Burnout Recovery: Strategies for Professionals

January optimism fades fast.
Goals wobble. Energy drops. And that familiar voice shows up: “I should be further along by now.”

In this episode, Dex explores why high-achieving leaders often get stuck leading from the Gap — measuring themselves against a moving ideal — and how shifting to the Gain changes performance, energy, and impact without relying on willpower.

This is a grounded conversation about leadership, not a hype-up.

I...

Every leader has blind spots. Not because they’re careless or incompetent — but because they’re human.

In this episode, Dex shares a formative leadership mistake from early in his career and uses it to unpack how beliefs, biases, and unexamined assumptions quietly shape leadership decisions. Often at a cost.

You’ll explore why blind spots exist, how they show up under pressure, and the practical signals that tell you when one is runn...

If you’re back at work and already quietly overloaded — you’re not broken.

January often pretends everything resets, while your nervous system, responsibilities, and expectations clearly don’t.

In this episode, Dex explores why high-performing leaders don’t need new goals, more effort, or a “new you” — they need a new standard.

Drawing on Dan Sullivan’s concepts of The Gap and The Gain and 10x thinking, this episode reframes overwhelm...

This Christmas Day episode is a quieter, more reflective conversation about leadership that actually works — especially in high-pressure environments like healthcare.

Dex is joined by Dr Joshua Hartzell, retired US Army Colonel, physician, and author of A Prescription for Caring in Healthcare Leadership.

Josh has spent 25 years in military medicine and leadership training. His message is simple and deeply relevant at this time of yea...

Most leaders think they need authority to act — but real leadership begins when you give yourself permission to move. In this episode, we explore how to drop imagined judgement, stop waiting for endorsement, and step into decisive, high-impact leadership.

What we cover:

1. Drop the "hairy eyeball"
2. Own your authority instead of waiting for it
3. Anchor in your highest-value contribution
4. Give yourself the green light
5. Experiment and...

In this episode, I share a personal story about leading from behind in a small, entrepreneurial tech team. The team was fragmented, underperforming, and in constant conflict with other departments — a quiet war in full swing.

I walk through how I:

• Connected with each team member to understand strengths, weaknesses, and ambitions
• Stabilised fragile IT systems and workflows without fanfare
• Built trust, morale, and cross-team collabor...

Summary
In this episode, we break the spell of the “lone wolf” identity — the myth that high performers must grind alone, stay stoic, and win through self-sacrifice. We explore why this model silently burns people out, why it’s collapsing as a leadership archetype, and what replaces it: inner partnership, genuine support, and a way of working that restores energy instead of draining it.

What We Cover
– How the lone-wolf ph...

In this conversation, we go straight into the territory most professionals tiptoe around: intuition, subtle energy, the “inner signals” you’ve been trained to ignore since childhood.

I talk about why Western culture is so committed to denial, how that denial fuels burnout, and why your quiet inner nudges are often the most honest, helpful guidance you’ll ever get.

We cover everything from witches and shamans, to Victorian e...

You will discover what ChatGPT says are the essential skills and practices needed for professional burnout recovery.

I review ChatGPT's suggestions, enhancing them with my own insights from 10,000 client sessions. You will learn the importance of deep self-awareness, stress management, emotional resilience, and setting boundaries, in the context of your own personality and experiences. Then compare it with the general...

When burnout hits, most people think they’re simply tired. But underneath the exhaustion, there’s often a deeper driver: shame — that quiet voice that says, “You’re failing. You should be stronger.”

In this episode, Dex unpacks how shame silently fuels isolation and self-abandonment in high performers, and what it really takes to break that destructive cycle.

Through the story of “Mark,” a high-achieving executive who spiralled into ...

In this episode, Dex unpacks how early conditioning shapes what we see as “truth,” and how those truths quietly drive our adult stress, dissatisfaction, and burnout. You’ll hear how our sense of being “not good enough” often began as a misguided attempt to stay loved and safe—and how that same belief now keeps us disconnected from joy and ease.

Dex shares a personal story about a moment of beauty that felt strangely unsatisfying—and...

When I first stepped into leadership, I kept doing what had always worked —  analysing everything and making the right call.
It strangled my team’s freedom.

Sound familiar?

If you’re a driven professional who’s starting to feel the burn, this episode is for you.

We’re talking psychological flexibility — the ability to be present, open, and adaptive, even when your mind and emotions are pulling you in old directions.

You’l...

Most leaders think they’re holding it all together under duress. But often what they’re really doing is gripping the steering wheel of a car that’s already crashed.

Control feels powerful, but it’s actually a symptom of fear. When fear runs the show, we end up managing people instead of leading them, and circumstances instead of ourselves. We seek approval and safety in all the wrong places, forgetting that real leadership begins in...

In this episode, Finding New Hope, Dex explores how professionals can rediscover hope and purpose after burnout. Drawing inspiration from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Dex shows how meaning and purpose are not luxuries—they’re essential for resilience, recovery, and fulfillment.

He examines why burnout so often erodes hope, how chronic stress distorts our perception of self-worth, and what it takes to reclaim your power ...

In this episode, I sit down with Urs Koenig—leadership expert, bestselling author of Radical Humility, UN peacekeeper, ultra-endurance champion, and professor—to talk about what it really takes to lead well in 2025 and beyond.

We dive into:

• Why humility is the ultimate performance multiplier for leaders
• The five key shifts from Urs’ book that transform “command-and-control” into resilient, high-performing teams
• Real-world stories f...

Forbes says leaders are ditching empathy in favour of hard-nosed results. I say: false dichotomy. Great leaders know people are the path to profits.

In this episode, I pull apart the “nice vs. tough boss” argument and show why heart-centred leadership isn’t soft — it’s smarter, more sustainable, and far more effective. Along the way I draw on research and wisdom from Jim Collins, Shawn Achor, Brené Brown, Ed Catmull, Simon Sinek, Da...

In July 2017, I had a heart attack brought on by stress and burnout. Six months later, just as I was getting back on my feet, I was hit by a car. I spent three months in hospital with broken bones, unable to move, and doing hundreds of rehab reps from a hospital bed.

It was painful. It was stressful. And it forced me to learn how to handle real stress—the kind that shakes your whole life.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why stress ...

Stress isn’t the real problem — it’s what we make it mean. In this episode, I explore how wearable technology combined with AI coaching can help high performers manage stress in real time, break cycles of self-doubt, and boost productivity.

I share a client story to illustrate how self-judgment prolongs stress and show practical ways to respond differently in the moment. Then, we dive into how wearable-tracked metrics like heart rat...

In this episode, I sit down with Oli Johnson, health tech entrepreneur and co-founder of PrescribeLife.AI—a human resilience platform helping high performers reach their potential without burning out.

Oli shares his personal story of burning out as a tech founder, the long road back to health, and how that journey inspired him to build PrescribeLife. His new platform connects wearables and genetic insights with AI-powered coaching, ...