Interview Summary

In this interview with Kim Tasso, a marketing consultant and registered psychotherapist, she explores the causes and management of stress within the marketing profession. Tasso identified marketing as a particularly stressful field due to heavy workloads, constant change, pressure for results, and a lack of professional recognition.

The conversation covered how to identify unhealthy stress levels, noting that perception and resilience were highly individual. Tasso introduced the "stress bucket" analogy as a tool for self-management. The discussion also addressed the role of leadership in creating psychologically safe environments, the negative impact of remote work on social connection and resilience-building, especially for younger professionals, and provided actionable advice for individuals and teams on seeking support and fostering a healthier work culture.

 

Key Points

  • Marketing was identified as an increasingly stressful profession due to factors like heavy workloads, pressure to achieve more with less, the rapid introduction of AI and new platforms, and a general lack of professional respect compared to other fields.
  • Stress was described as a subjective experience, with individual resilience varying based on personality, upbringing, and social support systems. Tasso warned that some high-achieving, perfectionist individuals were "overgood" at managing stress and often missed warning signs until they reached a breaking point.
  • The key warning signs of excessive stress included feeling overwhelmed, fearing burnout, changes in sleep or eating patterns, and emotional dysregulation like irritability or withdrawal.
  • The concept of the "stress bucket" was introduced as a model for understanding stress management: stressors fill the bucket, while coping mechanisms (like social connection, exercise, learning, giving, and mindfulness) helped to empty it.
  • Leadership played a critical role in workplace culture. Leaders who demonstrated vulnerability and set healthy boundaries were said to foster psychological safety, whereas "invulnerable superhero" leaders created pressure for others to conform to unhealthy work practices.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote work were highlighted as having negatively impacted the development of resilience, particularly for younger workers who missed out on informal learning and crucial social connections in an office environment.

 

Interview Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

 

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:00):
Hello and welcome. This week we are looking at stress management and why marketing can be a particularlysStressful profession.

Kim Tasso (00:07):
Managing your own stress, some people will have a small bucket, some people will have a very big bucket. Some people will have a lot of stress going in. Some people perhaps not so much, but we all need those levers, if you like, to reduce stress.

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:22):
I'm delighted to welcome Kim Tasso, marketing and business consultant, Cambridge Marketing College tutor, and also a registered  psychotherapist. Shall we start with why you think marketing is particularly stressful?

Kim Tasso (00:36):
Yeah. Well, having spent many decades running teams and being a marketing and business development consultant, I think the nature of the role is particularly stress inducing and that accelerates as marketing moves forward and AI is introduced and there's greater uncertainty and teams are being restructured. But I mean, generally in marketing, we are heavy workload oriented. We're always being pressed to achieve more and better with less. We can be quite fearful, I think, of negative repercussions and issues. It's a demanding work environment generally. And sometimes the feedback can be a bit brutal and it's that constant change we have to cope with.

Kiran Kapur (host) (01:23):
Yes, brutal feedback. And it's also one of those professions where I know you work a lot with professional services. Very few people try and tell a lawyer how to do their job because they assume they don't understand it. But in marketing, everybody's got an opinion.

Kim Tasso (01:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody thinks they can do marketing. It's easy, right? It's just a bit of advertising and a bit of design. So yeah, everybody thinks they can do it and they only see the operational side and the outputs rather than the kind of strategic side and the planning and all the stuff that goes on in the back room. So yeah, it can be hard with not having quite the professional recognition we deserve.

Kiran Kapur (host) (01:59):
And do you think it's getting more stressful? I mean, you and I have both been in marketing for a while. Do you feel that it's getting more stressful?

Kim Tasso (02:06):
Absolutely. I mean, the whole kind of data piece and increasing pressures to measure everything and achieve incremental and significant changes, the introduction of new practises, new platforms, new channels. The range of roles is changing. Some are going, some new ones are created, that constant pressure to adopt artificial intelligence and new practises. And again, we're always short of resources to do the job we need to do.

Kiran Kapur (host) (02:39):
And I think there's always a sense that if the sales aren't coming in, it's because marketing haven't done their job properly. But if the sales are coming in, it's because the company's brilliant. It's never marketing that's achieved.

