April 5, 2025 • 14 mins
This is not a podcast episode.
It’s a leadership intervention for every high-achiever silently burning out behind their success.
Betsy Tong—tech industry powerhouse and unapologetic truth-teller—steps into the fire with host Baz Porter to dismantle the myths around burnout, power, and what it really means to lead with purpose.
She didn’t just climb the ladder.
She burned the damn thing down and built a better system.
🎯 In this episode:
- Burnout isn’t a breakdown—it’s brilliance trying to break through
- How Betsy led billion-dollar tech teams by listening, not posturing
- The “tyranny of choice” and how it paralyzes high-performers
- Why legacy matters more than metrics
- Lessons from Symantec, family sacrifice, and choosing what really matters
- The blueprint for scaling with soul—and still sleeping at night
💥 “If your work doesn’t align with your soul, you’re not leading. You’re just performing.”
—Betsy Tong
This episode is a mirror. A roadmap. A wake-up call.
If you're craving clarity, connection, and career-changing truth, this is your moment.
Because from the ashes, legends rise.
Friends, as we wrap up today’s powerful conversation, hear me loud and clear: I’m grateful for you. You’ve chosen greatness over settling, clarity over chaos, and brilliance over burnout. Remember Great CEOs deserve NO burnout.
Did this hit home? Pass it on. Your share could be the spark someone desperately needs. Together, we’re rewriting the rules of leadership, one bold conversation at a time.
I want to hear YOUR story your wins, your struggles, your breakthroughs. My door is wide open whether you’re in Boulder or reaching out at support@ramsbybaz.com, I'm here.
Here is a gift For you Click Here
Are you ready to drop confusion, claim clarity, and step powerfully into purpose?
Let’s connect. Book a coaching session today and experience firsthand how the RAMS framework amplifies results, shatters limits, and creates lasting legacies.
This is Baz Porter, in your corner, fiercely committed to your brilliance. Keep rising, stay unstoppable, and know you’re never alone in this climb.
Until next time rise boldly.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to part two of our
interview with Betsy Tong.
This is Ross Meash's Burnout toBrilliance.
In the first episode, or thefirst part of this, we spoke
about roots of burnout, a bitabout Betsy's journey, where
she's come from, the challengesshe's faced.
But if you're listening to thisnow, please share the message,
(00:25):
please take notes and this isn'tjust a call for you.
This burnout isn't a sign ofweakness.
It's a call to rise.
It's a call to join a movement,a movement of courageous
leaders transforming lives intheir leadership.
So if this sounds like you,subscribe and share the message.
(00:46):
Betsy, welcome back.
It's a pleasure to have youhere and an honor to speak to
you once again as a leader inyour company and a leader in
life.
What are the three strategicquestions that you have as
strategies?
You ask yourself and you canhelp other people implement the
(01:08):
strategies for scaling,implementation of automation and
things like this.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
What are the three common ones you've come across
in your career that's reallyhelped you help other people so,
as a leader, one of the thingsyou learn very quickly is you
can be somebody who assumes thatyou have authority and position
because you've got the title,or you can be, for anybody who
(01:36):
has grown up in tech and insoftware specifically, the agile
servant leader and that sort ofhorse-shitty marketing language
servant leader and that sort ofhorse shitty marketing language
.
And when I think about that,fundamentally, what you are
(01:56):
trying to do as a leader toinfluence organizations,
industries, what have you isconnect as humans.
And when you grow up in tech,you start to think you're master
of the universe, you start tothink that people should listen
just because you say and youstop asking questions and you
stop actually really listeningand actually really taking in.
And I think that is somethingthat I learn over and over again
(02:19):
that I am more successful if Iuse my two ears and my mouth in
the correct ratio.
I listen more than I talk.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I love that.
I think that's great advice,especially coming from someone
who's had such a successfulcareer within tech and
industries and scaling.
Leadership isn't just abouttasks.
It's also about having visionand legacy.
