Innovating Mental Health Care through Human Connection

Innovating Mental Health Care through Human Connection

Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed

Guests: Rett Kearbey, CEO & Co-Founder of Sholder; Austin Baker, President of HRO Partners

Today, Steve and Trish met with Rett Kearbey and Austin Baker to talk about modern mental health care for today’s workplace.

– Founding a mental health startup to provide affordable support through compassionate care

– Mental health barriers and non-clinical solutions

– Personal growth and self-awareness through Sholder sessions

– The importance of human connection and access to affordable mental health resources

Book a Sholder session in August or September, and Sholder will donate a session to SholderUp, benefitting foster families and women who are in difficult situations. Click here to schedule your session.

Thank you for your continued support of the show and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex. Join Beaumont Vance, Paychex senior vice president of data, analytics, and AI, in an exclusive on-demand webinar, to discover how leaders are using AI to streamline HR tasks and supercharge efficiencies. You’ll learn how to automate those tedious tasks and free up your time for what really matters — your people. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from an industry leader. Visit paychex.com/awia.

Transcript follows:

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to At Work in America, sponsored by Paychex. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts, Steve Boese and Trish Steed.

Steve 0:28
Welcome to the At Work in America podcast. My name is Steve Boese. I’m joined by Trish Steed, what is happening?

Trish 0:34
You know, what is almost fall? Have you been watching the news like I’m sitting here in the middle of the country enjoying summer. No it they are going all in and these things happen very quickly on Tiktok. Actually, the new trend right now is, if you go to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby, any of those type of stores, all the Halloween decor is out early, and people are actually hosting summertime summerween bashes. So what do you think about that? Would you hold a Halloween party in summer?

Steve 1:05
Well, I was about to say, I don’t care about the decor, but the Halloween candy I am interested in, and it’s out, so I’ll have to get myself to a store here in the next couple of days and stock up, because I’m the kind of a person who will start buying Halloween candy for myself, like, right now.

Trish 1:25
What’s your candy of choice?

Steve 1:27
Well, I like a lot some different. Yeah, I like Kit Kats a lot. Like, I shouldn’t say this, because I have a son with a peanut allergy, but I do like a little Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and Butterfinger. I guess I lean a little bit more into the chocolate kind of treats at Halloween time, Junior Mints, you know, yeah, what is your go to candy?

Trish 1:50
You know what? I don’t have one right the second. But normally I have a bowl of Jelly Bellies that stays out, like all the time, just because then, if you just need a quick little one or two, like, sweet. It’s not too, I don’t know, too bad for you, I guess, right, if you just do it a little bit. So, yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking about, though, is I’m not even ready to have pumpkin spice anything. It’s too hot out.

Steve 2:15
I think you’re ready to maybe go to Disney World, because I think I see your mouse ears, oh, all behind you.

Trish 2:20
I was, I’m like, which way? Yes, you know what I found those. And these are ours from Shanghai, Shanghai Disney. Oh, wow, fantastic. When we went with our friend Stacy,

Steve 2:31
Shout out, Shanghai Disney!

Trish 2:34
I love Shanghai. You know what I love to do? Because everyone knows I’m a Disney freak, so I like going to Epcot, you know? And people always, if you go to Disney, very much, you always look and see, like, what ears are people wearing? And like, if they’re cute, it’s like, Oh, where do I get them? No one can get these. So everyone’s like, Ooh, look at those ears. Yeah. Can I show you real quick? Since you mentioned that I have my new ones from this year, because I went in June, I’ll show you these. It’s from their newest movie, Wish.

Steve 3:03
Wow. I really hope then, folks, those are fantastic. We’re going to have to try to encourage a lot of people to listen to this episode on our YouTube channel to see Trish modeling the mouse ears.

Trish 3:14
He’s so cute. Look at him. He’s like a little wishing star.

Steve 3:17
You should check out our YouTube channel as well, because that’s growing a lot, we were just talking about it offline, and we’re working hard to do more there. So that’s YouTube. That’s HR happy hour live on YouTube. You can, you can search for that. Trish, today’s show, today’s podcast, is different and interesting and exciting. We’re going to be talking about mental well, being, mental health, with our friends from Sholder and it’s an interesting new approach, a new potential employer based benefit that that can be offered to employees all around mental health, but a different a a different set of ideas, a different approach, and Trish and I both had a chance to experience the actual show a Sholder session before we recorded today’s show. And it’s hard to explain everything about it, just listen to the show. Meet the guys from Sholder and we’d encourage you to check that out.

Trish 4:15
Yeah, think about it’s like a shoulder to lean on, yeah, shoulder to lean on when you need one. So it’s really unique.

Steve 4:22
So definitely stay tuned for that. We want to thank our friends at Paychex. Of course, this episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR Payroll, retirement and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. Trish. Do you ever feel like when you’re an HR leader you were drowning in paperwork?

Trish 4:43
I feel like I’m drowning in paperwork now, are you kidding? Yes, when I was in bigger, big positions, yes.

Steve 4:49
Well, of course, right. But you can get out of that. You can, you can transform your HR game today, just with the magic, with the magic of AI. Beaumont Vance, who’s Paychex Senior Vice President of data analytics and AI, will be doing an exclusive on demand webinar to discover how leaders are using AI to streamline HR tasks and supercharge their efficiency. You can learn how to automate tedious tasks and free up your time for what really matters, taking care of your people. So go to paychex.com/awia to get access to the On Demand webinar now and learn how to transform your HR processes. And check that out. I haven’t watched that yet.

