If you've always felt like everyone else got an unwritten handbook about how to behave at work - and you've had to figure it out yourself, one interaction at a time - this episode is for you.

This week, Rachel’s in conversation with Kirstie Pickles: vet, autistic ADHD professional, and EDI advocate. Kirstie was diagnosed as an adult - after years of masking in a high-stakes clinical role, performing competence while running on empty underneath.

We talk about:

• What masking really costs - not just after one hard day, but across a career
• Neurodivergent burnout: why it is different from regular burnout, and why the usual advice doesn't work
• The shame of late diagnosis - and what it means to finally have a name for it
• What colleagues and leaders can do to make workplaces work for everyone

You don't need a diagnosis to recognise yourself here. A lot of us in high-achieving, high-pressure roles have neurodivergent traits we have never had a name for. We just learned to mask through it.

Our ingrained programming tells us to keep performing, keep adapting, keep looking like we're coping fine. But that performance has a cost - and it will affect your next decision, and the one after that.

Different is not defective.

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Burnout in high stress jobs isn't always about doing too much; sometimes it's about a belief you were never taught to question.

You finished your day, finished (most) of your tasks, and you still can't switch off. Most people assume that's a workload problem, but the reason people in demanding roles like medicine can't genuinely rest isn't about how much they've done - it's about what they've been conditioned to believe about rest itself

In this episode, Rachel introduces the Superhero Delusion: the conviction that the rules about rest apply to other people. Not to you. She explores how that belief was built, why burnout recovery starts with understanding rest differently, and what sustainable work actually requires.

We cover:

• Why you can't switch off - and why workload isn't the real reason
• The Superhero Delusion: the conviction that the rules about rest apply to other people, not you
• How the belief that rest has to be earned gets installed - and who installed it
• What sustainable work actually requires (and it isn't more discipline)

This episode is for you if you're the person who has to be on even when you're officially off. Who takes annual leave and spends the first two days mentally finishing the handover. Who lies awake replaying the list of things that didn't get done - and is still asking whether any amount of done would ever feel like enough.

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Getting a complaint from a colleague is one of the most destabilising things that can happen to a high-achieving leader. Not because of the process, but because of what it makes you ask about yourself.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Pallavi Bradshaw, Medical Director at the MPS, to talk about something that doesn't get named nearly enough: a complaint from a colleague isn't a patient or client complaint. It feels very different and can be devastating if our ingrained programming tells us that we have to please everyone all the time to feel good enough. And so unless you start to frame it differently, it will affect your next decision, and the one after that.

This conversation genuinely produced an a-ha moment for me. It may change how you carry the next time it happens.

We cover:

• Why colleague complaints feel categorically different - and why that makes complete sense
• The question underneath the complaint that drives so many decisions afterwards
• What Dr Bradshaw has learned about supporting doctors through formal grievances at the MPS
• How to stop a complaint from becoming something you carry permanently

This episode is for you if you're the person who had to have the conversation nobody else would. Who had to make the call that someone disagreed with. Who lies awake replaying a decision you had to make - and is still asking what it says about you.

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Dr Pallavi Bradshaw is Medical Director at the Medical Protection Society (MPS), supporting doctors navigating complaints, grievances, and the more challenging parts of medical leadership.

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Imposter syndrome is something we often don’t talk about openly, and the standard advice - build your confidence, reframe your thinking, remember your achievements – rarely addresses the real cause.

In this Quick Dip, Rachel shares a piece of feedback she received years ago that still stings and uses it to unpick what imposter syndrome really is: it’s not a confidence gap, it’s not a skills deficit, but something much more personal.

She talks about why working on your confidence alone will never be enough, what's actually driving that voice that says you're about to be found out, and the one thing that actually shifts it.

Key Takeaways

• Imposter syndrome isn't always about competence or confidence - it can be the system gaslighting you, impossible self-imposed standards, or just the very human experience of feeling not good enough.
• A 2025 meta-analysis found that 62% of healthcare professionals experience imposter syndrome - this is a profession-wide pattern, not a personal failing.
• What actually moves the needle is saying it out loud to someone who responds with empathy and recognition.

