 Welcome everybody to another episode of the non-profit show. We're really excited about having our guest on today, Centauri Minor. He's like one of those luminaries in the sector, in my community, somebody that we've watched and listened to, garnered a tremendous amount of wisdom over the years. And so we have him today on the non-profit show and he is going to really help us to understand how we can be dealing with employee wellness and mental health in the non-profit sector to a far better degree than we have. Centauri, welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited for this conversation. Well, you know, I feel like you've seen it and done it all and you are the perfect voice of reason to come in and kind of help us realize why this is something we need to be talking about. And so I can't wait to learn from you and have our viewers learn from you as well. Again, if we haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Non-profit Academy. 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Come to the non-profit show and guaranteed we'll have somebody that's been talking about it. Okay, Centauri Minor, I am so thrilled you're here, my friend. I'm so excited for this. This is going to be great. Talk to us about what your work is involved in Evolved MD. Evolved MD was started about six years ago as a response to the burgeoning mental health crisis. What we do at the core is we integrate behavioral health into primary care. What that looks like in practice is that we put a licensed therapist right where you see your PCP. Where you go get a checkup, you can see a therapist. We started, and then those two people, the therapist and your doctor, collaborate on your care. We started here in Arizona and have since branched out to Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. So really trying to saturate the Southwest to great outcomes. And so for us, the big things that we want to do is one, reduce stigma. Let everyone know that therapy counseling, mental health is a priority and there's nothing to be ashamed of to see someone and also increase that access. So by putting it at the place, putting therapy right where you see your doc, you have a higher propensity to just go to have the access to those services. And we're seeing a lot of really good things coming out of the model and we're just excited for all the impact that we're having in our communities. You know, it's such an interesting thing. I'm kind of thinking about two things and that is the number of nonprofits that have been like, wow, we have unhealthy clients. We need to get onsite medical care so that then we can deal with whatever the other problem is. Are you seeing almost an environment where you have to educate, you know, your partners as to why this is an important issue and joining this therapy issue and putting that together? No, I think one of the, I wouldn't say positive, but one of the beneficial things that came out of COVID was it really exacerbated the nation's understanding and need for mental health services. So around that time, everything was kind of bubbling up and came to the forefront and became very clear that there was not only just a pandemic as it related to COVID, but also a pandemic and epidemic for mental health. So now it's a little bit more normalized. I would say when I joined the organization three years ago, talking to potential customers, there was a little bit more sell on the why, but now we have an influx of folks that are like, we need this. And so there's less educating on it now. It's more so just how quickly can we get your services into where we are. Amazing. Well, you know, that's the good news part of this because you're right. We need to normalize this. And even just when I think about, you know, the conversations that we had in the beginning of the nonprofit show, we didn't really talk about this. We talked about burnout and getting people a little bit of rest. And that was kind of as deep as anyone was going. Yeah. And so we got to go and I'm seeing this Centauri. I'm seeing people go deeper with this, this concept. And one of the things that you point out to us is that managers matter. Talk to us about that. What are you seeing? Yeah. So there's a lot of and I do a lot of work in this area, which is like equipping the leader. And recently there was a thing that came out in Forbes. And I recently talked to the association for fundraising professionals lost a couple of weeks ago as their keynote and really talk them through this idea that your managers have so much impact on your mental health. So if you're a manager, if you're a people leader, understand that how you show up and what you're doing really impacts and affects your employees. And so there's an article in Forbes that talked about the new data suggests that for almost 70% of people, their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist or their doctor. And it's equal to the impact of their partner. So if you are a leader, there's a lot of gravity in management. There's a lot of gravity in how you do those things. And so I think for if we're even going to have a conversation about mental health, people have to understand that a lot of their mental health has to do with the people that are around them. And if you're a manager, if you're a people leader on listening to this or watching this, really think about how you have to be intentional to make sure that your people are supported. You know, that's stunning because we talk about crazy. Yes. You know, we talk about, oh, we have like the work wife or the work husband and the work siblings. And, you know, we can say sometimes, well, this is my family. I spend more time with them, you know, in my 24 seven than I do my legit husband wife partner kids. But, you know, that's something that we really need to amplify because I think so often in management, we don't really hear ourselves. We just lay down an edict or we think, you know, people can read our minds and we don't think about that is stunning. And it's somewhat frightening. I got to say it seems to me that this is something that's changed or changing because of remote work. Or what do you what do you think about