Kim Tasso (02:53):
All the blame and none of the glory. Yeah, absolutely.

Kiran Kapur (host) (02:55):
Okay. So you've been a marketing and business consultant before you did psychotherapy. What made you decide to do your psychotherapy side?

Kim Tasso (03:05):
Okay. Well, my first degree a thousand years ago was in psychology and I always harboured a passion to become a psychotherapist, but I got involved in the world of commerce and into a marketing career originally in tech sector, and then many years with professional services. So my life became marketing and business development, which I adore. It's a fantastic career, but that itch wouldn't go away. So I think it was back in 2014, I thought, right, I'm going to start my training as a psychotherapist in addition to having a family and running the full-time job. And then I did a couple of years training then. Then I took a break because of work pressures, stress, everything else. And then I came back to it just after COVID and finally qualified a few years ago and set up a practise, which I operate from counselling rooms in London.

(03:58):
And I also do some here in Kent and online therapy as well. So I still run a marketing consultancy and a psychotherapy practise, two professions.

Kiran Kapur (host) (04:10):
Yes, you are the original portfolio career. And it is amazing that you do balance both of those. So let's talk a little bit about these stress levels. We've both agreed that marketing is stressful and is getting more stressful. And I think yes, it always has been stressful. How do you know when stress is no longer healthy?

Kim Tasso (04:34):
Okay. Well, it's really good because it's everybody's perception of stress. And we have to say at the outset that there isn't a kind of agreed, measurable, objective stress level because it's how each of us perceives and manages stress. And we're all very different. So certain personality types are better at managing with stress. There are people with certain backgrounds and their family upbringing, which will be better or not so good at managing stress. Some will be overgood at managing stress and those are at danger because they don't realise when it's becoming a problem. But again, it's how we perceive it and we need to know what the warning signs are. But again, if we look at some of the data that we've seen, Marketing Week did a survey in 2025 of over three and a half thousand marketers, and it was nearly 60% that said they felt overwhelmed in the last year.

(05:41):
So I think feeling overwhelmed is one thing. And then the Charter Institute of Marketing had done a study in 2024 and there, I think again, it was over 55% or so of marketers said they feared burning out. So I think those are the warning signs, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like you're burning out. Again, stress is a threat fear response. So if you are feeling kind of shaky, if you feel you're not thinking clearly, you're not sleeping well, you're not eating well, you're generally feeling a bit grumpy and not as calm and as emotionally controlled as you can. Those would be some of the warning signs. But again, some people will just not notice them. Others are more emotionally aware and will recognise where things are getting serious.

Kiran Kapur (host) (06:35):
So overwhelm, is that something that different people experience in different ways? Is my experience of overwhelmed the same as yours or somebody else's?

Kim Tasso (06:46):
No, because we all have, I say, a different level of resilience and your resilience is built up through a number of things, partly your upbringing, partly your personality. So we have kind of physical resilience.Are you physically healthy eating enough, getting enough exercise? Are you psychologically resilient? Do you know how to keep yourself calm, how to have a break, to generally look after yourself? And there's also a huge contribution in terms of your sort of social resilience. If you've got good connections, good social connections, good family connections, friends, the kind of people around you. I mean, connection is one of the key kind of tools we use to prevent mental health problems. But of course, increasingly, we work remotely and we lose a lot of that kind of social connection and team camaraderie. So that can be a problem. So resilience, we all have a different level of resilience.

(07:51):
And what might seem like a very stressful environment for one person might be the optimum operating environment for someone else. We also have some people and some personalities might be quite perfectionist or very stoic and they will just keep going literally until they break. They just do not realise that there are danger levels of stress and burnout and so on. So yeah, it's very individual. And again, if you're managing a team, you might have some that cope really well in a high stress, high pressure environment, and others who just do not cope as well in that environment. So it's very individual.

Kiran Kapur (host) (08:33):
That's quite interesting. I want to come back a little bit more to the people that are being overgood and some of the warning signs, but I also want to explore the team side because when you've got a team, if you've got people who thrive in a high stress environment in your team and those that really don't, they both have skills to bring, but you can have a level of resentment from those that are managing in a high stress environment, just looking at the other ones going, "Well, stop being so snowflake, you just get on with it.