How does connecting somethingto a greater version of yourself
(02:53):
, whether it be family or values, or even a spiritual belief,
how has it helped you sustainyour energy and thrive for a
longer period of time?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So in the back of my mind, I always think about who
what I do matters to, especiallynow, given the work that I do.
Now, right, Obviously, if youare an executive in a big
company, your job fundamentallyis to make the quarter happen,
(03:29):
and that doesn't feel like aspiritual thing.
But then when you think aboutif I don't make the quarter
happen, people lose their jobsor people don't get the amount
of money that they should begetting because we can't pay
them or the company doesn'tsurvive, Then it becomes.
(03:49):
Then you start to put thecontext of must make the quarter
into the humans that you get toimpact and have great impact
and responsibility for and Ithink about that a lot, and one
of the companies Symantec thatwas one of our.
The mantra under which we madedecisions was a little bit
(04:13):
complicated, more complicatedthan it needed to be, but you
had to do the right thing forthe shareholder, the employee
and the customer, Not in thatorder, necessarily, but as long
as you were doing quote unquotethe right thing, you were
thinking about the long term,you were thinking about the
people in front of you, yourteam, and you were thinking
about the people that you weretrying to serve, and I like
(04:37):
thinking about leadership withinthat context, because otherwise
you get caught up in the tasks,the delivery of the numbers or
whatever else.
But there is a bigger purposebehind it.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I love that advice.
I think what you've justtouched on there is the bigger
purpose.
But in your experience, how hasthat impacted not just your
life but your career and theascension from?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
that From generations before me.
My grandfather was a generalfor the Kuomintang in China, and
(05:31):
so he was a rebel against theimperial, the emperor and the
corruption of that governmentand had this vision of a bigger
country and a better way of life.
His children were members ofthe Communist Party, and they
were rebels against what thenbecame the corrupt nationalists.
And so I grew up in Lincoln,massachusetts, very WASP-y,
(05:52):
middle-class family rebelwithout a cause.
But the emotional rebellion andthat feeling that life and
things could be better hasalways been a driver for me, and
always thinking about how can Ichange the system so that more
people can come in, that morepeople can be impacted in a
(06:14):
positive way.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
This is what I like about you, because you're always
up for disruption.
I mean not just in Heathrow,but everywhere else.
You can see the patterns now,like having these conversations
of where, even before you wereborn, things actually started.
They're ingrained in the in thedna, in the structure and the
fabric of who we are.
That's right.
Burnout is not.
(06:37):
Burnout is an option, it's achoice, because we don't pick up
on the signs of it when we gointo business and you are the
expert in automation andbuilding these systems.
What are the commonalitieswithin the people you serve?
What people come towards youwith the specific problems?
(06:59):
Because there are specificproblems you talk about.
You dissolve them problems, yourectify them.
But if someone was looking foryou now and said, oh, by the way
, I've got this and this, whatis it you're looking for then?
What's your criteria?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
So I think that a lot of people that come to me,
frankly it's a little bit likethe tyranny of choice, because
they're incredibly capable,incredibly successful people and
they have built an expertiseover time.
They may or may not.
(07:38):
They are not worried about howdo I pay rent, necessarily,
maybe they are, but those basicMaslow's hierarchy of needs are
taken care of.
And so now it's the how do Ideal with all the choices that I
have?
And then there's also a fear ofnot being significant enough,
(08:00):
not having made an impact in theways that they wanted in their
lives, but being a little bitdirectionless, because
theyilling and helping them saydoor A, door B, right, and they
(08:29):
might be the wrong doors, by theway, but getting them to the
point where they have to make achoice and they really have to
think about what is the thingthat they care about most, is an
exercise that is useful as theythink about what they do next
and whether that is get anotherjob, write a book.
(08:50):
These are all choices that wehave to make and decide.
It doesn't come becausesuddenly it drops from heaven or
I don't wave a magic wand andsuddenly you have a new job.