Steve 5:38
I’m absolutely going to, thank you.

Steve 5:42
Alright, Trish, we’re going to launch the show. The show starts a little bit differently, a little bit of a kind of a relaxing, get in the morning kind of exercise, so stay comfortable. That and a warning if you’re, if you’re listening to this podcast while driving your car or running on the treadmill, maybe, maybe don’t, don’t do the exercise, pull over first so, but you’re gonna love the show with Our friends from Sholder and yeah, thanks for listening. You.

Steve 6:33
Trish before we formally welcome our friends from Sholder and introduce them properly, we’re going to start with a brief exercise, which listeners will understand shortly, why it’s important to do, but how it aligns with the mission of Sholder, and what, what Sholder can bring to people and bring to organizations. So to do that, to lead us in that, I’m gonna turn it over to you, Austin and take us through this exercise.

Austin Baker 6:59
Well, thank you. Thank you for having us. And before we dive in today, we’re going to take a second to be present. And the way we’re going to do that, let’s close our eyes and let’s take a breath in through our nose and then out through the mouth when you’re ready, at your own pace. And as you breathe in through your nose, I want you to say the word thank in your mind, and as you breathe out, say the word you let’s do a few more breaths.

Austin Baker 7:36
I say the best presence, being present sometimes, and saying thank you for the chance to have a breath and have a chance to be present together, is how I want us to begin today. So one more breath.

Steve 7:56
Nice. Thank you. I should have made a little disclaimer if you were driving your car or running on the treadmill while listening to the show today, maybe don’t participate in the exercise, but that was great. So let me introduce Trish our guests formally and welcome them. We’re very excited for today’s show. I know you and I had a lot to talk about as well, because we had a chance to actually work with Sholder recently as well. So uh, first up, let’s welcome Rett Kearbey. Rett is the CEO and co founder of Sholder. Rett leads Sholder’s team in creating and defining a new tier of transformative support for modern mental health needs. Before Sholder, Rett held strategic growth and executive roles for Apple, real estate marketplaces and global streaming media. He’s a classically trained singer that’s pretty cool. And Rett loves spending time in nature. Rett, welcome to the show. How are you?

Rett Kearbey 8:47
Thank you so much. Steve Trish, good to be here. I appreciate you guys having us. I’m doing well. Thank you.

Steve 8:52
Well you do now that reading the bio and listening to that, yeah, the voice, I get it. You’ve got the right voice for singing. That’s pretty amazing. Yeah, so no singing today, unless you really feel compelled to Rett, but that’s fine. Austin, who led our exercise just a second ago, let’s welcome him formally. He’s Austin Baker. He’s the president of HR Partners, and he spearheads leadership development and pioneers benefit strategies in his role at national enrollment partners, he unites independent firms nationwide, helping to shape the future of employee benefits, which we love, Trish employee benefits. In his consultation with Sholder, Austin is proud to support their growth in the mental well being space. Austin, welcome and thank you for leading us in our opening exercise this morning.

Austin Baker 9:39
Thank you so much. See, we appreciate being on the show. We’re very excited to have a conversation with you all today.

Steve 9:45
We are too, and we got a lot to talk about. But first, like we often do with our guests, especially founders startups, is really get a little bit of the backstory. Rett, because you’ve got an interesting background besides the singing. What? What took you to say, Boy, something like Sholder is needed, and I want to be the person who helps me bring it to life. I’d love learn a little bit more about that.

Rett Kearbey 10:11
Thanks for asking. I was pre medicine in college when I first went to school, and I switched to business pretty quickly when I learned more about the state of our healthcare systems, and I talked to real doctors, and they kind of gave me some warning flags, and said, Be careful, like, make sure you know what you’re getting into. This is different than you know what our parents knew as becoming a doctor. You know, it actually is these days. And the more I learned about it, the more I realized I actually want to help people heal. I want to be a part of people coming into more full versions of themselves over time, as opposed to managing sickness and, you know, creating forever patients. So that’s always been a deep desire of mine. I ended up going into business. I started, you know, a couple companies, and, you know, had some success. My most recent role was the head of sales for a conscious media company that’s a streaming service, a lot like Netflix or Hulu. And when I left that company, I took a big break, and I was just kind of looking at the state of the world. I was turning 40, and there’s a lot of big stuff that happens around that age. For many of us, we kind of ask ourselves the big questions and say, you know, am I really on the right track for the next decade or two? And I wanted my next move to be intentional, and so I really started asking, and, you know, believing, or, you know, people use different language, praying, manifesting, you know, making myself available, and saying, show me what to do, and I’ll do it. I just need, I need clear direction.

Rett Kearbey 11:45
And I started watching a lot of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, to be honest, and old interviews with Fred Rogers, and watching the way he was with these generations that he helped raise, these generations of latchkey kids whose parents were now double parents in the workforce, or single parents raising kids, and they’re at work when the kids get home from school and his show was on, and the way that he used language, and looking at some other great leaders of our culture, Martin Luther King, Jr and people that have led peaceful resistance in their country for humanitarian, you know, to advance humanitarian purposes. I was really inspired. I was looking at polarization in our culture, and I thought, what we need right now is a depth of human connection that we haven’t experienced in quite a while since the since technology has become so pervasive in our lives, and now there are a lot of scientists that are talking about just how our brains have been rewired by these tools that we all carry around that are so powerful, but it’s kind of like fire in the hands of a toddler with our with our culture. And so I called one of my friends who has a Harvard MD and got a PhD from Oxford, and he likes to say he climbed the ladder of Western mental health, and when he got to the top, he couldn’t heal himself. And so he’s a doctor of psychiatry with a degree from Harvard, advanced degrees, very smart guy, and it wasn’t until he actually found more, you know, earth based wisdom traditions and his own spirituality that it really balanced out, and he started to heal in other ways. And so he has very interesting perspective on this and and through a conversation with him, we discussed whether or not a compassionate person who has a desire to help could become trained in just a matter of a few weeks to deliver extraordinary care and outcomes based support, mental and emotional support at a fraction of the cost of traditional therapy, you know, expensive coaches. And this idea was what we started pulling the thread on, and that’s ultimately what became shoulder so that’s, that’s a little bit of the origin story. We incorporated the business back in 2021 to file for some early intellectual property and trademarks and things like that, and we’ve been laying the foundations ever since.

Trish 14:12
Thank you for sharing that story. Rett, I know that you mentioned the mental health crisis, which obviously this is something that people of all ages and ethnicities and backgrounds and religious beliefs, like we all experience different levels of feeling either more mentally stable or just having moments where we’re maybe trying to cover up when we’re dealing with something. So for me, when I heard about what you all are doing at shoulder, it was a little bit of curiosity and fascination, because I like the part about sort of having approached with Western medicine, and you can’t get quite there. Someone had told me, not too long ago that our bodies are actually uniquely able to. Heal themselves in many ways, right? So if I, if I get a paper cut, I don’t have to do too much to it, it’s going to heal, right? So our body wants to heal, but I don’t. I guess what I’m tapping into is our brain. We don’t use our brain enough to heal ourself. So I’d love to hear just your thoughts, kind of on the state of mental health and and how shoulders kind of tapping into that piece of it.

Rett Kearbey 15:23
Well, you know, you you use a great analogy of the paper cut and a finger, and, you know, our I believe that our emotional body is the same as our physical body. It knows what to do over time. If you watch a two or three year old not get their way, they clear negative emotion from their body very quickly and very easily, right in the middle of the aisle of the grocery store. And what we do, as you know, our culture, we’ve learned how to be polished and polite and to swallow it and to stuff it somewhere. But the you know, you’ve heard the phrase The Body Keeps the Score. And you know, the intelligence of our body is so much greater than just our intellect. We have so much more intelligence happening. There’s over 40,000 neurons brain cells in our heart and many more in our gut. And so this access point that we have to deeper wisdom and intelligence goes way beyond our analytical mind. And when you talk about a paper cut and the body knowing how to heal itself if you don’t pack mud into that paper cut and keep banging on it and disrupting it, it’ll heal, but if you do continue to disturb it, it’s not going to heal. And the same is true with our emotional body. So when you go through difficult situations, when you’re going through trauma, we live in a culture that is rife with, you know, fear, bombardment, constant chaos and a lot of mind activity. And so continuing to disturb the emotional body and not letting it rest and not finding that deeper connection is akin to packing your wound with some mud and continuing to bang on it. And so this is the reason that people can get caught in cycles, that patterns can develop. And so what we like to do at shoulder is really reconnect people with their bodies and react, help them gain access to that inner wisdom that is always available and ready to move on their behalf, to help heal, help restore and help move them forward.

Austin Baker 17:20
And that’s and that’s kind of just to play off of that a little bit. The reason I joined children, to make investment into it and to come and help lead growth with the organization, working with Rett and Mark, incredible co founders, was because I saw at 26 plus years of Employee Benefits, consulting and work the EAPs continue to stagnate over time. You saw some spike. You saw some spike during covid, no doubt, but the state of mental well being in our country, you know, we talked we hit on a little bit, but at the same time, most of the utilization for those programs has remained under three or 4% but there’s good studies show that it should likely be more like 20% or higher. And so here now we have number one cause of disability in the US is mental well being, mental health, number one cause of leave requests for 35% last year, mental health. So why aren’t people taking advantage of that? What are the barriers? And so I think that’s where Sholder comes into short space holder. And that’s why I spell without the you, the only thing missing is you. And so the way that they’ve experienced this with their customers, and what I’ve seen, it’s really remarkable. It’s six to seven times utilization over over traditional mental well being benefits at 100% that promoter scores at 98% rebooking rates. I was like, wow, this is different, and it’s different in all the ways that we needed it to be. And that’s like, so that’s what’s so compelling about shoulder and that’s what hasn’t cited in my consultation and growth with them. It’s an incredible organization, product, and I’m so happy about the response of the customers.

Trish 19:03
Yeah, Austin, I want to ask you a quick follow up on you mentioned barriers. I literally had just written it in my notes, like, ask about barriers. So what are some of the barriers? Because even, you know, I’ve been through a shoulder exercise this week. Steve has as well. I want to tell you. I’m gonna let you tell me what the barriers are. But I’ve written down a few, like there are a few that I think people might have some reluctance. What are you hearing from the people who are either thinking about using Sholder or maybe now using it and saying, This is what was really scary to me?

Austin Baker 19:38
So some of the highest ones are, you know, the lead to use a employer paid benefit, and having the trust of confidentiality on that, and using those programs that are being paid to know where it goes. The one thing about shoulder is it’s not there. You’re not going to see a therapist, you’re not a patient, you’re a share, and you’re going to see a shoulder not to be diagnosed, but to. Be heard in a radically different way, to be met exactly where you are, without without reservation. And that’s what making it sticky. But what makes people start to do it is the fact that it’s non clinical. There’s no medical record, there’s no notes, there’s no record of you having any of that call. You had the call, you had the experience. We met you where you were, and you met yourself at the end of it in a new place. And so that was what the power of the type of of service it is, and that’s what’s helped to remove that barrier, but, but so the non clinical aspect, I don’t want any I’m in the insurance business. Have Been a long time. I don’t want anything on my record about mental health. I mean, I know how the sausage is made on that, right? Most HR professionals, they actually use the mental well being rates at an even lower rate than than the employees.

Steve 20:54
Oh, I think there’s a pretty untapped need in the HR industry itself, right for this type of a service, and these, these type of interventions. There was just an article that made the rounds everywhere. So I’m sure you saw it last week, because it was in the New York Times, and that just gets a lot of play, which was HR is all being in HR is a miserable experience, essentially, was the article. And it can be, I think I got read by 10 million people last week. So I do think, yeah, because one of the things I think I’ve, I’ve thought about as, as Trish said, we each participated separately, right in our own shoulder sessions to get a good because we wanted a really good understanding of what the experience was like before we sat down with Rett and Austin today.

Rett Kearbey 21:39
I’m so glad you did that. What was your experience?

Steve 21:42
Yeah, well, I’ll start. I’d love to have Trish chime in as well. So one of the things I appreciated, and Austin tapped into some of this a moment ago, was that it’s not like going to classic or traditional therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist or an a med, almost a medical kind of context, right? Because I’ve done therapy, I’m doing it right, like I know what it’s I can speak to my own personal experience, the Sholder experience was different. I think they’re both valuable experiences and in their own ways. And I wouldn’t necessarily say one is better, quote, unquote, or they each have a place, I think, and that was my experience as well. So there’s a couple of things I specifically appreciated about my experience with Sholder, one of which was yes and I was just I really felt like I was being listened to and met, where I was in the conversation that I had went in a certain direction, and it probably was different than I had expected it to or thought it might have at the beginning of the hour, and it ended up in a different place, and it meandered to that place in a different way.

Steve 22:55
But I really felt, I felt the whole time that it was I was directing it, and I was being supported along the way to do and in the last thing, I wrote down. I have a bunch of notes I wrote down from the session, and I maybe I shouldn’t have been writing so much during the session, but I want I wrote too. I wanted, I wanted to have notes for today. I really felt like I was being helped to discover my own answers, like, like the answer red, I think you sort of hinted at this. It was already sort of inside of me. And I’m not saying all my problems were solved in one session I had the other day, but the I felt like it drew out a couple of things that I knew all along that were living within me, and I was having a difficult time really tapping into even, even in my traditional therapy that I’ve been doing, I still felt like there was something that happened in the shoulder session that helped me discover something, a couple of things that were in there, and my shoulder, the person I was working with helped me to get there. So right, you’re nodding a little bit. Maybe give me a comment or two. Is that something you hear from people who go through the shoulder experience, and is that some of the feedback you get?

Rett Kearbey 24:12
It’s right in alignment. I appreciate you sharing it. You know, one of the things we believe because we experience it, and you know you can share whether this has been your experience in your own life. It’s easy to think of ourselves as who we are in this moment, but if you look back over time, you’ve changed quite a bit. And so the truth is we’re always changing, and there’s something that’s always looking to emerge for our next awareness, the next step in our lives, that next thing, and you know, we talked a little bit earlier about getting caught in patterns. And so sometimes we can become kind of our own enemy and our own limiting factor with the patterns we hold in our minds and the stories we tell about who we are and what we’re doing and etc, etc, as opposed to experiencing what is emerging kind of from a from a different place. There. There’s, you know, one of the things we believe is that there’s this blueprint of Steve that is unique to Steve, that no one is ever going to be able to copy or reclaim. And if Steve doesn’t act like Steve all the way through, then some of Steve is going to be lost forever. Some of what would have been Steve is going to be lost forever. And so what we’re ultimately looking to do is reflect back and meet Steve exactly where he is, or meet Rhett, or meet Austin, meet Trish and support. It’s kind of like the Olympic curler teams that you know, where that polisher goes in front of the puck that’s moving, yeah, and helps kind of, you know, make easy the way of emergence. What is coming up for you now? What? What does your own inner intelligence have to say about this? Because we really do believe that any of the big answers for your own life are going to come from that place inside yourself, that that, you know, sacred connection to whatever it is that’s giving you life. And you know, this might get a little bit mystical for some people, it doesn’t have to be. Some people just call it their core self, just who I really am, just the real me, right? And so it can be very grounded, but ultimately, that’s what we’re interested in, is who are you really and who are you becoming in this moment?

Steve 26:19
Yeah, thank you, Rett, that echoes a lot of how I felt after I went through my session the other day. Trish, I would love for you to just comment a little bit, because we did these sessions specifically so that we could come and talk about them here today and kind of share, because this can be a little bit, I think, maybe abstract, and after you’re done, Trish, I do want to sort of use the guys to tie it back to Hey, business people, this is what you should do or could do. But Trish, I’d love for you to maybe share some of your apps as much as you’re comfortable with about your experience.

