Overcome - A Mental Health Podcast

You’re Not Alone: A Deep Dive Into Self-Doubt with Kurt Bush

• Travis White • Episode 18

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In this powerful episode of Overcome: A Mental Health Podcast, Travis White sits down with Kurt Bush, co-founder of Brimstone Coaching Group, to unpack the deeply human experience of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. Kurt shares his own raw stories—from grad school anxiety to being the quietest voice at the leadership table—and explores how our past shapes our inner critic. Learn about protective promises, transformational coaching practices, and why silence robs the world of your true self. Whether you're a leader, parent, or simply someone navigating self-worth struggles, this episode offers validation, insight, and hope.

Let’s walk this journey together and leave stigma behind.

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Travis White (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Overcome, a mental health podcast. I'm very excited for all of you to be listening today and especially excited for today's guest. I'd like to welcome Kurt Busch to the show. Kurt is the co-founder of Brimstone Coaching Group and today he's going to speak to us on imposter syndrome. I'm just going to hand the time over to him.

Kurt Bush (00:27)
Yeah, thanks Travis. Thanks for having me. We at the Brimstone Coaching Group don't, we certainly don't exclusively work with people that are wrestling with imposter syndrome. But I think what I and my coaching partner would say is that almost every human has some form of imposter syndrome or maybe you could call it self-doubt. That this is just a pretty

human experience. And I think I start by saying that because I think I want to give listeners permission to name that they feel that. I have one client who asked me just a couple of weeks ago, he said, he got real quiet and he leaned in, it was a zoom call, he leaned in, said, Hey, I just want to ask you a question. How many people feel like I feel like I don't belong? How many people

feel like they have self-doubt or like they don't belong in the role they're in. And I looked at them, I said, everyone. I mean, this is a near unanimous experience for people that we interact with for sure.

Travis White (01:40)
Yeah, I know I've suffered from it and I like the terminology used as self-doubt. Do you feel like there's like one profession over another? Like a group of people that like felt more than others might?

Kurt Bush (01:59)
That's a great question. think five years ago, I would have said this is an exclusively white collar sort of feeling or experience. I actually don't believe that. I think now I feel more more clear that one way or another, any profession, any socioeconomic

rank any blue collar, white collar, I think somewhere in our lives, it's again, almost unanimous that we feel like we are ill equipped or unprepared. I think it manifests itself most obviously in our work, right? I think we can all think of professions where this could come into play. Maybe someone in the public eye or someone who's leading an organization, but

But I think self-doubt creeps in with things like parenting or, you know, being in relationships. I think self-doubt is also a part of this, like, maybe self-sabotage that we do sometimes when we're in a relationship with somebody that we really don't want to screw up, but we end up kind of self-sabotaging. I think, I don't think, I wonder if that actually kind of boils all back to this feeling of,

being an imposter. And again, I think it's broader to say, you know, that we have these doubts that we're worthy of something or that we belong in something. I think that all kind of stems from the same place.

Travis White (03:42)
Yeah, I can agree there. And have you ever experienced any self doubt or imposter syndrome yourself?

Kurt Bush (03:49)
Yeah,

yes. I think the phrase I've used is near crippling. I'll share a little bit and I'll let you kind of ask what you want to ask. But I went back to get my master's degree in my mid thirties. I am not an academic by any stretch. And I was not an academic by any stretch when I went back to get a master's degree.

to the point where I should know what I was doing. I was in a distance learning course, writing papers that I felt like I had no business writing, papers that I didn't know what I was doing. I see cohort mates that are nearly half my age. And I just felt out of place. I remember so vividly the feeling that I would submit a paper and I would hit submit.

on the online submission page. And I remember fearing that this paper, whatever this paper was, that this paper or this assignment was gonna be the one that the professors found out. Or this was gonna be the one where the institution said, you know what, after all, you don't belong. After all, you know what, you're not good enough. I feared that my fears were gonna be true and that they were gonna find out.

