Leadership, Psychology & Performance Under Pressure with Dr. Tatijana Busic

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets our guest is Dr. Tatijana Busic, a leadership expert, executive coach, and organizational psychologist who shares powerful insights on emotional intelligence, resilience, performance under pressure, and how self-awareness shapes effective leadership in today’s fast-changing workplace. Dr. Busic dives into managing mindset, navigating challenge, and using psychology-backed strategies to elevate both personal and professional growth.

You can find her on:

https://tatijanabusic.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/busic-psychology-consulting/

https://www.facebook.com/BusicPsychology

https://x.com/BusicPsychology

https://www.instagram.com/busic.psychology.consulting/

https://www.pinterest.com/busicpsychologyconsulting/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatijana-busic-ph-d-a2a26135/

Transcript

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 0:00

That has had an impact on, you know, paying bills for everybody. So some of the challenges I think for me specifically are around how do I navigate a tremendous amount of information that is coming at me as just a human being and then also an entrepreneur and then also a coach and then also a clinical psychologist and also a mother who's parenting two children. And this and this and this and this and this. How do I create the filters that I need to focus on information that is relevant and that I have some kind of control over now?

Davis Nguyen : 0:32

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro Stein: 1:04

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today's guest is Dr. Tatiana Busit, a clinical organization psychologist with over 15 years of experience helping people navigate stress, trauma, leadership, and change. She works at the intersection of psychology, science, and business, supporting clients who are ready to go deep and do meaningful work. Through Busic, psychology, and consulting, she blends evidence-based therapy, coaching, and leadership development to help people heal from burnout, build emotional intelligence, and lead with integrity in a complex world. Welcome to the show, Tatiana.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 1:40

Hi, Pedro. Thank you.

Pedro Stein: 1:42

All right. So let's rewind a bit, you know, the origin story. Every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 1:55

I would say it happened organically over a period of time. So it wasn't sort of an aha moment one day. But through my work as a researcher and then a clinical psychologist, for quite some time I was working with people one-on-one in the mental health uh space, assessment and treatment, and I began noticing patterns and how these patterns were then extending to their relationships, friends, family, romantic partners, how then they were extending to their work relationships. And that's when I had some of the initial ideas of how do I take what I do in the one-on-one to garner greater impact. And then the organization became that space. Coaching became the bridge of clinical to organization. Yeah.

Pedro Stein: 2:41

That's interesting. The flow was very natural, right? There's no aha moment. We don't shift like that. And now I'm a coach, you know, but that's very interesting. And you don't. Yeah. And when did it shift from, you know, I'm helping people to actually I'm building a real business around this now? You know, that I know this is not, you don't wake up one day and happens, but sometimes we see actually this is happening. So when was that for you?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 3:03

I think that part of being an academic for so long, there's also a real entrepreneurial spirit to academia because you're doing so much work alone, running these big, you know, dissertations and things like that. So I think that probably for quite some time, understanding the importance of structure, you can have a bunch of great ideas and want to help people. But if you don't have the structure to execute and implement in a long-term sustainable way, then a great idea stay being great ideas and you help a few people. So I think that in year three, four, uh, post-graduation of the PhD and then all these licenses and things like that, I came to realize that I needed to ramp up my structure. And that's when the business, I was like, what is a business really? What is, you know, what's marketing, what's branding, what are processes and operations that are relevant to my kind of what is my business model? So there was an entrepreneurial spirit always within me. But then once you start really generating, you know, client work, good client work, you're seeing the revenue stream become quite consistent. Then the next question is how do I now build some systems to sustain and grow this? So I'd say year three into the work of running my own practice.

Pedro Stein: 4:14

That's interesting. That background in, you know, the academic background and having that impact into your business and using the coaching side as a bridge. That's very interesting.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 4:23

Yeah, I wonder too whether it's academia or whether you're in HR as an employee in a large organization and you want to move to work. There's a way of integrating whatever our skill set are uh into whatever the business is that you want to build, whether that's coaching or something else. So I think asking the question, how do I integrate my role as a mother, as running a household, into how do you run a business? Because it's often similar capabilities and there's much more things that are transferable than I think we realize. So yeah. Nice.

Pedro Stein: 4:52

So after we integrated that, right? And you filled in that gap after you're rolling, who were the people that kept showing up? You know, the ones you realized, okay, these are my people.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 5:02

So, in terms of what they do for a I'm mostly in the organizational leadership space. So a lot of executives, high-performing leaders who carry tremendous complexity with respect to the organizations, cultures, mandates, budgets, very diversified, complicated portfolios, healthcare, tech, banking and finance have very high-functioning, high-performing individuals with tremendous responsibility who are kind of hiding the psychological distress.

Pedro Stein: 5:30

Oh, interesting. It sounds like you already kind of have that dialed in. It was more like using that bridge, the coaching bridge, because you already have that audience, the idea of who you're really impacting, right? Okay. I mean, that's the coaching side. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. The reason I asked this is because we see coaches sometimes, and this is go for our audience, is that they are unsure of who are they serving, right? Because they start helping here and there, and then sometimes they have that. Actually, these are my people, but it's interesting that you already kind of had that, right? So you just use that bridge to connect.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 6:03

I th yes, absolutely. And that question was a really frustrating one for me for a long time. Well, who is your demographic? Who do you serve? And I was like, I don't know, I serve everybody. Who's a good fit? Because it's it's kind of like I can't very but it in terms of understanding if you're gonna communicate to someone else what you do, then you need to be crystal clear on who you serve and what you do. And so it was a lot of different uh people that I've worked with over the years who've helped me, who I've hired, who've helped me grow my business and understand how to actually run a business, who helped me understand the value of being able to answer that question clearly.

Pedro Stein: 6:37

Right. Yeah. Sounds about right. That's the reason I asked that. That makes sense. And okay, like I said, that's the coaching side, right? Now let's talk about the beast that you had to handle after, you know, getting to the business side, oh, the structure, the systems, and all of that. So I want to talk about specifically about the marketing aspect. Nobody escapes from marketing, right? So, how do people usually find you?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 6:58

So, up until now, I think it was 2019 when I opened my doors fully in my business, not working for anyone but myself. 2019 till now has been pretty much entirely word of mouth. Um now I'm not saying that's the best way, but that's what's gotten me here. So, in terms of market how I get my business, now it's the next kind of phase of my own growth. And it's word of mouth, but now to scale in the way that I want, I do need to expand my marketing strategy, and that's probably one of the biggest challenges.

Pedro Stein: 7:31

And have you tried to figure out something on your own and how to reach people? How does that play out?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 7:36

Yeah, I mean, I've got some profiles out there, I've done several interviews like this, I do talks, I do some public speaking, and pretty much each time I do a keynote or some sort of a talk at an organization for maybe mental health month or something about you know emotional intelligence and leadership and business, etc., I usually get a few clients from gigs like that. But those gigs are incredibly time consuming, and you have a business to run on a day-to-day basis, pay bills, all that kind of stuff. So I'm figuring I'm at the stage where I'm really figuring it out and I've experimented with a few different models, but social media is building and expanding and a lot of public speaking right now.

Pedro Stein: 8:18

That's interesting because we see different strategies from all over the coaching space, right? And that's one of the biggest quests that we get from our audience. And all right, I got it. So go ahead.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 8:28

So I'm really good at understanding sort of the philosophy of things, people, culture, all this kind of stuff. But then translating that into concrete marketing strategies, that's the challenge. And it's hard to find a professional who understands your vision and builds the strategy in accordance with that vision. But the core of my philosophy is it's all about relationships. If you have a positive impact on people and you do good work and people want to see you again, word spreads. And so if that's on social platforms, your current clients, etc., this tends to be at the heart, I think, of what I believe over an effective marketing strategy. Okay, that's it. Just want to share that.

Pedro Stein: 9:07

Sure, that makes sense. It's like finding your own voice, you know, through marketing, because it's not that simple. And that resonates with a lot of people. That makes a lot of sense. And uh, I want to talk business for a second, you know. Sure. Let's say people find you, they resonate with your work, and eventually they want to know what working with you actually looks like, right? So everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently. So when someone actually becomes a client, and you mentioned your one-on-ones, for example, what does that experience look like right now? Do you have group coaching? Do you have a program based? How does that work?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 9:37

Yeah, so various different service streams. One of them is one-on-one coaching, in which I would meet with an individual leader. And the first three to six sessions, there would be some, you know, an initial getting to know each other process, assessment process, goal setting process, information and data gathering process, either from their organization as well as personal, you know, personal aspects of what they're struggling with. That would be the one-on-one coaching, and usually this is a very long-term relationship. I tend to work with people over years, and many of them are quite senior, although I seem to be getting a following with emerging leaders. So that's an interesting niche market that I might be exploring what they need and what's going on for them. But I tend to be with the senior level ones right now who have another five, 10 years until they might retire, then move into consulting, etc. So they're not looking for a revolving door relationship, they want a long-term one. So I tend to work very closely with people over long-term in the one-on-one. I also piloted a group program for senior leaders who are men in Toronto, and that was a success. This was last year, and it was a hybrid program of personal work and professional coaching in one, and it was an eight-week program. And so I will be relaunching that again in 2026. And then the other way of working with me is team development and coaching, in which I work with small cohorts. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's interesting.

Pedro Stein: 11:02

Your work seems pretty hands-on, right? One-on-one. And the follow-up question is how do you think about capacity so we don't stretch yourself too thin, right?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 11:10

I'm definitely very mindful of capacity, and that's been probably one of the single most top challenges. So I tend to plan my calendar six months and six month intervals. So now I know what I'm doing January until June.

Pedro Stein: 11:24

Okay. I mean, one thing every coach wrestles with at some point is pricing, right? And how to package their work. How do you think, and obviously we don't go about hard numbers here, but it's more about the structures. How do you think about it today? And were there any lessons along the way that shaped how you landed there? Because you have one-on-ones, you have the group, you know, the group coach. How do you think about that or and what have you learned with it?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 11:45

So that is a really tricky one for a lot of people, and pricing integrity is very important because word does spread fast, especially when your referral base is so uh trust and relationship contingent. But I think for me where I am at now, and there's more room for growth here, a lot more room. But I think really being crystal clear around what my value is, what are the problems that I focus in on with respect to individual and team performance. And then, you know, I understand what that value is in terms of how much time I put in to delivering the customization. And so now I'm at sort of my I have a range per day, and whatever work I'm doing, if it's organizations and I'm consulting and developing coaching programs, I need to meet my objective targets of a per diem. Now, as an individual psychologist where I do individual coaching and people pay from their own pockets, not the organization that is a healthcare coaching service. That's different because I'm regulated in Ontario and I have to follow certain structures and standards. Yeah.

Pedro Stein: 12:49

Nice. I mean, that's a solid look into how you approach price and structure. I believe hard lessons were learned along the way with every coach has been, right? Yes. So you're not treated as like a commodity, right? Or not comparing your hourly or something like that, or even a program. So that's an interesting point for our audience, also. Now, I'm curious about where you're taking all this, you know. You mentioned you want to grow or to expand to maybe to impact more people. So looking ahead, where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is that the next step you're excited about, you know?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 13:22

Yes, definitely scaling, but not scaling in the way that I think it's not just about getting big and making a ton of money and having a million clients. I'm not interested in that. I do not want dilution. I have a structure in terms of a set of standards with respect to how I work and the values that drive the work and the scientific rigor behind my work because I just can't help it. Scientific rigor is like in my blood, and so there's no cookie cutter, there's no so scaling while not diluting is where I'm going, which means hiring people. And I have been, I have a small team that I work with now, and developing these specific niche leadership coaching groups for male leaders. I'm also looking at other groups of people uh in Toronto who would also benefit from a program specific to what it might be like for them as female leaders in banking, things like that. So coaching programs, building out my team, and really taking what's in my head of the work that I've been doing and I know works. And how do you take that outside your head and plug it into frameworks that are teachable? Yes. That's probably where I'm yes.

Pedro Stein: 14:30

Okay, that makes sense.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 14:31

And and specific more public speaking, things like that. I am interested in, you know, podcasts, I'm doing quite a bit of writing, things like that.

