Dr. Yasmene Mumby on taking off the executive mask

What this conversation is about

Dr. Yasmene Mumby is an education leader who now advises purpose-driven leaders on leading sustainably. By her late 20s she had worked herself into the ground. Then, while surfing in Costa Rica, a blood clot suddenly took the sight in her left eye. She describes rebuilding herself "from the ground up" and the work she does now: helping leaders who feel stretched thin stop producing from force and start creating from ease.

Glenn shares his own reckoning, the day he admitted he was a workaholic, and together they name the pattern behind so much of today's burnout. People slowly drift toward someone else's picture of who they should be until they give themselves permission to come back to who they are.

The edit

Glenn Llopis teaches that most people don't lose themselves; they edit themselves. Dr. Mumby's edit started with one sentence from a mentor, a belief she absorbed and lived by:

"I remember one of my mentors said to me, and I took on their words, trust comes from production." — Dr. Yasmene Mumby · 00:01:18

She sees the same edit in the leaders she advises. They feel they must perform a "vague way of being an executive" to get ahead:

"It's this misalignment between the core of who we are and us moving through life and seeing what other people show that they care about. And us slowly drifting without purpose towards this vision that other people have of who we are." — Dr. Yasmene Mumby · 00:19:04

How she reclaimed herself

"I have rebuilt myself from the ground up, pile of rubble and ash, many times over. I know from experience what sacrificing my own vitality for others' expectations can do." — Dr. Yasmene Mumby · 00:01:18

"The lesson is to honor what you need to care for yourself so that you can live a day longer... Because work will always be there. You might not be." — Dr. Yasmene Mumby · 00:09:12

Glenn describes his own turn the same way: the question stopped being how to care less or disconnect.

"How do I care less? I need to care more about myself. How do I disconnect? I need to connect more with myself." — Glenn Llopis · 00:12:49

What leaders and organizations can take from it

Dr. Mumby argues the post-pandemic workplace needs a different kind of leader:

"We've seen that we need a new kind of leader. There's a paradigm shift, and we cannot continue the way we have been standardized and operationalized to continue leading anymore." — Dr. Yasmene Mumby · 00:10:15

• Burnout is often an identity problem, not just a workload problem. Leaders wear out from performing a role, not only from the hours.
• Inherited rules deserve a second look. "Trust comes from production" sounded like wisdom until it cost her health.
• Permission starts with yourself. Waiting for someone else to approve the real you keeps the mask on.

You didn't lose yourself. You edited yourself. If Dr. Mumby's story sounds familiar, you may be facing what Glenn calls the Conviction Crisis: the moment the leader you have been performing no longer fits the person you are.

"To those who are watching this and listening and you're feeling stuck, I invite you to receive permission from yourself to be who you were born to be and not anything else." — Dr. Yasmene Mumby · 00:20:43

How this conversation connects to Glenn's methodology

Glenn's body of work comes down to one idea: without agency and without knowing the rooms where you belong, you can't have the conviction to reinvent yourself on purpose, or the strong identity that guides how you live and lead. Dr. Mumby's story shows every step.

• Agency (the Individual). She handed her agency to a mentor's rule, "trust comes from production," until her health forced her to take it back and give herself permission.
• The rooms (the Environment). She describes leaders performing for rooms that reward a "vague way of being an executive," and workplaces still leading the "standardized and operationalized" way.
• Conviction and reinvention on purpose. She rebuilt herself "from the ground up," by choice, many times over.
• Identity that guides how she lives and leads. She now leads from ease instead of force, and helps other leaders do the same.

See the body of work behind the method →