FRIED. The Burnout Podcast

byCait Donovan, Top Burnout Expert for Corporate and Nonprofit Organizations

BusinessEducationSelf-ImprovementHealthFitnessMental

FRIED: The Burnout Podcast by BurnBOLD™ BurnBOLD™ is the powerhouse matchup of burnout experts Cait Donovan and Sarah Vosen. Together, they host FRIED as part of their mission to #endburnoutculture — with deep, real, and sometimes hilariously practical advice (yes, like #peewhenyouneedtopee). Each week, you’ll hear raw stories, powerful coaching sessions, and practical strategies to help you drop the shame, blame, guilt, and judgment so you can heal from burnout and rebuild your life. Cait works globally as a keynote speaker and workshop leader, helping organizations and associations create burnout-proof cultures. Sarah guides individuals through burnout recovery using her signature UNFRIED...

Episodes(40 episodes)

Why High Performers Are Quietly Quitting Your Best Teams — and the Fix Most Leaders Miss with Mike Goldman

Only 2 percent of leaders believe their performance reviews actually work, yet most companies still rely on them to shape culture, compensation, and careers.Cait Donovan sits down with leadership team coach and best-selling author Mike Goldman to question why so many organizations cling to management systems that quietly undermine organizational performance. If leaders say people are their greatest asset, why do they rely on a process that most of them admit adds little value? When expectations are unclear and culture standards are flexible for the wrong people, team health performance drops and talent retention...

Published: Mar 1, 2026Duration: 58m 33s

Mattering at Work: The Missing Leadership Skill Driving Engagement, Retention, and Burnout Recovery | Zach Mercurio

Belonging might get you on the team, but if burnout is a systems problem, then mattering is a systems solution. Cait sits down with Zach Mercurio, PhD, author of The Power of Mattering, to examine why engagement continues to decline even in organizations investing heavily in culture initiatives. If burnout is a systems problem, then addressing workplace burnout requires more than resilience training. It requires redesigning how leaders show up in everyday interactions.Zach breaks down the difference between belonging, inclusion, and mattering. Belonging is being welcomed. Inclusion is being invited to participate. Mattering...

Published: Feb 22, 2026Duration: 50m 45s

Does Mindfulness Work for Burnout, PTSD, and Trauma? What Research in War Zones Shows | A #straightfromcait Episode

Burnout does not get fixed by waiting for the workplace to change and it does not get solved by ignoring the biology of chronic stress either. Cait Donovan challenges the growing resistance to mindfulness in workplace and corporate wellness by asking a more honest question: what if the tools people dismiss as basic are misunderstood rather than ineffective? Drawing on research from war zones, medical training programs, and high-stress professional environments, the conversation reframes mindfulness as a form of burnout prevention grounded in trauma and PTSD science. When practices reduce symptoms in active conflict z...

Published: Feb 15, 2026Duration: 11m 36s

Burnout Recovery, Alignment, and a Thoughtful Transition

Part of burnout recovery is learning when to respond to what your body and life are telling you, even when that response brings some discomfort.In this episode, Cait and Sarah talk openly about a shift in how they work together and what’s ahead for FRIED. As their roles and priorities have evolved, Sarah is stepping back and Cait is focusing her work more fully on leadership, organizational, and systems-level burnout.Cait shares how she came to see that her work is strongest when she is creating change at...

Published: Feb 1, 2026Duration: 46m 0s

#straightfromcait: Burnout Isn’t About Resilience. It’s About Match.

Burnout recovery does not start with fixing yourself. It starts with understanding job fit, burnout at work, and whether there is a true values match between who you are and what your work and life demand.Cait Donovan returns with a #straightfromcait episode that marks a turning point in how she thinks about burnout and in the writing of her next book. After years of explaining burnout as a complex web shaped by childhood, culture, health, personality, and work, she hits a wall. Information alone does not change behavior. What people need is a...

Published: Jan 25, 2026Duration: 5m 57s

Re-Release: 7 Stages of Burnout with Mandy Lehto

Burnout is less a breaking point than a slow unravelling of identity and the seven messy phases high achievers cycle through on the way back to themselves.We’re revisiting a conversation with Dr. Mandy Lehto that still holds relevance for anyone who has pushed past their limits and felt the ground shift beneath them. Mandy and Cait talk through burnout as a gradual process shaped by denial, urgency, over-efforting, and grief, rather than a single moment of collapse. Mandy’s “seven-ish” buckets offer language for patterns many high achievers recognize but rarely name. When the...

