Episode 15: Lessons On Listening from Gift Shop Manager, Pat Hagberg

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. On today's episode, you'll meet gift shop manager and social media maven, Pat Hagberg. Pat was the original “girl boss” before that was even a term, and upon retirement, she found her way to the carousel in 2012. Chances are, whether you are young or old, if you’ve walked through the carousel doors, you’ve had the opportunity to experience Pat’s healing presence. Through Pat, we’ll learn about the power of compassionate listening, and how she’s literally been training her whole life for the position she has now.

Don't forget to vote for Mayor of the Carousel – voting ends May 26!

• Learn more about the Mayor Election and the perks of voting! (https://carouselofhappiness.org/mayor-of-the-carousel/) 
• Ready to cast your vote? Here's the link to the ballot. (https://carouselofhappiness.org/mayor-ballot/)

Wanna tell Pat how awesome she is? 

• Shower her with some love (and some likes) on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/carouselofhappiness).

The Carousel of Happiness is a nonprofit arts & culture organization dedicated to inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider visiting the Carousel of Happiness online (https://carouselofhappiness.org/), on social media (https://www.facebook.com/carouselofhappiness), or in real life; or consider donating (https://carouselofhappiness.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general-donation) to keep the carousel and its message alive and spinning 'round and 'round.

If you have a story to share, please reach out to Allie Wagner at outreach@carouselofhappiness.org

Special thanks to songwriter, performer, and friend of the carousel, Darryl Purpose (https://darrylpurpose.com/), for sharing his song, "Next Time Around," as our theme song.

Transcript

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. I’m your host, Allie Wagner. 

The carousel mayoral election race is heating up. We’ve got just 8 weeks left until the polls close, and the lion is in the lead with 327 votes. Pig is a close second with 230 votes, and dragon is helping us cash in with 131 votes. 

There is still time to make a difference in this election, and I can assure you this one will be fair and square. That’s right, there are no cheetahs here.

That’s actually not true, we do have a cheetah, but she is not a cheetah.

Ugh. Please vote. If you do, I am told the puns will end. Eventually.

If you think the lion is grrr-eat…go online or come into the carousel, and show your pride by voting for the King of the Jungle. If you’re in the pig pen, you can make Piggy Stardust squeal with joy by trotting on down to the carousel, virtually or in-person to cast your vote. Perhaps, you’re hoping to tip the scales for dragon? If so, dragon over here and cast your vote. 

If you are just joining us and you have no idea what’s going on, well, neither do I. It appears I have been possessed by puns. And I’m told there is no remedy, pain and simple.

Remember, all of these puns are in the name of a good cause. This election is a carousel fundraiser, and all of the money we raise between now and May 26th goes directly back into the carousel to keep us spinning. Each vote for mayor is $1 and 100% tax deductible. Check out the show notes for more information on how you can participate. 

On last week’s episode, we met Boulder County Open Space Ranger, Kevin Grady, and his K9 partner, Ms. Dottie. You learned about how the two started working together, and how after a crazy accident, the bond between them grew stronger than ever. If you missed it, and are in need of a little dose of miracles today, please go check that show out.

On today’s episode, it is my great honor and privilege to introduce to you one of our staff members, gift shop manager and social media maven, Pat Hagberg. Pat, as you’ll hear, was the original “girl boss” before that was even a term, and upon retirement, she found her way to the carousel in 2012. Chances are, whether you are young or old, if you’ve walked through the carousel doors, you’ve had the opportunity to experience Pat’s healing presence. Through Pat, we’ll learn about the power of compassionate listening, and how she’s literally been training her whole life for the position she has now.

Let us begin with today’s story.

GONG

When’s the last time you’ve truly been listened to? When someone has graciously and generously been fully present with you in this moment and simply listened. No distractions, no phone, no judgment. When is the last time someone has listened to you and didn’t try to jump in and give you any advice? Didn’t try to fix it. When’s the last time you’ve been listened to by someone with their entire body, heart, and soul?

Maybe by your therapist this week? Perhaps by a member of the clergy or one of your parents?

The truth is, many of us haven’t had this experience recently. The world is busy and chaotic, and we’re all wrapped up in our own individual concerns. We try to listen to each other, but something’s missing. Our full presence. Our whole beingness.

But there’s one unlikely place you might have experienced this form of deep listening and not even realized it. Chances are, if you’ve come into the carousel on Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays when Pat Hagberg is behind the desk, you’ve likely experienced the powerful transformation possible when someone fully listens.

