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Dozens of my conversations are peppered with talk of Artificial Intelligence each day. From automating mundane tasks to revolutionising decision-making, AI promises a future of unprecedented efficiency. But amidst the excitement and rapid change, a crucial question often gets overlooked: what about the humans at the heart of our organisations?

When it comes to nourishment, think of yourself as a flower in a field. How healthy is the soil, the light, the plants around you? The environments you inhabit influence every aspect of your life. They shape physical health, emotional wellbeing, intellectual evolution and spiritual growth. We are living, breathing organisms, constantly in flux, and our environment is a huge determinative factor for our sense of fulfilment and growth. Over the years, I’ve some fairly major shi

As workplace regulations regarding psychosocial risk mitigation are implemented around the country — Victoria being the last state to do so, with regulations taking effect on 1 December this year — discussions are tense. Leaders are nervousToday let’s explore (1) the impact of the new regulations, (2) the difference between mitigating physical and psychosocial risk , and (3) how stress management and burnout prevention programming directly contribute to meeting these new regu

Burnout prevention is a complex matter for all organizations and industries, and the legal profession throws a few extra curveballs. So, what will it take to end lawyer burnout? Before we look at solutions, let’s first unpack burnout and its root causes, then zoom in on the specific causes for lawyers and why so little seems to change in the legal profession. Finally, we’ll look at how senior leaders can start to create a burnout-free law firm culture.

By integrating the four components of B R N T into your life, you are actively prioritizing your own wellbeing in a way that can help burnout prevention, as it supports you to make choices to avoid the chronic workplace stress that causes burnout. And, if your spark has already been extinguished, you can use B R N T to chart a powerful path towards healing and evolving out of burnout.

Last week I attended Mundi Mundi, a music festival set deep in the Australian outback. Forget the usual, polished festival scene – this was a raw, real, offline and for me, a transformative adventure. Beyond the awesome music and spectacular scenery, the outback provided a powerful crucible for reflection, communion and regrounding. Here are a few things I took away from the experience.

Balancing the need to drive results with the desire to genuinely care for your people can feel like a tightrope walk. And it’s a challenge many leaders are grappling with today. It might seem like employee wellbeing and a healthy bottom line are competing priorities. And yet the latest data shows that nurturing your team’s wellbeing is the most direct path to unlocking greater profitability.

Wherever you’re based, working from home (WFH) has gone from unthinkable to a fact of life for many. While WFH offers flexibility and convenience, it comes with its own set of challenges. When your workplace is just steps away from your living room, your kitchen counter and your bedroom, it’s easy for work to take over, leaving you feeling drained and disconnected.   That's why prioritising self-care is not just a nice-to-have for those who work for home; it is essential fo

when we are experiencing a strong stress response, we can use powerful questions to guide us towards wisdom and away from reactivity. And towards amazing decision-making.

Research for my first book surfaced the ‘3-Selfs’ as a powerful framework for burnout prevention at an individual level. The 3-Selfs is about intentionally, consistently and uncompromisingly prioritizing individual health and wellbeing, with a view to preventing burnout.

Trust is the heartbeat of all meaningful relationships. When we feel trusted and trust others, it creates a sense of safety and belonging that drives connection, innovation, and collaboration.

Emotions are essential biological states. They are healthy and can be wise guides on our life path. But emotions have a bad reputation. Especially at work. For a long time, emotions were frowned upon as a sign of weakness, fragility or hysteria. They were viewed as embarrassing or shameful — the antithesis of science and reason. In fact, successful leadership and general personal happiness both hinge on us seeing emotions as normal and helpful, and tapping into them to our ad

Human connection is as essential to our survival as food and water. We are deeply social beings. And yet, we are often so focused on work that we allow our relationships and sense of community to slip down our to-do list, leaving us feeling isolated, unsupported, and even unsafe. Preventing burnout means resisting the temptation to let your important relationships go untended, and making a conscious effort to foster and maintain your own community — whatever that looks like.

this tip is not about body image or what is on the outside. It’s about tuning into the inner experience of your body. Because when you are subject to the chronic workplace stress that causes burnout, your body will eventually start sending up signals that things are NOT OK and you need to STOP AND HEAL.

Our focus, or our attention, is precious. We need it to learn and work effectively, make healthy decisions, feel a state of flow, avoid errors, build relationships and solve issues. We need attention to do everything that has consequences, and to feel that we are living authentic to ourselves. Allowing our attention to be driven by external factors disconnects us from ourselves, puts us on a fast track to exhaustion, and eventually burns us out.

It prompted a question that’s been lurking at the back of my mind since I started researching burnout. Why are we ashamed of burnout? When I asked Google, no clear answer emerged. Which was annoying because it meant I had to actually think rather than just, like, be told. The thing is, this question is incredibly important. Shame and stigma are more than unpleasant. In conjunction with burnout, shame can be outright dangerous because it compounds the stress we are

As part of the research for my book about burnout, I interviewed people who have been through burnout and come out the other side. My list of questions is long: I find this topic ridiculously fascinating. When I ask what advice they would give to a friend who was on the brink of burning out, one of the recurring answers is take time away from work. Now.

When I did this interview, I’d never actually met Tris Thorp. Yet from the moment I set eyes on her during our Zoom working calls, I was blown away — smart, funny, beautiful, accomplished, and deeply inspiring. Am I gushing? She also drops F-bombs on the regular, which put the Australian in me at ease right away. Writing my book on burnout, I’ve thought of Tris often. Not only because she went through a burnout herself, but because she took the lessons of burnout to next-l

This might sound counter-intuitive, but burnout can be a gift. Burnout creates space for bold decisions and positive change — and as grittily painful as burning out is, it comes with some upsides. Let me explain.

When I was writing my first book about burnout, I reached out to one of the world’s leading experts to see if he would share his thoughts. I was almost shocked when Dr. Michael P. Leiter responded to my email. Dr. Leiter has published numerous highly regarded articles and books on the topic. The dimensions of burnout he identified together with his colleague Dr. Christine Maslach now form part of the new World Health Organization definition of burnout. Which is about as ex