.png)
Rise From The Ashes
"Burnout to Brilliance: Great CEOs, No Burnout"
Leadership is tough. Burnout makes it tougher.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Rise From The Ashes is the ultimate podcast for visionary CEOs and executives who refuse to let burnout rob them of their brilliance, legacy, and impact.
Hosted by Baz Porter, this show isn’t just about surviving leadership it’s about transforming it. Each week, we delve deep into the art and science of thriving at the top, combining actionable strategies, spiritual alignment, and raw truths that reignite your purpose and optimize your energy.
Here’s what you’ll get:
- Bold Frameworks: Learn the exact steps to conquer decision fatigue, streamline your mental energy, and reclaim control of your leadership.
- Spiritual Awakenings: Explore the intersection of purpose, alignment, and success to lead with clarity and connection.
- Transformational Insights: Hear unfiltered stories and practical wisdom from world-class leaders who’ve turned their burnout into brilliance.
This isn’t just a podcast it’s a revolution for leaders ready to rise, inspire, and leave a legacy that outlasts them.
Rise From The Ashes
The Future of Tech Is Human: Why Connection Wins Over Code
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.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to part two of our interview with Betsy Tong. This is Ross Meash's Burnout to Brilliance. In the first episode, or the first part of this, we spoke about roots of burnout, a bit about Betsy's journey, where she's come from, the challenges she's faced. But if you're listening to this now, please share the message, please take notes and this isn't just a call for you. This burnout isn't a sign of weakness. It's a call to rise. It's a call to join a movement, a movement of courageous leaders transforming lives in their leadership. So if this sounds like you, subscribe and share the message. Betsy, welcome back. It's a pleasure to have you here and an honor to speak to you once again as a leader in your company and a leader in life. What are the three strategic questions that you have as strategies? You ask yourself and you can help other people implement the strategies for scaling, implementation of automation and things like this.
Speaker 2:What are the three common ones you've come across in your career that's really helped you help other people so, as a leader, one of the things you learn very quickly is you can be somebody who assumes that you have authority and position because you've got the title, or you can be, for anybody who has grown up in tech and in software specifically, the agile servant leader and that sort of horse-shitty marketing language servant leader and that sort of horse shitty marketing language. And when I think about that, fundamentally, what you are trying to do as a leader to influence organizations, industries, what have you is connect as humans. And when you grow up in tech, you start to think you're master of the universe, you start to think that people should listen just because you say and you stop asking questions and you stop actually really listening and actually really taking in. And I think that is something that I learn over and over again that I am more successful if I use my two ears and my mouth in the correct ratio. I listen more than I talk.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think that's great advice, especially coming from someone who's had such a successful career within tech and industries and scaling. Leadership isn't just about tasks. It's also about having vision and legacy. How does connecting something to a greater version of yourself, whether it be family or values, or even a spiritual belief, how has it helped you sustain your energy and thrive for a longer period of time?
Speaker 2:So in the back of my mind, I always think about who what I do matters to, especially now, given the work that I do. Now, right, Obviously, if you are an executive in a big company, your job fundamentally is to make the quarter happen, and that doesn't feel like a spiritual thing. But then when you think about if I don't make the quarter happen, people lose their jobs or people don't get the amount of money that they should be getting because we can't pay them or the company doesn't survive, Then it becomes. Then you start to put the context of must make the quarter into the humans that you get to impact and have great impact and responsibility for and I think about that a lot, and one of the companies Symantec that was one of our.
Speaker 2:The mantra under which we made decisions was a little bit complicated, more complicated than it needed to be, but you had to do the right thing for the shareholder, the employee and the customer, Not in that order, necessarily, but as long as you were doing quote unquote the right thing, you were thinking about the long term, you were thinking about the people in front of you, your team, and you were thinking about the people that you were trying to serve, and I like thinking about leadership within that context, because otherwise you get caught up in the tasks, the delivery of the numbers or whatever else. But there is a bigger purpose behind it.
Speaker 1:I love that advice. I think what you've just touched on there is the bigger purpose. But in your experience, how has that impacted not just your life but your career and the ascension from?
Speaker 2:that From generations before me. My grandfather was a general for the Kuomintang in China, and so he was a rebel against the imperial, the emperor and the corruption of that government and had this vision of a bigger country and a better way of life. His children were members of the Communist Party, and they were rebels against what then became the corrupt nationalists. And so I grew up in Lincoln, massachusetts, very WASP-y, middle-class family rebel without a cause. But the emotional rebellion and that feeling that life and things could be better has always been a driver for me, and always thinking about how can I change the system so that more people can come in, that more people can be impacted in a positive way.
Speaker 1: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 were born, things actually started. They're ingrained in the in the dna, in the structure and the fabric of who we are. That's right. Burnout is not. Burnout is an option, it's a choice, because we don't pick up on the signs of it when we go into business and you are the expert in automation and building these systems. What are the commonalities within the people you serve? What people come towards you with the specific problems? Because there are specific problems you talk about. You dissolve them problems, you rectify them. But if someone was looking for you now and said, oh, by the way, I've got this and this, what is it you're looking for then? What's your criteria?
Speaker 2:So I think that a lot of people that come to me, frankly it's a little bit like the tyranny of choice, because they're incredibly capable, incredibly successful people and they have built an expertise over time. They may or may not. They are not worried about how do I pay rent, necessarily, maybe they are, but those basic Maslow's hierarchy of needs are taken care of. And so now it's the how do I deal with all the choices that I have? And then there's also a fear of not being significant enough, not having made an impact in the ways that they wanted in their lives, but being a little bit directionless, because theyilling and helping them say door A, door B, right, and they might be the wrong doors, by the way, but getting them to the point where they have to make a choice and they really have to think about what is the thing that they care about most, is an exercise that is useful as they think about what they do next and whether that is get another job, write a book.
Speaker 2:These are all choices that we have to make and decide. It doesn't come because suddenly it drops from heaven or I don't wave a magic wand and suddenly you have a new job. You have to make the choice that you want the job. You have to make the choice to go talk to the 9,700 people that you have to talk to, to find the door that you walk through. And then what is it that matters? Because often when you live in a structure and then suddenly you're looking at the end of that structure, it's a little hard to find your path. And then suddenly you're looking at the end of that structure it's a little hard to find your path.
Speaker 1:I love that advice. If you're listening to this now and you're thinking what the hell to do, go back and listen, rewind, pause, get a notepad and pen and really take some advice from Betsy, because the advice she's just given is not how or the choice. It's the why behind it. Really evaluate what you truly want and why. People who are searching for you right now. Where can they find you and where do you want to send them, and what do you want to send them to?
Speaker 2:So you can find me on LinkedIn and please follow and comment. I write a lot about the topics you and I have been speaking about and specifically also within that context, how do you make AI applicable to you and how do you become relevant in an age of AI. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that I have a podcast with my name, Betsy Tong, and you can find me there on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I know you have a clone as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have a clone as well.
Speaker 1:All of them. Links will be in the description below in the blogs. Please go and research them, have a look. I encourage you to reach out to Betsy, whether it be on LinkedIn or website, or just have 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 and thoughts?
Speaker 2:I would say that if you are afraid to make a decision, the worst thing you can do is do nothing. Even a small decision is better than no decision, because why not? There is almost nothing that is irreversible. There's almost nothing that's irreversible. And if you can't make the big decision, make the little one. You can always backtrack, and if you think that doesn't work, that's what Amazon does Make the little decision, go in a direction, collect data and then figure out whether you need to pivot, and there are billions and billions of dollars of value as a result. You could do that in your life.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be, afraid thank you very much for that. If amazon's do it, if Amazons do it, it could be good it could be. But also, jeff Bezos didn't own the company. He invests in other people, so he owns a 20 to 6 stake in the company and he makes other people lots and lots of fucking money as well. So if he's doing it, model that because it works. Bessie, thank you very much for joining me. I love you. Thank you. I always encourage people to go and see you Be. Stay in touch For my listeners. Please share the message. Be proactive in your lives. Burnout isn't just stealing your energy. It's stealing your brilliance, your purpose and also your legacy. Your leadership is too important to let burnout win. So subscribe and join a movement of leaders transforming burnout into brilliance, purpose and generational impact. Your rise starts today, from myself and Betsy. Enjoy your day, have a blessed time and thank you for listening. Take care, thank you.
