Weekly Badass Mail

You got the order backwards. So did I. So did most people. You chose a major, took the job, chased the title... and somewhere along the way started wondering how the heck you ended up here. Not because you made bad decisions, necessarily. But because you made them before you had enough information about yourself to make good ones. That's what Elizabeth said in this week's episode that I haven't stopped thinking about. She works with early career professionals, so she watches this play out in...

I turned 42 this week. And somewhere between the birthday dinner and the texts and Facebook messages from people I haven't heard from since my birthday last year, I started making a list... Things I know now that I didn't know before. Things I learned the hard way, the beautiful way, the embarrassing way, and a few times, the devastating way. Some of these are serious. Some are not. A few of them I'll give you the story behind, because the lesson lands differently once you know where it came...

You did everything right. You took the time off, put the out-of-office on, gave yourself permission to decompress. And you waited for the relief to come. It didn’t. Instead you felt restless. Anxious, maybe. You caught yourself mentally drafting emails nobody asked you to write. And somewhere in the back of your head: If this doesn’t work, what will? Here’s what’s actually happening. After months or years of high-pressure work, your nervous system recalibrates to that level of stimulation as...

If you've been scouring LinkedIn for jobs at 10pm, you're not alone. And if that search has felt overwhelming, scattered, or kind of pointless, there's a reason. Most people don't have an exit strategy. They have an exit wish. And those are very different things. An exit wish sounds like: I just need to get out of here. An exit strategy sounds like: Here's what I'm doing, and here's what comes next. Before we get too deep into this, I can guess what some of you are thinking... This sounds...

Do you know what your body does right before you lose it? Not the full meltdown part... the part that comes before that. The early warning system your nervous system is trying to send you. For me, it's snapping. I get short with my husband. I start getting irritated at the dogs for just... existing. For my guest Audrey Rose (a nurse who burned out hard during the pandemic), it's snapping too, plus total isolation—ignoring texts, avoiding calls, just going dark. Here's why this matters: You...

You've tried all the things that are supposed to help. But the problem is that they're solving for the wrong issue. You've set the boundaries (or tried to, at least). You've said no. You've blocked your calendar for "deep work" that still gets interrupted. You've gone to therapy. You've tried the morning routine, the gratitude journal, the walks at lunch... And you're still fried. Still dreading Sunday nights. Still wondering how much longer you can keep this up. Here's why: Burnout isn't a...

There's new Gallup data that reveals a systemic collapse. Employee engagement hit a 10-year low. That's 8 million fewer engaged workers since 2020. But here's what really got me... When researchers asked employees what would help them feel more cared about at work, one person said: "When we raise complaints, the response is always 'remember why you're here' or 'have more grace' or 'practice gratitude'—which is not solving the problem." That's straight-up gaslighting. So what's actually...

There's a good chance you're in a negotiation you didn't know you were having. I've been negotiating with a brand for the last few weeks. They approached me about an affiliate partnership... basically, I'd promote their product and get a commission on sales. Standard enough. Except their ask didn't match the arrangement. They wanted multiple posts, specific talking points, usage rights to post on their accounts, and a video testimonial. All things that belong in a paid partnership, not an...

Last week's video on the 5 stages of burnout clearly struck a nerve. The comments and DMs have been rolling in. A lot of you self-identified which stage you're in. But my guess is that many of you are underestimating where you're at. You think you're at Stage 2 when you're deep in Stage 4. Or you're treating Stage 5 burnout like it's just a rough patch. So, let's figure out where you actually are. This isn't to attach any kind of shame to this. It's so you can stop using strategies that don't...