Running 47 Tabs at Once

Last week I headed along to another brilliant evening with Gen Collective at Fort Scratchley - and I found myself driving home thinking,I probably needed that conversation more than I realised.

I’m incredibly proud to continue being a partner with Gen Collective over the past two years. I’ve watched this community create something really special. In a world that can sometimes feel transactional and rushed, Gen Collective keeps creating spaces where people can slow down, have real conversations and meet humans behind the job titles.

I went along with my long-time friend Tracy Brown - which made the night even better. There’s something lovely about sharing these experiences with people who have walked beside you through different seasons of life and work. And as always seems to happen at Gen Collective events, I also met a new person too – thanks for the conversation Stephanie Rong, so lovely to hear about all you do at the University of Newcastle. One of the things I love most is the mix of familiar faces and new conversations waiting around the corner.

This month’s event,The Wellbeing Edit: Conversations That Matter, featured Bernadette Smyth speaking about stress, nervous system regulation, overwhelm and the reality of trying to function as a human in 2026 - while our brains are effectively running 47 tabs at once (uh hum glad I’m not the only one).

What I loved about Bernadette’s presentation was that it didn’t come with the usual rah rah “become a perfect human” energy. It wasn’t all 5am club, ice baths and silence retreats.

It felt grounded. Practical. Real. Small intentional moments. Small shifts (speaking my language). Even though I have taught the 10 Degree Shift which is all about wellbeing and nervous system regulation for the past eight years, sometimes it was great to hear it from another person with a different perspective and reminded me to heed my own advice.

One of my biggest takeaways was her reminder that rest is not laziness and it isn’t “doing nothing.” Rest is creating the conditions for your system to recover. And yet I think so many of us - particularly leaders, business owners, high performers and people who care deeply - forget that.

As someone who spends a lot of time speaking about leadership, culture and stewarding healthy systems, I kept thinking how relevant this is not only for individuals - but for workplaces too. Maybe creating environments where people can genuinely regulate, recover and breathe, to have some downtime as well as the on-time… is leadership.

Huge thanks to Bernadette and the Gen Collective team for another meaningful evening.

See you at the next one.