The show’s guest in this episode is Pat Broe. He is a best-selling author, mental health advocate, and sales and marketing professional. Pat’s journey is both inspiring and deeply personal—overcoming anxiety, depression, and even a life-threatening moment to become a passionate guide for others seeking authenticity and confidence. Through his raw storytelling and practical advice, he empowers people to tackle modern mental health challenges and embrace ‘The Real Confident You.’ With experience ranging from radio hosting to business consulting, Pat brings a unique and powerful perspective on living a happier, more fulfilling life.

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Listen to the podcast here

Confidence and Mental Wellness in Leadership with Pat Broe

Hello. It’s great to be with you today. I’m Melanie parish. I’m one of the CO hosts of the experimental leader podcast.

Hello, welcome to the show. I’m Melanie Parish, and I’m an author, a coach. I coach, I teach coaches, and I am a content creator, and it’s great to be here with you today.

Hi. I’m Mel Rutherford. I’m McMaster University’s first transgender department chair, and I’m the co host of the experimental leader.
Yeah, well, I’m curious, Mel, what have you been thinking about in your own leadership?

Well, I’ve been noticing that in the last several years there’s been a lot more talk about concerns, about mental health issues among employees, among people that are colleagues. And I think that it’s probably true that most of us have colleagues who have mental health issues that are diagnosed and treated, and we also have colleagues who sometimes will have an acute episode that may not be effectively treated or even diagnosed and and thinking about how, in a leadership position, we can deal with that one of the one of the goals, is to mitigate the impact that that such an acute episode might have on other employees. But I realized that that our, you know, our previous conversations about calling in and Loretta Ross’s approach to calling in can really be effective still in what seems like an acute, emergent situation that trying to understand what, what people are feeling, stressed about, what people are what people are feeling, whether or not they’re aware of the impact they’re having on people, whether or not they’re the impact they’re having is consistent with what the impact they want to have. A lot of the strategies that we talked about when we’ve talked about calling in, I think could be really effective, even in these sort of acute, emergent moments at work.

I think that’s really interesting. And I’ve also been thinking about mental health. It came from teaching a course, a coach’s course, about and having a question from one of the participants about mental health and coaches shouldn’t be treating mental health issues. And so it’s kind of like, where’s the lane? And I realized in my answer, you know, I have had over the years, there was one point I don’t know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that I realized that every single one of my clients have panic attacks on a regular basis, so I started asking that question in my initial session with them, like, Hey, do you have panic attacks? I added it to my repertoire because I wanted to know whether or not that was something that they would be grappling with in their lives, and it had some shame attached so they weren’t telling me spontaneously, and then I’ve also worked with a lot of clients who have had more like serious mental health diagnoses, and I’ve always just asked that they work with a therapist at the same time as they work with me. And I had a client who had a suicide attempt, and in that case, like we designed around it, and I actually have his therapist number, which I think is important only if he discloses something to me that I feel like might be in that category. So I think it’s really interesting from a coaching perspective, that I coach adjacent to mental health issues, but I don’t coach or problem solve around those issues themselves, and I think these are important distinctions for people to understand around coaching and therapy. And so this conversation today has me thinking of that.

Do we have a guest today?

We do our guest. I’m really excited about our guest. Our guest is Pat Broe, and he’s a best selling author, he’s a mental health advocate, and he’s a sales and marketing professional, and his journey to professional success was marked by personal struggles with anxiety, depression. An attempt on his own life. These challenges ignited his passion for guiding others toward authentic living with raw storytelling and practical advice. Pat empowers readers to overcome the unique mental health threats of a modern life, and his book is called the real confident you advice from a 20 something suicide survivor. So welcome to the show, Pat. 

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We’re super excited that you’re here.

Very excited to be here. And then what a interesting and wonderful conversation that I’d love to just jump right into, because you guys are are starting at a great wheelhouse for us to get started talk today.

That’s great. What caught your attention?

