The Unexpected Consequences of Betrayal in Entrepreneurship – with Lisa Duez

Betrayal might be an emotion more commonly associated with personal relationships, but struggling with feelings of betrayal (whether or not there has been an actual betrayal) is a common experience many business owners struggle with. So in this conversation, Jo is joined by therapist and coach, Lisa Duez.

You can connect with Rachel Alvater via her business at One Path Consulting. Downsheet her cheat sheet on ways you might be compromising your peace here.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• You, The Entrepreneurial Clinician 
• Future-Proofing Health Professionals Facebook group
• The Entrepreneurial Clinician book

If you know you need more support, please visit my website at https://jomuirhead.com

TRANSCRIPT:

Jo:

So welcome back to the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast. I am your host, Jo Muirhead. And today is the discussion that you might not like you know, surprise that I talk about stuff that can sometimes be uncomfortable. But I think we all know as health professionals, as clinicians and those of us who are also business owners or wanting to be business owners, that there is sometimes stuff that comes up that’s internal to ourselves, but also external to ourselves that can make us feel really icky and we don’t know why. So today I am interviewing somebody who is quickly becoming one of my favourite people. Her name is Lisa Duez. And I hope I have said that surname correctly, cause I did take lessons beforehand. Oh good. She’s nodding her head. Excellent. Yes, cause I have received the feedback that I can pronounce people’s names. Interestingly, I try and blame it on my accent, but that’s not always the case. So, Lisa recently posted this fantastic piece of work on Facebook that I read and I saw, and I went, ooh, that makes so much sense to me. So stick around cause we’re gonna be talking into that and what led her to actually write this fantastic piece on Facebook. But before we get into that, Lisa, tell us who you are, what you do, where you are in the world, and how you ended up here today.

Lisa:

Oh, thank you Jo for having me. I am super honoured to be here and you are also one of my favourite people. I am on the east coast of the United States in Virginia, right about 20 miles from the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach. I am a clinical social worker, so I’m a therapist, mental health. I own a group practice called Turning Point Counseling and Consulting in Virginia Beach. And we have about 20 therapists, a medical management provider, and we also have a massage therapist, which is nice. Our practice has been open about five years and we really focus on trauma-informed care. We have a very large population of therapists that do eye movement, desensitisation and reprocessing. And I’m just happy to be here. <Laugh>. I’m a mom. I’m a wife.

Jo:

Yep. You are a mom and a wife, but you’re a mom and a wife to some pretty incredible people. Just give us a snapshot of what, what your people do.

Lisa:

Oh gosh. My people, they serve. I guess just like I serve, we all have the bug. So my son is in the US Army and he’s stationed overseas. And my other son is a deputy and his dad, my husband, is a police officer. So we have that running through our genes, I guess. Which is pretty cool.

Jo:

It is. Very cool. So I asked you to come onto this podcast today, Lisa, because you wrote a Facebook post and it was so, I guess affirming, confirming, insightful. It was just one of those posts that I went, oh my God, I wish I had known this around the time the incidents happened. And what you put into perspective for me was the sense of betrayal I have felt in my business by other people. So I’ve invited you on today cause I wanna talk about this because I think it’s a real genuine key for a lot of us who bootstrap our businesses, we just genuinely wanna serve and we have a heart to serve, and we have a heart to create these wonderful places where everybody feels valued and respected. And then sometimes a staff member or a client or a customer will do something or say something and then we end up feeling like we’ve been betrayed. Can you share with us how you came to this insight? Like what led you down this path?

Lisa:

Oh gosh. It was an incident. It’s actually not a bad story, but I can tell you really quick. Last fall, I was on my way back from a meeting and I wanted some soup, so I stopped at the soup place and can’t eat soup in the car. So I decided I’d sit and I got the whole introverted extroverted corner that I usually do and sat with my soup and it’s doing my thing and I hear a voice and it’s a familiar voice and it’s a great voice that I love to hear. And I was like, that’s one of my old employees. And then I said, can I go in the bathroom and hide or can I sneak out the back? And then I was like, no, put your big girl pants on.

You’re done with the soup. We need to go. So I went up there and, Hey, how are you? And it was a great reunion. And then I turned around and there was another voice, and it was also a great reunion. So these were two former employees therapists that had moved on to better things that were having lunch together. So, great reunion, got in my car, sat there for a minute, and I was like, what just happened? And I sat with it for the weekend and I was like, how do I feel? And I was like, I kind of feel like I’m a little bit betrayed a little bit. Because I was like, I put my investment in those folks. They left now, and here’s the thing, they left because they needed to leave for their own personal things. And there’s nothing, this is not what this conversation is about. So I was like, when we as business owners put ourselves, and when you’re a small business owner, you put your entire being into your practice and into your people and they need to do their life. I think we talk about being happy for them, but then there’s this dichotomy of not so much because it causes us, it’s a big, very strong emotion of betrayal.

It’s a very strong emotion, betrayal, trauma, big, strong emotion. And I was very surprised at it. Cause I’m always, you know, the person that’s the cheerleader and I want people to be happy and to do their life. And I’ve certainly done my life with other people. And I was very surprised that it hit me that way. And so after a lot of thinking and processing, I wrote that post. I was like, Hey people, this is a thing.

Jo:

Yeah. And what I find interesting or insightful is that there was nothing nasty. It wasn’t like an employee did you wrong, it wasn’t = somebody was embezzling funds…

Lisa:

Cause that happens too. And that’s also betrayal trauma. But then there’s also what happened. This was a good one, you know? Yeah. This was a good reunion. But then also like, I think what made it such a good reunion and then a like, wait a minute, why am I feeling ickyYou know, it’s my fault. Nope. It’s not. It’s called being human.

Jo:

So I read that post and I had a few things come up for me. Cause I’ve had my business now for 12, going on 13 years and you were describing things for me that I went Oh, okay. And since reading that post and then talking to you, because I spoke about this, it’s helped me understand that my sense of betrayal is my responsibility. It’s a perception that I’ve developed and it’s not necessarily somebody doing something nefarious to me. So my first experience of this was a customer. And when it went down I was shocked and stunned and hurt. And I’d been with this customer for years and I’d been over backwards and I had put off going on vacation to keep them happy.

I had worked my arse off, excuse me, expletives in this episode <laugh>, you may wanna shut your little kid’s ears. I had worked so hard for her. I’d helped her business, you know, save a lot of money. And I did really, really good work. And I made one error and, admittedly it caused them a problem, but it felt like there was no grace, no compassion, and an apology. And the opportunity to fix it was just not extended to me. And that relationship had to end and it didn’t end nicely. And I lost a third of my business, but I walked around for ages going, how dare she, how dare that happened? Doesn’t she know how hard I worked for that? And not realising that she probably never even thinks about it.

Lisa:

Probably doesn’t lose any sleepover it

Jo:

Not at all

Lisa:

And we have to deal with our stuff, you know, so it looks like, you know, betrayal trauma. I was looking at it when I figured out that’s what it was. But I was like, oh, it’s like when somebody has an affair, that’s where it’s most referenced. And I was like, that’s not quite like that? You know, because you can go to therapy and get over an affair. You can, you can do it. But this betrayal trauma, you have to still function.

Jo:

<Laugh>. I had to rebuild my business!

Lisa:

Now you have to rebuild your business. Yeah. You have to rebuild your business. And so now you’ve got fear and anxiety. And so it’s no different from, you know, you hurt me and I’m mad at myself for trusting you. I’m mad at myself and I had to make payroll, you know, I still have to recover and rebuild my livelihood, and the livelihood of other people, and we can’t stay stuck. So we over-function. And it showed up for me like that for sure until I figured it out. And of course, as soon as I figured it out, I just sat in it for a long time and then <laugh>, I didn’t do anything about it. And then I just like, I gotta kick my own butt or something. I don’t know. But I over-functioned and I pretty much burnt myself out. I don’t know. You speak about that a lot. And then I was like, I gotta stop. And, you know, you have to get your trust back for your job.

Jo:

Tell me what over-functioning looked like for you in your business? So you’d gone through this experience where you were just casually eating soup something completely innocuous, and all of a sudden you see two ex team members sitting over there having a lovely chat, not even thinking about you, but for some reason it triggered something in you and it made you go back to that place of, there’s something going on here. But I’m curious to know now, because I’m a big over overfunctioner and I don’t often see that I’m over-functioning until I’m exhausted. So can you shed some light on what over-functioning looked like for you in this? Like, what did you do that you kind of go that, that was unnecessary?