You have to make the choicethat you want the job.
You have to make the choice togo talk to the 9,700 people that
you have to talk to, to findthe door that you walk through.
And then what is it thatmatters?
(09:12):
Because often when you live ina structure and then suddenly
you're looking at the end ofthat structure, it's a little
hard to find your path.
And then suddenly you'relooking at the end of that
structure it's a little hard tofind your path.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I love that advice.
If you're listening to this nowand you're thinking what the
hell to do, go back and listen,rewind, pause, get a notepad and
pen and really take some advicefrom Betsy, because the advice
she's just given is not how orthe choice.
It's the why behind it.
(09:44):
Really evaluate what you trulywant and why.
People who are searching foryou right now.
Where can they find you andwhere do you want to send them,
and what do you want to sendthem to?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So you can find me on LinkedIn and please follow and
comment.
I write a lot about the topicsyou and I have been speaking
about and specifically alsowithin that context, how do you
make AI applicable to you andhow do you become relevant in an
(10:22):
age of AI.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that I havea podcast with my name, Betsy
Tong, and you can find me thereon YouTube.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Awesome.
I know you have a clone as well.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, I have a clone as well.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
All of them.
Links will be in thedescription below in the blogs.
Please go and research them,have a look.
I encourage you to reach out toBetsy, whether it be on
LinkedIn or website, or justhave a conversation with her on
clone, because it is useful.
Betsy, before we depart today,is there anything you want to
leave the audience with?
Any last words of wisdom andthoughts?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I would say that if you are afraid to make a
decision, the worst thing youcan do is do nothing.
Even a small decision is betterthan no decision, because why
not?
There is almost nothing that isirreversible.
There's almost nothing that'sirreversible.
(11:24):
And if you can't make the bigdecision, make the little one.
You can always backtrack, andif you think that doesn't work,
that's what Amazon does Make thelittle decision, go in a
direction, collect data and thenfigure out whether you need to
pivot, and there are billionsand billions of dollars of value
as a result.
(11:45):
You could do that in your life.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You don't have to be, afraid thank you very much for
that.
If amazon's do it, if Amazonsdo it, it could be good it could
be.
But also, jeff Bezos didn't ownthe company.
He invests in other people, sohe owns a 20 to 6 stake in the
company and he makes otherpeople lots and lots of fucking
(12:10):
money as well.
So if he's doing it, model thatbecause it works.
Bessie, thank you very much forjoining me.
I love you.
Thank you.
I always encourage people to goand see you Be.
Stay in touch For my listeners.
Please share the message.
Be proactive in your lives.
Burnout isn't just stealingyour energy.
It's stealing your brilliance,your purpose and also your
(12:33):
legacy.
Your leadership is tooimportant to let burnout win.
So subscribe and join amovement of leaders transforming
burnout into brilliance,purpose and generational impact.
Your rise starts today, frommyself and Betsy.
Enjoy your day, have a blessedtime and thank you for listening
(12:54):
.
Take care, thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to part two of our
interview with Betsy Tong.
This is Ross Meash's Burnout toBrilliance.
In the first episode, or thefirst part of this, we spoke
about roots of burnout, a bitabout Betsy's journey, where
she's come from, the challengesshe's faced.
But if you're listening to thisnow, please share the message,
(00:25):
please take notes and this isn'tjust a call for you.
This burnout isn't a sign ofweakness.
It's a call to rise.
It's a call to join a movement,a movement of courageous
leaders transforming lives intheir leadership.
So if this sounds like you,subscribe and share the message.
(00:46):
Betsy, welcome back.
It's a pleasure to have youhere and an honor to speak to
you once again as a leader inyour company and a leader in
life.
What are the three strategicquestions that you have as
strategies?
