women. Mine was Jimi. Yours was Scott — which is hilarious because I'm married to a Scott, and you talked about "not being a Scott in the workplace" and I was like, that's hysterical.

But the thing that I found really interesting about your book — and an insight that came up for me — was, I think we bifurcate our concepts of personal and professional. And as a part of that, there are things that we aren't willing to tolerate in our personal relationships that for some reason we tolerate in our professional ones. And your thesis of this entire book is that one of the primary things is we tolerate broken trust.

Both of us come home to our cheating boyfriends, they're gone. Broken trust, signed, sealed, delivered, we are over. And in the workplace, we're willing to tolerate — and we've normalized — somewhat emotionally abusive relationships built on broken trust in many of the contemporary workplaces.

A lot of that, of course, is coming down to: we have livelihoods, we have to put a roof over our heads, and it's really hard to change. So — what are the main consequences (mental health, physical health, whatever it might be) that you've seen of people staying in low-trust environments for too long?

Minda Harts (03:41) Where do we begin…

Meghan French Dunbar (03:42) I know. And — go.

Minda Harts (03:45) Well, I think this is something really important, because I had this aha moment on the way to the bathroom, like a few years ago during COVID, and I'm like — trust issues, right? Like you said, we normalize them at work but we don't tolerate it outside of work to some degree.

And I thought to myself: if people are saying bring your authentic self to work, trust is the same, right? I should have the same bar for trust in my personal and professional lives.

And also too — it's not enough to do a trust fall at work and then go back to work and let somebody tell you lies, give you lip service — because you're not going to be able to do your best work. And I want people to realize that if you expect trust in your romantic and platonics, then you should expect that at a place you're going to spend 90,000 hours of your life at.

Because you're not going to be productive, you're not going to do your best work. And if you're a company, you're not going to have good retention if people don't trust you.

And trust isn't necessarily I tell you all the things you want to hear — it's also telling you when I don't have the answers, or, yeah, you do hear the sirens and I'm not sure why, but you're not stupid and you hear them, right? I'm not going to pretend they're not happening.

That's the piece of the puzzle I want people to normalize — saying it's okay to talk about when we have these breakdowns. Because let's get it back on the tracks.

Meghan French Dunbar (05:10) Yeah. I'm curious as well about — at least my experience of the broken trust in my personal relationship was, I started questioning myself. I took a bit of a hit — not a bit, a large hit — to my sense of self-worth and questioning what I did wrong.

And I'm curious how that manifests with employees and people who are working at really low-trust environments. How much do you see people blaming themselves, or taking on this guilt or shame or concern themselves?

Minda Harts (05:42) Yeah, I think we do that. And I talk about that in the book — what does trust look like to you? Because we don't typically ask ourselves: okay, what are the behaviors? What are the attributes or the characteristics where trust means something to me? It may mean something different to somebody else, but what's important to me?

And people would tell me, "I don't trust my manager," or "I don't trust my colleague," or "I don't trust HR." And what they were really saying was that there was this expectation that they had of someone else that they may not be aware of.

And I say: okay, well — once you identify what it is you need to do your best work or to be most productive, what would it look like to advocate for yourself? You're good enough to deserve humanity, dignity, and respect in every space you enter. So what does it look like to have that conversation?

Because I think sometimes things get lost in translation. I don't think anyone shows up to work, Meghan, and says, "How can I erode trust with Minda today?" I hope they don't do that. But it happens — because of this communication crisis.

I think we just have to normalize letting people know what good looks like to us. And some of us need to be reminded of that — and be told, you should be able to tell someone when they've fallen short in a way that still enhances trust instead of erodes it.

Meghan French Dunbar (07:03) Speaking of self-advocacy — I'm like, I don't even know if we've actually talked about this. You and I are in an authors group together, so we get to talk occasionally, but we don't do a lot of one-on-ones.

So I asked you to be a speaker at my event in January of 2020 — the World Changing Women's Summit. The Memo had just come out. Everyone was talking about you. I was like, Yes, we're going to get Minda.

And we were designing the flow of the event down to the last minute, because we really wanted to have a conversation about the different experiences that white women and women of color were having in workplaces — in the context of a 200-person women-only gathering. It was the first time we'd done it. So we were kind of all over the place.

It meant that as you were looking for answers on what this speaking engagement was going to look like — every time we came back to you, we had a different idea or concept. We were just all over the place.

And at some point, you so gracefully were like, You know what? I don't know if this is going to be the right thing for me. Perhaps in the future.

And one — you did it in such a lovely way that I was like, I'm not even mad. I understand why she did this. But the thing that I've always thought of you when I think of this is self-advocacy. Knowing at what point to say, meh, this isn't really working for me. Prioritizing your comfort as much as other people's comfort.

How have you developed this? In the book you talk about it in terms of being sensitive to yourself. How has this developed for you? Is it something you've always had, or have you had to build this skill over time?

Minda Harts (08:34) Thank you. And yeah — well, thank you for acknowledging that, Meghan. I do appreciate that. And I do remember it.

I was actually going through some old emails recently and I'm like, Wait — me and Meghan have been connected for longer than I… And I'm glad it came to this.

What I will say is: no, I haven't always been this person. I'm still practicing and flexing the self-advocacy muscle so much.

And that's essentially what the Trust Languages is all about. It's letting people know where your comfort level lies, and then they can opt in or out of that. But I can't assume that people are going to go around with a crystal ball and say, "What has been the need in this situation?"

I think I was expecting that. And then I'd disappoint myself when people weren't showing up in the ways that I thought they could — or because I'm just grateful to be here, I shouldn't say anything about what trust or comfort or security looks like to me.

As I started writing about it and talking about it at different conferences, I thought: Well, girl, you better be doing this for yourself too. Because we love to give advice to people on what they should be doing, but you have to demonstrate it too.

And that goes back to the first question — that self-trust. Am I trusting how I'm experiencing a certain situation, good, bad, or indifferent? And then we can open up communication, because a lot of trust breakdowns are just — we aren't communicating expectations to each other.

I just wanted to give people language and tools to be able to say: Okay, you know what it looks like when you just sweep it under the rug and then things just continue to get bad. What could it look like if we do it a different way?

Meghan French Dunbar (10:17) I'm curious about people's responses to you. Because I always catastrophize — imagining once I speak up and tell something, you know, I'm honest about what I need, that I'm going to make someone uncomfortable or there's going to be conflict. I always just used to imagine there'd always be conflict if I spoke up for myself. That's my own shit.

But as you were practicing this skill, how did you feel like people responded or received your ability to just tell people what you need?

Minda Harts (10:46) I think people were surprised initially, Meghan. Because I'm very accommodating — to a fault at times.

Once I started to shift the dynamics of, you do have thoughts about this, you do have a point of view on this, or you can say no — I think that kind of shook people in a different way.

And I have to say, thankful to the therapists that have helped me over the years to hone into that — I was not being trustworthy with how I was showing up to people. Because trust is a two-way street. And if I'm not being transparent, then that's an erosion of trust.

So I also wanted to demonstrate what trust looks like from me. To reassess and allow people to experience a different version of myself.

And I feel like — I'm better for it, and people are better for it. Because essentially what we're talking about is boundaries. And once people know where your line is, then they know: okay, I'm going to get up real close, or I'm going to cross it, or not.

I think the gray area with trust is where there are no boundaries and I'm silently suffering. To your point, it's saying: it's not selfish for me to tell you what I need. It's selfless.

Meghan French Dunbar (11:59) This point I want to just hit on a little bit more. Because my MO — I used to be a chronic people pleaser, super conflict avoidant. And one of the ways this manifested was not telling anyone what I needed, just expecting everyone… quietly resenting them, maybe talking poorly about them behind their back because of whatever they did that, you know, they should have known — when in reality I hadn't been speaking up for myself.

And when I had employees and team members, I was always the nice boss who never gave people feedback. And as you pointed out with the Trust Languages, feedback is mission critical to trust.

My experience of you when you spoke up and were like, You know what, I'm gonna pass on this event — was not, Oh, Minda. It was, Wow, I just watched someone draw a really clear boundary, and I feel respect for you, and I admire you. I would like to be like that.

I see this a lot. Not to overgeneralize, but it's been my experience that a lot of the women I've talked to really struggle with advocating for themselves and providing feedback because they're worried about causing discomfort to other people.

But what I'm hearing from you is — that's actually making you untrustworthy. It is a key element of trust.

So how do you see this showing up, and how do you help people move beyond the people-pleaser mentality?

Minda Harts (13:21) Right. Well, I also want to say that when I did have that conversation, you were so gracious. You weren't like, I'm gonna blackmail you for the rest of your life, you know? You could have responded that way to me. But you didn't.

And I was new in my speaking practice at the time. And I'll tell you — I spiraled probably for months after that. Because I'm a former member of the Church of Rumination. I ruminate, ruminate, ruminate.

But I realized that this is part of being a business owner. This is part of being where people have — you set boundaries. And that's not just with that situation. That's: okay, what does good look like across the board? That's something I know I needed for my wellbeing.

And part of trust is letting people know what good looks like, so that you don't have anxiety, so that you don't have the depression.

One of the statistics from Gallup says that when trust is present, people are 74% less anxious. I can't control how somebody responds to what I've said. But I can control feeling better about: I trust my voice. I trust that this is what I need so that I can show up better in other areas of my life.

That's what I keep coming back to. People can't show you what good looks like if you don't tell them. And we can't assume that people know what that is for us.

That's why I really created the Trust Languages. Because we are silently hoping and praying that somebody gives us security, or gives us transparency, or is more sympathetic. And people are like, No, I don't need that, so I'm not going to give that to you. Typically we give what we feel most comfortable in a trust language.

So I think we're doing people a disservice when we don't tell them what it looks like.

I wrote the Trust Languages with a workplace context, but it's really also just about how we show up. Because — say your partner, for example. They just want you to acknowledge that, Hey, I know I don't have to make the breakfast, but you do make the breakfast every morning. And, Yeah, you should, because I do all these other things.

But that's how you might feel — it's that that person wants to be valued, and they don't trust that you see them. So you may not need the gold star for everything. But somebody you work with, somebody you live with — they need that from you. And that's a trust language they need you to speak.

I think we just have to be more empathetic and sensitive to what people need. And then when they tell us, there's a choice — how we respond is also going to enhance or erode that relationship.

This is about relationship building, too. And this is what we need no matter where we show up.

Meghan French Dunbar (16:03) Yeah. One of the bigger realizations I had in my attempt to become better at dealing with conflict and communicating my needs was that withholding my truth was, in fact, a form of dishonesty. I hated finally coming to terms with that.

And I feel like this is, again, something we normalize in the workplace — withholding information from huge swaths of workers.

You had this fabulous story in the book — I think it was about Stanley, the manager, who was very transparent with you about upcoming layoffs. And as his report, you were like, Oh my gosh, I'm so heartened that he talked to me about this. This makes it so I can plan for the future. But he had been told by management not to share this information with you.

So a lot of cultures are built on dishonesty — on withholding information.

I think one of the most common pieces of feedback I get, because I advocate for transparency — I talk a lot about open book management and systematic ways in which sharing information actually improves the workplace — people always push back and are like, Well, if people have this information, they're going to panic. Or, If people have this information, they can steal it and go run their… — like, bleh.

For the anti-transparency crowd — and I promise I'm getting to the question — what is the immediate pushback that you have when people are just like, No, I don't want to be transparent and share information with people. How do you get around that?

Minda Harts (17:29) Yeah. Well, I think people need to do a book club with both of our books because they complement each other really well.

I'll put myself in this position. I grew up in a household — in a Black household — where transparency wasn't the go-to. My parents were like, Don't tell people your business. I knew no better. That was ingrained.

So I grew up kind of being like, Nobody needs to know this about me. And you have all of these friends that you know everything about, but nobody knows anything about you. And it's kind of a lonely place to be for a while.

When I get into romantic relationships, my partner would say, You're not being transparent. And I'd be like, Well, what does that look like? Why do you need that? Why do you need this information? I'm okay with not knowing these things.

