Beth Kaplan on Trauma, Belonging & Braving the Workplace | PhD Author’s Bold Story of Healing
The Mike Litton Experience
Mike Litton
5.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if the key to transforming your career, identity, and purpose begins with one simple truth—you must first belong to yourself?
In this powerful episode of The Mike Litton Experience, Mike sits down with Dr. Beth Kaplan, author of Braving the Workplace: Belonging at the Breaking Point. From surviving abuse in her childhood to earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, Beth unpacks the invisible weight of trauma we carry into our professional lives—and how we can rise beyond it.
This episode is raw, real, and packed with wisdom for anyone struggling with self-worth, imposter syndrome, toxic workplaces, or simply trying to fit in. Beth’s story is a masterclass in resilience, authenticity, and rewriting the narrative others tried to define for her.
Subscribe now and don’t miss inspiring stories like this. Catch The Mike Litton Experience on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know, I think it's really easy for kids to judge their parents. And I try to have a little |
| 0:04.7 | empathy for her because it was just hard. She had a sick husband. She tried to make ends meet |
| 0:11.2 | any way she could. In fact, she developed a phenomenal work ethic with my sister and I. It was just |
| 0:16.8 | abusive. If you are sacrificing any part of yourself to belong that's fitting in that really is |
| 0:23.7 | and the thing is it's not healthy no it's not it's not healthy and this is the thing a lot of |
| 0:30.3 | people say to me well they'll ask me when we know it becomes unhealthy when you start to mentally hit it and then it starts to become physical, that's your first |
| 0:41.0 | sign. |
| 0:42.2 | Okay. |
| 0:42.5 | Was I going to let the fear rule me or was I going to take it back? |
| 0:45.7 | And that's what I needed to do. |
| 0:47.0 | That's what I did. |
| 0:47.5 | You're going to validate her. |
| 0:49.4 | That's right. |
| 0:50.5 | Right? |
| 0:50.9 | And what she said. |
| 0:52.5 | Or were you going to create a different narrative? |
| 0:56.4 | Yes, because here's the truth of it. You do have the ability to take back your narrative. |
| 1:02.7 | And that's what makes me work a little different. |
| 1:05.3 | Ooh, I love that. Yes. Say that again. I love that. |
| 1:09.3 | You cannot belong to something greater than yourself until you learn to belong to yourself. |
| 1:13.7 | I love that. |
| 1:15.2 | Wow. |
... |
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