 Hey everybody, good morning, good afternoon. Be welcome to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're really excited to have this conversation today because we're gonna be talking about wellness and nonprofits and all the things that we kind of think about but we don't always have the courage to talk about. And so we have Amanda Castura on with us today of Carb Your Own Path, Integrated Wellness. So let's get to it and really learn how we can be more thoughtful and be more productive and be more at peace, I guess, right? All these things and more. Hey, if we haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group is at a retreat today for nonprofit executives. So she will be joining us later in the week. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors who help us have these amazing conversations every day. Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, and a nonprofit nerd. If you've missed any of our episodes or you wanna see something again or maybe you have a new issue you wanna delve into, you can find our incredibly robust archive on Roku, Vimeo, YouTube, and even Amazon Fire TV. We have channels there. We are looking at close to 750 episodes. So there's quite a bit in there, but everything is searchable and you can find a lot of information according to where you need it. And this year we started taking all of our shows and putting them into podcast format. So we have a whole nother slew of ways that you can get to our content. So however you like to queue up your podcast, check us out and we'd love to be in your ears. Hey, Amanda Castorek, Carve Your Own Path, Integrated Wellness, welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Julia. It's good to be here. Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled you're here and I've gotta ask you what took you personally to this journey and understanding the need for this discussion about integrated wellness? It was all the things I'm gonna talk about today. You know, there's that fine line. I still have a very small case load being in leadership. I think it's necessary. I thought that there was a lot of places where I worked that the leadership was so disconnected from the people they were serving. So it's something that I have been very passionate about. So it's always a challenge and a fine line for me to share my personal story and I love doing it. So I worked in nonprofits and social service agencies for about 10 years while I was working on my undergrad, graduate school, a few years after. And I just noticed that there was missing elements to what was being marketed or advertised or shared is what we were doing and what the actual reality of what was happening, right? It was kind of that disconnect what you learn in school and the books and then the actual presentation of how that looks. There was trauma-informed environments that really just meant that those clinicians had done trauma training and there was no trauma-informed anything else within the administration or the policies, right? Cookie-cutter approaches to treatment, right? A lot of cognitive behavioral therapy speaking to, you know our frontal lobe and not getting to the core root problem lack of support for our employees that are doing this very challenging work. And again, cookie-cutter approaches to taking care of your employees, right? Like one-off pizza parties or retreats or EAP emails but no true holistic approach to that. So I thought we could do this a different way and I got to a point in my own journey where my physical and mental health was just depleted. I was done and I wasn't gonna make it much further either way. So I put in my 30-day notice without having another job for the first time ever in my life, very privileged to be able to do that. I'm aware not everyone has that ability. It was the most freeing thing I've ever done and carve your own path was incorporated shortly afterward to try to do things a little differently. You know, I love it because one of the things I hear at the beginning of your story a lot, I don't hear the end of your story a lot, which sadly, and what I hear is people taking that path and then lopping it off and leaving the sector completely. And there goes all the knowledge, compassion, intellect, historical perspective onto something else that never stays within us as a sector to make us better. So wow, I appreciate your story and I really am looking forward to this conversation. And the first thing I've gotta get to is this burnout issue. I have heard this so often throughout my journey in the nonprofit sector and the fear of it, it has just escalated during these pandemics. And I'd love for you to talk about that with us. Yeah, that's a really good, what you had to share is a really good segue into this because I got to that point of burnout and you're right, I've seen so many other people do it that have put their lives and their money into this, right? A master's degree isn't cheap, right? And I'm aware of that, even a bachelor's degree for folks to go into this field, not making enough money to pay for those degrees. And so for people to get so burnout that they decide it's the field and leave is very disheartening to me because I'm also a supervisor for social workers helping them get their independent licensure. So I'm very much about mentoring and empowering that next generation of helpers and it really burned me out to see people getting so burnt