A couple things. First of all, I love just where you, both of you are coming from, in the idea of as leaders, you need to come into every conversation being empathetic to what’s going on, right? I think what your role is, and that you’re not the mental health professional that needs to, you know, I think many leaders inherently want to be fixers. When things happen right, it’s called upon us to fix things when things are going wrong. So when there’s something going wrong in our in an employee’s life, you know, it could be anywhere, right? You could be the leader of the church bake sale, and you just want to sell more brownies. You know? You want to make sure that the individual that are that you’re called for Leading, are doing the best they can, and even if it’s not acute mental health episodes, you know, it could be something like someone’s going through deep grief in their life, right? Or, you know, just overbearing stress maybe, you know, he and his wife’s car both broke down this week, and they’re both having to Uber to work, and it’s created a mess in our life with the kids, we all experience things outside of the diagnosed mental health sphere, right? That weigh people down in extreme ways that can affect the team as well. And so coming at it from an empathetic place, I think, is a good place to start, but also understanding what your role is in that, I think, is an interesting dichotomy to play, because you never want to be the person that’s pushed over.

Can you say more about that? Though, you never want to be the person who’s pushed over. What does that mean?

I think, you know, for leaders, and I think for anybody, it’s it’s hard to we’ve all experienced the kind of person that will try to take advantage of your empathy, right? The person whose grandma has died seven times this year, and they’re taking off work for a week, right? Because the most extreme scenario, or, you know, we’ll take the afternoon off, we’ll have long lunches off because something is not, not actually something’s going on in their life. You know, they have nine doctors appointments. They don’t really have doctor’s appointments. They’re just working remote and they want to take a nap in the middle of the day, right? We never want right? We never want to have that situation occur. And I think a lot of leaders, when I’ve talked to leadership podcasts, are are scared of that those kind of things happening to them, if they’re empathetic and they and they give a little bit in situations where someone’s going through something, but I would say is to that is, I think we all undervalue our own smell test and our and our ability to see when we’re being taken advantage of and when there’s something actually going on in someone’s life, and something as simple as just trusting your own gut. I know that’s not an academic way of thinking about it, but truly, for people going through things like this, understanding what people are going through will not leave you susceptible to being taken advantage of, because you’ll know pretty well on when someone’s grandma has died for the seventh time this year, right? You’ll understand what’s going on.

I think it’s interesting. You know? I know that I have leaders who worry a lot, especially after after COVID and getting people back into the workplace, and people really liked being home and they worry about being taken advantage of I have sort of a different so I think that can be a thing, yes, and I think people just really liked working at home. I’ve worked at home my whole career, and I love it. I don’t really want to go work somewhere else. And I think that when the grandmother dies seven times, it may actually be indicative of a mental health crisis that isn’t being talked about. So the empathy can still be there, even if you’re even if you feel like you’re not being duped. It’s just they’re not telling you the whole story. And so I think you can actually act in empathy as if there was something that just wasn’t being revealed, instead of deception being the the default. And I think that’s really important think about.

No, I think that’s completely true. I think that comes to the ability as a leader, to have the conversation, to understand what’s actually going on, though, right? I think if an employee is willing to deceive you like that, I think there’s something fundamentally wrong in the relationship that you have, right? And you don’t need to be their best friend, but you should create an environment in which they feel like they can be honest with you about what’s going on. I always implore people, if you think. Your employee wouldn’t talk to you if something was going on in their life, whether it be in a mental health episode or grief or whatever it is, if you seriously took stock in what those relationships were like and someone you felt like you didn’t have an environment when someone felt comfortable having those conversations with you, I think it’s time to reevaluate it. I agree that most people, people on the whole normally, are not being deceptive or trying to get out of things, but it is something that, you know, we all have to be cognizant of as well, right?

I had a staff member who had happened to be overseas and lived in a place that had a lot of natural disasters and and I had a moment where I was like, wow. Like, when this person says they’re working, are they actually working in the middle of a hurricane, or are they not? And this idea that it was duplicitous. And then one day, I woke up and I went, Oh, I think I could solve this with five extra days of PTO, and then I could just actually ask them to be off when there’s a natural disaster, because they’re not actually accomplishing anything. So I didn’t really lose anything, but it took the deception out of the relationship, because it was literally guaranteed to fail systems. So I like the systems approach too, in making sure you understand what system is happening, what you’ve set your people up for.