And what I realized was — some people need that clarity, that honesty. And if you're not good at giving it, you need to check yourself and say why that is.

Now, my manager gave us all the information. Maybe you're in a situation where you can't give everybody from A to Z what's going on. But what we can do is give people breadcrumbs. What we can do is humanize that somebody is on the other end of this email that we are sending. Someone's on the other end of this decision.

So yes, I don't have all the answers today — but tell people that. If we just laid off 2,000 of their workplace friends, don't pretend that didn't just happen. Acknowledge that. Yeah, we are going through hard times and we are making some adjustments, but we'll try to keep you in the loop. Or, We know that we're going to use AI tools, but it's moving so fast, so we don't have all the answers right now.

That's what people need. They don't need to know A to Z, but they want you to acknowledge the elephants in the room.

As leaders, we can give that to people. We don't have to just pretend that everything is good when you know that everybody smells the smoke in the room.

That's gonna go back to the 74% less anxious. Yes, I don't know all the information, but they've given us what they have right now.

That's the piece I hope leaders, hope HR — remember that people are human first and employees second. And — I know Jack Nicholson said you can't handle the truth. But people CAN handle the truth.

Meghan French Dunbar (19:56) For people who manage teams — you have seven Trust Languages. As the book has been coming out, have you found that there are any that people seem to be gravitating to as the lowest-hanging fruit — like the quote-unquote easiest or quickest ways to start rebuilding trust that people can just get to in the next month?

Minda Harts (20:18) Yes. So I find that one of the Trust Languages is security — and that's that psychological, emotional, and intellectual safety.

There are seven Trust Languages. I don't expect we'll all be bilingual in all seven. But if you could reach for one or two tools — if I'm going to have a conversation with someone, maybe the conversation isn't that I'm going to give them more feedback when I know we already have some issues going on. Maybe I'm going to approach this conversation with some psychological safety. Because that's going to get the most.

I'm thinking about: how do I want this conversation to end? I'm not just thinking about getting what I need to say and moving on. I want us to be able to look each other in the eye on Zoom, or in the hallway when we see each other at the next on-site.

So having that psychological safety is important. If there is an issue, do you feel comfortable even coming to tell me? Because I know there are power dynamics at play.

And then the other one — a good low-hanging fruit — is acknowledgment. We're in a climate right now where everybody's not getting a bonus. Everybody's not getting a salary increase. But we can tell somebody: You know what, thanks for that report that you did in Q4. If it wasn't for that insight, I don't know where we'd be today. Thanks, Meghan.

Or, I know that I've been out on PTO for the last whatever. And thank you for making sure that my clients are still taken care of. I really appreciate that.

That's going to make you feel seen and valued. That's going to keep trust at the center, because now you know I value you. And that's something each and every one of us can do right now.

Again — you may not care about being acknowledged. Your trust language is leave me alone and let me do my work. But somebody else does. They need that from you. They're craving that from you.

And I think no matter who you are, everybody appreciates being seen and valued for their work.

Meghan French Dunbar (21:58) And I want to underline something. It was fun to see things that crossed over in both of our books. But something you just said that you also have in your book — that I talked about in my book — is the importance of specific acknowledgment. Not, great job last week, but, I was out on PTO and I saw that you did this exact thing, and this is how it helped me. The more specific and granular it can be, the better.

Just triple-underlining that point.

Meghan French Dunbar (22:35) As this book has been going out and you've been consulting with other workplaces, have you found an example or two of really great high-trust workplaces that you're just like, I love everything about what they're doing?

Minda Harts (22:51) I think a lot of workplaces are struggling — and with a lot of different things, because we have a lot going on in our world.

But what I do value, and what I think is important, is those workplaces who are taking the surveys, and many are seeing that trust has taken a hit — and they're acknowledging that. They're working toward it. They're talking about it.

Because I think some companies are like, Oh, we see they said trust is an issue. But let's not acknowledge it. Let's move on to the next thing. Because: Everything's fine here.

And I love the company who knows that there's some room for improvement. Yeah, we haven't gotten it right. Yeah, we might've just laid off people. Yeah, we're having a bunch of reorgs. But we hear you, and we see you. So let's have some conversations. Let's put some strategies in place so we can have better conversations.

Those are the companies that win and have better retention rates, I think, going forward. As opposed to the company that's like, Just be happy you have a job. Go sit back down. Make sure that green light is still moving.

That is where I'm optimistic — that there's so many companies who are reaching out, saying, Please come talk to us about how we can communicate better, and how we can continue to have better trust even if it's taken a hit.

Meghan French Dunbar (23:50) So I think you've mentioned two already of the benefits of the high-trust workplace — people not being as anxious. And then you just mentioned retention.

And you had a line in the book that I was like, That is so good. I mean, so many lines. The Casa Amigos thing — I was hysterical. But you mentioned that when you're at a high-trust workplace, you can raise hell together. And when you're at a low-trust workplace, it's just hell. And I was like, Yup. Preach.

I'm curious about this — raise hell together. You and I are both research dorks. What is the business case for building a high-trust culture?

Minda Harts (24:40) Yes. Well, one thing I'll say is, when trust is present, we're 24% more productive. So I don't know any company who doesn't want more productivity going to their bottom line.

And another big data point: $344 billion a year is lost in employee turnover.

So listen. Trust is not — we just put on our favorite Taylor Swift songs, put on our robes, and do the fall. It's actually good for business. This is good for your bottom line.

I would encourage you to make sure trust is in the room and not left in the bathroom or in the car. Because this is good for your bottom line. It's good for your management. It's good for your mental health. And wellbeing in the workplace.

So trust is a business imperative. And I want to really hone in on that. Because I think sometimes we think of trust as this foo-foo thing — that it's just nice to have. But no. It's a must-have.

I definitely think there's no future of work without trust. That's just how I feel about it.

So managers — you cannot afford the cost of you not being transparent. That's going to take a hit. You not providing psychological security inside the workplace — that's going to take a hit. You may not want to speak all these seven Trust Languages, but get one or two in your toolkit. Because that's going to help your team and their productivity.

Meghan French Dunbar (26:04) Yeah. I think the Gallup State of the Workplace report came out this week and disengagement — global disengagement — is at 80%. And I'm like, if you keep throwing unlimited snacks and pinball machines instead of working on trust and basic systemic issues, nothing is going to change.

So I'm just like — every human being that works at a company, go hire Minda, because she's going to save everything.

Minda Harts (26:30) Well, bring us both. We need something.

But I want to say something — that you said, Meghan, is that part of it is, I think oftentimes we think trust is just automatic. Trust has to be demonstrated. We know that trust could be there at nine and gone by nine-oh-three.

So it's really important that we have mechanisms where, when we do fall short — again, not intentionally — that we talk about the things.

I want to be able to have a team that I can trust. But we can't, as managers, be like, I have to be able to trust you, but you don't have to trust me.

And I think anybody who thinks that their employees are doing their best work under stress and ambiguity — you've got another thing. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck.

Meghan French Dunbar (27:19) [laughing] Good luck. God speed.

Meghan French Dunbar (27:24) I'm curious — these managers, we've talked a little bit about some of the trust-breakers. Here's some stuff that you're doing that, I guarantee, are breaking the trust. Like withholding information.

Are there some of just top trust-breakers that you see that you're just like, this should be on a checklist of "do not do at all costs" if you're a manager?

Minda Harts (27:48) Yes. So one of them, you wouldn't be surprised — is micromanaging. What is that demonstrating? They can't get their work done. Why did I hire you? I can't trust you.

You may not think that what you're doing is micromanaging. But that person — that's signaling to them that you don't trust their work. That you don't trust that they're going to get it done.

They're adults. You hired them for a reason. So let them do that — unless they show you differently.

Another one is email correspondence. Oftentimes — I don't know if you've had this happen, I know I have — people will email you and CC somebody else on it who has no business being CC'd on it. You're like, Wait. Why did you CC my manager on this when I just saw you in the break room? Or I just had a Zoom with you?

And I create the narrative that you're trying to take me down. That you don't want me. That you're trying to get me in trouble. Whereas you might've just said, You know what, I CC'd our manager because I knew I'd get a response faster.

You're not thinking about how this is an erosion of trust to me. So we create this narrative and neither of us have a conversation about it. I just keep side-eyeing you every time I see you, and we typically don't have a conversation.

That's another erosion of trust. Like, why wouldn't you come to me first instead of bringing somebody else in?

Or another one — a lot of us are using ChatGPT to help us write emails. I tell ChatGPT to do the thing, then you get it and you tell it to do the thing — and now they're just talking to each other and we don't talk about it.

We've missed the plot. Nobody's humanizing each other and listening to what's really being said. We're just getting our grammar right and getting directly to the point.

That, again, is — we're outsourcing our humanity. And I don't think we think about it in those terms. But that's an erosion of trust. I don't have the time to read this. I got to send it to somebody else. And they miss some of those nuances.

So these are things we can do right away. I'm not saying don't use these tools. But don't let it take the place of humanizing and the nuance in the care.

Meghan French Dunbar (29:58) So glad you brought this up. You had another line in the book — I think it was about productivity trumping humanity. And I was like — that's pretty much what we've built the entire shareholder supremacy culture of business on in the last 50-plus years. And AI? Oh my god.

So — our neighbor, who was just talking to us about how right now he is building the automations to essentially take over his role. They're pretty much making him dig his own grave. And I'm like, this is inhumane. This is so messed up that they're making him do this.

And the place of trust with AI. I know this is an evolving topic, but for example — I was working with a consulting group. When the book was coming out, they were going to give me all sorts of strategy. And then when they came to me with the deck, they were like, Okay, we put this into ChatGPT, and here's what we came up with. And I was like, You didn't come up with this. ChatGPT did.

It was a breach of trust for me. I was immediately like, I could have done this. I'm so angry. Why did I pay you?

This stripping of humanity from the work process — that more of us are getting conditioned to do.

You wrote the book before AI was really coming online. How is your perspective with AI and trust — and how we continue to be humans first — how is it progressing? What's coming up?

Minda Harts (31:24) Yeah. I am concerned, I'll say. Because I think we've outsourced the humanity so fast. We're like, Oh, let it do it, and then I don't have to.

Yes, we want efficiency — that's important. We want productivity. But we don't want to hand it over.

And I hear so many people say, AI is taking over. No. Humans are the ones making these decisions. We are the ones opting in. And that is not trustworthy — especially when we don't give people a reason why we're doing it.

We've heard some companies sending emails out the morning of, and people not having their jobs — or those sorts of things. And it's like, Did we have to do it this way?

Yes, we can bring in AI. But we could still upskill our employees so that they can also be part of the process. Let's make their jobs a little bit easier. But we don't have to make them easy enough where they don't have a job anymore.

When we aren't transparent, when we don't have the conversations, when we don't have a feedback loop — then we, again, miss the plot.

So I am concerned about our humanity. Again — I don't blame AI. We are creating these tools. We're training these tools. So where do we say, You know what — yes, AND we still have a workforce that needs to be empowered. And here's how we're using it to do that. Not to eliminate you. To supplement your creativity, to help you do your best work.

I don't hear a lot of people talking about how the supplemental piece works.

I'm concerned — but I do think that the more voices that show up and that we get to role model what trustworthy looks like — Be the manager that says, we're using this to supplement, not eliminate.

Here's what it looks like. Yes, we are going to use this, but here's how it's going to help you in your job. Nobody's telling people that. And I think oftentimes it's because they don't know.

But number two — talk about those things. I think we just have missed the plot on: people are not robots yet. They're still human. So talk to them in a way that humanizes and respects them.

All of it's evolving and we don't have all the answers. But what we do know is that humanity is the only thing that's going to solve this disconnect of trust.

Meghan French Dunbar (33:46) I'm curious for you — how your perspective of leadership has evolved. What skills are you relying on now the most that you maybe once didn't think of as leadership skills?

Minda Harts (33:59) You know, I think the how to have better conversations.

