Award-winning psychologist Dr. Lalitaa Suglani unpacks why the most capable people in the room are often the most anxious — and how to stop performing wellness and start feeling it. A conversation about burnout, workaholism, inner child work, and what real success actually looks like. Dr. Lalitaa is a renowned speaker, somatic practitioner, and the author of High Functioning Anxiety — a book that has helped thousands of high achievers move from survival mode to intentional living. Her holistic approach combines science-backed strategies with practical tools for personal growth to help people rebuild self-trust from the inside out.

In this episode we cover:

• Her own childhood as 1 of 5 kids and examples of success
• Following her intuition to psychology
• The Swan Analogy to help explain High Functioning Anxiety
• Shifting from anxiety-driven doing to grounded, intentional being.
• Her step-by-step clinic exercise: The Trigger Worksheet
• Every yes is a no to you - A reframe on people-pleasing.
• Why highly sensitive individuals unconsciously absorb other people's emotional states
• Why real-world interactions are the antidote to the highlight reel
• The connection between menstrual cycles, mood, and anxiety

Mentions:

• Kirtan - singing
• Omnom restaurant

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/dr.lalitaa/

Sex, Death, Comedy: Enter the nuanced world of Shannon Murphy

Shannon Murphy is the director of 2019 debut hit Babyteeth (94% on rotten tomatoes at last check). I was moved to tears many times by the film and have since gone on to watch other things she has directed including Killing Eve, her episode of which was nominated for 3 EMMYs, Dave which is literally one of my favourite TV series and Dying for Sex, for which she won the Outstanding Directorial Achievement at the 2026 Director’s Guild of America (DGA) Awards.

I know being a female director of the highest calibre is not easy - add onto that being a single mother, continents away from your family. I wanted to know how she finds her voice and stands her ground in her industry, how she practices patience between projects and creates such emotionally sensitive and nuanced work.

In this episode we cover:

• From Nairobi to Hong Kong: how a globally nomadic childhood shaped her creative voice

• The reality of being a female director: bias, breakthroughs, and finding your own path in film & TV

• Why the “female gaze” isn’t just important—it’s where the most exciting stories are right now

• What it really feels like to premiere at Venice—and survive an 8-minute standing ovation

• Why comedy is so hard: what works, what bombs, and how great directors fix it in real time

• Inside high-pressure film sets: chaos, creativity, and leading hundreds of people

• Creative intensity & recovery: the ebbs and flows of a creative life and how to balance it

Mentons:

Bertolt Brecht

Jim Henson’s Storyteller series by Anthony Mingela

Winnie (documentary film) by Pascal Lampshe

Santiana - old fishing folk song

Links:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2221724/

https://www.instagram.com/shannnnnny/

I’ve been obsessed with Eugene’s insightful and razor sharp cultural analysis reels on Instagram and Tiktok - along with literally millions of others who watch them.

Eugene Healey is a strategist whose insights help brands, individuals and organisations make sense of the soup that is culture, consumerism, taste, aesthetics and social media. He is also a gifted keynote speaker and original thinker - sharing ideas in his substack Considered Chaos. He was a lecturer at the Melbourne Business School and continues to use his content as a way to educate.

He asks questions like: How can you have authenticity in environments that are about performance? Something I think about A LOT in terms of how I can show up in spaces driven by algorithms. What is status anxiety? Are we living to be perceived? Are we on social media to consume fiction or reality? What is Netflexification? We explore all of this and more in this episode.

In this episode we cover:

• Growing up an Asian immigrant in New Zealand
• Is ‘hard work’ a virtue?
• Selling ideas: discovering brand strategy as a career
• Learning how to perform intelligence
• Putting ‘authenticity’ as a concept in the bin
• ‘Don’t lose yourself in self-analysis’
• How to make your career EXACTLY what you want it to be

Mentions:

Filterworld: How Algorithms Make Everything the Same by Kyle Chayka

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Eugene Healey on vulnerability for The Guardian

Tony Wang

Matt Klein on The Slow Down

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/eugbrandstrat/

https://www.eugenehealey.com/