Episodes

  • Stop Fixing, Start Leading: How to Show Up in Your Team's Hardest Moments

    Stop Fixing, Start Leading: How to Show Up in Your Team's Hardest Moments
    Jun 17 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Mitch Wallis, the founder of Heart on My Sleeve and one of the world's leading experts on connection capability in the workplace. Mitch has worked with over 200 companies, most of them Fortune 500, across four continents, including Microsoft, KPMG, Lend Lease, and American Express, training more than 10,000 leaders on how to navigate emotional conversations without crossing into therapy territory. His work is rooted in a simple but radical thesis: connection is a capability (not a personality trait) and organizations that build it systematically will outperform those that don't. Mitch brings deep personal credibility to the work. First diagnosed with complex OCD at age seven, he later experienced depersonalization, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and nearly lost his life to mental ill health. His description of depersonalization - a condition he lived with undiagnosed for nearly 15 years - is one of the most clear and compassionate explanations of the experience available in a leadership context. It is also a reminder that the people sitting in your meetings may be navigating experiences far more complex and disabling than "stress and burnout."The episode delivers two concrete frameworks: the five-step ELSA-B model (Engage, Listen, Safety, Action, Boundaries) for navigating high-stakes emotional conversations at work, and the concept of "crossing the chasm" - the single mindset shift that separates managers who resent the people side of their role from leaders who understand it is the role. Mitch's core argument lands hard: 80% of a people manager's job is the relationship. The technical work is the other 20%. Until leaders internalize that ratio, they will keep doing the wrong things when their people need them most. For more information on this episode go to Stop Fixing, Start Leading: How to Show Up in Your Team's Hardest Moments — Dr. Sally
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    30 mins
  • Get Real With Your Why: What Leaders Need to Know About Rethinking Their Relationship With Alcohol

    Get Real With Your Why: What Leaders Need to Know About Rethinking Their Relationship With Alcohol
    Jun 9 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sat down with psychologist, author, and organizational consultant Dr. Abby Medcalf who spent years working with executives in mergers and acquisitions to address substance use at the leadership level. The conversation centers on one of the most common and least-discussed dynamics in high-performance workplaces: leaders who are quietly reconsidering their relationship with alcohol and don't know why their efforts to change keep failing.Dr. Abby's own story adds weight to the conversation. She came into this work through recovery from heroin addiction in her early years, which led her from a planned legal career into counseling psychology, and ultimately into a PhD in organizational psychology. That combination of lived experience with addiction plus deep expertise in how organizations and leaders function, gives her a uniquely practical and compassionate lens on the culture of high-performance drinking and why it so often goes unaddressed.The centerpiece of the episode is the Motivational Wheel - a research-backed framework developed by Prochaska and DiClemente that maps how humans actually move through habit change. Dr. Abby walks through each phase (pre-contemplation, contemplation, determination, action, maintenance, and relapse) and identifies the single most common mistake leaders make when they slip back: jumping straight back to the action phase instead of returning to their why. The episode closes with a reframe that is both simple and profound: take action from inspiration, not from negative motivation. for more information on this episdoe go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/98
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    18 mins
  • There's No Panacea for Human: The Power of Connection During Life's Transitions at Work with Nick Freud

    There's No Panacea for Human: The Power of Connection During Life's Transitions at Work with Nick Freud
    May 27 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Nick Freud, founder of Fellow Humans - a platform built on a simple but radical idea: the most powerful support a person can receive during a difficult transition isn't clinical expertise. It's lived experience wisdom from someone who has already walked the same path.Nick's journey into this work began when he hit clinical depression while running a successful education business and discovered firsthand how hard it is to reach out for help, even for someone who considers themselves open and authentic. What emerged from that experience was a recognition that most of us are navigating our hardest moments in unnecessary isolation, surrounded by colleagues and communities full of people who have already been through exactly what we're facing and are waiting to be asked.The conversation moves between the personal and the practical: why corporate culture systematically mutes the humanity in our working relationships, what it actually means to make someone feel seen (and why it's different from sympathy), and how leaders who model vulnerability create permission structures that ripple through entire organizations. Dr. Sally and Nick address the three objections leaders most commonly raise - "this isn't a therapy setting," "we'll be held liable," and "people will use it against me" - and offer concrete, low-barrier ways to introduce more human connection into even the most performance-driven workplace cultures. For more information on this episode go to There's No Panacea for Human: The Power of Connection During Life's Transitions at Work — Dr. Sally
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    20 mins
  • SPECIAL EPISODE: Work-Related Suicide - How Do We Define and Measure Work-Related Suicide?