I didn't have any of this language around imposter syndrome at the time, right? I didn't have any of this self doubt language at the time. I was just exhausted. Exhausted. mean, imposter syndrome, self doubt, feeling like we don't belong or feeling like we're not worthy or feeling like we have to compensate for not belonging, that is exhausting. And it takes away.

from all the things we're doing, right? That took away from my learning. That took away from the quality of my work for the classes that I was in. And what's true is that when that program ended, when I graduated, imposter syndrome didn't go away. We have a phrase that we say, everywhere we go, there we are. And sure enough, that...

self-doubt that imposter syndrome followed me into my work. I think I say it followed me because I think I was becoming more aware. I think I was becoming aware that this was becoming a problem that was not sustainable for my life. It was not leading to the results in my life that I wanted in terms of thriving, in terms of wellbeing. It was actually taking away from those things. was...

You know, it was messing with my sleep. was messing with the way I interacted with people. And long story short, I found myself in a workplace where I would need to sit around a table and collaborate with other leaders that I looked up to. These were people that I respected. I actually really loved them. These were colleagues that I cared a lot about. I live in a small town that has a little college.

in it. So I'm around the table with professors and academic types. And for the first few months of this job, I would sit at this table and I would just, I would just fear being found out as an imposter. I would sit there and I would have something to say. And the only thing I could do was sit there and be quiet because I would fear every time I had opened my mouth that that would be the thing. And they would say, cash Kurt, you know, you don't, you don't actually belong at this table. Why don't you actually just leave?

Um, and it's crippling, right? It's near crippling. Um, and I think I'll stop here in a second, but I think what's, what's been true is I, I figured out how to manage that. I figured out what, what I needed to sit at that table and contribute. Right. Right. I, I leaned into some practices that, that showed me that these people actually care for me, that they actually want me at the table that I actually.

Travis White (07:55)
you're good.

Kurt Bush (08:15)
contribute to the table. I think oftentimes what's true is we, each of us individually, me and you and the listener, we contribute to things uniquely, right? I contributed in ways that people next to me at the table couldn't. We like to say in our coaching practice that when we allow imposter syndrome and self-doubt to keep us silent, that we actually are robbing the world of our truest selves. So I figured out that

that that wasn't true, that there was nothing to be found out for, that there was no threat. But what was true is within the last year, my coaching partner and I, we've started a coaching practice and starting a small business has stirred up a new level of imposter syndrome and self-doubt that has required a whole new set of practices because it's just, it's a different set of triggers. It's a different reality that stirs up

the self doubt stirs up the imposter syndrome in ways that previous experiences have not.

Travis White (09:22)
Yeah, and I can actually point out times where I felt that imposter syndrome. think a lot of it is pretty related to what you said about sitting in a group of people. I've been a project manager for the last like six, seven years of my career. And so I'm sitting with stakeholders and executives and stuff. And there's moments where I was like, ⁓ I don't dare to say anything because I don't think what I have to say is valuable. And so like,

Kurt Bush (09:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis White (09:51)
Part of me now is just barely getting over this. And another thing too is like even started this podcast. It took me a long time to do it because I was like, I had the fear that nobody was gonna listen or even care what I had to say.

Kurt Bush (09:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask you a question? ⁓ sorry, I do this. My, my friends laugh at me because I always ask if I can ask question before I actually do it. You can always say no. ⁓ what, what was the impact of you? What is the impact of you? Like when you're sitting as a project manager with stakeholders, what's the impact on you as a human being to sit there and feel this self doubt.

Travis White (10:08)
Yeah, of course.

No, you're kidding.

it's... I don't know, it's just that to me it's like an overwhelming feeling. Like there's... It's like a feeling that doesn't end. it's... It just makes me more anxious to fill the self doubt. And it kind of just makes me shut down personally.

Kurt Bush (10:52)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for saying that. I mean, I think that super illustrates this idea that we believe deeply that these things robbed the world of our truest selves. And I mean, think we can say that that robs our organizations of what they ask of us. But I think on a broader scale, think the world needs our voices and our truest selves.

Travis White (11:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

exactly. In my example, like if I don't, if I shut down completely in the stakeholder, they're not going to learn the things that they need to learn to like, as far as like timelines or whatever it is that's going on to be able to know where the project is exactly.

Kurt Bush (11:32)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Travis White (11:39)
So when somebody is experiencing this self doubt, how do you, like what steps do they need to take to start like pushing themselves out of.

Kurt Bush (11:48)
Yeah. First, let me say it's hard work. We believe that transformation and literally setting aside imposter syndrome or self doubt. I mean, that requires transformation. This is long, slow work. But we hold really closely this thing that we call the transformational equation. We say E plus R equals T. E is encounter, R is reflection.