Kim Tasso (09:02):
Yeah

Kiran Kapur (host) (09:02):
And managing that is actually quite difficult.

Kim Tasso (09:06):
Yeah. And I think that's a big piece around education and mental health awareness that just because you've got some people in the team who are really happy in that very high pressurised stress. In fact, those are the ones who suffer if it's not busy and stressful enough. And again, as a psychotherapist, people who are always busy, always on, always running at 150%, for me, that's a bit of a warning sign, that toxic performance, toxic achievers we can call them. Yeah. So when you're managing a team like that and you've got some people who perhaps aren't, you've got to be very aware of the ideal environments and the ideal kind of workloads and the ideal way of managing their workload so that they can work together. And we don't have resentments with people who are perceived as overperforming and those who are perceived as underperforming. We have their productivity measures and their output measures according to their role and their skills and what they're being asked to do.

Kiran Kapur (host) (10:11):
That's quite interesting. So actually you would manage it by using measurement because that's demonstrable as opposed to, no, no, leave so- and-so because they're a bit overwhelmed today, which might be another way of managing it.

Kim Tasso (10:22):
A good team would recognise that and good teams do. Good teams can see when members are kind of struggling or if they've got stuff  that's going on outside of work, because if you've got family commitments or you've got a personal illness or you've got some awful situation in your life, because we always have difficult life events going on, divorce, moving house, kids starting school, all those sorts of things. So a good team will be tuned in to not just what's going on in the work environment, but what's going on for that person outside of work that may impair temporarily their performance and they need some minor adjustments for a short while until they're back up to speed.

Kiran Kapur (host) (11:04):
So I want to come back to your warning signs, and I particularly want to come back to the idea of people being overly good. And I thought that was quite interesting. So these are people that are naturally resilient, but don't spot the warning signs. Would that be the case?

Kim Tasso (11:18):
Yeah. Well, I think if you look at people who are perfectionists, and we have a lot of those in the professions, those are the people who are trying to deliver 120% all the time. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes that's down to how they feel about themselves and kind of a low self-esteem. So they feel they've constantly got to be proving themselves to achieve external validation in order to feel okay because inside they sometimes do not feel they are good enough or performing enough. And so they will drive themselves to extraordinary levels. And of course, that's the kind of typical profile of those who do end up with the burnout and the breakdown scenario because they just push themselves too hard. Those in some respects are really hard people to manage because they are very high performance, very high output, very high input, but when they break, it's really significant.

(12:22):
Whereas other people, it might be easier to spot the signs that they are looking a bit paler, bit downbeat, a bit more withdrawn. You might see some absenteeism, you may see less contribution in meetings, less sharing of opinions. So again, sometimes those ones who are the really high performers, they can suddenly hit a war in effect.

Kiran Kapur (host) (12:48):
And of course, I mean, the way that many organisations are structured, it's those high achievers that do very well. They get the validation, they get the promotions, they get the recognition. And we often see those as being the pinnacle. So when they do have a problem, it's more impactful.

Kim Tasso (13:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And I say, and I had a situation with one of my therapy clients recently who working for a really successful, excellent leader in one organisation was getting very stressed, no time between meetings, extra long hours, really, really under pressure. And this leader moved to another organisation and said, "Oh, you should come to this other organisation. It's a much calmer and more manageable environment and much less stressful." So the person moved across, but then got into the same problems because it wasn't the environment and the organisational culture that was creating that really stressful environment. It was the boss who their way of working, they'd kind of exported to the new organisation and created a kind of micro stressful environment in otherwise good organisational culture. But there are some organisations where that culture is very harmful because it does expect people to do way more than is sensible.

(14:16):
So sometimes you've got to think, is it the team or that particular division or is it the organisation overall where people are expected to overperform? So you have to take a lens. Is it just our team or is it the organisation generally where the prevailing kind of cultures of we have to be invulnerable again, do your leaders show that it's too much? Do your leaders demonstrate that there are times where we have to say that's enough or this is a hard boundary. And if leaders lead by example with having boundaries and having limits and showing their own vulnerabilities, then other people in the organisation will do the same. Whereas if your leadership team are the kind of invulnerable superheroes who never show a sign of weakness, then everyone feels they have to follow that role model and that example. So as a manager, as a leader, you have quite a big responsibility to demonstrate good work practises and to show and demonstrate that you are considering your own physical and mental health as well as the people for whom you're responsible.

