When Stephanie Kiesow hung up her badge and set her sights on academia, she carried with her the silent weight of a career in law enforcement, a weight many of her brothers and sisters in blue know all too well. In this episode, Stephanie, a former officer turned PhD student and author of "Workicide," offers an unguarded look into the mental health challenges that are all too common among those who serve and protect. Her book, a beacon of research and personal experience, guides us through the dark corridors of career-related mental health decline, providing a voice for those often left to suffer in silence.
The thin blue line is one that bears more than just crime and justice—it's a line threaded with personal sacrifice and an unspoken battle with the 'traumatic mind.' Through Stephanie's insights, we learn of the occupational hazards that go unseen: the mental health crises, the identity loss post-retirement, and the continuous exposure to trauma that can chip away at even the staunchest of hearts. It's a candid discussion on the need for resilience and the importance of fostering an identity beyond the uniform—crucial armor for those facing the daily emotional onslaught.
Our conversation takes a turn into the shadowy realms of Internal Affairs investigations, where the psychological toll on officers is as heavy as their badges. Stephanie illuminates the isolation and stigma that can arise during these inquiries, which can feel more like trials by fire than routine procedure. It's a compelling reminder of the critical need for robust support systems capable of guiding law enforcement personnel through their most vulnerable moments. Join us as we stand with Stephanie in advocating for a shift in how we care for our guardians behind the badge, ensuring they have the resources to protect their mental wellbeing with the same fervor they protect our communities.
When Stephanie Kiesow hung up her badge and set her sights on academia, she carried with her the silent weight of a career in law enforcement, a weight many of her brothers and sisters in blue know all too well. In this episode, Stephanie, a former officer turned PhD student and author of "Workicide," offers an unguarded look into the mental health challenges that are all too common among those who serve and protect. Her book, a beacon of research and personal experience, guides us through the dark corridors of career-related mental health decline, providing a voice for those often left to suffer in silence.
The thin blue line is one that bears more than just crime and justice—it's a line threaded with personal sacrifice and an unspoken battle with the 'traumatic mind.' Through Stephanie's insights, we learn of the occupational hazards that go unseen: the mental health crises, the identity loss post-retirement, and the continuous exposure to trauma that can chip away at even the staunchest of hearts. It's a candid discussion on the need for resilience and the importance of fostering an identity beyond the uniform—crucial armor for those facing the daily emotional onslaught.
Our conversation takes a turn into the shadowy realms of Internal Affairs investigations, where the psychological toll on officers is as heavy as their badges. Stephanie illuminates the isolation and stigma that can arise during these inquiries, which can feel more like trials by fire than routine procedure. It's a compelling reminder of the critical need for robust support systems capable of guiding law enforcement personnel through their most vulnerable moments. Join us as we stand with Stephanie in advocating for a shift in how we care for our guardians behind the badge, ensuring they have the resources to protect their mental wellbeing with the same fervor they protect our communities.
Welcome to courageous leadership with Travis Yeats, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates:
Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited that you've dedicated a few minutes of your day with us. I'm very, very grateful. If you haven't already given us that five-star review and told your friends about us, please do so. It certainly helps others seeing our message. We're trying to give leaders the tools they need each and every week to make them better, to make them courageous, to make this profession much better, and today's guest is doing more than her part in that area. I'm very excited to have Stephanie Kiesow on the show. She's a former police officer. She's a cop wife, cop daughter, turned PhD student, studying research topics that include workplace contributing factors to suicide, and this became the foundation of what I got to tell you is one of the best books I've read to date on the topic. It's an excellent book called Work Aside how to Overcome a Career-Related Decline in Mental Health and Reignite your Passion for Work and Life. Great title, great book. Stephanie, how are you doing?
Stephanie Kiesow:
Wow, that was amazing. Thank you so much, Travis.
Travis Yates:
Yeah.