And this is where we start everyone. We invite everyone to take those encounters we have, and we have hundreds of encounters every day with people, with circumstances that cause us to feel things, that cause us to react to things. In your example, what we would say is, if a client of mine is sitting around a boardroom table and feels like they're withdrawing into themselves and not contributing, we would say that's the encounter.

And I would invite them to reflect on what happened, what did you feel, what did you do? A question that we think is really helpful is what's the threat? What would happen if the worst case scenario happened? And then maybe the most important question is how would you prefer to be? And that all sounds really easy, but.

But, but, but I believe actually most of these self doubt experiences are connected to something in our past. ⁓ we, our, our bodies, our nervous systems are tremendously good at keeping ourselves safe. and when we asked the question, what is the threat? What we're really asking is what's the threat today that is felt today in the moment and where does it come from? Because it probably comes from somewhere.

long in the past. We have things that we like to call protective promises. We help our clients identify protective promises. These are promises that we make to our first formation selves to keep ourselves safe. So third grade Kurt, for example, third grade Kurt didn't know he was doing this, but third grade Kurt made a protective promise to never ever allow myself to look dumb in front of people, right?

That was something I learned in third grade that if I look dumb in front of people, bad things will happen or negative feelings or negative experiences will happen. So my nervous system knows if there's a chance that I'm going to look dumb, that I need to protect against that. So when we say what's the threat, that's really what we mean is what is our nervous system responding to? Can we be honest today if that threat

is the same today as it was yesterday or in previous years, because often, often it's not. Sometimes it is, but often it's not, right? Third grade Kurt doesn't need to show up in these boardrooms. Adult Kurt, present day Kurt needs to show up because the danger for third grade Kurt is not present today. So I think that's where we start. We believe that reflection is probably the closest thing to a secret sauce.

in terms of transformation that we can give. Still long, hard work, but we would begin with this idea of reflecting on these encounters and just being really intentional about that.

Travis White (15:25)
That's awesome. since you're into coaching, would you say like to kind of overcome some of the problems you had with whether it be imposter syndrome or something else, did you have to have a mentor or coach yourself to get over this stuff?

Kurt Bush (15:44)
Yeah, absolutely. I still have a coach. I believe pretty firmly, or one of the values I hold is that if a leader, and I use the term leader broadly, I think everybody leads something. If a leader is going to lead, then we need to invest in ourselves. If I don't have a coach or a mentor or a counselor, I'm probably unfit then to lead someone else.

Yes, I worked through all of this with my own coach. And I think the value of this is my coach is outside of my system, right? My coach doesn't know anybody sitting around that table with me when I felt like an imposter. My coach doesn't know what my job entails in all the details. And my coach is not my friend.

Now, we close? Like, do we have a positive relationship? Yes. But the difference between a coach and a friend, if I went to a friend and I said, I feel like such an imposter, my friend is going to say, Kurt, you're not an imposter, you're awesome. But my coach can say, you know, can disconnect from me, disconnect from my system and hold up a mirror for me to look at with his questions, right? He was able to ask me questions like, what's the threat?

I can't ask that on my own or if I do, I can give the cliche answer or the short answer and say there, answered that and I'm going to move on. ⁓ my coach doesn't let me do that. My coach keeps going and says, okay, well, is that true? Okay. Say more about that. So yes, I am a firm belief. mean, I'm biased. I, I run a coaching practice, but,

Travis White (17:17)
Mm-hmm.

Kurt Bush (17:37)
But I think absolutely someone from outside of our systems are uniquely equipped to help us process these things real time.

Travis White (17:47)
Yeah, it's like you said, the relationship there is just different, but you need it to be. You need somebody that's gonna turn around and push you to better yourself. What's the purpose, really?

Kurt Bush (17:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I had a, I had a, ⁓ one of my coaches a long time ago. ⁓ I, I would call him occasionally. I had a little different relationship with this coach, but, but I would call him and, oftentimes I would start by complaining about, and we're talking 10 years. Let me just say that this 10 years ago, ⁓ I would call him and I would start with some form of like, I got to tell you about these people that I'm leading. I got to tell you about what these people did.