I mean, yes — I like to talk. You — we like to talk. We get paid to talk. So you're just like, I'm good at this.

But what I realized I wasn't good at is sometimes being more sensitive, more empathetic, to when people are telling me something. For example, someone might tell you, That manager said X, Y, and Z to me. How would that make you feel? And I would find myself saying, I wouldn't care too much about that, I would just… And I had to stop myself to say:

You know what — that may not impact me. But that's impacting you. And if I dismiss how it's making you feel, then that's impacting the relationship and the trust that you and I have. Because you're probably not going to come to me and tell me anything else about this situation. Because I've already eroded the trust. Again — not intentionally.

So for me it's listening to the things people aren't saying. And that's having that emotional intelligence — realizing that my tone, my behavior, my actions, they have either a positivity toward trust or a negativity.

And every situation I encounter these days, I'm more hyper-aware of: if I say or do this thing, is it going to enhance this relationship or erode this relationship?

I try really hard, Meghan, even at home, with family members. Okay, I might want to say that thing — but let me pause.

The power of the pause is so important with trust with people. I think it's not a soft skill — it's definitely a leadership skill that I think all leaders should practice a little bit more.

Meghan French Dunbar (35:32) You were building this fabulous career, low trust, all the things — you've left. And then The Memo, two more books, your new bestseller Talk to Me Nice. You're doing film projects.

My story is that you've been following a bit more of where your soul has been called rather than the traditional path. I call it soul success.

How did you move from I'm building a career and trying to work myself up the ladder to I'm going to follow the pull wherever it's taking me — I'm going to follow my passion, my curiosity, the impact that I want to make? How has that looked for you for the last, I don't know — it's been like seven years? Six? And how is it informing where you're going next?

Minda Harts (36:19) I love that — and I need that t-shirt: soul success.

Meghan French Dunbar (36:25) It's a whole chapter in the book. We'll discuss it in our next thing. It's going to be great.

Minda Harts (36:28) I know. That's why I need the shirt. I'm like, Where's the merch?

You know, it's interesting because I grew up very humble beginnings. And so the thing that really pushed me through much of my corporate career was money, money, money. Security. Financially — how do I never return back to what I once knew.

That really fueled a lot of my decision-making about partnership, the ladder. I never really sat back to think: What is it that Minda wants?

And what if I trusted my gut — could it be yes? Could I be successful, but could I also do it in a way that feels authentic to me and creates longevity and makes spaces better than what I found them?

Once I started to lean into that, I realized I could be financially stable and still do good. And so that's always just helped me do — can I look myself in the mirror every morning and be happy with the decisions that I'm making?

That's how, even saying yes to things — or saying no to things — does this enhance the path? Does it add to where I want to be?

And part of that is, I don't just do things that make it better for me. I'm thinking about the next generation who's benefiting from my courage.

I do things because I know, as a woman, I've benefited from so many women that I will never know their names. So many people that fought for pay equity. So many people that fought for voting. I may never know who they were — but I know I'm a beneficiary of that courage.

So that's what fuels me. Knowing that hopefully someone will be a beneficiary of my courage.

And so I keep pushing the boundaries to some degree. I keep shaking the tables. Because I know that if I don't, then somebody doesn't get what they need later down the line.

Meghan French Dunbar (38:21) That just stopped my entire being. Who's benefiting from my courage?

One of the things we used to open some of our events with was asking people to think about whose shoulders they were standing on to be in the room. This can be ancestral, or the women coming before us, or the women of color. It is just such a grounding force to remember how quick this little time we have is — and it's a source of courage to hopefully make it better.

Thank you for that. I want that on a poster. We are making t-shirts and posters after this.

Meghan French Dunbar (38:39) I'm curious about your current concept or definition of success for yourself. How do you think about success now?

Minda Harts (38:59) I definitely think about it differently. But I think about success as peace.

And maybe that's — you know, I just had a birthday this week, so I think about aging and longevity. But I think about peace.

If I'm making good decisions, then I'll have peace in my bank account. If I'm making good decisions with my interactions, then there's peace with my family members. There's peace with those I love. And with my colleagues.

So I think for me, it's just — success is those things that make me still feel good. And I know that sounds cliché, but Beyoncé has a song line that she says: the feeling is everything.

And it's the feeling for me. If I know that I'm writing books that people email me and say, Thank you for naming that — that helps me have a better conversation with my manager, or a better conversation with my child — then that brings me peace. And that means that what I'm doing is still working. And that's success.

And I started, Meghan, writing The Memo thinking that would be the only book I'd ever write. It came out of a place of pain — wanting to be able to create a space to talk about things we weren't talking about. And I would have never guessed that I'd be on book four. That was never the goal.

So I realized that not having a plan, sometimes, has been the best piece in some regards.

Meghan French Dunbar (40:25) I love this. Even just you saying that success is peace — I felt myself take a breath and be like, Yes.

What are the things you're starting to think about next — that you're wanting to say, that you're finding that people are shying away from? If anything.

Minda Harts (40:40) You know what — I feel like I've been really fortunate and privileged to be able to say the things that I've wanted to say in a way that people may not be thinking about them.

That's what I really love about this current book, Talk to Me Nice — because trust has been around for a long time. I didn't coin that phrase. But I'm asking people to rethink about what it looks like.

I was recently speaking at a real estate conference, and I was talking about the seven Trust Languages, and I had a gentleman stop me in the hallway, and he said, You know, I took a screenshot of that, because I have a five-year-old daughter, and I think we need to talk to her about what trust looks like, and how she can cultivate trust and give trust.

That made me feel so good. And I thought, Wait a second — these Trust Languages have so much more of a life to live.

So I think I'm just thinking about those ways in which we can still keep trust as the main character in every facet of our life.

You mentioned filmmaking. So I'm telling stories that remind us of human connection. And where trust falls — not because we want it to, but because sometimes our actions and our behaviors, good or bad, they impact that.

So for me now, it's taking some of the concepts that I've written about and showing them through a different medium. Because let's be honest — some people will never read our books, Meghan. But they might catch the concept in other forms of storytelling.

Meghan French Dunbar (42:07) [laughing] Pretty sure everyone's read mine. The numbers. No.

All right — obviously people can find you on the interwebs. Where do you hope people plug in with you most?

Minda Harts (42:17) If you like to go to people's websites, you can go to MindaHarts.com. And you can find me wherever you like to play in your social streets. I spend the majority of my time these days on LinkedIn, so definitely find me there.

Meghan French Dunbar (42:33) Yeah. And go grab Talk to Me Nice. It's just so damn good. You're so good. Thank you. Just profound gratitude for everything.

Minda Harts (42:40) Well, thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for seeing me a long time ago when a lot of people were probably afraid of The Memo. I appreciate you for being here and still rocking with me. So thank you.

Have you ever known something was wrong — in your body, your gut, your bones — and had someone else tell you that it's just fine?

Lindsay Scola was 16 when the exhaustion started. She told her doctor she was tired. Her doctor told her busy people are tired — and that felt, somehow, like an initiation into adulthood rather than a dismissal. So she carried it. Through a career as a political staffer, through building 75,000-person rallies for the Obama campaign while sneaking naps in bathrooms because she thought that's just what exhaustion was. Through doctor after doctor handing her the same sleep hygiene pamphlet and sending her home. Through the one who was convinced the laptop in her bed was the whole problem.

It wasn't until she was 35 — after a bottle of red wine, a pint of Cherry Garcia, finding the end of the internet, and having a meltdown on the floor of her doctor's office — that someone finally said: let me send you to a sleep specialist. Nobody had told her sleep specialists were a thing.

She was diagnosed with narcolepsy at 35 and ADHD at 41. And what she found on the other side of those diagnoses wasn't relief, at first — it was grief. Because she'd spent nearly two decades believing she was the chaos monster. And then she found out she'd been fighting it the whole time.

This episode is funny in the way that only real things can be funny — the chair she tried to negotiate with, the child ghost she bought sage to exorcise from her Echo Park apartment, the inner narrator named Janet. But underneath the humor is a conversation about what it actually costs women to be dismissed by systems not built to see them, and what it takes to keep advocating for yourself anyway. Lindsay gives everyone listening an explicit permission slip at the end. You're going to want to hear it.

Lindsay Scola is a sleep advocate, speaker, and self-described excellent napper who was diagnosed with narcolepsy at 35 and ADHD at 41 — after nearly two decades of being told she was just tired. A former political staffer, she built rallies for the Obama campaign and wore exhaustion as a badge of honor while hiding the truth of what was happening in her body. Her TEDx talk was selected for the main TED channel. She lives in Los Angeles and her DMs are always open.

Find her at lindsayscola.com and on Instagram and LinkedIn.

"Busy people are tired." — What Lindsay's first doctor told her at 16. She believed it for nearly two decades.

"I wasn't the chaos monster. I was fighting it." — Lindsay Scola

"Sleep is what helps you get the work done — not the thing you earn after." — Lindsay Scola

"Never stop advocating for yourself because your health, your sleep — this is all the most important thing. Not wanting to make your doctor upset isn't a good enough reason to stand up for your own health." — Lindsay Scola

"The average doctor gets fewer than three hours of sleep education across their entire training. Sleep is a third of your life." — Lindsay Scola

"You have permission to ask more questions. You have permission to get a second opinion. You have permission to say: no, you need to give me what I need from this." — Lindsay Scola

 02:01 — Lindsay's story: narcolepsy at 35, ADHD at 41, and nearly two decades of being handed the same sleep hygiene pamphlet and sent home

03:30 — The meltdown: wine, Cherry Garcia, end of the internet, and a literal meltdown on the floor of her doctor's office — and finally being referred to a sleep specialist for the first time

05:06 — The number that explains everything: the average doctor gets fewer than three hours of sleep education across their entire training

08:06 — How do you keep advocating when everyone keeps saying you're fine? Meghan asks the question

08:41 — Lindsay's answer: "I knew something had changed. I knew I wasn't going to stop until I had answers."

10:39 — Meghan's own ADHD diagnosis at 37 — the moment of solidarity, and the question: what would have been different if you'd known sooner?

11:21 — "I wasn't the chaos monster — I was fighting it": the specific grief of a late diagnosis

12:43 — Obama campaign bathroom naps: building 75,000-person rallies while hiding narcolepsy in bathroom stalls and thinking she was just lazy

14:04 — ADHD in women: why it looks different, why it gets missed, and how a pilot script led to Lindsay's diagnosis at 41

15:06 — The self-advocate she learned to be: from high school walkouts to demanding answers from doctors

18:17 — Preconceived notions about narcolepsy and ADHD that kept her undiagnosed for decades

18:47 — What narcolepsy actually looks like: nothing like the movies, and why the soup scene from Deuce Bigalow is not it

21:35 — The hallucinations: negotiating with a chair, a child ghost in her apartment, buying sage for Echo Park

24:32 — The sleep conversation: why we've made it too complicated, and what actually matters

25:03 — Simple sleep hygiene that works — and "Janet," her inner narrator, and the comedy show sleep hack that shuts her up

30:04 — The old playbook flip: sleep is what helps you do the work — not what you earn after it

31:14 — Patient advocacy: what to do if you're where Lindsay was, including the AASM sleep center finder

32:46 — The real cost of not getting enough sleep — and why you might not notice your own cognitive decline

34:14 — What Lindsay is most excited about: her TEDx talk (selected for the main TED channel) and sleep apnea in women

35:55 — Naps aren't lazy: the research, the 20–25 minute sweet spot, and why Lindsay wears a necklace that says "good at naps"

37:54 — The permission slip: you have permission to ask more questions, demand a second opinion, and tell your doctor what you need

Introduction (00:00–01:41)

Meghan's recorded introduction.

Have you ever known that something is wrong only to have someone else tell you that it's totally fine? Maybe it's a gut feeling about someone or a hunch about a project where you speak up only to be shut down by colleagues. Or maybe something more personal — like a physical or mental health issue where you know that something isn't right with how you're feeling, but then your doctor dismisses what you're saying entirely?

