Ep. 134 Who Wants a Summertime Siesta?

Ep. 134 Who Wants a Summertime Siesta?

Something big is coming. Bree is pulling back the curtain on what the How Good Can It Get? team has been quietly building behind the scenes — and it might be the most exciting thing this podcast has ever produced. New guests. New series. Conversations so good she almost cried in the recording booth. Tune in to hear what's on the way and why the wait is going to be very, very worth it. The best is genuinely yet to come. How good can it get? You're about to find out. The Upcoming Series You're Going to Want to Tell Everyone About Exit Wounds is coming. Real women. Real exits. Corporate roles, multimillion-dollar businesses, marriages, partnerships, friendships — and in one case, an entire country. These are the stories of what happens when a woman finally stops holding on to what no longer fits and starts building the life waiting for her on the other side. Bree has already started recording. Her words: "I almost feel like crying." While you wait for the new series, the archives are full of exactly what you need right now. Bree is curating the best of How Good Can It Get? all summer long — the most downloaded, most shared, most life-changing episodes from nearly 70 countries of listeners. You may have heard some of them before. But you are not the same person you were then. Connect with Bree * Website: executiveunschool.com * Instagram: @breejohnsonofficial

Ep. 133 Part 6 Work Isn't Working...How to Reclaim Joy

We've regulated. We've rewired. Now it's time to take your agency back. In the final installment of the Work Isn't Working series, Bree introduces the third step of the Work Recovery Method: Reclaim. This episode is an honest look at the "good enough" zone so many high-achieving women quietly settle into, the victimhood cycle that keeps us pointing outward instead of turning the mirror around, and what actually becomes possible when you stop outsourcing your joy, your purpose, and your sense of self to circumstances you're waiting to change. Bree shares her own ongoing journey of shedding the shoulds, and offers a practical starting point for anyone who needs to begin reclaiming their life in small, powerful doses. What You'll Learn in This Episode * What the "good enough" zone actually looks and feels like from the inside, and why it's so easy to stay there * Why dissatisfaction at work so often points outward, and what that pattern is really protecting * How life is a series of small identity deaths, and why that's something to move toward rather than away from * What Bree has shed over the past seven years and what it has made possible for her * Why reclaiming yourself rarely requires a dramatic pivot, and what it more often looks like in practice * The Love List exercise: what it is, how to build yours, and why it's a reclamation tool, not a productivity hack * Why joy is not a reward for finishing your work The Love List Exercise If big-picture reclamation feels too abstract for where you are right now, start here. Make a list of 20 or more things that bring you genuine joy, pleasure, and happiness. Go small and specific. The first bite of ice cream on a hot day. A new bird at the feeder. A dog jumping into your lap. A particular song. A particular light. The Work Recovery Method™: A Series Summary * Regulate — Come back into your body. Create enough internal safety to think clearly. * Rewire — Examine the agreements, beliefs, and conditioning running your life on autopilot. Choose differently. * Reclaim — Stop outsourcing your agency, your joy, and your sense of self. Build from what is genuinely yours. This is an ongoing cycle, not a finish line. Two steps forward, one step back is still growth. Connect with Bree * Website: executiveunschool.com * Instagram: @breejohnsonofficial

Ep. 132 Part 5: Work Isn't Working...The Hardest Part REWIRE

Most of the rules running your life were written before you were old enough to question them. In this episode, Bree introduces the second step of the Work Recovery Method — REWIRE — and breaks down the invisible operating system underneath all of our behavior: your ABCs (agreements, beliefs, and conditioning). If you've ever changed jobs and still ended up in the same cycle or pattern of dissatisfaction, this is the episode that explains why, and what to do about it. Key Takeaways * Your ABCs (agreements, beliefs, conditioning) are the operating system underneath all of your behavior — including the patterns you wish you could change. * Changing your external circumstances won't interrupt a pattern that lives at this level. The work has to happen from the inside * Neuroscience confirms the brain can form new neural pathways at any age but the new path will feel like a dirt road before it feels like a highway * Rewiring starts with one question: what outcome am I experiencing, and is it one I actually want? * The more aware you become of what's driving you, the more agency you feel and agency is what makes life feel expansive rather than reactive Reflection Question Take a look at one recurring pattern in your work or relationships. What agreement, belief, or conditioning might be sitting underneath it? Is it something you chose, or something you inherited? Connect with Bree Insta: @breejohnsonofficial Website: www.executiveunschool.com [http://www.executiveunschool.com] Keywords: rewiring beliefs, work recovery method, agreements beliefs conditioning, burnout patterns, why the same job problems keep happening, invisible operating system, neural pathways rewiring, autopilot behavior, self-worth and work, burnout recovery tools, subconscious patterns women, how to break work cycles, ambitious women burnout, conscious living, executive burnout

