Overcome With Travis White

Understanding Self-Sabotage and Anxiety in High Achievers | Albert Bramante

• Travis White | Mental Health Advocate • Episode 57

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In this powerful episode of Overcome, Travis White sits down with Albert Bramante, a psychologist, talent agent, and author, to explore self-sabotage and high-achiever anxiety—and why so many driven, capable people get stuck just before breakthrough.

Albert shares how the brain’s need for safety can lead to self-defeating behaviors, fear of success, procrastination, and high-functioning anxiety, especially in high-pressure careers like entrepreneurship, performance, and leadership. Drawing from his doctoral research and real-world experience, he explains how trauma, mindset, and identity shape our ability to move forward.

Together, Travis and Albert discuss how to recognize when you’re operating on autopilot, why awareness is the first step toward healing, and practical tools to stop getting in your own way. This conversation offers both insight and hope for anyone who feels stuck despite working hard and doing “all the right things.”

If you’ve ever felt held back by fear, anxiety, or self-doubt, this episode will help you understand what’s really happening—and how to change it.

What We Discuss

  • What self-sabotage looks like in high achievers
  • High-functioning anxiety and the brain’s survival response
  • Why fear often shows up right before success
  • The difference between safety, comfort, and growth
  • How trauma and past experiences influence mindset
  • Practical tools to reframe failure, fear, and anxiety
  • How to stop living on autopilot and start taking intentional action

Learn More About Albert Bramante

Explore Albert’s work in psychology, performance mindset, and overcoming self-sabotage:

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https://overcomepod.com

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Hello and welcome to Overcome a Mental Health Podcast. I am your host, Travis White. It's a place for you to share your mental health stories. I'm very excited to introduce tonight's guest. I'll be speaking with Albert Primonte. Albert is a seasoned talent agent with more than two decades of experience in the entertainment industry and also holds a PhD in psychology from Walden University. Albert, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Travis, for having me on. I'm really happy to be here. The pleasure is all mine. I think we're going to have a great conversation. And I'm not going to waste any more time because nobody wants to hear from me. Why don't you go ahead and tell us about your journey? Well, I was kind of born in a very peculiar situation. I was a different one in my family. And when I say different, I grew up in a blue collar family. My brothers, I I'm the of five. My brothers, you know, were all athletes. My father was a football coach. My oldest brother was a football coach. And they were all into sports, lived, read. know, believe whatever athletics. For me, couldn't didn't have any interest, both as a player and even as a spectator. You know, just didn't do anything for me sports. help, but I enjoyed reading. I enjoyed thinking I was a thinker. Always was still am. And so I was always a deep thinker as a child. And I think that's what really led me to study mental health, because You know, I was a loner, you know, and I wasn't bullied as a child. was really had a good family and I really had, you know, acquainted to the associates and I really had friends, but I never really, I wasn't picked on or ridiculed or bullied in any way. But I found myself as a loner being, you know, spending a lot of time in the library. So a typical 15, 16 year old kid might not be reading books like, you know, How to Wood Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie or The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or Feeling Good by David Burns, which were all very popular in early 90s when I really started reading this stuff. And I just became so thrilled and captivated by you in mind. I think just my whole curious nature and attraction and deep topics really led me down the rabbit hole of you could call the mental health aspect of things. At the end of my sophomore year, I said, I really want to major in psychology. I mean, a declaration. and I wanted a PhD. That was my goal. And I reached the goal, of course, but I knew since I was a teenager what I wanted to do. Now I was also interested in creative arts too. So in high school and college, I was very much involved in all these different organizations. And high school, including the Drama Club. And so I was very much involved in the performing arts world, not really professionally. And at that time I really didn't know I had an interest in it. It wasn't until like years later when I was working out in the field after I received my master's degree, I started doing some work around 9-11, work crisis intervention, counseling, and all of the important things. with that, and so really that's where most of my work came into play professionally. So it was the start of my professional career. And I started working with actors alongside of doing the social service work. And that's what led me to become a little bit of an actor myself, dabbling a little bit into it. Realizing it wasn't necessarily for me, but I loved being around actors. So I started the business to kind of support actors along the way, know, representing them, serving for jobs, you know, being as, you know, starting my own agency. And so that's how I, how I got started as an agent. And during this time, I also began, started teaching and I also decided I would go back to my PhD. You know, I was already halfway there. And I didn't know what was gonna happen in my life. I wanted the insurance plan of having a doctorate. And so I went back to school and then I started wanting to study because the one thing that kept, the theme that kept popping up in all my work, whether it being college professor or a talent agent was the theme of self-sabotage and self-defeating behavior that just kept coming up. was witnessing this with lot of actors I was working with and I was also witnessing with students I was working with. You know, my class is just a high degree self-sabotage, so I really wanted to kind of study this, you know, to kind of like figure out what was going on here. So my doctoral dissertation was on self-defeating behavior and performing artists. And so that was a way of like really blending all my worlds together, you know, the mental psychology world with show business. So And that's kind of like where I am today. then several years after, you know, my PhD, I wrote a book called Rise Over the Script. And yeah, it's been kind of like, you know, one of the spaces I've been working a lot now is like performance mindset and getting people that, you know, help them get out of their own way, recognize self-imposed limitations and things like that. Yeah, makes sense. it's the whole like showbiz side of things. It's like these people are high achieving people. Why do you think so many high achievers, it takes them, it's almost like some people have to hit a brick wall before they can start healing. Why do you think that is? Well, a lot of it is survival, lot of it is self-protection, a lot of it is self-protection. And especially, you know, it really depends on that person's past because if there's trauma, if there's any type of childhood trauma, the brain goes into overdrive protection. Our brain protects us. That's its purpose. The nervous system in the brain, it's really its sole purpose is to protect us and to keep us safe. Yeah, that's that. what it did years ago. If we were back in the hunter-gatherer in the end of those days, we had so many things thrown at us that were dangerous, life-threatening, every day. And it wasn't until many years later, of course, we were a lot safer, but our brain is still doing the same thing. So a lot of times, if we're thrown with any perceived danger, which is any change, any... stepping outside of the comfort zone, our brain says, okay, regroup, we've got to abort the mission, a sense, whatever that is. And so a lot of times it's self-sabotage, it's a self-protective mechanism. Yeah, and I could see that being that way. Like it's, it totally makes sense. While we're talking about like the high kind of achiever, I have another question in regards to that. So high pressure careers such as acting and entrepreneurship, what do you see as the most understood aspect of high functioning anxiety? Well, again, I would say anxiety is also self-protection. And fear is what keeps us safe. I that's what keeps us alive. You know, to avoid anything that could be potentially dangerous. Unfortunately, nowadays, that can be working on overdrive. So it can sometimes work against us by protecting us from the very things we need to do. And that's where the anxiety trip builds in because it's It is a survival mechanism. There's no way that anybody can escape life without feeling any type of anxiety. That's unrealistic and actually dangerous because there are times where you have to be vigilant. And that's where that whole fight or flight mode gets activated to protect us. the only thing is if we have experienced a child to trauma, And I don't necessarily just have to be sensational childhood trauma to just be, you know, other siblings were favored over than you were as a child. could have been that maybe you had to really fight hard to get your parents' attention and love. Maybe you were ridiculed by your teachers a lot. So little things like that add up over time. And then what we call like micro traumas. And eventually, what they can do is add up and then eventually your body is just in a constant you know, state of fight or flight mode, which is where, which is what it, you know, triggers anxiety. Cause anytime we have a peak in anxiety, it's really a rush of cortisol, which is the adrenaline, whatever you want to call that, to prepare our body for fight or flight mode. Yeah, interesting, interesting. It's, yeah, and it's, that's the word I'm looking for. Well, these people, they're like, when they realize something's wrong, and what do you think are the first steps? What would you say are the first steps to start your healing journey? I would say the first step is to first recognize that this is happening because most people that are in that mode of self-sabotage or self-protective mode don't really get a clear picture of what's going on or really have clear insight. They might just think, okay, these are opportunities that seem scary or that seem not worth my time or whatever it is that the brain messages your brain will tell you. And then I would also kind of say it gets through incredibly easy. to stay safe, be in your comfort zone, and to talk yourself out of things that may be a bit uncomfortable or scary at the moment. So it's one thing is to kind of work, you know, we have to work against it, fight against that a little bit, because it's easy to talk ourselves out of doing things. I how many times have we talked ourselves out of doing something that was great, even if it was going to the gym or going to exercise, we talked ourselves out of it. I'm too tired today, I'm aching. Whatever it is, your brain tells a story to get, and it's all protective, it's all protective. And it's doing its job, your brain. So the one thing I would kind of say, the first steps would be to realize that this is happening and then B, work a little bit harder every day to do something a little bit different or, you know, do little things that slip outside your comfort zone. Maybe go to a networking event or, you know, even if it's online. Initially virtual event, you know do something where you're meeting new people and it's not entirely threatening because when you go to these