Today's episode is all about those moments: the times when we tell ourselves that "behaving" means not making someone else uncomfortable by pushing back and advocating for ourselves. We're going to learn how to unbehave by pushing back anyway until someone finally listens. And our teacher is the wonderful Lindsay Scola.

Lindsay spent years working at the highest levels — Congress, the Emmys, and the advance teams for the Obamas. Yet behind the scenes, she knew something was very wrong. She was chronically exhausted — taking naps in bathrooms and on airport floors — and had been telling doctors about it for 20 years, only to be dismissed every single time. But she never gave up. She never let others convince her she was wrong. And she finally got answers that changed her entire life.

This episode is about how to keep believing in yourself even when others don't, and what self-advocacy looks like — especially in systems that often ignore women's voices. Lindsay is funny and real and has a completely no-BS approach that I think every single one of you needs to hear. And she provides insights on sleep that blew my damn mind.

You need to hear it from her. Here's my conversation with Lindsay.

Meghan French Dunbar (01:42) So you and I have a similar situation in our lives where we were both diagnosed with respective conditions much later in life than would most likely happen. Can you help us understand your journey and talk a little bit about why it took so long to get diagnosed?

Lindsay Scola (02:01) Yeah, so I was diagnosed with narcolepsy at 35 and ADHD at 41. And both of them are sort of a similar story — we don't talk about sleep, and we don't talk about ADHD, especially how it looks in women. Thankfully, there's more on the ADHD side now, and the internet is one of the reasons I got diagnosed. But when I was 16, I started having these moments of just extraordinary sleepiness. I'd be otherwise engaged and then I'd be sitting in class and feel like I had no option but to go to sleep. I started taking naps in bathrooms. I told my doctor I was feeling really tired, and she told me that I was busy and busy people are tired. It felt dismissive, but also like some secret initiation into adulthood.

I went on to work as a political staffer, and when you're tired, you're doing it right — we wore exhaustion as a badge of honor. I carried that with me through almost two decades. Anytime I talked to doctors about feeling really tired, I got handed a sleep hygiene handout and sent on my way. I had one doctor who was convinced that because I used my laptop in bed, that was what was making me so tired, and that if I just stopped using the laptop, everything would get better.

This was my normal. When I was 35, I just hit a wall. If I didn't have to get out of bed, I wouldn't. I felt like a lunatic zombie — zero emotional regulation, my brain felt like Swiss cheese. I was taking naps in bathrooms and on theater floors and basically wherever I could find a secret place to sleep. I went to my doctor at my wit's end and said, "I need help figuring this out." I got sent an at-home sleep test for sleep apnea, which came back negative, and was told that I was fine and given more sleep hygiene information.

I was apoplectic. I went home, drank an entire bottle of red wine, ate a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, and found the end of the internet. I'd learned that at-home sleep tests were created by the VA as a low-cost alternative to diagnose middle-aged men — and that wasn't me. So I went back and told them the test was wrong, and that they needed to send me for a study in a sleep lab. I had a literal meltdown on the floor of my doctor's office at 35, and she stopped me mid-sentence and said, "We are beyond both of our knowledge on sleep — I will send you to a sleep specialist."

But I'd been complaining about this for almost two decades. No one had ever brought up a sleep specialist. I didn't know sleep specialists were a thing. And it took me having a meltdown for someone to finally say, okay, let's go to the next stage.

Meghan French Dunbar (05:06) And the doctors themselves — is that a training issue?

Lindsay Scola (05:06) The average doctor worldwide is receiving less than three hours of sleep education. Another study in the U.S. put it at less than two hours. This is the thing we spend a third of our lives doing.

So I finally got diagnosed at 35, and that solved a lot of the problem. I was on treatment, my brain came awake. I found out I was creative — before that I was either working or sleeping. With the ability to actually stay awake and think, I started writing. And as I hit my 40s and started perimenopause pretty early, my brain started getting really slow. I felt paralyzed — whether I was trying to write a work email or figure out what to eat for breakfast, the idea of making decisions felt like an endless web of possibilities.

Around this time I was writing a pilot script, and the producer suggested adding a neurodivergent character. So I decided to give the woman in her thirties ADHD. I'm now doing research on women with ADHD — before this I thought it was like little boys bouncing off the walls in school. And suddenly she became the easiest character in the script for me to write, because I was writing myself.

Meghan French Dunbar (06:26) This sounds familiar.

Lindsay Scola (06:30) There was this big aha moment — but then I had to actually get diagnosed. The whole process of finding someone to diagnose me was sort of insane. You'd make an appointment and then get a call: "We don't do ADHD." I finally found someone who did the evaluation, and every time I brought something up, she'd say, "That's what the lay literature says, but it's not actually something we look for." At the end of the call, she told me she didn't think I had it — she thought I was just getting older and needed to start keeping a calendar.

I said, "I've been keeping a calendar since I was a teenager." She said, "No, no — for social things too." I didn't go to her because I was missing drinks with the girls. I went because my life felt completely halted. I was keeping schedules at the level of the President of the United States. Keeping a calendar was not my problem.

I decided she was not the person to continue working with, and eventually found an amazing therapist. I told her what had been happening, and she said, "I'm not going to just tell you that you have ADHD — let me evaluate you properly." I didn't care what diagnosis came out of it. I just wanted someone to tell me why my brain was operating this way. She did the evaluation, and not only do I have inattentive ADHD — I scored in the 99th percentile, because I like to go big.

Meghan French Dunbar (08:06) I feel frustrated on your behalf. There are a number of issues here, but one of them is going to a specialist and being told you're wrong — the classic gaslighting of being told you're overreacting. How did you stay motivated to keep self-advocating when even the specialists were telling you nothing was wrong?

Lindsay Scola (08:41) For me, it was knowing I couldn't keep living like this. Everything was taking longer. My motivation had completely tanked. I knew what I used to feel like in my brain, and I knew what I was capable of before. And there was just this moment of: this can't be all that there is. I knew something had changed. I knew I wasn't going to give up until I got answers.

When you get diagnosed with ADHD in your 40s, you have aha moment after aha moment. That's why I was staging walkouts for unfair treatment in the lunchroom in first grade — I have an injustice sensitivity. That's why every report card said I cried too much — rejection sensitivity dysphoria. That's why I threw the coat hanger off the door when my brain couldn't process that something was caught in the door jam. It doesn't give you a roadmap for what to do next, but understanding the why changes everything.

I was incredibly grateful to have a therapist who not only diagnosed me but worked with me on real tools to start moving forward. Once I had some tools in my toolbox, I started building my own systems — systems that made my brain feel better.

Meghan French Dunbar (10:39) The validation question — because I was also diagnosed with ADHD, I think when I was 37, and I had the same experience of: now all of this makes sense. And I was so frustrated that I didn't have the information or the diagnosis earlier, because I felt like I unnecessarily struggled and suffered in systems that didn't work for me, feeling like something was wrong with me. Did you have a similar experience? What do you think would have been different if you'd been diagnosed earlier?

Lindsay Scola (11:21) Every day, I still think about it. There is a specific type of grief that comes with any late diagnosis, especially when it went on as long as mine did — how different my life could have been if I hadn't felt like I was fighting a chaos monster. Well, let me say it differently. I wasn't the chaos monster. I was fighting it. If I'd had tools to work with the chaos monster, my life would have been different. Not that my life hasn't been amazing and I haven't done incredible things — but it could have been a lot easier. There could have been so much more time without thinking that I was broken.

Specifically on the 2008 Obama campaign: I was an advance person, which is the coolest job in the world — you're a couple of days ahead of the candidate, you get dropped somewhere, and you just have to figure it out. We were building 75,000-person rallies and I was the crowd person, figuring out how to get people in and moving. It was a giant puzzle in a very short period of time. The ADHD superpowers are what let me do that without feeling stressed. It was exhilarating.

Meghan French Dunbar (12:36) Right?

Lindsay Scola (12:43) But I was also excessively tired, surrounded by the best and the brightest, and there I was sneaking naps in bathrooms — thinking I was lazy because I didn't see my colleagues doing it. What would it have been like to know: this is why you're always tired, and here's a treatment?

There have been a lot of tears over this. I'm also grateful for my long diagnosis period, because I'm the type of person — ADHD and all — who will hyperfocus their way to a lot of information. When I got diagnosed with narcolepsy, I wanted to know everything: every medication, how to make my life as good as possible. I surrounded myself with advocates, researchers, and sleep medicine professionals. And then sleep became my career.

But what it could have been like to go through school without thinking I was broken because I don't retain information I read — I'm still sitting with that.

Meghan French Dunbar (14:04) I think about this a lot, especially with how much information is coming out about women being diagnosed with ADHD and other conditions later in life. We've normalized chronic stress, exhaustion, busyness, and overwhelm. When we feel those things, so many of us just say: this is what it takes to succeed. When in reality, we're neurodivergent and really struggling in a system that was never built for us to thrive within.

As you were going through this — and at least in my experience growing up as a people-pleasing woman who was taught not to make people uncomfortable — the idea of pushing back on medical professionals would have made me cringe. Did you have any of that?

Lindsay Scola (15:06) In the political world, I was moving a lot — someplace for a year or two, never longer. So I didn't have doctors for long periods of time. The doctor who finally got me to the sleep specialist stayed my GP for years after, and she got to learn what narcolepsy was alongside me.

I did a lot of people-pleasing earlier in life, before the ADHD mask sort of fell off. But I've never had an issue pushing back. I'm grateful to parents who made sure I knew I was supposed to advocate for myself — and when I needed them, they'd be there too.

We had abstinence-only-until-marriage education at my high school. My family talked about science, and I knew that wasn't right. I took the school on, and then the school board, with my parents standing right behind me. I ended up getting my first job with NARAL Pro-Choice Washington as a high school senior, working to make sure we had medically and scientifically accurate sex education in Washington State. So I was raised on the idea that you keep pushing.

But we never talked about sleep, so I didn't know I should have been pushing harder about how I was feeling. Neither did my parents — we all just thought I was a really good sleeper. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. If I wasn't driving, I was asleep. If a flight was delayed, I was asleep on the airport floor. And nobody should be willingly sleeping on an airport floor. If that's you, or someone you know — that's a flag that something is not right with your sleep. But we didn't know. Nobody ever taught us about it.

Until I was diagnosed with narcolepsy, I thought sleep was like going under anesthesia — you go in, you come back in the morning, and nothing happens in between. But sleep is the foundation of everything. It's where muscle recovery happens, where the brain clears waste to help fend off neurodegenerative disorders later on, where we make creative connections. All of this is happening while we sleep, and we have no idea. So we don't know what healthy sleep looks like, and we don't know what disordered sleep looks like — and it's costing people their health.

Meghan French Dunbar (18:17) I want to get into the sleep piece, but first — you mentioned preconceived notions, and this was part of it with ADHD too. That classic image of a young boy who can't sit still. What were some of the main preconceived notions around both narcolepsy and ADHD that helped keep you undiagnosed for so long?

Lindsay Scola (18:47) I never in my wildest dreams would have considered narcolepsy. Even in the moment I heard it come out of my sleep doctor's mouth, I cocked my head, looked at him and said, "I'm sorry, sir, I do not believe you are right. I have never fallen asleep into a bowl of soup." Because that's what we imagine with narcolepsy — the movies have done a number on us. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo is forever seared into my brain.

Meghan French Dunbar (19:01) Same. That's exactly what I imagined.

Lindsay Scola (19:15) That's not what narcolepsy looks like. It looks like feeling really engaged, and then having these waves of searing tiredness coming on. I compare it to when you really have to pee — you're not going to have an accident, but you know a bathroom is imminent. It's this painful tiredness behind my eyes. Or you wake up feeling like you never went to sleep at all. People with narcolepsy can feel like they've been awake for 48 to 72 hours, even after a full night's rest.

My third day on a specific medication, I woke up crying — because I didn't know what it felt like to wake up refreshed. I'd always woken up because I had to. I didn't know what it felt like to actually feel like I'd slept. That was a profound revelation.

