The Quiet Burn with Lynn Blades
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
Release Date: 07/04/2025
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
Lynn Blades episode: Minimal Brain Activity by Unheard Music Concepts (source: Free Music Archive) (CC BY) Lynn Blades, author of , is the founder of Legacy Leadership, an executive leadership consultancy, and a dedicated DEI advocate. She has strived to cultivate a 21st-century leadership workforce that truly reflects the diversity of our society. RECOGNIZING AND PREVENTING BURNOUT Demanding Careers Should Not Overshadow Health And Well-Being Women face numerous challenges in their careers – dealing with sexist and demeaning work environments, juggling work and family...
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After graduating from Boston’s Emerson College in 1985, Tom headed west to work in the film and television industry. In Hollywood, he honed his writing skills through the trials and tribulations of episodic TV, animated series, screenplay options, and game shows for over two decades. When the feast or famine lifestyle of a Hollywood Writer became too sporadic for his maturing life (He had grown to enjoy eating two to three times a day – every day), he took a job at a call center to make ends meet. After his first day on the phones, his manager asked him to stop. He was terrible at...
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Alison Fragle episode: Distances by Beat Mekanik (source: Free Music Archive) (CC BY) ALISON FRAGALE, PhD Speaker. Professor. Compulsive Organizer. Website Newsletter ALISON FRAGALE is the Mary Farley Ames Lee Distinguished Scholar of Organizational Behavior at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. Her scholarship has been published in the most prestigious academic journals in her field, and featured in prominent media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Inc. She is...
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Lori Rosenkopf is the Simon and Midge Palley Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. As Vice Dean for Entrepreneurship, she serves as Wharton’s faculty director for Venture Lab, Penn’s home for student entrepreneurs, and also their San Francisco campus. In a prior role as Vice Dean of Wharton’s Undergraduate Division, she introduced a new curriculum and developed experiential classwork in the tech sector. For over thirty years, Rosenkopf has taught entrepreneurship and management of technology to more than 20,000 high schoolers, undergraduates, MBAs, and...
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Abby Davisson episode: Quickening by malictusmusic (source: Free Music Archive) (CC BY) Abby Davisson is an author, speaker, and award-winning leader obsessed with holistic decision-making (the kind that takes multiple bottom lines into account). After spending two decades making change from within existing organizations, she launched her own, focused on helping leaders make smart choices for lasting success in work and life. The book she co-wrote with Stanford Professor and labor economist Myra Strober, Money and Love: An Intelligent Roadmap for Life's Biggest Decisions,...
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Distances by Beat Mekanik, via Free Music Archive (CC BY) Wes Adams is the CEO of SV Consulting Group. He partners with Fortune 500s and scaling companies to develop high-impact leaders and design operating structures that support high performing teams. He is also a positive psychology researcher at the University of Pennsylvania where he studies the leadership practices and organizational structures that help employees thrive. He lives in Atlanta, GA. Tamara Myles is a speaker, author, professor, and entrepreneur specializing in the science...
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Karen Freeman is Chief Product Officer at DCM Insights and one of the authors of the Activator research published in Harvard Business Review, titled "What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently." That article was named one of HBR’s top 10 reads of 2025. At DCMi, she is one of the global faculty and responsible for the company’s training products and diagnostics. She has delivered the Activator research and training programs across the globe to clients in the legal, consulting, accounting, and talent advisory sectors. Before joining DCMi, Karen was head of digital...
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Mark Fava episode: Liberosis (Instrumental) by Nihilore, via Free Music Archive (CC BY) Mark C. Fava is an author, retired Navy officer, and an aviation lawyer. He currently works as a Vice president at The Boeing Company. Fava flew as a Naval Flight Officer and Mission Commander in the P-3 Orion, accumulating more than 3,000 flight hours, tracking Soviet submarines during the Cold War. He retired in 2015 from the Navy Reserve as a Captain. He has led a national aviation law practice at a major law firm. From 2001 to 2004, he worked as the Chief...
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Kweilin Ellingrud episode: Glass Structures by Unheard Music Concepts, via Free Music Archive (CC BY) Kweilin Ellingrud is McKinsey's Chief Diversity Officer and a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, based in Minneapolis. As a senior partner at McKinsey, she has led research on the topics of gender equality, racial equity, generative AI, the future of work, and global competitiveness. She also serves clients in financial services across strategy and operational transformations. She is the co-author of with fellow McKinsey senior partners...