out. I think something that was crucial for me in my journey that prevented me from that is one, I have a bleeding heart and I'll be a social worker through and through from like the day I was born until the day I die and two, my support. So if I didn't have the support system I did to be able to make that shift and have access to resources to be able to make that shift I absolutely could have burnout and left the sector as well. But so understanding that and knowing that talk to me about us as a sector, are we recognizing this? Because it seems to me that it's a moral failure. It's perceived as a moral or educational or anything failure if you can't get it out. Yep. And so there's so much shame in admitting you might be facing burnout. And it seems to me, Amanda, it's just like the last straw. Yep. We get to a point where it's like you can't recoup because you've gone too far. Is there something you're seeing with that or is there something we can do to talk about that? I think we're spot on. Yeah, it's put on the individual as an individual failure. And I actually did a post on LinkedIn recently that got some really good traction about this title burnout is BS. Because in quotes, right? Because when I see this talked about, whether it's articles that are written, whether it's talked about in those environments, it is, oh, the employees are burning out. The individual therapist is burning out. The individual provider is burning out. And no one's talking about the systemic issues that are causing the burnout, right? It's kind of the same, you know, when I talk about wellness, I talk from a holistic approach. So we can talk all day about substance use. We can talk all day about behaviors and you can try to make that the problem, but that's not the problem. And we're not getting at the root, right? So yes, absolutely. We are talking about the symptoms and not the root problem. And I think when people do try to get to the root problem, they still get locked up in the symptoms. And that's where these one-off, you know, band-aids happen. And we're not even taking into account what our people need. Like when I think about this, I think about the reason I still have a caseload. What those people have to say and what their needs are matter. And if I'm not in connection with that, then what am I doing with my life, right? Why do I even have this practice? So I think it's the same with our employees. If we're not asking them what they need and then doing the research on our own and finding ways to implement that, and we're just out here throwing things at a wall, hoping that that makes them stay, we're not gonna get very far. Right. And I love that because I absolutely agree with you, but that's a heavy lift because you have to look internally and you have to recognize that maybe you have some problems or you've created your own problems. And one of those things I wanna ask you about is this toxic work environment. Because it's a really hard call to say my work environment is hurting me. My work environment. It's not my work that I do with my clients. It's the work environment. And how do we look at this? How do we frame this up? Yeah, and I think that people get so bogged down in the burnout and the moral failure and that message that they're taking from the outside and internalizing that many people don't get to the point of being able to step back and externalize that and say what could be contributing to that? I'm all for individual accountability. If there's something I'm doing, like I'm staying up all night on TikTok and I'm not well rested for a day of work or whatever the thing is, right? If there's something that I need to be accountable for, absolutely. But I think just in our profession in general, in the helping professions, we forget to take care of ourselves and we get so caught up trying to take care of other people that were like, oh, well, I must be doing something wrong. How can I fix this? And we don't think, oh, maybe the place, because they're established, right? The place that you're going to work for is established. I mean, these places have been in practice for how many years and decades, right? So why would we think that there's something wrong with them? They clearly know what they're doing. They're bringing in money. They have clients, right? It kind of reminds me of like child development, right? When kids are even in the most toxic traumatic environments, they don't realize it, right? They still love their caregiver for the most part. Now they get older and they start to see things and they're like, oh, your family doesn't do that. Oh, that, right? Once you have the comparison, then you can look outside of yourself and say, okay, maybe that's not me. Maybe this isn't most helpful, but when you go from organization to organization and you see a very similar culture, it's hard to know what that is. Well, and I think too, you know, in the nonprofit sector, we advocate for others far more quickly than we advocate for ourselves. So these things don't get brought up, right? You know, and a lot of times you work with nonprofits and they don't have a robust HR department or they don't have a robust ombudsmanship kind of orientation where they're like, yeah, reaching out to their people and saying, what can we do better versus your privilege to have a college education so buck up and get the work done, you know? It's kind of an interesting quandary. Do you