Maura Barclay
Love as an energy is very nourishing it's very healing is very, very powerful. It is it is our greatest power on this planet. And it has been diminutized  in my opinion to this Awful ridiculous, saccharine sanctimonious I'm gonna go on with the adjectives February 14 nonsense. Romantic love is, my goodness, it is a grain of sand on the on the beach. Human love as a as an energy is as large and powerful as the universe.

Jeff Ma
Hello and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. But we want to tackle topics that most business business leaders tend to shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. As always, I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And I like to have conversations and hear stories with real people talk about real businesses and real love things like that. And one of the amazing joys of working in business culture, in general is the opportunity to discover, meet and learn from all these incredible like minded people who are on similar missions. And today's guest is exactly one of those people. Her name is Maura Barclay, and she's been a culture consultant and trainer for over a decade. And she partners with organizations to create culture and talent strategies that foster psychological safety, create belonging and unleashed love for work, which I love. She is also the host of the C-Change podcast, which you should definitely check out we'll talk about a little bit more later. But welcome to the show Maura, how are you? I'm really well thank you, Jeff, I love this word is going to be or it's going to be hammered today in a very gentle, loving way. Because this is what's missing from business, humanity and philial love. And I want to I want to unpack that with you today. We have a desperate need for love and trust and a sense of family in organizations. And COVID has shown us that. So I'm really excited to talk about love in business. So if you're listening in a place with pen and paper, start your love counter. Now the number of times we say love, we're going for a record today.

Maura Barclay
After five somewhere, then you take a shot every time you hear the word love, but you're not going to do tomorrow.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, I don't want to responsible for I don't wanna be responsible for.Okay, so before we dive into all of that, please, I want to talk about you for someone talking about just where where you kind of your roots come from, especially in this in the sense of how you got to all the things that you do today, where's your passion come from? Where's your story?