Ep. 131 Part 4: Work Isn't Working, Now What? REGULATE

Work Isn't Working, Now What? Part 4: Regulate When work stops working, the instinct is to think harder, plan faster, and do more. But what if the doing is exactly what's keeping you stuck? In part four of the Work Isn't Working series, Bree introduces the foundational step most high achievers skip entirely: regulation. Before strategy, before decisions, before any meaningful next step, your nervous system needs to feel safe enough to think clearly. This episode explores why dysregulated states produce reactive choices, what nervous system regulation actually looks and feels like in practice, and how flipping the cultural script from Have, Do, Be to Be, Do, Have changes everything about how you build the life you actually want. What You'll Learn in This Episode * Why the mind-in-overdrive response to professional struggle works against you, not for you * What happens in the brain during prolonged stress, and why "thinking your way out" has real physiological limits * The difference between reactive decisions and grounded ones, and how to tell which you're making * Bree's three personal regulation practices: no-headphone walks, hypnobreathwork, and meditation baths * What makes any practice a true regulation practice, and why body-focused is the key distinction * The Have, Do, Be sequence most of us inherited, and why reversing it to Be, Do, Have is where real momentum begins The Insight Worth Writing Down Most of us have been living a Have, Do, Be sequence: get the thing, do the work, then finally feel at peace. The sequence that actually creates abundance and joy runs the other way. You be first, grounded and connected to yourself. From there, you do with clarity and intention. And then you have more of what you've been working toward, built on a foundation that can hold it. Reflection Question Where in your life have you been making decisions from a dysregulated state? And what would one small regulating practice this week make possible? Connect with Bree Website: executiveunschool.com  Instagram: @breejohnsonofficial Next in the Series Part 5 of Work Isn't Working is coming next. Once you've regulated, a whole new question becomes available to you: what do you actually want? When you're not operating from chaos, that answer might surprise you. If this episode resonated, share it with a woman in your life who needs permission to slow down before she speeds up.

Ep. 130 Part 3: Work Isn't Working...When It's Your Whole Identity

What happens when the thing you built your entire identity around disappears? In this episode of Work Isn't Working, Bree gets personal — sharing how the intoxicating elixir of career success quietly consumed her identity through her twenties and into her thirties, until the whole thing came crashing down and forced her to ask the hardest question: Who am I without my work? This is the episode for every high-achiever who has an easy answer to "what do you do" but a complicated one to "who are you." In This Episode, You'll Hear:  * Why work-based identity is so seductive and how it's designed to be * The psychology of contingent self-worth and why it makes your nervous system treat setbacks like survival threats * Why you can't think your way out of an identity crisis and what actually works * The three-step Work Recovery Method: regulate, rewire, reclaim * How Bree shed the habits, relationships, and even the dream home that didn't center her values * Why rebuilding identity is slow, nonlinear, and the greatest gift you'll ever give yourself Key Takeaways * Work-based identity isn't a character flaw — it's a seduction. Recognizing the pull is the first step. * When your sense of self lives in your job title, your nervous system responds to every setback as a survival threat. * You can't rewire what you can't see. Regulation has to come before reflection. * Identity reconstruction happens decision by decision, not overnight. * The people and habits that don't center your values are the first things to go. Reflection Question If you woke up tomorrow and your job — your title, your role, your professional identity — was completely gone, what would be left? Who would you be? Connect with Bree Insta: @breejohnsonofficial Website: www.executiveunschool.com [http://www.executiveunschool.com] Keywords: work identity, burnout recovery, contingent self-worth, nervous system regulation, Work Recovery Method, overachiever burnout, identity after burnout, hustle culture, executive burnout, reclaiming yourself, who am I without my job, work wounds, conscious leadership, ambitious women