🎙️Transcript: Mental Health Practices

AA-ISP Silicon Valley Chapter
"Mental Health Awareness, Part II"
December 15, 2021

Summary

In this follow-up session on mental health awareness, Ralph Barsi provides deeply practical and personal insights into how organizations and individuals can address burnout, maintain wellbeing, and create sustainable work practices during challenging times.

Speaking from his leadership role at Tray.io, Ralph shares specific organizational initiatives his company has implemented, including enhanced benefits access, monthly stipends for meditation apps like Calm and Headspace, and the creation of "Tray Days" that extend three-day weekends to four days.

These concrete examples demonstrate how companies can move beyond performative wellness gestures to meaningful support that allows employees to return "rejuvenated, refreshed and fired up."

Ralph emphasizes the importance of being resourceful in discovering what mental health resources already exist within your organization, noting that therapy sessions and various support options are likely available but underutilized because employees don't know to ask.

Ralph introduces several personal frameworks for maintaining mental health and preventing burnout, including his "attitude of gratitude" practice and the "hub and spoke" model of harmony that encompasses professional, financial, spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing.

He shares a touching example of his family adopting another family for the holidays whose children asked not for PlayStations but for basic necessities like socks and pajamas—illustrating how acts of service and perspective-keeping contribute to mental wellbeing.

Perhaps most memorably, Ralph describes carrying a coin with "Keep It Real" on one side and "Keep It Playful" on the other, which he uses as a constant reminder to assess his energy and decide whether a situation calls for seriousness or levity. This physical token represents his belief in intentional self-awareness and the power of consciously choosing how to show up in different moments.

A significant portion of Ralph's wisdom centers on recognizing and addressing burnout before it becomes critical. He notes that people often don't realize they're burning out until trusted others—like his wife who has learned his "tells" over their 25-year marriage—sound the alarm.

Ralph advocates for finding those people who can serve as early warning systems and being receptive when they express concern. He introduces the practice of "zooming out" to see yourself from outside yourself, gaining objectivity about challenges and preventing catastrophic thinking where small problems balloon into disasters that rarely materialize.

Throughout his responses, Ralph maintains his characteristic blend of vulnerability and humor, acknowledging he can't walk around saying "I have hair, I have a full head of hair" because he needs to stay grounded in reality while also finding ways to make life's difficulties more manageable through animated visualization and self-compassion.

BIG Takeaways

• Be Resourceful About Existing Benefits—They're Likely Already Available – Ralph emphasizes that many employees suffer unnecessarily because they don't know what mental health resources their companies already provide.

Most organizations have significantly "beefed up" their benefits centers with therapy session access, wellness programs, and various support options, but these remain underutilized because people assume they don't exist or don't think to ask.

Ralph encourages everyone to actively inquire about what's available rather than waiting for HR to push information. At Tray.io, they've gone beyond passive availability by earmarking monthly stipends specifically for employees to join Calm or Headspace, removing the friction of employees having to expense or justify the cost.

The lesson is twofold: companies should proactively communicate available resources rather than burying them in benefits portals, and individuals should advocate for themselves by explicitly asking "What mental health support options does our company offer?"

• "Tray Days" and Strategic PTO Timing Maximize Recovery Impact – Ralph introduces the concept of "Tray Days"—when a three-day weekend is coming (like a Monday holiday), the company adds a fourth day (Friday off) to create extended recovery periods.

This strategic approach recognizes that single days off scattered throughout the year don't provide sufficient decompression from sustained stress. People return "rejuvenated, refreshed and fired up" because they had meaningful time to truly disconnect rather than spending half their time off thinking about work.

For salespeople concerned about quota relief (which Ralph notes is "very rare"), he provides tactical guidance: the first week after quarter close is optimal for vacation when "everybody's mentally pressing the reset button."

During the quarter, leverage technology with specific out-of-office messages, create barriers to protect your time, and identify a "wing person" who can handle administrative tasks in your absence. The key insight is that strategic timing and proper preparation make time off actually restorative rather than anxiety-inducing.

• The "Attitude of Gratitude" Requires Active Cultivation, Not Passive Hope – Ralph describes his year-end retrospective practice of checking himself against his values and belief system, specifically examining whether he successfully cultivated gratitude throughout the year.

He asks: "How did I express gratitude, feel gratitude? Have I done a good job of staying conscious of all the basics that are around me, whether it's a glass of fresh water or a great friendship or good health?"

This practice isn't about toxic positivity or dismissing real problems—it's about actively training your brain to notice abundance alongside challenges. Ralph reinforces this through action, citing his family's decision to adopt another family for the holidays whose children requested basic necessities like socks and pajamas instead of PlayStations.

This experience provided perspective and meaning while serving others. The "attitude of gratitude" isn't a personality trait you either have or don't—it's a muscle that requires consistent exercise through intentional reflection and service to others.

• The "Hub and Spoke" Model of Harmony Prevents Single-Dimension Burnout – Ralph introduces the concept that true harmony is achieved when you're "hitting on all cylinders" across multiple life dimensions: professional, financial, spiritual, emotional, physical, and more.