that? Is it is it worse? Is it better? I mean, that's a good question. I don't have the data to support either way. But I will say from observation that you think that remote work has to if you're a manager of a remote team, there's just even more things and more steps that you have to set to be intentional. And there are there is some new data that shows that remote workers, they're they're having a struggle finding the balance between work and home. And so they're kind of working out working more hours sometimes or there's just this propensity to burn out more because you're just always at your computer always at home. So it takes a manager setting, helping set those clear boundaries for their employee of, hey, you're done at six, turn off your computer, don't be on the computer at ten at night. But again, for if you're a manager that's either new or not thinking about it, it's just like you have to be very thoughtful about how you're supporting your supporting your employees and also the expectations are setting in a good way. So if your expectation is say, hey, Julia, actually, when you're done at six, I do not want to see any emails from you. I do not want to make. I want to make sure there are no. There are no things going on or meetings after that. And so that the employee feels like, oh, I can actually rest after. And that's a little easier to do when you are physically in an office space, right? Because you you leave the office or you can actually see the person. But I do like the call out on remote work because it does make it a little bit more difficult to be a more impactful manager on the mental health front. Right. And I think that it's like the blessing of being able to schedule your emails so that you are working at ten at night or two in the morning. You can be like, OK, yeah, this is not going to be delivered until eight thirty the next morning or whatever so that you can temper kind of that that communication. And I agree, you know, set some examples. Talk about this because I can't wait. I feel like this topic is something that we could spend an entire week on. I think the human giver syndrome, we kind of know we have it, but we're afraid to talk about it. You know, what does this mean and how does it impact or I should say show up? Yeah. And so there's a book called Burnout the secret to solving the stress cycle and it talks about the human giver syndrome, especially in the nonprofit sector. And it differentiates between human beings and human givers. And the this idea that if you're in the nonprofit sector, you're just probably typically our social impact sector. I would like one of the things I want to call out is that EvolveMD is where we're a corporate for-profit company. But all of most of our executive team, we came from the social impact nonprofit sector. So it's been very fun to see how the nonprofits have informed this corporate work. But going back to that, the idea that if you're a nonprofit person, you're probably very, very passionate about the work that you do. So much so that you feel like you have to give above and beyond to even have a baseline of success. And that's what the human giver syndrome is. It's like there are folks that are nationally wired to just give, give, give. Folks that say that, you know, I feel like I'll be called selfish for taking care of myself. Or I feel appalled. I feel obligated to apologize for just existing right for taking time for itself. Those are the things that happen in the nonprofit sector and we have to get ahead of it. And when I was talking to the association for professionalizing professionals, I talked about, especially in the nonprofit and social impact sector, people were burned out as a badge. It's like, I've worked this many hours at this event. I've been with these many clients and that's just not good for you. It's not good for the sector. It's not good for the overall sustainability of the organization and being a giver is great. But you have to understand that you also have to be selfish sometimes too. So this human giver syndrome talks a lot about that. You know, I think you're absolutely right. We do wear these things as a badge. And then all of a sudden we're, we're perplexed when our staff is all of a sudden or they can't show up or they're cranky or they have substance abuse issues. And they can't take care of themselves or their families. It's like, Hey, this is where it's rooted. I used to think that we used the word, you know, empathetic or being an empath a lot more. But I think this is a better way to look at the actual psychostructure of where we, where we give and how we behave. And especially in the nonprofit sector, there was a data set that came out of the Sanford social innovation review SSIR. I'm sure so many people are familiar with it, which is saying that like half of nonprofit employees are experiencing high levels of burnout. And especially for this sector thinking about, like, I think about it as like unrealistic expectations for the work. Like there's just so much need there with few resources. But it's still the expects expectation is to fulfill that need. So unrealistic expectations just as a sector work overload and limited resources. And then with the human giver syndrome, compassion fatigue, like, you know, let me give so much until you just can't give your burnt out. And so those are the things that are really kind of bubbling up right now, even more so after COVID. Absolutely. I was speaking to a CEO of a very large nonprofit recently who admitted to me that he thought he might have to retire in another community from his commute where he, you know, where he has worked his career, because he couldn't stand to see the homelessness and that that's where he had worked pretty much most of his career. And it was getting worse. And they were falling further behind. And it was such a devastation because he's like, every day I leave my office and I go home, I see where we're failing. And that was so hard. That's so hard. It was heartbreaking. And I was like, wow, I mean, you know, yeah, every day you leave and you're like reminded of a failure if in essence. And I was just like, it's the perfect example