Work Unscripted

What if the employee you think has a performance problem is actually struggling with something you can't see? In this episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons sits down with crisis mental health professional and former SWAT negotiator Jessi Beyer to explore how workplace trauma and emotional distress can show up in ways leaders often misunderstand.

From constantly changing expectations and toxic bosses to personal crises that spill into the workplace, Jessi explains why employees can shift into survival mode without anyone recognizing what's happening. She also shares why even the best corporate wellness programs fall short when leaders don't know how to have a meaningful conversation with someone who is struggling.

Marlo and Jessi discuss the warning signs leaders may miss, the importance of psychological safety, and how simple moments of connection can change the trajectory of a difficult situation.

You'll learn:

• How workplace trauma and distress can show up as changes in behavior or performance
• Why employees may not recognize the impact of a toxic workplace until after they've left
• What leaders should notice when a previously reliable employee starts struggling
• How active listening, curiosity, and small check-ins build trust and connection
• Why Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are important but cannot replace human support
• How to recognize potential suicide warning signs and respond without trying to become someone's therapist
• One simple behavior shift that can make you a more compassionate, effective leader

This conversation is a reminder that leadership is about much more than managing outcomes. It's about recognizing the human beings who make them possible. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is stop talking and start asking better questions.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide, suicidal thoughts, and mental health crises.

Have a question for Marlo, a topic or guest you'd love to hear on Work Unscripted, or an interest in one-on-one coaching? Visit marlolyonscoaching.com/listener.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Ever feel like your boss completely misunderstands you, even when you're doing great work?

"You're like a dog on a bone. Tone it down." That's what a boss once told Marlo Lyons. And she had absolutely no idea what her boss was seeing. She was getting the work done, delivering results, and doing exactly what she thought was expected. So what was the problem?

In this episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo shares how her experience with AuDHD helped her understand why she felt misunderstood throughout her corporate career. She also introduces a practical tool she wishes she'd had years ago: the Me Manual.

A Me Manual is a simple personal guide that explains how you work best, communicate, process feedback, and what you need from your manager to succeed. No medical disclosure required. Just a better way to understand each other.

You'll learn:

• Why neurodivergent professionals can feel misunderstood at work
• How ADHD, AuDHD, and rejection sensitivity can complicate workplace feedback
• What a Me Manual is and how to create one
• How to explain your communication style, working preferences, and feedback needs
• How to introduce a Me Manual to a new boss or reset an existing relationship
• Why understanding yourself is the first step toward helping others understand you

Whether you're neurodivergent, starting a new role, or tired of feeling like your manager just doesn't get you, this episode offers a practical way to close the communication gap. Because being good at your job and being understood at your job are not always the same thing.

Resources:

• Previous episode: What Does AuDHD Look Like at Work? My Late Diagnosis Explained My Career
• Work with Marlo: marlolyonscoaching.com

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

You might have an employee who is brilliant, creative, fast, intuitive, and full of potential, and you might be managing them in a way that quietly makes it harder for them to succeed.

In this solo episode of Work Unscripted, part of the Neurodivergence at Work series for ADHD Awareness Month, Marlo Lyons shares a practical guide for managers who want to better support employees with ADHD, executive function challenges, or simply diffe rent ways of working. 

A manager’s job isn’t to figure out whether someone has ADHD or another neurodivergence. It’s to create an environment where people can do their best work - the same changes that help neurodivergent employees make work clearer for everyone.

You’ll learn six management shifts that help neurodivergent employees thrive.

• Follow verbal instructions with written follow-up
• Break big projects into checkpoints
• Make priorities explicit
• Praise the process, not just the outcome
• Separate behavior from character
• Normalize asking for what you need by modeling it yourself

If you manage a high-potential employee who seems inconsistent, intense, disorganized, overly sensitive, or hard to read, this episode will help you look beyond the label and ask a better question: what system, expectation, or communication gap might be getting in the way?