But there are also other symptoms I never would have connected. Narcolepsy has five distinct symptoms that seem completely unrelated on their own. One is hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations — hallucinations as you're falling asleep or waking up — which can be audio, visual, sensory, or all three. I've had audio sensations my whole life: hearing things that aren't there as I wake up. Crashing sounds. People speaking Russian in the hallway. Construction at 3 a.m. that wasn't happening. My husband talking to me when he's sound asleep.

The funniest one — after I was diagnosed — my husband was out of town, and I woke up to the dog barking. There was a chair with clothes on top of it by the door, and I don't sleep with contacts in, so I was negotiating with the chair. The dog, who was asleep next to me on the bed, woke up and looked at me like I was certifiable. This had been going on my whole life.

Meghan French Dunbar (21:30) I see you.

Lindsay Scola (21:35) The visual hallucinations tend to be scarier for me — something coming into the room, scurrying across the ceiling, coming down like it's going to get me. And sometimes they're paired with sleep paralysis, where you can't move or scream. For some people with narcolepsy there's also cataplexy — a loss of muscle tone triggered by emotion. For me it's pretty subtle, just in my hands and occasionally my face, but for others it can mean completely falling down.

And then there's disrupted sleep — you can fall asleep fine, but you can't stay asleep. There were long periods of my life where I just thought I was really haunted. I'd be awake in the middle of the night, and three o'clock is always the witching hour in horror films. There was one very vivid hallucination where a small child asked to hold my hand. I went out and purchased sage for my Echo Park home in LA to get rid of my child ghost. I'm still pretty convinced it was a yes-and situation with The Haunting. But never in my wildest dreams would I have thought: this is a neurological episode — I need to see a doctor. I never would have put any of it together.

And on the ADHD side — there are so many superpowers we don't talk about. The ability to do big, high-stress things without feeling stressed. I was the executive director for the 2013 Inaugural Parade — 10,000 participants, 250,000 people in the crowd — and I didn't break a sweat. But try to put on a slightly damp sports bra and I'm in total meltdown.

I had no idea that my lack of emotional regulation my entire life was a symptom of ADHD. My husband and I found all my old report cards at my parents' house a couple of years ago, and they all said something similar: praising that I was the kid who made sure new students felt welcome, who made sure everyone was heard. And then, on the other hand: I cried too much, and this was going to be a problem in life. Those are two sides of the same coin — and that's ADHD. I cried throughout my whole career, not because I was sad or upset, but because I cry when I'm frustrated, when my brain can't comprehend what's going on. I was chastised for it. Nobody ever helped me figure out why it was happening.

Meghan French Dunbar (24:32) You said you've made sleep into your career. And I feel like the old playbook means we don't really take sleep seriously — we glorify stress and overwork and exhaustion, brag about how little we need. What have you learned about sleep, its importance, and some of the basics that most people overlook?

Lindsay Scola (25:03) First of all — if you always feel unrested, that is a sign of a sleep disorder. There are lots of sleep disorders and they're way more common than people think. Narcolepsy is rare — about one in 2,000 people — but sleep apnea is something like one in five.

We've made sleep feel really complicated, especially now that everyone is wearing a tracker and there are ads for every supplement and sleep tool imaginable. Sleep is a $1.4 billion industry. But sleep itself is actually a lot simpler than we've made it, and the simpler we treat it, the easier it gets.

The fundamentals: wake up at the same time every morning. Get natural light within the first 30 minutes of waking to set your circadian rhythm. Get as much natural light as you can throughout the day so that you produce melatonin later at night. And melatonin isn't a sleeping pill the way we buy it at the drugstore — it's actually a dimmer switch, telling your brain that sleep is coming.

Your wind-down routine should be simple — something you can do every night, even when life is lifey. I have an alarm on my phone that just says "wash your face." Sometimes it's just a wipe across my face. Sometimes it's the expensive skincare I swore I'd use every day. But that act of taking a moment by myself, taking the day off my face — it tells my brain that sleep is coming.

And then find tools that are specific to you. I have a very loud internal narrator, and she gets louder and meaner as the night goes on. Her name is Janet. The thing that shuts Janet up is the sound of other people talking — quick, witty dialogue. I sleep with a blackout mask with flat Bluetooth panels in it, put on a comedy show I've already seen so I'm not emotionally invested, set a timer for 30 minutes, and I'm always out before it goes off. But sleep stories don't work for me — I feel like that person is talking to me and it's my responsibility to listen, and that keeps me awake. Certain sleep music keeps me awake because I start tracking the repeating pattern. The goal is to be curious about your sleep, try things, and not overthink it — because the more effort we make it, the harder sleep gets.

There's actually a condition now called orthosomnia, where people are so worried about their sleep that they wake up feeling good, look at their tracker, see an 80 sleep score, and suddenly feel terrible. Really, the goal is to make sleep simpler, and to understand what sleep disorders look like so we can get people evaluated, treated, and living much healthier lives.

Meghan French Dunbar (28:32) The point you made at the top — if you don't feel rested, that's a sign something might be going on. I'd say about half the time I wake up doing great and half the time I wake up dead to the world. At what point does that warrant a conversation with someone?

Lindsay Scola (28:52) If it's happening 50% of the time, that's the time to talk to a sleep specialist and get evaluated — especially if there are other things going on. With sleep apnea, for example: are you waking up multiple times a night to use the bathroom? Waking up with a headache or a sore throat? Feeling really fatigued during the day? Those are things to look at.

Or if you just never feel rested. Sleep disorders don't always show up at night — mine certainly didn't. I thought I was a great sleeper outside of what I now understand was disrupted sleep and hallucinations I explained away as being haunted. It's really about how you're feeling during the day. And especially with ADHD, there's a huge crossover with sleep disorders. The idea that ADHD just messes with your sleep or makes you tired — really two things can be going on simultaneously, and both deserve to be treated.

Meghan French Dunbar (29:55) You mentioned making sleep into your career. What does that look like?

Lindsay Scola (30:04) I'm a speaker now. I go to companies and talk about how sleep is really our competitive advantage. High performers especially like to think that sleep is the thing they earn after the work is done — but sleep is actually the thing that helps you get the work done in the first place. I also coach people who haven't made sleep a priority — going to sleep with a laptop and two phones, waking up in the middle of the night to work, and then wondering why they're tired all the time. I help people put systems in their lives that actually support the sleep they need so they can perform better during the day.

I also consult on patient advocacy around narcolepsy and sleep apnea diagnoses, and I work with companies on making sleep a priority and encouraging people to get screened for sleep disorders.

Meghan French Dunbar (31:14) Patient advocacy — I'm honing in on that one. For people who are listening and are where you were — feeling like something is wrong but being told it's not — what are some of the first steps?

Lindsay Scola (31:38) First: understand that your primary care physician likely didn't have much education in sleep. They may not be asking the right questions, and they might not know what to do when you complain about feeling really sleepy. Knowing that sleep specialists exist — and knowing that you may need to get a referral and that it is absolutely okay to demand one — that's step one.

The AASM, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, has a page where you can find sleep centers near you and schedule an appointment directly. I tell people: if you're concerned about your sleep or how you're feeling during the day, I would much rather a doctor say "we evaluated you, it might be something else, let's look at other things" — than have something go untreated because no one pushed for the right answer.

Meghan French Dunbar (32:46) My brother is one of those people who doesn't get enough sleep. I've sent him articles about the profound negative impacts. Beyond not optimizing performance, what does the research show about what not sleeping enough really costs us?

Lindsay Scola (33:12) Cognitive performance declines when you're not getting enough sleep — for most adults that's between seven and nine hours. And one of the insidious things about sleep deprivation studies is that people don't know their cognitive performance is declining. They think they've adjusted to sleeping less, but they haven't. Things keep declining. You might think you're operating at the same level you once did, and you're not.

A lot of people muscle through in their 20s and 30s, and then their 40s and 50s hit and it becomes a lot harder — and that's often sleep deprivation catching up. The brain needs that time to replenish, to clear out waste, to make creative connections. When it doesn't get it, we pay for it across the board.

Meghan French Dunbar (34:10) What are you most excited about that you're working on right now?

Lindsay Scola (34:14) I'm very excited for my TEDx talk to be out in the world — I can't wait for everyone to see it. And I'm really focused on the conversation around sleep apnea in women, because I don't think we've had enough of it. We picture sleep apnea as the man with the thick neck and the square jaw, snoring loud enough to shake the house. But not everyone with sleep apnea snores, and there's no body type assigned to it. My size-two sister has sleep apnea.

The symptoms look really different in women: waking up multiple times a night to use the bathroom, heartburn or reflux at night, fatigue during the day even when you think you slept fine. After 40, women's rates of sleep apnea increase significantly — especially with perimenopause and menopause. And sleep apnea has serious downstream health effects: increased insulin resistance, higher blood pressure, metabolic conditions, and increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and Alzheimer's. People need to know this is a possibility, that ignoring it is genuinely harmful, and that there are real solutions.

Meghan French Dunbar (35:55) I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier — taking naps and feeling lazy. There's so much societal conditioning around rest being something you have to earn. If you're taking a nap, you're lazy. If you're not producing, you're not worthy. For anyone listening with that mindset — what's the message?

Lindsay Scola (36:28) If you don't have a problem falling asleep at night, naps can actually be really good for you. Studies show they can lower blood pressure and help with creative thinking. The sweet spot is 20 to 25 minutes — long enough to get some rest, short enough that you don't wake up groggy from going too deep into sleep.

But naps can only help if we stop saying "naps are lazy" and actually have this conversation. I will talk about naps as loudly and as often as I can. I sometimes wear a necklace that says "good at naps" because I am excellent at them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a nap. And we need to stop making sleep the enemy of productivity — because sleep is actually the thing that makes us more productive. There is no tool, no supplement, no hack that gets you out of needing sleep. The best performers going forward are going to be the ones who prioritize it.

Meghan French Dunbar (37:54) If you were to give listeners permission to do anything — around their sleep, their ADHD, their diagnosis, their rest — what is the permission slip you would give people?

Lindsay Scola (38:10) Always advocate for yourself. You have permission to ask more questions. You have permission to get a second opinion. And you have permission to say: no, you need to give me what I need from this. If your doctor tells you that you can't be evaluated for sleep apnea because you don't snore — you have permission to say you want to be evaluated anyway. There is no skin off their teeth for making that happen. Sleep specialists are real. You can make an appointment. If you need a referral, it is okay to demand one.

Never stop advocating for yourself — because your health, your sleep, this is all the most important thing. Not wanting to make your doctor uncomfortable is not a good enough reason to stop standing up for your own health.

Meghan French Dunbar (38:57) All right, Lindsay — how do people find you? How do they support you?

Lindsay Scola (39:01) Lindsayscola.com — that's Lindsay with an A, the best kind of Lindsay in my opinion. I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn, and my DMs are always open. I want to hear from you.

Meghan French Dunbar (39:11) We'll have all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much — I hope I can sleep well tonight after this conversation. I really appreciate your perspective and the way you're helping people push back on the systems.

Lindsay Scola (39:25) Thank you.

Transcript edited for clarity. Minor transcription artifacts removed; speaker voices and meaning preserved throughout.

Deepa Purushothaman was a partner at Deloitte for 21 years. At year 17, she started getting sick — headaches, stomach pains, skin rashes. Small things at first. And then over the course of two years, it grew until she couldn't feel from her knees down or her elbows down. She spent eight months in bed. She saw 14 doctors. And doctor number 14 said the thing the other 13 didn't:

"Your job is killing you. Do you feel like you have to do a big job like this to be worthy? Don't you just see you're worthy being you?"

Deepa left that office in tears. And what followed — the months of sitting in that question, the slow unpacking of what success had actually cost her, the anniversary dinner where her husband told her she didn't seem ambitious anymore and she didn't say a word for the rest of the meal — is what this episode is really about. Not burnout as a buzzword, but burnout as a reckoning. The kind that forces you to ask questions you've been avoiding because they were just too big to unpack.

We get into the four "shoe drops" Deepa sees in 90% of high-achieving women before they finally stop — and why, in high-performing cultures, most people wait until something breaks. We talk about the difference between a season of busyness and a system of busyness, the six to eight things that actually define who you are (and why you can't give on them), and why the research shows it takes about two years to really recover and reset after leaving a toxic situation. And somewhere near the end, Deepa says something profound:

"It's hard to make the list of what you want your life to look like when you're still in your old life."

That one will stay with you.

Deepa Purushothaman is a speaker, author, and executive coach whose work centers on what it actually looks like when high-achieving women stop running — and what it takes to build something more honest on the other side. A former national managing principal at Deloitte, where she spent 21 years, she is the author of The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America. Her research and writing explore power, identity, and the systems that were never designed with women like her in mind.

Find her on LinkedIn and through The Re.Write, where she shares ongoing research and resources.

"Your job is killing you. Do you feel like you have to do a big job like this to be worthy? Don't you just see you're worthy being you?" — Deepa's 14th doctor, Heather

"My definition of ambition is not saying yes to everything. Being ambitious is guarding your energy, saying yes to the things that you feel like saying yes to." — Deepa Purushothaman

"If nothing else happens, literally nothing else happens in my career, I'll be okay. I've had enough, done enough." — Deepa Purushothaman

"It's hard to make the list of what you want your life to look like when you're still in your old life." — Deepa Purushothaman

"You have to unpack the suitcase and then decide what parts you want to put back in. But most of us don't get the time or give ourselves the grace to unpack the suitcase." — Deepa Purushothaman

"It usually takes two years — what the research shows — to come out of a situation. If you're pivoting, if you've been in a toxic situation, if you're starting over, if you're changing your career." — Deepa Purushothaman

00:00 — Introduction: how Meghan and Deepa met (back of a van in Kalamazoo, Michigan) and the framing — recovering from a toxic definition of success

00:36 — Deepa's 21 years at Deloitte, getting sick at year 17, the lifestyle of three cities a week, and what "toxic success" actually cost her physically

02:45 — The 14th doctor, Heather — "Your job is killing you. Do you feel like you have to do a big job like this to be worthy? Don't you just see you're worthy being you?"

03:30 — Leaving the doctor's office in tears; why the worthiness question was too big to let herself think about — and how the last few years have been about unpacking it

04:47 — Is the boulder required? Meghan asks whether crisis is necessary to get off the hamster wheel

04:50 — Deepa's answer: in high-performing cultures, usually yes — the four "shoe drops" she sees in 90% of the women she works with

07:16 — The worthiness question: have you actually gotten there? Deepa's honest answer

07:32 — The 9th anniversary dinner — "you used to be really ambitious and now you just don't seem as ambitious to me"

08:42 — Sitting in that for months; the shame; and how Deepa's definition of ambition quietly changed

09:30 — "If nothing else happens, literally nothing else happens in my career, I'll be okay. I've had enough, done enough."

10:03 — The Rutgers research: men define power as control; women define it as freedom and autonomy — and what that means for how we think about ambition

11:29 — Does the gravity of the old definition pull you back? How do you reground?

13:51 — Season of busyness vs. system of busyness — and how to tell the difference when you're inside it

15:52 — The book Wintering, the fallow period, and why we can't keep producing without resting

17:49 — What Deepa is seeing in the women she works with right now — and why it feels like a return to the COVID-era reckoning, only deeper

22:04 — Can you live a new definition of success inside a high-pressure organization? Deepa's answer (and the conditions required)

24:46 — The six to eight things that define your identity at work — and why most women haven't sat down to name them

26:35 — Authentic power vs. assimilation — and the red lipstick story

28:48 — How Deepa stayed herself even at peak corporate Olympian (the golf story, the "I don't know" story, and what she attributes it to)

33:34 — The questions to start with when rewriting your own definition of success: what gives you angst, what you never want to do again, and what you actually want your day to look like

35:33 — The fallow period: why it takes about two years, and what you don't see from the outside

37:20 — The interstice — the uncomfortable middle period between who you were and who you're becoming, and why you can't go around it

40:15 — Rewriting the corporate heroine's journey — the foundational rewrite Deepa invites

41:33 — Where to find Deepa and how to follow her work

A conversation with Deepa Purushothaman— lightly edited for readability.

Meghan French Dunbar [01:35]

My friend Deepa — we met, I think, in the back of a van in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's been eight or nine years now. It is such a pleasure to know you. You're all over the interwebs — you're quite a prolific human, and you have an incredible story of being at the top of your career, specifically at Deloitte where you made partner, and what I would call having an awakening around a toxic definition of success. So I'm curious — as you've been recovering from that toxic definition of success, what has that actually looked like?

Deepa Purushothaman [02:12]

The long story short is I was at Deloitte for 21 years, and about 17 years in I started to get sick. It started as small things — headaches, stomach pains, skin rashes. And then over the course of two years, it grew significantly, to the point that I was sick every two weeks. I couldn't feel from my knees down and my elbows down. I ended up spending eight months in bed. So I took a leave of absence and got really serious.

And I should say, this wasn't just the stress of the job. I lived out of a suitcase. A lot of the time I was doing three cities a week. It was a lifestyle more than anything — when you're on the go like that, not sleeping in your bed, not eating properly, just running. The things normal people do to take care of themselves, I wasn't doing, because for so long they just hadn't been part of my life.

When I say toxic success, part of it was I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't really thinking about the me part of the equation. I was looking at the results. And that's really how I was raised. I'm the daughter of immigrants, and in our family there was always a focus on productivity, always a focus on doing more. I grew up with messages about what my parents sacrificed to come here and stay here. I'm the oldest of two daughters, so I have a little bit of that first-daughter thing. There was a lot of that.

For me, there was just such a focus on success, productivity, doing more. Take care of yourself later. Always the next thing. In school it was: when you graduate. Then: when you get married. Then: when you get to the next stage. And then you'll have happiness and joy and take care of yourself. Those things just didn't come — not in the way I was living.

A lot of that rewriting has come down to: what do I want my day to look like? And to be really fair, it wasn't that I had this beautiful awakening like, "I want to build my life in a better way." It was that I wasn't listening to the universe. I love Oprah's framing — you get hit with a pebble, then a rock, then a stone, then a boulder. I wasn't listening to any of those smaller messages.

So the sickness, the illness, the years it took me to get healthy — that was the wake-up sign. This way of living isn't working.

And to be really clear, Meghan — this is told on the internet because I've told the story so many times — it came from my doctor. Heather was the 14th doctor I saw. And she said to me: your job is killing you. What would you do if you didn't do a job like this? Do you feel like you have to do a big job like this to be worthy? And don't you just see your worthiness in being you?

We should pause there and let that land. Didn't you see your worthiness being you? I wasn't. My worthiness was tied to my accolades, how much I accomplished, what I was doing. I left her office in tears, because that question about worthiness was so overwhelming. I hadn't let myself think about it that way. I knew it was lingering in the back of my head, but I hadn't let myself go there because it was too big to unpack.

So a lot of the last couple of years has been: what kind of life do I want? What do I want it to look like? How do I want to feel? Those are big, scary questions when you're not used to having time to think. I left my house at five o'clock in the morning on Mondays and sometimes didn't get back until Friday afternoon. There was no time to think about what my day looked like. There wasn't even milk in the refrigerator. A cup of tea on Friday was a big thing for me.

And what if I don't have my job to lean back on? Who am I? What do I want to be known as? Those are not easy questions. Part of getting sick also took me on a path of meeting a lot of spiritual leaders, healers — people who are not in the traditional corporate path. So I was for years having all these really interesting conversations around what one's life means. What is happiness? What is worthiness? What does it mean to take care of yourself? All of those things came together in a really profound way for me.

Meghan French Dunbar [06:23]

Is the boulder required? You can hear it so many times — you're addicted to achievement, you're worthy just as you are — but is a crisis necessary to get people off the hamster wheel? Or have you seen any ways to actually encourage people to do it before they get completely laid out and are forced to stop?

Deepa Purushothaman [06:50]

I literally do stage talks on this topic. Don't wait till you break. That's literally the title. I think when you are in high-performing cultures, you often wait till you break. For a lot of the women I work with who are highly ambitious, highly accomplished, they have to have a shoe drop.

So it's either a health issue. It's a divorce that they didn't see coming. It's not getting a promotion that they were promised and they went over and above and beyond for. Or it's the death of a family member — a parent, or someone they had said they would visit and they just didn't get to, that sort of shame and juxtaposition. So it's usually one of those four things. And I would say that's true for 90 percent of the women. I call them corporate heroines — these women who are rising, and at some point they have the awakening, they go through the trek, and then they just hit the wall.

I think it comes from the idea that we haven't given ourselves the chance to stop and ask. And for a lot of us, we're chasing success to feel worthy. So we're not even able to ask the question because we're thinking, if I fill my cup enough, then I'll be okay. You and I have talked about this. I find this with so many authors in particular. They'll finish their book, the book will go out, and then it's like, is this it? Because I just spent two years of my life and there's this quiet.

That happens to everyone. I just think for a lot of the authors I work with, it's more clear because you've been hunkered down by yourself for two years, and then you come out of it and it's, that's it? What happens now? What's next?

It's a very scary process. So I don't think most people figure it out unless they go through some sort of spiritual awakening or realignment. We're taught those lessons even as little girls — how to be what you want, how to be good, how to be cared for. I studied a lot of fairy tales. Unless you rewrite those messages, which most of us won't do unless there is that reckoning point or that fall or that precipice where you literally just fall over — it doesn't happen.

Meghan French Dunbar [08:52]

The question of worth — worth in the absence of success or accomplishment or achievement. Have you gotten to a place now where you're full-on, I regularly feel worthy just as I am? And what has helped you to do so?

Deepa Purushothaman [09:08]

I would say yes, but not a hundred percent of the time. There are still doubts. We were on a call a week ago and we talked about this. I'm in a good place, but it doesn't mean there's not moments where it doesn't creep up on you.

For me, I started to really think about it because two years ago, my husband Manoj and I were out to dinner. I've told the story a few times, but not that many times. It was our ninth wedding anniversary. I'm sitting across from him and I say, what surprised you most about our marriage? Just the basic questions. And he got really quiet, and all he said was: you used to be really ambitious, and now you just don't seem as ambitious to me. You were the most ambitious person I'd ever met.

There's a long story to that, because we were both partners at Deloitte. We were in each other's circle. We knew of each other before we actually met each other. And I just got quiet the rest of the dinner. Just total inner — what does that mean? Especially as someone so focused on success and accomplishment, that was a damning pronouncement of some type that I couldn't even find words for. He knew. He had stepped in something, because I literally did not say a word at all.

Meghan French Dunbar [10:07]

Happy anniversary!

Deepa Purushothaman [10:17]

I sat in that for months. Not sure why I felt all the things I did. I felt a lot of shame about it, to be honest with you. And I realized — and now I can say to him, and I've said to him, he doesn't get it because I just think we're in different places on our journey around this topic — but my definition of ambition has changed.

My definition of ambition is not saying yes to everything. It's not being so harried. And again, I have moments — during the book launch, I told you I said yes to everything because I thought I had to. But I'm in a moment where, no, I actually think being ambitious is guarding your energy. It's saying yes to the things you feel like saying yes to.

From that redefinition of what success is, that redefinition of boundaries, that redefinition of what I say yes to — I've gotten to a place where I am very clear. There was a moment probably a year and a half ago, at the beginning of the year, where I just sat there and thought: if nothing else happens, literally nothing else happens in my career, I'll be okay. I've had enough, done enough. I don't think I would have been able to say that five years ago. Even two years ago.

So yeah, it's a long journey, but it doesn't mean there's not moments where it's quiet and you're like, is that really what's about to happen? Because this has also just been a really hard year for the work that you and I do. It's been really different than it's been for me for the last five years. So yes, I think that reckoning comes up quite a bit right now.