    SPECIAL EPISODE: Work-Related Suicide - How Do We Define and Measure Work-Related Suicide?
    May 19 2026
    This special episode of Headspace for the Workplace is produced in partnership with the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) Workplace Special Interest Group, co-chaired by Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas and Jørgen Gullestrup. It is part of an ongoing series examining work-related suicide - cases where workplace factors contribute, in whole or in part, to a suicide death - a topic that remains critically underdiscussed in most of the world.In this episode, Dr. Sally and Jørgen are joined by Liam O'Brien, Assistant Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), one of the most advanced voices in the world on psychosocial workplace regulation. Australia has recently implemented groundbreaking legal reforms that require employers to identify and control psychosocial hazards and critically, to notify regulators when a suicide or suicide attempt may have been contributed to by workplace factors. These are not wellness programs. They are legally binding safety standards.The conversation covers the architecture of Australia's regulatory framework, the ACTU's Mind Your Head campaign, the hierarchy of controls applied to mental health hazards, the employer education gap, and how the global suicide prevention and occupational health communities can partner to move this agenda forward. It is a fundamental challenge to the dominant narrative in most Western countries. Mental health at work is a personal responsibility and a compelling argument for treating psychological harm as a shared, collective, and legally enforceable workplace duty. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/96
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    53 mins
  • The Cost of the Chase: Can You Build Profit and Protect People?

    The Cost of the Chase: Can You Build Profit and Protect People?
    May 12 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Aaron Witt, founder of BuildWitt, a people-first training and development company on a mission to build the construction industry's next generation of leaders. The conversation centers on one of the most persistent tensions in business, especially in high-pressure industries like construction: how do you drive growth, performance, and profit without burning out the very people who make it possible? Aaron brings a grounded, practical perspective shaped by years of working alongside hundreds of world-class leaders across the United States and around the world. His observation is consistent - leaders who take care of themselves first are consistently better equipped to take care of those around them. And teams that build genuine relationships before the chaos hits are far better positioned to weather it together.The episode also digs into the construction industry's complex relationship with grit, a cultural value that fuels extraordinary work but can quietly become self-destructive when it's the only tool in the toolbox. Aaron and I challenge listeners to expand their definition of what it means to be a strong leader, arguing that sustainable performance requires identity, connection, and intentional investment in people, not just grinding through. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/95
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    21 mins
  • The Hidden Safety Crisis: Sleep, Mental Health, and Workplace Fatigue

    The Hidden Safety Crisis: Sleep, Mental Health, and Workplace Fatigue
    Apr 28 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I tackle one of the most underestimated safety risks in high-risk industries: sleep deprivation driven by mental health. Drawing on my own experience with sleep disruption and the latest research, I explore how depression, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, and substance use disorders all compromise sleep quality and how that degraded sleep shows up on the job site as impaired judgment, slowed reaction time, emotional dysregulation, and microsleep incidents.Reframing fatigue, not as a personal failing or simply a function of hours worked but as a compounding symptom of unaddressed mental health strain, makes sleep disruption the “canary in the coal mine” for emerging mental health crises. I close with five actionable organizational strategies that move beyond individual sleep tips to address the systemic, design-level changes that actually reduce risk. https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/94
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    21 mins
  • Soul Exhaustion at Work: How to Protect Your Time, Set Boundaries, and Reclaim Your Well-Being

    Soul Exhaustion at Work: How to Protect Your Time, Set Boundaries, and Reclaim Your Well-Being
    Apr 22 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I am joined by my longtime colleague and friend Sarah Gaer to explore a concept that goes deeper than burnout: soul exhaustion. Sarah, co-author of the newly released Soul Exhaustion and Soul Care Workbook (with Cassie Kelly), brings both lived experience and decades of professional expertise to a conversation that is equal parts personal and practical.The episode examines how modern work culture quietly depletes the deepest part of who we are - what Sarah describes as the essence, the spark, the fire within. When that inner flame dims, it doesn't just affect productivity. It affects identity, connection, meaning, and ultimately mental health. Drawing on research interviews conducted in Copenhagen with suicidologists from around the world, Sarah reveals that soul exhaustion (when severe) closely mirrors the language used to describe suicidal despair. This episode moves the mental health conversation at work beyond surface-level wellness programs and into the territory of genuine, sustainable soul care. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/93
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    16 mins
  • From Pain to Purpose: How Workplaces Can Support Post-Traumatic Growth with AnneMoss Rogers

    From Pain to Purpose: How Workplaces Can Support Post-Traumatic Growth with AnneMoss Rogers
    Apr 14 2026
    In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I am joined by Anne Moss Rogers - a nationally recognized suicide prevention advocate, keynote speaker, and brain tumor survivor who has channeled the devastating loss of her son Charles into a powerful career helping others heal. Charles died by suicide in 2015 at age 20 after struggling with depression, anxiety, and heroin addiction.Together, AnneMoss and I explore one of the most complex and hopeful concepts in mental health: post-traumatic growth. Unlike resilience (returning to baseline), post-traumatic growth describes the positive psychological changes that can emerge after profound trauma. It is not automatic. It requires intention, support, and the courage to move through a painful, messy process.The conversation is honest, warm, and deeply practical. We both speak from lived experience as suicide loss survivors who turned grief into purpose, and we challenge workplace leaders to see profound loss not as a productivity problem, but as a human opportunity for deeper connection, loyalty, and culture-building.For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/92
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    28 mins