of the mental toll that it takes on our lives. And even more so thinking about not just the burnout from the work itself. So the nine to five job is the burnout from the, from the empathy that you're having with those clients is the burnout from seeing their community, either suffer or suffer or thrive is the burnout from having always feeling like that waits on your shoulders. And then lo and behold, probably most of the folks in the nonprofit sector aren't being because they're just so burned out or thinking about how do I better take care of myself? Should I be seeing a counselor? I see these things every day in my community. I should probably talk to someone to debrief about this or like get this off of me. And that's just not happening. And understandably so, but it should happen. Yeah, you know, it's such an interesting conversation to be with you and talking about this. Because for so long, and you brought this up, you know, wearing the badge, we're tough, you know, our clients have it worse than us. So shame on us if we complain, because we have jobs, housing, stable relationships, whatever it is you want to count. So how do we then turn that, that organizational approach towards mental health focusing on our own teams? Like, where does that come from? And how do we do it? Because this seems to me like a long journey. You can't just say put up a poster one day in the break room and say, okay, it's solved. It's solved. You're totally right. It has to be much more a deep rooted and systemic within organization. So I for the last two years have done a wonderful, I think, because I've been asked to do it a lot. This kind of roadshow on this business case for mental health. I talk a lot to kind of for profit entities, but most were recently AFP and some other nonprofit entities around there is a business case for taking care of people. There's a lot of data behind how much absentee and absenteeism causes issues to the bottom line or for in the nonprofit case absenteeism means that clients aren't being seen. And that happens because people aren't taking care of themselves. It happens because like sick days are actually mental health days and people are just like, I need a day to not be here. And it has to be a much more sustainable way of doing that. So really leaning into the idea that if you're a nonprofit listening to this, the focus has to be on sustaining yourself, your organization by focusing on mental health. And so we talk about a lot around just doing the things that that that are just being a good human is the best way to put it. So we talked about the manager managers just checking in with your teams. How are you doing personally, professionally? What are the things that we can be doing to help you in your in your personal life too? I think it's really important to note that gone are the days where you have like, this is where I show up as work. This is why I show up at home because that COVID made that all blend. And so now we understand that people come to work with baggage from the home too. And that's OK. So being open to those conversations, having vulnerable conversations in the workplace are a really good start. Understanding that there are just small things that you can do. You mentioned to Julia, which I love, which is we have a mandate that like no emails go out from the company after six. You can hold those emails and do whatever you need to. But there should not be an expectation of anyone on this team that they can't go home and just shut off. There should not be any expectation. So things like that. And then the other pieces are just employees are demanding it is what I talk to CEOs a lot about. So if you aren't prioritizing mental health, you will not have a workforce because they will find nonprofit that it invests at the time. The resources and the energy on saying I want to take care of my people. And I think another thing that I would add, especially for this sector is executive directors and boards have to understand the importance of mental health and shifting this piece from the that leads to compassion fatigue and burnout of saying for you to for this organization to be sustainable and for you to be here for a long time. We have to make sure that you're taking care of yourself that you're not working 15 hours a day. And by the way, oh, there's an event on Saturday. Can you just go volunteer for that because we need you know the answers now. And it's okay to set those boundaries. It's the organization should set those boundaries to you know Centauri. One of the things that I'd love your feedback on this for so many of us in the nonprofit sector. We deal with severely impacted people in in mental health issues. And so then I think when then we put those labels back on ourselves. And we're like, well, I don't have mental health issues because my clients have mental health issues, right. And so how do we bridge this? It's almost like an issue of shame. It's an issue of education. Yeah, understanding degrees like how do we bring this forward so that we're not labeling our teams. I think that's a good call out. I think a good way to do it is just normalizing it. I always start off with some key like general mental health facts. And this is an outdated figure that's only gone up, but generally 41% of all us adults have experienced at least one at first mental health or behavioral health symptom. So half of the people that you know are going through something. So let's just let's just name that and say like, let's name that. And we also understand that for most of those people getting treatment. It's just not it's not in the cards. And so folks have issues, but they're not getting access to care. And that's something that we want to change. And then I think that the things that are really, really kind of harrowing for my from my standpoint and to your point of like it's mental health is so silent. That a lot of times your people just don't know and you can look at some like an Anthony Bourdain or whoever it might be of like, ostensibly great life, but things are kind of falling apart. And so for the workers in for the workers in the nonprofit sector or anyone that you are managing depression looks different for everyone. So we can't just say like, Oh, this because I see this person that's a client that's acting this way doesn't mean that my person's not impacted the exact same way. And I also like to call out suicide is the second leasing leading cause of death for Americans 20 to 34 and the fourth leading cause of death for Americans 35 to 44. So a lot of our teams are in that age range where suicide is that one of the biggest killers death by suicide. And so those are the things where I think it's really important for us to not say for us not to debate the severity of mental health, but say if you're going through something, we need to talk about it and we need to provide you the whatever that looks like. Yeah. And it's that it's not punitive and that it's not punitive. Yeah. And it's also what we would have been really proud of our company doing and something I pride myself in as a manager is this idea of psychological safety. So my team knows that they can come to me and we can have a one on one that has nothing to do with work. It's like, this is happening in my relationship this is happening at home and me as a manager has to sit that I'm excited to sit there and say, All right, let's talk more. Are there things that we can do? Have you talked to our EAP program? Is there recommendations that we can do? Or is there just something I can do as a as a manager and as someone that you trust in your life to help support that and just even having the option of being able to go into your boss's office and say like, this is a terrible day. This is what's going on at home. I just need to be able to have the space that goes a long way. That doesn't cost you anything to just be a good human to your people. But you know what I hear you say that it seems to me like there's a cost of training and knowledge because how many managers. I know with that and that's nothing. I mean, I don't never had training on that. I've never seen that. I mean, it's in school that was never that's never spoken about in business school. I mean, it's kind of like, what is your level of empathy and how are you going to navigate it? And I think there's a lot of ways you send out signals that are like, I'm not receptive to that. Right. I am receptive to it. You can come to me, right? So how do we train our management level to understand that this is a new way of doing business? That's a great question. So I'm lucky to be a contributing writer to Forbes jobs, which is like a sub-brand of Forbes that focuses on career development. And I released my most recent article yesterday, which was like the five things first time managers should know and seasoned managers should remember. And one of the things was that the first part of it is like, no one really receives management training. And I've seen this across not just nonprofits, but even some of the larger organizations in the world where you think like, of course they have something. It's like, nope, you're really good individual contributor. You seem competent. Now go manage this team and people are like, what? Okay. And so I think one, everyone just has to, organizations should have intentional training for that. But I do think there's something to be said about leaders and CEOs and boards modeling that behavior. Like modeling does a really good way of showing that just being like really asking those questions are something that you're going to have to do. I think the other piece, Julia, that I always say in this presentation is kind of you're going to have to do it because this next generation of employees, that's what they're demanding and they're going to go find it somewhere else. So the best thing you can do is equip your managers to be empathetic and they don't have to be touchy. No one would ever describe me as a touchy feely person, but I can hold space for people. And I think anyone can do that with a little bit of training and coaching around that. It's not as insurmountable as you might think. Oh my God. That's going to be my new buzz phrase, hold space. I love that because, you know, it does kind of paint a picture for me because I'm that way too. I, you know, so I'm a lot older than you and I really was raised on the you go to work, especially as a female. And when you walk out that door with your briefcase in your suit on, you're no longer at home. And you're no longer at home until you come back right after five or six or whatever. And so you, you know, it's a fascinating shift. It's so fascinating. And I mean, we could maybe in a year we can come back on and have a conversation about just kind of generational differences in the workplace as it relates to this. I mean, I'm in that I was an elder millennial. And so I was taught you just grind, you grind, you grind, you do the work, you do the work and you keep raising up and it's like, why, why do we do that? Why did we, why was I taught that? That's so unhealthy. And so just even undoing some of the things that we were all taught and learned in whatever generation to support this work. Yeah, it's riveting because I think I speak, I spend a lot of time with, you know, CEO level and of course they're older and they totally don't get what's going on with just these next generations to the point where it's not only frustrating, but it's damaging their, their, their organizations and frustrating them to the point where they're like screw it. I can't lead because I don't understand how to get to these, these demographics. And so what you're talking about is, is really one of those conversations that we need to start having and weaving in. You know, we don't have a lot of time left and I just, I feel like you're just so riveting. And I, I know we've, we've identified some of these problems and we've really highlighted the process and why we need to be thinking about this. But what does it mean to take care of yourself? How do we do this? Even if we don't have an ecosystem or managerial system that supports us, what are some of the things that we can do? That's a great, great question. So I, one of my articles this year was entitled true leadership means emotionally taking care of yourself. And so I, I had that