Why High Achievers Stay in Jobs They Know Are Wrong (Part 1 with Steve Bisson)

In this episode of Hustle Rebels, Renae sits down with licensed mental health counselor and first responder specialist Steve Bisson for a direct conversation about burnout, leadership betrayal, and the hidden psychological cost of staying loyal to systems that quietly drain you.

Steve is the founder of Straight to the Point Therapy and host of the podcast Resilience Development in Action, where he works with first responders, leaders, and high-performing professionals navigating chronic stress and mental health challenges.

Together, they unpack a topic that rarely gets talked about openly: administrative and leadership betrayal—and why it often becomes one of the biggest drivers of burnout in both first responder and corporate environments.

In Part 1 of this conversation, they explore why people stay too long in systems that no longer serve them, how trust breaks down inside organizations, and why mental health is still treated differently than physical injury.

This conversation was too good to fit into one episode, so this is Part 1 of a two-part interview.

What We Cover in This Episode

• What leadership and administrative betrayal actually looks like on the ground level
• Why burnout is often driven more by organizational culture than trauma exposure
• The psychological impact of stolen ideas and broken trust in workplaces
• How toxic environments create paranoia, self-protection, and disengagement
• The sunk cost fallacy and why so many high performers stay too long
• Why people keep “pushing through” long after the warning signs appear
• The difference between hustling for yourself vs. hustling for systems that drain you
• Why mental health should be treated like any other serious injury requiring recovery time

You can learn more about Steve and his work here:

Website: https://steve-bisson.com/

Podcast: Resilience Development in Action 

Instagram: @realstevebisson

In Part 2, Steve and Renae go deeper into leadership culture and the question ma

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back. This is Renee, and I want to give you a quick heads up that this is a part one of a two-part conversation with Steve Besson. We get into leadership betrayal, burnout in both first responders and corporate culture, the paranoia that builds when trust gets broken, and why so many people keep pushing through long after the damage is already happening. We talk about a lot of really great things, so it's well worth the time to listen to this one and to subscribe now so that you don't miss part two. So without further ado, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

For a second, I thought you had a like a Bud Light.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Well, I don't drink much anymore, number one. And number two, if I'm gonna waste my alcohol intake, it definitely will be for a fucking Bud Light. And if you do like Bud Light, I respect that. I think that's like water. I don't like Bud Light. So I said, if I'm just gonna I only drink once in a while, so if I'm gonna drink, I'm gonna drink something good.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah. I don't know what that is, but I'm not beer fan anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Well, rolling rock is uh the joke is um it's like sex in a canoe, closest thing to water.

01:53 Meet Steve Bisson

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Well, with that note, this is Hustle Rebels, a podcast for people who know how to grind, but are starting to question the cost. I'm Renee, and here we talk about success, burnout, and nervous system regulation without glorifying exhaustion or sacrificing your health, relationships, or your sense of self, and without pretending ambition is the problem. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Hustle Rebels. I'm sitting down with Steve Bisson, a licensed mental health counselor, practice owner of straight to the point therapy, and someone who works directly with first responders and high performers who are caring more than they're willing to admit. Steve is known for being direct, practical, and allergic to anything that sounds good but just doesn't actually work. He believes mental health deserves the same respect as physical health, especially in high-pressure roles where burnout gets normalized and silence gets rewarded. Today I'm actually excited to chat with Steve about leadership betrayal, what it actually means to heal the mind the same way that we would treat any other serious injury like cast surgery, recovery time, et cetera. And also question whether sacrificing yourself to the hustle culture is actually a badge of honor, or if it's just a slow bleed that people have learned to call success. But before we dive into those great topics, which I'm very excited to discuss with you, I want to start with you. So, do you want to tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Well, gee, you did a great job uh presenting me, so it's really hard. Uh I'm the host of a podcast called Resilience Development in Action, which you have been on actually. Um I work with it, I think now the subtitle, I think that's a little new. You haven't seen that one yet. It's First Responder Mental Health.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Um I changed out about a year ago uh because I frankly find this much more interesting than, you know, therapy is interesting, don't get me wrong, but some of the topics were not like I didn't want to record. But ever like whenever I had a, you know, someone talking about maybe the administration betrayal, someone talking about some of the stressors that no one thinks about because the BS is also about how, oh, it's all trauma. Well, no, actually, it's sometimes trauma. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but there's so much more in administration betrayal. I've done two surveys, and I think it was 84% the first time and 86% the second time. So I think it's a big topic that people want to talk about. And that really leads to burnout, honestly. I mean, I hear it all the time. But um, yeah, I'm born and raised in Montreal. Um, been here, what, 27 years? I'm a dual citizen. You see my Canadian flag in the back, I'd rather have a Quebec flag up there. Um and for me personally, I also think that, you know, what you're talking about is so important to me, not only because I believe in it, but it's also I believe in being a rebel. I'm my first language is French, it's not English. But when I went to school, the English didn't like me because I spoke French and the French hated me because I spoke in English. Um, I work in a job that's predominantly female, not male, but I fit in as much as I at both, and I also like not fitting in in any of the groups. And I think that being a rebel is not trying to fit in, but being yourself. And I think that that's always been my kind of like philosophy, although as a teenager that was really rough. But I'm not here to do my therapy.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

So do your own therapy as uh the therapist.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Uh uh, I have a therapist. I have no qualms about it, I love my therapist, even though Joe kicks my ass most of the time, it's a good thing.

Leadership Betrayal Explained

SPEAKER_01 5:09

So you mentioned a lot about the leadership betrayal, which we have had our own conversations about. And it is very prevalent in the first responder world. And in your experience and a lot of the stories that you have heard, what does that actually look like on the ground level?

SPEAKER_02 5:27

I mean, it could be like here's the simple one that most people can relate to is people who get promoted and then forget where they came from. So, you know, they become uh captain, a lieutenant, uh sergeant, um deputy, whatever. I am I'm not good with titles, you know that. Um, but then suddenly they forget where they came from and they start talking in big languages and they become keyboard warriors. Yes, that could exist in the departments because they're sitting behind the keyboard making decisions instead of going down, meeting with the guys and the gals and seeing what's really going on. So I think that the basic one that I would say is a lot of people who get promoted, hey, you know what, Renee, when I get up there, I'm gonna do this for that or do that, and then it all changes and it becomes even colder and the relationship changes. Um, I think that's the most common one that I see because that really hurts people because why would you change because you got promoted? Um, I think you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I see that a whole lot in the departments that I've worked with.

Corporate Burnout Parallels

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Right. And translating that into like a corporate culture, how do you think that could be translated as someone in a managerial lead as well?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Well, what I see when I see in the corporate world is people will work hard to get to wherever they want, but then they expect it to work harder. And then, oh, by the way, you're the youngest engineer we have here. So therefore you got to work harder. Oh, and by the way, you're a woman, so work even harder. And it becomes these pressures based upon I did you a favor by making you grow. And then as you grow along, you become bitter about the process. So if you're up there and you had someone you got along with, but the process gets it's so overwhelming that you stop. Too many people in the I work with corporate people too, actually. And what I find a lot is that, you know, like, you know what, Renee, you're young. You should probably work a little more to prove yourself. That's the stuff that you see. That's to me, it's not administrative betrayal, but it brings to that burnout because, well, you know, I completed seven projects this year. Yeah, but we needed eight. We'll give you a meets expectations, and that's where you get the betrayal. Like, I went above and beyond, and you're giving me meets expectations. That's not fair to me. So I think that that's where you see it. I see that in insurance companies, see that in uh engineering, I see that a whole lot. And it really frustrates people because in general you want to grow, but you don't want to grow to a point where you're not happy. And you do it until you're unhappy, and then somehow someone goes, Ah, you know what? You did okay this year. Uh, we don't have any money for increases, even though you double your your pay, your, your, your work rate. And I think that's how you can see it in the the corporate world. I don't know if that's what you were looking for, but that's how it feels to me.

Paranoia and Culture Change

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah. Well, I think those are really great points. And I think another angle at it too, and something that I had gained experience from learning people that I had talked to on LinkedIn, especially in like the marketing world, I feel like too, or real estate when people were when I was trying to gain insight about whether I should do this podcast or the name. And a lot of experiences that people had shared was almost like stolen ideas. People would share their ideas in the corporate world. And I feel like it does translate a little bit into the first responder as well. But um, they would share their ideas in either the communal, you know, whatever. I mean, I I'm not from the the corporate world at all, but if they would have, you know, their meetings or speaking to their direct managers, and then um all of a sudden their idea would be put into action from someone else. And um it was interesting because one of someone that I had spoken with, and I actually mentioned it in a previous podcast, the person had mentioned how someone was being interviewed for an internship and they never ended appearing back. But then all of a sudden, an idea that they had given through that internship interview was then utilized as a promotional thing that that business was using. And it ended up failing, it flopped for that business because there was like a missing link, right? Because they didn't utilize everything that that person had given. So, how do you feel as you know, a counselor and a therapist for that person that experiences that betrayal? How do you think that that wrestles with that person's identity or that their nervous system?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Well, I think it comes back to people get to a point where they start thinking about why would I share my good idea? And I'm gonna keep it for myself, but maybe you don't have, you know, the, for lack of a better word, corporation to help you out around that. But you don't want to share it because someone might steal it. And it happens all the time. So you have self-doubt. Now you're like, um, who do can I trust? And now suddenly they go into almost any kind of environment, corporate or not, and they're like paranoid about other people and taking their ideas. I even see that in my field. Um, and I think that what happens too is that because of that, you don't grow as much because you're protective, protective to a point where you don't know what to do. And then when they go, you know what, uh Steve, you're not working hard because you're whatever. And now you double up your work because you don't want to lose your job, and then it keeps you in that cycle constantly of paranoia. No, I'm gonna keep my ideas to myself. Paranoia, keep my idea, and it just keeps people stuck.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah. And then you're never growing, like you said, and you don't have that experience of collaboration. I feel like you're really missing out on that connection with human, with that other human collaboration, I feel like.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

I I fully agree. I mean, it happens in my field too. If I can share a little bit here, I know you probably have something else you want in mind here. Oh no, go ahead. I'm gonna go in my field first responder mental health. Something came up recently. It's like, do you have the people who do a lot of like protecting their silos and gatekeeping and stuff like that? And everyone's like, oh, you gotta do it, you don't know who to trust, this and that. And I went in again, being who I am. I'm like, don't you think there's enough mental health issues for everyone to deal with? I mean, I can't, I can with all due respect to we're in Massachusetts, we'll use my I don't really I don't work with anyone there, but Holliston police and Holliston Fire don't need like, oh no, that's mine, you can't have it. No, because I couldn't, that's gonna drive me nuts. And if I'm there all the time, I'm gonna betray someone accidentally at some point. Not because I'm a bad therapist, but because now you're dealing with everyone and you go like, oh, Renee, I hear that you had um you had an issue with coffee, and you're like, no, that's Julie or John. You're like, oh fuck. So there's enough jobs to go around. You don't need to gatekeep, you don't need to protect yourself because there, like in my field, I always find it funny. There's plenty of jobs to be had. There's not there's no need for that. But so many people are like paranoid. Well, you know, what if they do like then they steal your idea? I don't know. From my perspective, there's enough work out there that it does not matter. I think that it goes with the corporate world when I hear about those things that you just talked about. I always remind some of my clients, like you said, it's a no paraphrasing of what you said, but it's the truth. They can take your idea, but you're the one who knows how it works. And I it it's always important to remember that. Like, you know, I my podcast, you can try to duplicate my podcast all you want. It's not Steve. And I think that that's how I teach people to like you talk about the hustle, uh, rebel, like uh hustle and the rebel being in there. I say, be yourself, and if someone steals your idea, they'll never be able to replicate as good as what you would have done. And that's how you keep your sanity and how you keep yourself protected. Because um the other part too that I find people do is they try to adapt to their environment where they're at. You know, I'll be nice to the chief or I'll be nice to the president or the whatever lead. And that never works. Um, because ultimately you're just making yourself smaller. Um, I've never pretended to be anyone but me, and I can't fake me. So I whether people pissed off or not, I really just don't care anymore. Because if you don't like it, then probably I did something right. Because if you're pissed off, I did something right somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

I did say you're being you're known for being direct.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

But but that's why I don't work well with like corporate. Like there's some people who got me when I worked in a nonprofit, they just got how I worked. I would go to work, it don't put me on a time frame, don't do it, like I'll do the work, but don't micromanage me. And the ones who got it, I did a lot of stuff. I I opened up two drug courts, I was able to work with parole and probation regularly, got extra contracts for them. But then I got a micromanager who needed to know everything, and they actually took one of my ideas, and I'm gonna keep it vague, that they stole and literally put in place. But because they couldn't do it like the way I would do it, it failed miserably. And I was gone by the time that happened. And so at the end of the day, it's also believing in yourself that I think is the big biggest rebel thing you could ever do, because I'm the only one who can do what I do, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah, and I think that people can smell the authenticity or inauthenticity, right? Right. Because if you I I just think of this one guy that when um, as you know, I have the program for first responders for police and fire departments. And um, I remember I have I've yet to really meet someone that has someone that has a program very similar to mine. And then when I was at a conference, I met someone, it seemed like he had something very similar. And so I was excited to talk to him about it. And um, it was interesting because as he was telling more about it, it was just very um, he had this idea, and then he ended up just paying people to just create it, and then he paid people to make videos, and then he basically just checked the boxes of what he wanted to keep. And um, and I was like, How many of these have you sold in the last two years that you've had this? He's like, Oh, none. And I was like, Oh yeah, well, you can smell the engine, like the inauthenticity of this entire program, you know. Um, so it's interesting if people steal, not saying that he stole my ideas, it's not the point, but the whole point of it is that if someone does steal your ideas, you know that the audience or the people that are thinking of buying it or looking into it, you know. But um, when you're thinking of the people that are in those aspects of either the first responders or the corporate realm, and they have that guarded paranoia. I mean, I think about when I was at the one department, we had the fuck fuck games, you know. I fuck you because they fucked me, so I'm gonna fuck them, you know? And it's just this round robin of everyone screwing everyone over. So when you have that kind of toxicity in that toxic environment, how do you recommend someone to go into that? Because we want culture change, right? But at some point, it's just how what do you even do with something like that?

Know When To Leave

Hustle For Yourself

Control Yourself Only

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Well, I think that I again that's gonna sound very corny, but you give it the college try. You try to change a little bit in the environment, the thought process, what have you. Um, you know, I I think about, you know, it I'm it's gonna I see a lot more women who work in the fire and police world now. But sometimes they gotta perseverate in order to get the things they need. Like, you know, a different shower than the men, for example. But if you keep on being rebuffed after six months and no one wants to change the culture, then that tells you maybe you can't change the culture, but you can change yourself. And what I mean by that is this if you don't fit in in um any town USA, then maybe um any vill USA might work out better for you. And you don't what I find particularly interesting is when people get into these fuck fuck cycles, as you call them, they think they don't have a choice and they have to stay where they're at. I'm like, there's no obligation. You know, like, oh, well, what about a check? Yeah, you can still work there and apply for jobs. That's what I understand that we can all do. And what I find particularly frustrating is when people like, I'm so unhappy here. I mean, well, apply somewhere else. What if I don't get what if, what if, and then all these what ifs and how they talk down to themselves. I think that the other hustle rebel thing that you need to work on is the language you use with yourself. Well, you know, this is the department I thought I would be happy at. Well, then you're not. Move on. Well, you know what? I thought this company would really give me the resources I need. Well, they're not. Move on. It's okay to move on. It's not a failure on your part, it's a failure of the system. And if the system ain't working for you, why the hell would you stay in that system? I I give it the old college try, don't get me wrong. But if nothing changes, then nothing changes, so you move on. You gotta do what's best for you. I think that in the corporate and the first responder world, I think too many people get uh paralysis by analysis and stay where they're at because oh yeah, things will change. But I don't really, oh, I don't know if this, I don't know if that, then you're not banking on you. Being a good hustler, like uh someone who really fucked a hustle is to say, I believe in myself first and foremost. Do you have to hustle a little bit? Yeah, but you're hustling for yourself, and I think that's a different type of hustle because um and again, being fully transparent, I if I couldn't make the interview today with you, I can go no, yeah, I'll disappoint you, but I this and I didn't have any intent. I'm just giving an example here. Um, but if you're pissed off, I mean I can live with myself. I had something else. Um, but if I'm just canceling to cancel and being a douche, then I should look at myself in the mirror. The bottom line is I believe in myself. So even if I couldn't do it today, I would have been like, Renee, I know you know me. I sincerely apologize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can decide or not, but that's not in my hands. I think that when you also realize that you only control you in life, you don't control how people react, you don't control what people will change. So you got to be able to control yourself. So if I go to you and I say you sit to you sincerely, and as you said, I speak my mind, but most people also know that I'm a very sincere person. And if my sincerity doesn't come through, I'm not responsible for how you're like react. I can deliver the message as good as I can, but you decide you hate me. Well, you can't change that. I think that that's the other part, too, is people think that they can use language to be liked or change or this. No, control you. That's all you control in life. I think that once you realize that, you stop trying to control a full system. For up to me, we would have mostly chiefs who have been there done that and remember where they came from. That's not what happens in most departments. And yes, there are some departments where they get that, but not all. And that's not how it's going to work. And I can't change the system, but I can certainly educate and work on stuff like I do to go talk about wellness visit, talk about how having peer support and Sism and wellness vis can all exist together. You don't need to have only one solution, which is the other part of if you're in a system where they think there's only one solution, run Frizzy Hills, because there's no such thing as one solution.

Sunken Cost Burnout

SPEAKER_01 21:23

I feel like you brought up two great points, and I'm gonna try to remind myself the second one after I mentioned the first one. Okay. But the first one was really great, and I I'll I've always told myself it because I feel like a lot of people in the hustle culture struggle with it, but it's the sunken cost fallacy and uh the idea that we have put so much time and effort into something that we can't get ourselves out of it. But I feel like that is such, you know, in its own sense, you know, the fallacy because even though you spend so much time and so much effort, and even the guy then Um, I just released the the very first interview that I had the podcast of Patrick Fulkner. He was a law enforcement officer that got his position removed after an off-duty injury. And um when he had said that he was is known for his entrepreneurship of the last straw of the camel's back, right? He's known for just taking, he was supposed to take that last left to Albuquerque and he just kept going when he shouldn't have, you know, that sunken cost fallacy. And um, it's just interesting because I feel like it happens so often in so many professions and so many departments. And I feel like that is a huge source of burnout because we do stay much too long. And we tell ourselves, well, I told myself too, you know, I spent so much time trying to get into this position, you know, and I lost the weight to get here and I overcame so many obstacles. Like I, this is supposed to be my creator for the rest of my life. Why would I leave now? You know, but I at the end of the day needed to make that change. And I'm so glad that I did. But so often people don't. And um, on the flip side, I remembered when I was the second half that you were talking about is the hustling for yourself and how it is different than hustling for someone else, you know, um, and how it is, you're putting forth that still, you're still putting forth that effort. Um, but it's a different type of effort. And uh I feel like it's a different type of burnout too. You know, you might be burning the midnight oil, but it's a different type of, you know, you're like running on avocado oil. You're not running on vegetable oil or canola oil.

