FRIED. The Burnout Podcast

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

  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/friedgatewayThe right support changes everything. Our Director of Coaching, Sarah Vosen, combines expertise and compassion to walk beside you: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingBurnout takes a different shape when the life you worked hard to build no longer feels like it belongs to you and you’re pushed to rebuild meaning from the inside out.Cait welcomes back author and coach Hailey Paige Magee, whose work has supported thousands of recovering people-pleasers and high achievers as they redefine their relationship with success. Their conversation focuses on the moment burnout stops looking like exhaustion and starts revealing a deeper misalignment. Hailey speaks candidly about the quiet collapse that happens when your identity no longer fits the life around you and the grief that rises when you can no longer pretend everything is fine.The heart of the episode centers on reconnection. How do you return to community after a long stretch of self-protection? How do you stay rooted in yourself without slipping into performance or old habits? And what becomes possible when belonging has nothing to do with achievement? Cait and Hailey explore these questions and offer a grounded reminder that meaning grows through honest relationships, not algorithms or accolades.Episode Breakdown:00:00 Burnout, Misalignment, and Identity Collapse06:02 Social Media, Success, and Loss of Purpose12:02 Grief as a Turning Point in Burnout Recovery14:56 Rebuilding Connection and Community37:08 Evolving Identity and Rediscovering Meaning42:06 From Me to We in the Next Phase of RecoveryLinksIf you’re ready to take the next step toward healing, you can explore 1:1 coaching with Sarah Vosen at bit.ly/unfriedcoach Download the Web of Causation Exercise to uncover the layers behind your burnout and begin creating your recovery plan: https://www.caitdonovan.com/freebie-webConnect with Hailey Paige Magee:Visit Hailey’s Website Read more about Hailey’s story Get Hailey’s free guide!  Listen to Hailey’s last episode on FRIED  Follow Hailey on InstagramConnect with Hailey on LinkedInConnect with Cait:Initial Call with CaitInitial Call with SarahThe right support changes everything. Our Director of Coaching, Sarah Vosen, combines expertise and compassion to walk beside you: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingPodcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

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

  Your energy and well-being are worth investing in. Explore what recovery could look like for you: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingMany 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 first place. How often are you measuring yourself against a past version of you? And what changes once you base your plans on your real capacity instead of the fantasy of unlimited output?This episode is an invitation to rebuild self-trust by telling the truth about what you can actually give right now. Recovery begins when you stop assuming your worth hinges on productivity and start giving yourself permission to operate from reality. Sarah offers encouragement, clarity, and accessible next steps for anyone ready to release the shame of falling short and move toward days that feel doable again.Episode Breakdown:00:00 Understanding Burnout and Its Real Impact on High Achievers02:55 How to Adjust Expectations for Better Burnout Recovery05:45 Realistic Ways to Assess Your Energy, Time, and Capacity09:13 Why Consistent Self-Care Supports Burnout Healing11:54 How to Find the Right Support for Burnout RecoveryLinksIf you’re ready to take the next step toward healing, you can explore 1:1 coaching with Sarah Vosen at https://www.bit.ly/unfriedcoach Download the Web of Causation Exercise to uncover the layers behind your burnout and begin creating your recovery plan: https://www.caitdonovan.com/freebie-webConnect with Cait:Initial Call with CaitInitial Call with SarahYour energy and well-being are worth investing in. Explore what recovery could look like for you: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingPodcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

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

  You don’t have to walk this road alone. https://caitdonovan.com/coaching connects you with Sarah Vosen, our Director of Coaching, who’s helped countless people reclaim their energy.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 wrong? And how would your days shift if you treated that heaviness as guidance instead of something to outrun?This episode offers a steady invitation back to release. Sarah focuses on the simple acts that help the body soften and recover its flow: tears that want to be felt, breaths that need more space, warmth when the cold settles in, hydration when everything feels dry, rest when your system begs for it, and the inner clarity that comes from paying attention to what you truly need. Fall isn’t a season for pushing harder; it’s a season for loosening your grip. Sarah gives listeners a grounded, compassionate framework for honoring that rhythm so they can move through this time with more ease and far less judgment.Episode Breakdown:00:02 Why Fall Triggers Grief, Guilt, and Emotional Burnout03:10 How Chinese Medicine Explains Fall Emotions06:55 How Unprocessed Emotions Create Seasonal Burnout10:22 Deep Breathing Techniques for Emotional Release in Fall13:41 Embracing Natural Cycles and Letting GoLinksWant personalized support? Book an initial consult with Sarah and she’ll help you: Name where your energy is leaking and what needs to stop.Explore whether a break, a shift, or a redesign is what your next move must be.Build the case to your HR or L&D department: Sarah provides a template letter you can customize (yes, she’s got a downloadable version on the website) and present so that you might get partial or full coverage for your coaching through organizational budgeting. Click here to book a sessionConnect with Cait:Initial Call with CaitInitial Call with SarahYou don’t have to walk this road alone. https://caitdonovan.com/coaching connects you with Sarah Vosen, our Director of Coaching, who’s helped countless people reclaim their energy.Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

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• Cyndie Spiegel: Use This Technique to Find Hope When You're Stuck in the Muck

  Burnout isn’t the end of your story. With Sarah Vosen’s guidance, recovery becomes not just possible—but sustainable. Learn more: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingBurnout 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 still holds goodness. Together, they unpack how black-and-white thinking fuels burnout, why forced gratitude doesn’t work, and how simple awareness can shift everything.What if healing starts with noticing what else is true? What might open up when you stop chasing “better” and start paying attention to what’s already here?Episode Breakdown:00:00 Introduction02:00 Cyndie Spiegel’s Burnout Story in the Fashion Industry08:35 Finding Purpose Through Yoga and Teaching10:37 Writing A Year of Positive Thinking16:08 The Birth of Microjoys18:40 Finding Hope When Life Isn’t Okay24:30 Living in the Gray: Holding Multiple Truths32:54 Practicing Microjoys in Daily Life39:21 Where to Find Cyndie Spiegel and Final ReflectionsConnect with Cyndie Spiegel:Cyndie’s Website Follow Cyndie on Instagram Connect with Cyndie on LinkedIn Sign up to Cyndie’s Email ListConnect with Cait:Initial Call with CaitInitial Call with SarahBurnout isn’t the end of your story. With Sarah Vosen’s guidance, recovery becomes not just possible—but sustainable. Learn more: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingPodcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

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

  Healing happens faster with guidance. Give yourself permission to ask for and receive help: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingMost 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 learning.Cait shares how progress depends on context and patience. A new habit might feel strong at home but crumble at work, and that’s normal. The real work isn’t about erasing the old pattern but building trust in your ability to return to the new one again and again. This episode is a reminder that being human is not the problem, it’s the process.Episode Breakdown:00:00 Understanding Why Behavior Change Feels Impossible01:39 How the Brain Builds and Keeps Old Habits04:10 Why New Behaviors Don’t Stick in Every Environment06:20 Relapse as a Normal Part of Behavior Change09:01 Final Takeaways: Being Human Is the ProcessConnect with Cait:Initial Call with CaitInitial Call with SarahHealing happens faster with guidance. Give yourself permission to ask for and receive help: https://caitdonovan.com/coachingPodcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

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