I’m wondering about I’m thinking about these conversations as a leader like so I’m in a leadership position. I’m having a conversation with him, an employee that’s having you know that something stressful is happening, and I’m trying to find out what what’s happening. I think it’s my job to figure out how their what’s happening in their life is impacting their work performance. But how do I know when I’m prying too much, especially when I’m the boss and I’m in the sort of position of power, how far can I go and asking personal questions about how, you know, How are things at home? And that kind of those kinds of questions.

Yeah, and I think it’s hard to especially when we’re talking specifically about mental health, but in any sphere, we’re trying to figure something out, right? Because often shame is a component in a lot of this, right, where people just feel ashamed of whatever’s going on their life, whether it’s, you know, I shouldn’t be this sad that my dog died, or it’s something significantly more serious, right? What I would say is, I think we’re all generally another thing we generally undervalue is the ability to just ask open ended questions. You don’t need to pry into the specifics of the who, what, when, where, of what’s going on, but the simplest question of, how are you doing and responding to that with why? We’ll give you a world of answers, right? But there’s one thing consistent about humans. We do like to talk about ourselves, whether we like to admit it or not, and so, I mean, you guys are in the space of content creation. You thrive off of people who love to talk about themselves, right, egotistical or not. And so leaving leaving open space in a conversation for them to just come out with whatever it is, and not prying about specific details about what’s going on in their life can really help foster a conversation that seems empathetic and come to them with, you know, some level of compassion to whatever is going on. You know, I don’t think they’re looking for a therapist and their boss, but, you know, being someone who just says, Hey, that stinks. I’m really sorry that you’re going through that, and setting the precedent of being someone who says to them, when you’re going through something, right, if you’re the kind of boss or leader when the when you’re having a bad day, and letting everybody know over slacker teams and the team meeting, hey guys, listen. You know, my wife’s sick, I’m having a rough day. Just let you guys know I’m at less of a bandwidth. Your employees will be much more app to come to you with conversations when they’re not having the best day or things aren’t going well for them. So you guys can create a plan of action and make sure that they’re getting the best that they possibly can, and then on the days that they’re feeling 100% you’re going to get the best results you possibly can, because you have someone who really wants to work for you, because they can tell you care.

Are there certain categories that we think about with mental health? Like I noticed, there’s a few things like that. I noticed in my practice, like one is sort of disappearing, which I might like in my head, think more of as like a depressive incident. And then there might be something that I would think of as where irrational or unexpected communication happens, the kind of breakdown. And then I also think of there’s, like the sort of internalizing. I see this in my practice a lot, where people are internalize a lot of negative voices that sort of tear them apart. On the inside, and each one of these, I think, in a workplace, has an impact. And I’m wondering whether you have any wisdom to impart on any of those specifically, because I think the way you respond as a leader might be really different in those three scenarios.

Yeah, I think there’s a couple things. One, you know, I’m not a I’m not a licensed therapist. None of us sitting here are, and so to get overly indulgent on what their behavior is and trying to diagnose it yourself, I think it’s just a tricky slope for all of us, right? We’re not. None of us are qualified to do that, right? And most people listening are not unless they are some sort of, you know, licensed psychologist. So I think it’ll get your wheels spinning just trying to identify specific behaviors that might indicate some sort of mental health issue. What I would say is, if you are noticing slip ups, I think it’s best to work with that specific person to understand what would be the best plan of action for them to get something better out of their lives, right? And mental health challenges take so many different forms to your point, right? In so many different behaviors, but also in so many different ways people get relief from it, right? Like for me, my if I was going through something and my leader said, Okay, we’re going to take a bunch off your plate. Would actually be the worst thing possible for me. You know, I’m the kind of person who, when things are tough, I want to work 50, 6070, hours a week, right? Because it’s the thing that I can control when I really enjoy it and I get joy out of it. And you’re taking that thing that that person gets joy out of, or someone is burnt out and needs a rest, right? So I think going to that individual person and working out the plan with them of what are the steps that we need to take to go forward, or even them come to you with the notes that they’ve gotten from their therapist or mental health professional. I think it’s a, it’s a one off basis. I think it’s really hard to be dogmatic about individuals with mental health right? It’s, I think we really try to get system adequate this stuff and as we should, right because, but there’s no KPI on empathy, and so finding the individual plan with the individual person is the best way to go forward.

And I guess I sorry, do you have a question? I could let you get a word in?

I was just going to ask Pat, what was the what was the motivation for writing the book? What’s the story behind the book?