Stephanie Kiesow:
I'm doing fantastic. Super happy to be here with you.
Travis Yates:
Well, I started noticing you online a little bit and I saw your book and this interested me and I grabbed a book and I got to tell you you know I've got I'm kind of a book junkie. I don't even like the digital books, I'm kind of a book junkie and I've got probably close to a thousand on mainly the topic of leadership and all things around that, one being wellness. And your book caught my eye. But the contents are much better than just the eye catching cover because it's a beautiful book. And I just got to ask you, like, what made you set out on this endeavor? Because it's obviously, when you look at the book, it's. It was a ton of work into this, it's a lifetime of work. So kind of tell us your thought process on how we're staring at this great book right now.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Yeah, I appreciate the question. You know, I, to be quite honest, did not have it in my five or 10 year plan to sit down and write a book and have it published and all the things. But when I left my cop job well, actually prior, when I when I was a police officer, then even before that, I was a dispatcher, you know, growing up in law enforcement both my folks are retired, now police officers and I just saw that there were so many people struggling but because of stigma and perceived retaliation and all the things, nobody really reached out. But they were sort of beating around the bush that they wanted resources and they wanted education, but nobody really wanted to raise their hand and say outright hey, I'm looking for some support, I'm looking for some help. And so, because of experiences like that and then unfortunately, losing some loved ones to on duty, suicides that was sort of the foundation for me wanting to help in that area.
Stephanie Kiesow:
But it really wasn't until I left my cop job in in 2022 that I realized that there were so many people outside of just my department that felt the exact same, and so really the motivation for the book was I want someone who might be struggling internally. Maybe they're even struggling externally via suicidal behaviors, alcoholism, substance abuse, all the things, and I wanted them to be able to get solid research and information and education on how to better themselves, how to get help to get out of the dark places that they might find themselves in on their own in their home, without having to reach out if they don't yet feel comfortable. So that really was the ultimate motivation.
Travis Yates:
And I think that's what sets the book apart is, you know, obviously there's this is a hot topic, you know, and I don't like to say it's the flavor of the month, but I personally I see a lot of leaders saying they're doing something but they're not really doing anything, because it's popular to say you're doing something and I know the profession is much needed. But I think that's what sets it apart. Is there's other resources out there, but this is really research based. I mean, it's really it's hard to question what's in this book because of that research. Is that why you wanted to go that route?
Stephanie Kiesow:
Absolutely. Yeah, I wanted it to be more than just my experiences and sort of the anecdotal perspective, which is certainly important and that is in the book, but I wanted it to be other people's experiences as well. So there's like over 50 different police officers and non-sport employees and dispatchers that gave me part of their story to include in the book, which I think sets really it really showcases that we're all linked because of a lot of similar experiences and then even more so, like you said, the research component just really solidifies everything that we are feeling in law enforcement. This is normal and there are ways to combat certain feelings and emotions and experiences and traumas. I wanted to include the research component because I didn't want it to just be my opinion in the book.
Travis Yates:
No, it's, it's absolutely solid work and it's just really really good. It's one of these books I think Stephanie will defy time, which, if you can accomplish that with the book.
Travis Yates:
it says something. There's a reason why we still read Dr Gil Martin's 25 year book. Right, I think we were right beside there. You should certainly be proud of it. And the title is very important. You call it work aside and you spend a whole chapter kind of defining what this is. Now we don't want to give them everything we need to buy the book, but just kind of because that's the foundation of this and that's the foundation of your research and your studies kind of talk about what work aside is.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Yeah, absolutely so.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Work aside, which, if nobody is in front of that, that term it's the new term and so it's spelled similar to suicide, which is death by self, or homicide, which is death by others.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Work aside is death by career, either in sort of a figurative sense or in a literal sense. And so I walk the readers through specific workplace contributing factors to a decline in mental health, which I talk about as internal work aside, and or work related suicide, which I call external work aside, and I talk about the three to four just big similarities that I saw over and over and over again, not only in my role as a police officer and seeing it in my colleagues and my leaders and those around me, but also in the literature and the research. And so I really wanted to come up with a term that explained simply the feelings that I and, frankly, a lot of other people have felt on the job. And so work aside just kind of naturally came out, and I think it's a perfect fit and I think a lot of people resonate with the title, which is why it's become pretty popular.
Travis Yates:
No, absolutely. The title was the start, but the contents are so much better and that one particular sentence struck me when I read it and you said this is you discussed that law enforcement is trained for battle but not for an enemy that you call the traumatic mind. Try to explain to folks what that traumatic mind is.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Yeah, yeah, I talk about quite a bit in the book and I do certain presentations and education and teachings and such, and it's always been interesting to me that through the academy, through the field training process, even prior to that, really in dispatch and just growing up we're trained for, we're trained to combat people that might be trying to hurt us, kill us right, we go through hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in the academy and FTO and then in your career, what if somebody is trying to hurt you, hurt others, come out after you, kill you, ambush you, all the things. But what if the person who's trying to hurt me is me? Why have I never received training on that? Specific to first responders, specific to law enforcement and the reason why I mentioned that.
Stephanie Kiesow:
I always knew that suicidal ideations, a decline in mental health, work, occupational stressors and traumas I always knew that was a thing in law enforcement but it really wasn't until I had a conversation with a clinician and this clinician said to me one day we were talking about suicide prevention and all the work that I've been trying to do and the frustration that I had that there's just such a stigma still to this day. That really puts up a wall with a lot of the help that people like me are trying to, you know, wait through. And this clinician said you know, expecting a first responder, expecting a police officer to go through their career and not be mentally affected by it is like expecting someone to walk through water, not get wet. And I was like holy shit, yeah, that is so true.
Stephanie Kiesow:
No one has ever talked to us at least me at this point about the traumas, the occupational traumas, the organizational stressors which contribute to this accumulation, which therefore contributes to a decline in my mental health and possibly work aside, possibly workplace contributing factors to suicide. And so my sort of frustration turned into motivation, and that was a lot of what I talked about in the book, because I think we all know it, right, like you and I know it, we understand it, we felt it, our colleagues probably know it and understand it and feel it, but no one's talking about it, and so I wanted to be one of the first, and you know, if I'm one of the only, that's okay too, but I just wanted someone to have a conversation about it.
Travis Yates:
And part of the problem when we don't talk about it is you don't recognize it. And I just have a personal story is. You know I sort of prided myself on. You know, this job is not my identity, this is not who I am and I'm this and I'm that. But at the end of the day, if you do any job for three decades and those are the only people you've known since you were 21 years old and you one day don't do that job, there's some you don't you're having. You don't even realize the trauma that you were under until you were away from the trauma. And then you have, of course, the identity crisis, which I want to come up, bring up in a minute. But that's why it's so important to discuss it, because I think probably if you are a police officer for any amount of time, you actually have some trauma, but you're not aware of it. But it may be manifesting itself in other areas and you don't know why that's happened. Is the amount kind of on the right track there?
Stephanie Kiesow:
Absolutely, and I think you are 100% on the right track. Even more so when we have first responders that come from the military right, because your world view is sort of shaped as you progress through life, as you continue to get older. It's shaped from your experiences, and so if you start with trauma, perhaps from childhood, perhaps 18 to 22, if you do four years in the military or even beyond that right, I'm a military daughter, sister and wife, so I certainly can talk about that aspect of the military traumas. But then you add on to all of that the work stuff, the law enforcement stuff, the first responder stuff, and so that accumulation of trauma does happen to all of us, whether we recognize it or not.
