http://www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/

Cait Donovan Keynote Speaker, Little Falls, NJ (2026)

03/03/2026

Stuck in people pleasing mode? Start disappointing people.

Not in major ways. Don't be selfish or rude.

When someone is trying to solve a problem and you're in the room - don't jump in and try to solve it for them before they ask for help. (listen, if there's an emergency, that's not the time to practice this ;)).

If you're a leader and you've been taking care of tasks that belong to one of your team members, gently pass the buck back to them.

If you're a team member who always brings the cookies, cakes, and snacks for birthdays and you're feeling resentful about it, stop doing it (if you love it, keep doing it!).

I believe that in order to create community well, we need to allow each other to own the stuff that aligns with us best and let other people do ... the other stuff. We can help each other MORE and BETTER when we enjoy the help we are giving and we aren't feeling resentful about it.

By the way - that's your clue - when resentment pops up, there's likely some pulling back from a situation that you'll need to find a way to do. If you cannot, absolutely cannot, then you have to find more ways to fill your cup so that you can handle what is in front of you.

02/27/2026

Belonging and inclusion are not the finish line.

You can be welcomed.
You can be invited to play.
And still feel like no one would notice if you stopped showing up.

In this clip, pulls these apart:

Belonging = being picked for the team
You’re welcomed, accepted, part of something.

Inclusion = being asked to play
You’re invited to take an active, equal role.

Mattering = knowing the team wouldn’t be complete without you
Your specific presence, story, and gifts are needed, not just there.

Most organizations stop at belonging and inclusion on a slide deck… while people burn out because, in real moments, nobody is actually signaling, “You are needed here.”

If you’re a leader or event planner, this is the real question:

👉 Are you building spaces where people feel welcome—
or spaces where they have proof they matter?

Micro-step for your next meeting:
Name one concrete way someone’s presence changes the outcome:
“Without your perspective on X, this would look very different.”

🎧 From my conversation with on FRIED. The Burnout Podcast.
Full episode: link in bio.

02/26/2026

Perfectionism doesn’t just live in people.
It lives in cultures.

Most high performers didn’t wake up one day and choose perfectionism.
They were trained into it — by families, school, and then by workplaces that reward output and 24/7 availability.

Perfectionism works.
It gets results.
It’s why so many of your best people got where they are.

The problem isn’t that your team is full of perfectionists.
The problem is when the way you work requires them to abandon themselves to keep succeeding:

Saying yes past capacity
Ignoring their bodies and boundaries
Treating “overdelivering” as the price of belonging
That’s where burnout, resentment, and quiet quitting start to brew.

In this keynote clip from Toastmasters International, I’m inviting leaders to see perfectionism not as a personal flaw to “fix,” but as a survival strategy your systems keep rewarding.

My work with organizations is about exactly this:
Creating cultures where people can do meaningful, high-quality work without destroying their health in the process.

If you’re planning your next conference, offsite, or leadership development series and you want your people walking away with language, frameworks, and next steps to prevent burnout at the systems level — this is what I do.

📩 Event organizers & HR/People leaders: DM me “KEYNOTE” or hit the link in my bio to inquire about booking.

02/25/2026

Hurry and care can’t co‑exist.

You cannot truly care for anything if you’re always in a rush.

Zach shared a McKinsey study that found people managers spend only 22% of their time with their people. The rest is swallowed by admin, metrics, and meetings about meetings.

No wonder everyone feels disconnected and burnt out.

But here’s the part I love:
Even inside that system, leaders still have one power no one can take away:

👉 The power to show up in your next interaction in a way that helps someone feel seen, heard, and valued.

You do not need a new program, budget, or your organization’s permission to:

Notice someone
Affirm their specific contribution
Show them how they’re needed

Culture is just the accumulation of these tiny interactions.

Your micro-step:
In your very next 1:1, slow down for 30 seconds and say,
“Here’s one way you made a difference this week…”

🎧 Clip from my conversation with on FRIED. The Burnout Podcast.
Full episode: link in bio.

Leaders: what gets in the way of you using your interactional power?

02/25/2026

doesn't mince words. It is one of my favorite things about this fellow New Englander.

Mattering isn’t a “soft skill.” It’s the difference between showing up and slowly burning out.

In Season 11, Episode 2 of FRIED, I sit down with researcher and author Zach Mercurio to unpack what mattering actually is:

“Mattering is feeling significant to, and important to, the people around you.”

We talk about why people can “belong” on paper and still feel invisible, how that fuels burnout, and what leaders can do in their next interaction to change it.

If you’re an event planner, HR/L&D pro, or leader who’s tired of surface-level engagement talk, this episode is your next listen.

🎧 FRIED. The Burnout Podcast
Season 11, Episode 02 with Zach Mercurio
Link in bio.

Tag a leader who needs to hear this.

02/24/2026

I believe a keynote should do three things:

1. Make the audience feel something.
2. Make the event organizer proud of their decision.
3. Provide immediately implementable action steps.

That’s the bare minimum standard I hold myself to every time I step on stage.

If you’re curating your next event lineup, I’d love to be part of it.

02/23/2026

Belonging and inclusion are not the finish line.

If you’ve been hanging out in HR / L&D / events world the past few years, you’ve heard “belonging” so often it’s basically wallpaper. It matters… but it’s not enough.

In this clip, breaks it down:

Belonging = being picked for the team
→ you’re welcomed, accepted, part of something

Inclusion = being asked to play
→ you’re invited to take an active, equal role

Mattering = knowing the team wouldn’t be complete without you
→ your specific presence, story, and gifts are needed, not just tolerated

Most organizations are investing in belonging and inclusion at the program level… while people are burning out because, in the moments, no one really sees them.

That’s why this conversation grabbed me the first time I heard Zach speak. It finally put language to what I’ve watched in burned out teams for years: you can “belong” on paper and still feel completely unnecessary in practice.

If you’re a leader or event planner, this is your real design challenge:

👉 Don’t just ask: “Do people feel welcome here?”
Ask: “Can people point to proof that they are needed here?”

Micro-step for this week:
Before your next meeting, pick one person and be specific about how their presence changes the outcome:
“Without your perspective on X, this project would look really different.”

🎧 This clip is from my episode with Zach Mercurio on FRIED the Burnout Podcast. Full conversation: link in bio.

02/23/2026

Where is the line in the sand between 'just stressed' and 'burnt out'.

The line is recoverability.

If you can recover your energy within a short period of time. You're still in 'just stressed" mode. It's time to start doing something about your stress, but you aren't in burnout mode yet.

If you rest, rest, rest, and rest and still feel like s**t - that's burnout. You're looking at a 12-18 month recovery time that will require some lifestyle changes that are non negotiable.

The best part about those changes? Each of them brings you closer to yourself and to the life you truly want to live.

02/22/2026

You are not enough. And that’s… good news.

We’ve been marinating in self-help slogans for years now:

“You are enough.”
“No one is coming to save you.”
“Just work on yourself.”
Some of that is useful. But when it comes to burnout and work, it’s only half the story.

In my conversation with Zach Mercurio on FRIED, we talk about how your sense of self is literally built in relationship with other people. Psychologists call it “reflected appraisals” — we form our beliefs about who we are based on the signals we get from others.

So no, you are not enough all on your own.
You never were. And you’re not supposed to be.

You needed someone to keep you alive as a baby.
You need other people to co-create meaning, support, and safety now.
Leaning on that isn’t weakness, it’s biology.

This matters for burnout, because:

If you don’t believe you matter, it’s hard for anything else to matter to you.

You don’t heal burnout by white-knuckling more “self-improvement” in isolation. You heal inside relationships, communities, and cultures where people are seen, valued, and needed.

So if you’re tired of trying to “fix yourself” alone, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just a human being, wired for mattering, not solitary perfection.

🎧 This moment is from my episode with Zach Mercurio on FRIED. The Burnout Podcast.
Full conversation: link in bio.

When was the last time someone said or did something that reminded you: “Oh. I matter here”?

02/22/2026

One of the gifts of having this podcast for as long as I have is that I don’t have to say yes to every random pitch that lands in my inbox anymore. I get to be picky. I get to chase the conversations I can’t stop thinking about.

is one of those conversations.

I first heard Zach speak at 's Initiative for Purpose and Flourishing in 2025. A lot of people were on that stage. He’s the one I still quote in client sessions.

In this episode, he pulls apart three ideas we tend to lump together:

Belonging, Inclusion, and Mattering.

In our conversation, Zach and I get into:

*why “you are enough” and “no one is coming to save you” are only half the story
*how not feeling like you matter fuels burnout and disconnection
*simple questions and micro-practices you can use in your next interaction with your team

If you’re an event planner or a leader who is tired of talking about culture in abstracts and wants something human, research-backed, and practical, this episode is your next listen.

🎧 Tune in to the full conversation with Zach Mercurio (LINK IN BIO)

Reply and tell me: when you feel that you matter at work, what are other people doing?

02/21/2026

When you don't feel able to control your emotional reactions with your family, your colleagues, your team - you end up making some bad choices.

Listen, we've all been there.

I'm not judging that - I know what's happening in your brain with chronic stress and burnout. And I know that the profound idea of "the space between stimulus and response is where our power lies" as Victor Frankl told us feels completely out of reach.

One of the reasons I love working with companies to outsmart burnout is because it doesn't just help productivity and retention - it improves relationships, communities, self worth and self respect.

Often removing burnout from the workplace doesn't start with gratitude and false platitudes - it starts with resentment, honesty, and the willingness to hold space for shift.

We can do this, if we do it together.

02/20/2026

Let's get clear. The US is not set up for wellbeing. Not just at work - in life. We don't have sidewalks, we go everywhere in cars, our food is over processed and sits in stores and in refrigerators for too long.

And yes, on a grand scale, some changes would be great.

I've seen it said often that we can't change systemic problems on an individual level and while there is truth in that - we also can't change systemic problems without individuals who refuse to work within the system.

We can't change systemic problems without the individuals that get together to sign initiatives and encourage the changes.

And - as someone who has lived in multiple countries, I'll tell you this - there isn't a perfect system.

So, what do we have and how much power do we have with each other right now?

How much power do we have in our own lives right now?

How much energy are we willing to put into making a new system within the system for ourselves that works better?

Or - are we waiting for the system to break down? For someone else to topple it? For things to change?

What if the way they change doesn't end up being better for you? What then? I am constantly trying to figure out where the individual and the collective meet for change.

I'm admittedly in the system.

Here's how I know:

I own a home.
I lease a car.
I pay taxes.
I buy things on amazon.
I invest in the stock market.
Even as an acupuncturist, I use medical care.
I walk less here than I did in Europe because.. well, it takes more work here.

What changes can we make from the inside knowing that our actions perpetuate the very system we're mad at?

Cait Donovan Keynote Speaker

03/03/2026

02/27/2026

02/26/2026

02/25/2026

02/25/2026

02/24/2026

02/23/2026

02/23/2026

02/22/2026

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02/20/2026

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