The Power of The Gratitude Circle
Episode Notes
In this episode of the "52 Humans" podcast hosted by Paul Wolfe, he interviews Jamie Pabst, the founder and CEO of Spiritune, a therapeutic music app. They discuss the concept of human-first and empathetic leadership, highlighting the practice of a gratitude circle within Jamie's team meetings and its positive impact on fostering mental health, bonding, and support among team members. The conversation emphasizes the importance of embracing vulnerability and creating a culture that values the shared experiences and emotions of individuals in the workplace.
About the Guest
Jamie Pabst
Founder and CEO
Spiritune
Jamie is a curious, energetic and passionate founder who believes that more people can (and should) benefit from the physiological power of sound
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0:16
Hello and welcome to another weekly episode of 52 humans, the vlog cast on stories of human first leadership.
0:22
I'm your host, Paul Wolf and I started the show to inspire us all to transform our workplaces by returning to the humanity that binds us.
0:31
I'm looking forward to my conversation today with Jamie Pabst about human first and empathetic leadership.
0:38
Jamie is the founder and CEO of Spirit.
0:40
Jamie.
0:41
Welcome to the show.
0:43
Thanks Paul.
0:43
It's great to be here.
0:44
Thanks for having me.
0:45
Absolutely.
0:46
Absolutely.
0:47
I'm looking forward to the conversation, tell, tell us about spirit tune and what you do and kind of why you started the organization.
0:53
Yeah.
0:53
So Spirit Tune is a therapeutic music app.
0:57
What that means for us is we are leveraging the clinical side of music therapy and neuroscience to personalize music, to help people with everyday mental health needs in a more reliable, accessible, enjoyable and modern way.
1:13
using the therapeutic power of music, which we all you know, that music has such a wonderful way to move people emotionally.
1:21
I love that I have anxiety disorder and O CD.
1:24
So now I'm gonna become a subscriber I think, and figure out how to have music which I enjoy.
1:30
I just never thought about kind of the, the therapeutic side of music.
1:33
So I, I love that I learned, learned something new today that may help me on my journey with dealing with my O CD and anxiety.
1:39
Oh, wonderful.
1:40
Well, thank you for sharing that.
1:42
And I, I do hope that you can use.
1:45
I will be great.
1:47
I will let you know about it.
1:50
It's great to have you on.
1:51
Would you go ahead and share with the audience your story of human first and empathetic leadership?
1:57
Yeah, absolutely.
1:59
I'd say the first thing that comes to mind is a practice that we started a team practice in our weekly team meeting and it's called the Gratitude Circle and it had, we started it before the pandemic, but it actually had its chance to shine during the pandemic when we all were you know, going through a lot of stressful times, anx high anxiety times and all remote.
2:31
And as we all know, gratitude practices can really foster a lot of mental health, you know, positive mental health outcomes.
2:41
And sorry, hold on, Paul.
2:45
Are you hearing me?
2:46
OK.
2:47
Yeah, I am.
2:49
You are OK because I'm hearing a delay and also seeing myself in a delay which is really distracting.
2:56
So you're fine.
2:57
This happened with somebody else a couple of weeks ago too.
3:00
But you're fine on my side, like mouth moving and sound at the same time and there's no delay.
3:07
Ok.
3:07
I'm wondering if I should put like a book up to cover my lady.
3:12
Is there a way for me not to?
3:13
I would be, I, sadly, I would be distracted by, by that, by the book.
3:19
I distracted by seeing my mouth move at a different speed.
3:23
That's why I, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't avoid it any longer.
3:27
I'm gonna have to say something.
3:30
OK, I think the audio is OK now, so I'm just gonna put up a piece of paper here.
3:37
That's perfect.
3:37
But you can still see me, right?
3:39
I can still see you.
3:39
I don't see any of the paper.
3:41
Let me let me go back to the double shot of us and I'll then turn it over to you and you can start over.
3:47
Is that OK?
3:48
Yeah, I don't think I got that far.
3:50
So that's perfect.
3:51
Perfect.
3:52
OK.
3:54
That's I forgot what we were talking about now.
3:57
Oh Two.
3:58
And I'm gonna use it.
3:59
I'll become a user.
4:01
That's great, Jamie.
4:02
I'll keep you posted.
4:03
Would you go ahead and share your story of empathetic and human first leadership with the viewers?
4:09
Yes, absolutely.
4:11
So, the story that comes to mind for me is a team meeting practice that we started a little bit before the pandemic happened and it's called the Gratitude circle.
4:23
So to start off every team meeting once a week, we have a gratitude circle where everyone on the team goes through and says one thing that they're really grateful for and, you know, even in your darkest days, the worst days you can, you can think of something you're grateful for.
4:42
And this is just a great way that we've learned a lot about each other.
4:48
You know, something personal always comes up whether that it's happy or sad.
4:53
And particularly as we worked remotely through the pandemic, it was a really great way to form bonds with each other, really support each other.
5:04
And also, you know, come up with ways to feel grateful even on those sort of down in the dumps high anxiety times.
5:14
And I for myself particularly have a few times where, I can say that I was really, you know, having a bad day and it's hard to feel like, you know, you're a leader that has to show up being happy all the time.
5:31
And I think that was a great lesson for me that, you know, I showed up in the gratitude circle and something surfaced for me and I started crying and at first I felt a little embarrassed but the way that my team showed up to offer empathy support, comfort, really helped me learn something.
5:51
That one, I have an amazing team and two, I don't have to show up all the time, feeling strong, confident.
5:59
And it allowed for my team to show me that it's ok or see me in a, in a human way, whether that's positive or, you know, feeling, feeling like I'm having a bad day.
6:14
So I, I love that because the, the for a variety of reasons, but one you as the leader created an environment where people, because you were sharing as well, got comfortable sharing.
6:28
So psychological safety from an hr perspective is what we typically refer to that as and then the fact that you showed up as a human on that day that you were having a challenging day and you got emotional.
6:39
Th this is the like the, the reason I do the work that I do is even though we're given these titles, these titles are bestowed upon us at the, at the core, we're all human beings and we all have lives and there are peaks and valleys.
6:51
There's, you know, I, I, I, I agree with you even though in, even though it may be a crappy time, if I'm in a gratitude circle, I can find something to, to share.
7:00
But there are days where it's just, you know, it's tough as a leader and I can't show up all the time as the perfect.
7:08
Like I think for such a long time, leaders were almost taught to be impostors because we were kind of dissuaded from being showing emotion and we should have every answer and all of that, how did the team, like they said, they rallied around you?
7:21
But have you seen kind of, have you seen the connections on the team deepen because I find sometimes as you become vulnerable or show emotion, just in general, not even as a leader and a, as an employee, but there's a, there's a deepening of a, of a foundational relationship.
7:36
And have you seen that with the team?
7:38
Yeah.
7:38
Absolutely.
7:40
What's great is that, you know, this, is this a practice that started, you know, now a few years ago, but it's, it continues to deepen as these gratitude circles and learnings about each other continue to evolve because it's not a flash in the fire crying pan experience.
7:56
It's a week over week thing.
7:57
So it definitely deepens over time as well as this practice continues.
8:04
Yeah, that's, I, I love that and it's just, it's now part of your culture, which is great because that's a, that's such a nice foundational thing to be, you know, in a, in a team or a company culture.
8:16
And as you, you know, if you bring new people on, they'll, they're gonna, you know, they'll be a, probably a little bit, not standoffish, but probably a little less likely to share early on, but then they're going to see it and they're going to see the other thing.
8:27
I think it creates which kind of goes to what your, your organization means.
8:30
A bit of a support system or a support, like, tool.
8:33
If you will, if you know something about somebody you can, it doesn't have, you don't have to wait for the meeting and you can check in on them just to make sure they're doing ok.
8:41
even there may not be a reporting relationship or, you know, they may just be coworkers.
8:46
You can check in on them as a human being, which I love too.
8:49
Absolutely.
8:50
Yeah.
8:50
So it's, it's been able to kind of manifest itself through all the different mediums of communication, not just this one check in or this one meeting.
8:59
It really now permeates through almost every meeting, not that we have to practice every meeting, but we can draw upon these human experiences that we've had.
9:09
and it really fosters this great social bond, but also I think it improves the way we interact with each other professionally as well.
9:18
Yeah, they're not just employees and leaders, you're human beings and you're there.
9:22
And like I said, you've got this, you've got other stuff going on and it's, it's ok to be human.
9:27
I love it.
9:27
I love the, the other thing I love about this is it's simple, like anyone listening to this could easily start this with their team and really change a relationship and deepen a connection with their, with people on their team.
9:39
So I, I love it.
9:40
I love what you do.
9:41
I, like I said, I'm gonna check out and I'm probably gonna become a, a user to deal with my mental health challenges.
9:47
But I still appreciate you being on the vlog today.
9:50
Thank you, Paul.
9:51
It's a pleasure to be here and share with your community.
9:54
Thank you.
9:55
Thanks again.
9:55
Take it easy.
9:56
You too.
9:59
Thanks for joining us today on 52 Humans.
10:01
If you enjoyed this episode, please give me a follow up to be notified of future episodes.
10:05
I so appreciate all of your support.
10:07
If you want to watch past episodes or you have a story that you'd like to share about human first leadership on a future episode.
10:13
Please go to Paul wolf dot com forward slash 52 humans.
10:18
And lastly as I ask every week, please reflect on one way that you can bring greater empathy to your workplace.
10:24
It's these small acts of humanity and kindness that create a better work culture and ultimately a better world.
10:31
I'm Paul Wolf and I'll see you next time on 52 humans.