Travis Yates:
Yeah, and for civilians maybe listen to this is the stark difference between law enforcement and the military is is the military obviously does some very dangerous things, but then, after that's over, they typically have an extended break. Right when they're away from the job or they're training or they're relaxing, there's an extended break. Well, law enforcement is a five or six or seven day a week job, depending on where you work, and you could experience a trauma on a Monday, but you're back to work on Tuesday and you don't even have time to think about the trauma that discovered. So by the time you get through your entire career working that way and you step away from it, those demons tend to come out and play, do they not?
Stephanie Kiesow:
Absolutely, and the whole reason why this is so important and I love that you brought this up is that I talk about in the book, three to four in law enforcement, four big, specific contributing factors that I saw over and over and over again in relation to not only a decline to mental health but work related suicide, and one of those four is what I call occupational trauma.
Stephanie Kiesow:
There's other researchers that will call it acquired capability or other things, but essentially, in order to transition from suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, to suicidal behaviors, the actual act of trying to die by suicide, we have to get over the very strong sort of ancestral workings of self preservation. Right, we all have very strong self preservation tendencies because our body wants to stay alive, and so the occupational trauma is important because, in order to sort of get over that hump, if you will, the desensitization to pain and suffering to other human beings that law enforcement sees day in and day out, every hour, every call, is really what contributes to this accumulation of trauma, which therefore can be a very important part of our lives, and this is really what contributes to this accumulation of trauma, which therefore contributes in a lot of ways to suicidal behaviors.
Travis Yates:
And when you talk about leadership, because obviously they're driving the ship of these agencies, other CEOs, what are you hearing from them? What do you see them? Do they understand this? Do they get this? What's your point of view?
Stephanie Kiesow:
You know, I think yes and no.
Stephanie Kiesow:
It depends on who I'm speaking to, right. I think some do and some don't. I think some, unfortunately, view leadership and wellness sort of as this check the box thing that they got to do right. I'm sure we could probably all think of leaders and organizations that have taken that stance, but I think the healthier organizations and more effective sort of authentic leaders recognize that these are things that they and their people not only need to be aware of, but these are things that we need to actually look to mitigate, like we need to implement things to hopefully prevent, but if not at least to mitigate these issues. And so I think that the tide is sort of sort of shifting a little bit in a good way. People are starting to recognize that this is something that they should care about. Whether they do it for retention purposes or hiring purposes or just really authentically wanting to take care of their people probably varies from department to department, but I am happy to see that it is starting to become a little bit more popular these days, for whatever reason.
Travis Yates:
Well, it's always courageous to try to step outside the box and do something different. And these chiefs have these, you know these grant sponsored, doj sponsored classes for this and that, and it's just so easy to grab onto those. Check the box. We did this and move on down the road. At the same time, with staffing issues in many of these agencies, they're working these officers seven days a week and the overtime shifts are unlimited, and a seven year officer down the road is not going to be a seven year officer. When we did it, stephanie, like it's, we're going to have some issues if we do not figure this stuff out while they're still on the job, are we not?
Stephanie Kiesow:
Yeah, absolutely, and I always, I always remind people, especially the brass and the stars bars and whatnot. You know, during during my my cop and non-sorn career I I was sort of the, the unofficial, quiet leader right In my department. I saw too many that were unfortunately changed by promotions. Their personality and leadership style and all those things sort of changed for the worst once they started to promote, and so I didn't feel like I needed the, the stars, bars and stripes to make change. And so I think it's important to emphasize with everyone, not just those that are in a leadership role, that every officer is a leader in their department, and so I think the departments that go the long distance and have healthy employees and more successful outcomes are ones that prioritize cultivating leaders from day one to field training and really prioritize their wellness going forward.
Travis Yates:
Yeah, you certainly would like to see us moving more towards that model, because it's clear that the model we're working on now does not work. And if you're just now joining us, we're speaking to Stephanie Kiesow on her great book called work aside and, stephanie, we just got to talking about the role leaders play. But I want to kind of applaud you and encourage everyone to get this book, because I love how you dubbed sort of the solutions you talk about here. You call it the warrior way and I'm just going to tell people what. That is real quick. But I want to talk about one in particular. The warrior way.
Travis Yates:
It's an acronym W for wellness, awareness, resilience resources, identity, openness, routine. I really love the sound of that. I love the contents of each one of those, but identity is something that I have personally seen around me, even experienced myself somewhat the identity crisis in law enforcement, whether you're on the job or you're no longer on the job. Kind of talk about the impact of that, because I'm hearing from a lot of people around the country that kind of left and they didn't want to leave because of all the nonsense going on. So it really wasn't in their plan to do that, but they knew they need to do that for their well, well being, and they're having some feelings they're not familiar with and obviously that's an identity issue sort of discuss what that is and what we can do to help out in that area.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Yeah, absolutely, chapter seven is one of my favorites too, so I'm glad that you, glad that you enjoyed it as well. So, yeah, I talked a lot about identity and this sort of term that I coined, identity devastation, which I think a lot of us in law enforcement specifically struggle with because of various reasons, but especially when we either voluntarily or unvoluntarily, have to transition out of law enforcement, so maybe through retirement or, you know, we're getting medically penchant off because we're having an injury or whatever the case may be. And so this sense of identity is really important because, you know, I'm a data nerd, I'm a numbers gal, and so 70% of us in general, just as human beings, feel that we as a person are defined by our work. You know, we derive a sense of purpose, fulfillment from our job. That's usually how we introduce ourselves to others, right? Like when you and I first start talking, or we go meet somebody at the grocery store and they say oh, you know what do you do for work. We say I am a blank, right, we don't say we do a blank. We say I am a cop, I'm a nurse, I'm a firefighter, I'm a blank whatever. And so these I am statements really reinforce our identities within our career, which makes them very entwined, and so the reason I talk about it in the book is, with law enforcement specifically.
Stephanie Kiesow:
I see this another first responder industries as well but it's really prevalent and, to be quite honest, problematic, more so with law enforcement because we become our jobs, and I'm completely guilty of this as well. You know, when I was going through some of the darkest days in my career, I was like I ate, slept and breathed police work, like that was who I was, and so really anything that threatened, either from a perceptual sense or otherwise, sort of threatened this innate identity that I created, it really hit me hard. And so, for example, you know 2020, this was a hard year for a lot of us in law enforcement because of the riots and sort of everything going on societally, and I really struggled because it felt like it felt like a fight against Stephanie. It wasn't that this was in a fight against law enforcement, it was a personal attack on me.
Stephanie Kiesow:
And so I think the identity piece is important, especially for our law enforcement professionals, because we have to have a multifaceted identity in order to not only survive this occupation but thrive right. We have to remember that we're more than just our jobs. We are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, whatever the case may be, baseball lovers, churchgoers. We have to have some sort and cultivate a multifaceted identity, because that's really the only way that we're gonna develop healthy coping skills and hobbies and have a life outside of the job for whenever we no longer are in it, because eventually we're gonna leave our jobs right, either voluntarily or via death, whatever the case may be. And so I think I'm so happy that you mentioned that, because I think that's really an underutilized concept in law enforcement is this multifaceted identity?
Travis Yates:
Well, you have a profession that pushes identity right.
Travis Yates:
I mean it's very much a culture of identity, but they don't prepare anybody for when the identity is taken away, because I can tell you, the minute you retire from police department, you won't be able to get back in. You're gonna be able to go back to the gym, your key card's not gonna work and they're gonna kind of forget about you. In a few weeks they're gonna move on. And I don't think they do a good enough job of preparing people, because so we put the identity in you, but we don't do anything to sort of ease it out before you leave. And that creates a lot of problems, does it not?
Stephanie Kiesow:
Yes, absolutely. I completely agree, and the reason why I'm so passionate about this specific subject is I honestly think that this was the catalyst for why my boyfriend in 2011 died by suicide because he was a cop. I was a dispatcher at the time. He was so wrapped up in his identity as a police officer that he got wind that he was about to be involved in an IA, an internal affairs investigation, and, right, wrong or indifferent whatever the outcome would have been, I think, knowing him as well as I did, the thought of him potentially losing his job and or his reputation via this IA because this was all that he had, this was all that he was, was too much. And so, on the shift that I think he thought was his last shift before he went out on admin leave, he made the very permanent decision to die by suicide just outside of his patrol car on his shift. And so, again, this identity piece can really have really negative, unfortunate end results if we're not careful with it.
Travis Yates:
And I don't think we understand what that does. I mean, I know being at a commander, you know I would. I would call an officer as they call me back, but I never recognized that they'd literally freaked out because of who. I was right, Instead of me telling them and explaining to them that it's not a big deal. This is what it's about.
Travis Yates:
I took it for granted that they wouldn't jump to conclusions, and it's the same with internal affairs. You know, I've known internal affairs guys or gals that would purposely wait till Friday afternoon to call somebody and say, hey, you're under investigation, have a good weekend. I mean just stuff like this. Right, Like we need to understand that identity and what these things do to affect people, and just. I'm not. I'm not saying we avoid accountability. What I'm saying is we need to understand the stress that that puts people under, that both have done something and didn't do something. I know officers that quit departments because they were investigating, did nothing wrong, but it was just the stress of the investigation, and so I think there's so many things that we can just do that are simple to understand this and to change our behavior. And is there anything in particular that you could recommend just along these lines of where leaders can ease the burden of some of these officers.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Stephanie, yeah, it's a great question.
Stephanie Kiesow:
I feel like you and I could probably have a whole podcast episode on IA specifically, but I think you know that is one thing that I hope to change.
Stephanie Kiesow:
But, honest with you is sort of the standard practice of how we operate with IAs.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Just, you know, from a law enforcement standpoint in general.
Stephanie Kiesow:
But one thing that I saw with a few departments on the East Coast that I found and research confirms is especially helpful, is that when an officer is in an IA or about to be in an IA, they have partnered with chaplains in their area or outside law enforcement professionals from other departments and they assign a specific person to sort of be the officer under the IA's sort of check-in partner, and so they are assigned someone to check in with that person and just see how they're doing and you know how this difficult road is going and sort of guide them through this really stressful process. And so I think that if we can sort of minimize, if not prevent, the isolation aspect that many of us feel in an IA, whether we did anything right or wrong right, a lot of IAs are, just to be quite frank, bullshit, but the stress of it isn't, and so if we can find ways to minimize the isolation feeling, either real or perceived, we will be doing our people so much justice for them in the long run.
Travis Yates:
And I want to sort of explain to folks that may not be familiar with this process of what is generically generally what is occurring. I've both seen it personally and experienced some of it, so I can investigate whoever they want for whatever complaint they want. There's really a lot of times there is no investigation before a complaint and investigation, right. So some citizen says something and they could launch a complaint and they could say some sinister things that aren't right. So an officer is literally just notified either by a phone call or official memo. You're under investigation and it's vague. They'll give some policy violation, right, but they generally will be. They won't even tell them anything specific and then they'll schedule an interview. It's not in common for them have to reschedule interview because I investigated when on vacation or your lawyer cannot connect with the investigators.
Travis Yates:
So, that takes time. Then they interview you and in an administrative interview law enforcement they can open up everything like they can start talking about the complaint, but then they can ask you about, for the most part, anything they want, dependent on the rules in that state. And then every officer in America knows that if you get caught lying you're going to get fired immediately. Well, sometimes you're just telling you things the best of your memory, right, and they couldn't. So there's a lot of stress there.
Travis Yates:
But then what also happens and I think people would expect that stress definitely, but here's the stress that I've I've seen impact people the most, the people that were your friends or your coworkers or your bosses, just because a complaint got filed, regardless if they know anything about it, they start talking and then they they stop talking to you and then the rumor mill starts and next thing, you know this thing that you did nothing wrong in, you're somehow some sort of criminal, and that happens more often than people would even know.
Travis Yates:
And the stress that surrounds that, whether you did anything or not because oftentimes, like you said, this is BS, the vast majority is because we will take a complaint from anybody and everybody, no matter what it said and put the officers through the ringers, which is oftentimes why the false complaints come in anyway. And the stress of this I've I've been through it, my friends have been through it it's enormous and it's hard for people to understand what that stress is because of sort of what that mantra of internal affairs is about. So we need internal affairs, we need accountability, we need to investigate complaints, but we certainly need to consider what it's doing for the wellness of our law enforcement professionals.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Absolutely.
Stephanie Kiesow:
And some departments here in California, where I live, they will even take it a step further and explicitly say hey, you are in an IA, you are not to talk to anybody that is currently employed with this department, even if you ask about the weather.
Stephanie Kiesow:
You cannot talk to them about anything for any reason until this IA is resolved, which is, you know, can take upwards of a year, if not more sometimes. And some departments even go a step further and say and you have to check in every single day, you need to call the watch commander, you need to call dispatch and every day check in and let them know where you're at if you've left the county. And it's almost like you're on parole, like why do I need to check in? I can't leave the county, I can't go travel with my family because of some BS accusation that you're going to find is false. But I have to wait 12, 13, 14 months sometimes for you to sort of exonerate me. Yeah, the stress we are absolutely doing our people a huge disservice, the way that we operate IAs and that absolutely contributes, can, has and does contribute to work aside, yeah, it's really horrific, and I've seen you name the horrific things done to people and people that have done nothing wrong generally.
Travis Yates:
And even if people did do something wrong we live in such a human error environment with just the performance we have to do in a split second decision we still shouldn't treat people horribly. I mean, I've seen police officers treated way worse than a homicide suspect completely worse and so we're very concerned about the rights of our civilians and we ought to be but oftentimes we don't put that same concern to our own employees and that's really a detriment because, stephanie, this, this, an employee that comes out of the other side of a stress like this. They're never the same, are they.
Stephanie Kiesow:
No, they're not. And on the on the sort of end side of things as we're talking about IAs and really any sort of organizational or occupational stressors and traumas to include IAs. But that is why it is so important to have healthy coping skills in place for when this inevitably does happen. And so it's not enough for us to recognize hey, you're probably going to go through an IA, it's probably going to suck, your life is probably going to be hell for the next year, but what are we going to do about it? And so in the book, I wanted to not only sort of educate people on certain things and concepts, but give them tools and things that they could actually implement, where they could feel like they're bettering themselves. And so, when it comes to healthy coping skills and wellness and cultivating that, that is why that is so important.
Stephanie Kiesow:
You know, wellness isn't just some like woo-woo thing that the hippies do these days Like this is how we survive and thrive. This occupation and I say so often, especially when I teach the newer officers, that if you do not have healthy coping skills in place, you as a human, all of us, will resort to impulsive, pleasure-seeking behaviors as a way to cope, like alcohol, substance use, maybe other addictions to things like porn, sex affairs, right, bad money moves that feel good today but really screw us up in the long run, like we resort to these impulsive pleasure-seeking behaviors because we don't know what else to do and how else to cope. And so really cultivating and finding ways to healthily get through this career is essential.
Travis Yates:
Stephanie, I can't thank you enough. Incredible stuff, incredible book Folks. Go buy the book. Work aside, it will be in your library forever. It's that good of a book. You'll keep going back to it. Stephanie, I can't thank you enough for being on the show and for everything that you've done.
Stephanie Kiesow:
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Travis Yates:
And if you've been listening, thank you. And just remember, lead on and stay courageous.
Intro/Outro:
Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. TravisYates. org.