Meghan French Dunbar [11:39]

I think it was Rutgers Business School — you did a piece on this — how they looked at the concept of power. With men it manifested as control, like power over. And with women, their concept of power was freedom and autonomy and building power with. I'm curious about the tie-in with the idea of freedom for you, with ambition, and how those two things come together and inform the overall concept of success you're looking at now.

Deepa Purushothaman [12:08]

For a lot of us, we have an inherited definition of success, of freedom, of ambition that isn't really ours. We don't have alternatives. So part of what we do is just latch onto the definition we get from other people. For a lot of women, especially in midlife, I think that's the reckoning we're seeing now — on Instagram and other places — realizing that doesn't really work for us. And there isn't a definition that was made for us. We just kind of assumed the 50-year-old definition of ambition applies.

I think we're in this moment where we're like, we don't have the new definition yet. But that's really what it is. So yes, part of it is that it just didn't fit anymore. I think we'll get there — with a new definition, or we'll see that there are so many different definitions, not just one or two. But in corporate spaces or in these high-performing spaces, it's often just that one definition. So when you leave that behind, it's hard to know what to replace it with.

Meghan French Dunbar [13:05]

Do you have moments where the gravity of the old definition of success pulls you back in? And if so, how do you reground and keep returning to the new practice?

Deepa Purushothaman [13:18]

I have late-stage Lyme disease, and it definitely flares at times. I feel like my body knows better than my mind. My body will just decide it's going to get sick if I say yes to too many things.

I think sometimes I look around and I have FOMO, and that's when I start to pay attention: is that real? Or is that just because I'm not doing all the things? So yes, it creeps up in those ways. My issue is more that I sometimes say yes to too many things I don't really enjoy doing, and I don't ask enough questions. I say no to more things than I ever did — probably more no's than yes's — but still sometimes it's too many things. There are seasons where it just gets super busy.

So I've gotten better about criteria for what I say yes to, and trying to honor that. And also listening — because sometimes when I say yes, I'll have regrets afterward, and I'm not one that likes to back down or back away once I've said yes. But I'll start to pay attention to that, maybe even journal about it so I know next time not to do that. It's a process.

Meghan French Dunbar [14:25]

Are there any beliefs or practices or norms from the old playbook that you're surprised at how long they've held on, or that you still struggle with, or where you were like, wow, I thought I was going to be able to release that pretty easily and it still creeps up from time to time?

Deepa Purushothaman [14:45]

I think the schedule. Having my day scheduled. Feeling like, if I'm done at three o'clock and there are no other meetings, am I allowed to go take a walk? Manoj and I always talk because we could never go to dinner on a Tuesday afternoon. For a long time we weren't even in the same city — he traveled too. So it's odd to us to be able to go to dinner on a Tuesday. It's those moments where it feels strange and I have to rewrite it, or pay attention. The other thing is when I don't feel super busy — when I don't have my checklist going. I catch myself in those moments.

Meghan French Dunbar [15:27]

You mentioned something in the previous answer that I want to get back to — the difference between being in a season of busyness and being in a system of busyness. I have a lot of people I know who I feel like have been in a season of busyness for a decade. And I'm still like, a season requires it to have a beginning and an end. There is no end. So how do people recognize and get themselves out of, I am actually in a season, versus, this season has become my entire life?

Deepa Purushothaman [15:59]

Most of the people who come to me are in the system of busyness. I love that phrasing. They don't even see it. Part of, I think, the work that you and I do is pointing out the deficiencies in the system, because until a few years ago we didn't even talk about that. It's new language, new vocabulary.

This is not my work, but I've seen it spoken of enough that I don't think you can necessarily attribute it to one person — but I have come to believe that thinking of it almost like a harvest, that there are seasons where you're planting and seasons where you are reaping. To think about it that way has really given me some freedom. There are parts like right now, for example — I'm redoing a lot of my website, redoing a lot of my speaking topics. The things I used to talk about are not necessarily things people want to hear now. That's a lot of busy work. There's not necessarily an immediate reward to it, but it has to get done and it's tedious. It's taken me a month, and that's all I've been doing.

But I also know come the fall, that'll pay dividends. If I don't do it now, I'm not going to be able to reap that later. So thinking about it in that way has really helped me, and given me some freedom to realize that it's okay to have the fallow periods. It's okay to rotate even what you're doing and what you're talking about. That's given me some flexibility.

Meghan French Dunbar [17:27]

I read the book Wintering when I resigned from my first company. Between COVID and babies and all the things, I ended up having a fallow period of about two years. I was wrestling with my sense of self and worth and all the things, but I was also just recovering. It was an insane time. And the concept of seasonality based on our actual seasons — I was like, how has this never occurred to me that we do in fact need to sit fallow for a bit? Otherwise we can't continually produce.

Deepa Purushothaman [17:57]

Absolutely. And there's a lot of writing on how women especially need that — we should really think about the moon cycles. There are all these different things out there if you start to get a little bit woo-woo about it, depending on how far you're willing to go and what you're willing to read. There are a lot of different ways that people work, and I think that's part of the rewriting. Most of us have been taught this very specific capitalist way of working, and there are different ways of working that are just as rewarding.

I started to look at a lot of artists and writers. Growing up, there wasn't a lot of space in my world or I didn't necessarily understand the process of creation in that way. Creative energy is a very different process. I might have maybe looked down on it a little bit as I was growing up because it wasn't part of what was encouraged in our family. And so those quiet periods are like, I'm thinking about what I'm going to write, thinking about what I'm going to do. That wasn't encouraged. So now I can see that's part of it — you can't just keep creating, you can't just keep writing, because the words don't land in the same way. Taking breaks and coming back to it, taking a walk and coming back to it, changes it.

There's even just an appreciation for the different ways people work. And why can't we bring more of those worlds together? That's part of the work that you and I do, in small ways.

Meghan French Dunbar [19:24]

The women you're working with regularly — are there constant or regular themes you're seeing, especially around consistently harmful beliefs? Or anything that's surprising you, where you're like, I had a narrative about how they were all going to do X, but instead they're actually totally different?

Deepa Purushothaman [19:45]

Unfortunately, no. Coming out of COVID, it felt like we were switching and there was an awakening, people were changing. I ran a women's organization or a community for a couple of years after COVID. There was a really intense interest in doing that work around COVID. Then it felt like a lot of the women who were coming to me were like, I'm done with that. I'm back in my job full-time. I don't have time for it. Everything's great. Everything's better.

I've had a lot of women reaching out to me just in the last month or two who are feeling broken again — in a very different way, in a very deep sort of way — and asking where they can go for community, where they can go for the conversation again. So I do feel like we're back to a little bit of that COVID energy, energetic time for women especially. I've been everywhere and done everything and it's still not working.

I also think we're starting to see the system cracks. In just the last week or two, there have been new job numbers, new leadership numbers — because we're in Women's History Month in some places, I want to say in quotes. There's a lot of new data about women advancing, and all the numbers for the first time in ever, it feels like, in the last 20, 30 years, are actually regressing.

So a lot of women are feeling like — if they're in these traditional jobs, especially the women who come to me, who are more corporate or lead large organizations — they're realizing that it felt like the system got better. We figured some things out. And now they're seeing the numbers dwindle again. So there's a sense of overwhelm, not only in themselves but just like, it's really broken and it didn't get any better. And it's almost worse now because there's a denial, after kind of taking the lid off of it the last couple of years.

What I'm trying to say is, I feel a genuine sense of hopelessness, of anxiety. I think we'll get past it. I think we'll come back to, what are we going to do about it now? But in this moment, it feels like we're in the anxiety, overwhelmed part of the cycle, until we organize and figure out what we're doing about it.

Meghan French Dunbar [21:51]

It's bringing up another question for me. For context, Deepa and I are in an authors' group together with some other extraordinary humans. Every six weeks or so we have a call. One of the things that came up on our last call was around freedom and around our work, and a lot of us having opportunities to potentially go in-house somewhere or be hired for certain roles. And all of us saying, nah, for now, being an entrepreneur and running my own thing is what I need.

For me personally, my experience is that in order to fully live into my newer definition of success — which is really built around what do I want my days to look like, what do I want to feel like, mental health, physical health, my connection with my kids and my family, my friends — it's really, here is my life, how does my work fit into that? Not basing everything around my work. For me, so far, that has at least required me to run my own company. The flip side is the financial stress of eat-what-you-kill — figuring out how to make revenue, which is stressful. But for me the trade-off, I'm like, yeah, there's not even a question that I wouldn't go somewhere.

So I'm curious for you — and this doesn't have to be an absolute — but is running your own company or breaking out to do your own thing necessary to live a really new and profound definition of success? Or have you seen it done with someone working for a high-pressure organization?

Deepa Purushothaman [23:40]

I have, and I think if I were to go back, I would do it differently. But it's rare. What it requires is knowing who you are. Knowing what your boundaries are in a very clear way — and I'll unpack that in a minute — and also knowing where you can conform and where you won't. That's a little bit of boundaries, but in a very different way.

Part of what you're describing is that for a lot of the women we both know, there's a force-fitting that happens when you're in these high-performing structures. A lot of it has to do with how they were built. They were built decades ago, based on centuries-ago capitalism. The idea of a two-parent household where one person went out to work and one person was always home, usually the woman. That ideal-worker model doesn't work today. It's never been updated.

So this idea of freedom — most women I know don't feel free, because when they're at work they're worried about their kids at home, and when they're at home they're worried about not doing all the things at work. And the men I talk to, I'm not saying they don't have it, but they don't have it to the extent that I see it with the women I work with. So I do think it comes from how we define an ideal worker and the expectations around that work.

It's very hard to find that freedom, but it can happen if you go into these systems knowing — it may cost me, but I'm going to be true to who I am. I'm going to push back on the things that don't feel right. I'm going to be in full voice as I navigate these places. Which a lot of women don't do.

You asked me before — what do I see a lot of women struggle with? A lot of them believe they have to be grateful for the opportunities they're given. So they don't speak up. They don't push back. They work two and four times as hard as others around them because they feel like they have to. They're walking that tightrope.

Part of what you have to become is really clear who you are. And the women who are really clear are able to set those boundaries, are able to be themselves in those situations. They know it may cost them, but they'll be okay. They actually do better than everybody else because they're so clear. And back to your question around what's powerful — they're so powerful. But it's not just authentic power. I don't love that label. It's just clarity. No, I'm not going to do that. It may cost me, but that's okay. And there's such gravitas in that that we don't talk about enough.

Two things added to that. One — when I work with women, what I find is it's not a hundred things that define those boundaries that really are their identity, that give them that power. It's usually six to eight things. But most of us haven't sat down to figure out what those six or eight things are. Once you know those things, then I tell women: don't give on those things at work. That's super important. If you start to give on those things, you're not going to feel great. You're not going to feel like you have freedom. You're not going to feel powerful.

That's a lot of where my work comes from. So many women, when I was doing dinners before leaving and before writing the book, were sitting in these rooms saying, I don't feel powerful. And these were very senior women. If they don't feel powerful, what hope do the rest of us have? So it's a real concern.

Meghan French Dunbar [26:29]

Can you give any specific examples of those six to eight — either someone else's or yours — where it's really clear what they found?

Deepa Purushothaman [26:42]

For some women, it's, I have a chronic illness, and people need to know that. I work with some women, it's migraines or heart issues — if they're having a really stressful day, they need to set that boundary. But if they don't let people around them know that's a concern, they'll be in this constant, should I go to that meeting? Should I answer that email right now? They know what they need to do, but they're not honoring themselves. They're not able to set that boundary.

Or, I need to be at my kid's soccer game. I'm their soccer coach. That's really an important part of my identity. I spend hours a week doing this. Once they tell their teammates that, their teammates are the ones pushing them out the door, because they know they'll get back online after those two hours. It's not ten hours, it's two hours. But because they haven't told people around them, they don't get the support they need. They don't get the recognition.

