Checking in with Jennie Blumenthal on Burnout & the Power of Corporate Rehab

Just Checking In

Episode show notes:

Welcome to another episode of Just Checking In! Today our guest is Jennie Blumenthal, bestselling author of Corporate Rehab, a book focused on a topic that is likely very relevant to many of our listeners: burnout and the “hustle culture” that is so pervasive in our industry today. Jennie spent many years as a top executive working with Fortune 500 companies, traveling frequently, and being away from her family. But one day, she had the realization that maybe she wasn't as happy as she thought she was. This expert today joins us to talk about the toxic side of hustle culture, the definition of burnout, the behind-the-scenes of her book, and how she became a coach executive that helps companies to go through a corporate rehab and start thriving.

Join technology comms pros Becky Buckman and Keyana Corliss as they cut to the heart of today’s tech-news cycle and the general craziness that is high-tech corporate communications right now. With a short, not-too-serious take on the industry - with plenty of humor and irony thrown in - they’ll bring you the best in the biz, across comms and media together, for one-of-a-kind insights and perspectives you won’t hear anywhere else!

Jump straight into:

01:05 - Keyana’s connection to Jennie - “When I talked to Jenny for the first time, it was like she peered into my soul.”

02:32 - Women in tech & burnout - “In light of some of the things we've seen in the news over the last, like six months, even week about really prominent women in our industry in tech, taking a step back.”

07:58 - For Fortune 500 execute to burnout - “The longer I had to sit in the quiet of how exactly did I get here and how when I was building this life, that's everything we're taught to go after and women can be anything. How did I wind up in a place where I felt so empty? and I felt like. This wasn't what I wanted”

10:04 - The toxic side of hustle culture - “We get caught in this, ‘I have to keep going’, ‘I have to go even faster’, and then our relaxation time doesn't actually refuel us. It's just another way of overstimulation.”

12:13 - What’s burnout? - “We're all part of. So it's not just you aren't doing it right and if you just run faster, you'll outrun your burnout. It's something that's increasing in the pace within our own culture.”

15:00 - Women burnout stories - “And as I started talking to other women and they started contributing their stories, I was shocked at how much we'll tolerate before, we'll actually seek help or try to find a solution.”

18:10 - Intro to hustle culture research - “ It really was this constant performance and productivity mentality, that I noticed across, and that was the first piece. The second really was really got what got me to this whole concept of going from survival into thriving, and that is survival mentality is really based on the scarcity mentality.”

23:11 - Corporate rehab - “It's about, is understanding what are the patterns and the mindsets and the behaviors that you're wired for or that you've picked up over time, might have served you earlier in your career. That it's time to reevaluate and sit down so that you can actually thrive.”

30:03 - Burnout in comms departments - “We are not surgeons, no one dies. But there is still a lot of pressure, I think, in terms of the fact that our job does really, influence people's lives in a respect and there's a lot to that.”

34:30 - The hardest part of healing - “So much of what I would have said I missed were things that I found through my own healing journey, we're actually unhealthy attachments.”

Episode resources:

Jennie Blumenthal’s LinkedIn

Corporate Rehab

Thank you for listening to Just Checking In by Battery Ventures. Go follow Becky and Keyana on social media to know more about them. If you enjoyed this show leave a review and help us find new audiences!

This show is produced by StudioPod Media in SanFrancisco. Teresa Buchanan is the Show’s Producer. Nicole Genova is the Show Coordinator. Show notes are provided by nodalab.