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

What if ADHD is not the full story? In this episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons sits down with Otto Siegel, a Genius Coach and expert in helping people decode and activate their innate brilliance. Otto has spent more than 20 years researching and practicing a non-medical approach to moving beyond ADHD, anxiety, and the feeling of “not enough” by helping people understand how they are uniquely wired.

Marlo and Otto dig into what happens when brilliant people spend their lives trying to fit into systems that were not built for the way their brains work. They discuss why ADHD is often framed too narrowly as a disorder, how traditional definitions of intelligence miss entire categories of human brilliance, and why managers and leaders need to become more curious about the people they do not immediately understand.

You’ll learn:

• Why Otto believes ADHD is often misunderstood as a deficit instead of a different design
• How early experiences of being misunderstood can shape confidence, anxiety, and career identity
• Why the better question may not be “How intelligent are you?” but “How are you intelligent?”
• How managers and leaders can get curious about neurodivergent talent without diagnosing or labeling anyone
• Why masking can be especially exhausting for high-performing executives and professionals
• How anxiety, stress, and body signals may be warning signs that something needs your attention
• Why self-understanding can be a powerful path toward confidence, fulfillment, and career success

This conversation is for neurodivergent professionals, executives with ADHD, managers of brilliant but misunderstood employees, and anyone who has ever wondered, “Why do I feel like I am capable of so much more, but still feel like I am not enough?”

Because your brain may be asking for a better way to be understood.

Learn more at www.geniuscoaching.com.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Moving too fast. Talking too much. Being too intense. Being “too emotional.”

For years, Marlo Lyons heard versions of that feedback at work. She tried to make sense of it the only way she knew how: by pushing harder, masking more, and trying to become easier for other people to understand.

In this personal episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo opens up about being diagnosed later in life with AuDHD, meaning both autism and ADHD. She shares what that diagnosis finally helped her understand about her career, her relationships, and how she moves through the world.

In this episode, Marlo shares:

• What decades of masking in corporate environments really cost her
• Why vague feedback like “slow down” or “build relationships” can be so destabilizing for a neurodivergent brain
• How being highly sensitive or emotionally flooded can be misread by managers and colleagues
• What it’s like to be unable to name what you feel in the moment and how that shows up at work
• How a late autism and ADHD diagnosis can reframe years of career feebdack

This episode kicks off a month-long series on neurodivergence in the workplace for ADHD Awareness Month. Whether you are neurodivergent, manage neurodivergent employees, or simply want to better understand the people around you, this conversation offers a new way to think about performance, communication, feedback, and what it really means to support people at work.

Because sometimes the behavior you are judging is not the whole story.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

You finally work up the courage to tell your boss something you are still trying to understand about yourself. They listen. They might even say, “I appreciate you trusting me with this.” Then they tell someone else. 

In this solo episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons talks about one of the most damaging leadership failures: creating a safe space, then failing to hold it.

Psychological safety at work has two parts: inviting honest conversations and protecting what an employee trusted you with after the door closes. Many leaders do the first and forget the second. 

Marlo shares a personal story about how a secondhand comment from one leader to another created a narrative she never wrote, and why leaders need to understand the real cost of casually sharing vulnerable information about employees.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why psychological safety has two parts: creating the space and holding the space
• How leaders break trust when they share employee information out of context
• Why good intentions do not erase the impact of broken confidentiality
• How secondhand comments can shape an employee’s reputation and career
• Why leaders are stewards of an employee’s story, not owners of it
• What to do when a legitimate concern about an employee needs to be shared
• Why broken trust can hit neurodivergent employees especially hard
• What leaders owe employees who trust them with vulnerable conversations

If you lead people, this episode is a reminder that what is said behind a closed door shouldn’t casually leave that room. The question isn’t whether your team feels comfortable coming to you. The question is whether you are actually safe.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Everyone is the hero of their own story. But we don’t always want to admit: sometimes, we may be the obstacle in someone else’s. In this episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons sits down with storyteller, keynote speaker, and storytelling strategist Valerie Gordon to talk about why people misunderstand each other at work, at home, and in the stories we tell ourselves.

Valerie spent more than two decades telling stories on television before turning that same lens toward real life, career growth, leadership, and the inner narratives that shape how we show up. Marlo and Valerie explore the unreliable narrator in our heads, the stories we create when we do not have all the information, and how multiperspectivity can help us build better relationships and stronger teams.

You’ll learn:

• How the stories we tell ourselves shape our confidence, choices, and careers
• Why your inner critic may be an unreliable narrator
• How to recognize when you are emotionally reasoning instead of seeing clearly
• What multiperspectivity means and why it matters at work
• Why you can be the hero of your own story and still be the villain in someone else’s
• How curiosity can help reduce conflict and misunderstanding
• Why the person challenging your idea may be your best supporting character
• How leaders can create space for more voices, better questions, and deeper understanding

If you’ve ever wondered why a coworker, boss, partner, or friend misunderstood you, or why you may have misunderstood them, this conversation gives you a new way to think about perspective.

The narrator has been running in your head for a long time. This conversation is about thwart happens when you finally question it. 

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

What if the role you worked your whole career toward is actually the wrong destination? In this solo episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons shares a personal story about turning down a role that looked like the next obvious career move, and why saying no became one of the most important decisions of her career.

This episode is about career alignment, values, leadership fit, and why the most strategic thing you can do sometimes is walk away from the thing everyone expects you to say yes to. 

You’ll learn:

• Why the “next level” is not always the right direction
• How to tell the difference between upward mobility and upward alignment
• Why leadership fit matters more than a title on paper
• How values show up as data in career decisions
• Why FOMO is a terrible career strategy
• The three questions to ask before accepting a promotion
• Why a strategic no can protect your career and your life

If you’re considering a promotion, career move, leadership opportunity, or role that looks good on LinkedIn but feels wrong in your gut, this episode is the pause you need before you say yes.

Think of your career less like a ladder and more like a compass. The goal is not always up.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Some leaders communicate beautifully when the environment is controlled. But then the stakes shift and suddenly, the clarity, authority, and confidence they had in rehearsal starts to collapse. In this episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons sits down with executive presence coach Kathryn Janicek to talk about why executive presence breaks down in high-pressure moments, and how leaders can rebuild it in real time.

As former TV news reporters, Marlo and Kathryn both understand what it means to think on your feet, stay present under pressure, and recover when something does not go perfectly.

You’ll learn:

• Why strong leaders lose clarity when the environment becomes unpredictable
• The hidden gap between prepared communication and real-time executive performance
• How mindset affects body language, tone, and credibility
• Why nonverbal signals can reinforce or erode trust in seconds
• How to recover when you stumble, freeze, or get triggered
• Why sleep, stress, burnout, and self-care show up in your leadership presence
• How leaders can prepare for investor conversations, board scrutiny, unscripted Q&A, and high-stakes meetings

If you are a leader, executive, founder, or high-performing professional who needs to communicate clearly when the pressure is on, this episode will help you understand what your presence is really saying.

Because executive presence is not just how you perform when everything goes according to plan. It is how you lead when it doesn’t.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

There are people waiting for their boss to care about their career more than they do. Pause on that. In this Cracking the Code episode of Work Unscripted, Marlo Lyons calls out the permission trap: the career pattern where people wait to be noticed, developed, promoted, sponsored, or picked before they take ownership of their own growth.

Your manager may care about you. But your manager is not your career coach. They are managing a team, hitting goals, sitting in meetings, and putting out fires you may never see. Your growth is your job.

You’ll learn:

• Why waiting to be picked keeps you passive in your career
• Why your manager is not responsible for unlocking your full potential
• How exhaustion can quietly stall your professional growth
• Why investing in yourself can actually create energy
• How AI and automation are changing the skills professionals need
• Why vague growth goals lead to vague results
• How small, consistent learning compounds over time
• Why you need a direction, not a perfect five-year plan

If you’ve been waiting for your company, boss, or someone else to tell you it’s time to grow, this episode is your reminder:

You already have permission. Now act like it.

Connect with Marlo Website | LinkedIn | Instagram 
-----------
Work Unscripted is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.