Unwritten Potential

About Unwritten Potential

Science-backed ideas to cut through wellness bullsh!t and make healthy living work in the real world. For smart, sceptical people who already know plenty about health and are tired of wellness culture making it harder than it needs to be. Most health advice tells you what to do. This podcast helps you actually do it. Former queen of bad habits turned certified health coach and behaviour change specialist Noémie Mooney cuts through wellness BS with the science of how people actually change. New episodes every Friday, with solo episodes, guest interviews and deep dives. ⚡️ Subscribe at unwritten.coach/join www.unwrittenpotential.com (https://www.unwrittenpotential.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Noemie Mooney

Category

education · health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

17 Apr 2025

Latest episode

16 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

54 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   16 Oct 2026

   Why do we say “I’m fine” when we’re not?

   Why do we keep saying “I’m fine” when we’re not? Certified health coach and behaviour change specialist Noémie Mooney on the samba smile, what hiding your feelings costs you, and why admitting how you feel doesn’t mean giving up. Get the free newsletter every Tuesday: unwritten.coach/join (https://unwritten.coach/join) In Episode 50 of Unwritten with Noémie Mooney, Noémie tells the story of smiling through an earthquake on a video call in Santiago de Chile, and what it taught her about the automatic “I’m fine”. Drawing on Jane Richards and James Gross’s research on hiding emotional reactions and Brett Ford’s 2018 study of more than 1,000 people, she explains why you can accept a feeling without accepting the situation causing it, and why waiting to feel better before you act can keep you stuck. Chapters: 00:00 Smiling through an earthquake 01:21 Hello, and what’s a samba smile? 03:14 The automatic “I’m fine” 04:01 What hiding your feelings costs you 04:47 Admitting I wasn’t fine 06:16 Accept the feeling, not the situation 07:25 Why waiting to feel better keeps you stuck 08:39 Try this week’s exercise Noémie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist and certified yoga instructor, trained in design thinking at the Stanford d.school (http://d.school). She hosts Unwritten with Noémie Mooney, a weekly podcast and newsletter for smart, sceptical people who are tired of wellness BS and want a healthier life that works in the real world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com (https://www.unwrittenpotential.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Why is trying to be healthy so exhausting?

   Why does trying to be healthy feel so exhausting? Behaviour change specialist and certified health coach Noémie Mooney on wellness burnout, conflicting health advice, and how to tell which health trends are worth keeping. Get the free newsletter every Tuesday: unwritten.coach/join (https://unwritten.coach/join) In Episode 49 of Unwritten with Noémie Mooney, certified health coach and behaviour change specialist Noémie Mooney explains why trying to be healthy has started to feel like a second job, drawing on lululemon's 2024 Global Wellbeing Report, Rebekah Nagler's 2014 study on conflicting nutrition news and Lisa Fazio's 2015 research on the illusory truth effect. She introduces the Grain of SALT Test, 4 questions for deciding which health advice deserves a place in your life. In this relaunch episode, recorded in Mexico City after 10 months on the road, Noémie shares her theory: the tiring part of being healthy isn't the doing, it's the constant checking. She looks at why your brain starts believing a claim the 10th time you hear it, and how fibre turned into fibermaxxing. Chapters 00:00 When did being healthy become a second job? 00:54 Back from 10 months on the road 02:23 What happened to my routines while travelling 04:20 The tiring part isn't the doing 06:13 What conflicting health advice does to us 07:13 Why your brain believes what it hears twice 08:29 Every health trend starts with a grain of truth 10:42 What happened when I let go 11:39 The Grain of SALT Test 13:00 Find the grain, count the salt The full Grain of SALT Test: https://www.unwrittenpotential.com/p/which-health-advice-to-follow (https://www.unwrittenpotential.com/p/which-health-advice-to-follow) Noémie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist and certified yoga instructor, trained in design thinking at the Stanford d.school (http://d.school). She hosts Unwritten with Noémie Mooney, a weekly podcast and newsletter for smart, sceptical people who are tired of wellness BS and want a healthier life that works in the real world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com (https://www.unwrittenpotential.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   23 May 2026

   Why Wellness Apps Can't Fix Workplace Burnout

   In Episode 47, certified health coach Noemie Mooney explains why nearly half of workers globally are burned out and why individual wellness fixes can't solve what's structurally broken at work, drawing on BCG's 2024 burnout research, Singapore Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon's "push factors versus pull factors" framing, and the concept of ethical fading from Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004). In a 2024 survey, the Boston Consulting Group found that 48% of workers across eight countries are grappling with burnout, which means we’re well past the point of calling this an individual problem. In this episode I unpack what Singapore’s Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon recently named at the Legal Profession Symposium 2025: people aren’t leaving careers because they’re being pulled to something better, they’re being pushed out by what work has become. Favourite Line: “Helping people cope with a broken system is not the same as changing the system that is breaking them. Both things have to happen at the same time.” In This Episode * Why is workplace burnout structural rather than personal? * What is ethical fading and how does it degrade your judgement at work? * Why don’t wellness apps and resilience training actually fix burnout? * What are push factors versus pull factors when people leave their careers? * What did BCG’s 2024 burnout research find across eight countries? * Why does workplace culture stay broken even when leaders say they want change? * How do you tell the difference between coping and actually solving burnout? Timestamps 00:00 Intro 02:17 Welcome from Rio 03:20 Push factors versus pull factors 05:13 BCG and the 48% statistic 06:10 What ethical fading really means 07:53 Why wellness apps fall short 10:45 What this means for you Mentioned in This Episode * Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Opening Address at the Legal Profession Symposium 2025 (Singapore, 29 July 2025) * Ethical fading, Ann Tenbrunsel and David Messick, Social Justice Research (2004) * BCG, “Half of Workers Around the World Are Struggling with Burnout” (2024) Your Experiment for This Week Notice one workplace habit that your industry, your team, or your company treats as completely normal. Name it. Then ask yourself who that habit actually serves. Not the work, not the people, but the inherited idea of professionalism it might be propping up. You do not have to fix it. You just have to see it clearly for one week. What is one workplace habit your industry treats as normal that is quietly making everyone exhausted? Noemie x Noemie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist, certified yoga instructor, and creator of the MAKE SPACE Method™ (https://unwritten.coach/makespace). She writes Unwritten Potential, a newsletter about evidence-based wellbeing, sustainable habits, mental wellbeing, and health behaviour change for people who are done with hustle culture and wellness BS. ⚡️Join 2000+ readers getting my free, 5-min newsletter to design a life that actually feels good in 2026! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com (https://www.unwrittenpotential.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Podcast Authority Score: 22 / 100

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44

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0

YouTube

0

Engagement

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