Better Than This

About Better Than This

Hey there, overachiever. You okay? Exhausted? Busy? Overwhelmed? Yeah, that tracks. And it's not because you're doing something wrong. It's because you've been set up to fail. At work, at home — we've all been given an outdated playbook for what's expected of us, and it's making us miserable. Instead of trying another productivity hack that doesn't work (and then beating yourself up when it doesn't), it's time to stop behaving and write a new playbook entirely. That's where Unbehaved comes in. It's a show that calls BS on business-as-usual to help you feel a little less broken — with loads of research, hilariously real stories, and a hearty dose of DGAF. Hosted by Meghan French Dunbar — recovering CEO, best-selling author of This Isn't Working, and business anthropologist — it's kinda like if your funniest friend, your therapist, and a researcher who's interviewed over 1,000 leaders walked into a bar...and started a podcast. Sometimes that means a conversation with a pioneering leader who refused to follow the status quo. Sometimes it's Meghan going deep on the research, stories, and ideas the old playbook doesn't want you to hear. This show will make you think differently, feel a bit less alone, and give you the permission slip to stop following rules that were never built for you and help you realize that you were never the problem.

Publisher

Meghan French Dunbar

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

16 Apr 2025

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 24 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Drowning In Guilt? Here's How To Let It Go With Psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Reid

   You know all that guilt you feel? For everything from not completing your to-do list to even just sitting down for five minutes to rest. Turns out it's entirely unnecessary and unhealthy — for you and those around you. This week, board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Reid — author of Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations and host of A Mind of Her Own — joins Meghan to break down why so many women feel so much guilt and how she has taught hundreds of her patients to let it all go. Last episode, Cindy Gallop told us to channel our red-hot rage. This week, we're naming the other emotion women are quietly drowning in. The one that whispers you're not doing enough even when we know we're doing too much. Dr. Reid walks us through the Guilt Equation (guilt = expectations − perceived reality), the Four Furies that generate most women's guilt, the Hypercompetence Trap that keeps high-performing women stuck doing more while everyone else does less, and the SPEAK Framework — her five-step clinical tool for interrupting the spiral in real time. Also inside: Meghan's velociraptor-at-Christmas confession, the Pinterest-fail reframe for the holidays, the evolutionary reframe that will change how you think about ambition, and the simplest permission slip of the season. WHAT WE COVER - Why "I'm never doing enough" is the single most common sentence Dr. Reid hears from brilliant, high-achieving women - How COVID exposed the clinical gap that led her to write Guilt Free — there was no literature on what she was seeing - The "reflected appraisals" concept — why we often feel about ourselves what the important people in our childhoods felt about us - Winnicott's "good enough mother" concept and why it's radical: your kids thrive when you let them experience disappointment - THE GUILT EQUATION: Guilt = Our expectations of ourselves − our perceived reality - THE FOUR FURIES — the four systemic expectations generating most women's guilt - The ugly fifth layer: doing it all without ever showing exhaustion - Why men's guilt often comes out as anger — the gender-split landmark moment - The social coding problem: men who succeed with a wife at home or a nanny don't get questioned. Women are questioned either way. - The quote that reframes the whole conversation: "You can't push back against a shadow." - THE HYPERCOMPETENCE TRAP: "When we carry constant guilt, we do more. And others pull back and say, 'awesome, she's a superwoman.'" - Why over-doing isn't a gift to the people around you — it's a ceiling on what they're allowed to become - Meghan's velociraptor Christmas story and the "quality of being over quantity of doing" reframe - Why holidays hit all four furies at once - The 70% stat: a manager has as much impact on your mental health as your spouse - The evolutionary reframe: "Ambition and motherhood went hand in hand because we needed high status to keep our kids alive" - Meghan's joy trip + the "look at what you're modeling for your daughter" moment - Age-appropriate transparency with kids about managing guilt (and her husband's wisdom: "The boys need to know you have limits") - THE SPEAK FRAMEWORK — Dr. Reid's five-step clinical tool: - S — Show up (I'm valuable enough) - P — Pay attention (notice the internal voice) - E — Examine (plug into the guilt equation) - A — Action (cognitive restructuring, delegation, boundaries) - K — Keep going (daily practice) - The rough draft → neutral → positive reframe for interrupting critical self-talk - The permission slip: "Permission to be goofy. Permission to laugh at yourself. Permission to not take yourself so seriously." ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Jennifer Reid is a board-certified psychiatrist, author of Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations (Penguin Life, 2026), and host of the A Mind of Her Own podcast. She holds clinical faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and Cooper Hospital, and trained at Columbia and UCL

2. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Your "Safe" Job Isn't Safe — What Sticking It Out Is Really Costing You with Cindy Gallop

   Cindy Gallop — founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, former chairman of BBH New York — joins Meghan French Dunbar on Unbehaved to unpack why the ”safe” job is destroying you drop by drop, why insecure men are the one thing holding women back, and the one microaction that will change your life.