And like a good coach, he would listen to me. He would let me talk. And then the very first question he would ask me was, okay, Kurt, what part are you playing in this situation? And my immediate response was always like, shut up. I just told you everybody else sucks. And he wouldn't, he wouldn't let me off. Right. Because what's true is we all play a part in our systems. and that's the beauty of a coach. you know, my, friends would have listened to me.

Travis White (18:48)
you

Kurt Bush (18:59)
talk about this system I was in and they would have said, yeah, you're right. Yeah, those people should be different, but my coach wouldn't let me get away with it. He'd say, okay, what part do you play in this? So yeah, I think you're right. It's just a super valuable type of relationship.

Travis White (19:14)
How does, that's the word I'm looking for.

How does somebody balance self doubt with a healthy self improvement? How do you balance the two together?

Kurt Bush (19:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's a great question. I think of this, just I'm gonna oversimplify it and then I'll expand a little bit, but I think of this as a difference between criticism and assessment, right? I can criticize myself and that leads to what we would call a disempowering solution. Meaning if I criticize myself,

Travis White (19:44)
Okay.

Kurt Bush (20:01)
that's often going to be indicated by leading me to a solution that doesn't lead me to growth, that leads me to probably withdrawing or probably feeling shame, right? Shame is the feeling that we're bad, right? Guilt is we did something bad, shame is we're bad. So if I'm criticizing myself and it's leading me to a response that either causes me to withdraw,

or causes me to double down on my complaining or causes me to say, you know what, I don't really have anything to learn here. I'm just gonna do the same thing next time. I would say that is self doubt. I think self development is different. I think when we assess ourselves, when we reflect, right? This is the E plus R. When we reflect, I think if we come to a place where we make an empowered

meaning of this, meaning that it leads us to take a step towards improvement or step towards a different result or a different behavior next time. I think that's the key. If my response leads me towards something different, then I know that I'm actually, I'm actually assessing and some assessments are like I did something that I didn't want to do. I'll give you an example.

We, my partner and I, we work with a marketing firm because we don't have any idea what we're doing with marketing. And they once a week almost send us an email with, with tasks to do. And I would say 50 % of that email, we have to ask for clarity because we are not marketing people. We're coaches. a few weeks ago, they sent an email and a hundred percent of it, I needed clarity on because I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. ⁓

So my old patterns of behavior that said don't look dumb out of habit reached up. I reached up and I closed my laptop because I didn't want to address it. Right. Now, I could have done one of two things. I could have said, you know what, that's their fault. They sent me this stupid email. I don't know what I'm doing. They should have sent, they should have sent something that I understood. That would be, that would be disempowering.

Right? That's not leading me into a direction of transformation. But what I was able to do was, you know, 15 minutes later, after I like cooled down a little bit, I was able to say that wasn't what I wanted to do. Right? I was able to say that that wasn't the response I wanted to have. So I think you're right that some personal assessment, some personal development

actually might look negative where we do something wrong or we do something that we don't like. But I think it's what we do with it that makes the difference. We would call this meaning making. Have you ever heard the phrase meaning making?

Travis White (23:06)
I don't think I have.

Kurt Bush (23:08)
So, you and I are meaning making machines, meaning every experience we have, we make a meet, we assign a meaning out of it. ⁓ Travis, if I sent you a text message, ⁓ you know, later tonight and I said, Hey, I'm, I'm going to move to a new house this Saturday. Can you help me move? And you respond back? No, that's it. Just two letters. No. I have the opportunity to make meaning out of that. ⁓ I can make the meaning that says,

Travis is really mad at me. I can make the meaning that Travis doesn't like me. I can make the meaning that Travis is busy. I can make the meaning that your ankle is hurt. Like I can make a million meanings. One of them's true. So what meaning we make out of these things really, I think, dictates the difference between self-doubt and self-improvement. If we make a negative meaning out of it,

it's going to go down the self-doubt road. But if we're able to make a meaning out of it that isn't connected to shame or isn't connected to belittling ourselves or talking negative about ourselves, then I think we can walk down that self-emotion.

Travis White (24:21)
Awesome, I love it. I love it. I love the analogy to like texting and asking to move. And it's like, just made me think that I need to stop doing some of this stuff. Like when, cause you know, I work mostly remote and sometimes when people like reach out and message me, it's like, okay, well I don't know how to take that comment. It's like, I can't read like.