see it getting better or do you see people talking about this or are you on your white horse by yourself out there? That's what it feels like sometimes, you know? And every time I do randomly get introduced to someone or, you know, and I meet someone by chance and I'm like, wait a minute, you're out there saying the same things? Can we be best friends? Yeah, and I think it's like a movement, right? So it makes me think of when internet came out. When social media became huge in the last few years of the pandemic, people are finding education and resources online to look at themselves and say, huh, is that what's going on with me? Much more, right? And so I think that access to information has people considering and looking at things very differently. The pandemic has people considering, is this job worth my health? Is this job worth being in misalignment with my values, right? And so I think there's a movement happening where we're not gonna take that anymore. I don't care how much money you wanna throw at me or, you know, what your benefits package looks like if you're gonna deplete me physically and mentally and not fill up my cup to be able to serve your people, I don't wanna be a part of it. Right, right. Well, and I think we're understanding too about our relationships, you know, internally at home and in community relationships that suffer that then debilitate you on a whole nother level. And yeah, quality of life issues that just move forward. I also wanna ask you about, I mean, rather than kind of just eliminating all the things that we know and we see, there's a bigger picture to this and you call it modern supervisory approaches. What does that mean and how can we get there? I love this topic. I actually presented on it at our National Association of Social Workers Ohio Chapter Conference this year about modern supervision and the foundation of that is relationship, right? It is Maslow's hierarchy. We have to have safety. We have to have trust. If I don't trust you and I don't have an authentic, genuine relationship with you that I know that you have my back as my supervisor, I'm not sharing anything with you. I'm gonna do what's in my job description and move along. And so you're not gonna know when I'm burnout. You're not gonna know. And that's a disservice on both ends, right? I got into these environments where coming from when they did have a decent HR department, it was only talk to them, oh, they have something going on in their life. Don't ask about it. Don't get in that conversation. It's not a therapy session. Do you need time off? Do you have PTO? Do you need coverage? Who's gonna cover this and that? And that was it. And it felt so disingenuous. You know, like this is a human being that has just lost a major person in their life. Like that's grief. I'm not gonna have a therapy session you but I can hold space for you. So- It's also punitive. It seems punitive. It is, it is. Oh, you need awful. Now you have to use your PTO. Right, right. Now I have to cover your group, right? It's a problem, right? And that's- Yeah, yeah. Wow. So I really tried to, I don't know, I do this with clients too when I talk about the importance of appropriate ethical self-disclosure. We cannot all blank slate. Okay, Freud, I understand where it was coming from. I understand we're not gonna disclose everything, right? When appropriate, when it makes sense, when I can disclose with someone, I went through something similar, especially a supervisee who's early on in their career or something like that. If I can disclose also having a challenging time or being able to relate to that and this is how I moved through it, that is empowering and that's what helps prevent burnout. Interesting. Again, it seems to me almost like it's a communication topic. That you're actually opening up, stepping away from the policies and procedures approach and going to a more humanistic level. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Yes, I care about you human to human. Yes, you're an employee of this organization. Yes, we need to get the bottom line done and in between there, in order to get that done, I need to care about you as a human first. Would you classify this, Amanda, as an empathy issue or is it just, I mean, being like, as I say, read the room? I mean, how do you understand this to be of value and then to be of a point with which you recognize, okay, I got to stop and engage in this piece of it? Like how do you balance that, I guess maybe is a better question. Yeah, so there's so many factors. So I think it's generational. Okay, interesting. Oh, interesting. Right, so it's old guard type, don't talk about it, don't bring your personal to the workplace. Okay, you know me. Right, and so yeah, I think it's so for the organizations and agencies that have been existing that long and have people in management and HR that are of that age and also liability, right? They're always trying to CYA. So risk management, right? So they've gotten so tied up in risk management and old guard that we're losing our humanity. And then we wonder why there's such high turnover. So it's retraining, it's retraining, it's research, right? This is evidence-based. This isn't, I'm not just pulling this out of somewhere, right? Like this is evidence-based. It's proven to keep people in your organization and keep them happy and keep your clients served really well. And then yes, it's absolutely