Meet Joellen Schilke

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joellen Schilke. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

JoEllen, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Purpose was something I grew more than found. I was shy and had speech impediments as a kid. I still wanted to be sociable, but not have to talk too much. Kids. It turned out that I could get people together, and get them talking to each other while I stayed in my fairly silent comfort zone. I liked having a community, it made me feel grounded and that I belonged.
Over the years it became habit to repeat that wherever I went. Get people together: get them talk to each other. It feels like weaving a tapestry, instead we were weaving a community. Communities are sometimes built, as we see in our country right now, by having a common enemy. I believe, with all my heart, in the opposite.
Building community by giving the sense of belonging binds us together in better and stronger than by using some false attribute. Building community allows everyone in the community to lead by example, to value who they are and be valued.
Writing this makes me think that my purpose just grew actually out of laziness. Uh oh.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Right now I am the Executive Director of SPIFFS, the St. Petersburg International Folk Fair Society. It’s a wonderful organization whose mission is to celebrate global cultures locally. I’ve been here for one year of its 5o year history. We touch on immigration issues, peace making, and the arts. (And food, so much delicious food from around the world. Is that why I took the job? Maybe…) I also do engagement and writing for Sea Us Rise, an environmental nonprofit that uses music to inspire climate action. I also produce a weekly public radio show on the arts, Art in Your Ear on WMNF (for about 30 years). And volunteer for a couple of organizations.
The common thread through these are telling the stories of everyone around us.
If the story is hard, how can we make it better?
If someone is afraid to take an action, how can we make it possible for them?
How do we give a sense of place to those around us, so they will feel they belong.
SPIFFS is getting ready to hold its 49th annual folk fair, which is a massive undertaking. One of the things that makes these long weeks wonderful is when I tell someone who grew up in the area what I am working on, they 100% of the time break into a big smile and tell me how much they loved going to it as a kid (we have two days of schools attending). It gives me hope that those attending, and those remembering how much they loved attending, realize that all of the different immigrants presenting this fair are part of the same community. That none of us are others, we all belong.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Curiosity is a fantastic quality to develop. Be curious about other people and their lives; about how things work; and about what is under the surface. Curiosity opens the entire world to you. It is absolutely essential. It gives you so much information (and isn’t intelligence mainly understanding the connections between things? Curiosity creates intelligence.)

My first career was as a mental health therapist, and that taught me that empathy can both be painful and beautiful. It’s okay to be a bleeding heart. Actually, it is better to be a bleeding heart, and care deeply about all living things in general, and specific beings as well. I am very imperfect, but know if I lead with empathy, a good and generous outcome is far more likely.

It can be scary to live life through empathy. Start with true kindness – which is different from niceness – to yourself and others. Being kind does not mean being easily manipulated or letting people behave in ways that are wrong. It means honoring them as a full person. Kind and firm is a really good leadership style.

Listening is one of the deepest skills you can develop. Don’t think about your response while the other person is still talking. Listen to them, not just to their words, but their tone, their patterns of expression, all of it. Listening gives you most of the information you need about a person to evaluate how you can interact with them.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

Time – there’s never enough time. I don’t like rushing, and I’m not good at it.
What I discovered about managing time is that I am not a good multitasker, and I don’t believe that most people are either. Multitasking usually produces average results (I would not apply this to all jobs though – I owned a restaurant and we were all multitasking kings and queens there.)
I usually do one task at a time, focus, get it as far done as I can in the time I have. If it still needs more work, I write notes for what comes next, then close it down and move on. I try to understand what my schedule will be each day, what I have to get done for all the different life facets that day, and make lists. Crossing things off lists feels great. Gets all the dopamine flowing.
I also protect my time. If someone wants my attention, that is fine. If they are wasting my time though, I cut that out pretty quickly. It surprises me sometimes how much I resent people wasting my time – that is something I am working on. There is so much to do, and I like my downtime too.

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Image Credits

B&W photo by Carrie Waite

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