Stress isn't the price of success—it's the thing getting in the way of it.

On this episode, Amy shares five practical actions leaders, teams, and organizations can take right now to reduce workplace stress and create the conditions for greater joy, engagement, and performance.

Drawing on insights from her national State of Stress and Joy at Work research study, Amy explains why overwhelmed teams struggle, how stress spreads through organizations, and what leaders can do to create healthier, more sustainable workplaces.

00:00 Welcome and Why Stress Wins

00:56 Where to Start With Change

02:02 Protect Capacity Not Overload

03:38 Address Stress Together

05:33 Real Joy Over Forced Positivity

09:15 Redesign Work and Find Clarity

11:29 Five-Step Recap and Sendoff

• Why protecting capacity is essential for performance
• How stress spreads through teams and organizations
• The hidden cost of forced positivity at work
• What the Stockdale Paradox teaches us about leadership
• Why younger workers experience higher levels of workplace stress
• How to distinguish between what's urgent and what's important

1. Stop overwhelming people and start protecting capacity.
2. Stop ignoring stress and start addressing it together.
3. Stop faking positivity and start creating conditions for real joy.
4. Stop blaming generations and start redesigning work.
5. Stop confusing urgent with important and start pausing for clarity.

• The State of Stress and Joy at Work Research Study
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• Good to Great by Jim Collins

Visit Amy's website to learn more, download the research study, and access additional resources.

Stress isn’t the price of success. According to Amy Leneker’s latest national research study, it may actually be the thing stealing success from us.

On this episode, Amy breaks down the top drivers of workplace stress and the biggest contributors to joy at work — and why both ripple far beyond the office into our homes, relationships, and communities.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Big Myth

00:56 Research and Ripple Effects

02:51 Why Joy Matters at Work

05:03 Top Joy Busters

08:22 Top Joy Builders and Wrap

You’ll discover:

• The top 5 workplace “joy busters”
• The top 5 “joy builders”
• Why feeling valued matters so deeply
• How overwhelming workloads fuel burnout
• Why purpose and progress are essential for thriving at work
• The connection between joy and high performance

Amy also shares a surprising story about a CEO who claimed he wasn’t “into joy” — and what the data reveals about why joy is critical for doing our best work.

Get the State of Stress & Joy report here: amyleneker.com/research

Connect with Amy on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amyleneker

What if one of the biggest sources of stress at work is everything you keep fixing that was never yours to carry?

On this episode of Less Stress, More Joy, Amy Leneker explores Quadrant 4 of the Un-Stressing Matrix: stressors that are within your control, but not actually important for you to solve. Through a personal story about boundaries, leadership, and people-pleasing, Amy unpacks why “just because you can” doesn’t always mean you should.

On this podcast for leaders navigating stress and burnout at work, Amy also shares 6 key benefits of learning to accept without fixing:

• Frees up mental energy
• Reduces unnecessary stress
• Saves time for what matters most
• Models healthy boundaries
• Builds resilience to discomfort
• Strengthens relationships

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Less Stress

00:44 Unstressing Method Recap

01:52 Quadrant Four Explained

02:58 Sharpie Toddler Metaphor

04:30 Boundary Break Story

11:08 People Pleasing Caveat

14:17 Six Benefits of Letting Go

23:54 Practical Steps and Wrap Up

You’ll walk away with practical ways to recognize unhealthy fixing patterns, protect your energy, and create healthier boundaries at work and in life.

If this episode resonates with you, follow the show and share it with someone who needs a little less stress and a little more joy this week.

Learn more: amyleneker.com

#StressAtWork #Leadership #Burnout #PeoplePleasing #WorkplaceStress #AmyLeneker #LessStressMoreJoy #LeadershipDevelopment #Boundaries #MentalHealthAtWork

When was the last time you asked for help? Not offered it. Not powered through on your own. But actually paused and said, “I need support.” On this episode, Amy explores why asking for help feels so difficult—even for high-performing, self-aware leaders—and what the research says about how to do it more effectively.

You’ll learn:

• Why we associate asking for help with weakness or incompetence
• How psychological safety and vulnerability shape our behavior
• The difference between autonomous and dependent help-seeking
• A simple 4-step framework (HELP) to make asking easier and more effective

Amy also shares practical ways to:

• Ask for help without damaging trust
• Build stronger support systems at work
• Create team cultures where asking for help is normalized

Key Takeaways:

• Asking for help is hard—and it’s also a critical leadership skill
• The way you ask determines how people respond
• Connection—not isolation—is the path to less stress and more joy

Resources Mentioned:

• Research on psychological safety (Amy Edmondson)
• Work on vulnerability (Brené Brown)
• Help-seeking research (London School of Economics)
• Insights from Dr. Vivek Murthy on connection and community

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Less Stress

00:41 Why Asking Feels Hard

02:25 Unstressing Matrix Basics

07:03 Stories and Research

11:06 Autonomous vs Dependent

14:56 HELP Framework Steps

25:34 Build a Help Culture

30:29 Key Takeaways and Goodbye

This episode is for anyone interested in asking for help, how to ask for help, why asking for help is hard, leadership skills, workplace communication, psychological safety, vulnerability at work, stress management, burnout prevention, emotional intelligence, workplace stress, leadership development, productivity at work, teamwork and collaboration, asking for support, help seeking behavior, autonomous help seeking, dependent help seeking, build trust at work, professional growth, career development, workplace culture, manager training, team communication, overcoming fear of judgment, confidence at work, mental health at work, connection and community, reduce stress at work, less stress more joy, unstressing method, help framework, leadership coaching, personal development, or work life balance.

Comparison doesn’t just “steal joy”—it actively increases stress and keeps you stuck. On this episode, Amy shares a personal story of rejection (including her latest pitch to Harvard Business Review) and the simple, practical method she’s using to move through comparison and rejection without spiraling.