Or, I'm from another country, and this other part is who I am — it's really important and I don't want to hide it anymore. Those are more around authenticity. But it's a little bit of just the things that are who you are outside of your workplace that you need some help on, so that you can honor those things and not feel like you're pushing them aside or in constant pressure from that ideal-worker idea — that I have to let all of those things go, because in the workplace I'm only that ideal worker and I don't have any needs or wants or life outside of the desk I'm chained to.

Meghan French Dunbar [28:10]

The concept of authenticity — there's this conflation of authenticity meaning just show up as yourself. I always imagine someone being like, I can dye my hair whatever I want and say whatever I want.

Deepa Purushothaman [28:22]

I would say wear flip-flops to work. That's one over there

Meghan French Dunbar [28:33]

So just digging in a little around the nuance — what does authentic power or authentic leadership really look like? And how do people know when they're tiptoeing the line between professionalism and assimilation? That feels like a line to toe sometimes.

Deepa Purushothaman [28:50]

I think only you can know. Again, that's the work of those eight to ten things. For some women it's, I'm not going to change my hair, or, I'm going to dress in this very unique, specific way, because that's important to my identity. It's understanding what your own list is.

But it's also understanding the context you're in, because not every company culture is the same. What are some of the things that are not important in your company culture? Maybe email etiquette is, but what your footwear is doesn't matter. You need to understand both, and then you need to decide. It's an active choice — am I going to push on that or not? If it's not an okay boundary that they've set for you, and it feels like something that takes your power or freedom away, then you push.

In some cases you have to dip your toe in and do it wrong, and then you get the feedback, and then you figure it out. For a lot of us — I say in the book — I was surprised how many young women, and this just came up for whatever reason, were talking about red lipstick. Young women I interviewed were like, I love to wear red lipstick, and I just don't know if I'll be taken seriously if I wear it. It was a small example, but at least ten or twelve women said that to me — red lipstick seems to be like, not gonna be taken seriously in the workplace. I had never thought about that or heard of that. I would wear red lipstick whenever I wanted to. It never occurred to me.

It can be a small thing, but you have to gauge — is that important to me? Is that part of my identity? And then in your workplace, is that going to push people? It doesn't mean don't do it. It just means figure out how you do it in a way that you take people along the journey with you, maybe.

Meghan French Dunbar [30:23]

From the initial book interview I did with you almost two and a half years ago — even at the height of your old playbook, toxic definition of success, working up to be a partner at Deloitte — there was still this part of you that didn't assimilate fully into what you "should" do. Two examples come to mind. One, your ability, when a partner would give you work you didn't fully understand, to say, I don't know, can you help? And there was a story you told about when you were thinking about becoming a partner, hearing from other women specifically who had made partner that you were going to need to learn how to play golf. And you were just like, yeah, hard no. I'm just not going to do that.

So even at your busiest, when you were a corporate Olympian as you often say, you still had this presence of mind to not fully drink all the Kool-Aid. What do you attribute that to — the ability to still say no, even in the highest-pressure environments?

Deepa Purushothaman [31:25]

I think it comes from not ever feeling like I belonged. Growing up in places where I just felt so different. My dad wanted, I think, two boys, and he ended up with two girls. I come from an Indian culture where he would often say to us when we were little, if I had a boy — and that became I'll show you. There was always this I'll show you energy.

At Deloitte, to be super clear, I was the only non-MBA in my 700-person start class. So I came in not feeling like I knew anything. I would ask questions from the start. I was single when I made partner, and I was in my early 30s. A lot of the partners around me had a partner — a spouse who was able to spend, for the most part, a significant amount of time at home. So I had a different set of issues for how I was going to make my life work. I talked about it a lot because I didn't feel like I belonged.

So to answer your question — I started from, I'm totally different. I'm an orange in a sea of apples. I never even tried to fit in in those sorts of ways. Fitting in might have been the odd thing to do, as opposed to being different. It came from the background, the training more than anything — not so much gender or race. It was just that I was younger than everybody and I had such a different skill set.

Meghan French Dunbar [32:40]

When you're talking about the bell curve of adoption — you're someone who's always a bit ahead of things. You're a future trend spotter, an issue spotter. The First, The Few, The Only came out at a really relevant time, which for it to come out at a really relevant time means you've been working on it for a few years. So what are you thinking about now? Where's your curiosity leading you that might be a little bit ahead of its time?

Deepa Purushothaman [33:13]

That's a great question. I think it's a lot of things we covered. The last couple of years I was writing a lot about toxic workplaces, so I felt very on the front end of that. By the way, I've had a number of people describe me in that way, which is interesting because I don't see myself that way.

I think then the last year or so, I've been really thinking, for women, just what's happening. Because it feels like a particular and really difficult time for women. And on top of it, we have all of this sort of trad-wife versus feminist conversation. If you post anything about it — I've never experienced anything like this on social media, the comments, the feedback. It's fascinating. So I think that's the moment we're in right now.

I think what's coming next — I was doing some work on martyrs, modern martyrs, just what it means to really look at all the stories that we've inherited as women about how we should be, what success should look like.

The thing I'm sitting in a little bit now is really around success and ambition. They're very much tied to being the same thing, but I think we're in this moment where a lot of us are going to start to look at success and ambition in very different ways, and define them for ourselves versus the way they've been defined and given to us. So that's probably where I see a lot of the work going.

I also think we're in this moment of great uncertainty in a way we've never seen before. When I say that, people are like, well, it's always been uncertain — but it feels extra layered. So that's also part of, how do we navigate this time and where are we going to end up coming out of this? What matters to us, how do we start to work differently? Our workplace cultures are completely changing as a result of the moment we're in, and also just AI and everything else coming. So what is truly important for the ways we work feels like where I'm headed.

Meghan French Dunbar [35:09]

Is there a question or set of questions that you recommend to people to help them begin thinking about a new definition of success?

Deepa Purushothaman [35:19]

Just very simply, starting with a list of: what about your life gives you angst right now? For me, it was travel.

I remember when I was a new partner, I made a list of the kind of partner I wanted to be, and I still have that list. It wasn't a long list — it was like 15 things. Which is why I can say, for most people, it's not a long list. It had small things, like — I'd worked with someone who constantly did Saturday morning calls. I remember writing, number seven on my list: I'm never going to do a Saturday morning call. And I became a partner that never did a Saturday morning call.

So it's a little bit of, what's the aspiration? But also, what do you never want to do? You need both lists — the negatives of what you don't enjoy, what you really despise about your work week or the life you've set up.

And then I think it's, what do you wish you had? And it's just journaling. What do you want your day to look like? Your week? Your month? Just journaling and seeing the patterns that come out.

So much of what I do now is just looking at patterns. So many of us think it's just me, but those patterns are pretty consistent, especially for the women I work with. For a lot of them, it's about having flexibility at work — which is the thing that feels like it's under attack in this moment. Being able to turn off at certain points, to have shutdown time. It's also related to travel and hours. That's a lot of what freedom looks like — being able to manage that and to make your life work with your work, versus working your life around your work.

Meghan French Dunbar [36:42]

Yeah. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you wish I had?

Deepa Purushothaman [37:09]

I wanted to come back to the toxic thing, because you mentioned for yourself it took you a while — that fallow period. I just want to acknowledge, because I think a lot of people listening are going through periods of fallow.

It usually takes two years, is what the research shows, to come out of a situation — if you're pivoting, if you've been in a toxic situation, if you're starting over, if you're changing your career. For a lot of us, we look at someone who's left, and people look at me, because I did sell my book like six weeks after I left and my whole life took off in a very fast way. But there was a lot of stuff you don't see behind the scenes.

So for most people, just understanding that it takes a couple of years to start over, to recover, to re-regulate your nervous system from the machine and the system. There's a process to unplug. And it's a slow process to really pivot your life in the ways we're describing. And these are big, big ways. I would say of the thousands of women I work with, less than 100 pivot in very big ways. Because it's scary, and you get a lot of questions. So it's rare.

I would just give yourself the grace to leave where you are, to figure out what you want next, and to also realize that it's hard to make the list of what you want your life to look like when you're still in your old life. If you can afford it — if you can take that fallow period and just be quiet and just see who emerges — the life that you create two years later will be completely different than what you would have penned when you were in the chaos, in the discomfort, in the questions about success and ambition.

You almost have to unplug, be quiet, look around, and then reset.

Meghan French Dunbar [38:56]

I'm so glad you brought up — when you left Deloitte you sold the book six weeks later, and all the things. It looks easy. It looks like it can be done pretty quickly. The work behind the scenes, at least in my experience, was incredibly uncomfortable. I felt unmoored and untethered. I was frustrated and angry. I felt very lost. I took a full two years.

My therapist at the time, she had this word — I think it was interstice. It's this middle period where on your journey, you've been in this land for a while and you want to get to a healthier land over here, but you have to take the journey in between, the mucky swamp, to get there. There is no going around it. If you don't go through that uncomfortable transformational period and give yourself the grace and the patience, nothing will change. You might change your title, you might change your position, but your mentality, your mindset, you can't change in a matter of weeks.

It's really hard to say that to people, because it almost discourages them from taking the leap. Practically, I just hobbled together some consulting gigs, took some little side projects here and there, and made it work financially for myself. So it is doable. And it doesn't take away from the fact that it's necessary and uncomfortable — but it's completely and totally worth it.

Of all the gobbledygook I just spit out — what resonates for you around the is it necessary for full transformation?

Deepa Purushothaman [40:24]

Mine was getting sick and having to figure out what I was going to do next, how I was going to heal. I literally was in bed for almost a year before that point.

In order to figure out who you want to be, you almost have to take all the parts of yourself out. That's how I describe it. You have to unpack the suitcase and then decide what parts you want to put back in. But most of us don't get the time, or give ourselves the grace, to unpack the suitcase. That's the part I got pushed into, because I got sick. So yes, it looks like on the outside it was six weeks, but there was a year where I literally physically couldn't get out of bed, couldn't get on calls. All I was doing was laying in bed thinking about what is my life.

I also think it's very much tied to the hero's journey, which is why I call it the corporate heroine. There's a process by which — the hero's journey, for the hero to become the hero, he has to hit this reckoning and then go figure out, go on the odyssey, and then come back to who he is by learning all the parts he picks up in that odyssey, in that desert you're describing. That's literally what the hero's journey is. I don't love it because it doesn't really talk about women's journeys, but that's the idea of it. And it's been well documented, well researched. Most psychologists will talk about that.

So you don't actually create a new life unless you're forced to. Unless you go through that period of figuring out what makes sense.

Meghan French Dunbar [41:51]

As we think about rewriting the heroine's journey, what is the foundational rewrite you would like to offer or invite people to explore?

Deepa Purushothaman [42:01]

I think figuring out what your core — I don't want to call it issue — but your core desire is. You talked about that Rutgers paper. Freedom spoke to me. Part of why I love that paper and wanted to be a part of it is because for me, it was freedom.

You have to figure out what your North Star is. Because it's not freedom for everybody. For some, it's just space. Or it's quiet. Or it's slowing down. And yes, in some ways it's all tied to freedom — but it's defined in a very different way.

So my advice is figuring out what your North Star is. I did a lot of work when I was still at Deloitte to realize for me it was alignment. And alignment eventually became freedom. You can do that part of the work wherever you are right now, figuring out what it is that drives you and is important to you and would thrill you. Once you know that, you can start on the journey and do everything else. But if you don't know what that North Star is, it's really hard.

Meghan French Dunbar [42:50]

Every time I talk to you, my cup feels so much fuller. How do people support you, find you, plug in with you? What is really helpful to you right now, besides going out and buying your book?

Deepa Purushothaman [43:08]

I do a lot of writing on LinkedIn. So that's probably the best way to follow me or hear what's going on — Deepa P-U-R-U. And then we have The Re-Write, which is where we post a lot of the research and the things we're doing. But LinkedIn is probably the easiest place to go right now.

Meghan French Dunbar [43:28]

I'll put that in the show notes. Thank you.

Deepa Purushothaman [43:32]

Thank you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, because I know you've been grappling with a lot of the same conversations.

Meghan French Dunbar [43:44]

Fellow travelers.