Kiran Kapur (host) (15:29):
It's a very, very good point and a very interesting point. So what I want to do is look at what happens at the really stressy end and then come back to how you can prevent yourself becoming that. But we've talked about overwhelm, we've talked about warning signs. You've mentioned breakdown. What does that look like?

Kim Tasso (15:49):
Again, it really varies. If you think about when someone is in a high threat situation, you will see physical changes, you will see their breathing change, you will see that their concentration isn't as good, you will see them interacting less so that you will actually see a palor that some people can look kind of paler than normal. And again, their whole kind of nonverbal communication will become much less. They're kind of almost, again, thinking about, we think about fight, flight, freeze, fall, response. So you might see someone who's really stressed being very aggressive and very combattive, or you might see them very frozen and non-reacting and not being very assertive and being very passive. So you can see both extremes, but a kind of a functional freeze is where they're doing their job, but they're kind of not at home. You can't see their real personality, they're not relaxed, they're not enjoying life, they're not smiling, they're not interacting.

(16:59):
You can just see that in terms of how they're operating. So whether people become very aggressive or whether people come shut down. So again, people's emotional response might be quite different when they're under extreme pressure and really, really stressed. So you do have to be aware that different people respond differently to those environments and those situations.

Kiran Kapur (host) (17:23):
Okay, thank you. So let's come back from that because hopefully most people are not going to get to that level. I think you have a concept  called the stress cup.

Kim Tasso (17:31):
Yeah. One of the models we use in mental health awareness training, I say, and I've worked very closely as a trustee with one of the mind branches. And in our stress education, even for children, we would say, try to imagine you are like a bucket and there are things that go into that stress bucket that might make us feel more stressed, like faster deadlines or someone being out or something not happening that you need or whatever. So those are things that increase the level of stress in our stress bucket. And then we have certain things we can do to get stress out of the bucket. And again, thinking about mind, for example, has five methods of looking after yourself or looking after good mental health. So things like connecting with other people. So I mentioned social connection is really important. Being physically active, so taking an exercise or just a walk or any sort of exercise, learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge.

(18:38):
So that's great for education and why people should continue learning because learning new skills reduces stress. Giving to others is also a good way to reduce stress. So that's why volunteering and kind of charitable activity you do is really good. And again, also the kind of idea of mindfulness and being very present in the moment. So rather than worrying about yesterday or thinking about what's happening tomorrow, focusing on what's happening in the here and now, how you are feeling now, interacting with people being really focused on what they're saying and how they're saying it. So those are the five kind of markers, if you like, in the stress bucket that will reduce stress. So managing your own stress. Some people will have a small bucket and some people will have a very big bucket. Some people will have a lot of stress going in, some people perhaps not so much, but we all need those levers, if you like, to reduce stress like taking breaks, taking a walk, making sure you're properly hydrated, things like that.

(19:41):
So the idea of the stress bucket is just be aware. And if you are taking on a lot and you can feel stress levels rise, think about what you can do to reduce the stress a little bit. So the stress bucket is a fantastic concept to people kind of visualise what's going on with them, both physically and emotionally.

Kiran Kapur (host) (20:02):
And can you, as a human, actually grow your stress bucket? I mean, sometimes we're in situations where actually the stress may be work, it may be a life event, but it just comes with a level of stress. You mentioned divorce, moving house, children starting school. Is there anything you can do to grow your stress bucket or do you literally just have to empty it? 

Kim Tasso (20:19):
No. Again, we all develop more resilience as we grow older. As you say, once we learn to navigate difficult times and deal with big crises, we will kind of increase our resilience muscle. And I said, there's physical resilience. So being physically active and looking after yourself and eating properly and sleeping well, not taking in too much caffeine, things like that. There's the kind of psychological resilience of knowing that feeling confident in your abilities, knowing you've navigated past difficulties okay. So you can build that kind of psychological resilience. And again, that social resilience of having people around you and looking at a good one for resilience is not looking at, did I fail or did I succeed, but thinking, yes, we achieved the targets, but I also learned a lot. So rather than looking at things as an era, looking at things as a learning experience.

