The podcast

My Brilliant Burnout

Behind the scenes with Becky and Karen

From the co-founders of FTS. Fix The System. Absurd systems, two brilliant brains and a business run our way.

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Becky Hirst and Karen Cocks recording My Brilliant Burnout in the FTS. studio

Behind the scenes at FTS.

There's nothing brilliant about burnout. But there's everything brilliant about our brains. Becky Hirst and Karen Cocks bring six decades of combined experience fixing systems across government, business and community, plus two big burnouts of their own. Each episode we pick apart the absurd systems that wear people down (schools, health, workplaces, even ordering a coffee) and talk about how to fix them. Honest, funny, a little sweary, and for anyone who's ever been asked "How do you do it all?" We fix the system, not the people.

A behind-the-scenes look at the people building FTS. Fix The System: the voice notes, the big ideas, the burnouts and the ways we're doing business differently.

My Brilliant Burnout Episode 3 official cover featuring Becky Hirst and Karen Cocks

Episode 3 · Out now

A portal to buy a car with cash. A chatbot that approves your cancellation, then refuses the refund. Two school apps, a bond you can't get back because the portal thinks you're two people, and a phone overheating before 7.30am. Welcome to the bot dance.

In this episode, Karen and Becky take on bots and portals. It starts with a Facebook post shared by both their mums on opposite sides of the world: a society that makes a 90-year-old use a smartphone to access the basics has left its elders behind.

From there, it's a week of real examples, the hidden cost of getting stuck, and what happens when the customer finally reaches a human already frustrated and exhausted.

This isn't an anti-tech episode. Karen and Becky love their AI. When a bot works, it's brilliant. The problem is when there's no off-ramp, and the job of finding a way through gets handed to the customer.

In this episode

Two te reo Māori words that reframe ADHD and autism.
The jar question: who cries more in meetings, and why.
The Facebook post shared by both their mums.
Real bot dances involving refunds, rental bonds, holiday accommodation, gas bills, and pharmacy phone menus.
Why customers arrive angrier and the first human contact becomes an escalation.
Frontline staff as detectives.
Why customers need to feel heard, even when the answer is no.
Examples of customer engagement done well.
Voice notes from the Amys.

Key takeaway

Don't just add a bot because everyone else has. Work out where a bot helps and where a human matters, and always build an off-ramp. We fix the system, not the people.

Sources and references

Also mentioned: Specsavers and founders Doug and Mary Perkins, “The Safety Dance” (Glee version), and the Perpetual Cycle of brilliance and burnout.

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A note from us: We’re both neurodivergent and we’re both systems thinkers. You’ll hear neurodivergence come through in our conversations, but this isn’t a neurodivergence podcast, and our experience isn’t everyone’s.

Get in touch

We want to hear from the Amys (and anyone else up against a system that makes no sense). Comment on YouTube, like and subscribe, or find us on Instagram, get in touch or email connect@fixthesystem.world.

We record on Kaurna land and pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Got a system you'd like us to take on? Record a 60-second voice note at fixthesystem.world/podcast.

My Brilliant Burnout: there's nothing brilliant about burnout, but there's everything brilliant about our brains.

FTS. We fix the system, not the people.

My Brilliant Burnout Episode 2 official cover featuring Becky Hirst and Karen Cocks

Episode 2 · Out now

Parents who care deeply. Teachers who care deeply. A young person both sides are invested in. So why does everyone walk out of the school meeting feeling defeated?

When a young person can't make it through the school gate, that's school can't, not truancy. So why does the system still treat it as defiance?

In this episode, Becky and Karen look at the school system. They start with their own school reports ("Rebecca is lazy"), then move to the parenting moments that still make them flushed.

One of Karen's kids is thriving in a part-time job and finally handling schoolwork, and the school's reply was a link to the Fair Work Act. Becky asked to formalise a day a week at home and heard the word "truancy" in a meeting that felt more like an interview than a conversation.

Then the twist: the people across the desk are struggling too. Nearly 9 in 10 South Australian teachers have considered leaving the profession. Parents, teachers and young people are all fighting the same system, and the student ends up lost in the middle.

In this episode

What the guest question reveals: favourite time of day, and why crash mode matters.
School then and now: reports, sick days, and being "so much potential".
When the thing that works doesn't fit the rules.
Why parents slip into the student role in school meetings.
The teacher side: emotional load, workload, and burnout.
The parent-teacher-student triangle and why nobody's winning.
One Plans: a plan built around the student, and the extra steps that say no.
Start With Yes: "It's never a shed".
How EVA applies: engage on the symptom, validate the cause, adapt the system.

Key takeaway

Nobody here is the enemy. The system is. We fix the system, not the people.

Sources mentioned

Karen was quoting some numbers from memory on air, and the cited reports contain the accurate figures.

Also mentioned: One Plan, the Perpetual Cycle of brilliance and burnout, and Start With Yes by Karen Cocks.

