What does Anne-Laure Le Cunff recommend to overcome 'bored out'?
Anne-Laure Le Cunff's solution to 'bored out' is deliberately simple: a 15-minute daily injection of novelty. As she shared on Mitch Matthews' podcast, this small, intentional dose of something new — learning a skill, spending time with someone creative, picking up a hobby, or dipping into an entrepreneurial side project — is enough to reignite a high achiever's sense of aliveness without dismantling their existing career or life.
The elegance of Le Cunff's framework is that it requires no dramatic life overhaul. The prescription isn't to quit a job, pivot a career, or pursue a passion full-time. It's a micro-intervention: fifteen minutes of genuine novelty, repeated consistently. That novelty could look like many things — a new subject to study, a conversation with someone who energizes you, a creative hobby that has nothing to do with your professional identity, or the early steps of an entrepreneurial adventure kept deliberately small and low-stakes. The goal is stimulation, not disruption.
Mitch Matthews, who has spent over 25 years coaching high-capacity professionals, has seen this pattern play out in his own life and in his clients'. The pull toward something new on the side — before it becomes anything serious — is often the earliest signal that 'bored out' has set in. His own career pivot from pharmaceutical sales into coaching began exactly that way: a small exploration alongside an existing job, not a leap into the void. You can hear the full conversation, including how Matthews turned that exploration into a full-time business in five months, on Listenly.
"Learn from, don't compare to."
— Mitch MatthewsAbout Mitch Matthews
Mitch Matthews began his professional life in pharmaceutical sales — a stable, well-paying career that eventually led to a promotion into a role that simply wasn't a fit. That friction, rather than leading to resignation, pushed him to explore coaching and speaking on the side. He built his practice incrementally alongside his day job, then launched full-time, surpassing his pharmaceutical salary within five months. That personal experience — navigating a 'bored out' moment without blowing up a stable life — is foundational to the advice he now gives others.
Over the past 25 years, Matthews has coached executives, entrepreneurs, emerging leaders, and thousands of coaches and speakers. He hosts the Dream Think Do podcast and created the Authority Bridge, a program specifically designed to help high-capacity professionals add a coaching or speaking income stream without disrupting their existing careers. His credibility on the topic of 'bored out' and novelty as a remedy isn't theoretical: he built an entire professional identity around the idea that a small side exploration, taken seriously, can change everything.
See also
Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a French neuroscientist and former Google employee, identified that high achievers often experience symptoms identical to burnout — exhaustion, disengagement, low motivation — but the root cause is chronic understimulation rather than overload.
Mitch Matthews was able to build his coaching and speaking business on the side of his pharmaceutical job and launch it full-time, surpassing his previous pharmaceutical salary within just five months.
After being promoted into a bad-fit job in the pharmaceutical industry, Mitch's wife placed a magazine article in front of him featuring a sidebar about an emerging field called life coaching — and that moment set him on his current path.