Unbehaved

Meghan French Dunbar
  • 5.0 (18)
  • Business
  • Weekly

Hey there, overachiever. You okay? Exhausted? Busy? Overwhelmed? Yeah, that tracks. And it's not because you're doing something wrong. It's because you've been set up to fail. At work, at home — we've all been given an outdated playbook for what's expected of us, and it's making us miserable. Instead of trying another productivity hack that doesn't work (and then beating yourself up when it doesn't), it's time to stop behaving and write a new playbook entirely. That's where Unbehaved comes in.  It's a show that calls BS on business-as-usual to help you feel a little less broken — with loads of research, hilariously real stories, and a hearty dose of DGAF.  Hosted by Meghan French Dunbar — recovering CEO, best-selling author of This Isn't Working, and business anthropologist — it's kinda like if your funniest friend, your therapist, and a researcher who's interviewed over 1,000 leaders walked into a bar...and started a podcast.  Sometimes that means a conversation with a pioneering leader who refused to follow the status quo. Sometimes it's Meghan going deep on the research, stories, and ideas the old playbook doesn't want you to hear. This show will make you think differently, feel a bit less alone, and give you the permission slip to stop following rules that were never built for you and help you realize that you were never the problem. 

  1. Nov 3

    Why Holding It Together Is Breaking You — and How to Actually Recover with Sehreen Noor Ali

    You've been holding it all together for a while now. A demanding career, your kids, your relationships, maybe a hard season on top of all of it. And somewhere underneath all the busyness, you know you're running on fumes. This episode is about the hidden costs of pushing through when your tank is on empty — something this week's guest Sehreen Noor Ali tried to do for years. Sehreen built a startup while her youngest daughter was in and out of hospitals with a life-threatening diagnosis. She fundraised, parented, pitched investors, and performed at the highest level for years. She and her husband made it through. And then she had to figure out how to actually recover on the other side — a process that took two years, cracked open a self-image she'd been carrying her entire life, and ultimately pushed her toward a completely new definition of success. It's a deeply honest conversation about what it looks like to hold your life together through the hardest things imaginable and how to reinvent yourself from a place of wholeness on the other side.  Fair warning: this is not a five-step plan. It's a conversation about what it actually took — including the critical part that she'd never said publicly before. WHAT WE COVER - The TLDR of Sehreen's startup collapse — and the "breath of air after you haven't had air" moment when she walked away - Why you can hold it all together through almost anything — but you have to recover after, and no one tells you that - Her honest answer about what she wishes she had done differently in fundraising (including the "being apologetic about being a mother" trap) - What support actually helps someone going through a child's medical crisis — and what unintentionally hurts - The "hyper-independence" script that so many immigrant daughters and high-achieving women carry — and why letting it die was the most freeing thing she's ever done - The hospital moment that started her two-year journey of learning to trust herself - Her first-ever public disclosure of the tool that cracked her open — and why she's willing to take the judgment to share it - Why her definition of success evolved from alpha to flow — and the painful honesty of how hard that transition actually is - Why self-mastery — including spiritual self-mastery — is her hill to die on for the future of leadership - A simple, actionable practice she uses to turn anger into insight (one you can start this week) - Why she thinks AI is a form of intelligence to be curious about, not threatened by - Her permission slip for the woman who has been quietly convinced she's always been the problem ABOUT THE GUEST Sehreen Noor Ali is a strategist and operator who helps leaders navigate the AI era with clarity, positioning, and inner work. She's the co-founder of Sleuth, a venture-backed pediatric-AI company that Fast Company named a World-Changing Idea. Before Sleuth, she led sales teams in education technology and — earlier in her career — built early digital diplomacy programs at the U.S. State Department and regularly advised the White House on technology. She's currently building out her strategic practice helping high-performing leaders — nonprofit heads, bank MDs, mission-driven founders — develop both AI fluency and the self-mastery she believes will be the leadership edge of the future. Sehreen lives in New York with her husband and two daughters. PULL QUOTES "What we did not know is you have to recover after peak performing." — Sehreen Noor Ali   "I spent most of my life thinking I was the problem. Deeply. Always. I was always the problem." — Sehreen Noor Ali   "My nervous system would be like, 'I can't do this. I'm not supposed to take from people.'" — Sehreen Noor Ali, on her inability to receive help   "I really thought of myself as someone who did it all and was helping everyone. I've let that self-image die, thank God — because I can see how annoying it must be to be next to a person who keeps having some version of martyrdom syndrome." — Sehreen Noor Ali   "The definition of success now is flow. The definition then was alpha. And going in flow is like the hardest ish ever." — Sehreen Noor Ali   "The hill I will die on is that self-mastery is what's going to be most important for leaders in the future — including spiritual self-mastery." — Sehreen Noor Ali   "That intuition you feel probably can be pulled on. It might not be that you're always wrong or not enough." — Sehreen Noor Ali, the permission slip CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold open: "You have to recover after peak performing" 00:36 — Meghan's intro + welcome 03:01 — Interview begins: the TLDR of walking away from Sleuth 05:33 — "Our role is to find the effort and the agency, and then to let go of the outcome" 07:22 — What Sehreen wishes she had done differently (the apologetic-mother fundraising trap) 08:34 — What good support actually looks like for a parent of a child with support needs 09:31 — The hyper-independence script — "I'm not supposed to take from people" 10:29 — The hospital moment that began the trust-yourself journey 12:34 — First-ever public disclosure of plant medicine — and the rage it unlocked 13:53 — Meghan shares her own psilocybin therapy experience 15:41 — Growing up South Asian + first-gen + Muslim community — and her parents' "live ethically" ethos 17:44 — Returning to spiritual practice in her 40s 18:22 — The women's circle synchronicity story (the Maria text that changed everything) 20:15 — Growing up in community — dinner parties, deep relationships, "I've been to your house" 21:55 — The positioning problem of being a mother in fundraising 22:54 — Her current work: strategist and operator, not coach — AI fluency + spiritual self-mastery for leaders 24:28 — "The hill I will die on" — self-mastery as the future of leadership 26:01 — The AI summit sweatshirt story + emotional regulation in real time 27:19 — Success = flow, not alpha — the painful honesty of the transition 28:24 — The tools: breathwork, journaling, the women's circle, trusting herself 29:15 — "I spent most of my life thinking I was the problem" — mutual recognition with Meghan 29:46 — Scaffolding for the journey + the astrology tool (Mentora) 32:06 — AI as "another form of intelligence" — curious, not threatened 34:06 — The permission slip: "That intuition you feel probably can be pulled on" 34:38 — Unbehaved Lessons of the Day RESOURCES MENTIONED Sehreen's work + background: - Sleuth — Sehreen's venture-backed pediatric-AI startup (named a Fast Company World-Changing Idea) - Hitendra Wadhwa & Mentora — the astrology-based tool she references for intuitive validation - Her current work — AI fluency + positioning strategy for leaders navigating the "metacrisis" People + things referenced: - Arthur Brooks — on suffering as sacred (referenced by Meghan) - The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (the morning-pages practice that led to the women's-circle moment) - Positive youth development theory — the research on why kids need adults outside their parents who care about them - Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) — the film referenced in the AI conversation Concepts + frameworks referenced: - Peak performing + recovery — the central thesis of the episode - Hyper-independence as a script — especially in immigrant daughters - Alpha vs. flow — the shift in definition of success - Self-mastery (including spiritual self-mastery) — Sehreen's thesis for the future of leadership - Positioning vs. identity — the fundraising-as-a-mother reframe CONNECT WITH SEHREEN - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehreennoorali/  - Her consulting practice Tecura Labs: https://tecuralabs.com/ CONNECT WITH MEGHAN & UNBEHAVED - Book: This Isn't Working: meghanfrenchdunbar.com/book  - Website: meghanfrenchdunbar.com - Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com - Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/meghanfrenchdunbar   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT   Lightly cleaned for readability (duplicate words, filler, and transcription artifacts removed). All substantive content preserved. COLD OPEN Sehreen Noor Ali (00:00): My daughter was hospitalized right when we were fundraising. My younger daughter, the one who had the medical diagnosis. We were in New Jersey, and my husband and my older daughter were in New York City. We were both peak performing. And I remember telling a friend of mine who was like the track captain in college about this idea of peak performing under insane stress. And it's very common actually. And that was kind of cool. I'm not gonna lie — the alpha on me was like, wow, we're amazing. I'm talking to Gary Vee, I'm talking to Chelsea Clinton, it felt really good. I think what we did not know is you have to recover after peak performing. INTRO Meghan (00:36): Hello, lovely human, and welcome to Unbehaved, where we unpack the status quo BS that's making so many of us feel broken and talk to fascinating leaders who found success by doing things differently. I'm your host, Meghan French Dunbar, recovering CEO and author of This Isn't Working, and I am so damn thrilled you're here. Today we're talking to the extraordinary Sehreen Noor Ali. In a deeply honest and raw conversation about what it looks like to navigate extreme life events while still being forced to perform at work, and how to reinvent yourself after things fall apart. And Sehreen is a master of reinvention. Earlier in her career, she built digital diplomacy programs at the State Department and advised the White House on technology use. She led sales teams in education technology, and in 2019, she co-founded Sleuth, a venture-backed pediatric AI company that Fast Company magazine named a world-changing idea. But two years after co-founding Sleuth, Sehreen's youngest daughter received a life-threatening medical diagnosis. Sehr

