Jen Fisher: Burned Out at the Top—and Changed Corporate America

Burnout isn’t a personal failure. Sometimes it’s a sign that the system around you never made space for you to ask what’s actually sustainable.

Kicking off Season 10 of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast, Cait Donovan is joined by Jen Fisher, the founder of The Wellbeing Team and the former Chief Well-being Officer at Deloitte, for a conversation that goes straight to the heart of what burnout really is, and why so many people are still afraid to talk about it honestly. Jen shares why, in her own experience, burnout was harder than cancer, and how the workplace responded to each in very different ways. 

Why do so many people feel like burnout is their fault? And what would shift if organizations started treating well-being as a core skill set, not a side conversation? Jen introduces the idea of well-being intelligence, a teachable approach to helping leaders spot the signs of burnout early and change the way teams operate. She and Cait talk about why clear language matters, what modeling healthy behavior actually looks like, and how leaders often fail to support their own well-being while trying to take care of everyone else.

This episode leaves listeners with a strong reminder: hope is more than wishful thinking. It’s a strategy, and one that’s available to anyone willing to take the next right step.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Jen Fisher

02:00 Why Burnout Was Harder Than Cancer

07:00 What Burnout Really Means (And What It Doesn’t)

12:00 How Work Culture Fuels Burnout

17:00 Rethinking Success, Sacrifice, and Leadership

22:00 Building a Well-Being Strategy Inside Big Organizations

28:00 What Is Well-Being Intelligence?

35:00 How Leaders Can Learn to Prevent Burnout

39:00 Hope Isn’t Wishful Thinking but a Tool for Recovery

Links

Connect with Jen Fisher:

https://www.instagram.com/jenfish23/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-fisher-7403868/

https://jenfisher.substack.com/

Connect with Cait:

Cait Donovan is a keynote speaker, author, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast, specializing in burnout, mis/match, and sustainable performance at work. She partners with corporate leaders, teams, and professional associations through keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions that treat burnout as data, not failure, to help organizations reduce burnout without blame or shame and build healthier, high performing cultures.

To bring Cait to your organization or event, book an inquiry call here: https://bit.ly/bookcait

Learn more about Cait’s speaking work: https://www.caitdonovan.com/speaking

Short on time? Watch this 3-min video: https://bit.ly/caitdreel2025

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm