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The Role of Therapists in Leadership with Ryan Drzewiecki, PsyD, LP · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist Podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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  Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
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  Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts, searching for the Trauma Thepist podcast
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  Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Neverist Podcast,
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  Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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  Speaker 1: of experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson, and my
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  Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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  Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Ryan, you read to do this, love to
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  Speaker 2: do it?
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  Speaker 1: All right? So five or three, two and one, our folks,
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. I'm very excited to have
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  Speaker 1: us my guest today, doctor Ryan Driwswiki. Ryan welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you guys, thank you so much for having me.
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  Speaker 2: I really appreciate the opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome. So. Ryan is an experienced leader with over twenty
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  Speaker 1: years of experience and behavioral health administration. Early serves as
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  Speaker 1: the chief clinical Officer of Sierra Tucson, a residential and
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  Speaker 1: outpatient treatment center which provides care to adults ages eighteen
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  Speaker 1: and older of all genders who are struggling with addiction
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  Speaker 1: and mental health disorders. Addition, he's a consultant with the
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  Speaker 1: Mara Group, which focuses on organizational efficiency, company barrel, leadership training,
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  Speaker 1: clinical excellence. Ryan welcome. So, before we get go in here,
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  Speaker 1: share with our listeners where you're from originally and where
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  Speaker 1: you are currently.
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  Speaker 2: Oh boy, So I grew up in Cincinnati. I went
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  Speaker 2: to my undergrad at Northwestern in Chicago, and then I've
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  Speaker 2: been on and off in Phoenix most of my adult life.
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  Speaker 2: I left for a few years to do my internship
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  Speaker 2: in postdoc at Hazelden in Minnesota, and I did a
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  Speaker 2: couple of years with all Points North in Colorado. So
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  Speaker 2: I just kind of pingpong back between the Arizona summers
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  Speaker 2: and the coldest places I can find nice.
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  Speaker 1: Let's before we kind of jump into you know what
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  Speaker 1: it did you do and focus on and want to
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  Speaker 1: share with us today, if you can share with us,
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  Speaker 1: how did you get into this field and specifically this
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  Speaker 1: this specialization and interest in the first place.
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  Speaker 2: I love that question. I was listening to some of
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  Speaker 2: your old episodes. I forget what it was somebody said,
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  Speaker 2: isn't it funny how the answer to that question changes
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  Speaker 2: every couple of years, and that that really resonated with me.
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  Speaker 2: I think in some ways, I always knew that I
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  Speaker 2: wanted to get into psychology, and I tried to run
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  Speaker 2: away from it for a little while because I think
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  Speaker 2: I was, you know, I had concerns about the field,
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  Speaker 2: and I think eventually I came to say, I do
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  Speaker 2: want to get into psychology, but I want to think
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  Speaker 2: outside the box, you know. I think I'm I'm very
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  Speaker 2: interested in challenging the way that we look at mental health.
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  Speaker 2: And I love like the you know, the AMA informed
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  Speaker 2: kind of frameworks for that reason. It's instead of thinking,
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  Speaker 2: instead of thinking in terms of the DSM and diagnoses
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  Speaker 2: and what have you. I think it really normalizes mental
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  Speaker 2: health and normalizes mental health reactions. You know, I think
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  Speaker 2: for a lot of people, if you are if you
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  Speaker 2: are feeling relatively safe, if you are kind of able
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  Speaker 2: to stay in that window of tolerance, you do well.
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  Speaker 2: And if you don't feel safe, it's it's easy to
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  Speaker 2: start to get disregulated. And if you stay disregulated for
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  Speaker 2: a while, that that's when it, you know, that's when
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  Speaker 2: it starts to look like like mental health and and
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  Speaker 2: like some of the diagnoses that we treat. But I
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  Speaker 2: was always just a really big fan of you know,
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  Speaker 2: normalizing that the struggle is is natural, that you know.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously there's some some more serious or significant conditions, but
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  Speaker 2: for most people, you know, depression and anxiety or are
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  Speaker 2: inevitabilities of life and inevitabilities of living in a you know,
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  Speaker 2: in a societ and what have you, and that you know,
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  Speaker 2: I think everybody finds ways to balance and struggle, and
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  Speaker 2: everybody struggles in some ways and at some times. And
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  Speaker 2: that was always a really important message for me to
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  Speaker 2: get across in my work.
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  Speaker 1: When you started your journey your education into mental health,
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  Speaker 1: were you focused on addiction? Was that something had your
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  Speaker 1: site set on?
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  Speaker 2: I fell into it, I think when I was in
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  Speaker 2: graduate school. The short answer is no, I actually started
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  Speaker 2: off with special education. I worked a lot with autism
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  Speaker 2: back in the early two thousands. When I was in
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  Speaker 2: grad school and they said where do you want to
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  Speaker 2: do your practicums and your internship, I think I said
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  Speaker 2: anything but substance abuse. I think I don't even know why,
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  Speaker 2: but I do remember saying, yeah, let's not go that direction.
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  Speaker 2: And so sure enough, my first practicums in substance use,
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  Speaker 2: and then the second practicums in substance use, and then
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  Speaker 2: I recognized that. You know, I think some of my
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  Speaker 2: hesitancy was that I didn't I didn't think I had
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  Speaker 2: a lot of experience with it or familiarity with it.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't recognize maybe the role that it played in
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  Speaker 2: my family. But once I got into these practicums, I realized,
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  Speaker 2: oh yeah, like I have a lot of addictive thinking.
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  Speaker 2: I think my family has some of those characteristics. And
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  Speaker 2: it felt familiar. It felt like I just knew the
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  Speaker 2: language right away. So after a handful of practicums, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I did my internship and postdoc it at Hazelden, which
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  Speaker 2: was a fantastic experience. And I've always kept you know,
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  Speaker 2: one foot at least in the in the substance abuse
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  Speaker 2: field since then.
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  Speaker 1: And uh now, obviously you're at SIRA Tucson. Let me
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  Speaker 1: ask you. You know, you say you felt you fell
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  Speaker 1: into that and you started doing practical and internships those
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  Speaker 1: types of facilities. But what was it about substance abuse
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  Speaker 1: that you felt not only that you could recognize maybe
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  Speaker 1: some of the addictive thinking, but that you felt like
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  Speaker 1: you could help. You could, Okay, I can help in
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  Speaker 1: this particular area. My set of skills, particular set of
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  Speaker 1: skills or interests, whatever. I feel like I can do
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  Speaker 1: something here. Mm hmm.
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  Speaker 2: I think I felt, uh, it's hard to put my
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  Speaker 2: finger on. Like I said, it just felt like I
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  Speaker 2: spoke the language. It felt like I knew, you know,
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  Speaker 2: to some extent what people we were struggling with, or
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  Speaker 2: I recognized some of the communication patterns. I certainly recognized
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  Speaker 2: the you know, the perfectionism that often goes hand in
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  Speaker 2: hand with the addictive personality. And it just sort of
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  Speaker 2: felt like coming into this realization of oh no, this
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  Speaker 2: is this is very definitely the place where I need
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  Speaker 2: to be working because I know this, I know what
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  Speaker 2: this is like, and and I think you know, through
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  Speaker 2: through my own history as well, just working through some
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  Speaker 2: of those those patterns, I have some understanding of what
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  Speaker 2: it looks like to to to build a good foundation,
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  Speaker 2: to build a stronger life, to to find better patterns
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  Speaker 2: for emotion regulation.
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  Speaker 1: Help me out here. Substance abuse treatment centers, the people
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  Speaker 1: who suffer with addiction. I mean, that's that's that's intense.
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  Speaker 1: We all know that, we all hear that, we hear
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  Speaker 1: culturally of people going into treatment once what multiple times,
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  Speaker 1: quote unquote takes multiple this is off stuff talk to
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  Speaker 1: us about culturally what you do there, it's your Tucson.
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  Speaker 1: How substance abuse treatment is situated in the culture. Now,
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  Speaker 1: what do people need to know?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'll say, you know, first, at Sierra Twuson, we
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  Speaker 2: did start out exclusively doing substance use. Now we have
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  Speaker 2: a couple tracks. We have the substance use track, we
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  Speaker 2: have a mood track and a trauma track as well.
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  Speaker 2: I think the magic ingredient that we try to deliver
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  Speaker 2: is an absolute focus on the community and on community building,
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  Speaker 2: and on helping people repair relationships and learn the skills
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  Speaker 2: to you know, deal with the rupture and repair of relationships.
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  Speaker 2: So I like to tell our clients all the time,
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  Speaker 2: you're you're surrounded by some of the most amazing doctors
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  Speaker 2: and nurses and therapists that that you're going to you
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  Speaker 2: know that you'll ever meet. But we're only here for
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  Speaker 2: a very limited amount of time. What we really want
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  Speaker 2: to do is have and create opportunities to just bring
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  Speaker 2: people together to create a really strong community. You know,
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  Speaker 2: we emphasize independent problem solving as much as possible. Somebody says,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I don't like my roommate. You know, we'll
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  Speaker 2: dig a little bit and understand why. But for the
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  Speaker 2: most part, we're going to say, well, well can we
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  Speaker 2: do how do you want to handle this? How can
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  Speaker 2: we support you in working on developing this relationship? And
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  Speaker 2: I think that goes a long way as well. Like
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  Speaker 2: I think people who are struggling with addiction and mood
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  Speaker 2: and trauma have often oftentimes either have some you know,
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  Speaker 2: had some interpersonal maybe challenges to begin with, or they've
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  Speaker 2: at least you know, maybe fallen into a place where
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  Speaker 2: they're super isolated. Their family might be upset, frustrated at
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  Speaker 2: wits end. You know, their their job very very often
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  Speaker 2: is in limbo and very tenuous, and their ability to
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  Speaker 2: create meaningful connections has been deeply impacted. So, like I said,
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  Speaker 2: we really just try to get people together and get
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  Speaker 2: them communicating with each other, and we say this is
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  Speaker 2: the magic ingredient, not the meds that you'll take, or
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  Speaker 2: the therapy that you'll get or e MDR versus somatic experiencing.
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  Speaker 2: It's the learning to create new connections, learning to repair
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  Speaker 2: old connections, and recognizing that a strong connection doesn't mean
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  Speaker 2: that you and this other person are always happy, Like
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  Speaker 2: there's a there's inevitable rupture and repair. So this is
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  Speaker 2: what we do when we rupture these relationships, and this
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  Speaker 2: is how you can approach those sorts of things.
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  Speaker 1: That's interesting. I mean, I can think of why relationships
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  Speaker 1: with the focus on relationships might be at at the
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  Speaker 1: forefront of treatment, but I could also see strong arguments
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  Speaker 1: for maybe other things that might be chosen to be
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  Speaker 1: at the forefront two such as you know, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to be focusing on trauma, we're going to be focusing
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  Speaker 1: on attachment. But of course you can you can connect
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  Speaker 1: the dots in many different ways. But why is it?
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  Speaker 1: Why is it relate? Talk more about why relationships? Why
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  Speaker 1: not looking at some other things? And I'm wondering about
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  Speaker 1: the twelve steps? Where does that fit in here? A
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are familiar with that too.
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  Speaker 2: Sure why relationships? I think it's the most common thread.
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  Speaker 2: That's something we can put in place across the board
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  Speaker 2: for people coming in with, you know, whatever presenting problem.
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  Speaker 2: And then we do have separate tracks for for mood
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  Speaker 2: versus addiction, co occurring and trauma. So the programming certainly
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  Speaker 2: looks different, you know, and we'll match people up with
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  Speaker 2: different modalities, different medical interventions. Youah TMS ketamine, what have you.
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  Speaker 2: We We have great resources here to plug in a
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  Speaker 2: lot of things. But I do think that that connection piece,
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  Speaker 2: or the attachment piece is fundamental because I think that
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  Speaker 2: that's what people can take with them out of a
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  Speaker 2: out of a facility life this as they move down
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  Speaker 2: to lower levels of care, just the ability to create
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  Speaker 2: a community around them. And to the second part of
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  Speaker 2: your question, I think that that's the magic ingredient with
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  Speaker 2: with AA. You know, I A is always always a
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  Speaker 2: hotly contested issue with with our clients because people take
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  Speaker 2: objection to to various parts. But I always say, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I love it in particular for that focus on community,
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  Speaker 2: finding a sponsor, you know, finding somebody to connect with
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  Speaker 2: on a really deep level, having people that you can
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  Speaker 2: call late at night if you're struggling, having a group
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  Speaker 2: that you can go to, you know, having a community
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  Speaker 2: that understands to some degree what's going on for you.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that that really goes such a long
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  Speaker 2: way to reducing shame. So I think, you know, to me,
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  Speaker 2: that's that's one of the real magic ingredients of AA
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  Speaker 2: and and one of the magic ingredients of many of
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  Speaker 2: the modalities that work really, really well you know, in
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  Speaker 2: this kind of level of care, like a residential level
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  Speaker 2: of care anywhere you go, group psychotherapy tends to be
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  Speaker 2: the primary modality that we're putting into place. And I
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  Speaker 2: think the reason it works is that here you've got
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  Speaker 2: a group of people who can talk and have issues
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  Speaker 2: and resolve the issues and confront each other and learn
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  Speaker 2: how to confront and be confronted. And so I think
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  Speaker 2: that that's just a commonality. I think that the people
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  Speaker 2: who thrive when they leave a higher level of care
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  Speaker 2: like this, or the people who have been the most
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  Speaker 2: successful at creating relationships and building kind of those relationship skills.
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  Speaker 1: With the clientele with people who suffer from addiction. And
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  Speaker 1: I know it's hard to speak in absolutes here, but
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  Speaker 1: is there a thread? Is there a commonality that most
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  Speaker 1: oftentimes relationships are suffering. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I tend to think that relationships is something that most
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  Speaker 2: people struggling with addiction can relate to. Some people will say, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: this has always been a struggle, and others will say, no,
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  Speaker 2: this has not been a struggle at all until very recently,
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  Speaker 2: And a lot of other people will say, yeah, you know,
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  Speaker 2: my relationships used to be a lot stronger and then
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  Speaker 2: gradually deteriorated over time. But I think that it's so
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  Speaker 2: it's so critical to long term success that I think
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  Speaker 2: that it's a great spot to approach addiction from.
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  Speaker 1: So one of the things you said you wanted to
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  Speaker 1: talk about was what the role of therapists. Talk talk
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  Speaker 1: more about that.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things I've been doing a lot this
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  Speaker 2: year is actually talking about a leadership and therapists in leadership.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it connects to what we were talking
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  Speaker 2: about about because you could, I say all the time,
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  Speaker 2: in order to have a successful treatment center, whether it's
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  Speaker 2: in patient, residential, or PHP, you have to have a
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  Speaker 2: trauma informed environment for your residence or for your patients.
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  Speaker 2: And in order to have a trauma informed environment for
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  Speaker 2: the residents and the patients, you have to have a
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  Speaker 2: trauma informed environment for your staff as well. It has
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  Speaker 2: to be holistic, you know, from the top down. Things
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  Speaker 2: have to be trauma informed. So I've spent a lot
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  Speaker 2: of time lately, both you know, in consultation and then
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  Speaker 2: doing presentations about what that looks like. And I've leaned
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  Speaker 2: a bit on what I know, which is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: what does that look like for a therapist? Because I
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  Speaker 2: think therapists have an amazing skill set at the relational
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  Speaker 2: skills of management that are difficult to teach. I think
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  Speaker 2: therapists also generally don't have a strong foundation in some
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  Speaker 2: of the organizational or op rational pieces. You know, if
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  Speaker 2: I if I sit down with somebody and I write up,
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  Speaker 2: you know, an action plan or action items, you can
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  Speaker 2: just see the instant look of like what are you
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  Speaker 2: talking about in their eyes? So that's been a passion
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  Speaker 2: area of mine as well as talking about like what
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  Speaker 2: makes therapists great leaders and how do we lean into that?
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  Speaker 2: And then what are some of those foundational skill sets
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  Speaker 2: that are maybe less common to therapists that are important
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  Speaker 2: to develop as well or at least to build a
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  Speaker 2: leadership team that can that can support.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's if we can unpack that a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: because you're in what you're in a leadership position there? Yeah, correct,
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  Speaker 1: So what have you in a sense lack of a
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  Speaker 1: better expression, what have you brought to the table in
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  Speaker 1: terms of leaderships as a therapist as as a doctor.