(21:18):
So there's a lot we can do. And again, resilience will usually increase with age as we navigate more difficult situations. We build that resilience. We know that we will survive it and we will come out the other end. So we do build our resilience. I mean, one of the sad things that happened during COVID where people were isolated, people had less time to talk and work with other people, and it was a very scary, stressful environment. So there are a number of people who were either education or learning or starting their careers during COVID, I think missed out a little bit on developing that resilience. And that's where you end up with those horrible comments about Snowflake generation. It's not to do with that. It's to do with there was a particular environment for a couple of years, which was very stressful and people weren't giving the necessary support or skills to develop that resilience that perhaps other generations who had a kind of more of a just get on with it type of attitude, they've got their resilience, but some of the younger members of our workforce don't have the same levels of resilience.

Kiran Kapur (host) (22:34):
And I think you make a very good point because we tend to think of lockdown was 12 weeks, but of course it wasn't. The whole thing was two years. But if you were 16 at the beginning of that and 18 at the end, that's a huge proportion of your life and a very crucial part of it.

Kim Tasso (22:51):
And also young people starting work, typically pre-COVID, you would be in an office environment, you'll be among people who you could ask for help, who you could look to see what they were doing, you could kind of see their modelling behaviours, people who might say to you, "Are you feeling okay?" And then COVID happened and most people now will have a job which is partially working from home where no one notices, where you don't have those little kind of the coffee machine, kitchen interactions, the time to go out for a walk at lunchtime and chat to people, the workplace friendships. So a lot of those things have gone from our work environment. I said, that social connection is really, really important for human beings to feel kind of grounded and safe and secure and to minimise the impact of stress.

Kiran Kapur (host) (23:45):
I wonder, in fact, if we're going to move back to people being more in the office and whether that's going to become more of a movement as we realise how much we've lost.

Kim Tasso (23:52):
Yes, absolutely. I say the social connection is important. And also, I think for learning, we learn a lot from people around us and from observing behaviours around us and being with other people and seeing them admit their fears, if you like, and how they've developed stuff. There's that learning environment from being amongst other people, I think we miss that a lot, particularly for people at the start of their career, and particularly so in marketing, because if you see how others deal with stuff or you can just wander over and ask someone, that's different to having to type a message into a WhatsApp or Slack or send an email or make an interrupting telephone call. It's harder to ask for help and it's harder to see people who might need some help or support again in that remote environment.

Kiran Kapur (host) (24:43):
Yes. And I still remember one of my earliest memories of starting work is watching somebody handle a difficult conversation.

Kim Tasso (24:48):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Learning by osmosis. Yeah.

Kiran Kapur (host) (24:51):
Absolutely. And sitting there absolutely open mouth going, "How could you be that brave?" But then you absorb it and you know how to do it yourself. But I agree, you don't see that online and that interaction. So I think there are two things that I just want to finish off with. One is there is a sense of the younger generation, maybe they are being snowflakey. Is that because that has always been because older people have always been more resilient just because there's more life experience, or is it the COVID interactions and the COVID things have genuinely affected everything?

Kim Tasso (25:26):
I think COVID and remote working have made it harder for people to develop the skills and resilience that we did historically. And I do think there is a greater awareness now. Culturally, it's shifted a bit. Whereas in older generations it was just take all the upset and just get on with it. I mean, I remember talking to a former managing partner of a law practise, an incredible, incredible person, unbelievably good skills top of her profession, running and growing a massive law practise and the way that she'd learned to develop a career and progress was pretty relentless. And she said as she kind of came up to retirement, looking back, she was kind of mortified to think that the pressure she applied to young people and how that might have damaged them and their careers with great regret because that's how she did her job and that's how she grew her career and applied the same going forward.

(26:37):
But of course now we're much more aware of looking after people, their mental health, their whole body experience, and being a lot more supportive of that rather than the kind of keep them working until they break, which might have been the model we had in the past, which that's just clearly no longer appropriate. So I think everyone's a bit more educated and a bit more aware of what to do. So some of those old values and those old models of developing people have been shown by science to be inappropriate. So I think there's both sides of that equation coming into things.