Kurt Bush (24:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Travis White (24:46)
You know, if I'm in a room with somebody, can see their posture and how they're reacting. But I can't, when I just read some text, it's like, I don't know what they mean by that. Like, was it supposed to be negative? Was it just, you know, neutral?

Kurt Bush (24:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep. Yeah. Remote working. Yeah. Electronic communication is just rife with meaning making. Absolutely.

Travis White (25:10)
So you said that you're coaching business. Obviously it does with more than one imposter syndrome. What other types of things do you guys coach?

Kurt Bush (25:24)
Yeah, we deal a lot. We deal a lot with people that are dealing with a loud inner critic, which is similar to self doubt. But there's a nuanced difference, right? Inner critic is a part inside of us that's telling us that we're not good enough, right? It's subtle, but we find in clients the roots and the origins of them are a little different.

So we, deal a lot with inner critic, ⁓ things and, and self doubt. Those are the two major ones. ⁓ we, we do work with a lot of clients who find themselves in times of transition, whether that's transition from, you know, ⁓ college to career or, you know, no kids to kids, ⁓ losing one job into another job. Those times of transition tend to be times where we start to notice.

hey, this thing got taken away from my life. Now I'm starting to feel things and notice things about me that I didn't before, or I'm starting to realize maybe I don't know myself as well as I used to. I think that the core of our work with all of these clients, no matter what the presenting issue is, the core of the work is really about self-discovery.

Again, that reflection is so close to a secret sauce in the sense that it really is about discovering who we are. once we see the things that we do or the responses we have, once we see them, now we have agency to either continue them or to change them. So no matter what the presenting issue is, we really are

rooted in the idea of self-discovery and increasing self-awareness.

Travis White (27:23)
And sometimes I feel like that it's through some of our hardest challenges in life where we actually have the most self discovery.

Kurt Bush (27:33)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, we would say, I mean, I think we see that in our clients. I I certainly see that in my own life. You know, I think what's true, Travis, is most of us, myself included sometimes, right? Most of us kind of just white knuckle our way through lives because we're all busy and we're all just trying to survive on some level. And what happens is when we're just trying to survive, like,

we don't have time to notice these things about us. But in those times of difficulty or those seasons of maybe even crisis or catastrophe or abrupt change that we didn't expect, now we're kind of presented with a time to notice things that we don't have a choice whether we get to notice them or not. They're happening. There's an analogy that I like that

⁓ that sort of gets at this idea that when we try to survive through life, that at some point those things that we're, that we're not seeing or we're ignoring are going to come out. If you've ever tried to hold a beach ball underwater, like in a pool, ⁓ it's hard to do. It's not hard to do, but you know, it wants to like come out of the water. ⁓ we, we think ignoring those parts of us that at some point then kind of come out.

Travis White (28:50)
Yeah, lots of pop-up and yeah.

Kurt Bush (28:59)
are like that beach ball, we can try really hard to hold that underwater, but the further we push it down, the harder it gets to hold it. And that beach ball is always coming up. There is no keeping that beach ball down all the time. So I think you're right. I think sometimes those seasons of difficulty are the beach ball coming out. And maybe the beach ball coming out is actually just what we need. And that's not to say it's not hard. I maybe wanna clarify like.

The beach ball coming out is really hard. It's hard on us. It's usually hard on people around us. But once the beach ball's out, maybe the gift in the hard is to say, we get to keep the beach ball out from under the water, if you will.

Travis White (29:43)
Yeah, I love it. I love all the analogies and everything. I'm eating this up. Is there any story you can share in regards to a client of where you saw them come in and just full of self-doubt and just totally frustrated and just to turn around and see their success and see them move beyond it?

Kurt Bush (30:08)
Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, let me think of, yeah, so I have a client who leads a group of people in a nonprofit organization. And I think what I feel comfortable saying is that the beginning of our work together, this client would have said that they were extremely confident, no self doubt.

And what I got to see as self-awareness and self-discovery happened is that there was a high level of confidence that moved into like this, ⁓ my gosh, I maybe am not as confident as I think I am because maybe I'm measuring confidence in ways that are not maybe how I want to measure confidence or measuring leadership in ways that maybe leadership isn't actually measured by.

I think what I would say is I've gotten to see this person go from like, man, I'm this amazing leader to, wow, now I'm just not sure. Now this person is actually leading this group of nonprofit leaders in a way that now those leaders are doing their own work. Now those leaders are actually beginning to use the work that the leader has done in their group amongst themselves. Now,

Now that's not to say that self-doubt's gone. I might even say that I'm not sure if self-doubt is ever gonna go away. I think as long as we're human, we'll always have it come up. I might say that the goal is not to get rid of self-doubt, the goal is to know how to address it when it does show up, right? Maybe it's a fool's errand to try to get rid of it, but we can actually do the work to build practices to address it.

So I've seen this person begin to thrive. And I think what I love about this story is that his team is thriving too. It goes beyond, I think this is why we do the coaching work is that it's great for my life. It's great for our clients' lives, but it really is how the world changes. It really is how families change. It really is how teams change. It really is how transformation happens.

Travis White (32:31)
Yeah, I love transformation stories. it's just a, like, I'm sure it brings you and your partner a lot of joy to, like, just see people change. And just kind of that realization, like, I can do this.

But I also, I also want to touch base on what you said, how the self doubt doesn't go away. just matter of how we deal with it. I think that's true for pretty much any mental health issue that somebody's going through. like I suffer from bad anxiety and it's like, no, it's not going away. It's going to be here tomorrow. It's just me recognizing it in the moment and doing something to get beyond that. And, um, just

overcome it in all honesty.

Kurt Bush (33:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. What can I ask you another question? What difference does it make for you? For you to be able to say, to move from, I have to get rid of this period to, okay, this might show up again tomorrow, but I know how to deal with it. Like what difference does it make? Why is that important to you?

Travis White (33:19)
Yeah, of course.

Because to me, like, if I know I'm not getting rid of it, I'm gonna take better steps to, I shouldn't say better, I should say the correct steps to learn how to cope with it. Like I'm gonna learn more strategies to, you know, whether it's taking breaths or counting out loud, whatever it is, there's tons of them.

But whereas if I was just getting rid of it, like it's like, I'm not going to take some of these into mind or practice. I'm like, well, it just shouldn't be here anymore. And I think that's one thing that society teaches us is like, we shouldn't have to live with self doubt. We shouldn't have to live with anything like this. But back to your statements, like it's not true. We're going to, we're human.

Kurt Bush (34:23)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I could say it better. I mean, I Travis, if you were coaching me and you told me tonight, Kurt, you're never going to feel self doubt again, if you do these five steps. Well, then the minute I feel it, I'm going to think I failed, right? I'm going to think what's wrong with me. ⁓ and I think that's so important. I think what you said is so important that, that feeling these things and experience these things are, it's not failure, right? It's, not.

that we're not good enough, that we're not smart enough, that we're not resilient enough. It just is. And I think coming to terms with them just being present, I think you're right, just allows us to get into action more effectively.

Travis White (35:06)
Yeah, totally agree. What do you think society in general could do better with people struggling with, like, I'm just going to make it more broad and say anything like dealing with mental health.

Kurt Bush (35:22)
Yeah, I I think we just need to keep talking about it. I mean, this client that asked me about other people feeling self doubt, right? I mean, he was asking me this almost feeling ashamed to ask. And like, just wanted to say to him like, this is human. Every one of us has something like this that we feel like we have a hard time shaking or we have a hard time building strategies for. I think just normalizing these things through conversations like this.

I long for the day, Travis, when people like us and professions like ours can say out loud, hey, you know what? Right now I'm just feeling a little stirred up, right? Right now I'm just feeling a little bit like there's a threat to be embarrassed. mean, imagine, but let me give you an example. This company or this nonprofit that I worked for,

with this boardroom with all these professionals, the story that I shared with you. The overall leader of this organization believed in this work wholeheartedly and created a culture for this work to the point where multiple times throughout my time at this organization, people would say that. People would say in the middle of a meeting, hey, you know what? I'm just going to take a minute because it's

I think I'm going to respond in a way that I don't prefer. So I'm just going to take a minute and let you all talk. I mean, that is so refreshing, Travis. mean, immediately that disarms the entire room. think my lament, my sadness is that there's still so many corners of corporate America that see that as weakness. I just don't think it is. I think those are the best leaders.

Travis White (37:02)
End it.

Kurt Bush (37:16)
I think these are the leaders of the future. I think these are the most influential leaders and the most effective leaders for sure. So I think that's, I really do think normalizing it through conversations like this, I think it just slow, but I think this is how it's done.

Travis White (37:33)
Yeah, I totally agree. I think one person shares their story and it kind of is just an effect. I don't even know the right word to use. It's going to get more people to open up. But what you said about going back to that leader, I think it actually shows a lot of character to be able to stand up and say, you know what, I need a minute.

Kurt Bush (37:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis White (38:00)
I actually have to do that sometimes like for some reason when I tell my kids it's bedtime it gets really chaotic at my house and being kind of anxiety driven I'm just like this is too much because I see I have to I see things as going a certain way and when they don't go that way I'm like this is nonsense this is crap like it needs to go the way I want to so I found that myself like

Kurt Bush (38:18)
Yeah.

Travis White (38:27)
saying to my wife like I need to step out of room for a minute and honestly all I need is 30 seconds and I can reset myself in that amount of time and go back into the room with my kids and be just fine and finish the bedtime routine.

Kurt Bush (38:40)
Yeah, yeah, way to go. Way to go.

Travis White (38:45)
Learning to do stuff like that, beats the other side of the outcome.

Kurt Bush (38:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis White (38:56)
Do you... What's the word I'm looking for now?

So how do you think we foster an environment that reduces these feelings of self-doubt and imposter syndrome?

Kurt Bush (39:19)
Yeah. So, so I mentioned protective promises earlier that, that, that I think these protective promises drive behaviors, right? So third grade Kurt, ⁓ has these negative experiences that tell me, ⁓ looking dumb is going to lead to negative responses or negative consequences. ⁓ so, so I would say to move forward, we have to replace those. We have to, I have to replace that promise. ⁓

the promises that says I will never look dumb. I have to replace that with something else. I think again, our nervous systems know how to do it. My nervous system knows how to keep me safe and it's going to just keep doing that until I, until number one, I can tell my nervous system, Hey, you know what, why you take a break? I'm a huge fan of, of self-talk. I think there is something to self-talk that allows our nervous system to know that this is okay.

that I'm safe. But I think replacing the story that says, if I look dumb, that people are gonna withdraw from me, that was the fear. If I look dumb here, people are gonna withdraw from me. I've replaced that with, I belong at this table, all right? Or I am at the place that I'm at, I am present here on purpose for a reason. That counteracts...

this fear of looking dumb, right? I have another promise that counteracts it that says that I say what so for me. I don't know if you know the Enneagram at all. Are you familiar with the Enneagram?

Travis White (41:03)
Hmm, semi but not like enough to really speak on it.

Kurt Bush (41:05)
Okay, yeah, it's okay. It's okay. I'm

a harmonizing people pleaser. So, so the idea that I might be able to say what so for me is really hard. So, so when I when I can be aware that my self doubt is connected to these things in my past, now I know what I can begin to replace that with. I can tell myself a different story. Again, this is not overnight, right? This is very hard work.

Travis White (41:32)
Mm-hmm.

Kurt Bush (41:35)
and I think to your point, like you said, sometimes you have to step out of the room for 30 seconds. There's a lot of that work that, that when I would sit around this table, that I'd have to literally like take a deep breath and tell myself, and maybe even check out a little bit just to say, I'm safe. I belong here. I'm here on purpose. And, and how I want to be is I'm going to say what's so for me. ⁓ so I really do think.

I'm making it sound way easier than it is. It's not, but I think to behave our way into a new posture, we need to replace those old stories and those old threats with truth. And that's not sort of, you know, I always want to be clear. This isn't sort of a, I'm not a sort of name it, claim it person. I think it takes hard work to do this. I think it takes more than just saying we want to.

But I think the idea that this thing drove my behavior, this old thing, but now this thing is gonna drive my behavior. I think that's maybe the most effective thing that I can think of.

Travis White (42:47)
Yeah, and you said something just barely that made me think of this as like, I think it kind of relates to what you just said. It's a lot of hard work. It's not overnight. And for me, like I've had to subconsciously, I've had to learn to subconsciously like think in that moment within a split second of like, okay, how am going to react to this? As it can be positive or negative?

Kurt Bush (43:16)
Yeah, yeah.

Travis White (43:17)
And like,

all this stuff you have to train yourself. You have to like rewire your brain to make it a habit.

Kurt Bush (43:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, think about these things. Like some of these behaviors we've been doing for decades. ⁓ and they're just automatic. They're just driving the bus right now of our, of our responses. So I think you're right. mean, retrain, I don't think that's an exaggeration. I think literally retraining our brain. I mean, think that's what it takes. And I think that's why it takes a long, right? Like this is, this is not a, not a quick process.

Travis White (43:47)
Mm-hmm.

You said that most of our self doubt comes from something in the past. Have you seen a repeat type thing in your practice that's a similar story to some of these people or is it all different?

Kurt Bush (44:09)
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I feel really clear that most of these things in our past happened in that first formation time, that like elementary to high school. I think many of our clients have a similar experience in the sense that

that they're protecting from something happening or protecting from a negative feeling. I think it's much less common, it happens, but I think it's much less common that someone builds these habits around like, you know, getting attention or getting affection. I think it happens, but I think more often than not the commonality is that we're protecting from a negative consequence.

if that makes sense. Maybe that's the commonality that I would say we see the most.

Travis White (45:14)
Yeah, that makes sense. And you answered that well, so...

Kurt Bush (45:19)
Thanks.

Travis White (45:23)
What, so I just have a few more things here. What advice would you give anybody that's struggling from like any mental health issue?

Kurt Bush (45:34)
I think first I just want to say be kind to yourself. You know, I'm a huge fan of self-compassion. Be kind to yourself. Name what you need and get it. Right? If that's a good counselor or therapist, if that's time away, if that's rest, be kind to yourself and know that it's okay to name what you need.

I think again, I just keep going back to this thing, Travis. just, I don't know. I have a heart that says, you're not alone. I think everybody's experience is different, but I think every one of us has something that we, that we feel resigned about changing or we feel cynical about changing or we feel like we can't change as it, as it pertains to emotional or mental health.

So I think I just want to say be kind to yourself and you're not alone.

Travis White (46:35)
I totally agree with all of that. Stop being your own worst enemy. I can speak to that from experience but that would be a whole different... I could go off on a tangent. I won't do that. Is there anything that you'd like to speak about that we have not touched base on?

Kurt Bush (46:42)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I could speak on self-compassion all night. I don't want to take up the whole time, but no, I mean, I think I just would reiterate. I I just cannot say enough how important it is or how important I think it is to find someone outside of your system, to hold up a mirror gently, kindly, compassionately, so that we can see what's so in our lives and allow us to take some agency in those things.

Travis White (47:29)
and where can our listeners find you?

Kurt Bush (47:35)
Our website is brimstone coaching group, all one word brimstone coaching group.com. ⁓ we have multiple spaces on that homepage where, ⁓ where listeners can, ⁓ set up a free inquiry call with either myself or my coaching partner. ⁓ we, we love, we love this work Travis. Like we, we do this work because it's been impactful for us. And we just, we just love getting to, to help others walk the road of transfer transformation to.

⁓ so there, there's a free inquiry call there. We also understand that we are not a good fit for everyone. ⁓ there's no coach in the world that is a good fit for every single person. So, so if somebody's interested, if a listener is interested in giving coaching a try, we would love to talk to them through that free call. ⁓ we also have a podcast. ⁓ we have the brimstone coaching podcast on Spotify and Apple. ⁓ we.

just kind of generally talk high level about these conversations. We really just want this to be a place where listeners can get to know myself and Chris, my coaching partner.

Travis White (48:44)
Awesome, I admire you for the work you're doing and your willingness to go out there and help people through their challenging times. looks like you were gonna say something. I don't wanna cut you off.

Kurt Bush (48:58)
I was you caught

you caught my inhale. I was about ready to cut you off. Go ahead, Travis.

Travis White (49:03)
No, I'm good, I'm good.

Kurt Bush (49:04)
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I super appreciate the time to come on here and talk with you a little bit. And thanks for letting me ask you questions on your podcast.

Travis White (49:12)
Hey, anytime, anytime, I think it's, it's good to keep the conversation going. Like it's, I don't ever want it to be one way street on here. So, ⁓ thanks to all of our listeners. ⁓ thanks for joining us today and find, tongue tied, of course. ⁓ you can find us on Instagram at overcome pod. Listen to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you can find podcasts. It's probably there.

The best thing you can do for us right now is share our content, follow us, subscribe, do any of that stuff. And thanks again for listening. Until next time.