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  Speaker 1: What do you feel like you're leaning on or leading into.
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  Speaker 2: I think what's foundational for me? I really take a
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  Speaker 2: close focus on staff. I want my staff to feel
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  Speaker 2: supported and heard and respected, and I like to really
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  Speaker 2: just emphasize and help create a feeling of safety. I
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  Speaker 2: guess that's back to that trauma informed paradigm. I think
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  Speaker 2: staff walking in the door have so many stresses already.
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  Speaker 2: We want work to be as safe as feasible, so
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  Speaker 2: we like to focus on getting to know people, being
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  Speaker 2: very very transparent in terms of what we're doing and
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  Speaker 2: what our goals are, focusing a lot on personal and
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  Speaker 2: professional growth and training, like to have, you know, really
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  Speaker 2: concise policies and procedures and protocols and clear roles, and
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  Speaker 2: promote community and collaboration, and just kind of really drive
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  Speaker 2: home all of those all of those trauma informed leadership principles.
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  Speaker 2: And I've been fortunate to be here with a leadership
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  Speaker 2: team that's really shared those values. I think before I
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  Speaker 2: came in, I think that there was less of a
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  Speaker 2: sense of safety. But the CEO and the CEO that
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  Speaker 2: I started with, and the entire leadership team has all
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  Speaker 2: just embraced this notion that our staff have to feel
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  Speaker 2: safe to do a good job. If we want to
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  Speaker 2: do a good job for our clients, we have to
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  Speaker 2: really show up for our for our staff. So it's
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  Speaker 2: been really exciting and a great privilege to work with
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  Speaker 2: this team and ushering in that that trauma informed awareness.
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  Speaker 1: When you say safety, obviously there are different types or
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  Speaker 1: kinds of safety. There's a physical safety, emotional safety, et cetera,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera. You're talking, you outlined a lot of different things,
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  Speaker 1: you know, delineating clear protocols, et cetera, et cetera. But
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  Speaker 1: talk more about how does someone how does an employee
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  Speaker 1: feel safe? You're not just talking obviously about physical safety.
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  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I think to give an I think safety
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  Speaker 2: is incredibly complex. I think there are so many different
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  Speaker 2: facets to it. I always like to take that question
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  Speaker 2: and say that the best way to know what safety
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  Speaker 2: is is to be very involved with the employees and
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  Speaker 2: ask them what is safety to you? Do you feel
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  Speaker 2: safe right now? What sort of things happen here that
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  Speaker 2: threaten your sense of safety? Because I think it changes
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  Speaker 2: from day to day, moment to moment, staff to staff.
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  Speaker 2: I think I think that the most important part, rather
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  Speaker 2: than trying to guess about the important components for safety,
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  Speaker 2: is to really have some robust systems to meet with
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  Speaker 2: staff and get that information live and act on that
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  Speaker 2: information quickly.
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  Speaker 1: So what are some of the things you might hear
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  Speaker 1: if you were to ask or when you did ask
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  Speaker 1: your staff that what might they have said.