events everyone's there and meet other people so it's not like You're approaching people totally cold so but it's still something that requires you to put yourself out there and Little things like I would say like that I do little things each day that will Kind of push the needle and do something a little bit different Because a lot of people sit and expect their life to change, but they don't do anything about it. You know, they sit there year in and year out expecting their life to change, but they're not changing themselves. We have to change first and then everything else around us will change. Yeah, and it's so true. it's, you said one thing that I really absolutely love, and I think I've mentioned it on the show a couple times, is recognizing that you have a problem, that there's something going on. Because I think about myself with my own mental health problems, if I would have never admitted that I had a problem, there's so many different things that I know that I would have never taken care of. Right, right, absolutely. And that's whole thing too, like, the knowing the stage is very important. And to understand that this is a, you sometimes it's like, all we are doing is telling stories to ourselves. That's not true. And we distort a lot of things. We delete, we distort, you know, the important information. You know, like I work as an agent and a lot of times, you know, an actor may not get a job and then they'll immediately assume, well that casting director, that producer doesn't like me. And I'm like, well, did they tell you that? Well, no. Well, how did you come to that conclusion? You know, and that's where I'm like, you just jumped from like A to Z without. So, I think the important step is also not to react and to also really consider You know, even the stuff that we get that may not be the best news possible that or when situations or things that we put our mind to don't go our way. It's to really do a deep dive and figure out, okay, is there anything in work from this? Is there anything that can be educational here? Is there anything that maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion or telling a story of something that doesn't even exist? Yeah, in that type of situation, I had to raise my hand and say guilty, because I've told myself multiple stories that aren't true, like, multiple times. Yeah. do that. And I think the first thing is just to acknowledge that this is a reality that most of the time, we're telling stories about what we think has happened or perceive what happened. And that's not really what happened. mean, more or at least the charge of it is the emotional charge is a little way to activate. Yes, you're exactly right. And you being in a high achieving job yourself, have you ever, like, do you ever find yourself struggling with anything like this, like what we've been discussing? Have you? there, you know, I can't, I gotta call myself out. mean, yes, absolutely. there were times even when I was in my, you know, finished on my VHC where I thought for a moment, I can't do this. I'm going to quit. I'm going to stop, you know, because, you know, but what kept me going was, you know, after, first of all, was not reacting in emotion because a lot of people sometimes react to a rash, you know, when they're when they're in an emotional state. And that's the worst time in the world to actually act out on something because we're not thinking logic is not coming into play here. So once I would calm down and read episodes, realized, okay, well, number one, I still got to pay back my student loan debt whether I quit or not. I might as well wait through it to at least like have something. to make it worthwhile that I'm paying for, not for a waste of several years. And this is really what I wanted to do. I I think for me, the frustration wasn't the coursework. I enjoyed the coursework. I enjoyed the research. It was a dissertation that really threw me for a loop. And I spoke to a of PhDs and they all said the same sentiment, that it's really that part of it that really is the... the bane of the existence right there. it's something that we all go through. And I think that was also what helped me was like, it's normal for people to want to quit here, you know, like at the age of two. And I just kept pushing through and eventually, you know, obviously I came out the other side. But I can tell you if I did quit, A, I would have been safer, but I would have been delivered with regret. Yeah. uh towards later part in life, when I'm like, I had the opportunity for a PhD, I never took it. And I was like, no, I don't want that. And then also, even putting my book together, that was a big thing that was preventing me holding me back. I would always sit for several years and tell people, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a book. Because I had a dissertation, was like, well, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a book, I already had something. But I just, I wouldn't do it. I would sit in front of a blank piece of paper, a couple of sentences, read them, get unhappy with them, delete them. And nothing. And I'm sitting there going like, first I was like, well, maybe this isn't for me. You who am I to write a book? You know, imposter syndrome, well, you know, and that's where, you know, finally I said, it's gonna be another situation. I'm gonna regret it. I had the opportunity and I, if I didn't take that, I would have, I would have really gotten unhappy. It would have been much safer, safer route to take, but it would have been, you know, a situation that I would have regretted on. And when I talk about regret, you know, this is why I tell people all the time to do what they want to do or live their dreams. Because the true nature of regret is not the foolish decisions we make or the stupid things we've done or the foolish things we've done. The most sort of anguish for people that are like towards the end of their life is missed