But Pat’s a bit sneaky about it. Chances are, you haven’t even really realized what was happening. You might have left the carousel feeling better, but not understood why. And we’ve talked previously on the podcast about all the reasons why this is possible. How the carousel creates a safe space where the body recognizes that safety even before the mind does. How the energy of the carousel is such that it allows your body to relax in a way few places allow for these days.

And yes, it is about the animals and Scott’s story, but it’s also about Pat. How she truly listens to everyone, young and old, who walk through the doors.

And it’s not just me. When I reached out to her colleagues asking for their thoughts about Pat for this episode, the opinions were 100% unanimous. Executive Director, Melody Baumhover said of Pat, “she has a welcoming energy that extends to everyone who walks through the front door.” She always has time for every single human being, regardless of how busy the carousel can get. Carousel Operator, Burt Rashbaum, noted, “she is neither flummoxed nor bothered by anyone. She embodies - and epitomizes - all the best virtues of what the carousel is, no matter where someone is coming from, no matter how long someone has lived.”

Burt notes Pat brings so much joy to people even before he gets a chance to blow their minds in the carousel house.

Grease Monkey In Chief, Paul Andrews, says “We are so lucky to have to have Pat and her welcoming smile at the carousel to make you feel comfortable and excited to take a ride on our amazing machine.” 

Scott Harrison, the creator of the carousel itself, said of Pat, she is “naturally the manifestation of the carousel in human form when she is behind the counter.”

I’m going to say that one more time. "Pat is naturally the manifestation of the carousel in human form when she is behind the counter."

But what happens sometimes when someone is a good listener is that they don’t necessarily have the opportunity to be listened to. And in my interactions with Pat, she’s always sort of sneakily sprinkled little bits about her life into conversation. Quickly and in passing, she would mention something like she’s the eldest of 11 children. Or that she owned her own medical tech business in the 70s. Or that she built her own house with her bare hands.

So, on today’s episode, I’d love to share a bit more about Pat and her story. How she ended up at the carousel and how we can learn from her example about the healing power of deep listening.

I met Pat yesterday for coffee at the train cars. By the time we met at 1:00, she’s texted me multiple times, telling me she’s not sure this episode is going to be interesting enough. It’s clear she’s a tad uncomfortable about someone listening to her for a change.

Pat orders a mocha, and insists on paying for my peppermint tea. She is the kind of person who makes sure everyone around her feels comfortable. She bakes brownies for everyone’s birthday, even though she doesn’t eat them herself.

When we settle into a booth, she is insistent: next time we meet, she has to hear my story. It’s killing her. I agree, but try to get her back on track. Tell me about yourself, I ask.

Pat was born in Carroll, Iowa, the oldest of 11 kids. By the time she was 4 ½, she already had 4 younger brothers.

When I ask her how this has shaped her life, she’s quick to point out it made her a caretaker. It made her good at listening. But what’s funny about that, is that she didn’t even realize that until she saw a therapist for the first time in 2010 when she was about to retire. Apparently, the therapist mentioned this, and it totally made sense to Pat. But it’s just not something she really thought of until they brought it up.

And that’s one thing I’ve noticed in interviewing people for this podcast. People like Scott or Robert from the Warrior Storyfield. When people are truly living their purpose, they don’t quite realize it. It doesn’t feel as noteworthy to them, as it does to others. It just feels natural.

Pat left Iowa and went to college in Omaha. She got engaged there, but saw an ad for a medical tech internship position in Colorado. She couldn’t resist. It was only a year. She’d be back.

Well, she never did go back. And she never did get married. In 1970, she had fallen in love with Colorado and was living in Denver. Everything was thrilling. exciting. She had a good group of friends, and as she describes it, they all spent time together, they all loved each other, and Pat fell in love with not just Colorado, but with a man named Jim. 

Pat and Jim were married shortly after meeting, and they have been married for 55 years.

When I ask her what’s the secret to a happy marriage, she says you need to forgive and forget. There will be ups and downs, but never let things get to you. Pat’s mother once told her, god gives you the strength to deal with the big stuff, but the little stuff will drive you crazy, if you let it.

Pat’s big into what she calls her “sayings.” It’s something she got from her mother. She has these little books of aphorisms she reads daily. They fill her up with wisdom and hope after a long day. They give her peace. 

She also thinks married women should have at least one night alone in a hotel by themselves every week. A genius idea, if you ask me. Pat thinks the world would be a better place if that were possible. 

She also says she spends at least thirty minutes every morning talking to her husband, Jim.

