This roundtable discussing the Garrett Wood podcast began with a discussion of the difficulties for managers having to performance-manage people who may have mental health issues or who may be neurodivergent. We discussed the two duties that any manager has to balance: the duty of care and the duty to manage performance. Other topics included: the power of emotional reasoning to bias thought outside direct awareness and how preconscious feeling states inplicitly structure concious thought; how medications designed to numb emotionscan be a problem as it is important to learn what imporant things those emotions are conveying to us; we also discussed how this can lead to feeling disembodied as we compress and numb our feeling states; the tight relationship between identity and burnout andhwo they relate to staus and self-esteem; how tendncies to burnout are reinforced by workpkace reward systems.

This podcast with Garrett Wood, entitled 'Healing the Problem Under the Problem', explores Garrett's work helping high-masking professionals break free from burnout, chronic stress, and the imposter syndrome, building sustainable success without sacrificing health, happiness, or relationships.
Garrett is a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Executive Function Specialist. We started with Garrett’s background and what led to his passion for working with burnout and high performers. As is often the case, a tragic suicide of a very high performing colleague was the catalyst for the wonderful work he does. We explored the relationship between high performance and burnout; how one can recognise burnout in oneself, especially as it manifests in the mind, the emotions and the body. We then discussed the shortcoming of traditional approaches and finally explored Garrett’s approach that starts with body regulation, then relating with compassion to one’s painful feelings and thoughts that are masked by apparent thriving and resilience, and only then using reason to restructure more adaptive, healthy understandings of self.

This is a wonderful conversation about music, mental health and creativity with Harrison Storm, indie-folk singer and songwriter, in which we touched on many topics including; Harrison’s background and trajectory to a musical career; songwriting and singing as self-discovery and emotional catharsis; the centrality of intuition for both wellbeing and creativity and being in tune and true to self; Harrison’s maturing as an artist and taking a broader, less attached outlook; mindfulness and somatic therapy as methods to sustain creative output; using the PEM acting method to cultivate his performance skills and elevate his experience of performance; the wonderful feeling of calm connectedness and authentic communication in performance and how performing in this way feels like ‘a better version of myself’; the distinction between entertainers and artists; the dilemma of a contemplative artistic life and feeling guilty about not achieving enough each day. It was a delightful and insightful conversation, and I hope you really take a lot from it.