Lisa:

How did I over-function? <laugh.

Having to answer all the emails every day, feeling guilty about taking time off over the weekend, still thinking about my business. You know, not disconnecting, thinking how can it be better? I have to be perfect, getting into that perfectionism stuff which is just toxic, questioning my judgments. Not wanting to expand my business. You know, maybe saying to someone if there was an opportunity, I really can’t right now when honestly I probably could have, fearing when staff would come up to me and they’d be like, I need to talk to you and immediately thinking they’re leaving and they’re just like, oh, no, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, case, you know? And so it was questioning my own judgement because if it could happen to me once and I got betrayed, then I allow myself to do it again. Therefore, I need to play small and I need to go in and I can’t be abundant. I have to be scarce because I need to protect myself.

Jo:

Yeah. Cause it’s not gonna happen again, darn it!

Yes. And the feeling is, like you said, the feeling is so big and overwhelming and I’ve been sitting in this for years not being able to put a word to it until that post.

Since then, I think that’s what I’m feeling. I’m feeling betrayed. So I’ve had team members leave my business and I’ve been so happy for them. I threw them parties. I was so excited. Oh, yeah. I wrote them references. But meanwhile, I’m sitting back in the office going, I’m never gonna get that close to another employee ever.

Lisa:

And with leadership, you know, striving to be the authentic leader, you have to let yourself be vulnerable and authentic. And so that does mean getting close to an extent.

Jo:

Yeah. I mean, not that our lives were a meshed, but I’m just thinking about one of my very first employees where I was responsible for putting food on the table each week. And like she was a new graduate and I really, really cherished my relationship with this person. She was a wonderful asset to me and to my business and to the community. And then she decided to leave. And I got so mad because I was like, I taught you, I paid you to learn how to do this stuff so you could go and flourish in the world. So that was like schizophrenic Jo was like, I’m so happy for you. I’m so mad at you.

Lisa:

Right. And it’s nothing about them. I can’t emphasise that enough. It’s nothing to do with people that leave us.

Jo:

No.

Lisa:

Because they’re going to.

Jo:

So we have some choices around this now. So hang on, I’m gonna back it up. The first thing I wanna say is, as a rehabilitation counsellor who has been doing this work for nearly 30 years and prides itself on knowing about human behaviour, and I don’t have it all down pat, there’s stuff I still don’t know, but I didn’t wanna talk to anybody about my feelings or anybody about how this was making me small or minimised me because I was so ashamed. Cause I felt like I did something wrong. They’ve left me, it’s not, they’ve left the business to pursue greener pastures. They’ve left me. Right? Is that something you hear about as well? Is that something that comes up there?

Lisa:

Yeah. Because you are the business. You are your business. So your business would not exist without you. So therefore you are your business. And it is personal in that regard. Yeah. So they left me when I invested and they’re just gonna move on. Yeah. You have probably caused somebody betrayal trauma. I probably have/

Jo:

Well, I’ve left businesses.

Lisa:

Yeah. But we don’t talk about it because we either say, if it’s a bad thing, we say, yeah, fine, they should have left. And sometimes that happens and sometimes we feel that trauma because we should have known better. I should have known better. So that’s that cognition I should’ve known better. And then, sometimes they leave for the good and you’re happy for them, but you’re like, darn, I gotta do all these things now. I have to find somebody. And it’s hard to hire and all that stuff. And so that’s the, I’m not good enough part of it, I’m not worthy, I’m not good. And those are huge cognitions for business owners is what I’m trying to say. And they are debilitating if you allow them to be.

Jo:

Yeah. I can imagine that they confuse us. So my business model is I don’t want employees because it’s a business model that works well for me and where I’m at in my stage of life. So I have subcontractor arrangements and that just works really well for me. But I actually wonder how much of that decision was rooted in that, the sense that employees can leave me and then I’m abandoned <laugh>.

Lisa:

I’ve had contractors before and I had employees just with laws in Virginia and stuff. You have to have employees, but I have had contractors first. And it is a little bit of a different level when you have an employee. There’s more investment. I can’t really put my finger on how it’s different, just that there’s more investment. You’re paying taxes. I don’t know. You’re giving benefits. You have an ongoing relationship with an employee. With a contractor, you don’t need ’em, they go.

