When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport

Coach Kristen discusses how Mindfulness is more than a “buzz word” in Episode 8 of “When wellbeing Becomes a team sport”. Mindfulness is a practice in how leaders show up for their team; Mindfulness is a practice that initiates the quality of the leadership. Mindfulness helps leaders manage attention, respond instead of react, and become more intentional about how we're choosing to lead ourselves. In this episode, Coach Kristen explores the cost of operating on autopilot, four components of mindful leadership, and three simple practices you can begin using Mindfulness in your work and daily life.

Timestamps:

0:00 What Mindful Leadership Really Means

2:58 Are You Fully Present?

3:29 The Cost of Constant Distraction

5:48 Managing Your Attention

6:16 What Mindfulness Actually Is

7:24 Creating Space Between Stimulus and Response

8:22 The Cost of Leading on Autopilot

11:15 Four Components of Mindful Leadership

14:42 Mindfulness and the PERMA Framework

15:30 Three Ways to Practice Mindful Leadership

17:19 How You Show Up Matters

Positive emotions at work are about more than happiness or forced positivity. In this episode of “When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport”, Coach Kristen explores how emotions like gratitude, hope and contentment can support resilience, creativity and learning. With these strategic resources the initiation for stronger relationships at work will take place. Drawing on Barbara Fredrickson’s “broaden-and-build theory”, she explains how positive emotions can expand our capacity to navigate stresses and responses to challenges. In this episode Coach Kristen shared how leadership can create conditions that support positive emotions. Providing recognition, reflection, recovery and celebrating progress along the way is the foundation to a positive work and team culture.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Why positive emotions matter at work

01:36 - The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions

03:21 - Positive emotions in high-demand work environments

05:29 - How leaders can build positive emotions within teams

06:36 - Practical ways to create more positive emotions at work

Resilience is often treated as the ability to push through, but simply surviving a difficult season is not the same as thriving. In this episode of “When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport”, Coach Kristen explores resilience as a process that individuals and teams can build over time. She shares how emotional regulation, connection, recovery and optimism foster a sense of mattering; that helps people navigate challenges without turning burnout into a “badge of honor”. Coach Kristen gives a real-world example of collective resilience and a practical reframing exercise that you can use when challenges arise.

Timestamps:

00:00 What resilience really means

01:08 Why “still standing” is not the same as thriving

03:23 Resilience is a process, not a trait

05:53 Building individual resilience

07:17 Reframing challenges and building optimism

09:18 Why belonging and mattering strengthen resilience

09:52 How the workplace can challenge resilience

12:15 A real-world example of collective resilience

15:23 Growing stronger through challenges

16:00 A practical resilience reframing exercise

21:27 Building resilience before things get hard

Burnout is not always caused by having too much to do. Sometimes, it comes from working against your natural strengths. In this episode of When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport, Kristen explores how awareness, character strengths, and purpose can support sustainable wellbeing at work. She shares practical ideas from positive psychology, including VIA Character Strengths, strength spotting, the SOAR framework, and Ikigai. You will learn how leaders can help people recognize what they do well, connect their work to a deeper purpose, and build teams where everyone understands how they contribute and why it matters.

Timestamps:

00:00 Awareness, strengths, and sustainable well-being

00:59 How working against your strengths contributes to burnout

02:17 Awareness as the foundation of emotional intelligence

03:10 Mindfulness as attentional clarity

04:18 VIA character strengths and positive psychology

06:33 The underuse and overuse of your strengths

08:18 How to recognize and affirm strengths in others

09:25 Building a sense of mattering within your team

10:48 Replacing SWOT analysis with the SOAR framework

12:38 Using Ikigai to identify your purpose

14:19 How leaders create shared awareness at work

15:25 Reflection: Where are you most aligned?

What if stronger performance at work starts with stronger connection? In this episode of When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport, Kristen Lessig-Schenerlein explores why meaningful workplace relationships are not just a nice bonus, but an essential resource for wellbeing, resilience, and high-performing teams. She breaks down the difference between simply interacting and truly connecting, why Slack messages and team-building activities are not enough, and how small moments of presence can build trust and belonging. Drawing on research around high-quality connections, psychological safety, and workplace wellbeing, Kristen shares practical ways leaders can create a culture where people feel seen, supported, and connected. 

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome to When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport

01:10 - Why Connection Is a Leadership Advantage

03:06 - Workplace Isolation and the Need for Connection

05:22 - How Connection Helps Teams Handle Stress

06:23 - Why Slack and "Mandatory Fun" Aren't Enough

09:23 - The Power of Small, High-Quality Connections

11:24 - Psychological Safety and High-Performing Teams

12:58 - Practical Ways Leaders Can Build Connection

16:24 - Why No One Runs the Race Alone

In this episode of When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport, we explore how leaders and teams can move from constant problem-solving and burnout risk into opportunities thinking. Building on the Co-Care Framework, Kristen explains why workplace wellbeing is not just about rest, resilience, or individual self-care. It is also about creating forward motion, strengthening team culture, and helping people see multiple pathways of possibilities through challenges. You will hear practical ways to reframe obstacles, activate hope, build psychological capital, and invite team members into shaping what comes next. If your team feels stuck, stretched, or stuck in firefighter mode, this conversation offers a grounded way to shift from “what is going wrong?” to “what else is possible?”

Timestamps:

00:00 Introducing opportunities thinking

00:59 Burnout is a gradual process

03:11 Wellbeing includes forward motion

04:34 Opportunities thinking is not toxic positivity

06:50 Hope as a skill

09:29 Redesigning through challenges

12:26 The role of mattering

15:40 Finding one pathway forward

Most leaders genuinely care about their teams, so why are so many people still feeling stretched thin, stressed, and on the path to burnout? In this episode of When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport, Kristen Lessig-Schenerlein explores the gap between good intentions and the systems that actually shape workplace wellbeing. She shares why care cannot just live in values statements, wellness apps, or one-off initiatives. It has to be built into team norms, expectations, resources, and everyday agreements. Through the Co-Care® Framework, Kristen offers a practical way to make wellbeing a shared responsibility, helping teams move from silent needs and chronic stress toward healthier systems, better conversations, and more sustainable work.

Timestamps:

00:00 Why caring leaders still see teams burning out

02:17 How team norms, routines, and expectations shape wellbeing

05:00 Why burnout is not just a personal resilience problem

07:10 Co-creation as shared design, voice, and responsibility

10:29 Defining psychological safety through listening, respect, and open-mindedness

13:26 Why wellbeing scales through better agreements, not more wellness apps

17:22 Making wellbeing part of everyday work, not another initiative

In the premiere episode of When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport, Kristen Lessig-Schenerlein explores why traditional approaches to wellbeing are falling short in today's fast-paced, ever-changing world of work. Drawing on research, real-world stories, and the Co-Care® framework, she reveals how wellbeing is shaped not only by individual resilience but also by the environments and relationships that surround us. Listeners will discover why sustainable performance depends on shared responsibility, intentional support systems, and cultures where people feel valued and matter. If you're ready to move beyond self-care and rethink wellbeing as a strategic advantage, this episode is your starting point.

When Wellbeing Becomes a Team Sport is a podcast exploring the intersection of leadership, organizational culture, and human wellbeing. Hosted through the lens of positive psychology, executive coaching, and systems thinking, each episode unpacks how leaders, teams, and communities can move beyond individual self-care to create cultures of connection, resilience, psychological safety, and sustainable performance. Through real conversations, practical strategies, and research-backed insights, the podcast invites listeners to rethink wellbeing as a shared responsibility and a strategic advantage