Emotional Bankruptcy Warning

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Right. I I think I go back to you know the sunken costs and what people always talk about. Um, I have a friend of mine who never invested this is years ago, and I'm gonna give you Canadian references. So I apologize if you don't get the reference but understand the message. There's a company called Nortel in Canada that became this like superpower. They're gonna make the best phones in the world. It's gonna be the best cell phones in the world, the whole nine yards. So once they got to a point where they're so big they had to split the stock, my buddy invested a lot of money on it. He didn't never did it before, but he decided this is gonna be something good for the next few years. I think that before they went bankrupt, Nortel was down to two cents per share. He paid roughly 150 per share, and he didn't just buy one. So figure out how much money he lost. But what he did is I remember at one point when it was dwindling, I said to him, I said, Okay, you see it's not like it's going down, sell, cut your losses. You loss, but cut your losses. No, no, I'm sticking with it, I'm sticking with it. So he lost all his money on those stocks because the company went bankrupt, no longer exists. You never heard of Nortel in the US, and you go to Canada and it's a big joke. Um the bottom line though is that like, okay, so your sunken cost is halfway done. And I say halfway, quarter, three quarters, doesn't matter. And you know you're not gonna regain it. Don't just say I'm gonna stick there and go bankrupt. And when I talk about bankruptcy as human beings, I'm talking about emotional bankruptcy. Because if you're emotionally drained every time you got to go to work and you keep on draining yourself, but eventually it's gonna be good, you're wasting your fucking time. And I think that that's what the like you talked about, the sunken costs. I think about like at one point you go, like, I've lost a lot, I gotta move on. And that sucks. And yes, I lost, but I don't want to lose myself, nor do I want to lose the ability to know I can control myself. I think that that when you talk about the the hustle stuff is that, you know, really work hard for Nortel. Nortel's gonna love you. No fucking company loves anyone. That's the other fallacy I think that you talk about is when you talk about the the hustle, you really work hard, you're gonna go up in this company or in departments you know is the same. You know, really put in those efforts, really go see, though, go kiss the babies and uh do the toy drive. And and then when you do all that, they're like, Yeah, that was yesterday's news, you didn't do anything today, screw you. And that's where you're emotionally, you start going, wait a minute, is this the investment I want to make in other people? And yeah, sometimes just one event is one thing, but once they start accumulating, I think the other language I like is one time's an accident, two times could be an accident, but it's getting a little weird, three times a habit. And if the people are habitually doing things to you, you got to pay attention to that.

Mental Health Takes Time

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Right. Which I feel like is um a great segue into the next thing that I want to talk about, which is how much I love your analogy of a physical injury healing, just like your mental health. So why do we still expect mental health to be such a quick turnaround?

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Why do we think that it's because we don't value it? And what I mean by that is think about just you worked in the first responder world. When you're doing shift work, you have stress at home, you got stress in your relationships at work, you've got also calls you go on to, never mind managing all that. There's a lot of stress that goes unspoken. But if you break your leg while you're lifting a, you know, we'll say a 400-pound person going down the stairs as a paramedic EMT. Well, you're gonna go get your leg checked, they might do surgery, you're gonna do the PT, you're gonna wait for 12 to 16 months, whatever it takes. I'm saying that long, but you get the point. You know, you break your back, it takes six months, then you're gonna take that time off because it's a physical injury. You have a mental injury, you got something that really hurts. Well, you must be weak. And I know people say, well, that's just department stuff. Listen, I saw in the corporate world, I saw it frankly in the nonprofit mental health world I lived in. Oh, so you can't handle this. So mental health is seen as something that you're not able to handle. Instead of seeing that there is in your brain something chemically not working, and you got to fix it. It doesn't have to be meds, it could be a thought process, you could talk. There's a lot of different things you can do, but we don't honor that time and the process that it needs. It needs to be fixed immediately, or it's like some somehow we became fucking cars in our brain. And that's not how it works. And I think that what we don't value is to say, you know, I had a I had a bad um my parent died. I'm just gonna say keep it as vague as I can. I don't want to trigger your audience here. Um, my parent died. Well, you know what? I gotta get back to work because I gotta gain money. Well, no, if you're if you were mere angry at that parent, then process that anger and that frustration because that's also a process that has to happen. If you're sad because you were close and you love them, there's a process there too. But let's not pretend that there's no process that goes with that. Now, if you can't take any stress, that's a whole different ballgame. And I don't want to really go down that hill. But at the same time, like if you like it, it's one of those things. I think I've used this analogy elsewhere. Uh, if it smells like a rose and looks like a rose and you you don't need to get pricked to know it's a rose, and if it smells like shit and looks like shit, you don't need to lick it to know it's shit. And if you're feeling tired and mentally exhausted, then pay attention to that. But we're not taught that. We anything physical, anything logistical, then they find, okay, we'll figure that out. Mental health is not logistical, it's not logical. And I think that that's the other reason why we avoid it. And even therapists for a long time, and I don't pick on all therapists, but certain ones, you know, like I always admit it in therapy, but therapists have trouble admitting that they need to help. Oh, hey, I'm screwed up as much as the next guy. I'm diff I'm screwed up differently than Renee. I'm different, or I'm, you know, screwed up different than Rachel, but at the same time, I I mean, it's not, it doesn't mean that one is a compet competition. I'm not competing with Rachel. I'm not competing with Renee. I'm competing with myself. And I think that we do not see the impact of stuff and we don't want to recognize it because we don't want to be labeled not able to take it or this or that. And I'm trying to keep language as clean as I can. I I did go into a department this week, so I my language could be a little colorful.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

We can have colorful language here. It's fine.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Okay.

Prevention Through Awareness

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Well, I'd venture to say too, anything around the brain is dismissed, right? Even concussions and TBIs. I think about my mom that recently was shoveling and she faceplanted on the ground and she broke her nose. And um, when she went to the hospital, you know, they did a CT scan and uh she's like, oh, you know, I brought, I don't have a concussion or anything, and it didn't show up in the CT scan. And I was like, mom, CT scans aren't going to show a concussion. You know, it's really based off of the fact that you, I don't know, didn't remember the incident. You know, that's well aware that you most likely have a concussion and then you didn't remember like calling half the neighborhood and like all of these things, you know, and you have a massive headache, like it's all based off of symptoms. And that's just for the brain bleed to make sure that you don't have anything significant going on physically. And um, and then you look at all of the TVIs that are going on that are changing personalities in football players. You know, you don't think of the severity of concussions that are then causing mental health issues and all of these other traumatic injuries. And um, we don't take the brain and any injury to it, whether it's emotional, mental, or physical. I don't think we take it remotely as serious that we should be. And um, when it comes to preventative measures, what do you think prevention looks like in that sort of capacity? Not in theory, but more in practice.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Your sense of observation, either of you or your partner starts, that's the start of it. You start acting differently, you feel different, then you got to pay attention to that. Not dismiss it as I'm being weak or I'm not strong enough or I'm just tired. Pay attention. Like if I'm confused three days in a row and I slept well at least one of those days, well, it ain't about the sleep, it's about something else. So for me, it's like being conscious. Like, if you break your leg, you feel the pain, right? Well, if you have like your tire, like your brain is not working properly, we pay attention to that. You gotta look at it and not call yourself names for not being, quote, strong enough, but being able to go, like, okay, I need to look into that. And I think that that's one of the preventative ways is like, um, you know, I I've shared this with a few of my clients uh when I work, and I'll share this here on the podcast because I think it's relevant. I take vacation, usually when my kids are on vacation, there's another exception to that. If I get to a point where you show up either on a virtual, like on a computer, or in my waiting room and I go, fuck, they're here, that's probably a good sign that I need vacation. And that sounds very, very like trivial, but no, that means like I'm starting to get sick of what I'm doing. And instead of taking it out on my clients, I just take a week off and then I resource myself. I don't work, I don't do anything, and I can come back to that. When you pay attention to what your signals are, then you go there and you can work on it. I talk about journaling too. When you talk about prevention, if you're journaling, you don't need to journal every day. But if you do journal and it gets like, you know, darker and darker, then probably you need to pay attention that it's getting darker. If it's getting the same or even better, then maybe you're good. But there's ways to pay attention to those. I think that one of the things is that if the word fight through comes up too often in your mind, you're probably also that's another symptom to be careful. You know, like you don't like if I broke my leg, I wouldn't fight through the broken leg for the next two weeks. Eventually I wouldn't be able to do it, just be too painful, or you know, it's just not possible. Well, in your brain, no, I gotta fight through this, I gotta fight through this. If you say that two or three times, you gotta pay attention to what you are really fighting through instead of acknowledging the hurt or whatever the hell it is, because it's important. The other analogy that I would give you, it's uh, and this is you were talking about, you know, the brain stuff and all that, to give you an idea about mental health, and we talk about CTE for football players. The number one position for football players to have major CTE. Most people think it's the wide receiver getting the hard hit or the D backs or whatever. No, it's actually the offense and defensive linemen because they're micro movements regularly for, you know, what is it, 70 snaps in a game? Do that 17 games and then do that for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Figure out how much games, um, how many times your brain rattled a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

And people pay attention to that. Oh, so little rattles eventually build up to something worse. Well, it's the same thing. Little things that you don't you keep on going through and you're struggling in your own mind, don't go through it. You go, wait a minute, these little rattles I gotta pay attention. I think that the the hardest part is that you you talked about how we do preventive. You gotta be conscious of yourself. And I think too many people are not willing to do that because they like, well, if I call out sick and they're gonna think I'm this, or if I don't go to work and I don't complete this, they're gonna think that. Well, F everyone. I mean, it's not about like I don't mind, like I I do please people in the sense that I want Renee and whoever's listening to this to like me, but I will not do it at the detriment of myself. And I think that that's where people get it wrong. I don't care what people think. Well, you care a little bit because if you didn't care, you wouldn't wear clothes, you would tell people you'd punch them in the head, you go to jail, and you can give a crap. So you do care a little. So stop saying you don't. But when you do care and you start getting hurt, pay attention to the hurt. You don't ask the same person out seven times and they say no seven times, you go eight times the charm. No, you're gonna go, all right, there's a symptom here. They're probably not interested in me. I think that that's what I mean about like you ask about prevention. It's simply observing. When you feel pain, that's an observation for your physical health. Well, if you're feeling mental pain, that's an observation. Pay attention to what it is. I think that that would be the one thing, but I I know for people that's a hard sell, and I get that.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

All right. I'm actually going to pause the conversation here because this interview with Steve went deep and we covered a lot. Honestly, the information was just too good to cram into one single episode. So this is part one of a two-part conversation with Steve Basson. Before we wrap up for today, I want to let you guys know where you can find Steve and connect with him. So you'll be able to find Steve at stevebasson.com. That's steveb-i-s-s-o-n dot com. You can also find him on Instagram under real Steve Basson and also his podcast, Resilience Development in Action, where he talks a lot about resilience, leadership, and first responder mental health. And fun fact, I was actually a guest on Steve's show a few months ago. So if you want to hear the other side of this conversation where he's the host, go check out that episode as well. I'll make sure all of Steve's links, including his podcast and his practice straight to the point therapy, are all in the show notes. Now, before you go, three quick things. First, make sure you're following or subscribe to House of Rebels so you don't miss next week's episode. Because part two, Steve and I get even deeper into leadership culture and the idea that sacrificing yourself in high stress professions somehow become a badge of honor and whether that mindset is actually doing more harm than good. Second, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Conversations like this spread because people pass them along. And third, if you want to help keep Hustle Rebels independent and able to keep having honest conversations like this one, consider supporting the podcast. The link to do that is also going to be in the show notes. This is Hustle Rebels, where we don't demonize ambition, but we do question the cost. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in part two.