Trish 26:49
I’ll share a little bit. So very similar to you, one of the things I liked, and these are a couple things that tied it back to what Austin was saying. So the first thing the person told me was, you know, I’m going to take some notes and I’m going to give you a summary kind of later, and then they’re going to be destroyed. So that aspect of confidentiality was there as she was building my trust, and I went into it in a really different place. So I have a therapist who I love and adore. She helps me immensely. And I was, in my mind, still struggling with, what’s the difference, which I want you two gentlemen to get to in just a moment. But I also went through, without giving away too much, I went through a breakup. I broke up with a person I had a four year relationship with just a couple weeks ago, and I really, I’m going to be honest, I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do a shoulder session, because I thought, What in the world am I going to tell a stranger? And Steve, kind of to your point, what you thought you might talk about you changed right as the conversation went. And so I was shocked at how well my Sholder Felicia was at drawing me out, but at my own pace.

Trish 28:03
And I got to talk, and I told her, at the start, I don’t know what I want to achieve or accomplish. And pretty quickly, we figured out what I was going through. And again, it was tapping into what I already knew, but maybe I had never directly thought about or said out loud, and I will just say this, I came to at least one big aha for myself that I did not achieve through therapy or any other means of medicine. And I don’t know what I’m going to do with the knowledge that I came to, but I will say it’s it’s been on my mind. And I think for me, that’s the point of it, of why it’s valuable. It actually got me to figure out something about myself that I might not have addressed that directly. So Austin, maybe you can chime in on a few of those aspects of is that similar to what you’re also hearing and experiencing from the people that you Sholder?

Austin Baker 28:58
I went through the Sholder session, much like y’all did you know, as I was coming into the company to work with them, and I also went through the foundations training, which is the beginning phases to become a shoulder okay, it’s three and a half two and a half days on video zoom sessions. And you so that’s a commitment, right? I was like, Okay, I’m kidding, right? There’s a lot of things you could do two and a half days. And my girlfriend went through it as well, and she wanted to learn, and she’s a very senior executive, it’s some of the most powerful training I’ve ever been through. I’ve never learned to listen like this before, and I’ve never learned to hear like I was, you know, to be able to help someone hear themselves like this before. So one of the principles that both of you saw is that we don’t that with with with red, the way they beautifully designed this, him and Mark and the team they we believe and we teach in the foundation shop that you’re not going to give advice. You’re going to them find their own wisdom. You’re going to help ask powerful questions to help them discover that. You’re also going to help them find the wisdom from not just in their heads, but in their bodies. You know talks about the neurons in the heart. Your heart, you know, has its own brain system, and you store memories there. We know the heart memories differently. They feel different, right? Your gut is called the second brain. So athlete, you know, talks about that somatically, because there’s cultures that are calling it like, it’s called like the second brain, because of, because of the powerful things that you keep there. You’ve had an upset stomach when something’s bothering you, right? So the body does keep score. So if you’re not addressing both mind and body, and that sounds a little Woo, woo, like, Okay, I’m going to do this thing right to some degree. But no, actually, it’s perfectly normal. And so if you’re not listening to that as part of it, and you’re not listening to yourself, then you’re not going to heal. And so people actually that are going through intensive therapy, Trish, who perhaps working on some hard things, will have Sholder sessions in between sometimes, because being ‘sholdered’ is like a massage for your mind.

Trish 30:56
Okay? I like that.

Austin Baker 30:59
Think of it as that, you know, and think of the experience of being ‘sholdered’, that’s something that’s not designed to be better or different than therapy. It’s designed to be different for very specific reasons. And that’s why the power of being shoulder works so well. That’s why it’s so sticky, in terms of the people that use it, they’re like, Wow, this is different in such a positive way. So, it’s designed that way. There’s a very specific arc to it. How the session is designed based on the habits of the very best therapists and coaches out in the world.

Trish 31:34
Rett, I do have a question about kind of the, say, the person who you you would be assigned to talk to, I’d love for you to share kind of how that process works, but also maybe address a little bit the fact that so many people in this world are lonely. They don’t maybe have a best friend to go or a relative they can feel comfortable being their whole open self with for me, I do have a best friend, but I did feel like this was, I could see this being similar in terms of just someone who will really listen to you. So can you address maybe, how this impacts loneliness, whether you’re a, you know, an entry level worker, or you’re an executive who doesn’t have someone to talk to, how does that fit into what you do?