opportunities. Regret. Things that they could have done, but they didn't because of fear or comfort and now it's too late and they want to you know absolutely regretting it. So that's what I would say is the biggest source of regret is doing things and you know in a sense and you know not doing things that were presented to you. And for you, think the most important thing is you push through all the hard and got to where you're at. it's, I think that's important. So with your, with the people that you work with, say call them your clients, are there like common tools that you see that, or methodologies that you see that have worked across the board to help them kind of change their mindset? Well, I think reframing is important. I think that's the biggest thing is, you know, reframing, you know, and two areas that like that I really like to give tools for reframing is the idea of failure. Now, in my work, you know, one of the statements that I liked was there's no such thing as failure, only feedback. And then because that signifies that you fell forward. That every failure is a learning experience and one step closer to success. And that's a perspective I think we can all take. And the other one is, and I read this set of a book, you know, can't, there was no person who quoted this, but it was a really brilliant quote. And it was, there's no stitching in rejection, only a simple reminder that our services are not needed today. So I think if we can look at the no's, because very rarely when we get told no whether it's in a business or any other type of situation, it doesn't mean that ever, it just means not now. So you don't get the job, well it's just not now. That's not the right timing for you. So it keeps us in that growth mindset perspective. Those two things alone really perpetuate what we call the growth mindset. And so that's extremely important. Another couple of tools that I would say, not necessarily a tool but a behavior, is you want to start really cultivating social relationships with people that are going to support you in a positive way. So a peer group and accountability group, people that are gonna really support you and build you up along with themselves. Because another thing that can really prevent us from moving forward is the crowd we keep. We're around negative people all the time. Well, then we're going to become negative ourselves, and we're going to start becoming bitter and cynical ourselves. not necessarily a tool, but a behavior is to really start associating yourself with people. Other types of things I would say is a keeper journal. I kind of call it like the happy file, but it's like a modified gratitude journal where you write down everything good thing that's happened to you. And you just spend a lot of time documenting that. That could be you got praise from an audience member, or praise on a job interview, or praise from a customer, or a former person who worked with you as a client. Any time you get positive feedback or people that are above you that give you good rewards report, you document it and you just keep documenting it in your file. And then you have this long file. And then now when you have moments of self doubt or when things aren't going your way at the moment, you just pull out your happy file and it's kind of like keeping you connected to the world around you. So the happy file is another tool that I would really recommend. Another important tool is your calendar. And this is what will help you keep momentum. A lot of people will hear people say, you know, someday I'm going to do this, someday I'm going to do that. And, know, one day I'll get to this and one day. And my response is someday and one day are not on the calendar. I don't see that anywhere. The important thing is to start, you know, and this is what helps you accountable and help me accountable too with like writing my book is Okay, so when will chapter one be completed by? You know, what date? Whatever the goal is, you start breaking it down and okay, and what date will you commit to having this done? And you, you know, if you're working with something like this, this is where you say, okay, you pull out your calendar together and say, okay, give me a date. not someday I'm gonna do this because it'll never happen if you don't if you if you talk about it conceptually rather than realistically so the very simple tool the calendar and most of the stuff is are simple but yet powerful you know they're very simple techniques and they don't take a lot you know much brain power to really implement but they're very powerful Yeah, I agree. And you touched on a couple of things that I think are really important. Community. I've said another thing that's been brought up a few times on this show is it's so important to have that group of people in your corner when you're working through changes in your life, especially when it comes to mental health. But I would go even beyond mental health. just think in general, like that community is really, really important. uh Setting goals like setting goals like that's something that I've been working on this year. It's I had to do for this podcast I I feel like before like I've had this idea if I wanted to talk to people and I wanted to talk on mental health Just because I've struggled so much with it But for the longest time it's just an idea and I was like, okay At the very beginning of this year. I was like, okay, I need to write down goals of Where I want to be in like a year from now Mm-hmm. I'm slowly getting there, but it's still, I'm still pushing through and doing it. And then the last thing I want to touch on is the journal link. I actually read a study. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I'll tell you kind of just the basis of it. Like it was, there was some study done somewhere. I can't remember exactly where, but it was people. if you journal at night and write down your thoughts, especially the ones that are kind of weighing on you and weighing you down, if you do it right before you go to sleep, you'll actually be able to fall asleep quicker and you'll sleep better. Yeah, well yeah, and that's because you have a clear intention and I think that's Why you know generally you writing things down is very very powerful and you know even if you plan your day ahead of time saying okay tomorrow this is what I plan on do you know what I want to have done and You map that out you map out the day before Now yeah, there are chances where you get sidetracked and things will get thrown at you that you didn't plan for, but you're more likely to complete something when you outline it and when you declare it. It's like you're putting it out there. You're putting it out in the universe. So that's really important to consider there too. I love it. I love all this stuff. It's just... I don't have any PhD or any background in it, but it just... It just like... All this mental health stuff, it just almost puts like a fire inside me to... I just love hearing it all. There's so many different things. I feel like a lot of people too... Just talking in general, I feel like we get into autopilot and we kind of get in this state that we're just stuck kind of on repeat mode and we're just doing this type of thing because we have to and we're just... How can someone begin to recognize that they're operating on autopilot before it's too late? Well, the main thing is in our pile, it's kind of like, if you ever seen a movie like Groundhog Day, it's like very similar to that where the same, you know, days were just the same, you know, not, you know, it's like you just, you're going through emotions, but nothing's improving. And, you know, every day is starting to blend together. And so that would be the first clue. Like, you know, it, cause usually as human beings, we're supposed to do is every month or every You know couple months. We're simply getting better at what we're doing We're so to evolve and and become stronger and more powerful and we're leaving more successful So if you find yourself like staying in the same area for six months to a year or even more than that that might be an indication that you are in autopilot and How many times have you pushed things that you wanted to do on a backburner? You know, and said, you don't have time for it or, you know, it's right now, I'll do it later. And so procrastination. So if you find yourself being a major procrastinator, that might be an indication of your normal pilot. So, and that's a time to really do some self-reflection because most of the time when people, it's not due to lack of time when people procrastinate, it's because of the lack of belief in themselves or Again, they're recovering from their own trauma. So it's like, that's where we'll keep you in that negative loop of procrastination constantly. Yeah, I have been known to be a bit of a procrastinator in my days, so I can highly relate to what you're saying there. It's like, once I push past it, I'm usually fine. It's just like, just do it, just do it, just do it. Yeah, well, and that's the whole thing too, is just take action. And that's where I think, you know, every day I would say put, you know, make a commitment to do one action. It doesn't have to be a large action. It doesn't have to be, you know, anything substantial in the beginning. Even small actions over time, you're going to build and eventually, you know, you're going to really start reaching these, you know, magnificent milestones by taking, you know, consistent daily small actions. So I would definitely suggest that, taking small actions. Yeah, and it's funny that you say that because I feel like over this past year, the small actions that I've taken, I'm actually reaching further now to take bigger actions since I've taken all these small ones. I'm like, you know what? This is a little bit more out of my reach. But I just achieved this. I just hit this milestone. What if I push a little bit harder and just go a little bit further and do a little bit more? Right! you know, it's just, it's all about just taking these small actions and, and you know, taking one step, okay, now you did this, now let's do this, and let's do that, and let's just keep building, and then, you know, that will stop you from living in automatic pilot, because now you're doing something different. And once, you know, the interesting thing about momentum is once you start, it's hard, it's hard to stop. You're not gonna stop. Because now you get one step, like even for me writing my book, once I wrote one chapter, the next chapter was written, the next time, then a third, and then eventually, you know, I had to manage to read it for an editor. So, it takes time, but, you know, the important thing is to take that action. And, yes, it's gonna be a little uncomfortable, it may be a little scary, and that's okay. You know, and I think this is where you have a good support now, where it doesn't kind of guide you through that. Like, And then it's okay to be a little scared. Because the more you do that, and we can even reframe anxiety or fear, because if you look at fear, the emotions of fear and excitement, they're the same symptoms in the body. The butterflies in the stomach, the elevated heart rate, breathing heavy, even sweating a little bit. But instead of saying that you know, it's anxiety, what if we were excited instead of excitement? So you're not nervous to give that speech, you're excited to give that speech. You're not nervous to approach this person, you're excited to approach this person. So, and I think the important thing is like, okay, we may have the reaction, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be bad, that it has to be nervous. So I think getting uncomfortable with just that sensation. And referring to it as excitement, will kind of help you, propel you and move forward. Yeah, and that's actually a great way of putting it, because I've never