communication. I don't think it's an empathy issue because I don't think most people that are in this field have an empathy issue, right? We go into this because we care. I think the bureaucracy and the need to make money and the lack of, again, there's so many ways I could go with this. Like I was in organizations that when Medicaid redesign came, they absolutely lost it because that was their only revenue source. So I think organizations that focus on multiple streams of income do better with this culture thing, right? Because they're not so focused on your productivity because they know they have other income coming in. So there's room for the humanity. I agree with you on so many levels and I love that you could weave that back into this conversation. I'll tell you that, you know, Jared Ransom, my co-host and I are 20 years in age difference, almost to the week. And so I'm 20 years older than she is and it is fascinating how much more she will share. And I'm like, and sometimes I'm just like, wow. That is not, to me, that is just like a killer to the career, right? That you would never do that. That you have to be strong. You have to be on the game. You have to look like there's no problems and it just feeds into this whole problem of burnout. It just feeds into all the things that we're talking about today so that you would point it out as generational. Fascinating. Now, going the other direction, how do you mitigate maybe that next-gen level of leadership wanting to behave like this and understanding the value of this and then having senior leadership C-suite that doesn't understand this? Yeah, I think that's where the challenge is, right? Because I was that person that was like, you can't make me a robot. As much as you try, I can't be a robot. I'm not built that way. I am a human and I see human and I want to relate and connect. So I was, again, I had the privilege to be able to be willing to lose my job while fighting for my license and fighting for my ethics and fighting for my values. So I was the one that was, yeah, that doesn't make sense for our employees. I'm not gonna do that. Hey, we need to do this a different way because that's not helpful. That's not gonna get things working well. So I was the one combating those things. If it's a more established organization, you're gonna have more of a hard time with that. Although I see this new wave. Again, generationally, we have a whole new wave of younger helpers coming into the profession that aren't standing for that stuff. So as much as you might threaten our job or whatever it is, we're just not gonna take it and we're gonna go somewhere else. So I think it's a crucial thing if organizations even, I don't care how long you've been established. If you don't start to figure this out, you're not gonna make it much longer because people aren't gonna stand for that. But there is a very helpful way of doing that. You're gonna run it through an ethical lens. You're not gonna share everything with your employees. It's gotta be related. It's the same way I would do it in a therapy session. I'm gonna run it through my list of does this make sense? Is it ethical? Is it gonna harm them? Is it gonna, whatever those things are that you're running it through to make sure before you just are out there. Oh, and then me and my partner had an argument last night and all that, right? It's not a venture complaint session. This isn't an opportunity for you to have therapy with your employees. It's more relational and conversational and I see you. So if I come in in the morning, Julia, to work and we're all in the same office and you say, hey, Amanda, how are you doing? How was your weekend? And instead of saying, it was fine. Like your generation might do. And I say, you know, it was kind of rough. My kids teething. So we were up all night and I didn't have a bubble. That doesn't harm our relationship. If you also have kids that validates you, right? Like, and you also see that I'm willing to be honest with you that I'm not a hundred percent today. And then I will say that. So I'm kind of tired and I might be a little foggy today. So if you need something from me and I don't get back right away or you come to talk to me and I don't give you the clearest answer, please forgive me. That's the space I'm coming from today. Like how honest and genuine is that? And then when they're having an off day, they feel more comfortable to come to me and say that. Like, I tried, I could not sleep last night and I'm just feeling off today or I'm on a new medication. I don't care what it is or what it's for. I'm on a new medication. So I might be like a little off, right? Like that opens the door for so much more genuine conversation. It's so interesting. Now, having said all this and I totally agree with you, how do you get these multi-level generations? And I'm thinking everything from like the board to the CEO to the C-suite and then down to the new crops of educated stewards if you will, that are coming into our step sector. How do you get this conversation even going? Because this is a behavioral pattern. I mean, I think about like all the books that I read in school and in college, they championed this piece of power and being a warrior kind of concept. How do you think that we can begin to have these conversations and to even let people understand this is what we need to be working on? Oh, that's such a big question. Yeah. I think it has