Jo:

So where I’m at in my business life and what I wanna be able to do, the model of an employee doesn’t sit right. It might in the future. But right now, it doesn’t. But I’m just curious. You’ve made me curious to go back and I probably need to talk to the people in my world that I trust <laugh> around how much of that is actually a limiting belief now. Is it a limiting belief rather than sound business choice? Cause you know, I’m smart like you are. I can rationalise and intellectualise myself to believe a choice I’ve made is for the best of everyone when really I’m covering something up.

So Lisa, this is obviously a very powerful topic and it’s one that people are gonna be listening to and probably gonna have some big feelings about, possibly some uncomfortable feelings about. And we don’t wanna leave them there. So I know you can’t fix it in a podcast. If anybody’s got the expectation that Lisa’s gonna fix this for you in a podcast, please understand. That’s an unreasonable expectation of anyone. She’s awesome, but she’s not your fairy godmother. <Laugh>, I’m just putting that out there. So Lisa, if we identify that this is something that’s happened, what are some of the things that we can do to help us help ourselves?

Lisa:

Yeah. So I think the first thing is just like anything else is recognising it. Really getting honest with yourself. I’m a therapist, so I would be like, oh, you gotta do the internal work. But sometimes it’s just like, what is this thing going on with me? And then, if it’s that then, I think I am a big believer in talking with trusted other business colleagues sometimes. There is nobody that understands your world, like another person that’s in business. And sometimes it doesn’t even have to be in healthcare. So talk with someone. I think what made a huge difference for me was actually getting a coach to help me through those stuck points because I knew my emotional game was going on. I knew what was going on, but then I didn’t understand how I was playing small. And so you need someone to help you bring that to your forefront and help you set expectations. And that’s why I really believe in individual coaching, you have someone that’s trusted. You have someone that knows your story, but is also willing to be your motivator at the same time.

Jo:

That’s such a powerful point. And I think yes, we can all go to therapy around this, and I’m not negating it and I’m talking to a therapist here, but sometimes to do the internal work, we also need to be able to keep the business going and not go into a heap and not over-function. And I know that as a coach, one of the gifts that I bring, and one of the gifts you bring as a coach is helping people with perspective.

Lisa:

Yeah.

Jo:

You help people find those stuck places and help them problem solve by giving them perspective just the same as you would, I’m assuming if you had a couple in front of you and one of them had had an affair, like, well let’s, let’s shed some light on this.

Lisa:

Yeah. One thing I noticed about betrayal drama. Sometimes couples get closure. I don’t think that we as business owners get closure sometimes. And we’re looking for closure, just thought of that we’re looking for closure and we’re looking for closure. We have to be our own closure.

Jo:

I’m just thinking back to that customer. Cause I went, wow. What’s going on for me? And I went, I want an apology.

Lisa:

You’re not gonna get it.

Jo:

I know. I want an apology. And you’re right. It’s just not gonna happen.

Lisa:

You gotta give it to yourself. You gotta give it to yourself. So you give it to yourself by doing your work, by getting a coach, but you can do it. You can do it, and your business will recover. Absolutely. I will tell you that there is hope. Absolutely hope, yes.

Jo:

Yeah. Well, I’m 13 years on and this happened earlier on and it’s not the only issue as well. So you can keep going without over-functioning. There is hope. Yes.

Lisa:

You can. Yes. I know over-functioning, it doesn’t really help honestly. It really doesn’t because your brain can only do one thing at a time.

Jo:

Well, yeah. And my over-functioning story was my employee who left, I then brought in someone to replace her and was so cautious. I wanted to make her so happy all the time that she couldn’t do anything wrong. And I ended up feeling betrayed and taken advantage of.

Lisa:

Yeah. And so you don’t recognise yourself as a leader. You don’t recognise what you would, how you would normally lead because you’re leading with fear instead of your normal, authentic self. And so you’re micromanaging because you’re scared and you don’t know what to do, you know?

Jo:

Yeah. I was giving permission to behaviours that when I spoke to some other business owners in my world going, oh, this is going on. She’s not at work again today. They’re like, why are you even tolerating that? And then the other thing I started doing was most of her job for her.

Lisa:

Yeah. Because, and nobody can do it as well as you, right? Because if you do it, you’re not gonna get betrayed.

Jo:

And I also didn’t want her to stress her out. So I didn’t wanna give her too much to do.

Lisa:

So she doesn’t leave. Yeah.

Jo:

Oh my gosh. Oh, Lisa, we can obviously talk about this for a heck of a lot longer than <laugh>. There’s some very concrete examples. And me being incredibly vulnerable. Ooh, that’s, that’s fairly uncomfortable.

Lisa:

It’s so hard. We’re not taught about that stuff as business owners, but I find the more authentic I am with myself and telling my story, the better it is.

Jo:

Yeah. You’ve got so much to offer. You’ve got so much to offer business owners with not only your therapist’s background, but the fact that you built such a large multi-sided business in quite a short space of time. And you’ve gotta hold it like, cause the thing you didn’t tell everybody is you’ve actually got, you know, two master’s degrees and you started your life in a completely different life.

But one of the things that you’ve actually contributed to the world of allied health or health professionals and business owners is you’ve created a free downloadable for us about 10 things that steals our peace. Yeah. Can you wanna give us an insight into another two things that are on that list?

Lisa:

Oh gosh. So that kind of came from out of the betrayal trauma. It came from what else is going on? How else is this showing up for me? So another big one that people make mistakes for is they compromise their culture in their business. And so we worked very hard in building a culture. I can’t really define it, but it’s a good culture. It’s an authentic culture. And you find someone that is not the fit, but you need to fill the desk.

Jo:

I think so many business owners do that.

Lisa:

Cause I’m guilty of it too. I’ve done it. And then you’re like, what did I just do? So making bad hires and the other one that’s probably a little bit controversial <laugh> is that your business is not a baby.

Jo:

Love that <laugh>.

Lisa:

It’s not a baby.

Jo:

Yeah. It’s not your baby. I’m guilty of that.

Lisa:

It’s your livelihood. So you have to treat it like a livelihood and you have to sometimes smack it around a little bit and make hard decisions. It’s not your baby. Your baby, you coddle and you nurture and you have to do that a little bit. But at some point when you get to a certain level, your business is your livelihood and it’s also the livelihood of other people that you employ. You have to treat it with the absolute best decision making. You know, you have to be on that level. So I always tell people, your business is not your baby. It’s your likelihood.

Jo:

Yeah. That’s a very, very powerful insight. So there’s 10 of these things that you’ve identified. So we’ll have a link to that in the show notes for people. And you’ll be over in the Future Proofing Health Professionals Facebook group. So if people wanna talk to you some more about these 10 things, you’re in the group over there. Because I think this’ll be one of those episodes where it gets a little bit of traction in the beginning and then it goes quiet and then all of a sudden there’ll be lots of talk about it again. I’ve noticed that’s how things turn up around here.

Lisa:

Good. I’d love to talk about it.

Jo:

Yeah. That’s really cool. So you mentioned earlier about this is why you’re such a big believer in one-on-one coaching. So do you offer it, do you offer people coaching?

Lisa:

I do, yeah. I do

Jo:

Very cool. And how do we find out about your coaching? If people are like, I need to talk to someone about this.

Lisa:

I’m certainly accessible through Facebook. And then also onepathconsulting.org is my website.

Jo:

Beautiful. Alright. Right now the most important question of the day. So we have to shake this off now. Lisa, if we were gonna go into a cafe right now and I was gonna buy you a coffee, what would you order?

Lisa:

Oh my gosh, Jo, I am a big cinnamon dulce fan, but I would like cold brew now not cause it is almost summer, so I have switched to iced coffee.

Jo:

Fair enough.

Lisa:

I am a big iced coffee drinker.

Jo:

Yum. And are you a dairy milk drinker or do you have an alternative milk?

Lisa:

Well, no milk, definitely. I could do almond milk or coconut milk. Or dairy, but probably need to be good and do almond coconut

Jo:

<Laugh>. Okay. We might leave that topic for another day. And I’m glad we’re on opposite sides of the country right now.

This is really cool. Lisa, thank you so much for coming on and speaking about this topic, which is a little bit confronting, but also now that we’ve been able to shine some light on it, I’m hoping that there are health business owners on this planet who have now got words to the thing that is keeping them small and stuck. And that they can now go and get the type of help that they need to reinvigorate their perspective and realise that nobody left you. It’s okay. We’re gonna get through it.

Lisa:

It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.

Jo:

Awesome.

Lisa:

Thank you so much. Pleasure speaking with you.