Messy & Magnificent with Karlee Fain · 2026-04-19 · 30 min
Click to Send Karlee a Text - We Want To Hear Your Thoughts About This Episode You've walked into a room and felt it before you could name it. Something's off. The air is thicker than it should be. The conversation is polite, but doesn’t feel authentic. And without anyone saying a word, you've quietly shifted yourself to match the temperature. This isn't coincidence. It's contagion. And most of us are both affected by it and contributing to it, often without realizing it. This week, Karlee shares the third installment of an ongoing series on the unseen forces inside organizations. Drawing on research from social and organizational psychology, Karlee explores how emotional tone travels - quickly and largely unconsciously - and how the person with the most influence in a room often becomes the thermostat for everyone else in it. In this episode, you’ll learn how emotional climates form beneath the surface of even high-functioning teams. You’ll discover why the same question can either unlock your best thinking or shut it down entirely depending on who's asking, and what the difference between reactive and regulated leadership actually looks like in practice.
The Art of Not Carrying It All, Part 1 | Future Fear, Negativity Bias, and the Practice of "What Is Also True"39 / 100Am I Overreacting? | Emotional Labor, Immature Systems, and Reclaiming Your RealityPopular Isolation | When Everyone Needs You and Nobody Really Knows YouReady Before the Room | What to Do When the Change You Want Is Too SlowThe Real Meeting Happens After the Meeting | Adjacent Talking and Why Groups Avoid What Matters