So I was a teenager, despite my bald head, I’m 27 years old, just to set the scene a little bit here, but I was a teenager who had a lot of the mental health issues that we’re seeing mirrored with a lot of our youth. I think Jonathan heights done a lot of great work in this regard, showing kind of the increase in terrible mental health, health outcomes since the advent of social media and technology and all these things, right? And I had a lot of, lot of issues that ultimately culminated in me attempting to take my own life when I was 16 years old. And in the preceding half decade, you know, is a really a wake up call for me. Of you know, I need to get my my act together. I need to get my life together. And so the preceding half decade, I had really put together a life that fostered happiness and joy. And I was really, you know, I was someone who we talked about panic attacks earlier. I was experiencing seven to eight a day. I was the kind of kid who would be cutting jokes in class and raise my hand and go run to the bathroom and have a panic attack. And so to be on the other side that I haven’t had a panic attack in in 12 years, but at that point it was, it was five, right? So in that preceding half decade, I’d really done a lot of work on myself, and I had seen some real professional success coming out of college, and I wrote this article mostly because I felt like I was living my last lie of not telling people that I had gone through this right? It felt like I was hiding something about myself, and the article really was only meant to serve as a mechanism so that I didn’t have to have this conversation 600 times with all the people I went to high school and college and my family and distant family and all that stuff, and have it over and over again. And so I wrote this article basically about my story, what I had gone through, how, you know that I had gone on the other side of it, and I was doing great now. And the response to it, it went as viral as the the written word can go here in the modern day. Um, and my inbox started pouring in with messages from people who, you know, part of it was the, you know, I’m sorry to hear that, you know. I wish I could have been there for you all that stuff, which is great. Not what I was looking for at all, but the majority of it was people my age and older, saying, Hey, me too. Like, I’ve been through this experience too, and, and how did you get better? And I realized that that was really the part that I had left out of it. And so, you know, I had these ad caught conversations, you know, 300 400 conversations with people, just how people just, Hey, these are the kind of things that I did to get better. But I didn’t really have my head wrapped around with the totality of the process of what I did to get better. And so I thought the best way to do it would be to write a book. I think it allows you to explore the idea the best possible. And so I wrote this book, the real conference that you really. A partially memoir, right about my own story. And then these are the, these are the methodologies that I followed, at least to a, you know, get over the kind of initial hump of mental health issues that I was going through. But also, how did I, you know, really self actualize and build an identity that I was proud of in the in a modern world that has a lot of factors that are affecting a lot of our youth. And the last thing I’ll say is the real passion behind the book is, when I was going through the issues that I did, there really wasn’t, you know, there’s been a lot of pontificating and a lot of focus placed on youth mental health, but there hasn’t been a lot of stories from the youth perspective and from people who’ve actually been on the other side of it. You know, it’s been and listen, I love the work of Jonathan Haidt as much as the next guy. He’s done fantastic work in this regard, but he doesn’t tell the story from the individual’s perspective, because he can’t, right? He’s an academic at NYU and certainly not in Gen Z. And so for someone to tell that story from that perspective, I just wanted to write the book that I wish I had when I was 16 years old, that I could have had on that rough day.

Do you have a couple of I just like to make things really practical. Somebody’s listening today and like wonders, like, just for a taste of what are some things you tried? Could you give a couple?