Published: Jan 18, 2026Duration: 1h 2m 28s

Tess Brigham: Why Millennials Might Be The Most Burned Out of Us All

What if you could step into a room filled with the people who hold the keys to the big stages, the book deals, and the most powerful platforms for your voice? The Gateway Gathering Pitch Fest is a visibility accelerator for thought-leaders. Whether you’re ready to pitch or just want to discover what’s possible, join us January 13 – 15. Visit: https://bit.ly/friedgatewayWhy do millennials seem more exhausted than everyone else, and what does that say about the world they came of age in? Cait Donovan and Tess Brigham challenge the idea that b...

Published: Jan 11, 2026Duration: 49m 11s

Casey McGuire Davidson: Dry January Advice for Burnt Out High Achievers

What if you could step into a room filled with the people who hold the keys to the big stages, the book deals, and the most powerful platforms for your voice? The Gateway Gathering Pitch Fest is a visibility accelerator for thought-leaders. Whether you’re ready to pitch or just want to discover what’s possible, join us January 13 – 15. Visit https://bit.ly/friedgatewayStress pushes high-achieving women toward alcohol and alcohol quietly erodes sleep emotional stability and clarity.Cait Donovan welcomes back Casey McGuire Davidson, host of the Hello...

Published: Jan 4, 2026Duration: 41m 24s

#sarahshares: Winter Self-care for When You Fear You are Back-sliding

Winter fear can feel like burnout recovery slipping away but this episode reframes fear and depletion as a natural part of winter rather than a sign of winter burnout or failure. In this #sarahshares episode, Sarah Vosen speaks directly to the quiet panic that surfaces when low energy and fear return during the darkest part of the year. When light fades and energy pulls inward, burnout recovery can feel fragile. Fear often replaces simple exhaustion, especially when the nervous system is already depleted. Sarah offers a grounding reframe. That fear is not proof you a...

Published: Dec 28, 2025Duration: 18m 45s

Coaching with Sarah: How To Ask For Help From the Right People (And Then, How to Accept It)

Burnout recovery starts when you stop treating self-sufficiency as strength and learn how to ask for help without shame.In this Coaching session, Sarah Vosen sits down with Samira, a longtime listener facing burnout rooted in over-responsibility, financial stress, and a habit of doing everything alone. Rest has started to bring back some energy, yet doubt remains. What if it is still not enough? What if needing support means something is wrong?At the heart of this conversation is the realization that self-reliance often begins as protection. When early attempts to ask for help led...

Published: Dec 21, 2025Duration: 26m 42s

Hailey Paige Magee: Burned Out and Lonely: How Do You Rebuild Your Community?

AD: What if you could step into a room filled with the people who hold the keys to the big stages, the book deals, and the most powerful platforms for your voice? The Gateway Gathering Pitch Fest is a visibility accelerator for thought-leaders. Whether you’re ready to pitch or just want to discover what’s possible join us January 13 – 15. Visit https://bit.ly/friedgatewayAD: The right support changes everything. Our Director of Coaching, Sarah Vosen, combines expertise and compassion to walk beside you: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingAre you burned out an...

Published: Dec 14, 2025Duration: 55m 22s

Burnout Recovery Exercise: How to Stop Feeling Like a Failure at Burnout Recovery

Many people mistake burnout for personal failure, but the real issue is the quiet mismatch between the energy you actually have and the expectations you keep pushing yourself to meet.Sarah Vosen gets to the core of why so many burned-out high achievers feel defeated: the math of your life stopped working long before you noticed it. When your energy drops but your expectations stay at their old setting, even simple days feel impossible. The conversation challenges listeners to ask what they believe they “should” be able to do and where those beliefs came from in the firs...

Published: Dec 7, 2025Duration: 16m 13s

Fall Self-care for When Grief and Guilt are Weighing You Down

Fall can hit like a quiet emotional landslide as grief, guilt, and old heaviness rise to the surface and ask for release.Sarah Vosen talks about why this season often feels heavier than we expect and how that weight points to emotion that never fully moved through the system. She highlights the way sadness, guilt, and that familiar tightness in the chest show up when the pace naturally shifts and the body finally has room to speak. What if those uncomfortable waves are your body reaching for relief instead of signaling something you did...