Kiran Kapur (host) (27:15):
I want to finish off with getting your advice on people. And I can imagine people sitting perhaps in a team thinking, "I think my team member is starting to struggle." Now, if you are in a supportive environment, maybe you can then go and see a line manager and go, "I think so- and-so's in trouble." What do you do if you don't have that sort of culture?

Kim Tasso (27:35):
Okay. Well, I think there's a couple of things here. I think you can take on being a wellness champion for your organisation. There are fantastic things like doing mental health first aid training, which many organisations will support you doing. Obviously, your HR team should be alerted to unhealthy work practises or where you are feeling concerned. Most organisations will have employee assistance programmes where they pay for you to confidentially connect with a counsellor. So there are all sorts of things you can do in terms of it's not your line manager, then talk to HR, talk to your mental health wellness, first aid type people. Of course, you can always go to your GP. They're very used to hearing people talking about anxiety, stress, depression. So there may be a need for a medical intervention or the GPs can refer you to counselling services because some people do need that support.

(28:40):
And there are all sorts of groups and support forums that you can go to as well. And there's even things like, again, the Mind Mental Health Charity produces something called a Wellness Action Plan that gives you a kind of template and a series of questions that you can go through and answer for yourself. What things trigger me? What things are causing me concern? Who can I go to for help? Are there other managers, if not my own manager, can I get a mentor? So again, looking at something like Mind's Wellness Action Plan is something that you can, a tool you can use to think about your mental health and how you manage it and where you go to get support and help. There's that great advertising programme around, I think it was maybe Samaritans. And they said, you ask people, "Are you feeling okay?" And most people as a social ritual will say, "I'm fine," because it's automatic.

(29:37):
So the Samaritans would suggest you say, "Yes. And how are you really?" - asking a second time Because then people come out of that ritualistic, "I'm fine," and say, "Well, actually it's been a really tough week and I'm really kind of exhausted." So again, if you ask people twice rather than just the once, you might get a more honest environment, but then you have to have psychological safety in your organisation for people to do that. And again, that's back to the culture of the organisation because if it isn't one where you can be vulnerable safely, then people are not going to tell you even if you ask a second time. So just be aware of the organisational environment you're in.

Kiran Kapur (host) (30:21):
That's interesting. And I also noticed that it's becoming a little bit of a joke of if anyone needs to say anything, this is a safe space. And I've heard that said as quite a sort of jokey thing as though we're passing it off and you're shaking your head at me. So you obviously ... How does one create ... I think this is probably going to be our final question, but how does one help people create that safe space or that safe connection?

Kim Tasso (30:43):
Well, again, it's a feeling. You've got to feel safe. That's what psychological safety is. And there are all sorts of HR interventions and other programmes and staff surveys and things that will test whether it is a truly safe environment. When people say it's a safe space, that doesn't make it so. Unless you have people who trust the organisation and trust their leaders and trust their team that anything they say isn't going to be held against them in the future. So you can use HR measures to look at the psychological safety, which can vary in teams within an organisation. And again, there are all sorts of great initiatives like good places to work and safe places to work and employers that we like. There are all those sorts of things that an organisation can look at where you can test through employee surveys and pulse surveys.

(31:43):
Are people feeling safe? Do they feel they can disclose if they're feeling uncomfortable? And having those mechanisms, counselling lines, HR lines, helplines, those confidential support services if it's not within teams.

Kiran Kapur (host) (31:59):
Shall we finish on one positive? If you've been stressed, you've been overwhelmed, can you come back out of it? It's not easy, but there are there sort of well-worn paths to help yourself.

Kim Tasso (32:08):
I think, well, going back to what I said earlier really, trying to look on the positive, if you do have a really bad episode, really anxious, some people might end up having their first panic attack. Some people may be off of work because they're anxious or depressed or whatever. But again, as I said about resilience, when you have been through some tough times, you build that resilience. You begin to know what you can cope with and that you can get through things. So if there is an upside of having a real stressful, difficult situation, it's that you survived and you got through it and you will be aware next time to save you going into the worst of it and better able to cope and better able to support others around you. So that's the upside of having a difficult situation, that you will come out of it stronger and more resilient.

Kiran Kapur (host) (33:08):
That's a lovely positive note to end on. Kim Tasso, thank you so much for your time and your insights and some very practical things that people can do. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Thanks a lot.