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Steve is a visual artist whose work has been displayed in numerous galleries, juried exhibitions, and prestigious corporate art spaces. He’s planning on transitioning to full-time artist from managing the creative side of a web design firm he founded 25 years ago. Previously, Steve had engaged in numerous careers: media training, tech journalism, book writing (he penned more than 50 solo titles and collaborations, including a million-copy, bestselling parenting book). He was also the founder of a successful ad agency and founder of numerous ill-conceived small businesses that failed...
info_outlineLynn Blades episode:
Minimal Brain Activity by Unheard Music Concepts (source: Free Music Archive) (CC BY)
Lynn Blades, author of THE QUIET BURN: The Ambitious Woman’s Guide To Recognizing And Preventing Burnout, is the founder of Legacy Leadership, an executive leadership consultancy, and a dedicated DEI advocate. She has strived to cultivate a 21st-century leadership workforce that truly reflects the diversity of our society.
RECOGNIZING AND PREVENTING BURNOUT
Demanding Careers Should Not Overshadow Health And Well-Being
Women face numerous challenges in their careers – dealing with sexist and demeaning work environments, juggling work and family obligations, struggling to achieve parity with their male colleagues – all of which require having the necessary physical and emotional capacity to maintain one’s self-esteem.
Lynn Blades has spent decades advising women in Fortune 500 companies and independent businesses. An executive leadership coach, her message is clear: it’s time to rewrite the rules. In THE QUIET BURN: The Ambitious Woman’s Guide To Recognizing And Preventing Burnout, Blades offers practical tools to help women recognize and prevent burnout and empower them to reclaim their lives – such as the power of saying no, practicing guilt-free self-care, and silencing self-doubt. She provides insights, supported by case studies and exercises, that empower readers to:
• Make better choices
• Find their voice
• Understand that they deserve the best
Blades’ clients comprise a diverse group, of primarily women, who are fatigued from being undervalued, unheard, burdened with excessive stress, and expected to effortlessly juggle everything. “My aspiration for this book is to herald a new chapter in your life, centered around the themes of self-respect, rejuvenation, reinvention, resilience, and self-love,” she says.
When Blades first encounters clients, they are emotionally and physically exhausted. This applies to women who adeptly manage a six-figure household with the same finesse as a multi-million-dollar business yet still find themselves questioning their self-worth.
All genders will benefit from THE QUIET BURN. The book contains advice on living a fulfilling life, self-respect, effectively communicating needs, and recognizing the peril of ignoring personal well-being. Life involves compromises, but that should not compromise one’s physical and emotional health. While failures teach valuable lessons, sacrificing health is not a sustainable solution.
Blades urges readers to take steps to discover where they stand on self-care, and includes a thought-provoking Self-Care Check-In. Caring about the right things involves prioritizing what truly matters, making deliberate choices aligned with values, and taking effective action. By eliminating what doesn’t matter and focusing on what is important, wasting time and energy on unimportant things can be avoided. This leads to a sense of fulfillment and reduces negative emotions like stress and anxiety. Identifying core values allows women to concentrate on family, friends, achievement, wisdom, kindness, or equity.
She also stresses the importance and power of saying no. Oftentimes, saying yes creates unnecessary stress and anxiety. “Embracing your inner ‘no’ is about establishing healthy boundaries,” Blades writes. “When faced with an uncertain request, take a pause. Reflect on it to gain a broader perspective before committing.” Throughout the book there are QR codes that lead to videos of Blades sharing additional information and advice. Reflecting On The Power Of No is one of the impactful videos.
Readers are encouraged to craft an action plan to boost self-awareness and identify rising stress in challenging moments before it overwhelms. Blades shares techniques that allow responding thoughtfully rather than reacting impulsively:
• Consider moments when boundaries have been compromised by individuals or situations
• Think about how those compromises made you feel. Were you hurt, ashamed, embarrassed, angry?
• Considering the responses to the above questions, how could you have better handled the situation for a more favorable outcome
THE QUIET BURN is a wake-up call to genuine self-awareness, when women embrace their power, recognizing their value to society and their potential to bring about change. It points the way to a future where class, gender, and race no longer serve as barriers. When women unite and collaborate, they can become a formidable force. Once they establish a strong foundation and stand together, they will be the agents of change they want to see in the world.
Social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnblades/