When East Meets West
East coast psychologist Peter Economou, Ph.D. and West coast psychologist Nikki Rubin, Psy.D. discuss the relationship between ancient Eastern spiritual practices and modern Western behavioral science with practical takeaways for everyone. Learn more at www.wheneastmeetswest.com
When East Meets West
REWIND Becoming Human-First: Howard Spector's Simple Practice Journey
We are bringing back the episode where Howard Spector shares how his journey from psychology student to tech entrepreneur led him to create Simple Practice, a business management software now used by over 100,000 healthcare providers and earning recognition as one of Forbes' best startup employers.
• Discovered his passion for psychology as a teenager through Carl Jung's works
• Attended Pacifica Graduate Institute for psychology training which became transformative
• Created "Track Your Hours" software while in training to help therapists log clinical hours
• Founded Simple Practice in 2012 to provide intuitive practice management software
• Built a human-first company culture emphasizing individual strengths over job descriptions
• Bootstrapped the company rather than seeking venture capital funding
• Connects business success to deep mission of supporting professionals who help others
• Implements mindfulness practices in leadership approach
• Maintains vigilant attention to company culture and values
• Challenges the notion that only "unicorn" startups represent entrepreneurial success
Reach out to share your thoughts or questions with us! We love hearing from our listeners.
I'm Dr Pete Economo, the East Coast psychologist.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dr Nikki Rubin, the West Coast psychologist.
Speaker 1:And this is.
Speaker 2:When East Meets West.
Speaker 1:Well, Nikki, another wonderful guest for season two. Ready for this one, Nikki? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm really excited about our guest today. This is one we've been waiting to have him on.
Speaker 1:We have been waiting, and so for you, today, we have Howard Spector, and he is on the path to becoming a therapist in 2012. He co-founded Simple Practice, which is a business management software solution that's translated into providing wonderful ease to over 100,000 providers, nick and I being one of them, and he's gone to expand his portfolio to Simple Practice Learning, which is also providing continuing education training. So, as CEO, howard has actively worked to challenge and redefine what it means to be a successful leader, and that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today, because he emphasizes the human first approach and leverages his psychology background, and he's built a culture that speaks to the very core of its employees and its customers. So, in 2020, simple Practice was honorably recognized as Forbes' best startup employers and built in LA's best places to work. So how cool is that? So, and and in his spare time which gets me very excited enjoys meditation, tennis, hiking and spending time with his family. So, howard, welcome to when he's Miss West.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for having me. That was a quite an intro.
Speaker 1:I could have. We could have went on and on.
Speaker 2:We could have gone on. I mean, this is and as Pete was just saying, yeah, for our listeners. I'm like we use simple practice software. I also do courses with them, like we, pete and I, love simple practice and we love you know, both of us, howard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Howard, yeah, so say we love like we and this episode is about entrepreneurship with empathy. And Howard, yeah, so say we love like we and this episode is about entrepreneurship with with empathy. And you know, we were just like. There's no better person to talk about this than than than you, howard.
Speaker 3:Well, that's very humbling. Thank you, let's see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Well, so why don't you start off? So, howard, what about starting off with? You know, in this intro this you were on your path to becoming a therapist and then to in 2012,.
Speaker 3:Something happened, or you know, maybe talk to us a little bit about that journey. Well, I mean, it's a long story, right, but like everything, yeah, yes, I mean, um, I'm just trying to give you the abridged version, but I I feel like you know, every time I tell the story, I feel like I need to go back to my teens, cause I really kind of things opened up for me. I look, I was trying to figure my life out in my teens. Really, I didn't feel like I fit in. It's just like something was off and I discovered Carl Jung. Actually, it was like the story is. Basically, I used to love the rock group the Police.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I also love the Police.
Speaker 3:When they came out with the album Synchronicity. I actually happened there was an RA in the dorm I was living in had all of. He was a psychologist, he had all of Jung's works and I borrowed on Synchronicity, the paper that Jung wrote, and I was blown away by it. I mean talking about, you know, a causal connecting principle and like all this kind of stuff and it just really like spoke to me and then I bought memories, dreams and reflections and, um, reading that book I had like these most vivid dreams and I just related to what young was talking about. He talked about like the number one and the number two person and all this stuff and I just it really it normalized a lot of things for me and it's one of those things where you know, um, when, when that doorway opens up and you kind of see beyond that, you can't ever close. It's like you're you're kind of screwed in some ways yeah, can't close that door.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like ignorance is bliss Right, but totally so. That was the kind of something happened for me where I just found like when I, when I read these psychological kind of works, I felt like I found home. I felt very it was something was right about it. But you know, it was a time where these weren't things people were talking about, especially, you know, men. You know they're talking about other things. So I felt like something was kind of wrong with me that I really resonated to this stuff and I felt like I had to go out in the world and be a man, you know business and do all those you know kind of manly things and all those days to use like talking about man. But anyway, that's how it was back then, to use like talking about man. Anyway, that's that's how it was back then. So anyway, so I went out in the world trying to do my thing. You know, struggled a lot. You know I didn't really have a lot of direction, actually suffered from a lot of depression. Um, I went through bouts of unemployment. I just couldn't find my way. But I always found comfort coming back to like just certain books and readings and things like that, and anyway, it isn't all doom and gloom, because a lot of it is, but not all of it. But basically I I ended up getting a job in the tech industry when I was like in the early nineties and I really liked it. I tried my hand at working in Hollywood and I just it just didn't feel right for me. I was living up in Palo Alto at the time and I just I loved the creativity, I loved, like what people were building and doing and I was kind of been a little bit of a geek and I liked technology. My dad bought like the first Apple computer for us and stuff like that. So I ended up getting a job back down in LA in a digital agency and again, long story short, went through an IPO, went through the dot-com bubble bursting and I really just I literally woke up one day and thought you know, I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to be a therapist. You know I'm going to go to graduate school. I'm going to a very specific school. I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to be a therapist. You know I'm going to go to graduate school. I'm going to a very specific school. I'm going to go to Pacifica Graduate Institute and I want to go there because I was reading a lot of Joseph Campbell at the time and I was reading Robert Johnson's books you know, he, we, she, all those amazing books, you know, really getting into mythology and like looking at myth, you know, as a metaphor for our lives and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And I just watched the Fisher King that movie came out, so everything was kind of lining up and Pacifica was a school that I'd heard about from my therapist and again, the whole Joseph Campbell connection and everything really resonated with me and and I went there and it was the most transformative experience of my life because I was finally in a place where there were like-minded people that were speaking the same language. I felt like I finally found my people. So it really was normalizing for me in a lot of ways and really healing for me in a lot of ways. And Pacific has a very experiential program to go through. You live up there for three days a month. Sundays are your process days.
Speaker 3:So you know you do as you break into triads, you start, you know going through the techniques, and it's really you know you kind of dread Sunday you know, the cool thing about it was, you know I would drive up to Santa Barbara and it was like I was leaving everything behind to go to this magical place for three days and then you leave there totally raw, you come back to civilization and process all the stuff that just came up, and then you go back and go the next month. So for me it was just an amazing process, for me personally. And then in my second year, like everybody else, you have to start tracking your training hours.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:It's. You know, you go to this class and they tell you okay, here's what you got to do, and it is totally confusing, it makes no sense. And I started thinking well, you know, isn't there like a software product where you can track your hours and train and do all that stuff and it'll generate your forms and?
Speaker 1:anyway, long long story short.
Speaker 3:There wasn't, so I ended up creating one, the product called track your hours, which which also used when I when I was a grad student.
Speaker 2:Right, I needed it, yeah, so it ended up being something where and I started marketing it myself.
Speaker 3:I called up the different camps, chapters, I told people about it and anyway it's, more and more people started using it and that was great. But as I was going through all of my training, um, when I got out of school, I was, I was working different jobs and I was doing my, my hours, my hours. I got all my 3000 hours. Um, I did everything. But I realized that this wasn't the path for me, that the track, track your hours was really taking off and I also, as I was getting close to being done with my hours, I started thinking about what am I going to do? What software am I going to use to run my practice when I'm ready to practice? And I looked at the time what was out there and nothing really spoke to me and I thought I'm going to create something. So that's when I had like, like track your hours was going to pacific. It was an epiphany moment for me. It's like I just one day and said I'm going to go do that and I went and did it.
Speaker 3:Track your hours was something where I was working in an entertainment marketing company. I would meditate every morning in my office on the floor and that's when the track your hours idea just hit me and then by that afternoon I was already developing it and then, with simple practice, I thought, you know, there's nothing else, there's nothing out there I really want to use, so maybe I can create something that's like intuitive and easy, and blah, blah, blah. So and it wasn't until a little bit later where I just again had this moment where I I thought, okay, now I get it. I know how I want to build this product. I like imagine a therapist, like she's sitting in a chair, a chair in her office, she's looking at her phone and she's reviewing the notes from the, the, the previous session from the client she was just about to see. So I thought, like you know the mobile piece of it, I started to really think about the calendar and how it was going to work, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And then I just basically I partnered up with someone that I'd worked with at another company and essentially started the company, like that week and January of 2012, when we started the company and we basically had to develop for almost a year and a half before we launched the product in July of 2013. And we got our first customer, katie Malinsky, who's still a company. We got the first customer in July, I think, and then, or June, one of those I think it was June and then, you know, I like to say it's like popcorn, like you get one customer, you get a couple more, and then a few more and it just starts to go and we basically just were heads down in, you know, building out the product, building out the roadmap, you know, starting in 2012, and we're still going, and now we're a company where we've got close to 250 employees. You know almost 100,000 customers. You know they're serving millions of clients and patients and you know it's I'm very proud of.
Speaker 3:You know the team we have that work for you, you know, and for customers, are incredibly passionate and committed to the mission that we're on. Can I just talk about the mission real quick?
Speaker 2:Yeah please no, absolutely, that'll be a good segue probably into the empathy. Yeah, totally, well, I was like I was like I think we're on the same wavelength here, yeah.
Speaker 3:So every you know I really look at this. You know simple practice. I mean I say this a lot so for people listening that have heard this before I apologize for the repetition you know this is really a mission-based company because, you know, when I was training, when I was in school and when I was training, I was working with some really amazing people that were called to do this work and a lot of people don't think of it as work. They think of it as like, wow, I'm just it's come so natural, I'm called to do this and you know they don't really think it's a business.
Speaker 3:There was actually someone you know I used to sponsor some of these like local camp events, and I remember this woman I think it was a San Gabriel Valley camp or something like that and she stood up and she was saying how her husband thinks of what she does as a hobby and that like, just, I think about that a lot because that's like that's what she lives with, like look, she's doing this great work but her, her husband's not taking it seriously. So for me, simple practice, the mission around this is you know, how do we help everyone doing this work, help, help them really understand like they're small business owners and entrepreneurs you know, and I want them to embrace that part of the work that they're doing and and that, to me, is the overall mission.
Speaker 3:Because, look, you know, as a business owner with simple practice, we have to. We have to get people in what we call the upper funnel. You know, as a business owner with simple practice, we have to. You know we have to get people in what we call the upper funnel. You know we have to get trial accounts in right, and once we get trial accounts in, we want to convert people that are in trial to paid customers and we don't want those customers to what we call in technology, like we don't want to cause them to churn out, to leave us. So therapy for a clinician, it's the same thing. It's like you want to get the word out there and get people to come and see you. You want them to stay, you want them to leave until, of course, maybe their course of therapy is done and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And the mission idea really applies to a lot of the decisions that have been made, even with simple practice learning and we can talk about the practice website and some other things.
Speaker 3:It's all driven. It's not driven by money, it's driven by this mission to do these right, to do the right thing. The financial success, like the financial success that simple practice has, is a byproduct of we have an unbelievable team of people that we treat very well and that you know, that are bought into this mission, that do great work, they collaborate really well with one another, they take really good care of our customers, whether it's through building the product or supporting the product, and that leads to success, and to me that's again it's a by-product. So the focus wasn't when I started this company on how do I make a product that's going to make a lot of money, that had nothing to do with it. You know, it's like I had this idea and I tell people I couldn't not do it. I just had to, like, build this product and and do these things. And we're very successful, I think, just because we've had, I think we have good intention to do this for the right reason and we deeply care about our customers and we're all here working for them.
Speaker 1:It's like if you build it, they will come.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, feel the dreams.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 2:I mean, thank you for sharing the background, howard, because I actually think it's really important to sort of frame this conversation that we're having today and the reason that we we really specifically wanted to have you on for this episode because in, in what I hear from from you know, your, your journey, you know, as a teenager, through your training at Pacifica, to you know, beginning simple practice is that there's this, this dialectic that keeps showing up, that I hear of like connecting with your values, right, connecting with with what you feel, what feels meaningful to you, like I hear that a lot, what you're talking about, like at Pacifica, it's like it just it felt right, it's like this was speaking to you.
Speaker 2:It's, you know, almost like um correct me if this word doesn't align, but I almost hear that like there's like a spiritual component to it a little bit. And Pete and I talk a lot about how like sometimes for us, like, spirituality and values are kind of one in the same and how using your connection to those values then informs your behavioral choices. And I think that's a really powerful idea, both, obviously within business, because of course, you know there's probably, you know, like a stories out there of like business is only, it's only greed, it's only bad and it's like well, actually, no, like we can. You know, there's a way to contribute to the world and have success, while also staying really connected to things that are very meaningful yeah, so for me, I learned how to wear the masks.
Speaker 3:You know that were required to go out and and and have different jobs doing different things, you know, and being resourceful you know, but I always felt empty and I got to my life and I think it's when I decided you know, I'm gonna go be a therapist. You know that was a moment in my life and I think it's when I decided you know, I'm going to go be a therapist. You know that was a moment in my life where I felt like, you know, I can't be inauthentic.
Speaker 3:You know, I have to be very deeply passionate and connected to the work that I'm doing and that's how I feel now. I mean, that's why I started this business and that's why I love working, you know, in this, with this community of our customers, because there's a lot of depth and a lot of meaning to it and if you follow your heart and you follow your passion and you're curious and you seek out those things, you're going to end up where you need to be and you're going to be like, oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it makes sense we got here, you know. So I just think that's really cool. The other thing about how we got where we are as a company there's so much that's written about, you know, the unicorns, and I just read today, like you know, there's two other companies that are kind of trying to get in our space. It just did their series D round and you know they're raising hundreds of millions of dollars. And I just, and I think to myself, you know, the message to young people, young entrepreneurs, is, if you don't build a unicorn business or if you don't raise a bunch of venture capital money, you're a loser. And that is the message out there. And I want to like tell that message and say you know what? I bootstrapped this company. I didn't go raise VC money. Wow, you don't have to do that and you can build a business that makes a million dollars a year and that's a massive success.
Speaker 3:And I just hope those things are out there enough for people to understand, like you don't have to be Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:But that sells papers and I totally understand the psychology around that. I just don't. I think that I want to talk more to people and encourage them to follow their passions and do the business. Don't worry about the money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, worry about your values, worry about what you connect with and use that as the guide, not as, like again, the money is like the care, like that's the problem when people get stuck on external things and it leads them astray, right, and it's not going to, and, like you said, then you wear the mask and it feels empty. So no, this is. I mean, this is fantastic.
Speaker 1:Howard, this is so great. We're looking at entrepreneurship with empathy and I think that that your training and this specific experience really brought that to you. So one of the things that I'm passionate about is organizational psychology. This's something that we do at Rutgers University which is really about just the humanness of running a business. You know, that's the definition essentially of organizational psychology. How do we look at the behavior? How do we motivate people to want to be a part of the mission?
Speaker 1:And you know we had some faculty, you know Clay Alderfer, who took Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which everyone all listeners that have taken a basic psych course heard of that. But he took that and said there's this ERG existence, relatedness and growth. And so what I'm hearing is like your existence and your suffering that we all have kind of led to this relatedness of your colleagues and now employees at the company to really significant growth. So I wondered if you would maybe talk a little bit about that aspect of applying this organizational psychology theory to the growth of this beautiful business and product I mean everything's grown very organically in this company.
Speaker 3:So I mean, there's two ways I'm thinking about what you're asking me. One is well, there's the growth of the company, which is the people in the company, and then there's the growth of the business, which is right. Business gets, gets bigger and more quote unquote successful because we have more customers generating more revenue, blah, blah, blah. So do you want, do you want, to focus on the company one, but those both of those are part of it.
Speaker 1:So whichever feels more organic for you, it's. It's a great way to tease those two out, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think that, like I've, as I alluded to earlier, I've had a lot of careers, you know. I've had a lot of jobs, I've done a lot of different things and you know, for a long time in my life I carried a lot of shame around that because I had a resume that had a lot of stuff on it. When someone asked for my resume, I kind of like had it broken into a cold sweat.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, you know they're going to ask why I had so many jobs or what. Why are there all these like times in my resume where I'm not working and stuff like that? But later on, it wasn't until later when I really realized that and hopefully I'll get back to your question. We'll circle into this, is that you know? Now, I love the fact that I've had all these different jobs, doing all these different things, because I've met all sorts of different people.
Speaker 3:I've had to put myself in different situations and learn how to be resilient, and learn how to be resourceful and do the things even when I was wearing the masks. But at least I had those different experiences and different things and I think that's really helped me understand and how to work with different kinds of people. You know, or even recognize the fact that everyone is truly an individual. Yes, recognize the fact that everyone is truly an individual. Yes, and that's something that really hit home when I was at Pacifica, when I realized even the people in my class that were a little bit annoying, you know, it's like they were needed.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Everybody was needed and everybody was unique and everyone was an individual. But it really helped me understand and I don't think this was any conscious thing understand and I don't think this was any conscious thing, it was just a, an unconscious, intuitive kind of thing that played out that, look, our company's made up of individuals about and and I think that I, I recognize that and I feel like, because I recognize that, I think people in this company feel that you know, they feel like they're really truly seen for who they are. They're not just an employee with a job description. I even tell people that when they interview here, it's like you're not a job description. You don't work in a department, you're a human being that comes here with a lot of experience and a lot to offer. So let's make sure that we've got you doing the right thing and the company is very dynamic because life is about change.
Speaker 3:I did a podcast with someone. It was all about transformation and I was talking about how, you know, we're constantly in a state of change and transformation. You know my business is, I am, my customers are, our customers are in the business of transformation, right, so it's everywhere. So when you when for me as a business owner and I guess this ties into the empathy piece as well it's like the business is this dynamic system that's constantly in a state of of of movement and as a business owner I'm trying to be as attuned to that as I can to understand when we need to make shifts or changes or do things or move people around or change a process or something like that. To me that's actually the most fun part of it, because a lot of people just it's a set it and forget it kind of thing with the business. Like you're in this department, you go work over here, you go do this, you go do that. But my feeling is software, like the product that we produce, software is evolutionary and iterative.
Speaker 3:You're constantly getting feedback from your customers. They're telling you what you want them to want you to do. You know you've got to continue to evolve the product, so why should a company be any different? So I feel like that's you know, that's what I do as the owner or the leader of this business is understanding that we have to always be attuned to the shifts and the changes that are happening and make sure that we're staying up to date on those things and we're evolving the business to accommodate the individuals and the unique individuals that work here. And I feel like that's really been a big part of our success, because a lot of people come in through the kind of one door and go to one place, but they end up somewhere else, and it's really cool because we're recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, whatever, and we're saying, hey, you know what you should be over here.
Speaker 3:And one of the proudest things for me right now for this company is really watching the evolution of how some people have really grown that have been here for you know, four years, five years or three months, whatever. It is just watching them grow and seeing how they've taken on more things or done different things. That's really cool and I think a lot of this ties into, maybe, the needs that I was looking to fill when I wanted to be a therapist. So you know, going back to your initial question about practicing being a therapist, it's like I did all the training and everything but I never did. I never got licensed because this was on a different path, and I'd like to joke and say that my mom still doesn't understand, like, why I'm a therapist. But I feel like I'm doing better work for the community of clinicians because I'm trying to provide for them, you know, a great resource in many different ways for them to be able to go and do the work that they're doing.
Speaker 1:My mom still doesn't understand what I'm doing either, so don't, so we can share in that I was going to say I think that's it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, like this concept of like, even though you didn't become licensed, but but that that's an important part of what you're doing in the business. It's also because it's like I keep hearing. I mean and I love that you're saying this is like you keep coming back to this concept of like being a human right, like we're all humans that are doing this and like you're, you know it's a company made up of individual humans serving humans in the community to. You know that are providing, you know, human clients, patients, to the opportunity to just change and evolve and um.
Speaker 1:I love that he said that his customers are in the business of change.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it was beautiful. That's what transformation yeah.
Speaker 3:A butterfly is a logo. A butterfly is about soul, psyche.
Speaker 2:Yes, that wasn't by accident Right.
Speaker 3:So yes, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Well, and there's such a um like by by honoring that, first and foremost, you know, and like Pete and I talk about that like all the time on this podcast, like we're constantly going, coming back to like and we're humans, like this is human experience and we we discuss it, obviously through these lenses of both, like Eastern spirituality and Western behavioral science. Though this is, this is a concept that applies across contexts and and including in business, and even what I'm hearing Howard talk a lot about is practicing flexibility, right, creativity, like there's a mindful component to what you're describing too. It's like being attuned and present to what the needs are and shifting with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that plays into the culture of our company. I mean a couple of things. One is I'll come back to the culture piece in a second. But going back to the mission idea, you know it's humans but it's really about individuals like you need, right. So, but you know the mission. I think most people, probably everybody, but it's hard to say everybody, right but I think most people here in our company are really connected to the human mission that we're, that we're connected to, like we are in some small way helping people like you that are out there actually on the front lines doing the work.
Speaker 3:I say healing the world. One person at a time. Right, that's right, yeah. And you know there was one. I bring this up a lot because it's something that's like really profound. It's hard not to cry when I bring it up.
Speaker 3:And when there was that Parkland shooting, there was an image that I came across of these three young kids holding a candle in this candlelit vigil.
Speaker 3:We have a Friday meeting with the company every Friday. I put that picture up there around the shooting and I just said you know, just a reminder, you know our customers are dealing with people like either that are directly related to the Parkland shooting, or just people, anyone that's affected by the horrors of those things. Those are our customers, are dealing with that stuff. So making that connection between the work that we're doing to provide a software tool and other services to support them, you know that's pretty powerful stuff to know that that's what you're connected to on a daily basis when you go to your job. I think that we have a really incredible group of people that work at this company that are really connected to that mission and understand the impact that you know what are the impact that our customers have on the world, especially with all the politics that have gone on, and you know racial justice and all these things. You know it's a pretty cool place to be knowing that you're again, in some small way, connected to all these things that are happening.
Speaker 1:Well, it's clearly the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Based on their leader and I think that that's a lot of what you're. I mean what a powerful image to put up there. And I mean I think we could continue talking forever. We're almost out of time, believe it or not? So, lastly, I wondered if you'd talk a little bit about you know gut. You know we were talking a little bit about sort of trusting your gut and meditation. So maybe a little bit about, like, how you've integrated meditation, because that'll be the Eastern spiritual stuff that we often bring into your company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I. So someone gave me John Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living a long time ago and it literally sat on my shelf for maybe 10 years. Yeah, point. I just felt like it was time for me to read it. It just called out to me and so I said okay, I'm going to read this book and if it makes sense, I'm going to do what it says to do. So as soon as I started reading it I'm like, oh my God, I read the book and at the time there was only cassette tapes Like you could send away for for john's cassette tape.
Speaker 3:So I did and I basically tried as best as I could to put myself through the course in the body scan, the whole thing, and it was totally transformative for me. In my life I never felt more grounded, I never spoke more clearly. I said what I meant, I, I meant what I said. It was like my tennis game was amazing because I was totally. It was unbelievable how transformative that was. So I ended up, actually, I went into some trainings and I taught. I opened up a wellness center and taught the six week you know, mbsr core. Because not because I felt like, I just felt, I facilitated it, I teach it, I help people, you know, mbsr core because, not because I felt like I just felt I facilitated it, I teach it, I help people, you know, do that work? Because I just felt it was so powerful. So for me and I've been on silent meditation retreats at spirit, rock and other places.
Speaker 1:I love silent retreats. Actually that's been my like. We talk a lot about that in this pocket Cause I that's what I missed the most with the pandemic. There's silver lining somewhere, but like that, that's what I missed the most with the pandemic. There's silver lining somewhere, but like that, that's that silent retreat option. I'm just missing to like recharge because you you know session in the zen world, like you need that longer period of sitting.
Speaker 3:You can sit every night, morning and night, but that longer period for that discipline you gotta like you gotta drop, you know you gotta give yourself like a few days to just drop in man, and then it's just like you know that's the best oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:One day we could do that together yeah let's do it.
Speaker 3:I think that training for me and doing that work and you know practicing meditation, you know it grounds you in the present. So I have a very present kind of outlook on life. You know, um, when people say, hey, I'll see you tomorrow, I I'm like, well, how do you know?
Speaker 2:No, very no, we talk about all the time. It's very literal.
Speaker 3:You know, we I don't you know if we have a great month of simple practice, I don't assume next month will be that way. It's like next month, you know. So I don't take time for granted. You know, time is our most precious resource. That sounds cliche, but I really believe it. I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to waste other people's time. I want to make sure that the things that we're doing we're not wasting time. So, having that level of attention, I pay attention to things.
Speaker 3:So when we talk about our company culture and things like that, these aren't just words that just get spit out there and not followed up on. I'm very mindful of making sure that the things that we talk about at our company, that we want to do, and then the things we want to embody culturally and ethically and whatever, we have to vigilantly guard those on a moment by moment basis. Most of our employees or the people that work here will think, well, they're kind of that's the. They say these things but they don't really mean it and I've been in companies like that and it totally disintegrates the trust and the bond between the people that are working and the people that are leading. So I'm very mindful of those things as best I can. I'm not perfect, but you know, that's where that comes into play, where you you know, if you want to have a great culture, you got to define what it is and you got to be hypervigilant about it, moment by moment, and guard it, because it's a slippery slope Once you let things go.
Speaker 1:You're done and I don't want to be done. This has been when East Meets West. I'm Dr Petey Conomo.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dr Nikki Rubin. Be present, be brave.
Speaker 1:And I'm Dr Nikki Rubin Be present. Be brave. This has been when East Meets West. All material is based on opinion and educational training of Drs PD Conomo and Nikki Rubin.
Speaker 2:Content is for informational and educational purposes only.