This hub-and-spoke framework explains why people who are wildly successful professionally can still experience profound burnout—they've optimized one spoke while neglecting others, creating imbalance that eventually collapses the entire wheel.

Ralph does an annual "deep dive" to get "very specific with goals" in each category, recognizing that sustainable high performance requires tending to all aspects of life rather than pursuing professional success at the expense of everything else.

This approach also prevents the trap where a setback in one area (like a missed sales quarter) devastates your entire identity because you've invested everything in that single dimension.

By consciously developing multiple spokes, you build resilience and find fulfillment from various sources rather than placing all your emotional eggs in one basket.

• "Keep It Real" vs "Keep It Playful"—The Coin of Intentional Energy Management – Ralph carries a physical coin with "Keep It real" on one side and "Keep It Playful" on the other, using it as a constant reminder to consciously assess "Where's my energy level today? What's my self-talk all about?"

This practice represents profound self-awareness about the energy you bring to situations and the intentional choice about how to show up. Some moments require gravitas and seriousness—you need to "keep it real" when addressing important challenges, giving difficult feedback, or handling crises.

Other moments benefit from levity and humor—you should "keep it playful" to lighten the mood, reduce tension, or simply remind everyone that work isn't life-or-death. Ralph notes that sometimes this choice isn't about his own needs but about what would serve "the audience" in that moment.

This physical token serves as what behavioral designers call a "commitment device"—a tangible object that prompts desired behavior. The brilliance is that it forces a conscious decision rather than operating on autopilot or defaulting to whatever emotional state you're currently experiencing.

• You Don't Recognize Your Own Burnout—Trust Your Early Warning Systems – Ralph delivers a critical insight that most people don't realize they're burning out while it's happening. The person experiencing burnout is often the last to recognize it because they're too close to see objectively.

This is why Ralph emphasizes having trusted people—his wife of 25 years who knows his "tells," close colleagues, friends—who have permission to sound the alarm when they notice burnout creeping in.

He advises: "If it's not your spouse or significant other, find those people who are closest to you that can have those leading indicators told to you." This requires two things: first, you must cultivate relationships deep enough that people feel comfortable telling you hard truths, and second, you must be receptive rather than defensive when they do.

Ralph practices "zooming out" to see himself from outside himself, gaining the objectivity that's difficult when you're in the middle of crisis. Writing things out helps "purge all the things going on in your head" and externalize thoughts that feel overwhelming when they're just swirling internally.

The meta-lesson is that self-awareness has limits—sometimes you need others to reflect what they see.

• Control Catastrophic Thinking Through Identity-Based Reframing and Humor – Ralph addresses the common pattern where "we start seeing the start of a problem and we go super dark and super deep into what this problem could become, which more often than not, it never becomes that."

This catastrophic thinking amplifies stress and creates suffering around events that never materialize.

Ralph offers two counterstrategies:

First, use James Clear's identity-based approach by asking "How would [role model] handle this?" This psychological reframe literally changes your physiology and how you carry yourself. If you're spiraling about a missed deal, asking "How would my most successful colleague handle this?" shifts you from victim mode to problem-solving mode.

Second, maintain humor and keep perspective—Ralph jokes about not being able to walk around saying "I have hair, I have a full head of hair" because he needs to stay grounded in reality. By making scenes in his mind "humorous and almost animating them," he makes difficulties more manageable.

This isn't about dismissing real problems but about preventing problems from becoming larger than they actually are through catastrophic mental storytelling. The self-talk matters because "whatever you consistently say, you'll end up believing."

Transcript

Ralph Barsi (00:00):
We've really beefed up our online benefits center with a lot more access to resources for employees. So I would encourage everybody listening to the call and on the call to just be more resourceful in asking your company about what options are available for you.

We mentioned therapy sessions, and it runs the gamut on what those therapy sessions could be about, but it's very likely those resources are available to you. Other things we've done of late is we've earmarked monthly stipends for any employees who want to become members of Calm or Headspace—great applications to just help you dial in on a daily basis or even several times throughout the day.

Other things we've done is when there's an upcoming three-day weekend, we will institute what we call Tray Day, and we'll add a fourth day so that employees can take advantage of taking off a Friday when we all have a holiday on Monday.

Ralph Barsi (01:11):
And it seems to be going really well for everybody because everybody comes back to the workplace—remote or otherwise—rejuvenated, refreshed and fired up to get after it. And it's been really fun to see.

Sure, this is a good one, and I agree with Jeff's comments at the start of this call that we're in this thing for the long haul, so we have to start learning to live with it and live with it together. So a couple of things we're doing in the workplace is we leverage Slack a lot.

In the early days when COVID first hit and we were all trying to manage through it, there was just a lot of conversation and discussion naturally in Slack channels about COVID. And as time has gone on, we've started to create private Slack channels or just Slack groups if people really want to ask questions or if people are still struggling with managing through COVID—and many are. They have a place to go now. It doesn't have to necessarily find its way into every Slack conversation, for example.