3. 

   22 Sept 2026

   You're Not Boring — Why We're Taught Our Stories Don't Matter with Francesca Donner

   Is there a voice in your head telling you that your story isn't interesting, that your idea isn't good enough, or that everyone else is somehow doing it better? Then this is the episode you've been waiting for. You'll meet Francesca Donner, who spent two decades in the biggest newsrooms in the country — The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, editing the paper's pioneering In Her Words newsletter — watching women's stories get buried on page 50 of the paper. Two years ago, Francesa got fed up with the lack of women's stories in the news and launched her own media company, The Persistent, with zero business background. And promptly won two Webbys. In this conversation, Francesca and Unbehaved host Meghan French Dunbar unpack why so many of us have been conditioned to believe our stories don't matter. Francesca also tells the story of the "failed" mug email that became her favorite permission slip, why she says clarity only ever comes in motion, and the game-changing practice she gave herself this year for silencing the negative talk that runs in every high-achieving woman's head. WHAT WE COVER The DNA of the newsroom — why women's stories get buried, and why it happens everywhere, not just in journalism The Carol Hymowitz mentor moment that changed how Francesca reads every publication Why "until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it" is Francesca's foundational insight — and how it applies to every meeting you sit in The 75% stat: men are quoted as experts in news stories about three-quarters of the time The mug email: 650 of Francesca's most engaged subscribers, a 97% open rate, and zero paid conversions — and why she's glad she sent it anyway Why the New York Times shutting down In Her Words was the door that opened The Persistent Launching a company with zero business background — and why muddling through is a legitimate strategy The moment her team told her "people actually want to hear from you" — and the negative loop every high-achieving woman recognizes The editor's-note thumbprint: how Francesca found her own voice inside a publication that isn't supposed to be about her The Webbys reveal: two days of celebration if you win, two weeks of spiraling if you lose — and what to do about that imbalance Amina AlTai's "clarity comes in motion" — and why Francesca uses it as her North Star ABOUT THE GUEST Francesca Donner is the founder and editor of The Persistent. She has worked in newsrooms including The New York Times, where she was the gender director and the editor of In Her Words, and The Wall Street Journal, where she was a deputy editor. The Persistent won two Webby Awards for Independent Publisher — the People's Voice Award and the judge-selected award — in 2026. Find her at https://www.thepersistent.com/ Subscribe. Read. Share. And put your money where your values are. PULL QUOTES "We don't see our stories on the front page of XYZ newspaper, because our stories aren't told, because they're relegated to page 50 of the paper, because they're told on the second day, because they're told as an afterthought or a sidebar. That is why. We can't believe that we've got a story to tell because we're so rarely in the center of the story." — Francesca Donner "Until you have it pointed out, you tend not to notice it. Until you have pointed out the fact that men are quoted as experts in news stories about 75% of the time." — Francesca Donner "I'm so boring. Nobody wants to hear from me. I'm da da da da da da. Right? And around and around in circles." — Francesca Donner, on the voice in her head when her team asked her to start telling her story "That particular email had a 97% open rate. And do you know how many people upgraded to paid? Zero. Zero. Absolutely not one person." — Francesca Donner, on the now-legendary mug email "Everything is a stepping stone. So many things are mistakes — but mistakes are data." — Francesca Donner "If we had not won these awards — if we'd been only a finalist, or h

Inside a recent episode

You Can Stop Apologizing Now — Refusing to Dim Your Light with Kirsten Ludwig

Published 8 Sept 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] And then they get to raise their hand and say, yeah, I want to work on that particular project versus, hey, we're working on a Victoria's Secret project, but a Nike project came in. Hey, Joe, you're sitting around in the chair back there and you're running hours. Can you jump on this project? Like it feels much different, much more intentional, much more inspired. So that's what we do now. And also gives people flexibility to be able to say yes to the things that they actually want to work on or tone down the amount of work they're doing if they need things like caregiving or other things in their life are needing their attention. […]

Who has been a guest on Better Than This

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Vicki Saunders
• Diana Propper de Callejon
• Stephanie Nadi Olson
• Alison Bailey Vercruysse
• Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

18 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 18 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

16

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

51

Contact Better Than This

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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