Watch on YouTube Listen on Spotify Apple Podcasts Amazon Music

Get in touch

We record on Kaurna land and pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Got a system you'd like us to take on? Record a 60-second voice note at fixthesystem.world/podcast.

My Brilliant Burnout: there's nothing brilliant about burnout, but there's everything brilliant about our brains.

FTS. We fix the system, not the people.

My Brilliant Burnout Episode 1 official cover featuring Becky Hirst and Karen Cocks

Episode 1 · Out now

Two big burnouts, two brilliant brains and 1,443 swear words. Becky and Karen explain how they met, why they started FTS. and what this podcast is for.

Welcome to the very first episode. One of us was hanging pictures five minutes before we hit record, and one of us was still working out where the “go” button on the camera was. So it’s very us. Becky Hirst and Karen Cocks are two women with nearly 30 years’ experience each, two big burnouts behind them and two brilliant brains. In this episode they explain how they met, why they started FTS. and what this podcast is for.

In this episode

Where we’re each at on the Perpetual Cycle. We check in on our cycle of brilliance and burnout: reset, ideas, create, impact, push and crash.
Acknowledgement of Country. We’re recording on Kaurna land, and we talk about why connection to land kept us grounded through our burnouts.
The lucky-dip question: “What would this look like if you couldn’t fail?” Becky dreams big: running in New York and FTS. as a global consultancy. Karen just wants to soften. Then, of course, the conversation turns to the patriarchy.
How we met. It starts nearly 10 years ago with a community hospital board in McLaren Vale and Becky’s pre-influencer winey-mum Facebook fame. Later we worked together from opposite sides of local government.
Our big burnouts. Karen cared for a critically ill child. Becky faced breast cancer and the “postnatal depression” diagnoses she now sees differently. Two things can be true.
From polite voice notes to a company. Short, polite voice notes became 20 and a half hours of them in one week, 1,443 swear words and a 70,000-word book recorded by voice note.
What FTS. stands for. Officially it’s Fix The System. Unofficially, you can probably guess. We explain why we’re bringing solutions and not pitchforks.
A letter to the UK Prime Minister. Becky wrote to him this week, with a gold paperclip.
Two lenses. Becky looks outside in, across governments, communities and the bigger picture. Karen looks inside out, from the front door of the organisation.
The coffee-shop test. We tried to order a coffee at a café and got an iPad, a sticky note, the wrong counter, then table service that wasn’t table service. Absurd systems are everywhere. Schools, health, homelessness and apprenticeships are full of them too.
EVA, our framework. Engage, Validate, Adapt. Karen also explains how aphantasia (not being able to picture things in your head) makes her a framework thinker.
Meet Amy. She’s busy, high-achieving, juggling everything, possibly wondering about her own neurodivergence, and always being asked “how do you do it all?” Are you an Amy?

Explore The Perpetual Cycle of Brilliance and Burnout™ and EVA: Engage, Validate, Adapt.

What you’ll get out of it

Proof that you’re not the problem. The system is. We fix the system, not the people.
A new way to think about burnout: as a cycle you can learn to read, not a personal failure.
A behind-the-scenes look at running a business your way: voice notes instead of Monday 9am meetings, and no reports.
Permission to drop the mask, and the reassurance that you’re not the only one exhausted by systems that make no sense.

Watch on YouTube Listen on Spotify Apple Podcasts Amazon Music

Get in touch

We record on Kaurna land and pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Got a system you'd like us to take on? Record a 60-second voice note at fixthesystem.world/podcast.

My Brilliant Burnout: there's nothing brilliant about burnout, but there's everything brilliant about our brains.

FTS. We fix the system, not the people.

Who this is for

Dear Amy,

We don't know you. Not your name, not your face, not which system broke your heart most recently. But we know you're out there.

You're the one who gets asked to lead the project because you'll actually finish it, then gets called intense for caring how it turns out. You're the one who's spent more hours than you can count translating your kid's brain into language a school will actually act on. You're the one who knows, somewhere underneath it all, that the thing keeping you up at 2am figuring out a better way isn't a flaw, it's the exact same brain that makes you brilliant at your job.

You're probably close to burnout. Maybe you've already been there, more than once. You might be sober, or sober-curious, or just tired of being told a glass of wine is self care. You might have been diagnosed late, or you're starting to wonder. Either way, you've spent a long time compensating for a system that was never built with your brain in mind, and calling it normal because everyone around you seemed to manage fine.

We're Becky and Karen. We built careers, families and a business around exactly this. And now we've built a podcast, because the thing we needed most in our worst weeks wasn't a therapist or a five-step plan. It was two people who actually got it, telling the truth, laughing at the absurd bits, and reminding us we weren't the problem.

If any of this sounds like you, hi. We've been waiting for you.

Becky and Karen

The question

What's your FTS?