Rett Kearbey 32:19
It’s huge because, you know, we’re hardwired for connection as human beings. You know, someone that has connected with many people over many years distilled her wisdom one time, I heard Oprah Winfrey say that it didn’t matter whether she was talking to a prisoner or a president or Beyonce or whoever at the end of their interaction, they would come to her and say, Was that okay? And she noticed that the thread that she that she wove through every every conversation she had, she said, people really just want to know. Three things they want to know. Do you see me? Do You Hear Me and does what I say mean anything to you, and these are fundamental, very early human desires, and I believe, human needs that many of us don’t have fully met in our youth, and then we grow into adults, which are just grown up kids, and we’re in the workforce, and we’re interacting with people, and we have relationships, and we have families, and the the the depth of connection we’re experiencing of people going, you know, being able to fully witness us, see us, hear us, it. If we’re not careful, we can, we can get detached from ourselves to some degree, and that separation plays out across our relationships. And so many times, what we see is that people are a little hesitant to put heavy burdens on the their loved ones with some of their deeper thoughts, some of the things they’re going through. They need someone that is outside of their friend and family group, right outside of their social sphere, that they can go talk to and really process anything. Because if you’ve ever been in a relationship, you know that there’s certain things that if you bring them up, you can’t take them back, you can’t unsay certain things. And so if you need to process something. You need to go stay that, into a pillow, into a safe place with but you need another person to play that very vital role. This is one of the reasons therapy is so important. Therapy is fantastic. I’m a big fan. I’ve been to therapy off and on for many years. Part of the challenge with it, for employers is that it gets expensive and there’s this automatic escalation. If you need a person, it’s called a therapist. If you need to talk to someone, you’re instantly escalated to a clinical therapist. There’s no people option that is non clinical and radically affordable, that isn’t happening. That’s what we’re filling. That’s the gap that we’re filling, because you’re either listening to your calm app, or you’re going, you’re watching YouTube videos, or you’re doing some kind of like self help something, or you’re talking to a person, and all of a sudden you’re at a clinical level, right? And so this is this big gap here that we believe is fundamentally human, that is absolutely critical, and it’s completely missing from the modern benefits stack. So that’s one of the things we’re trying to fix.

Steve 35:27
You made a great point there. I sort of jotted that down as you were talking like those app based interventions, right? Because there’s, there’s a huge chasm between people, you know, if someone is is cognizant enough and aware enough about their own selves. And yeah, I would, I could use a little support here. I’m struggling in this area or that area, or I’d like to figure out something, and they it’s hard to most people anyway, I think, don’t jump right to clinical therapy, right? They try to figure out some other way. And so might be one of these self help interventions, app based interventions, etc. But then, as you said, if that’s not right for them or not enough for them, in those moments that leap up to traditional therapy, it’s a big leap for a lot of people. Honestly, I’ll tell you, quite frankly, I pushed against that for a long time in my own life, because that leap seemed to me, a leap I was not personally ready to take, because maybe as societally, we’ve built that up to be, oh, you’re in therapy. That’s a really big deal. Or you’re, you know, and it shouldn’t be, but that’s another story, I think, for another day. But, yeah, I love how you positioned the concept here as being, hey, it’s, it’s something else. It’s not that big leap to expensive therapy, often hard to access therapy, and often, maybe in least in my example, and I think some others as well, I don’t know that I’m want to be a person who’s in therapy, if that makes sense, right?

Rett Kearbey 36:54
Well, it’s admitting that something’s wrong with me, right? And what one of the big differences that when we greet people, we see them as naturally creative, naturally resourceful, naturally whole. There’s nothing missing. Everything’s working exactly like it’s supposed to. You’re having an a human response to difficult situations in your life. You know, it’s normalization. We live in a culture that is very busy, very mind identified. We have certain priorities culturally that we hold way up here, that maybe aren’t always in balance with the way that our physical bodies need to to go through the day. And so, you know, we have to do a lot of things to keep up sometimes. And you know, it gets hard, the pace is fast, and many people that are having very natural responses to that don’t want to admit that there’s something wrong with them. And we agree. And so when people are facing clinical level issues, those resources are critical, and we need to make sure people have access to them. The vast majority of us are going through human experiences, and we need a human being that has a level of skill that’s not connected to our our normal social circles, to help us kind of get back to the truth of who we know ourselves, to be deep at a deeper level, and re establish mental stability, emotional resilience, and to understand how to step into that next version of ourselves.

Trish 38:30
I think that, much like Steve, I thought therapy was something that I don’t was either embarrassing or I was admitting I’m a failure again, maybe, like, I’m 53 maybe that’s a little bit of a generational thing. Like, it’s just it’s less acceptable to go do that. And I didn’t go until I had physical symptoms of migraines that had gotten so profound. So my body was screaming out, like, Help me. Help me do something. And I just wonder, had I known about this step in between, if that would have helped even alleviate some of those things from just getting out of control physically, right? If you’re you’re mentally not addressing things your body’s going to tell you, right? It’s whether you’re ready to hear it or not. Yeah.

Steve 39:18
I think it’s great. And Austin, I want to ask you in a second about just the way employers can engage with Sholder and make this available to their teams. Because as benefits consultant for a long time, I think you’ve got some expertise in that space. But I to me just Trish, it’s that leap, like it’s a huge leap to say for an employee who might be struggling, a person who might be struggling, to say, oh, go find a therapist. That’s hard to do. It’s complicated, it’s expensive, and there’s a lot of barriers in between. It’s just going through the experience which Mark from shoulder helped. Quite frankly, I’m going to admit Mark helped me organize my Sholder session, but it’s so easy to organize this and get started. Right? It’s such a different experience than going to find a quote, unquote, real therapist, right?

Rett Kearbey 40:06
It’s built to feel organic. What we want it to feel like is, once you’re connected with your shoulder, they you can save them in your phone. They will reach out proactively and just check in occasionally. There’s not the the the power dynamic, or the, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a therapist where you’ve asked them a question, have you ever gone through something like this yourself? And they kind of go, well, let’s This is not about me. This is about you. It’s a very one way kind of thing. And so there’s a little bit more flexibility in in this organic connection, because it’s two human beings together. There’s not a clinical dynamic, and so there’s, there’s not any of those clinical protocols that have to be followed, and the relationship can feel a lot more flexible over time. So I appreciate you calling that out, Steve, it’s an important part of what people experience with us.

Steve 40:55
Yeah, Austin, for folks who are listening to this, we got a lot of HR people, a lot of benefits people, a lot of business owner types, listen to this. I would love for you to maybe share a little bit about just this is a new concept to many folks who’ll be listening to this, right? This idea, but I’d love for you to just maybe couch it in the classic employer sponsored benefits kind of thing that you could be doing for your teams, and maybe give us a little bit about that?

Austin Baker 41:20
Thank you, Steve. You know there are people that engage directly with the Sholder, and they can’t, if they’d like to do that, they can go and they can work directly with that, but we’ve structured an employee benefit option on that where and what we found is for employers that are willing to diversify their staff and mental well being offer offerings. We don’t say mental health. We say mental well being and fitness. This is what, that’s what we’re about. Okay? And so mental well being and fitness. If you believe that perhaps, you know you’re not reaching everyone, that you should, and you’re an organization that you believe that you’ve seen, you see other statistics, or you have there’s so you should that a lot of employees, right looking for more options right there. There’s also a very large shortage of therapists in the country of half a million right now. There’s the shortage, okay? And so getting in sometimes there is an access issue as well. And so, you know, these networks are there, but they’re all, we’re actually really going to the same network, but really, truly, but, but what, what the, way it’s structured, it’s a very affordable monthly fee, and the monthly fee gets you access to the program, gets you cultural support to build a culture of mental well being and fitness training for your leadership and active listening and the skills of shoulder and maybe they started meeting a little different now. Maybe they find a way to listen to an employee better? Maybe they find a way to listen to themselves better, become a better, more present leader. And so if you want to build a culture of mental well being and fitness, then we want to talk to you about how we help you do that, because this is a benefit that builds culture, and then it’s just charged as it’s used. You know, I think that fundamentally the values of this organization that Brad is the CEO of Bill and mark as well. We didn’t want to make money when people didn’t use the benefit. That doesn’t feel right, that it’s structured in such a way that assumes some kind of utilization. You only make money when you’re less used.

Steve 43:14
Yeah, this is not the planet fitness model, right? We sell 5000 memberships and help only 100 people show up at a time, right?

Austin Baker 43:23
You think you’re getting the best utilization out of your benefits, then keep doing what you’re doing. But if you think that you need to mix it up and try something different, just try us and try Sholder. And so if you go to sholder.com, you know, that basically the way that works is if we’re going to make an offer for anyone as a thank you for having this on the show.

Austin Baker 43:45
Anyone that books a session for themselves in August or September, or book something for their for a demo as an employer to look at it, we’re going to give to Sholder Up foundation and offer. We’re going to give sessions to them. So by being Sholdered, you’re giving Sholder, and that benefits individuals that are in foster families. Foster families is also It benefits women who are in difficult situations as well, so they don’t have to pay for shoulder. So we’re as a thank you to you. If someone wants to try being shouldered and try that, if they just mentioned, mention your show, then we’re going to basically give on their behalf, on behalf of your show, to that foundation.

Steve 44:27
Love it. Thank you, Austin for that, and I appreciate the offer as well. We’ll make sure we write, sort of write that up, put that in the show notes as well, and we promote the show. I look Trish, you’ve said this a lot, right as we’ve worked with organizations over the years and all we ever like, we’re not, you know, I’m telling you, I my highest recommendation, and I’m, I’m not just saying that because the guys are staring at me right now. I encourage everyone listen to this. If you think like, boy, I would love someone to talk to you about this. I would love to be listened to. I love to be heard. I’m, I’m not, you know, just. Just try it. Just try one time. Because I think, I think at least in your experience, in my experience, seems like, oh, I all of a sudden, I now I understand something I didn’t quite understand before. In just 45 minutes, it was actually quite remarkable. And I think you’re sort of felt the same way about your experience.

Trish 45:18
If someone would have told me I would have made that sort of revelation in that or that I would have felt comfortable to open up that quickly to someone, and I’m a pretty open person, but yeah, I had hesitation and reservation and, wow, I wish I’d done it sooner like it was. It was so helpful. And like I said, it’s not even just, you know, I got the summary kind of of our conversation before the notes are destroyed, and just rereading it, wow. I wish I had thought to try and put pen to paper, but the fact is, you don’t. So you need that Rhett to your earlier comment. You need that loop, right? You need that feedback. I can I use column. I can use my column app all day long, it doesn’t give me feedback on what I’m thinking or feeling or wanting to talk about, right? So this is such a unique thing. It’s not an app. Everybody turns to apps nowadays, right? Yeah.

Rett Kearbey 46:16
What we say is, you know, your life is worth your attention. And I don’t know how if you can relate to this, but when I’m in my own head and I’m telling myself the stories, and I’m kind of going through through things, if I have to, if I have to articulate it to someone else, all of a sudden I think about it a little bit differently, and I have to use words, and I have to communicate it, and it changes the nature of it by the fact that I’m with I’m watching my words, and I’m and someone else is witnessing it as well. And so there’s, you know, in physics, this is known. You know, there was these double slit experiments that showed that even light waves changed from waves to particles when they’re observed by human beings. So the nature of things changes when we look at them, when we observe them intentionally. And so what we would say is your life is worthy of your attention and connecting with someone else and having that skilled relationship that’s all about you is you’re you’re worth it, and employees are worth it. And when you start investing in them in these ways, you get a more resilient, more wholehearted, more present person, and that person is going to be more effective in everything they’re doing. They’re going to be more balanced, they’re going to be more resilient, and they’re going to be more productive.