to, there has to be a champion somewhere. So leadership, right? Like the, and if you're, you have a board, right? Like a lot is coming from the board. So the board, your board members have to be very selected very well and intentionally is the word I'm looking for. Intentional choosing of those board members because of its old generation folks that have that mindset you're not gonna get anywhere because anything you try to get approved is not gonna come through. So if you say, hey, we see a need for this with our employees, they're telling us we need this, you know, effective communication. We wanna come in and teach them nonviolent communication so they feel better effectively communicating with their other coworkers and leadership. And the board says, eh, I don't think that's important. You're not gonna get anywhere. So definitely at least one champion on your board that's willing to fight for it. And then champions sprinkled, it just, you just need a few people sprinkled in all the levels of leadership to make something happen, right? And like I said, like with this new wave coming in, they're gonna be on board with that. So it's just kind of a timing, right? You got it, there's some people you're not gonna change their mind and you might just have to wait for them to move on. Well, you know, Amanda, this has really been a fabulous conversation. It's been so interesting and so timely. And I feel like you are on that wave, you're part of that wave that's gonna be pushing these concepts further, you know, illuminating why we need to be doing this for people like me and my 60s. So, you know, we can understand how this next trajectory of stewardship can be more effective because it is a horrible thing to be seeing this bleed off in our sector. And we need the nonprofit sector more than ever. It is what I believe gives us this quality of life across our country from nature to culture to social services. I mean, all parts of our lives. But if we are not keeping our people and we are not keeping our organizations intact and healthy, then even though this nonprofit culture and concept is great, we won't have it. And so it's really been interesting to have you on to talk about this. Amanda Kostura, carve your own path, integrated wellness, you're active on LinkedIn. Tell us how we can find you on LinkedIn. Yeah, if you just search Amanda Kostura, I should come up, LISWS might be after my name, but I'm pretty active. So you should be able to find me there. And then we also have, you know, other social media pages like our Instagram is pretty active, that's at carve my path. Yeah. Awesome, I love it. Now, as we end our day, we're starting another week. If you are with us live, you know this is a Monday. If you found our archive, I'll tell you it is a Monday. Give me one tip that I can do, that all of us can do, starting this week that will help us to be more fully engaged in this wellness concept. And I know this is a curve ball. It's okay, I'm here for you. This is what I do every day and I love it. So my number one thing is teaching people how to regulate their bodies. I'm very passionate in a lot of areas. So when I talk about with a clinical intervention like this, it's regulating. We don't realize how dysregulated we are. So when you walk into work and you see that manager that might not have that growth mindset approach to things and you get a little tightness in your chest or you get a little sweaty, you get a little short of breath, pause, breathe in for four, hold for seven or as long as you can. And then audibly for eight seconds if you can. Do that a couple of rounds, check back in with yourself and see how you feel. Hopefully you're a little more grounded than regulated. I love it. Well, you have grounded and regulated me today. I love this. I think this has just been really an important conversation that we need to be having more of. And I love that you shared with us, you know, your thoughts on this. We need to have you back in more and back on the show more because it's really been a fascinating, fascinating conversation. Amanda Kostera, check her out. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the non-profit nerd will be joining us later in the week. She's at a CEO retreat, which I'm sure I'm hoping a lot of these things have been talked about. Again, thank you to all of our amazing partner sponsors. They include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, and the non-profit nerd. Amanda, we have done nearly 750 episodes and we end each episode with this mantra that we started in the very beginning because of COVID. So it meant something different and the mantra is stay well, so you can do well. And that's how we've signed off every day. But in the beginning, it was because of COVID. I mean, we were saying, literally like mask up, take the vaccine, be careful, you know? Yeah. But I have noticed that in just my own mind that now when I'm doing that sign off, I'm thinking more like mental health. I love your own company, so you can help others, absolutely. Yeah, it's been really interesting. And so even though it seems like it's something that I say every day, it is something that I think about and challenge myself with. So I will end this wonderful time I've had with you, my friend. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh, it's been wonderful. Just stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone. Amanda, thank you.