Absolutely. So I would say the first thing is a general problem we have, whether mental health issues or not, is we’re all completely overstimulated. Right from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed, we have magical light boxes and super computers in our face telling us that we’re not good enough in some distorted view of reality, and so resetting our relationship with our phones was really the biggest thing for me. Resetting my relationship with technology allowed me to really get back in touch with myself. And I think for most people, they don’t realize the extent at which they’re they’ve lost some basic human functions. The ability to just stand in a line and have your phone in your pocket and make a conversation with people is not something people do anymore, right? I don’t think there’s any think there’s anybody sitting on a subway right now listening to this you’re listening to this podcast, and you’re looking at your phone, you’re not engaging with the person next to you. And when we do that, we miss opportunities to grow and really learn more about ourselves, or even sit in silence. And so I implemented a system of detox from social media. I think it’s almost impossible for all of us to go without it. It’s important to all of our careers, right? So for most people, I would say, just take 24 hours off, pick a day, delete all the apps from your phone, and understand how often you’re just reaching for your phone to feed content into yourself. And it’s a good check just to see how much of this is impulsive, and how much of this am I intentionally choosing to do, to reach out and look for media. And so the most practical thing I could tell anybody to do is take 24 hours off of social media and see how often you’re checking into it. For me, I take two weeks off every quarter, and so I plan out all the social media posts that are supposed to go out for business otherwise ahead of time. We all have those tools and functionalities. If there’s something I need to check messages for, I will do it on a laptop, like once a day, but creating more friction in that experience. So the super computer in my pocket doesn’t have the ability to I don’t have the ability to get to it very quickly. And what I found, especially when I first started doing it is how often I was doing it without thinking, you know, just pulling out my phone, opening it up, and pressing the blank spot on my phone where Instagram used to sit. And I think for most of us, we’ll find similar behaviors when we take our 24 hours off.

Interesting, that’s an interesting one. Where can people find you, Pat?

Okay, so the easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-broe. You can also find me on Instagram, at Pat bro. The book is available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. This is probably the two easiest way to find it. It’s the real confident you advice from a 20 something suicide survivor. We have made the book 99 cents in the eBook version, because we don’t want price to be a prohibitor to people getting this information, and so it basically covers the publishing fee, right? So I’m not making any money off that $1 version. Please take it and do whatever you can. You can also email me at the real confident you@gmail.com if you have any questions, you just need someone to talk to. If you’re going through a rough spot, I’d love to just chat. I’m not going to try to sell you a program on over email. I promise. I just I’m going to be a human being and talk to you and see what you’re going through, and if that $1 is really prohibitive, I’ll probably send you the PDF copy of the book. So thank you guys for having me on today.

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for what you’re doing in the world to make your book accessible for people in that way too.

Well. Thank you guys for having me on and being willing to have a third real conversation on a day like today. So much appreciated. Thank you.

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What an interesting discussion. I still am left sort of with questions about the the junction between mental health issues and leadership?

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s a tricky question. One of the things that Pat said that really resonated with me was talking about doing this writing in order to get the story out, so that you don’t have to tell the story to everyone you meet. I resonated with me as a trans person, because I don’t my my story isn’t necessarily something I wear on my sleeve. So if I want somebody to know who I am, I have to, you know, tell the whole story, or I have to come out, or I have to, you know, talk about what I am so, putting it in writing and getting it out there, and I can just, you know, connect somebody to a link that I understand how that’s convenient and cathartic.

Me too. I we had an article written about us years ago and your transition, and I have used that article over the years to tell people that we’ve just met. I I hate coming out, and I also, yeah, I find it difficult as well. I also think that I think it’s really a muddy time for this issue. Like you, you want to be supportive, and you also, as a leader, need to foster good work in your organization. And so there’s friction there sometimes and and being empathetic is great. I think, I think there’s also some authenticity and honesty that is useful here. You know, I noticed that blah, blah, blah, I’m wondering what you wanted your impact to be with that and then handing it back to them to because you also don’t want to write someone off. You don’t want to write off developing someone because of their mental health. You want to continue to stay engaged with them, and you don’t want to other them and there always has to be room for forgiveness, because if there’s not room for forgiveness, then you’ve lost the relationship.

Yeah, I think, I think this has been a really interesting conversation. I am left with more questions, not totally feeling confident in the answers, but I think that’s the work of leadership. Is to sit in the gray and figure out how to be the best version of yourself as a leader, as you’re helping people with things that are hard.
Thanks, Bonnie, this has been fun. It’s been great.

Thank you for being here today and go experiment. Go experiment.

 

Important Links: 

LinkedIn – Pat Broe

Pat Broe

 

 

Pat Broe is a best-selling author, mental health advocate, and sales and marketing professional.
His journey to professional success was marked by personal struggles with anxiety, depression, and an attempt on his own life. These challenges ignited his passion for guiding others toward authentic living.

With raw storytelling and practical advice, Pat empowers readers to overcome the unique mental health threats of modern life. Drawing from his diverse background spanning radio hosting to business consulting, he offers a powerful roadmap for cultivating a happier, more fulfilling existence as “The Real Confident You.”

 

 

 

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