Published: Nov 30, 2025Duration: 17m 23s

Cyndie Spiegel: Use This Technique to Find Hope When You're Burnt Out

Burnout doesn’t end with a mindset shift—it begins when you finally allow grief, emptiness, and small sparks of joy to coexist without needing to fix any of them.Author and speaker Cyndie Spiegel joins Cait to talk about what it means to live inside the gray area, the space where both pain and beauty can exist at once. She shares how walking away from a high-profile fashion career led her to teaching, writing, and discovering the idea of microjoys: brief, accessible moments of light that don’t erase hardship but remind us life s...

Published: Nov 23, 2025Duration: 41m 42s

#straightfromcait: Why Behavior Change Is So Hard (and What Your Brain Has to Do With It)

Most people think they’ve failed at change when they’ve actually just hit the part where being human takes over.Cait Donovan is taking a closer look at why behavior change is so hard to maintain and why relapse isn’t a sign of weakness but proof that your brain is doing exactly what it’s designed to do. She explains how old habits never fully disappear, they just sit quietly, waiting for a moment of stress or fatigue to reappear. Change takes effort, repetition, and compassion for the part of you that’s still le...

Published: Nov 16, 2025Duration: 9m 12s

Coaching with Sarah: Spinning in the ‘Am I Burned Out?’ Loop? This One’s for You

Burnout doesn’t always look like collapse; sometimes it hides in the moments when you’re still performing, but your spark keeps flickering out, and that’s where this honest coaching session begins.In this episode, Sarah Vosen sits down with Jennie, an attorney and mom unsure whether what she’s feeling qualifies as burnout. Together they unpack the World Health Organization’s markers of burnout—exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced efficacy—and what those look like in real life. Is it possible to feel functional yet fried? How do you know when your capacity is shrinking f...

Published: Nov 9, 2025Duration: 55m 8s

Coaching with Sarah: Letting Go of Shame from Failing to Meet Unrealistic Expectations

Admitting you’re burnt out can feel like failure, but as Heather learns in this live coaching session, it’s actually the first brave step toward freedom.In this coaching conversation, she opens up about the shame of slowing down and the fear that rest will undo everything she’s worked for. For years, she’s equated effort with worth, believing that if she just pushed a little harder, she’d finally feel secure. Now, even basic motivation feels impossible, and the idea of taking a real break feels terrifying. Through grounded, compassionate coaching, Sarah Vose...

Published: Nov 2, 2025Duration: 44m 56s

#straightfromcait: What PT Taught Me About Burnout Recovery

Burnout convinces you that rest should be enough, and when it isn’t, you assume you’re broken.In this #straightfromcait episode, Cait shares how a shoulder injury revealed a missing step in her own recovery process. Two months of full rest left her pain-free but not ready. When her physical therapist handed her one-pound weights and she could barely lift them, she realized the injury had healed, but her strength hadn’t returned.That moment reframed everything. Most of us focus on the pause — the sleeping, the pulling back, th...

Published: Oct 26, 2025Duration: 9m 59s

Will Robins: How PGA Science Helps You Recover from Burnout

Burnout hides best inside people who love their work so much they don’t notice it draining the life out of them.PGA coach and RGX founder Will Robins joins Cait to unpack how devotion to service can turn into slow-motion burnout, especially when you’re praised for being endlessly available. He shares how surviving the 2004 tsunami gave him purpose, but years later COVID thrust him into a different kind of survival mode, fielding nonstop crisis calls from golf pros worldwide. Passion became obligation, generosity became emotional labor, and saying yes became his default unti...

Published: Oct 19, 2025Duration: 53m 50s

Coaching with Sarah: How to Manage The Panic of Not Being Able to Control All The Things

Control shows up early in Christy’s story — first as protection, then as identity, and eventually as exhaustion. She has spent years anticipating other people’s needs, convinced that staying ahead of every outcome would keep things safe. Instead, it left her overextended and unsure how to take up space without earning it through service.In this real-time coaching session, Sarah helps Christy notice the cost of constantly shaping herself around other people’s comfort. She isn’t confused about what’s wrong, she’s simply never been given permission to stop carrying so much.<b...

Published: Oct 12, 2025Duration: 41m 18s