The theme this month on The Unburdened Leader podcast is around visibility, owning your story so it does not own you, and stepping up into greater leadership even when you don’t feel ready.
Tomorrow, my conversation with Sylvia Kwan, Co-CEO of drops and I LOVED getting to know Sylvia and I can’t wait for you to hear her wisdom.
July 17th my conversation with drops which is also opening day of her play at . I deeply respect how Connie leads and lives and you will be moved and encouraged listening to her share her story and heart. You don’t want to miss this powerful conversation.
On July 31 came on and dropped some wise words around the connection of visibility, taking action, and our own growth. This conversation was a blast and shifted some of the stories I tell myself about visibility.
If you are not already subscribed to The Unburdened Leader, please do so you don’t miss these conversations.
And if you have not left a rating and review of the show, I would be honored if you did as it helps get more eyes and ears on the show. Here is an easy link: http://ratethispodcast.com/unburdendleader 🎙️🎧
Do you have a podcast, book or something that i need to check out and review? Lmk in the comments as I love supporting others this way bc I know how encouraging it feels. 😍
Rebecca Ching
Consultant + Facilitator
I help leaders, entrepreneurs, and business owners lead themselves well so they can lead others well for the greater good • Emotional health and trauma-informed leadership + entrepreneurship advocate • Speaker • Writer • Podcaster • Human
Yes, there is soooooo much to be said about NJ Congressman Tom Kean Jr’s speech on the House floor explaining his 4 month absence was due to treating his depression.
I am so grateful he got the treatment he needed and learned more how depression can manifest in our bodies. I loved for the most part his speech on the House floor, too.
But as public leader, in his instance an elected one, what he called privacy really is secrecy. And this instance is a powerful example where leadership and mental health intersect.
When crisis or high stakes challenges show up, and they always do, I see right away someone’s values, capacity for courage, and the ability to see beyond their own needs.
While I 💯 understand the protective and even strategic responses of secrecy here, it reflects what a leader and the system they are in values and does not value.
There are soooo many ways privacy could have been honored while also supporting his staff, constituents, and more. (This is what I help leaders and teams do and it’s possible!!!)
And yes, I am well aware of the politics at play in this instance. But to me, no matter the politics, the secrecy fueled stigma, scarcity, and shame around mental health struggles.
I know there are many other threads to this story but this is the one that is in my wheel house I and wanted to name it.
Thoughts?
All. Of. This. Hard stop.
Listen to my latest Unburdened Leader podcast conversation with Stefanie OConnell wherever you catch your podcasts.
What are the qualities in a space where you live, work, worship, learn that make that system feel healthy and generative?
I was asked that question recently when I was a guest on a podcast. We were talking about systems, what makes a system healthy, and how a systemic view of a problem or struggle is different from one that focuses more on an individual.
In my work, I am always tracking various systems: my clients internal system, and the various external systems like where they work, learn, live, worship, connect- and how all those systems are helping or hindering my clients commitments for our work together.
Each of these concentric systems has its own dynamic and impact on how we communication, act, and feel.
What am I missing on the list the qualities that cultivate a healthy system? What would you add?
06/29/2026
The whole transcript of my latest Unburdened Leader podcast conversation with Stefanie OConnell is a masterclass on how to address and push back on the many binds, mixed messages, and paradoxes around female ambition.
Stefanie brings the receipts, research and lived experience to our conversation. Listen wherever you catch your podcasts. 🎧🎙️
06/20/2026
Say the word ambition, especially around women, and it brings up a complicated mix of emotions and beliefs.
If you’re not succeeding, you’re not ambitious enough. If you are succeeding, wanting a lot, and going for it, you’re too ambitious, and you get penalized or punished. It happens at work, at home, and in the communities we move through every day.
There are so many mixed messages about ambition and success coming at us from every direction. And it’s not just imposed from the outside.
For many women, those messages get internalized and shape the way we present ourselves and communicate about our work and personal lives. We start to police our own ambition, and we police each other’s ambition.
My guest today names the invisible norms around women’s ambitions, and calls out the ways that organizations perpetuate bias, even as they think they’re playing fair. Her work is extensively researched, tracing the roots of the tension around ambition, and also offers language and an opportunity for us to reclaim our ambitions together.
Stefanie OConnell is an award-winning journalist and author of The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up– and Then Pushes Them Down. Her work dismantles the myths keeping women from equitable pay, leadership, and power — one data point at a time.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
✔ The material costs of what happens when women speak up, lean in, and get ambitious
✔ How implicit and gendered double standards around power keep women out of leadership
✔ Why encouraging ambition in girls doesn’t translate into celebrating ambition in women
✔ How people and organizations that believe they are meritocratic end up reinforcing the most bias
✔ Why we can’t self-optimize our way out of systemic inequality, and why we need collective action in
✔ Six key elements for reframing burnout as an environmental problem, not a personal one
✔ Why we need to push back against framing women being pushed out of the workforce as “empowerment” and challenge sexism in our everyday lives
Listen wherever you catch your podcasts!🎙️🎧
Listen to out while Unburdened Leader podcast conversation wherever you catch your podcasts. 🎧🎙️
06/14/2026
My latest Unburdened Leader podcast conversation with my dear colleague Jamie Marich of Formerly ‘Trauma Therapist Rants’ (Dr. Jamie Marich) has generated a lot of messages and conversations, not just about dissociation but also about professional friendships and leading from a more honest and true place while still holding boundaries.
If you have not checked out our conversation, catch it wherever you listen to your podcasts. 🎧🎙️
I love this lens that right relationship is temporary, dynamic, something to check in on and nurture.
And seeing power less as something to possess and more as a relational dynamic… it shifts so much!
Listen to my latest Unburdened Leader podcast with .amanda.aguilera , executive director of The Right Use Of Power Institute, wherever you catch your podcasts! 🎙️🎧
05/01/2026
I am thrilled .amanda.aguilera came back on The Unburdened Leader podcast to talk about The Right Use of Power framework and her new book: Shaping Power for Good: Wayfinding to Right Relationship. This lens on power shifted so much and I can’t wait for you to check it out and hear your thoughts!
Listen wherever you catch your podcasts!
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