Ralph Barsi (02:16):
So we've offered them those venues, if you will, to go have those types of conversations. We also implemented a lot of surveys across the organization just to make sure our finger's on the pulse of how all the employees are feeling.

We are one team and it's really important that everybody feels safe, feels healthy, feels invigorated to work together towards the mission that we've all talked about. And so we're always polling and surveying the teams to just see where people's heads are on certain subjects.

And we also noticed that not enough people were taking their paid time off and their vacation. So we just started encouraging it across the entire organization that you got to punch out. And it'll be a good segue into Sean because he's recently posted about doing this very thing and just how important it is for your mind and your overall health and wellbeing to just take some time off.

Ralph Barsi (03:19):
For us, quota relief is very rare, so that doesn't really happen much. However, you hit it right on the head, Michael, with respect to time of quarter or time of year to take that vacation time or create that space.

So typically right after a quarter is best. The first week of the new quarter is usually pretty quiet when everybody's mentally pressing the reset button. Also during the quarter, if you do happen to take even a day or two off, most of us are salespeople here and we've got numbers to hit and quotas to make, et cetera.

So leverage technology, create great out-of-office messages that are very specific, create those barriers. If you can, make sure that you've got somebody who's a wing person for you who can offload some of the admin tasks that you might have to do, and in your absence they're going to be handling them for you.

Ralph Barsi (04:19):
There's just a lot of different resources within you and around you that you can be leveraging when you do punch out for a little bit. I typically do a brief retrospective of how the year has gone, and I kind of check myself against some things that mean a lot to me that I feel are part of my values and belief system.

So for example, I'm constantly trying to shape and develop my attitude of gratitude. So I reflect on how did the year go and how did I express gratitude, feel gratitude? Have I done a good job of staying conscious of all the basics that are around me, whether it's a glass of fresh water or a great friendship or good health, et cetera.

And what have I done for others this year? Have I served others the way that I want to at the levels I want to, whether that be a donation of time or money or goods?

Ralph Barsi (05:18):
For example, our family adopted a family this year for the holidays—people who just don't have much. The children didn't want PlayStations. They wanted socks and pajamas and a sweatshirt. And so things like that are what I check myself against at the end of each year.

And then I start to think about the year ahead and I try to think big. What could I do even better to create harmony in my own life and harmony in the lives of others?

And what I mean by harmony is kind of like the hub and spoke model where harmony's really achieved when you're hitting on all cylinders, whether that's professional, financial, spiritual, emotional, physical, et cetera. And so I do kind of a deep dive and get very specific with goals that I want in each of those categories.

And I tend to step into the new year kind of fired up because there's a lot of people that I could positively impact.

Ralph Barsi (06:15):
I also typically walk around with this coin. I've talked to many of you about it. On one side it says "Keep it real." And on the other side it says, "Keep it playful."

And I'm constantly reminding myself, where's my energy level today? What's my self-talk all about? And am I here to keep things real right now or should I keep things playful in the moment and lighten up the mood? Sometimes it's not so much for me as much as it is for the audience, and it seems to really help.

So those are some examples of things I do just to gear up and get ready for a new year. Yeah, a couple things that come to mind when it comes to burnout is oftentimes you don't even realize yourself that you're burning out and that you're in the midst of a burnout.

Oftentimes, if you do have the antenna up and you start listening to those around you, they'll tell you that you need to probably calm down a little bit, take a break.

Ralph Barsi (07:12):
There are little tells. I'm blessed to have my wife and we've been together for a long time, and she just knows early on if burnout is starting to creep in and she'll signal pretty loudly that I need to chill out.

And so if it's not your spouse or significant other, find those people who are closest to you that can have those leading indicators told to you. And oftentimes you just simply need to detach and maybe zoom out and see yourself away from yourself.

If you can do that visually to just start seeing things a little more objectively, oftentimes you might need to just write some things out just so you can purge all the things going on in your head.

I can't emphasize enough what Sean said just about growing up and living in the Silicon Valley and in the Bay Area. It's a unique environment and constantly—at least it feels like there's constantly a fire lit under you and you've just got to be rolling all the time.

Ralph Barsi (08:14):
And that's really tough for a lot of people to do, me included. And so I think if you can zoom out and see it from afar in your mind, it really helps you deal with it. And it also helps you see challenges and problems as they are versus worse than they are.

Oftentimes, again, back to that self-talk, we start seeing the start of a problem and we go super dark and super deep into what this problem could become, which more often than not, it never becomes that.

So it's really, really important to again, use that identity-based approach that Jeff was talking about in the James Clear book where "How would so-and-so handle this?" And you'll find yourself kind of physiologically changing and carrying yourself differently as you tackle problems.

For me, it's the self-talk, and I'm a firm believer that whatever you consistently say, you'll end up believing. But I also have to be real with myself, so I can't walk around going, "I have hair, I have a full head of hair." That's just never going to happen.

So I've got to also keep the humor into it. And if I can make more scenes in life humorous and almost animate them in my mind, it just helps me get through a lot of the dark patches that I know I'm going to face, just like all of us will. But I love that.