Amy Leneker is an optimistic, joy-seeking, recovering workaholic—and a leadership consultant with more than 25 years of experience, including a decade in the C-suite.

Over the course of her career, she has helped more than 100,000 leaders, teams, and organizations—from Fortune 100 companies to the public sector—thrive at work through keynotes, coaching, and training centered on less stress and more joy.

A first-generation college student, Amy earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees while working full-time and later raising a family.

She has studied leadership at Yale, neuroscience through the NeuroLeadership Institute, and stress resilience at Harvard Medical School. Her work and insights have been featured in outlets such as Fast Company, Inc., and CEOWORLD Magazine.

Amy is the author of Cheers to Monday: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Lead and Live with Less Stress and More Joy (Wiley, March 24, 2026).

In her work, she helps leaders understand what real joy actually is—defining it as the intersection of meaning at work, feeling that we matter in relationships, and purpose in what we do. Key Points

• Burnout signs often overlooked

• Why work addiction gets rewarded

• The journey from stress to joy

• The importance of self-care

• Resetting work-life balance

Best Quotes 03:29 - 03:42

• "It was awful, and it was, I often say that I burnt out in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way. It was the worst, one of the worst experiences of my life."

05:32 - 05:46

• "I started my own company thinking I was gonna be a, a, a modern CEOA burnout free CEO. And two years later, I found myself in the exact same spot. So that's when the real reckoning began, which is what is driving this."

05:46 - 05:50

• "This isn't about external forces, this is about me." 23:00 - 23:23

• "The problem was me. So I, I took myself wherever I went, and it was such a, a wild awakening and not in a great way. So I had been looking at this wellness retreat for years... So I just took it. I didn't even check with my husband because I knew that anything that made me less, like I was in that moment, he was gonna say, I'm in. I'm all in."

24:30 - 24:38

• "It wasn't an external demand that was causing me so much pain, it wasn't an external demand that was making me a workaholic."

25:26 - 25:31

• "The number one shame trigger at work is the fear of irrelevance."

Being A Workaholic Can Cost You Your Life | Amy Leneker

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