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  Speaker 2: You hear things from? I think communication tends to be
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  Speaker 2: very very critical. For one, there are some people that
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  Speaker 2: are super worried about the things way outside of our control, Like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, what are we doing well financially? Is the
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  Speaker 2: business okay? Like we know, everybody has some awareness that
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: it's a challenge to run a business, it's a challenge
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: to run behavioral health. So some people are worried about
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: are we financially healthy and really benefit from transparency around that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Other people, you know, I think it's much more granular, like, hey,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: you know, we've asked for a coffee maker in the
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: staff office two or three times and we haven't been heard,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and that makes me feel like nobody's listening and that
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: makes me feel unsafe. So I think communication is really
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: a broad piece of what helps people feel safe, you know. Otherwise,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I do think clarity helps too. You know, in a
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: we're a for a treatment center, we're medium to large,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: you know, and things constantly shift, and so making sure
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: that we clarify our our roles and our responsibilities and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: policies and procedures is really important. We have enough new
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: hires and enough you know turnover that we have to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: kind of regularly go back to this is this is
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: who we are, and this is the way we do things.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: One big initiative we had was we called it, you know,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: speaking a common language, just talking about like how do
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: we respond to frequently ask questions from from our clients.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: What are some of the the buzzwords or key phrases
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that we use here as an organization. So that's that
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: was a critical piece as well as we've kind of learned,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: you know, how to how to do a great job
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: at being a trauma informed workplace.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when you when you brought up this topic
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and you said a lot of times of the times,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you know, people who go in become therapists don't really
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: have what the proclivity for leadership, and that's obviously not all,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: but I would agree with that. I mean, it seems
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: like a different but yet complementary skill set or inclination.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, when it comes to I
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: always say therapists are allergic to numbers. When a therapist
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: gets to that level of leadership where there are various
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: KPI's or you know, tracking or finances, or you know,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: even things like AMA rate or average length of stay.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I think that a lot of therapists have an immediate
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: sort of oh, I don't I don't want to deal
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: with that kind of a reaction. So I think therapists
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: have a fantastic skill set for leadership, but there's that
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: learning hump of getting over that initial resistance to that
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: particular aspect of leadership.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: So are you suggesting or kind of making an argument
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: that therapists really begin to lean more into this into
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a leadership role, or are you suggesting their obvious benefits
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to it. What is your kind of thesis In a sense.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I think that it's something to either lean into or
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: if you're if you're a therapist in leadership who's fortunate
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: enough to have a leadership team, find somebody on your
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: team who can speak that language. It's absolutely critical to
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: get as many therapists as possible comfortable with the KPIs
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: and the numbers and the metrics so that they can
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: have a seat at that table and feel really empowered
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: and feel like a valuable part of the team.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: So as we kind of wind down here, and I
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: want to put myself in the position of our listeners here.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: What does it take to work in this in this context?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: What does it take to work with this client? Tell
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: if I can use that.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I like to say that the most important piece of
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: this job is what you do outside of here. I
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: know it's cliche, but you know, I say, forget work
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: life balance. This is about life work balance, because I
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: don't know about you, but you know, when if I
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: am burnt out, if I'm not doing well, I'm worse
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: than worthless at work. I'm toxic, you know. I think
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: that's how we operate. If we're not in a good place,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: that level of that energy bleeds out really, really quickly.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So I think what it takes to work in this
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: workplace is the ability to recognize that everything that we're
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: doing for our clients we need to do for ourself
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: as well. We need to be constantly working on growing
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: our own window of tolerance. How do we manage our
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: own dysregulation, how do we create meaningful connection, and just
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: recognizing that it's a balance. Sometimes we talk about self
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: care like it's a check list, Like I'll go to
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the gym and I'll spend an hour with my kids
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: and I'll spend you know, some time doing this. And
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: I think it's an ongoing thing where you have to
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: check in with yourself pretty regularly and say, am I okay,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Am I doing okay? Am I headed down the right
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: road and make sure to keep that balance and really
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: prioritize being able to come to work in a healthy headspace.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Easier said than done right for a lot of us.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Was that something that just came to you naturally or
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: did you have to like work at that?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Oh? That is a that's that's an ongoing balance for sure.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I like to I had I had the best list
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: of New Year's resolutions just this year. As I said,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I think, I think I have this self care down
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: to an art and it works so well. From January
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: first until I think May twentieth, I was I was
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: so on at work all the time, and then I
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: took a week off to go on vacation, and when
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I came back to work, it all fallen apart. I
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: came back to work and I being here is all terrible,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: as is awful, and thankfully I caught myself really really quickly,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: But I mean, it always is humbling how quickly all
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: of that can fall apart. And I always tell people too, like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: get a good group of people around you who can
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: call you out, because the last person in the room
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: who knows that you're about to get burnt out is yourself.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's just so critical to keep an
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: eye on yourself and have other people keeping an eye
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: on you so that they can say, you know, hey guy,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: are you doing all right? Or you know, hey, Ryan,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: you seem like you're like you're spinning a little bit.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm fortunate enough to have a great team around
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: me here that knows how to say that to me
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: and knows how to say no, really, you know, if
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I'm in a if I'm in a place where I'm
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: not at my best.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: In many
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: E common