In this timely and powerful podcast episode, released just ahead of the holiday season, I speak with Hadon McKinley, a burnout coach based in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. Hadon shares research on who is most susceptible to burnout, how to recognize the warning signs, pathways to recovery, and the critical role leadership plays in both prevention and healing. She begins by telling her own story as a driven, high-achieving professional who experienced — and eventually recovered from — burnout. For more than a decade, chronic stress and exhaustion deeply affected her nervous system. She explains how the body attempts to protect itself through the fight, flight, and freeze responses, and what it takes to move out of these states. Today, Hadon works with high-capacity women leaders whose burnout often stems from blurred boundaries, overcommitment, and the difficulty of simply saying no. She highlights the responsibility of organizations and leaders to implement proactive strategies that reduce burnout — especially when considering the high cost of losing talented women and men to exhaustion and disengagement. Our conversation also explores the difference between burnout and overthinking, and why women tend to overthink more than men. Hadon shares simple yet powerful tools that break the overthinking cycle and help restore calm, clarity, and nervous-system balance.