Trish 47:39
Yeah, and Steve and I work together. So, I mean, I think we can attest to that.

Steve 47:42
I will be monitoring your productivity very closely.

Trish 47:48
No, but think about that. I mean, a breakup is hard, and it’s on your mind, right, not just a day, for, like, weeks, maybe months, right, even if you’re the person doing it, right? So that impacts my work. And I think that, having gotten it kind of off my chest, I was like, wow, that was really, really helpful in my work. So yeah, get it for your employees too.

Steve 48:14
I totally agree Trish, there’s so many really valuable things, I think that we’re uncovered here in just through our experiences going through a Sholder session as well. And what we’ve learned from from Rett and from Austin, said, I like I said, I encourage folks check it out. It’s not, it’s not a huge kind of, oh my god. I’ve got to have this. I’ve got to go to my general practitioner and get a referral, and then I’ve got to go look through all these listings for therapists and try to find one, and go through that intake that’s a lot. Those are a lot. That’s a lot of climbing to do to get into something. And look, you know, I’ve done that stuff and Trish, you have to and like, it’s important to do that. But I think this is a little bit different. And I also think, you know, the accessibility, the structure, the concepts behind it right to help you sort of learn about yourself and discover what’s sort of within you. I would encourage everybody, if you think you could benefit from it, from give it a try, use our code HR happy hour as well, if you do, as Austin said, and they’ll give back to the community some more.

Trish 49:22
To add really quickly, it’s cost effective. And so right now is the time that I would say a large majority of organizations are planning their benefits for next year. Right? Open Enrollment usually happens in the fall, so you still have time to have that conversation with shoulder and get in there and see, is this something we want to try for 2025 as just an added benefit to help your people? And I think it’s well worth it, because a lot of times we can’t do things that we want to do. They’re so expensive. This is one that I think, as a former benefits administrator, I would absolutely be. Looking into if I was still in that role.

Steve 50:01
Yeah, great stuff, guys. I know we gave out the website, sholder.com, we’ll put that in the notes as well. Man, this has been fun. You know, we both, Tricia and I both said we really enjoyed our experience as Sharers, right in our sessions, the folks that we were paired up with, mine was fantastic. I think Trish, you felt really great about the person you work with as well. Rett, I’ll give it to you for the last word, any kind of parting thoughts, or anything else that our folks listening might want to know about this, other than just just, Hey, be open to it and give it a try.

Austin Baker 50:41
Yeah, I just want to thank you all real quick and kind of to wrap it in a minute, just for y’all messaging and for trying out the service. And so it’s experiential once you try to see if you see why it’s different, right? But it just very effective service, no doubt, but it’s also just happens to be radically affordable. So that’s the feedback that we’ve gotten, you know, from HR professionals that have looked at it, which is the cost, and looked at the implementation and how easy it is to work with us. So rev and team are done a remarkable job. And so lot of great conversations going on right now. And yes, there is still time to be able to do something so Rett, go ahead.

Rett Kearbey 51:19
Yeah, yeah. Likewise, I feel the same Steve and Trish, I really appreciate the opportunity to share here with you and your audience, and appreciate you both taking the time yourselves to get shouldered and to experience how different it is from counseling. You know, one of the things we say is, this isn’t counseling, because we don’t give any counsel. There’s no advice. Giving every bit of advice is going to come from inside of you based on the questions that we’re asking and the somatic exercises we’re supporting you in and so, yeah, I mean, I guess a final thing I’d just say is I reiterate your life, anyone that’s listening your life is worth your full attention. And many times it helps if someone else is there with you, paying attention to your life, as well as it’s emerging that it’s hard to do, it’s hard to go through life by ourselves, and especially when it comes to our inner world and making sense of it, and processing emotions and evolving our perspectives, that it really does help to have that skilled relationship, and that we want to provide that at the most affordable rate in the market, the highest skill at the most affordable rate. So that’s what I love.

Steve 52:26
Yep, great, great stuff. So Rett Kearbey, Austin Baker, Sholder, my highest recommendation for sure. I don’t say that lightly, and I would, I would have said I would have been like the Guy Fieri, when he does his cooking show, right? Trish, like, if he has, like, the bacon cheeseburger and he loves it, he talks, oh, my God, is the best bacon cheeseburger, right? And if he doesn’t love it, he just, he lists the ingredients out loud. If you ever watch him, he says, I taste the bacon, I taste the whatever, yeah, if you ever watch that show, that’s his tell, yeah, that’s the tell, oh, paprika in there, right?

Steve 53:04
I had a great experience. And, in fact, last thing I’ll say about it, my Sholder met with me on Sunday morning. So like, wow. What kind of norm, what kind of therapist are you going to get to talk to you on Sunday morning? No, none. That’s who None, right? And that’s when I had my meeting, because that was the best time for me this week. So thanks again. We’ll put the links in the show notes as well. Trish, super stuff. Thank you for sharing so openly as well about your experience too. Thanks to the guys for joining us. Thanks to our friends at Paychex, of course. And my name is Steve Boese. For our guests, or Trish Steed, thanks for listening to the show. We will see you next time, and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai