# March Madness Sportsball: For When The Murder Shows Stop Working

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/different-not-broken-7281363/march-madness-sportsball-for-when-the-murder-shows-stop-working
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/different-not-broken-7281363/march-madness-sportsball-for-when-the-murder-shows-stop-working.md
Podcast: [Different, Not Broken](https://stenobird.com/podcast/different-not-broken-7281363)
Published: 2026-04-22T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/episode/march-madness-sportsball-for-when-the-murder-shows-stop-working
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/2eb3d6e8-908b-4a1c-a6b7-2b9f81dd9ff9.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/different-not-broken-7281363/episodes/march-madness-sportsball-for-when-the-murder-shows-stop-working
Duration seconds: 1388

## Resource

The news broke me. The murder shows stopped working. So I watched a month of college basketball I do not care about, and it was the only thing keeping my nervous system upright. In this episode I'm unpacking three things: → Why "distraction" is an actual mental health strategy, and why sportsball was the weirdly perfect antidote to doomscrolling. → A very clear message for anyone whose job is chewing them up: You are an asset, not a liability. Burnout culture is not only cruel, it's bad business. The math on replacing good employees is brutal, and your workplace being too short-sighted to see that has nothing to do with your value. → Small Talk Frank from Scranton wants to know why he can't relax into stability. If you needed to hear "this isn't you, it's them" today — hi, it's them. Chapters 00:00 Cold open: You are an asset, not a liability 00:38 Hi, I'm L2 — welcome back to Different, Not Broken 01:05 Why I always have something on in the background (blame childhood chaos) 02:04 When the murder shows stopped working 03:00 The news broke me 03:43 Basketball as my zero-stakes sanity reset 04:48 Accidentally Pavlov'd by March Madness 05:54 The women's games are better, argue with the wall 06:35 Gratitude for dumb distractions 08:12 Workplaces are getting worse (and it's bad business) 08:54 The actual math on turnover and institutional knowledge 09:37 Short-term thinking is stealing your future 10:13 "It's not personal, it's just business" is an excuse 11:16 You are an asset, not a liability 12:26 You are not the problem for having boundaries 13:32 AI outsourcing and the coming pay cut 14:10 You deserve safety, accommodations, and a workplace built for humans 14:59 Small Talk with Alison: a question from Frank in Scranton 15:13 Hypervigilance, trauma, or just being real…

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## Transcript

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