The thing in your life, workplace, system or world that makes you think: why is this even a thing? Tell us. You might have a question for us, something you want us to discuss on a future episode, some feedback on the podcast, or anything else. Write it or leave us a voice note. We read and listen to every single one, and we might unpack yours on the show.

The question

Everyone has an FTS. Here are a few of ours.

Portals
Why are there so many portals?
We discuss the impact that different portals for different things have on people who aren't digitally savvy.
Customs
Why is customs still a scary place?
We discuss why a system built to catch wrongdoing still treats everyone like they might be guilty.
Process
Why can't they see that this process is insane?
We discuss why processes survive long after everyone agrees they don't work.
Schools
Why does it feel like combat when we need adjustment?
We discuss why getting a reasonable adjustment for your kid can feel like a fight instead of a conversation.
Proving
Why do I have to prove to you that I need the thing that you are there to provide?
We discuss why proof of need is treated as more important than the need itself.
AI
What does AI mean for the neurodivergent brain?
We discuss what AI means for the ND brain, and why neurodivergent minds might already be built for what's coming.

No single person caused this, and someone chooses to keep it this way. We aren't here to scream into the void. We're here to call the absurd out by name, work out whether it actually needs to exist, and get it out of the way of people just trying to get on with their lives.

The FTS. ecosystem

Why is this a thing?

The question. Aimed at systems, work, parenting, healthcare, education, bureaucracy and the general admin of existing. It cuts through everything.

Does it need to be this hard?

Almost never. Most absurdity is just accumulated habit. Nobody's malicious. It's just that nobody ever asked. Habits can be unpicked.

Simplifying the absurd.

What FTS. actually does. The podcast finds the absurd; the work inside organisations cuts it out.

Who Becky and Karen are

Two women who've spent their careers living inside the very systems they're now interrogating.

Both in their late 40s. Both diagnosed neurodivergent late, both navigating early menopause, both parenting neurodivergent children, both several years sober after real, genuine relationships with alcohol in their past.

Karen Cocks

The operating model brain

Karen built a customer experience practice over thirty years in senior leadership, teams across four cities plus offshore, national accountability for product portfolios worth hundreds of millions. She knows exactly what a good process looks like, which is why the bad ones make her twitch. Diagnosed late, after health issues that took a fair bit out of her and gave something clearer back.

Why the process is broken, who it's breaking, and the shortest honest path to fixing it.

Becky Hirst

The room reader

Becky built and ran a community engagement practice working the politically sensitive edge of local government decisions, the rooms where everyone has an agenda and nobody says it out loud. Author of For the Love of Community Engagement. Also diagnosed late, after significant health issues of her own.

The one who says the thing everyone's thinking but nobody's brave enough to name, kindly and immediately.

For organisations

The podcast finds the absurd. Our work helps organisations see it.

Keynotes

"What's your FTS?" brought into the room. Funny, provocative and grounded in the very real absurdities people experience when dealing with organisations.

Customer & community insight

Sometimes you can't see the absurdity from inside the organisation. We go to your customers and communities and listen to their experience, then bring those blind spots back to you.

Culture & capability

We work with teams and leaders to build the capability to communicate clearly, listen properly, challenge assumptions and respond to the human in front of them.

Make a corporate enquiry

Goes straight to us, not some generic inbox.

Where to find us

Watch, or just listen

We're YouTube first, because sometimes you need to actually see us losing it. But we know real life doesn't always come with a screen, so we're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music too, for the run, the commute, or hiding in the walk-in robe with your noise-cancelling headphones in.

YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts Amazon Music

FTS. Dictionary

absurd

/əbˈsɜːd/ · adjective

Completely unreasonable, foolish, or ridiculous to the point of being funny or making no sense. It describes ideas, actions, or situations that go against logic, reason or common sense.

Get in touch

Got a system absurdity to talk about?

Tell us what your people are working around. We might make an episode about it, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right people to help.

Start a conversation

My Brilliant Burnout

#3 | The Bot Dance: Why Every App, Portal and Chatbot Is Wearing Us Out

In this episode

Key takeaway

Sources and references

Get in touch

#2 | “Truancy” Is Not the Word: School Can’t and Why Nobody’s Winning

In this episode

Key takeaway

Sources mentioned

Get in touch

#1 | What the FTS?! Two Burnt-Out Brains, 1,443 Swear Words & a Letter to the Prime Minister

In this episode

What you’ll get out of it

Get in touch

Dear Amy,

What's your FTS?

Everyone has an FTS. Here are a few of ours.

The FTS. ecosystem

Why is this a thing?

Does it need to be this hard?

Simplifying the absurd.

Two women who've spent their careers living inside the very systems they're now interrogating.

Karen Cocks

Becky Hirst

The podcast finds the absurd. Our work helps organisations see it.

Keynotes

Customer & community insight

Culture & capability

Watch, or just listen

FTS. Dictionary

Got a system absurdity to talk about?