same, that exact premise of like, of the things you can control, what can you do? And one was setting healthy boundaries and prioritizing yourself. And so going back to the human giver syndrome, the best thing I learned in my 30s and after good therapy is like, it's okay to be selfish. So even if it's outside of, outside of work, even with your family, it's okay to say no to things that just aren't serving you. And it's so hard because we're raised to be people pleasers, but set healthy boundaries and what that, however that looks to you. And so just really being thoughtful and with your, depending on your relationship with your company, your, the nonprofit you work with or the, your boss of like setting really healthy boundaries of, hey, I'm not available for that. I think I'm so blessed to have a CEO so that I report to that I can say like, I'm, I'm just not in the space for to do that and it's not going to be good for me. So can I, can this not be the expectation in setting those boundaries? And sometimes it's a, absolutely. Sometimes it's like, we just have to do this and I totally understand, but like actually making sure that you're prioritizing yourself. Being selfish is not, it's not bad. Like it's okay to do that. And we have to get that out of our minds. Making self care part of the daily routine. So find the one thing that really provides you energy for me. It's I work out every morning, but it might be reading a book, I have an employee that like she likes to play the piano. So every day we've talked about like, have you played the piano today? So whatever that is for you, it might be watching, keeping up with the Kardashians, whatever it is, make sure you do it every day. Make sure you do it every day so that you get that energy from something that really, really provides you like something that you love and can help you take care of yourself. I love the one that I also talk about is like spend more time with the people who give you energy. I said like, look at your outlook calendar and think about like the people that you're super excited to like for that appointment and then see the people that you're like, God, I got to do this. Spend less time with those people if you can and be thoughtful about who are the people that actually fill you up, you feel energized afterwards. Be very intentional about spending more time with them. Talk to your company about what mental health means to you. So I think a lot of times people just assume that there's like this divide between personal and professional or just like the person themselves and the professional. And I talked in my article yesterday like managers have to be good with the whole person. And that also means you as an individual going to your boss during your company and say like it's really important that I can set these boundaries that mental health is a priority. So what can we do to get there? And then my other tip is just like if you can get professional help. I've been in therapy since I was 24 or 25 years old. It is the one thing that I will always make time and resources for. It's been a life changer and a game changer. And so if you can make sure you go see just go see someone. Yeah, you know having having known you and watched your career. You are a lovely man and you have an otherworldly presence. And I've got to believe that that has added to to this, you know, piece of you being comfortable and being sage. And so yeah, I think it's really important and especially for those of us that work in the nonprofit sector. Absolutely. It is, you know, grimy. I mean, even just my work doing the show and working with clients, it's exhausting and I'm not on the front lines, but I witness what is going on to the people that I work with. And it is really tough. It's really so tough. It's actually, it's kind of crazy to me that like more and more folks don't that do this very, very hard work aren't seeing someone. It's like how do you process what you just saw today. It's so hard. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. And I, I find that I mean, I ask that question a lot of the people that I work with. I mean, what did you do to heal yourself? Not your clients. Love that question. What did you do? And it's, it's so brutal the number of people that are like, I, I can't answer that. I didn't, you know, and it's like, well, then that's where we need to start the conversation. Because if you can't answer that, then you can't help those that you're, you're trying to help. Right? That's exactly right. And you're going to leave. You're going to leave us and you're going to leave our sector and we need you here. We need you here healthy and wise. And so, wow, you know what? I am so honored that you are a part of our sector. I know you have such an amazing presence nationally. I am thrilled that you're sharing your knowledge and your passion. This is great. Yeah. Centauri, Centauri minor VP of strategy chief of staff evolved MD checkout evolved MD. They're doing some really cool things and hopefully they'll be coming to your community soon as they really flourish throughout, you know, this region of our country, the Southwest. It's such an important issue. And I think this is a fabulous opportunity for all of us to see you moving forward. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group will be back with us tomorrow. Again, I want to give one more shout out to our sponsors who are here with us, allowing us to have these conversations, Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy, your part time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. So Centauri, every day when we end the show, we sign off with this like certain message. And this message is maintained. I say it every day and Jared does too. But it has its intention and how I hear it and how I speak it has changed. From the beginning, we started this message because it was COVID. And then we've we've morphed through different issues in our country and in our sector. And today I say this with mental health in mind. And it goes like this to stay well. So you can do well. Thank you so much, everybody. We'll see you back here for another episode of the nonprofit show.