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If you constantly find yourself picking up tasks that nobody else will do, staying late to cover gaps, or slowly absorbing more and more without anyone asking you to - this episode is going to name exactly what's happening.

Occupational psychologist Leanne Elliott joins Rachel to unpack why over-responsibility isn't a personality flaw; it's what happens when you don’t have absolute clarity on what tasks are definitely part of your role – and, more crucially, what tasks aren’t.

They explore why conscientious professionals in under-resourced settings are most at risk, how the 'if I don't do it, who will?' question keeps people stuck, and what you can actually do this week to start auditing what belongs on your plate and what doesn't.

Key Takeaways

• Role clarity is a recognised psychosocial risk factor, and when it's absent, taking on extra work feels like the only option, even when it's pushing you towards burnout.
• A simple daily audit - writing down tasks that drained you, that weren't in your role, or that you did out of fear rather than responsibility – can give you the data to have important but calmer and less personal conversations with your team about your roles.
• Rest and recovery are not the same thing. Knowing your recovery activities and protecting time for them is a skill, not a luxury.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Twenty Questions: How do I know if I’m a workaholic?

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You know something needs to change, but you just have no idea what, how, or where to begin, and your lack of a plan may be starting to feel like failure.

In this Quick Dip, Rachel unpacks why the belief that you need everything mapped out before you're allowed to move is the very thing keeping you stuck, and introduces the AB-Z method: a simple framework that replaces the impossible task of knowing your whole future with a far more manageable one.

This episode is about how to craft your work, not how to leave your job completely or blow everything up, but how to get a genuine say in the shape of your working life - one honest step at a time.

Key Takeaways

• You don't need the whole career plan - you need A, a sense of Z, and B - the very next step.
• Z is not a job title. It's how you want to be: internally, and with the people you love.
• Recovering from burnout is not the same as arriving at Z. The absence of burnout is a step, not a destination.
• Comparing your Z to someone else's is one of the most reliable ways to stay stuck.
• Crafting your work and career can happen alongside your current role, not instead of it - and it can start at any grade, any stage.

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If you have ever ended a clinical day exhausted not from the medicine itself but from the weight of everybody else's feelings, this episode might hit home.

Josh Connolly, resilience coach and author of ‘It's Them Not You’, joins me to explore why many healthcare professionals take on so much of the emotional load for everyone - and how that pattern almost always began long before medical school.

Key Takeaways

• People-pleasing at work usually has roots in family roles from childhood. The 'high achiever', the 'mascot' and the 'scapegoat' all carry those patterns into adult professional life.
• Holding space for someone is not the same as absorbing their emotions. The moment you start feeling what they feel, you have crossed a boundary - and your ability to help them actually decreases.
• When you are about to say yes under pressure, ask: 'Who have I become right now?' If the answer is your childlike self desperately seeking approval, that is the moment to pause.

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Resources mentioned:

• It's Them, Not You: How to Break Free From Toxic Parents and Reclaim Your Story by Josh Connolly
• The Shapes Academy

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If you’ve ever thought to yourself ‘if I don’t do it, no one will’ this episode is for you. You tell yourself something important will go wrong if you don't do it all - but what if that's not what's actually driving your decisions?

In this Quick Dip, Rachel suggests something uncomfortable: that the decisions running your workload might less to do with patient safety than they are to do with who you believe yourself to be.

Because the question 'if I don't do it, who else will?' is often not about the risk of harm to patients, customers or colleagues – but more about the question ‘who am I if I don’t?’.

And learning to spot the difference between the two will give you back some choice over your workload.

Resources Mentioned

• The Shapes Academy
• You Are Not a Frog: The Over-Responsibility Trap series
• Part 1: Why Responsibility Keeps Landing on You
• Part 2: When ‘Can You Help?’ Doesn’t Feel Like a Question
• Part 3: How to Stop Feeling Guilty When It’s Impossible to Do Your Job

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