Dino DePasquale on Construction's Mental Health Crisis, Burnout, and the Steel Erector's Playbook

A 31-year ironworker doesn't scare easily. But ask Dino DePasquale what keeps him up at night, and it's not the job site; it's the industry's silence around mental health. Dino built DePasquale Steel over 21 years and created the Steel Erector's Playbook along the way. In this episode, he goes to the side of construction leadership nobody puts on a business card: the suicide and overdose statistics haunting the trades, the impossible task of "shutting work off," and why connection might be the most underrated safety equipment on any crew. Jesse and Dino don't stay in the dark for long. They dig into why leaders hesitate to teach and mentor publicly because of confidence, added responsibility, and the fear of getting it wrong out loud; and how Dino turned his own mistakes into the systems now running his company. His answer to burnout and bottlenecks? "Clone yourself" through documentation and training, so the business doesn't live and die by one person's memory. Then things get real when Dino walks through a recent job that went sideways, and what it actually looks like to earn trust when you own the problem instead of hiding from it. He also previews his plans to help lead a construction-focused peer group on mental health. If you run crews, run a business, or just run yourself into the ground more often than you'd like to admit, this episode’s for you. In this episode: The mental health and addiction crisis hiding in plain sight across construction Why "shutting off" work is a skill most leaders never learn Building a peer support network for an industry that doesn't ask for help Turning mistakes into systems: how to document, train, and clone yourself What it really takes to earn trust after a job goes wrong Protecting focus time and staying resourceful enough to climb the ladder 00:00 Industry Pain Opens 00:14 Meet Dino DePasquale 02:17 How Hard Is It 02:59 Steel Life Story 04:59 Mental Health Crisis 08:46 Peer Group Plans 09:23 Addiction And Overdose 11:19 Jesse Recovery Story 15:23 Why Share A Playbook 18:55 Cloning Yourself Systems 21:00 Confidence To Teach 26:39 Document Your Day 28:26 Track Your Time 29:00 Stop Answering Every Call 29:31 Delegate With Clarity 32:15 Progress Over Perfection 32:55 Being Real Online 36:24 Job Went Off Rails 37:58 Own The Fix 41:35 Purpose Beyond Hard Work 46:42 Resourcefulness To Advance 51:46 Where To Find Dino 53:32 Why Converge Hit Different Lets leave the Construction Industry Better than We Found It https://www.depthbuilder.com/construction-leadership-lab Download the free PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be