Pedro Stein: 14:40

Right. And whenever we're aiming, you know, toward the next chapter, there's always something we're refining in the present, right? So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business? And the reason I tie this is with the fact that yes, you want to scale, like you said, but at the same time and impact more people, but you don't want to lose quality, right? So, what's the main obstacle you see in the future that could be, you know, it could even be an obstacle?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 15:03

There's probably lots of obstacles, there's lots of challenges, including some pretty big complexities going on globally everywhere with respect to economy, social structures, political systems, etc. etc. So that has had an impact on, you know, paying bills for everybody. So some of the challenges, I think, for me specifically are around how do I navigate a tremendous amount of information that is coming at me as just a human being, and then also an entrepreneur, and then also a coach, and then also a clinical psychologist, and also a mother who's parenting two children, and this and this and this and this and this. How do I create the filters that I need to focus on information that is relevant and that I have some kind of control over now? Otherwise, we can get so distracted and off course where we've tried a million things in six months, but haven't really fully completed a single one. And so that's one of the biggest challenges, I think. The influx of information, this this goes to everybody. Um, in whatever their kind of career is, the influx of information, social media, the transmission of this information, the speed of it is so huge. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so interesting. What about this? Oh my goodness, what's going on here? I have to learn more about that. Oh, I'm gonna join this committee. Oh, I'm gonna, and that is too much. We're increasing the level of stimulation and noise. And I think that what's important is to stay focused on what the three deliverables are that I want to do as, you know, Tatiana. So that's one of the biggest challenges. The second one I would say is what got me here, this beautiful relationship building referral system that I have, you know, is probably not gonna be there's some blind spots there. What gets us here is not necessarily what's gonna get us to the next chapter. So I think that there's some growth for me in terms of recognizing what some of my own biases and blind spots are. And then, you know, just because I'm pretty senior in what I do doesn't mean I don't need mentorship. So I think one of the next steps for me is to go back to finding a mentor to really reflect back to me what they're seeing and ask me some hard questions. I'm usually the one asking people hard questions. I need the coaching, the mentorship, like real mentorship to help me understand some of those things that I'm contributed.

Pedro Stein: 17:13

That really resonates with me because I also have a brother who is a PhD and he is also a business owner, right? So I see the struggle with him. Reason for because the academic background makes him so curious. So he needs to dive in, he needs to, you know, analyze everything, but you don't have the time in the business to do that. So you need to make decisions, and you don't have two years to elaborate a paper and interview a hundred plus people and make a decision, right? So sometimes it's a struggle. I see it on him. I'm not sure if that's happening with you, but I see that a lot with him. Is that something that resonates with you?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 17:47

Absolutely. I have been given that this feedback from I worked as in-house consultant for a year after graduation, and one of my leaders who I was reporting to said, Hey, look, you need to leave the academic at school. And they were an academic, they were also an academic. And I was like, oh, right. And so, how do you switch different internal capabilities? Well, sometimes we do need to sit down and saturate the information and spend hours and hours and days and days understanding, and then sometimes we need to switch and go to, you know, this or that. How do you do that switching and not get stuck in any, you know? But my most very comfortable place for me is, you know, deep thought work. Like your brother. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Pedro Stein: 18:35

Okay. I want to switch gears for a second, okay? Sure. Do something a bit more fun. Not that this was not fun. Play a game if you're down for it. A game?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 18:42

Okay, this wasn't in my uh pre-recording. Okay, go for it. Let's do it.

unknown: 18:46

Okay.

Pedro Stein: 18:47

We look at this through the lens of business investments, okay? Things like coaching, training, marketing team, masterminds, you name it. So it's simple, okay? I'll give you four prompts and you tell me the first thing that comes to mind. If there's a story behind it, even better. Okay. So, what's the first business investment you remember making in the coaching space? Okay.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 19:05

Oh my god, there's several of them.

Pedro Stein: 19:06

Oh, what the first? Just on top of mind. Go with the top of mind.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 19:09

A really great laptop. Like setting up a deluxe office for myself, which may not be deluxe to you or somebody else, but it is to me. And so setting up this my space where I could really, it's my space. I would say is the first. Yes.

Pedro Stein: 19:25

Got it. Okay. The most recent one you made.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 19:29

The hiring of marketing experts to take over stuff that I'm interested in learning everything, but I can't. And so take over, I really respect acknowledging my own limitations and letting other people do the work that I'm not skilled at. So hiring marketing and admin game changer. Interesting. Yeah.

Pedro Stein: 19:47

Okay. And what's the best financial business investment you have made? And why?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 19:52

People that I work with, the people I've hired, they are the best investment that I have made. The time to cultivate those relationships, I have I've Literally work with stars. Nice. Okay. Who all have good credentials and skills and all that stuff too. Yeah. Okay, last one.

