Transforming Workplace Mental Wellness: Interview with Kaur Lass, Co-Founder of Wellness Orbit

Kaur Lass is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Wellness Orbit, where he merges his diverse professional background with his passion for mental wellness. With a solid foundation in spatial planning, Kaur has honed his skills in balancing competing interests and navigating complex regulatory frameworks. His experience in these areas has not only shaped his leadership qualities but has also instilled in him the calmness and systematic approach essential for driving effective mental wellness initiatives.

What truly sets Kaur apart is his proactive mindset and resilience, traits that have enabled him to maintain his own mental well-being throughout his career. Embracing challenges as opportunities for growth, he has carved a unique niche for himself in the realm of workplace wellness advocacy. Kaur's philosophy centers on effective self-leadership as both a catalyst for personal success and a key to fostering collective team well-being. Under his guidance, Wellness Orbit is committed to transforming workplace cultures and enhancing mental wellness for individuals and teams alike.

Below is an interview conducted by Business Outstanders with Kaur Lass, the Founder and Managing Director of Wellness Orbit.

Q. Kaur, what exactly does Wellness Orbit do, and what unique services do you offer to your clients?

Wellness Orbit is a digital mental wellness gym for teams. We offer fully digital proactive mental fitness trainings that employees and team leaders can use to improve their resilience. Most of today's office work demands that you have a fit mind and good self-leadership level. We provide a sustainable path to securing more stress-free access to creativity, personal responsibility and productivity, preventing burnout and mental health issues is here a side benefit.

Q. What kind of feedback have you received from clients or teams that have utilized Wellness Orbit's services, and how has that feedback shaped your offerings?

As a B2B-focused business, we have experienced that earning the trust of decision-makers takes time. However, once people begin participating in the online training sessions we offer, they find them relaxing. Jekaterina Mishina, Trainer from Hurtigruten team summarized their experience this way: "When you come out of this training there is a feeling of fulfillment and distress instead of a stressful situation that you normally do feel after so much training. So just face to face in a calm situation, this I think is a new way of thinking how to conduct e-learning at all." This comes from the video testimonial on our website. Our aim has been to develop an easy-to-use training journey that leaves you mentally in better state than the state you arrived in to our digital training environment. That is the main aspiration.

Q. How has the mission of Wellness Orbit evolved since its inception in 2015, and what key milestones have marked its journey?

Our proactive mental wellness approach has foundation in Dr. Helena Lass’s scientific paper. The milestone we celebrated was the publishing of her scientific paper 'Developing Intra-Personal Skills as a Proactive Way to Personal Sustainability – The Preventative Side of the Mental Health Equation' by Routledge in a book ‘Personal Sustainability. Exploring the Far Side of Sustainable Development’ (London and New York 2018). This globally published paper brings forward a compelling argument for a proactive approach to mental health that everyone is inspired to work towards. This marks a step towards aiding humanity in discovering a more personally sustainable path. The other important milestone for us is that the staff of University of Tartu has been a returning customer; it matters as Dr. Lass psychiatry at this university.

Q. Who are the individuals or mentors that have had the most significant influence on your approach to mental wellness and leadership, and what key lessons did you learn from them?

Ingvar Villido has been a huge inspiration, even before his globally published book “Practical Consciousness”. His systematic approach to awareness teachings has had a strong influence on our approach. If you struggle to get rid of negative emotions, I recommend studying his book. The technique to release negative emotions in the book works. Also, Dr. Lass’s long-term practical experience as a psychiatrist and my own as a long-time entrepreneur have mattered as well. Naturally, there are many sources of inspiration.

Q. Can you share a personal experience where you faced significant challenges, and how did you develop resilience during that time?

I have experienced a lot of external pressure as my previous business area was spatial planning. Every plan demanded dedication and focus as you needed to reach the numerous agreements demanded by law during the tightly regulated spatial planning process. More than 20 plans, out of the 450 that I was involved with, ended up in court. Every court case turned out victorious, as we did our work professionally and managed to keep calm with our team. What I found out is that the important thing for a team leader is to know how to stay calm and calm others down. In every person, the same basic inner rules apply, be it a friend, business partner, or opponent. Once you learn those intrapersonal rules, life and work will be much more stress-free.

Q. What motivated you to transition from a traditional career in spatial planning to establishing a fully digital mental wellness gym for teams?

Level of impact that I can make, I understood that the intrapersonal skills I learned are worth spreading. I can help more people this way than making plans. Besides, I have pretty much planned all you can plan, I was once even the project leader for our National Spatial Plan, Estonia 2030+.

Q. What innovative technologies or trends do you foresee playing a significant role in the future of mental wellness in the workplace?

AI for sure messes with us. We feel we somehow need to be able to think quicker and multitask more and take even fewer breaks and less downtime but this breaks us. We can't be constantly on, we need to develop intrapersonal skills to lead our lives. I actually wrote a longer blog post about how we need to upgrade ourselves to remain masters of AI and the automated world. On this blog I write “Knowledge about our own intrapersonal skills can unlock our internal potential, furthering our capacity to function at optimal mental and emotional levels “. Learning intrapersonal skills is similar to learning to read, both skills open up new opportunities and knowledge, broaden and deepen our understanding in multi-dimensional ways. By mastering our awareness and intrapersonal skills, we are able to relearn how to learn.

Q. What are your short-term and long-term goals for Wellness Orbit, and how do you see the company evolving in the next five years? 

Our primary goal is to attract bigger clients and make people more aware of the benefits of the new proactive mental wellness approach, which delivers up to a tenfold ROI. We aim to achieve this one person, one CEO, and one HR leader at a time, but also through conference talks and content-rich articles. We hope to have a much more international team and outreach in 5 years as our systematic proactive mental wellness approach is truly unique.

 Q. As a company founder and managing director, how do you personally maintain your mental wellness amidst the demands of running a business?

What I truly love is to listen to silence, both external and internal silence. The silence allows me to become aware of my awareness, it is a state without thoughts and emotions that restores my inner wellness. The inner silence is freely accessible 24/7 and it has a natural aspect of inner joy attached to it. That is why my priority every morning is sitting in silence and establishing a strong connection with it. After a silent hour in the morning, I am ready to take on any external challenge without any inner reactions. It is a conscious response that is my superpower and companion.

Q. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs aiming to create businesses focused on wellbeing and mental health? What are the key challenges they should prepare for?

Choose a different business area! Seriously, it has been the toughest challenge of my life. It is now my ninth year of investing in it and working for free to push the mental wellness revolution. Take the journey of creating a business focused on mental health and wellbeing only, if you know how to keep yourself well first. You can’t run a business if you are unwell and don’t understand the huge stigma wall that we have been and still are up against.

"We have one life, and knowing how to integrate work and personal life into a holistic one that allows us to serve others and have a calm mind is a blessing. The blessing you have a power to create!"