Podcast Summary: Strangers on a Bench – Episode 72: Just Ask The Trees

Host: Tom Rosenthal
Date: January 26, 2026
Guest: Anonymous Finance Professional & Cancer Survivor

Episode Overview

This intimate and thought-provoking episode features Tom Rosenthal in conversation with an anonymous bench-dweller—an accomplished finance professional who recently paused her high-flying career after a cancer diagnosis. Their discussion unfolds across themes of burnout, forced self-reflection, healing, shifting identities, the value of slowness, and finding perspective in nature (particularly with the help of trees). The guest's journey from relentless finance executive to cancer survivor and reluctant tree conversationalist offers wisdom about societal pressures, work culture, and the challenge—and importance—of redefining success.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Mondays: From Dreaded to Cherished

• Newfound Appreciation for Mondays ([00:56])
  • Mondays have transformed from the start of a hectic workweek to a cherished day of solitude after dropping her son at school.
  • Quote: “I have never been better because I have just spent three months, like, just walking and no longer living in this crazy kind of other life that I just wasn't in flow with.” (Finance Professional, [01:47])

Professional Backstory & Toxic Work Culture

• Previous Life in Private Equity ([02:31])
  • Describes relentless 8am-midnight workdays, perpetual global travel, and the loss of social and family life.
  • The burnout was so normalized, it was difficult to recognize from within.
• On Work-Defined Identity ([03:56], [04:49])
  • Work becomes one’s entire identity, making it hard to imagine leaving or changing course.
  • Quote: “Your identity becomes your work or you think your identity is your work.” ([06:25])

Leaving the Cult of Finance

• Comparison to Cults ([05:53])
  • Institutions encourage total enmeshment, making departures feel radical or shameful—“It felt like leaving a cult.”
  • She credits a career coach for “dropping a bomb” by asking, “Why wouldn’t you just leave your job?” ([06:21])

Cancer Diagnosis as a Forced Pause

• Life Change & Gift of Perspective ([07:26])
  • Just as she left her job, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
  • Though terrifying at first, she reframes the illness: “I say to people it was the most amazing gift because it is actually exactly what I needed in that moment.” ([07:26])

Rediscovering Identity & Enough-ness

• Stripping it Back ([08:05])
  • The process revealed how little of her worth needed to be bound to professional success.
  • Quote: “We're not human doings, we're human beings...” ([08:05])
  • Meaning comes from presence, family, being—not achievement.

Healing, Nature, and Talking to Trees

• Therapy and the Pace of Trees ([09:33])
  • Her therapist advocated “watching the trees,” encouraging her to move more slowly and notice her surroundings.
  • Practicing “talking to trees” as a method for calming anxiety and letting her subconscious surface answers.
  • Quote: “Everything in the universe should be operating more at that frequency. If you watch nature, it’s kind of moving at the frequency that we should be moving at.” ([09:33])
• Benchside Rituals ([13:06])
  • Journaling and leaving voice notes for her son while sitting with a favorite resilient, slightly “dead” tree.

Money: Motivation & Re-evaluation

• Attitude Toward Wealth ([15:07], [16:01])
  • While financially successful, she insists money was not her prime motivator—worth and achievement drove her.
  • Considers finance pay “stupid money,” advocates taxing the wealthy, and actively sought workplaces with healthier cultures for her return.
• On Raising a Child With Privilege ([13:58], [36:11])
  • Focuses on helping her son avoid materialism and understand the connection between money, work, and time together.

Gender in Finance & Hopes for the Future

• Masculinity of the Industry ([17:03])
  • Became aware of how “to survive, you just take on a lot of that … slightly agro egotistical culture.”
  • Now seeks workplaces with healthier, more authentic environments and wants to model an alternative for younger women in finance.
  • Quote: “One of the things show younger women how they don’t need to give up their soul … to stay in this industry.” ([24:55])

The Dark Side of the Industry

• Story of Cocaine in Saltshakers ([22:35])
  • Shares a notorious industry anecdote to illustrate excess and normalized dysfunction.
• Working to Change the System ([23:40])
  • Set up a foundation for industry professionals to give more to charity and advocates for inside-out reform.