Pedro Stein: 20:07

Last one. What's one investment you wish you could get your money back on? No need to throw out names, just we can see if people resonate with what you're, you know, the audience and what could be something that I can't say it's an investment of time over I've gotten hooked on some pretty awesome ideas.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 20:25

And I have lost time on maybe being afraid, because this is the truth, probably. This is like very this is probably an aspect of many aspects, one of many aspects of a truth for me. But just being a little bit like, can I do this by myself? And then looking for other people to partner with, and then spending, you know, a year, two, four months. This is throughout the course, this is over the course of 15 years, not necessarily recent. Where I think if I can go back, having looked at space some of my fears directly, but some time has been lost puttering around without just like, no, you're a founder, you're an entrepreneur, you're a businesswoman.

Pedro Stein: 21:03

So it's not exactly a specific investment, it's the thought process behind it that could be revamped, let's put it this way.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 21:11

I think so. Maybe this goes back to being aware of the biases that we hold and then how we contribute to some of our own ceilings in terms of growth. And so I can't say, oh, I got this product and did this, and that was the worst investment, because I don't know, those are all like learning experiences, and that's just the part of one of the you know, uh costs of doing business. But I think for me, it's kind of getting a little bit over some of the fears of stepping into what it is that I do and kind of owning that. And so I could have started a few more projects and endeavors earlier on in my career. So looking back now, yeah.

Pedro Stein: 21:48

It answers a lot because especially in today's world, the attention spam is so hard. We're always looking at the max butterfly. Oh, a butterfly, you know, that type of mentality. Oh, something new, a new tool, because we're bombarded with so much information, right? So we're trying to compare and try to make a decision. So that perfectly aligns. It makes a lot of sense. So looking at those, I mean, looking back at that, how has your approach to investing in the business changed over the years?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 22:12

If it has, I've become probably a lot more liberal with spending financial, like the actual capital to on what I need. So, in terms of a nice office, in terms of the tech, in terms of the learning, in terms of you have to, there's some financial loss that might be incurred by kind of slowing down a little bit and taking the time to create the things in your operations and admins of day-to-day. That's changed.

Pedro Stein: 22:37

Yeah, I mean, we're always in constant change, and I love that. I love the thought process behind it, trying to improve the continuous improvement on the you know, the academic background versus the business currently going.

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 22:49

I mean, that's and sorry, just another thought in terms of one of the not regrets, but things that have uh cost me time is trying to cater to every client. So I have an organization come to me and they have like the money, they have the budget, they have the this, and sort of, oh my gosh, that sounds really interesting. Well, that sounds really interesting, and it truly is, but I cannot deliver 10 different large-scale projects per year, and so now I think I have you know done that before and the amount of mental labor that goes into the customization at that level. So now I have narrowed it down to the three things that I do, and I only do those three things. We can tweak, but I don't play in that playground. I'm gonna refer you to my colleague who does. This is my playground here, right? So that has been a game changer for me because when I know that these are the three things that I do, I just it's simple to say no and refer people. And that's also a part of marketing because people you build your name and reputation and demonstrate your integrity through some of those conversations. So that's my last thought on that question.

Pedro Stein: 23:53

Okay. I mean, I love that. I mean, that goes back to that question. Not that I'm gonna do it again. It's like these are my people, this is how I run things. I'm not trying to, you know, uh cover the entire world and trying to help everyone because just not doable, right? So we need to understand our limitations. That makes a lot of sense. And if someone is listening and wants to connect with you, Dr. Tatiana, or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 24:17

So on my website is Tatiana T-A-T-I-J-A-N-A-BUSI, like musicwithabe.com. And the links to all my socials are on my website.

Pedro Stein: 24:28

Okay. I mean, there were a few things you shared today that really stuck with me. Uh, the academic background, and that's it, sounds like that built your thought process for so long, and then you had made a shift, right? Yes. And another thing that I would like to pinpoint is the fact that you used coaching as a bridge from your psychology background, and then you understood that hey, this is the next step. This is something I can do, and it's really meaningful to hear that type of story. It's not that usual, that's so interesting. So I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here, okay, and sharing so openly today. It was great having you, okay?

Dr. Tatijana Busic: 25:06

Thank you so much, Pedro. I really enjoyed our conversation too. Thank you for the opportunity.

Davis Nguyen : 25:10

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com