If you’ve ever felt behind, not good enough, or stuck measuring yourself against others—this episode gives you a way out.

Chapters

00:00 Comparison Steals Joy

00:44 Harvard Rejection Story

03:56 Step One Self Compassion

07:23 Step Two Celebrate Others

12:53 Try It and Wrap Up

What You’ll Learn

• Why comparison and rejection feel so painful (and so human)
• The difference between eustress (helpful) and distress (harmful)
• A 2-step method to move through rejection quickly and authentically
• How self-compassion changes your experience of stress
• Why celebrating others only works after you support yourself first

Key Takeaways

• You can’t feel true joy while actively comparing yourself to others
• Avoiding rejection also means avoiding opportunity
• Growth lives in the uncomfortable “not knowing” space
• Self-compassion isn’t soft—it’s a performance strategy
• You’re not behind—you’re in the process

Links & Resources

• Amy’s book: Cheers to Monday
• Self-compassion assessment (via Kristin Neff)
• Contact: amy@amyleneker.com

Amy's new book, national bestseller 'Cheers to Monday' was selected by the The Next Big Idea Club as one of their must reads, and they invited Amy on their podcast to talk about her big takeaways from the book.

This week's episode of 'Less Stress, More Joy' is a feed drop of Amy's episode on 'The Next Big Idea Club Daily' podcast. Amy shares a practical, research-backed framework to help you rethink stress, redesign your work, and create space for more joy.

You’ll learn:

• Why modern work is designed to create stress (and what to do about it).
• The hidden “stress stories” shaping your behavior at work.
• How to use the Stress Ruler to quickly assess what’s really going on.
• The 5 types of work stress (and why treating them the same doesn’t work).
• A simple 3-step method to reduce stress without overthinking or burnout.

If you’re a leader, manager, or high performer feeling stretched too thin, this episode will help you shift from survival mode to sustainable success.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome and Big News

00:58 Why Mondays Feel Heavy

02:52 Work Is Broken

05:43 Stress Stories

09:20 The Stress Ruler

12:47 Types of Stress and How to Un-Stress

18:26 Wrap Up and Next Steps

Share this episode with anyone interested in stress awareness month, leadership coaching for women, work stress, leadership coaching, burnout recovery, workplace stress, stress management, employee wellbeing, leadership development, productivity, mental health at work, burnout prevention, workplace culture, stress and performance, joy at work, Cheers to Monday, or nonfiction authors.

Order 'Cheers to Monday' here: https://www.amyleneker.com/book

What if your stress at work isn’t just about your workload—but a misalignment with your values?

On this episode of Less Stress, More Joy, Amy Leneker explores how identifying and aligning with your core values can transform how you experience stress, conflict, and joy at work. Drawing from leadership coaching, workplace mediation experience, and research featured in her bestselling book Cheers to Monday, Amy shares a practical framework to help leaders and teams reduce stress without pretending it disappears.

You’ll learn why stress and joy are not opposites, how high stress pulls you out of your values, and how reconnecting with those values can improve decision-making, workplace relationships, and overall well-being.

This episode is especially valuable for leaders, managers, and professionals navigating workplace conflict, burnout, and team dynamics. Through real-world examples—including leadership coaching insights and conflict mediation cases—you’ll see how values like collaboration, autonomy, integrity, and honesty shape team culture and communication.

Amy also dives into:

• How to identify your top core values
• Why values are critical in leadership coaching and decision-making
• How workplace conflict is often rooted in misaligned values
• The connection between stress, burnout, and values misalignment
• How to build trust, compassion, stability, and hope in teams
• Why including yourself in your values is essential to avoid burnout

Whether you're a leader, team member, or entrepreneur, this episode will help you lead with clarity, reduce stress, and create more joy—without toxic positivity.

🎧 Perfect for:

leadership coaching for women, workplace conflict resolution, stress management at work, burnout recovery, emotional intelligence, team leadership, organizational culture, values-based leadership, and personal development.

Chapters:

00:00 Why Values Matter

02:34 Joy and Stress Aren’t Opposites

05:11 Find Your Top Values

07:30 Values in Workplace Conflict

12:05 When Values Shift

16:43 Include Yourself in Values

21:20 Connection and Hope at Work

Stress is not just a personal problem — and joy is not just a nice-to-have.

On this episode, recorded live during the "Cheers to Monday" book launch, Amy Leneker shares the Un-Stressing Method, a simple but powerful framework for understanding stress, responding with compassion, and creating more joy at work and in life. Drawing from national research on stress and joy in the American workforce, Amy walks through the five types of work stress, the three drivers of joy, and the barriers that get in the way.

She also explains how to use the Un-Stressing Matrix to move from overwhelm to action, why compassion is the highest level of connection, and how one unforgettable story from her 13th birthday shows what compassion in action really looks like.

If you’ve been feeling overloaded, disconnected, or stuck, this episode offers a practical way forward.

On this episode, Amy covers:

• The Un-Stressing Method
• How to see, sort, and solve stress
• The Stress Ruler and stress matrix
• The 5 types of work stress: schedule, suspense, social, sudden, and system
• The 3 drivers of joy: meaning, mattering, and momentum
• The 5 barriers to joy at work
• The 4-quadrant action plan
• Why compassion is more powerful than pity, sympathy, or empathy alone
• The big idea: stress thrives in isolation, and relief comes through connection

Stress thrives in isolation, and relief is gonna come through connection.

Chapters

00:00 One Good Thing

01:07 Stress and Joy Research

02:06 Step One See Stress

05:40 Step Two Sort Stress

13:57 Step Three Solve It

24:37 Compassion Connection Ladder

26:34 Birthday Story and Wrap