They share coffee and talk about life, about their daughter, they talk about the world. No matter what she’s doing that day, she always carves out time for them at the beginning of her day. And sometimes, the chats can go on for hours, if their schedules allow. Pat genuinely enjoys Jim.

And Jim’s the reason she ended up here in Nederland. He was living in Boulder when they first met, and he took her up to Nederland shortly thereafter. Pat remembers the first time they drove up the canyon. That moment when you crest the hill and can see Barker Reservoir in front of you and the town behind it. It was so quaint. She’s quick to point out that it still looks the same. Sure, the businesses are different, but the character of Ned, according to Pat, endures.

Pat started working as a medical technologist in the 70s when there weren’t really women in tech. She learned pretty quickly that she was a bit of a misfit on the science side, but thrived in sales. She owned her own laboratory in Boulder for 5 years before she started selling equipment for a national laboratory based in Salt Lake City. In the 25 years she worked there, the company’s annual sales went from $100,000 to $450 million. 

During this time, she is commuting to Salt Lake, and traveling around Colorado and Wyoming. In 1976, she and Jim started building their own home just outside town. They had a contractor frame it, but they did the rest themselves. By hand. Except for the electrical. They had someone finish that up, she explains.

In 1978, she got pregnant with her only daughter, Annie, whom she considers her greatest success in life. But the house still wasn’t finished, so they quickly finished the basement and then the three of them moved down there until the rest of the house was done. It took a decade to build.

Her home is the grounding force in Pat’s life. It is “old and it is us,” she says. If she had the chance to do it over, she’d do it the exact same way. During this time, Pat, Jim, and Annie ski and hike and backpack all throughout Colorado together, in between Pat’s work trips.

After 25 years working for the same company, she admits she never sold a product. Not once. Her sales strategy was to listen. She would connect with the human being in front of her, and listen to them talk about their lives. And, as she describes it, after the listening was done, they’d just buy the product. Without her ever telling them anything about it.

She describes those connections as “random, spontaneous interactions.” She would meet with someone at a hospital, for example, for a few minutes, an hour maybe, and over the course of 25 years, she’d get to know them in a way that was special. Unique. She thinks there was something about the lack of pressure in the relationship that allowed people to open up.

It might be that. Or it might be Pat.

In 2010, Pat retires. That’s when she saw the therapist for the first time. She was worried about being at home with just one person. Jim. She was worried about not having her one night a week in a hotel.

And for the first couple of years of her retirement, she goes from lunches to lunches. She and Jim travel. She does what normal retired people do. And one day, she brings some of her girlfriends into the carousel. One of them notices a flyer on the wall asking for volunteers. Her friend points at it, “you should do that,” she says to Pat.

Pat’s not so sure, but then-director Katrina Harms overhears the conversation and comes out of her office. Encourages Pat to apply.

She doesn’t.

When I ask her why, she’s not sure. Something about it didn’t feel right, but when she comes back a few months later she runs into Katrina again who remembers her. Katrina gives her a bit of a hard time for not following up. Pat feels guilty and signs up for 2 2-hr volunteer shifts a week.

And she does that for the next 6 years, until she gets a scary health diagnosis. One that makes it necessary for her to have an excuse to get out of bed on a regular basis and stop feeling sorry for herself. Around the same time, she’s offered a job at the carousel working the front desk. This time, she immediately takes it. This will give her purpose. This will give her reason to get out of bed.

Pat likes to say, if you’re feeling down, you can feel down for 3 days, but after that, you’ve got to pull yourself out. 1, 2, 3, she says.  

I know this because she told me this personally last week. When I was having one of those weeks where it felt like I would never pull out. When it felt like I was drowning in sadness.

She texted multiple times last week. 1, 2, 3, she said. 1, 2, 3.

Now, if she were slightly reluctant at first to start getting involved with the carousel, that reluctance is all but gone. She is 100%, without a doubt, the carousel’s biggest supporter. So much so, that after we chat, she sends me a long text message. Of all the serendipitous details that prove she’s in the right place. 

Her maiden name is Happe. H.A.P.P.E. The carousel opened the year she retired and the year her first grandchild was born. And that company she worked for, it was in Salt Lake City. She visited the grounds where the carousel was, not knowing what was in store for the future. 

Her daughter, Annie, lived in a house on the Hill in Boulder her junior year with Scott’s daughter, Colleen. Apparently, the girls’ living room was filled with tall animals carved out of wood. Not Scott’s. But when Pat mentioned to her daughter that she loved the wood animals, Annie was quick to point out, “that’s nothing. You should see Colleen’s house at home. Her dad’s got a bunch of big animals in their living room. Apparently, he’s building a carousel somewhere someday.”

And the last tidbit she sent me, sent chills down my spine. One of Pat’s sisters passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2006, 4 years before the carousel opened. The summer before she died, Pat’s sister visited for Jim’s retirement party. She went shopping in Ned and bought a bunch of things at a local furniture store – lamps, vases, chairs, and some goat skin sconces. She put it all on layaway, intending to pay in increments, but she died before she could fully purchase them.

When she passed, the sconces went back on the market. Scott scooped them up, not knowing what he was going to do with them, not knowing why he even wanted them. Pat later recognized them and told Scott the story. 

So Scott put them up in the carousel house, where you can see them now, allowing Pat’s little sister to live in all the light we cannot see.

Pat’s favorite animal is the zebra. She dresses like one every year for halloween. She’s been all kinds of types of zebra º “punk rock zebra” and “fashionable zebra” and even “Barbie zebra.” Each year she wears zebra stripes and a matching tutu.

Pat likens her experience at the carousel to her work selling laboratory equipment or being the eldest of 11. Everyone has a story, and everyone has troubles, as she calls them. If you can hold space, and listen. Without judgement. You can change people’s lives.

When I ask her what she’s noticed about people in the 13 years she’s been working for the carousel, she’s quick to point out that the carousel fills a void in people’s lives. Our world is busy and chaotic, but the carousel is different. It gives people a space to feel. Pat thinks people need a place like this more than ever. She’s also noticed more young men in their 20s and 30s coming in, which she thinks is good sign.

According to Pat, listening is so simple, and it takes her out of her own troubles. If she can be present for others, she’s able to feel good herself.  

One of her favorite sayings is “most people live on the world, not in it,” and I don’t know who exemplifies this more than Pat. In a world where people are moving on top of the surface, Pat goes deep. By allowing others to express themselves fully in her full presence. Without judgment. Without a desire to butt in.

 Thích Nhất Hạnh, the late Buddhist monk once said, “Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty their heart.”

Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to explain that deep listening allows us to identify wrong perceptions. In both ourselves and the person we are listening to. And these wrong perceptions are a big deal – they are the root of all suffering. Terrorism, war, conflict of any kind between living beings. And it is only when we are able to deeply listen to another that that suffering can be alleviated. Deep listening, according to Thich Nhat Hanh, has the capacity to bring transformation and healing both to the listener and the speaker.

I can think of no other person I have met who embodies this idea more deeply than Pat.

In Buddhism a bodhisattva is a rare and exceptional individual. The word itself is constructed from the Sanskrit root bodhi, meaning “awakening” or “enlightenment,” and sattva, meaning “being.” The core meaning of the word is “a being who is on the way to becoming enlightened.”

And the idea behind a bodhisattva is that they can manifest in whatever form will most effectively free beings from suffering. 

Kwan Yin is one of Buddhism’s most loved bodhisattvas. She is so loved that even the Daoists and the Confuscionists love her too. She is known as the embodiment of compassion, as the one “who hears the cries of the world.”  

Kwan Yin has the quality of listening deeply, without judging or reacting. Through her example, when we listen with our whole being, we can defuse the bombs within. 

I like to think of Pat as the carousel’s Kwan Yin. A bodhisattva behind the counter, sometimes in a tutu, who, in five minute increments, changes the world around her.

When we leave the train cars, Pat’s headed across the parking lot to pick up ice cream at the grocery store. She knows Melody and Amy are at the carousel and she wants to stop in and bring them something. She can’t help herself.

I watch her walk across the parking lot, looking just like everyone else. But knowing she’s not like everyone else. And that’s why I love working at the carousel.

This week, I invite you, dear listener, to do your best Pat impression and offer someone you love the gift of deep listening. It’s pretty easy to do. Get yourself quiet. Maybe meditate for a few minutes, so you can be your best self. And then ask someone how they’re doing. How they’re really doing. And listen. With your whole heart. With your whole body. With your whole soul. Don’t try to fix anything; don’t offer advice. Thich Nhat Hanh says there’s time for you to do that later. But for right now, allow them to empty their heart. Notice your perceptions as they talk. Notice theirs. Be present for all that is in this one moment just for them.

And watch how they change. Watch how you change. 

Author David Augsburger says, “Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people cannot tell the difference.“ 

Go love someone by listening to them. And if you’d like to share your experience, I’d love to listen. Shoot me note. Write me an email. I’d love to hear about it.

In the meantime, take care. Be well. And, as we like to say at the Carousel of Happiness, “don’t delay joy.” And we’ll see you next time around.