You ask yourself and you canhelp other people implement the
(01:08):
strategies for scaling,implementation of automation and
things like this.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
What are the three common ones you've come across
in your career that's reallyhelped you help other people so,
as a leader, one of the thingsyou learn very quickly is you
can be somebody who assumes thatyou have authority and position
because you've got the title,or you can be, for anybody who
(01:36):
has grown up in tech and insoftware specifically, the agile
servant leader and that sort ofhorse-shitty marketing language
servant leader and that sort ofhorse shitty marketing language
.
And when I think about that,fundamentally, what you are
(01:56):
trying to do as a leader toinfluence organizations,
industries, what have you isconnect as humans.
And when you grow up in tech,you start to think you're master
of the universe, you start tothink that people should listen
just because you say and youstop asking questions and you
stop actually really listeningand actually really taking in.
And I think that is somethingthat I learn over and over again
(02:19):
that I am more successful if Iuse my two ears and my mouth in
the correct ratio.
I listen more than I talk.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I love that.
I think that's great advice,especially coming from someone
who's had such a successfulcareer within tech and
industries and scaling.
Leadership isn't just abouttasks.
It's also about having visionand legacy.
How does connecting somethingto a greater version of yourself
(02:53):
, whether it be family or values, or even a spiritual belief,
how has it helped you sustainyour energy and thrive for a
longer period of time?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So in the back of my mind, I always think about who
what I do matters to, especiallynow, given the work that I do.
Now, right, Obviously, if youare an executive in a big
company, your job fundamentallyis to make the quarter happen,
(03:29):
and that doesn't feel like aspiritual thing.
But then when you think aboutif I don't make the quarter
happen, people lose their jobsor people don't get the amount
of money that they should begetting because we can't pay
them or the company doesn'tsurvive, Then it becomes.
(03:49):
Then you start to put thecontext of must make the quarter
into the humans that you get toimpact and have great impact
and responsibility for and Ithink about that a lot, and one
of the companies Symantec thatwas one of our.
The mantra under which we madedecisions was a little bit
(04:13):
complicated, more complicatedthan it needed to be, but you
had to do the right thing forthe shareholder, the employee
and the customer, Not in thatorder, necessarily, but as long
as you were doing quote unquotethe right thing, you were
thinking about the long term,you were thinking about the
people in front of you, yourteam, and you were thinking
about the people that you weretrying to serve, and I like
(04:37):
thinking about leadership withinthat context, because otherwise
you get caught up in the tasks,the delivery of the numbers or
whatever else.
But there is a bigger purposebehind it.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I love that advice.
I think what you've justtouched on there is the bigger
purpose.
But in your experience, how hasthat impacted not just your
life but your career and theascension from?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
that From generations before me.
My grandfather was a generalfor the Kuomintang in China, and
(05:31):
so he was a rebel against theimperial, the emperor and the
corruption of that governmentand had this vision of a bigger
country and a better way of life.
His children were members ofthe Communist Party, and they
were rebels against what thenbecame the corrupt nationalists.
And so I grew up in Lincoln,massachusetts, very WASP-y,
(05:52):
middle-class family rebelwithout a cause.
But the emotional rebellion andthat feeling that life and
things could be better hasalways been a driver for me, and
always thinking about how can Ichange the system so that more
people can come in, that morepeople can be impacted in a
(06:14):
positive way.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
This is what I like about you, because you're always
up for disruption.
I mean not just in Heathrow,but everywhere else.
You can see the patterns now,like having these conversations
of where, even before you wereborn, things actually started.
They're ingrained in the in thedna, in the structure and the
fabric of who we are.
That's right.
Burnout is not.
(06:37):
Burnout is an option, it's achoice, because we don't pick up
on the signs of it when we gointo business and you are the
expert in automation andbuilding these systems.
What are the commonalitieswithin the people you serve?
What people come towards youwith the specific problems?
(06:59):
Because there are specificproblems you talk about.
You dissolve them problems, yourectify them.
But if someone was looking foryou now and said, oh, by the way
, I've got this and this, whatis it you're looking for then?
What's your criteria?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
So I think that a lot of people that come to me,
frankly it's a little bit likethe tyranny of choice, because
they're incredibly capable,incredibly successful people and
they have built an expertiseover time.
They may or may not.
(07:38):
They are not worried about howdo I pay rent, necessarily,
maybe they are, but those basicMaslow's hierarchy of needs are
taken care of.
And so now it's the how do Ideal with all the choices that I
have?
And then there's also a fear ofnot being significant enough,
(08:00):
not having made an impact in theways that they wanted in their
lives, but being a little bitdirectionless, because
theyilling and helping them saydoor A, door B, right, and they
(08:29):
might be the wrong doors, by theway, but getting them to the
point where they have to make achoice and they really have to
think about what is the thingthat they care about most, is an
exercise that is useful as theythink about what they do next
and whether that is get anotherjob, write a book.
(08:50):
These are all choices that wehave to make and decide.
It doesn't come becausesuddenly it drops from heaven or
I don't wave a magic wand andsuddenly you have a new job.
You have to make the choicethat you want the job.
You have to make the choice togo talk to the 9,700 people that
you have to talk to, to findthe door that you walk through.
And then what is it thatmatters?
(09:12):
Because often when you live ina structure and then suddenly
you're looking at the end ofthat structure, it's a little
hard to find your path.
And then suddenly you'relooking at the end of that
structure it's a little hard tofind your path.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I love that advice.
If you're listening to this nowand you're thinking what the
hell to do, go back and listen,rewind, pause, get a notepad and
pen and really take some advicefrom Betsy, because the advice
she's just given is not how orthe choice.
It's the why behind it.
(09:44):
Really evaluate what you trulywant and why.
People who are searching foryou right now.
Where can they find you andwhere do you want to send them,
and what do you want to sendthem to?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So you can find me on LinkedIn and please follow and
comment.
I write a lot about the topicsyou and I have been speaking
about and specifically alsowithin that context, how do you
make AI applicable to you andhow do you become relevant in an
(10:22):
age of AI.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that I havea podcast with my name, Betsy
Tong, and you can find me thereon YouTube.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Awesome.
I know you have a clone as well.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, I have a clone as well.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
All of them.
Links will be in thedescription below in the blogs.
Please go and research them,have a look.
I encourage you to reach out toBetsy, whether it be on
LinkedIn or website, or justhave a conversation with her on
clone, because it is useful.
Betsy, before we depart today,is there anything you want to
leave the audience with?
Any last words of wisdom andthoughts?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I would say that if you are afraid to make a
decision, the worst thing youcan do is do nothing.
Even a small decision is betterthan no decision, because why
not?
There is almost nothing that isirreversible.
There's almost nothing that'sirreversible.
(11:24):
And if you can't make the bigdecision, make the little one.
You can always backtrack, andif you think that doesn't work,
that's what Amazon does Make thelittle decision, go in a
direction, collect data and thenfigure out whether you need to
pivot, and there are billionsand billions of dollars of value
as a result.
(11:45):
You could do that in your life.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You don't have to be, afraid thank you very much for
that.
If amazon's do it, if Amazonsdo it, it could be good it could
be.
But also, jeff Bezos didn't ownthe company.
He invests in other people, sohe owns a 20 to 6 stake in the
company and he makes otherpeople lots and lots of fucking
(12:10):
money as well.
So if he's doing it, model thatbecause it works.
Bessie, thank you very much forjoining me.
I love you.
Thank you.
I always encourage people to goand see you Be.
Stay in touch For my listeners.
Please share the message.
Be proactive in your lives.
Burnout isn't just stealingyour energy.
It's stealing your brilliance,your purpose and also your
(12:33):
legacy.
Your leadership is tooimportant to let burnout win.
So subscribe and join amovement of leaders transforming
burnout into brilliance,purpose and generational impact.
Your rise starts today, frommyself and Betsy.
Enjoy your day, have a blessedtime and thank you for listening
(12:54):
.
Take care, thank you.
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