    Why Holding It Together Is Breaking You — and How to Actually Recover with Sehreen Noor Ali

  2. Oct 20

    Drowning In Guilt? Here's How To Let It Go With Psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Reid

    You know all that guilt you feel? For everything from not completing your to-do list to even just sitting down for five minutes to rest. Turns out it's entirely unnecessary and unhealthy — for you and those around you. This week, board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Reid — author of Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations and host of A Mind of Her Own — joins Meghan to break down why so many women feel so much guilt and how she has taught hundreds of her patients to let it all go.  Last episode, Cindy Gallop told us to channel our red-hot rage. This week, we're naming the other emotion women are quietly drowning in. The one that whispers you're not doing enough even when we know we're doing too much. Dr. Reid walks us through the Guilt Equation (guilt = expectations − perceived reality), the Four Furies that generate most women's guilt, the Hypercompetence Trap that keeps high-performing women stuck doing more while everyone else does less, and the SPEAK Framework — her five-step clinical tool for interrupting the spiral in real time. Also inside: Meghan's velociraptor-at-Christmas confession, the Pinterest-fail reframe for the holidays, the evolutionary reframe that will change how you think about ambition, and the simplest permission slip of the season.   WHAT WE COVER - Why "I'm never doing enough" is the single most common sentence Dr. Reid hears from brilliant, high-achieving women - How COVID exposed the clinical gap that led her to write Guilt Free — there was no literature on what she was seeing - The "reflected appraisals" concept — why we often feel about ourselves what the important people in our childhoods felt about us - Winnicott's "good enough mother" concept and why it's radical: your kids thrive when you let them experience disappointment - THE GUILT EQUATION: Guilt = Our expectations of ourselves − our perceived reality - THE FOUR FURIES — the four systemic expectations generating most women's guilt - The ugly fifth layer: doing it all without ever showing exhaustion - Why men's guilt often comes out as anger — the gender-split landmark moment - The social coding problem: men who succeed with a wife at home or a nanny don't get questioned. Women are questioned either way. - The quote that reframes the whole conversation: "You can't push back against a shadow." - THE HYPERCOMPETENCE TRAP: "When we carry constant guilt, we do more. And others pull back and say, 'awesome, she's a superwoman.'" - Why over-doing isn't a gift to the people around you — it's a ceiling on what they're allowed to become - Meghan's velociraptor Christmas story and the "quality of being over quantity of doing" reframe - Why holidays hit all four furies at once - The 70% stat: a manager has as much impact on your mental health as your spouse - The evolutionary reframe: "Ambition and motherhood went hand in hand because we needed high status to keep our kids alive" - Meghan's joy trip + the "look at what you're modeling for your daughter" moment - Age-appropriate transparency with kids about managing guilt (and her husband's wisdom: "The boys need to know you have limits") - THE SPEAK FRAMEWORK — Dr. Reid's five-step clinical tool:   - S — Show up (I'm valuable enough)   - P — Pay attention (notice the internal voice)   - E — Examine (plug into the guilt equation)   - A — Action (cognitive restructuring, delegation, boundaries)   - K — Keep going (daily practice) - The rough draft → neutral → positive reframe for interrupting critical self-talk - The permission slip: "Permission to be goofy. Permission to laugh at yourself. Permission to not take yourself so seriously." ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Jennifer Reid is a board-certified psychiatrist, author of Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations (Penguin Life, 2026), and host of the A Mind of Her Own podcast. She holds clinical faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and Cooper Hospital, and trained at Columbia and UCLA. For over a decade in private practice — first in Philadelphia and now via telehealth from her home office — Dr. Reid has worked with brilliant, high-achieving women who kept saying the exact same thing: "I just never feel like I'm doing enough." When she couldn't find clinical literature that addressed what she was seeing, she wrote the book she wished existed. Guilt Free lays out the Four Furies, the Guilt Equation, and the SPEAK Framework — a complete clinical approach to understanding and interrupting the guilt spiral that drives so much modern women's exhaustion. PULL QUOTES "Guilt equals our expectations of ourselves minus our perceived reality." — Dr. Jennifer Reid, THE EQUATION   "When we carry constant guilt, we do more. And others pull back and say, 'Awesome — she's a superwoman.'" — Dr. Jennifer Reid, on the hypercompetence trap   "You can't push back against a shadow." — Dr. Jennifer Reid, on the invisibility of modern guilt   "I was in my office with my husband and I'm like, do you have a lot of guilt? And he's like, I think it comes out as anger for me." — Dr. Jennifer Reid, the gender-split landmark   "Ambition and motherhood went hand in hand because we needed high status to keep our kids alive. The idea that they're competing is modern. And it's wrong." — Dr. Jennifer Reid, the evolutionary reframe   "I might just have to sit with that guilt. I just don't want it to make the decision for me about what I'm going to do next." — Dr. Jennifer Reid, on how to actually work the practice   CHAPTERS - 00:00 — Cold open (Jennifer on the hypercompetence trap) - 00:32 — Meghan's intro + the Sunday-couch-laundry confession - 03:09 — Interview begins: Jennifer's childhood conditioning around rest - 05:15 — Origin story — COVID, the sentence she kept hearing, writing the book she wished existed - 07:35 — Perfectionism and the "good enough" reframe - 09:28 — Winnicott's good-enough mother concept - 10:52 — Threading to "It's Not You, It's the System" - 11:28 — The Guilt Equation + the Four Furies walkthrough - 13:52 — The gender-split landmark: men's guilt comes out as anger - 16:55 — Gender differences in perfectionism and "having it all" - 18:39 — "You can't push back against a shadow" — Meghan quotes back the best line - 19:35 — The Hypercompetence Trap — the leader-guilt insight - 22:41 — Meghan's velociraptor Christmas story - 24:14 — Why holidays hit all four furies — and the Pinterest-fails reframe - 27:09 — The 70% stat + letting go of the "ideal woman" story - 28:32 — Intergenerational agency + the pretzel grandma - ~30:30 — "Ambition and motherhood went hand in hand" — the evolutionary reframe - 31:44 — Meghan's joy trip + "look at what you're modeling for your daughter" - 34:23 — Age-appropriate transparency with kids about managing guilt - 37:31 — The SPEAK Framework walkthrough - 42:22 — The rough-draft → neutral → positive thought reframe (laundry-couch example) - 44:36 — The Permission Slip: laugh at yourself, be goofy - 45:52 — What's next for Jennifer (her next book on the "next era") - 46:46 — Four Unbehaved Lessons from the episode - End   RESOURCES MENTIONED Dr. Jennifer Reid's work: - Book: Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations (Penguin Life, 2026) - Podcast and Substack: A Mind of Her Own Concepts + frameworks referenced: - The Guilt Equation: Guilt = Our expectations of ourselves − our perceived reality - The Four Furies: Constant Caretaking · Hyperaccountability · Seeking Perfection · Having It All - The Hypercompetence Trap: when guilt-driven over-performance causes others to pull back, trapping you in doing more - The SPEAK Framework: Show up · Pay attention · Examine · Action · Keep going - Rough Draft → Neutral → Positive thought reframing - Winnicott's "Good Enough Mother" — foundational child-psychology concept - Reflected appraisals — how we see ourselves through how important others saw us People + organizations referenced: - Dr. Donald Winnicott — pediatrician/psychoanalyst who developed the "good enough mother" concept - Meghan's book: This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success — Chapter 1: "It's Not You, It's the System" CONNECT WITH MEGHAN & UNBEHAVED - Book: This Isn't Working  - Website: meghanfrenchdunbar.com - Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com - Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/meghanfrenchdunbar FULL TRANSCRIPT Jennifer Reid, MD — Full Episode Unbehaved Transcript (Cleaned)   COLD OPEN **Jennifer Reid (00:00):** When we're feeling this constant guilt, what is it pushing us to do? More, more, and more.   And when we're doing that, guess what the other people in our lives are doing? They're saying, "Awesome. I'm gonna just step back because you are crushing this."   And because we don't feel like we can show that it's hard, or that we're suffering, "she's doing great. She doesn't need any help. She is like a superwoman." How many times have you heard someone say that? "My wife's a superwoman. My mom's a superwoman."   Guilt pushes you to be hyper-competent, and other people around you to pull back and be less competent.   ---   ## INTRO   **Meghan (00:32):** Hello, lovely human, and welcome to Unbehaved. This is a show where we unpack the status quo BS that's making so many of us feel broken. And we talk to fascinating leaders who found success by doing everything differently. I'm your host, Meghan French Dunbar, recovering CEO and author of *This Isn't Working*, and I am so damn thrilled you are here today.   Today I get to talk to the incredible Dr. Jennifer Reid. She's a board-certified psychiatrist and author of *Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unrea

    Drowning In Guilt? Here's How To Let It Go With Psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Reid

  3. Oct 6

    Your "Safe" Job Isn't Safe — What Sticking It Out Is Really Costing You with Cindy Gallop

    "Too many people make the mistake of thinking that a job is the safe option. It's not." Cindy Gallop was 45 when she sat down on her birthday to take stock, realized she'd given sixteen years to the same advertising agency, and resigned as chairman of BBH New York with no job to go to and no idea what came next. Twenty-one years later, she has never regretted it. The one thing she'd tell her younger self: start working for yourself a damn sight sooner. Then there's her grandmother's saying, which opens this episode: the fool says evil cannot touch me, but drop by drop the pitcher fills. Cindy's version, for every woman currently telling herself she can stick it out two more years — the timeline is not the point. Every daily micro-sexism and microaggression is eroding your confidence and your belief in what you're capable of. Get out now. What she built instead, starting at 45 and from nothing, is Make Love Not Porn — a real-world sex video sharing platform she launched from the TED stage in 2009, in a talk that's since been watched nearly three million times. Seventeen years later she's still fighting for it, and her LinkedIn headline still says "I like to blow shit up." She's 66. She is nowhere near done. CONTENT NOTE: this episode touches on sexual assault. It isn't the focus, but it comes up more than once. Take care of yourself. WHAT WE COVER - Why a job is the riskiest place to put your future — "whose hands would you rather place your future in?" - Her grandmother's pitcher, and why "I'll stick it out two more years" might be the most expensive sentence in your working life - "There is only one thing holding women back in every industry, and that is insecure men" - Why she calls her own award-winning career luck — including never having been harassed in a way that ended it - At 32 she stopped looking for "the one," and had, in her words, a whale of a time for the next thirty years - Red hot rage as a renewable resource: nice girls don't get angry, and that's exactly why we should - Algorithmic suppression as economic oppression — and the moment I admitted I'd turned a platform problem into a story about my own writing not being good enough - Giving the first public talk anyone had given on porn as sex education, to a room that went completely silent — and what Robin Williams said to her at the coffee break afterward - What it actually costs to build a business the infrastructure refuses to serve: debanked three times in two months, 12% of monthly revenue to payment processing against a 3% standard, and a total ban on advertising anywhere - The letters that keep her going — from young people, from couples, and from survivors who say it helped them reclaim their bodies - Liquidating her retirement fund at 66 to keep it alive, and why she's going back out to raise again anyway - Her permission slip, and the one small thing she promises will change your life: say what you actually think. Out loud. Starting today.   ABOUT THE GUEST Cindy Gallop is the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn, the world's first and only user-generated, human-curated, real-world sex video sharing platform — launched at TED in 2009 as a direct counterpoint to the harmful scripts of mainstream pornography. Before founding MLNP, Cindy spent decades in advertising, including starting up the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) in 1998 and serving as its chairman. She was named Advertising Woman of the Year in 2003. She is also the founder of IfWeRanTheWorld, a co-action software platform launched at TED 2010. Business Insider named her one of the 15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers Today (alongside Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin), and Campaign named her their Top Trailblazer for both 2016 and 2017. She is the author of Make Love Not Porn: Technology's Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior (TED Books). Her 2009 TED talk has nearly 3 million views. She has been fighting the systemic barriers to funding, banking, advertising, and scaling MakeLoveNotPorn for 17 years — and she is currently gearing up to raise a new round of equity funding to scale the platform's mission of helping end rape culture globally.   PULL QUOTES "The fool says evil cannot touch me, but drop by drop the pitcher fills." — Cindy's English grandmother, quoted by Cindy throughout her life "Every daily micro-sexism, micro-aggression, micro-racism is eroding your self-confidence, taking away your belief in what you're capable of, and destroying your soul. Get the f**k out now." — Cindy Gallop "Too many people make the mistake of thinking that a job is the safe option. It's not." — Cindy Gallop "I'm not looking for the one anymore. And my God, the relief." — Cindy Gallop, on the day in her early 30s she opted out of the search-for-a-partner trap "There is only one thing holding women back in every industry, and that is insecure men." — Cindy Gallop "Tell me it can't be done, I'm gonna f*****g well show you. Put a barrier in my path, I'm gonna f*****g well show you. I take all that daily demoralization, discouragement and depression, and I turn it into motivation and inspiration." — Cindy Gallop "I have destroyed myself financially to keep this business going." — Cindy Gallop "I am driven by red-hot rage." — Cindy Gallop, on how she keeps posting on LinkedIn despite algorithmic suppression "Algorithmic suppression is economic oppression." — Cindy Gallop "Say what you really think. No, really, say what you really think. Because we don't. Every day we suppress what we really think. Starting today, just start saying what you really think out loud. It'll change your life." — Cindy Gallop   CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold open: the grandmother's pitcher metaphor + "get the f**k out now" 00:34 — Meghan's intro (with content warning about sexual assault) 02:56 — Interview begins: "Cindy f*****g Gallop" 03:15 — Growing up with a Tiger Mother in Brunei 05:17 — Opting out of the "search for the one" trap in her early 30s 08:05 — The 45th birthday review that led her to leave BBH 10:00 — Why "working for yourself" is the actual safe option 12:28 — Cindy's coaching practice + why she tells women to work for themselves 13:00 — The ONE thing holding women back in every industry: insecure men 14:00 — The grandmother's saying + "Get the f**k out now" 15:29 — Being "incredibly lucky" at BBH — and what Cindy means by that 17:46 — The 2009 TED talk + the nervous laughter 20:18 — The Robin Williams coffee-break story 22:18 — 17 years of business barriers to keeping MakeLoveNotPorn alive 28:04 — The three things that keep Cindy going (including "I have destroyed myself financially") 33:07 — Not giving a shit what family and friends think 34:35 — The loneliness question — and Cindy's honest answer 37:22 — LinkedIn algorithmic suppression as economic oppression 38:34 — Why Cindy is "driven by red-hot rage" 40:00 — Proxy bias explained: how LinkedIn's "unbiased" algorithm actively suppresses women 42:00 — Why Cindy still hasn't been able to raise the funding she needs — and the opportunity cost 43:48 — The one thing Cindy wants from the universe right now 44:41 — The permission slip: "Say what you really think." 46:45 — Where to find Cindy + how to support MakeLoveNotPorn 48:16 — Unbehaved Lessons of the Day 50:00 — Sign-off   RESOURCES MENTIONED People + organizations referenced: - Cindy Gallop — Founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn, founder of IfWeRanTheWorld - MakeLoveNotPorn — makelovenotporn.com — the world's first and only user-generated, human-curated, real-world sex video sharing platform - MakeLoveNotPorn.Academy — makelovenotporn.academy — Cindy's new zero-to-18-and-beyond sex education platform (in early beta) - Dear Cindy — cindygallop.substack.com — Cindy's advice Substack (archives full of advice on business, life, dating, relationships, beauty, travel) - Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) — the advertising agency where Cindy worked for 16 years, including starting up the New York office in 1998 - Jane Wurwand — co-founder of Dermalogica, referenced by Meghan for her definition of success as "choices, opportunities, and freedom" - Robin Williams — comedian who riffed on MakeLoveNotPorn during a TED coffee break in 2009 - Martyn Redstone — AI tech specialist in Europe who identified LinkedIn's "proxy bias" problem - TED — where Cindy launched MakeLoveNotPorn in 2009 (talk now has nearly 3 million views) Concepts + frameworks referenced: - Proxy bias — the dynamic where an algorithm trained on historical patterns (business credibility defined by white male output) actively suppresses women and marginalized groups even when "unbiased" by design - Microactions — small, simple, easy-to-do actions that cumulatively create enormous change (from Cindy's first startup, IfWeRanTheWorld) - The one microaction that changes everything: Say what you really think. CONNECT WITH CINDY - cindygallop.com - MakeLoveNotPorn.com (subscriptions start at $10/month) - MakeLoveNotPorn.Academy - Dear Cindy on Substack: cindygallop.substack.com - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cindygallop - Twitter/X: @cindygallop CONNECT WITH MEGHAN & UNBEHAVED - Book: This Isn't Working  - Website: meghanfrenchdunbar.com - Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com - Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/meghanfrenchdunbar   FULL TRANSCRIPT COLD OPEN Cindy Gallop (00:00) There was one saying of my grandmother's: the fool says evil cannot touch me, but drop by drop the pitcher fills.   And what I say to the women in this situation is, you may think you can stick this out for whatever period of time, but I'm here to tell you that every daily micro-sexism, micro-aggression, micro-racism is eroding your self-confidence, taking away your belief in what you're capable of, and destroying yo

    Your "Safe" Job Isn't Safe — What Sticking It Out Is Really Costing You with Cindy Gallop

  4. Sep 22

    You're Not Boring — Why We're Taught Our Stories Don't Matter with Francesca Donner

    Is there a voice in your head telling you that your story isn't interesting, that your idea isn't good enough, or that everyone else is somehow doing it better? Then this is the episode you've been waiting for. You'll meet Francesca Donner, who spent two decades in the biggest newsrooms in the country — The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, editing the paper's pioneering In Her Words newsletter — watching women's stories get buried on page 50 of the paper. Two years ago, Francesa got fed up with the lack of women's stories in the news and launched her own media company, The Persistent, with zero business background. And promptly won two Webbys. In this conversation, Francesca and Unbehaved host Meghan French Dunbar unpack why so many of us have been conditioned to believe our stories don't matter. Francesca also tells the story of the "failed" mug email that became her favorite permission slip, why she says clarity only ever comes in motion, and the game-changing practice she gave herself this year for silencing the negative talk that runs in every high-achieving woman's head. WHAT WE COVER The DNA of the newsroom — why women's stories get buried, and why it happens everywhere, not just in journalism The Carol Hymowitz mentor moment that changed how Francesca reads every publication Why "until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it" is Francesca's foundational insight — and how it applies to every meeting you sit in The 75% stat: men are quoted as experts in news stories about three-quarters of the time The mug email: 650 of Francesca's most engaged subscribers, a 97% open rate, and zero paid conversions — and why she's glad she sent it anyway Why the New York Times shutting down In Her Words was the door that opened The Persistent Launching a company with zero business background — and why muddling through is a legitimate strategy The moment her team told her "people actually want to hear from you" — and the negative loop every high-achieving woman recognizes The editor's-note thumbprint: how Francesca found her own voice inside a publication that isn't supposed to be about her The Webbys reveal: two days of celebration if you win, two weeks of spiraling if you lose — and what to do about that imbalance Amina AlTai's "clarity comes in motion" — and why Francesca uses it as her North Star ABOUT THE GUEST Francesca Donner is the founder and editor of The Persistent. She has worked in newsrooms including The New York Times, where she was the gender director and the editor of In Her Words, and The Wall Street Journal, where she was a deputy editor. The Persistent won two Webby Awards for Independent Publisher — the People's Voice Award and the judge-selected award — in 2026. Find her at https://www.thepersistent.com/ Subscribe. Read. Share. And put your money where your values are. PULL QUOTES "We don't see our stories on the front page of XYZ newspaper, because our stories aren't told, because they're relegated to page 50 of the paper, because they're told on the second day, because they're told as an afterthought or a sidebar. That is why. We can't believe that we've got a story to tell because we're so rarely in the center of the story." — Francesca Donner "Until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it. Until you have pointed out the fact that men are quoted as experts in news stories about 75% of the time." — Francesca Donner "I'm so boring. Nobody wants to hear from me. I'm da da da da da da. Right? And around and around in circles." — Francesca Donner, on the voice in her head when her team asked her to start telling her story "That particular email had a 97% open rate. And do you know how many people upgraded to paid? Zero. Zero. Absolutely not one person." — Francesca Donner, on the now-legendary mug email "Everything is a stepping stone. So many things are mistakes — but mistakes are data." — Francesca Donner "If we had not won these awards — if we'd been only a finalist, or hadn't been in consideration at all — do you know how much brain space I would have given to that? I would have spent days and days thinking about all the things wrong. Instead of just saying, okay." — Francesca Donner "Give yourself some grace. Give others some grace. We are all doing our best. We're all muddling through." — Francesca Donner "Clarity comes in motion. As soon as you stop thinking and start doing, that's where the clarity comes." — Meghan French Dunbar, quoting Amina AlTai "Everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. Everyone's story is valid and interesting. And we are so conditioned to believe that it is not — including you and me, literally storytellers." — Meghan French Dunbar CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold open: "we're so rarely in the center of the story" 00:24 — Meghan's intro 01:46 — Career journey: from GQ to the Wall Street Journal 04:00 — Being the squeaky wheel at the WSJ in 2007–2008 05:54 — The New York Times Gender Initiative and In Her Words 08:17 — Why the Journal wasn't the curmudgeon — and the DNA of the newsroom 09:05 — Carol Hymowitz mentor moment: "until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it" 13:38 — Being armed with data: the pain of what's obvious to you but not to them 15:47 — "Everything you do is data" — planting the seed 17:48 — Everything is a stepping stone. Mistakes are data. 19:00 — The mug email: 650 subscribers, 97% open rate, zero paid conversions 22:39 — The double standard for women and people of color making mistakes 24:15 — Meghan on Conscious Company Magazine — and the parallel-founder exchange 25:43 — Why she launched The Persistent in 2024 28:00 — Launching a business with zero business background — the muddling-through method 31:14 — Clarity comes in motion (Amina AlTai reference) 31:57 — First two years of The Persistent: the toddler analogy 33:08 — The two Webby Awards 35:00 — The hard bit: how do you make people pay for media? 37:15 — Stepping out of the editor's shadow into the founder's spotlight 40:13 — "I'm so boring. Nobody wants to hear from me." 41:00 — The editor's-note thumbprint 42:32 — Meghan's parallel story: the book deal and hating social media 44:30 — Everyone has something to teach, everyone has something to learn 44:54 — Francesca's full-circle answer: this is why we can't believe we have a story 45:29 — The book prop moment: This Isn't Working 46:26 — Meghan asks for Francesca's permission slip 46:53 — Give yourself some grace (her permission slip) 47:30 — The Webby brain-space observation 49:56 — How to find and support The Persistent 51:17 — Unbehaved Lessons of the Day THE UNBEHAVED LESSONS OF THE DAY Your story matters. You've been conditioned to believe it doesn't. That you're not interesting, that no one wants to hear from you, or that you should just amplify everyone else. Even Francesca — a former New York Times editor with two Webbys on her shelf — still hears "I'm so boring, nobody wants to hear from me" in her head. You're not alone in that voice. But it isn't right. Your story is interesting, and it's important. So start telling it. There's often opportunity in your frustration. Pay attention to what you wish were different. That gap might just be your next thing. Francesca launched The Persistent because she was furious that women's stories were being buried on page 50 of the paper. She didn't have a business background, but she dove in anyway. Two years later, she has an award-winning media company. You don't have to know everything to get started — you can figure things out as you go. Clarity comes from taking action. You can focus-group a decision to death. You can plan the pros and cons and think about all the things that could go wrong. But clarity comes from doing. Francesca launched The Persistent before she'd figured out whether to be an LLC, how to write a contract, or how to make people pay for media. And the failed mug email gave her more clarity in five minutes than five months of theorizing would have. If you've been thinking about the thing for a while, this is your permission slip to just start. Until something's pointed out, we tend not to notice it. Things that are obvious to you might not be obvious to everyone else. Simply starting the conversation and planting the seed matters. Even if you don't see the fruit of your labor right away, it can impact others in unexpected ways — and it can grow into something that shapes the rest of your career. Give yourself some damn grace. The Persistent won two Webby Awards, and Francesca barely celebrated. But if they had lost, she said she would have spent days spiraling on everything her team did wrong. That imbalance is how so many of us are wired. We give hours of brain space to what went wrong and only seconds to what went right. Give yourself some grace. Give other people some grace. We're all doing our best. We're all muddling through — and that includes you, my friend. Pay for good quality journalism. This one's on us, listeners. Put your money where your values are. If you want more stories like the ones Francesca is telling, we need to pay people for them. RESOURCES MENTIONED People + companies referenced: Francesca Donner — founder and editor of The Persistent The Persistent — thepersistent.com Carol Hymowitz — Francesca's mentor at the Wall Street Journal In Her Words — the New York Times newsletter Francesca edited Amina AlTai — quoted on "clarity comes in motion" (see her Unbehaved episode) Harvey Weinstein story (NYT) — referenced as example of long-form investigative reporting Meghan's book: This Isn't Working (Hachette, 2025) — meghanfrenchdunbar.com/book Conscious Company Magazine — Meghan's media company (2015–2020) Webby Awards — The Persistent won two for Independent Publisher Statistics referenced: Men are quoted as expert

