The Ben Mulroney Show - WNBA mockery gets crazier / Burnout in health care

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

GUEST: Calissa Ngozi is a mental health expert, Child & Youth Care Professor at Mohawk College, and author of The Oxygen Mask Mindset  If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow. AI Cloud ERP for any size business. Anyway, here's an update on the health of the WNBA. It's not good. And to give you where my head's at on this,

I was perpetually perplexed by the WNBA's seeming unwillingness or inability to do the things that successful leagues do to be more successful. And what I mean by that is when the NBA knew, knew that they had a league changing player in their midst, in the form of Michael Jordan, they did some things. They put him front and center. they made as many of his games nationally televised in prime time on the weekends. When there were promotions to be made, he was in them. And all the other players knew that, what's that expression?

Rising Tide raises all boats. They knew they would benefit from his greatness. And yes, he was probably protected in a lot of ways. probably got some calls they didn't deserve. Probably was, you know, if somebody gave him a hard foul, the guy who gave him the hard foul was treated like he was doing more than just fouling a player, but he was harming the long-term prospects of the league. These are the things you do.

And so I was perplexed when they have on, in the WNBA, they've got a version of that in Caitlin Clark and they weren't doing those things. And so my theory was because they're heavily subsidized by the NBA, they are not affected by market forces the way other leagues are. And therefore, they can keep their eyes on other balls, not the ball that is all about business. But they can take on pet projects and social issues. And that has all now come to a head with the definition.

What is a woman? Well, if a woman is someone who identifies as a woman, there are two players, there are two former NBA players who are putting that theory to the test in the form of declaring themselves women and declaring for the WNBA draft. Is he with us now? Not yet. Trying to. Okay. Well, once he gets, give me a thumbs up when he joins us. And so, yeah, was that it?

No, okay, that was you testing. Okay. That was unhelpful. That was unhelpful. And yes. So Ennis Cantor Freedom and Royce White, both first round draft picks back in the day. You know, Ennis had a 10-year career. I don't know that Rice, I don't know much about Royce White.

But I do know that the self-identifying trans women are going to tear through the competition like warm bread, like tissue paper, because of their innate immutable male can. characteristics that make it so they will be unstoppable. And so now the league is meeting to define a woman, which doesn't, I mean, that's a losing strategy too, because they were so for 10 years, they were telling us exactly what a woman was. Why do they have to now meet to reexamine the definition they told us was set in stone? It's self-identification.

That's what makes you a wound. And I got to say, Royce White, he's having fun with this. He's trolling everybody. And again, I will say this again. I'm not enjoying this story. I'm not enjoying this story.

I don't like that this is bringing a league of excellent women and excellent athletes into disrepute. But this is what happens. when you lay the tracks and somebody else steers the train. Ennis and Royce are steering the train. And as it turns out, you have laid the tracks that are going to lead you off a cliff, WNBA. So this is sadly a disaster of their own making.

But I am not enjoying this story. We got them now? Intrepid, how are you today? I'm fine. Well, I'm trying to connect here and, you know, technology, how it works sometimes. How's your neck? It's large. It's like, I don't know.

No, I got bit by something and then it got infected. And now it's like I look like, I look like Quasimodo. Okay. It's not good. No, it's not good. So let's focus on the here and now. Royce White, we're just about to play a little bit of the trolling because he's having fun right now. Oh, is he ever?

No one's ever talked about Royce White as much as they are now. Let's talk about, I mean, he's making light. And I don't like that he's making light. But these are the rules that were set up that he's just now playing by. So let's listen to a little bit of Royce White and how he believes there was always something in him that was dying to get out. Why are you getting involved

and how did the WNBA even get to this point? You know, right now, I'm just having a blast in my feminine era. I never thought that I was a woman. You know, I've always trusted the science and I thought I was a man my entire life. And then he got challenged over a tweet. A woman said, do it then.

No, actually, do it. Commit to the bit. Take hormones. I recommend injections. To which, intrepid, he writes, don't tell me how to be a black woman. Taking hormones are optional. The idea that a trans woman has to subject yourself to big pharma

is just another way for cis-normative people to turn us into a commodity. I'm an all-natural black trans lesbian with a penile aesthetic. It sounds, it sounds. So to certain people, to certain progressives, this will sound insanely insulting. but to the vast majority of Americans, and I do believe Canadians, this is, he is simply parroting back what we have been told for a decade. And you left out that one bit, though. Royce White for U.S. Senate, Minnesota, 2026.

He's running for Senate. Yeah, yeah. Well, I believe he declared for Senate before this came up, and he realized he can do both. And now people know him. Yeah. I don't think people really remember him from the NBA. I certainly don't.

Well, some people do remember Ennis Cantor, but here's what they need to know about him. It's not about his playing and his ability. It's that. Because Ennis Canter remind people is the first one who came out and said, I'm going to be, I'm going to declare for the WNBA draft. And he made a big sort of mockery of it. And the Royce White jumped on second. Yeah, but Enis Canter has the history of this stuff.

I want to correct you. I want to correct you. I don't think it's fair to say he's making a mockery. I don't, I don't think so. he is simply demonstrating the folly that the WNBA has been entertaining for 10 years. He's playing their game. He's playing their game. He's not making a mockery of it. The WNBA set itself up to be a mockery by saying things.

If you self-identify, you're a woman and you come play. Okay, well, guess what? Somebody took them up on that that they don't like. And now they have to fix it. But Ennis Cantor, for those who don't know, this is a guy who over the course of his career demonstrated he does not care how successful, how powerful you are. If he believes he's on the right side of history,

he is going to die on that hill. He took issues with China's treatment of Tibet, and he wrote Free Tibet on his shoes. They didn't like that. So he wrote Free Uger on his shoes in the next game. And he promised the league he'd never wear Tibet shoes again. Technically, he kept his word. He took great issue.

with what he called slave labor being used by Nike. So he wrote hypocrite Nike. And then in Charlotte, in front of Michael Jordan, as one of the owners of the Charlotte Hornets, he wrote on his Nike's made with slave labor. He went into Michael Jordan's house and dropped that gauntlet. And lastly, he was wearing Air Jordans. He was wearing Air Jordans.

This is not a man who will back down. He has left millions of dollars on the table. He shortened his career over his political beliefs, and I believe he is going to take this one to the mattresses. All right, don't go anywhere when we get. Thank you very much for joining us, Droulet. I hope you feel better. Oh, thank you.

All right. When we come back, we're going to be joined by a mental health expert about a crisis on top of a crisis inside our health care system. If I were to sit here and make a list for you, of all the crises, problems, choke points, inefficiencies, in our health care system, we would be here all day. So let's,

never mind, never mind the fact that it's, it's what we're putting in, the amount of money that we're putting in, does not justify the outputs that we're getting. That's the big, that's the top line problem. Never before have we put this much money

into our health care system and never before have we gotten these poor results. So it's broken. It's broken. And we can look at the active shortage of doctors, for example. We're lacking 22,800 family physicians. And currently almost 6 million Canadians, adult Canadians, lack a family doctor or primary care provider.

So that's a problem. And the ones that we have, the ones that are working are working overtime, they are spending hours upon hours on doing mundane, burnout inducing work like paperwork that is making it almost impossible to retain them as long as we need them. And we need them to work as long as they possibly can. So to talk about these issues, we're joined by Callissa Ngaazi. She's a mental health expert. She's a child and youth care professor at Mohawk College.

And she's the author of the oxygen mask mindset. Calissa, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having me, Ben. Burnout is, it's a tough one to talk about because some people just think, oh, you're tired. Oh, you need a vacation. Yeah. And it's not, it's deeper than that. Oh, it's much deeper.

You know, most of us are walking around and we're burnt and we don't even know it. You know, that's kind of where, you know, my book comes in to say, listen, we live in a society that glorifies exhaustion. And, you know, a lot of us are walking around being told that if you're not busy, then are you actually being productive and that's just not okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and these doctors and these nurses, they are as busy as anyone. And I assumed, honestly, Kalissa, I assumed that we would lose a ton of them during the pandemic because what we were asking them to do was superhuman.

You know, we called them our superheroes. And what they were doing wasn't over and above. It was not of this earth, the amount of work they did and the risk that they took. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think we're seeing the residual effects, even though we're years later. You know, what's happening is these healthcare professionals, they're only staying for the people. You know, they're staying because they care. Otherwise, they would have left a long time ago to your point.

You know, the expectations that we're placing on these humans, these super humans, as you, as you say, is a lot for any one person to deal with. You know, never mind that the circumstance of being in an emergency room and hospitals, doctors, doctors, offices, all of those things are already stressful enough as it is. Now to add on, you know, any sort of personal baggage or anything they have going on, it is a lot. Yeah. And just to give people some context, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions did a survey, a national survey. They found that roughly nine out of ten nurses reported some degree of burnout. And more than seven in ten said they're thinking about leaving the profession. If that actually came to pass, I don't know what we would do as a country, Colise.

We'd be cooked. We'd be cooked. Cooked, absolutely. Okay. So let's take a step back and tell us what is the difference between being exhausted and burnout. You know, there is such a thing as good stress. Now, good stress is the type of thing where, you know, you're excited about an adventure, an event, going to work, things like that. It's something that we can manage and our nervous system isn't overloaded.

Now, when we start to get into the bad stressors, so, you know, at work we're being pulled in multiple directions. You know, we are kind of looked at poorly if we take breaks. You know, because honestly, in a hospital, sometimes if you take a break, it is literally between life and death, right? So you have that added stress as well. You know, what we need to really look at is the indicators of if when I wake up in the morning, I don't want to get out of bed because I am so stressed as to what the day is going to bring me. And that happens too many days in a row. Then that's where there's a really big issue. and we need to be mindful of that

because to your point, we are going to lose people. Those statistics are scary. That's 90% of the profession is saying, listen, like, I am burnt out. You know, I am pouring from an empty cup, my family, my friends, everyone is feeling it because by the time I get home, I don't have anything left to give.

So when we talk like this and the idea of burnout starts crystallizing in my mind, I wonder, is the only cure a drastic one? Or can you deal with, can you deal with this monster that's been growing inside you, this monster of burnout? Can you deal with it day by day? Can you still work and mitigate the negative effects of burnout? Well, I think what you need to be mindful of is recognizing it in yourself.

Because I think as society, we see it in other people before we see it in ourselves. And it's taking those sort of making those micro decisions. So whether it's, listen, I need to take five minutes, whether I'm in the bathroom scrolling on Instagram, you know, whether it's stepping outside and breathing in the fresh air. Even a quick change of scenery can change your day. It can change your shift, right? So it's finding those moments when you can, even if it's just for a few minutes. Are you saying that, like to deal with this, you can still work, but you just got to give you. yourself a few minutes, like five minutes every couple hours. Can that really make a difference?

It can. Because if you go for a 12 or 16 hours shift in a hospital where you're go, go, go, go, go, with no break at all, you are going to crash and burn. You were no longer good not only to your patients, to your colleagues, but you're no longer good to yourself. And this is a piece where a lot of people start to feel that they're being selfish. And I challenge that way of thinking. Because guess what? Self-care is not a luxury. It is a birthright. Every Canadian, every person is entitled to take time for themselves. And, you know, they say, why do you take vacations? That's kind of bigger.

Yeah, you can go away for a week or stay home for a week. But guess what? The problems are still there when you get back. So that's why these micro decisions are super important to put into place. Is there a culture shift that is required in these hospitals, in these ERs, in these communities of high functioning, high stress employees, where we've got to teach them that it's okay for them to take breaks, but it's also okay for them to be graceful to their colleagues for taking breaks,

because I have to assume some people would be, would judge those who need that break as weak. Yeah, no, for sure. And I've seen it. And sometimes it is also old school versus new school mentality, right? So we have Gen X, we have millennial, we have Gen Z. What I'm finding is the Gen Z culture is learning the power of the word no, respectfully, right? And saying, listen, I understand that I have a job to do.

But if you want me to last until I'm 65 years old and can retire, then I need to be able to take the time and space for myself to make sure that I can show up for the people and the things that matter. Now, what we have with the old school generation is it has been ingrained in them that you don't stop for nothing. You are, go, go, go, go. Yeah, I'll sleep when I'm dead. That's how I was raised. Yeah, no, 100%. But that way of thinking, you know, statistically speaking, people are actually dying after they retire because they've been so stressed.

I mean, like, that's scary. We don't want that for Canadians. We don't want that for people. So that's why we need to cut this off right when we start to feel it before it becomes something that we can't turn back from. But it's, I mean, if the healthcare professionals who are entrusted with diagnoses, these issues in us can't see this in themselves. How are we going to get this, how are we going to plant this garden in the first place?

Yeah, and that's a really good question because a lot of people are scared too. Some people are scared of being labeled. You know, they don't want their bosses to find out that they're stressed. They don't want the community to find out. But I challenge that by saying the more that we talk about it as a community and actually say, you want to know what? It's okay to not be okay. I just don't need you to live there.

Callison Gauzi, mental health expert, child and youth care professor at Mohawk College, author of the Oxygen Mask Mindset. I'm sure available at bookstores, both bricks and mortar and on the internet. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for having me.