Returning to Work & Maintaining Change

• Guarding Her Transformation ([17:03], [38:08])
  • Emphasizes the importance of nature, meditation, breathwork, and staying true to her values as she re-enters finance.
  • Recognizes the challenge of returning to the same environment as a changed person.

Beautiful Observations & Poetic Endnote

• Finding Beauty in Slowness ([42:30])
  • Describes noticing “the light in the water, spider webs after rain”—details previously overlooked.
  • “The more I slow down, the more I actually often see.”
• Concludes intent “to go forward in a really slow way and just be.” ([43:32])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s kind of like how you cook frogs... you slowly, slowly turn up the temperature ... you lose your sense of normal.”
  – Finance Professional, on not realizing her own burnout ([04:49])

• “Your identity becomes your work or you think your identity is your work.”
  – Finance Professional ([06:25])

• “All those things that you actually kind of knew in your gut last year you needed to slow down. The universe was just making sure you really got the lesson.”
  – Finance Professional ([06:25])

• “We’re not human doings, we’re human beings.”
  – Finance Professional ([08:05])

• “If you watch nature, it’s kind of moving at the frequency that we should be moving at.”
  – Finance Professional ([09:33])

• “Actually what’s important is … maybe one step of those is the key step. The step that you took to go towards that tree…”
  – Tom Rosenthal ([12:04])

• “Most women will actually choose to then go up a bit, like, when they're having reconstruction. For me … it was important … that I go back to being the same size that I was.”
  – Finance Professional, on breast reconstruction ([41:36])

• “The more I slow down, the more I actually often see.”
  – Finance Professional ([42:30])

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:56 | Newfound love for Mondays and park solitude | | 01:22 | Cancer diagnosis and its timing with career pause | | 02:31 | Description of previous work life and private equity | | 04:49 | Burnout, perspective through career coaching, “cooking frogs” analogy | | 05:53 | Leaving “cult-like” jobs: Goldman's example | | 06:21 | The effect of a life coach and catalyst to quit | | 07:26 | Cancer diagnosis as a gift, redefining life’s pace | | 08:05 | Identity beyond work: “We’re not human doings, we’re human beings.” | | 09:33 | Talking to trees: Learning from nature’s pace | | 13:06 | Journaling and reflective practices with a favorite tree | | 15:07 | Money, motivation, and views about taxation in finance | | 17:03 | Gender, masculine culture, and hopes for change in finance | | 22:35 | “Cocaine in the saltshaker”—dark, normalized dysfunction | | 24:55 | Desire to help young women in finance retain integrity | | 26:38 | Applying tree-speed wisdom to work and education | | 33:40 | What a private equity finance executive actually does—from pitching to analyzing companies | | 34:14 | Top three tips for persuading someone to part with money | | 41:04 | Talking about breast cancer surgery and recovery | | 42:30 | Most beautiful thing noticed on a walk recently: light, spider webs | | 43:32 | Closing reflections: plans to remain slow and present |

Final Reflections

This conversation traced the arc of a high achiever’s reckoning—with illness, identity, and the unsustainable cadence of modern capitalist work. By embracing vulnerability and nature (literally talking to and learning from trees), the guest found new bearings, a renewed sense of self-worth separate from achievements, and the courage to return to her industry on new terms. The episode’s title—Just Ask The Trees—is both literal and metaphorical: an invitation to slow down, question the systems we inhabit, and remember we’re allowed to simply be.

Memorable Closing Quote

“I’m gonna go off, be slow, finishing my walk, and then try and bring that out of the heath into my life as well, and just go forward in a really slow way and just be.”
— Finance Professional ([43:32])

(Conversation ends with poetic reflections and the promise of holding onto that new-found rhythm.)