personally thought of it that way. Because I just think, this is fear, this is nerves. But like, because I think you're right on the spot. Like, if you reframe that as excitement, there's so much more. There's a lot of power to that. Yes. Absolutely. There definitely is a lot of power to that. And I'd love for you to give us like you have your book out. ah Rise above the script, I want to say. Would you be able to give us a synopsis of that? Sure, well it's kind of a roadmap about self-sabotage and helping understand the different facets behind it. So I talk about self-esteem and I talk about, you know, obviously we've been talking ad nauseum about self-esteem, I, you know, it's important anyone to address. I talk about the consequences of low self-esteem, but also I talk about how sometimes having what I call toxic high self-esteem, which is like a syndrome for arrogance or pompousness or or elitism in the sense where do you think you're better than everybody else and how that can be a form of self-sabotage because very often it's fragile high self-esteem and the reason why it's fragile high self-esteem is because it's most people they don't like getting any critiques at this point or they get really frustrated or mad when they're criticized or when people don't share that. high view of themselves. So, but that can prevent you from moving forward a big time because you're not coachable and you're not able to learn. And then I have a whole unit on self-advocacy. Now self-advocacy is a term that's used in the community, health community that refers to your belief in your effectiveness in doing something. So, you know, it's important to have a, especially a reformer. or any type of professional that you have belief that you can be effective in what you do. It's a little different self-esteem is more global this is more specific you know to what you're doing. And then I talk about personality factors and one of the major models I go into is what we call the big five. Big five traits which are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. And every human being has a varied degree of these five traits. Now, lay the groundwork of how they're important for dealing with self-sabotage. For one thing, we need to be higher in openness, because that means being creative, that means having, being able to look at things from other perspectives, being open-minded. Consciousness, which is one of the biggest predictors of success, both vocationally, academically, personally, professionally. And that refers to your discipline, your focus, your determination, your business sense. And so what we really need to be doing for anybody is to really increasing our conscientiousness, our ability, productivity, then extroversion. Now that doesn't necessarily mean we have to be left at a party, but in order to be successful, we have to be able to communicate with people. And at least you're moderately comfortable with that. And then agreeableness means how coachable are you? How open are you to trying out new things or being guided or led by somebody else, which is very important. And then finally, neuroticism refers to, sounds a little harsher than what it is, but what really is neuroticism purely means is how reactive you are to stress. So if you're a person that gets anxious very easily, then you might be more higher on the neuroticism trait. versus somebody who's very laid back would be low in that. And why is this all important? Because when it comes to self-sabotage, one of the biggest things that kept coming out in my doctoral research was the relation between high neuroticism and low conscientiousness. So when you combine both of those traits together, somebody who's, you know, has a, you know, kind of a low discipline focus, but high propensity for anxiety, that's gonna be perfect storm for self-sabotage. Again, because that requires high degree of self-protection. So that kind of gives us like, now we can have an open conversation here about what we can do. And then I talk about fear of success, you know, because I have a unit in my book on fear of success. And again, this is not a type of fear of people who are saying, hey, I have fear of success today. Everybody's chasing success. What's really more scarier is the outcome. or the responsibilities or whatever is lying on the other side of success. Maybe a change in your identity because our identity is very important. More responsibilities, more pressure. That can be scary for a lot of people. And then also relationships. one chapter I wrote on relationships where I mentioned how a lot of our success will impact the relationships around us, both in a positive and sometimes in a negative way, if somebody in our life is threatened by our success. And we see this sometimes with successful people, is their family or their friends might look at them in a negative light if they're dealing with their own insecurities. Like who does he or she think she is by thinking they're better than us. And you may get messages like that. Of course, since we are loving human beings, we're gonna get affected when we hear that in some way. And so therefore it's like, maybe I am too ambitious. Let me step back. What really is going on is they're the ones that have to really work on themselves not us and then another thing that I talked about like one of my last chapters is your view of money how do you be what's your relationship with money because if Now everybody's probably so I love money. I maybe you do consciously But then I would say do you really? because if you grew up with sometimes these messages that we've got from society, from religion, from our family that money is evil or money is corrupt, you know, only corrupt people are rich or only greedy people are rich. You know, our money is a root of all evil, which is a lie because that was never the initial quote. That was misquoted because it was the real quote was the love of money is a root of all evil, not money. Money itself is a neutral concept. So, but if you have the subconscious belief that money is radioactive or dirty, or repulsive because of what you were told. Then therefore, your brain is going to do is as soon as you get it or end up close to getting it, either get rid of it or stop it from getting it. So that's the biggest form of self-sabotage right there. Because a lot of times when people, what self-sabotage will often happens, people are very close sometimes getting to what they want, getting to their goal. But then they either make a mistake or they do something that just completely throws that out the window. And it's hard to understand that and that was one of the lessons that I had to really learn as it, you when I was beginning really my psychological studies, is how people are sometimes comfortable and even want to stay in that victim mentality. So the moment that anything comes that remotely means that they're going to be successful, they're going to throw that away because it's scary. It's like, well, I don't want to deal with that. Because initially I don't want to give up my victim status or whatever that is. so that was one of the biggest things I've learned, especially in the mental health community. A lot of people don't like getting better because the idea of getting better means a change in identity, more responsibility, whatever that is. Yeah, so cool. Like I love all this stuff. It sounds like you're going to say something else. I was just going to of completely wrap that all up with my book. The message is really just ways to get out our own way. Because most people, when you talk about the psychology of people are going to say, I love money, I want money. But do you really? And why do you think we see some of these people who hit the lottery or maybe celebrities or athletes that get a major deal and now they're worth millions and then two or three years later or five years later they're in more debt than they were when they started because they didn't budget their money properly they just got rid of it as fast as they could. Yeah, I've heard that story multiple times before with people who make that type of money. And I do want to touch base on one thing really quick though, the victim mentality. I remember a day in therapy and my therapist told me, you need to stop being the victim. But the funny thing is, for the longest time I didn't know I was being the victim because I didn't see it that way. And then when he explained all the things I was doing that made me look like the victim, I was like, okay, this makes sense. Like I've never seen it that way, but now that you explain it, like I know what I have to do. Yeah, and it's not about blame it. It's really about just taking responsibility, you know for even the things around us because I'm never specifically between responsibility and blame, but it's like You know, no you're you're a survivor, you know, even if you have even if you suffer the trauma I don't really like the word trauma victim. I like the word trauma survivor because It's like no you don't have to be victim. Yes. What happened to you is unfortunate or the situation might have been unfortunate, but that doesn't mean that it has to stop you because very often what happens in the victim mentality, you start revictimizing yourself. It's just a constant, like, you're just gonna keep, you know, self-harming yourself, maybe not, you know, physically, but psychologically, mentally, guess. And there's times though that I would say that self-harming yourself psychologically is just as draining and as bad as, can't be just as bad as like harming yourself physically just because the damage that you do to your brain and it's so easy to do. Yeah, well and but also, you know, the psychological wounds last a lot longer too and it's harder to to really pinpoint them because you know and and I give this other example to that, you know, when we were kids, especially my, you know, generation, one of the nursery rhymes that we were told was or the slayings was six and so they break my bones when names never hurt me and that's not true because you know the first part maybe to But names will ever hurt me. Names can hurt even worse than those six and zones can. Because when you talk about a mental or psychic injury, there's no bounds there. At least with a physical injury, you clean it up and you heal it and it's gone. But not a mental or emotional injury is invisible. Yeah, that's for sure. And it's like, there was, there's some things that came up with therapy and it's like, I didn't even know I was battling them. And it's like, it's been years and years of me trying to battle them and overcome these things. Most of them are just going back to some medical issues that I had. It was like, didn't know I was internally withholding this or holding this type of thing until it was brought out. I was like, wow, it's taken this long to get past that. Right. Yeah. Well, a lot of people are walking around for years, you know, getting insights. And so that's the first step is once you know that this is a problem or that this is an issue, that's the first step of getting better progress. So I'm going to turn this kind of... go ahead. I cut you off, go ahead. No, I'm done. So, go ahead. I'm gonna turn this back to you. More of a personal question. How has helping others deepened your own sense of purpose? Well, the biggest thing is it gave me a sense of purpose. mean, really what, you know, it helps me stop feeling sorry for myself or stop, you know, the rut or feeling like I'm not important because I'm like, no, I am important. I need to help, you know, I'm here to help other people too. So I, and that's one of the biggest things that really can help people get out of a rut is to go out and help people, you know, go out and volunteer. Because believe it or not, volunteering really activates such positive emotions when we're giving back and helping the community. And I know some colleagues of mine that are psychologists that will actually prescribe charity work as a way to kind of get over that rut. very often, lot of times, number one, you're helping other people, but also you're getting out of the house and you're actually socializing with people. When you have a you know an anxiety or mood disorder one of the things that you really don't want to have is for a lot of free time and downtime because then you start ruminating and They and they just get faster in these thoughts And whether they're you know thoughts you know anxious is the thoughts or depressing thoughts. They just keep circulating in the brain and You know for me. I've dealt with depression through my life you clinical depression. It's not fun. But I felt like, you know, when I got that sense of purpose where I can help other people, it was a sense of, it pulled me out of that. Because you really can't be feeling sorry for yourself when at the same time, being helping other people. Just, you know, it's like, they cancel each other out. So it's a good thing, you know, in a sense. Yeah, yeah, I get it. it's, let's see, where was my thought going now? That's where it was. Okay. Sorry. My mind just, I hit a brick wall for a second there. sense of purpose. Like I think that's another important thing to kind of throw out there because until you like, Sometimes I feel like until you find that purpose, it's easier to get stuck in these kind of autopilot or burnout modes, whatever you want to call them, because it's like you're not living for anything. I mean, you are, but if that makes sense, I don't want to say you're not living for anything because you could be, but. No, you are absolutely. mean, and that's whole thing. It's like when you, you know, now you have a purpose to live for when you're helping other people because usually when you're in that loop of depression or anxiety, you start to feel that your life is meaningless. And that's a very scary thing, place to be at. But when you're something to help other people, gives you that purpose. So now your life is meaningful. So you go from meaningful, from meaningless to meaningful. Yeah. And I remember another point I was going to speak about came back to me. You had mentioned that, you know, like when you have time, too much time on your hands, you get stuck in these modes of overthinking and anxiety or depression. just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Oh, I can't count the minute how many times that's happened to me, like personally, because I've, I mean, it's like, I just think of like, you to have more work to me and I was like okay do they do they not like me why are they not giving me more work am I not worth it am I not good enough and then all of sudden this last month it's like all piled on I was like okay I was just thinking dumb thoughts that make no sense Yeah, well and that sometimes happens though is that you know we start to you know rule and once you realize that they're just thoughts because You know the on a daily basis They say we have 70,000 thoughts that enter our brain from know what we wake them on we were sleeping so We don't necessarily have to pay any mind to them doesn't mean just because they enter our brain or our head does not mean we have to pay attention to them or give them any energy. So, and I think the important thing is to understand that that's all they are, thoughts. And just as fast as they entered our brain, they can exit. And I think that's the important thing. I totally agree with you. And just a few more questions here. So in your line of work, you you hear all these stories of, you know, what's going on in other people's lives. And some of those I would imagine could get kind of hard to listen to. What practices keep you grounded while you're kind of dealing with all these other people's emotions as well? Well, number one thing is self-care. mean, taking breaks. know, I may not plan sessions back to back. You know, I want to give myself a little bit of a break. Even with something simple like a grounding ritual where I'll just sit and prepare myself and kind of like even put in my imagination a little bubble around me. Then I'm not going to get affected by that. what they tell me. can still be, you know, show empathy, that doesn't mean I'm going to be affected by it or let it bring me down. So. make sense? All right and kind of the last main question here then is follow up if you follow up things. If there's one message that you hope a listener listener takes away from this conversation what would it be? that we have the chance to really become better, and that we are enough and that we all have the answers within us. A lot of times we let fear take over, uncertainty take over, but if we can remove all of that and just listen to our intuition and listen to our inner guidance, we can achieve a lot. I absolutely love it. And where can people find you? So you can find me on my website albertbramonti.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn under Albert Bramonti. yeah, feel free to chat to me. I'd love to get a hold of you and we can have a conversation. And also check out my book, you know, on Amazon and social, Bed, Balls, and Audio book. So yeah. Thank you. And last thing is we covered a lot of ground here. Is there anything that we did not discuss that you would like to bring up? Um, just again, you know, I would just say that we can be our own worst enemy, you know, if we allow it to happen. But again, just thinking of yourself as a creator, not a victim is the most important thing. Absolutely love it. Well, Albert, thank you for coming on the show. I really enjoyed our conversation. Well, thank you, Travis. I really appreciate you having me out here. And thank you to all those that have listened. Please, if this resonated with you, please share it and you can find us on all major podcast platforms. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.