Name it
Say the thing out loud. The process everyone's been tolerating. Name it, and it stops being 'just how things are' and becomes something you can actually deal with.
The podcast
My Brilliant Burnout
with your high-achieving neurodivergent best friends, Becky and Karen
A Fix The Systems podcast. Simplifying the absurd, one "why is this a thing?" at a time.
Women of our vintage
My Brilliant Burnout is the FTS podcast for high-achieving neurodivergent women running on brilliance and fumes in equal measure. Hosted by best friends Becky and Karen, both diagnosed late, both navigating early menopause, both years sober after real relationships with alcohol, each episode takes one absurd thing keeping women exhausted, at work, at home, in the systems around them, and asks why it's a thing. Real talk, real laughs, and the occasional reminder that the brilliance was never the problem.
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
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.
How every episode works
Four steps from absurdity to action.
Question it
Why is this a thing? Who signed off on it? What's it solving? The answer is usually: nobody knows, and nothing. So why are we still doing it?
Simplify it
The boring, unglamorous fixes that take the absurd out of the way. Less ceremony, less friction, less of everyone's life wasted on nonsense.
Laugh at it
Because most of this is genuinely, spectacularly ridiculous. Laughing about it with someone who gets it makes the difference between coping and combusting.
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 decades 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 a health journey 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, through a significant personal health journey of her own.
The one who says the thing everyone's thinking but nobody's brave enough to name, kindly and immediately.
My Brilliant Burnout
The first three episodes.
Why do the most capable women you know keep burning out?
The one where we tell you why we're here at all, two neurodivergent, perimenopausal, high-achieving women who built careers, families and a business around brains the world wasn't built for.
Episode 01
Why do we have to fight this hard for our kids to get what they need at school?
Being a parent inside a school system built for a kid who doesn't exist.
Episode 02
Why does alcohol have to be the thing that helps us unwind?
We're both years sober, with real histories with wine behind us. This is the honest version of that story.
Episode 03
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.
Absurd bites
Sixty second clips of the stuff your people will recognise in the first three.
- Bite · 0:58
Why is the pre meeting a thing?
- Bite · 1:04
Why does the form ask for it twice?
- Bite · 0:47
Why is the quick sync 45 minutes?
- Bite · 1:12
Why is the org chart a rumour?
Coming soon. Each one ends the same way: it doesn't need to be this hard, and here's the fix.
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. We read every single one, we might unpack yours on the show, and we'll never use your name without asking first. Promise.
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 everywhere else too, for the run, the commute, or hiding in the walk-in robe with your noise-cancelling headphones in.
YouTubeSpotifyApple PodcastsPocket Casts
Links go live with episode one.
Join the FTS Crew
One short email when a new episode lands, plus the occasional "why is this a thing?" we couldn't keep to ourselves. Nothing else, ever. No spam, no funnels, no nonsense.
Count me inFTS 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.
contact@fixthesystems.world