    You're Not Boring — Why We're Taught Our Stories Don't Matter with Francesca Donner

  5. Sep 8

    Unapologetic Confidence At Any Age — Refusing to Dim Your Light with Kirsten Ludwig

    Every once in a while you meet someone who is so unapologetically themselves that just being near them gives you permission to be your full self as well. Kirsten Ludwig is that person. Co-founder of the brand agency In Good Co, veteran of Ralph Lauren, American Eagle, Anthropologie, Fred Siegel, and Stella & Dot, and co-creator of the 17,000-subscriber Substack Good Thinking — Kirsten's career reads like a masterclass. But that's not why Meghan invited her on the show. She invited her because Kirsten is the kind of woman who, at a fancy CEO summit years ago, stood up and mama-beared Meghan (then five weeks pregnant and dying inside) out of a conversation after a man wouldn't stop talking. That story opens the episode — and it's the perfect setup for everything that follows. This one is about the courage to stop shrinking. Kirsten's signature framework — lean into the cringe — is the idea that the uncomfortable, courageous move almost always pays off tenfold what you were avoiding. She and Meghan get into the two-week maternity leave she still carries shame about, the friendship-based business partnership with her co-founder Chris, the "one pizza can feed" team philosophy at In Good Co, and the permission slip that all of us need to hear.  Quick heads up: Kirsten and Meghan 100% set a new Unbehaved record for cursing in this one. If that's your love language, buckle in. If it's not your vibe, no hard feelings — this one might not be your jam. WHAT WE COVER The CEO-summit cold-open story — Meghan five weeks pregnant, a man accusing her of looking bored, and Kirsten standing up to mama bear her out of the situation Lean into the cringe — Kirsten's signature framework: the uncomfortable, courageous move almost always pays off tenfold what you were avoiding Why "you can have it all and balance it all" is complete BS — and how to make the trade-off intentional instead Kirsten's arc from fashion in-house (Ralph Lauren, American Eagle, Anthro, Fred Siegel) → Stella & Dot → building an experiential agency from 30 to 230 people → founding In Good Co The Stella & Dot contrast: coming from a boys-club culture where meetings ran until 7 or 8 PM (because no one wanted to go home) into a company run by "badass women" who got the work done by 5:30 because they had families waiting The two-week maternity leave shame — Kirsten as chief creative officer taking only two weeks with her daughter, and why the regret isn't about the bond but about the example she set for everyone watching How In Good Co became a B Corp before Kirsten even knew what a B Corp was "One pizza can feed" — In Good Co's team-size philosophy The COVID pivot to a curated contractor model — and why it makes the work better The business partnership with Chris — friendship-based first, "we do the work in it," and the "beautiful soup" of talking about everything without limits How Good Thinking (the 17K-subscriber Substack) became a media platform without ever intending to Working with brands like Sex with Emily — and why the real unlock is shame → okay → empowering The Fordham "light too bright" moment — the student who told Meghan she was always afraid her light was too bright Kirsten on turning 50 and giving zero f***s — and why that's actually about leaning into your truth, not not caring The permission slip: "Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Don't even think about permission. Do the thing that lights you up." About the Guest Kirsten Ludwig is the co-founder of In Good Co, a B Corp brand agency, and the co-creator of Good Thinking, a 17K-subscriber Substack and podcast on brand, trends, and culture. A veteran of Ralph Lauren, American Eagle, Anthropologie, Fred Siegel, and Stella & Dot, she now works with brands like Sex with Emily on the conversations most people are too afraid to have. PULL QUOTES "The more that I lean into what I call the cringe — the uncomfortable moments — that is where I find the beauty. And on the other side is tenfold whatever I've experienced prior." — Kirsten Ludwig "This idea that you can have it all and balance all the things is complete b******t. Somebody's always gonna lose. So at least make that decision intentional." — Kirsten Ludwig "The shame doesn't come from that I don't feel bonded with my daughter. The shame comes from being that example. The fact that I, as chief creative officer of this agency, was an example to all of these women and men to say, this is okay." — Kirsten Ludwig on taking two weeks of maternity leave "You didn't have to be an a*****e to make money. You could be a good f*****g human and also make money. Two things can be true." — Kirsten Ludwig "We always wanted to be the size of team that one pizza can feed." — Kirsten Ludwig, on In Good Co's team philosophy "We do the work in the relationship. Something comes up, we don't let it fester. We bring it up. It's a beautiful soup of all the parts and pieces, and there isn't anything that's off limits." — Kirsten Ludwig on her partnership with co-founder Chris "Let's remove the shame — and not only remove it and make it okay, but let's make it empowering. And how do we do that, and how do you create inspiration within all that? Those are the conversations. That's the unlock." — Kirsten Ludwig "I just wanna have a conversation and talk heart to heart. I don't wanna have this b******t exterior. It's gonna be one of those conversations that you can feel something — versus like, 'well, I've accomplished this and I've done this.' Great, but tell me about you." — Kirsten Ludwig "I want people to live their best life. Have the most fun, have the most sense of freedom, do all the things. Whatever is your truth. And to show people — like, shine f*****g bright, babe." — Kirsten Ludwig "Ask for forgiveness, not permission. That's it. Don't even think about permission. Do the thing that lights you up. And if someone calls you on it, deal with it then." — Kirsten Ludwig's permission slip CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold open: "I want people to live their best life... shine f*cking bright, babe." 00:29 — Meghan's intro: who Kirsten is, why she invited her on, and a language heads-up 02:21 — The CEO-summit story: five weeks pregnant, a man droning on, and Kirsten's mama-bear rescue 03:40 — Lean into the cringe — Kirsten's signature framework 04:55 — Motherhood, intentionality, and why "you can have it all" is b******t 06:01 — What keeps Kirsten clear on her intention: the ongoing self-evolution work 07:20 — The stories Kirsten has had to unlearn 07:38 — The Stella & Dot vs. boys-club contrast — and the two-week maternity leave shame 10:48 — How In Good Co started (and how her prior agency imploded after a successful sale) 12:41 — Finding the courage to leave the C-suite treadmill 16:25 — Reimagining success around autonomy and freedom 19:05 — Building the company: B Corp from inception, the "one pizza can feed" team, the COVID pivot 23:59 — The business partnership with Chris — friendship first, "we do the work in it" 26:43 — Fashion, body image, and refusing to shame yourself for wanting to look and feel your best 29:41 — Working with Sex with Emily and other counterculture brands: from shame → okay → empowering 32:22 — Leaning into the cringe + naming the shame both require vulnerability 34:18 — The Fordham "light too bright" moment 36:36 — The likability conversation: hitting 50 and giving zero f***s 38:19 — What Kirsten wishes we'd talked about: the personal and work journey are one 40:15 — Meghan's four-year-old daughter, sensitivity as a superpower, and reparenting yourself 41:56 — The permission slip: ask for forgiveness, not permission 42:28 — Where to find Kirsten (Substack, LinkedIn) 42:56 — Meghan's four Unbehaved Lessons of the Day RESOURCES MENTIONED People + companies referenced: Kirsten Ludwig — co-founder of In Good Co, a B Corp brand agency Stella & Dot — the "badass women" company that hired Kirsten at five months pregnant and gave her three months of maternity leave Sex with Emily / Emily Morse — one of the brands Kirsten works with; a masterclass in shame → empowerment B Corp — the certification In Good Co has held since inception CONNECT WITH KIRSTEN In Good Co Substack: Good Thinking — 17,000+ subscribers on brand, trends, and culture Podcast: Good Thinking (via the Substack) LinkedIn: Kirsten Ludwig CONNECT WITH MEGHAN & UNBEHAVED Book: This Isn't Working — available wherever you buy books Website: meghanfrenchdunbar.com Substack: subscribe for weekly insights + tools for building a better relationship with work Podcast: Unbehaved — new episodes weekly wherever you get podcasts FULL TRANSCRIPT [Editor's note: Lightly cleaned for readability. Preserves original voice + delivery.]   Kirsten Ludwig (00:00): I want people to live their best life. Have the most fun, have the most sense of freedom, do all the things. Whatever is your truth. Everybody's truth is different. The life I lead is too crazy or whatever for a lot of people — they don't want to lead that life. Cool. But whatever their version is, I want to give people permission or inspiration or whatever it might be to lead their best version of that. And I think that's exactly what you do. And to show people — like, shine f*****g bright, babe.   Meghan French Dunbar (00:29): Hello, lovely human. My name is Meghan French Dunbar, and welcome to Unbehaved. You just heard from the force of nature that is Kirsten Ludwig. Kirsten's the co-founder of In Good Co — a B Corp certified brand agency — and her professional background is pretty much a laundry list of the who's who in the fashion world: Ralph Lauren, Anthropologie, Stella & Dot, and many more.   But her impressive career isn't why I invited her on the show today. I wanted to talk to Kirsten because she's someone I've always looked up to. She and I met a number of y

    Unapologetic Confidence At Any Age — Refusing to Dim Your Light with Kirsten Ludwig

  6. Aug 25

    Trapped in a Life Built Around Others' Approval? Here’s the Way Out — with Al & Leanne Elliott

    There's a job you've thought about leaving. A sabbatical you'd take if you weren't worried about being judged for it. Something you want to write, or start, or say out loud — and the thing stopping you isn't whether you want to do it. It's what other people will think. In this episode of Unbehaved, you’ll hear from Al and Leanne Elliott — the married couple behind the UK's #1 management podcast, Truth, Lies and Work — who’ve built one of the most enviable-looking lives you'll come across. Digital nomads for six years. Working together. Making a living doing what they love. All because they refuse to build a life based on what other people think.  At 19, Al Elliott sat across from a deputy headmaster who told him that if he worked hard for twenty years, he could have that man's job and earn £28,000. Al's internal response: f*ck this. He walked out of teaching and never went back. Leanne spent from 28 to 35 waiting for the maternal feeling everyone promised was coming. It never arrived. It took her mother saying "that's okay" for her to believe it might be. Between them, Al and Leanne have refused nearly every script they were handed — about careers, children, where to live, and whether you should ever go into business with your spouse.  In this conversation, they walk through exactly what it looks like to stop making decisions based on what other people think — and start listening to what YOU want instead. Content note: this episode includes a story about a suicide-in-progress call, at around the six-minute mark. Resources at the bottom. What We Cover: The paper airplane that said "help" — how they met on an overnight Samaritans shift (03:53) Working with your spouse without wrecking either one (15:03) The story of success you were handed as a child (24:01) Money is a river: unlearning the family rule that you don't discuss it (27:41) Waiting for a feeling that never came (28:23) Nothing is wasted — relational beats transactional (36:13) What's genuinely different about work in 2026: AI fear, DEI backlash, and "pick a side" (41:30) The hardest truth Al ever heard: "You're not that important." (48:15) The permission slip — and how to work out whose voice is calling your idea stupid (51:29) About The Guests: Al & Leanne Elliott host Truth, Lies & Work, part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. Leanne is a business psychologist; Al is a serial entrepreneur. truthliesandwork.com — and find Leanne on LinkedIn, where she answers every single comment. PULL QUOTES "Stop behaving in the way you think other people expect. Stop trying to make decisions based on what you think other people think is right or is the norm. Make decisions based on what YOU want and what works for you and your values." — Leanne Elliott "If you work as hard as you seem to be working right now, then in about 20 years time, you can be sitting in my seat and you can be earning upwards of 28,000 pounds a year. And I sat there and I went, f**k this." — Al Elliott "The way we talk on microphone is the way we talk in real life. That's kind of what people say when they meet us — you're just exactly the same as you sound on the pod. Yeah. Because we enjoy doing it." — Al Elliott "Nothing is wasted. Even when you find yourself in a situation doing work on something you're not really getting paid for or not very much for and it's taking more of your time. Our mantra is always nothing is wasted, because we're learning something. We're making a connection here." — Leanne Elliott "The voice that tells you you're wrong and it's a stupid idea — try and identify whose voice that is. Because if that's your parents, that's your grandparents, that's a friend — that's probably the person who's holding you back the most." — Al Elliott "The fact is you've got to fall in love with the medium. If you hate it, it's like writing blogs — you're not going to stick at it. You absolutely have to love it." — Al Elliott "If they've got my phone number, then they should really be talking to me. If they've not — I don't know them, whatever. And I think that's kind of how when you're creating content and putting stuff out into the world, it needs to be about, I don't know you, whatever." — Al Elliott (on trolls) "It's almost like a bank account. If I've paid into somebody's bank account with goodwill and helping them over the years, and they certainly need to make a withdrawal, they're much more likely to be there to help me. That's how the world should work." — Leanne Elliott "Just because you're a manager doesn't mean you're that important. You're not that important. You're disposable if you don't do a good job. He was right. Brutal, but right." — Al Elliott (hardest truth he's had to accept) CHAPTERS:  00:00 Cold open: "F**k this" 00:35 Welcome + episode setup 02:55 The interview begins: how did you build this life? 03:55 How they met on an overnight shift at the Samaritans 04:51 The suicide-in-progress call 07:20 The 6am callback that changed everything 08:44 Why they were volunteering in the first place 10:13 Fast-forward: marriage, moving to Spain, Brexit, becoming digital nomads 12:12 Expert host vs. unexpert host: how their paths converged 14:37 Working with your spouse: the boundaries + osmosis framework 17:34 The honest truth about building a podcast from nothing 22:00 The 1% better principle 23:10 Childhood stories of success: what you were handed 26:00 Al's "f**k this" £28K teaching moment 27:30 Stories they had to let go of (money for Al, having kids for Leanne) 30:50 Currently in Bosnia — permission to live wherever 33:00 A typical week + how the podcast provides livelihood 35:14 Transactional vs. relational: being of service 36:13 The "nothing is wasted" mantra + the Nico story 41:30 Patterns in 2026: AI fear, DEI pushback, polarization 45:20 How to deal with trolls 47:54 Rapid fire: hardest truth 48:53 Rapid fire: biggest lie 50:43 Most outdated work norm 51:14 The permission slip to unbehave 52:32 Where to find Al and Leanne 53:14 Meghan's Unbehaved Lessons of the Day   RESOURCES MENTIONED Truth, Lies and Work — Al and Leanne's podcast: truthliesandwork.com Oblong — Al and Leanne's consultancy: https://oblonghq.com The Samaritans — UK crisis listening service where Al and Leanne met: samaritans.org Content note referenced in the episode: If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US (call or text 988), or the Samaritans in the UK at 116 123. CONNECT WITH AL & LEANNE: Podcast: Truth, Lies and Work Leanne on LinkedIn Al on LinkedIn   CONNECT WITH MEGHAN + UNBEHAVED: Website Substack: Unbehaved Book: This Isn't Working LinkedIn: @meghanfrenchdunbar Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar   FULL TRANSCRIPT (CLEANED) Lightly edited for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Al's, Leanne's, and Meghan's voices preserved throughout. [Cold Open — Al] I remember distinctly, I was sitting in front of the deputy headmaster. I must have been what, 19, on my first teaching practice? And the deputy master says, "If you work as hard as you seem to be working right now, then in about 20 years time, you can be sitting in my seat and you can be earning upwards of 28,000 pounds a year." And I sat there and I went — f**k this.   Meghan: (laughing) Hard pass.   Al: There's gotta be a better life than that. [Meghan — Welcome]   Hello there, lovely human, and welcome to Unbehaved. I'm Meghan French Dunbar, and that was Al Elliott — one half of the extraordinary duo I get to talk to today. The other half is his wife, Leanne.   One of the reasons I'm so excited about this episode is that Al and Leanne are going to walk us through what it actually looks like to stop making decisions based on what other people think.   And I don't know about you, but this is something that shows up in so many aspects of my life. That tension where you know you want to do something, but then you start questioning yourself because you're worried about what other people might think. Maybe it's the job you want to leave, but you don't quite know what your colleagues are gonna say. Maybe it's the sabbatical you'd like to take, but you're worried you'll be judged for taking time off. Or the Substack or the podcast or the content that you want to start putting out there, but you're worried about what other people are going to think about what you have to say.   Whatever it is, I hear this from so many people — they aren't living the life they actually want because of other people's opinions.   Today, Al and Leanne are gonna show us what it looks like to listen to what YOU want instead of what others want for you. And for them, it's resulted in the two of them leading a pretty epic life. Together, they co-host the UK's #1 management podcast, Truth, Lies, and Work, which they record and produce from wherever they want. In the last decade, they've lived in different European countries pretty much every few months.   So today I got to turn the tables on them and ask them the questions. And our conversation surfaced one of the most touching meet-cute stories I've ever heard that I totally wasn't expecting. It also brought up refreshingly honest wisdom for anyone who's trying to build something from the ground up — whether it's a small business, an art studio, anything in between. We also talk about one potentially overlooked practice they lean on (and I do as well) that has become foundational to their success.   One quick heads up before we dive in: this episode opens with a story about a suicide-in-progress call from Al and Leanne's early days as volunteers at the Samaritans, a crisis listening service in the UK. If that's not something you're up for today, feel free to skip ahead — it's at about the six-minute mark in th

  7. Aug 11

    How to Stop Playing Small and Start Owning the Room with Deb Liu

    Deb Liu — former CEO of Ancestry, creator of Facebook Marketplace, and a household name in the tech industry — spent decades being underestimated in every room she walked into. In this episode of Unbehaved, she shares exactly how she unlearned the "play small, stay safe" survival strategy that shaped her early career, and the deliberate practices she used to become a leader who now owns the room. If you've ever been talked over in a meeting, struggled to speak up for yourself, or watched someone else get credit for your idea, this episode is for you. WHAT WE COVER: Why "playing small" starts as a survival strategy but stops working at a certain point How anyone can learn to own a room, regardless of their personality What happened when a room of women in tech decided to "make it awkward" and stop being ignored  The Secret Bias no one talks about — and how it silences the smartest people in the room Why self-advocacy is actually an act of generosity (not self-promotion) The Supreme Court research on female justices being interrupted — and how they fixed it Why Deb went public about her breast cancer diagnosis (and the 100K-reaction LinkedIn post that followed) The origin of "The Blank Name Tag Club" and Deb's Reset / Reflect / Reimagine framework for career transitions The permission slip: rewriting the story before it rewrites you ABOUT THE GUEST Deb Liu is the author of Take Back Your Power and is currently writing her next book about navigating career and life transitions. Her companion Substack piece for this episode dropped today at debliu.substack.com. ----more---- PULL QUOTES "I made myself smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter over the years. I just thought — if I just play along, it's going to be okay." "You outgrow the systems of coping that you have and then they actually work against you." "I said, well, I'm an introvert, I can't do that. Right? So you're playing against yourself. Instead, I said — I'm going to treat this like a skill, like learning pickleball or playing piano or learning a foreign language." "The secret bias no one talks about is that those who speak the fastest, speak the most, and show up are given disproportionate influence." "If we never make it awkward, if we never raise our hand and say actually — then we're doing a disservice to everyone who comes after. Because no one updates their priors." "It's not for you. It's not self-advocacy, it's not self-promotion. It is paying it forward to the next generation of people who would otherwise be in the same situation." "Every woman in America has a 13% lifetime chance of getting diagnosed with breast cancer. That is one in eight. Catching it a year or two early can make the difference between a very complicated outcome and a very good outcome." "I never let myself sit in the silence. And that's where you find who you really are — in that uncomfortable space." "Often the stories we tell ourselves are the wrong version. And then that affects our behavior in a negative way. I give you the permission to rewrite the story." CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold open: "I made myself smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter" 00:30 — Welcome + episode setup 02:15 — Growing up in South Carolina: the only Chinese family in town 04:00 — What Deb tells her own children about belonging 04:35 — When "playing small" starts holding you back 06:30 — Extroversion as a skill: the pickleball framework 08:45 — The Secret Bias No One Talks About 09:30 — Money 2020: the "Make It Awkward" pact 11:15 — When the CEO across the table doesn't realize you're the buyer 12:45 — Supreme Court research on female justices being interrupted 15:10 — Why staying silent is a disservice to the next woman in the room 16:00 — Reframing self-advocacy as an act of generosity 18:10 — Coming from betterment, not anger 19:50 — The moment Deb was mistaken for the assistant — as CEO of Ancestry 21:15 — The breast cancer diagnosis and why Deb chose to share it 23:40 — "Drawing the Cancer Card" — 100K LinkedIn reactions and the ripple effect 25:20 — Leaving Ancestry while going through cancer treatment 27:15 — The origin of the Blank Name Tag Club 28:45 — Why the unmooring is the whole point 30:35 — Sitting in the silence: why you don't need to sprint to the next thing 32:00 — Writing a mother-daughter column with her 17-year-old 34:00 — The moving story: kids and grief and why they wouldn't pack 35:45 — What matters most to Deb right now 37:20 — The permission slip: rewrite the story before it rewrites you 39:20 — Where to find Deb    RESOURCES MENTIONED Deb's TEDx talk, Let's Make It Awkward Deb's article, Drawing the Cancer Card Deb's book, Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work Companion Substack pieces : Deb's essay: The Blank Name Tag Club Meghan's essay: Why Your Title's The Least Interesting Thing About You    CONNECT WITH MEGHAN + UNBEHAVED Subscribe to the Unbehaved Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com Meghan on LinkedIn: Meghan French Dunbar Meghan on Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar The Book — This Isn't Working: meghanfrenchdunbar.com/book FULL TRANSCRIPT (CLEANED) Lightly edited for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Deb's and Meghan's voices preserved throughout. Meghan French Dunbar: All right, Deb. So you and I met in September through TEDx San Diego — we were in the same speaker cohort. You gave an incredible talk that I still think about to this day about owning your awkward. Let's Make It Awkward. We're going to get into that. But the thing I want to start with is the origin story — growing up in the South and the ways you learned how to be safe and protect yourself by staying small. Can you take us there? Help us understand where the story came from. Deborah Liu: Yeah. I was born in New York City. My parents were immigrants — they'd come to the US for college, met here, and we lived in Queens. And then, inexplicably, when I was six years old, my parents decided to move to South Carolina. I later found out it was because my dad was being discriminated against at work, and his friend and colleague had moved south and worked for the government and said, I can get you a job with the US government. It turned out they were the only Indian family and we were the only Chinese family in the town we moved to. You can only imagine the shock of growing up in a place like that. It was just being so different. I kept playing small because I thought, if people just don't see me, maybe they'll stop making comments. People would walk up to my parents in the street or the mall and say, go back to where you came from. It was a very different place. At the time it was maybe half a percent Asian — less than one percent. We were like aliens that had landed on a different planet. I just remember feeling like I need to hide, and no one would comment. So I made myself smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter over the years. I just thought — if I just play along, it's going to be okay. Meghan: And was that behavior something you just picked up, or was that what you were told to do by your parents? Deb: My parents said, just ignore them. They're just ignorant. They lived an American dream that was really hard for me to reconcile. They came from Hong Kong, where it was very crowded, and here they had a big house with a big yard. For them, the price of the American dream was just not belonging — and that was okay. I really struggled with that because I was like, I was born in America. I'm just as American as any of these kids. Why am I seen as a foreigner? The forever outsider, the forever foreigner — it was such a piece of who I was growing up. And it was so hard for me to reconcile. So they just said, ignore them, just don't pay attention. And I tried to do that. But it's not like people are silent because you're quieter. I realized that strategy was just not working — but I didn't know what else to do. Meghan: I'm curious about your own children — we were just talking about them. It's a very different day and age, but I assume they've experienced some level of exclusion, whether based on marginalized identity or something else. What do you say to them versus what your parents told you? Deb: What's really interesting is I live in the Bay Area now, and my kids go to a high school that's 40% Asian, 40% white, and 20% everybody else. So they live a very different life. My daughter, we were at a couple of events recently, and she said, I experienced what you experienced growing up for the first time — where I felt like I didn't belong. She's 17. She graduated from high school yesterday. She said, I never experienced this once in my entire life. Now I understand what you're talking about. And I said, it took you 17 years to experience this. So in a lot of ways it's a blessing that she didn't have to go through it — but it's super interesting because when we explain what it felt like, my husband and I both grew up in the South (he's Chinese too, from North Carolina). Being the forever foreigner was just a part of who we were. And my kids say, we've never felt this before. It's just so interesting to see how demographics change over time. They can't even imagine when I describe what it was like growing up. Meghan: So this stay-small, play-it-safe, protect-yourself, put-your-head-down strategy — I understand how scary it would be as a child in that situation. And as you're growing in your career, at some point it turns from a way to stay safe to something that I'm assuming held you back, despite your incredible success. How did that conditioning inform your career, and how did it hold you back? Deb: Well, things work until they don't work. You outgrow the systems of coping that you have and then they actually work against you. The quot

  8. Jul 28

    When Therapy Has Stalled: How Psilocybin Can Help You Break Through with Mikki Vogt (Part 2)

    A few weeks ago, I laid down on a futon in Denver, drank orange juice with three grams of psilocybin in it, and spent eight hours next to a licensed therapist named Mikki Vogt. I recently told you what happened for me during that session. This week, you get to meet the woman who held the container. Mikki Vogt is a licensed counselor, co-founder of one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers, and one of the people who co-wrote the safety screening protocols for psilocybin-assisted therapy now used across Colorado and Oregon. Before she was any of that, she spent years working in prisons and community mental health before deciding to start facilitating psilocybin sessions as a harm reduction provider. Before it was legal. When it could have cost her everything. This is Mikki's first podcast interview. She's spent years training other facilitators and building the regulatory framework other states are now adopting. But this is the first time she's sat down for a long-form public conversation about how psilocybin therapy actually works, why it seems to break through what traditional therapy can't, and what it really takes to make this field safe. In this conversation, we get into why she made the call to do this work before it was legal, why traditional talk therapy hits a ceiling that psychedelic-assisted therapy seems to break through, the story of a young man who'd had daily seizures for 17 years and what happened during his psilocybin session with her, what a bad trip actually is versus a challenging one, and why the model of legal psilocybin therapy that we're building in this country — the model Mikki helped write — needs public support to survive.  If you listened to Part 1 and wondered how any of this is actually possible, this is the episode that answers that question. And if you haven't heard Part 1 and are just curious about the current landscape and real benefits of psilocybin-assisted therapy, you'll walk away with everything you need to understand what's happening in this field right now.   WHAT YOU'LL WALK AWAY WITH Why Mikki risked her professional license to facilitate psilocybin sessions before it was legal Why traditional talk therapy hits a ceiling that psychedelic-assisted therapy seems to break through — the rational vs. felt-sense framework The story of a young man who'd had daily seizures for 17 years and what happened during his psilocybin session with Mikki What a bad trip actually is versus a challenging experience The three tiers of adverse events every legitimate facilitator should be trained on How Colorado built the first regulated psilocybin therapy framework — and what New Mexico and Oregon are doing differently The specific questions to ask a potential facilitator before you commit Who psilocybin therapy is NOT for Why the model needs public support to survive — and how you can help ABOUT THE GUEST Mikki Vogt is a licensed professional counselor, licensed addictions counselor, and natural medicine facilitator with a master's degree in forensic psychology. She's the co-founder and clinical director of one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers, has facilitated 300-500 psilocybin sessions over the last five years, and co-authored the standardized safety screening protocols now used across Colorado and adopted in Oregon. She trains other facilitators in psilocybin-assisted therapy through her work with the Psychedelic Public Policy Partnership. She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children. You can find more about her and her work at neuroalchemycenter.com. PULL QUOTES "I called my mom and I said, Mom, I just had the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my entire life. I feel like I have finally found where I'm supposed to be, what I was born to do, what my life's purpose and calling is." "If regulatory agencies don't like the way that I'm doing it, then maybe I don't need the regulatory agency. And that was kind of — I don't know if that was stupid or courageous, or maybe a little bit of both." "I know I'm smart. I know I'm likable. I know I'm worthy of taking up space. People tell them to me every day. And there is a part of me that knows that rationally to be true. But the belief system that I have developed in experiential, repetitive, time-based learning throughout my life is I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable, everybody will abandon me, and I will never be somebody's first pick." "Psychedelics are unique in that they seem to be this bridge between what I rationally know insightfully up in my brain and what I at a gut instinct, gut level, feel to be true." "You can't take the medicine out of the ecosystem and expect it to do the same thing. We need to remember that what we're trying to do is rejoin the ecosystem — we're shifting, not the medicine." "It's as if I can see an entity or a form trying to push the seizure toward my body." (from the seizure patient during his psilocybin session)  "Any time I go to journey, I'm nervous as f**k. Like, my gosh. And that's great — because that's our nervous system doing its job. It's a reminder that I am functioning the way I'm supposed to function." "We are self-healing systems — biologically, physiologically, emotionally, soulfully, spiritually. That's how we were created. And we live in a self-healing ecosystem, our world."  "If we want this to be safe, we need to make it familiar. What makes things unsafe is a lack of familiarity." "It's the mushrooms. Like, you find the person you're connected with who you can trust to keep you safe. But the awareness gained, the insight, the self-love and acceptance — that's your inner healer and the mushrooms. That has nothing to do with me."   CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold open: "the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my life" 00:28 — Welcome + episode setup 02:13 — Mikki's origin story: her first facilitated session 03:59 — From forensic psychology to prisons and community mental health 08:30 — Discovering psychedelic research and starting private practice 10:12 — Facilitating psilocybin sessions before it was legal 13:12 — Why she risked her practice to do this work 15:21 — Why traditional therapy hits a ceiling: rational vs. felt-sense 19:16 — What the research is showing 22:00 — Why we need to rejoin the ecosystem 23:57 — The seizure story: 17 years of daily seizures 28:52 — The second session and integration 31:00 — Bridging the sacred and the clinical 33:38 — Meghan's fear of vulnerability 35:00 — Mikki's response: "I'm nervous as f**k" 38:04 — Prep and integration protocol 40:58 — Adverse events and the three tiers of safety 43:00 — Bad trip vs. challenging experience 44:43 — How Colorado built the psilocybin program 49:15 — Mikki's role in co-writing the safety protocols 49:34 — Why psilocybin isn't more accessible 53:17 — Business leaders and the mental health thesis 54:44 — How to help others step into this work 57:00 — The funding critique 59:37 — How people can support the work   RESOURCES MENTIONED Colorado Proposition 122 (2022) — the framework that made regulated psilocybin therapy legal in Colorado Oregon Measure 109 (2020) — the first state to launch a legal psilocybin program Senate Bill 290 (Colorado Natural Medicine Health Act) — the legislation Mikki helped shape Healing Advocacy Fund — the primary organization advocating for psilocybin therapy access Psychedelic Public Policy Partnership (PPPP) — the volunteer coalition Mikki works with Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics — psychedelics.berkeley.edu/law David Anka — referenced for his framing of psilocybin as reconnection with the soul Companion episode: Part 1 — Why I'm a Mom Who Does Drugs: My Legal Psilocybin Therapy Journey — Meghan's solo episode telling her own story from the inside Written versions on Meghan's Substack: Part 1 — To Shroom or Not to Shroom? Part 2 — Why I'm a Mom Who Does Drugs   CONNECT WITH MEGHAN + UNBEHAVED Subscribe to the Unbehaved Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com Meghan on LinkedIn: Meghan French Dunbar Meghan on Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar The Book — This Isn't Working: meghanfrenchdunbar.com/book   FULL TRANSCRIPT Lightly cleaned for readability. Filler words, false starts, and transcription artifacts removed. Mikki's and Meghan's voices preserved throughout. [Cold Open — Mikki] The first time I ever did a facilitated session for somebody — at the end of the session, when she was gone, I'm packing my stuff. I get in the car, and tears just started streaming down my face. And I called my mom and I said, Mom, I just had the most professionally and personally affirming experience of my entire life. I feel like I have finally found where I'm supposed to be, what I was born to do, what my life's purpose and calling is.   [Meghan — Welcome] Welcome to Unbehaved. I'm Meghan French Dunbar, and you just heard from the incredible Mikki Vogt. And if you listened to Part 1 of the series last week — yes, this is that Mikki. If you haven't had a chance to listen to the previous episode yet, Mikki is the facilitator who did my psilocybin-assisted therapy session that I detail in Part 1. But Mikki's story is so much bigger than my experience with her.  Mikki is a licensed counselor and entrepreneur, co-founder of one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers, and one of the people who literally co-wrote the safety screening protocols used in Colorado for psilocybin-assisted therapy that have now been adopted in Oregon as well. Before she was any of that, she spent years working in prisons, then in community mental health, before deciding to start facilitating psilocybin sessions as a harm reduction provider. But that was before it was even legal — when it could have cost her everything.  In th

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About

Hey there, overachiever. You okay? Exhausted? Busy? Overwhelmed? Yeah, that tracks. And it's not because you're doing something wrong. It's because you've been set up to fail. At work, at home — we've all been given an outdated playbook for what's expected of us, and it's making us miserable. Instead of trying another productivity hack that doesn't work (and then beating yourself up when it doesn't), it's time to stop behaving and write a new playbook entirely. That's where Unbehaved comes in.  It's a show that calls BS on business-as-usual to help you feel a little less broken — with loads of research, hilariously real stories, and a hearty dose of DGAF.  Hosted by Meghan French Dunbar — recovering CEO, best-selling author of This Isn't Working, and business anthropologist — it's kinda like if your funniest friend, your therapist, and a researcher who's interviewed over 1,000 leaders walked into a bar...and started a podcast.  Sometimes that means a conversation with a pioneering leader who refused to follow the status quo. Sometimes it's Meghan going deep on the research, stories, and ideas the old playbook doesn't want you to hear. This show will make you think differently, feel a bit less alone, and give you the permission slip to stop following rules that were never built for you and help you realize that you were never the problem. 

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  • Creator
    Meghan French Dunbar
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Unbehaved

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