Maura Barclay
Well, it's it's a multi passionate story. And I for the longest time thought I was unemployable because I was never happy in fully happy fully satisfied in any job. And so I'll get to the end and then and then reverse engineer. So I recently partnered with the predictive index, which is a psychometric assessment or behavioral assessment company that is I've never seen anything like it. It was it was so magic. When my results were delivered to me. My entire life suddenly fell into place. With one six minute behavioral assessment. I'm like, Oh, I'm not unemployable. I'm just in their in their syste called a Maverick. I'm like, Oh, I've never been in an appropriate workplace. That is why I was never happy. I was always in the wrong job was never the right person for the right role. I was very led to service industry. So it was firefighter for a little while, I was really attracted to places where I was kind of not the first and only but a minority. I've always been the minority as a woman in male dominated fields. So I started in on the ambulance and with fire department for almost a decade, and had harassment thing turn up. And it was because I was so wanting harmony, and wanting to be that that one woman who didn't complain and got along with everybody in my youthful exuberance I neglected to realize that there were some people who needed more information than that. So there was a harassment suit, sadly, and I learned about, Oh, these are ghost benefits. The policies are there but you're not supposed to use them. You will be excommunicated from the culture if you use the policies that were put in place to protect people. And that really sucked and I didn't like it and I'm like, I'm not a fit here I'm out. I would risk my life for you.But suddenly I'm you know, you can't stand the sight of me because I called an individual to the carpet for being abusive, and individual and you've complained bitterly about for I've heard you complain bitterly about for the last five years. But nobody wanted to do anything about it. So I was like, yeah, that's not a culture fit. So that started this whole journey of recognizing culture and how I fit into it and right person for the right role and seeing where the misfits were, I love this word, misfit. You know, I've been a misfit my whole freakin life. And I'm like, where are my people? Where's my place? I don't know. So my entire life has been a journey to find my fit. Fire Department was great. I loved being in service. I loved being there for somebody's first breath, somebody's last breath, providing emergency care that actually saved lives and actually having one of those stories where we got to see them dead and then got to beat them when they were alive again, like, wow, that felt like really important work, Jeff. But it's still one person to one person kind of you know, we there's only so much you can do. So then I wound up going into two places, the film and television world and the mind body space because I worked you know, therapeutic yoga, martial arts teacher training these types of things to pay for my bills while I was working in front of and behind the camera in film and television.And once again, looking for my people, actors. We're not it no offense to you all actors, but if they weren't.And I actually made some progress in the industry. I got on a couple of really big television shows I kicked open that door Jeff I looked around whatnot a fit, don't like it, my personality. Let's just say I got cast as a gay woman and every single thing that I did, because this is very gay in LA right here. For those of you who aren't watching and just listening I short hair and biceps. So anyway, that didn't really work out and I love the mind body space. But again, it was like one to one helping and even though I was training, you know, dozens and dozens of of teachers to deliver the deliver this therapeutic modality that was helping really heal people's bodies and, and spirits in the process. It just wasn't this there was a ceiling there, like couldn't leave the lifestyle I wanted. There was a lot of sort of sanctimony and sort of fake, fake guru business going on. And I was just like, ick, now, I don't like it. I don't want to be a personality, I want to help. So that wasn't a fit. And then I got into consulting. And I started with women's intuitive empowerment. I wrote a book called unbreakable woman compassionate self defense and empowerment, helping women use the skills they've already got, that they were born with these powerful, powerful skills that they need never kick and punch. You don't need to fight like a man to defend yourself from one. End of story. And so it's all about the science of intuition. I be I was an embodied anatomy instructor. I love science, and like science and esoteric stuff together, you know, like science is the new language of mysticism, if you will, as Dr. Joe Dispenza says, so I really wanted to provide the science behind intuition to help women trust themselves. And I built a whole career, I went to, you know, the International Monetary Fund and worked in the US military, once again, male dominated as a consultant to bring original safety, advanced awareness training to these to these folks, and to change the culture around harassment. We don't need to help women and men learn to stand up for themselves. We need to train people not to harass, start at the root. A good offense is the defense. So it started the it started the process of what I'm doing now. And I realized I'm working at the level of symptom trying to help women protect themselves. I want to help men feel better. I want to help men heal their wounds. I want to help men create a culture here in the United States where it's safe to have a feeling where it's safe to say you love another man. And it's very clear that you're not a homosexual person. You can just love your fellow and and female colleagues without being creepy or weird about it. Help men feel a sense of innate power so they don't need to go seeking it in jobs and money and objects and women. I think that's Are we allowed to curse on your show? I forgot. There's no rules on this show. That's bullshit. It's complete bullshit. Men have been sold a bill of goods and it's killing them. And it's creating all kinds of chaos in the entire world. And believe if, and hey, they don't want the man, I want my help, that's fine. But I've seen enough, I've worked in male dominated cultures, I've seen him enough men's hearts suffering, that they may not know they need help. And they might look and they may not want it. That's what I'm here to do. Because healthy men, don't harass anybody. Healthy, happy men have really happy, healthy lives. And the happier they are these these are the people who are in charge white hetero men are the ones making the rules, the ones creating the policies, dominating power and influence in this country. If there's anything I can do to help them feel better, it's going to ripple out and everyone's going to be treated better, and it's going to be paid for. It's just, we have to start where the wound the big wounds are. That's how I got into doing what I'm doing now.

Jeff Ma
I want to, I guess, though, dive into kind of your current, I guess your current purpose and objectives, if you will, like where are you spending your time and energy now, I spend my time and energy. With my feet firmly planted in two places, which I feel are kind of essential for each other, they're not kind of essential, they are critically connected they are, you can't do one without the other. Because I have such a passion for helping to find the right fit. Because I've been a misfit for three decades. It took me until I was 52 years old, to find my people and to find my fit. Because I've been a teacher my whole life. That's been the common theme is I've been blessed with a particular gift to be able to teach anything to any grown up. Now I have a 10 year old and I've learned very, I've learned a very hard lesson over the course of her your young life that I cannot teach children. You don't want me to. I'll talk to your teen, but I can't teach them shit I do. My daughter has taught me that. Like, please don't ask me to teach kids. I'll create a psychologically safe space for them and love them unconditionally, but can't teach them to tie their shoes. You know, I'm out. But as far as grownups go, I have found over the years that I've been able to teach anything to any grown up. And I thought, okay, if I have this gift, if I have the gift of leadership, the gift of the sort of personal authority, people believe what I say that's why I got an acting, Jeff, because I'm like, Oh, when I open my mouth, people believe it. So I never get caught acting. I'm just telling a story. And they think it's real. I thought, well, that's great gift. How can I use this to do good to do more good to do bigger good. So this is a combination of me finally finding a a role that is big enough for my energy and my skill set, which is very diverse, because I've been like I would say a generalist my whole life, right with all the different things I've done. But the teaching has been central to them for helping people find their right fit. So helping companies find the right help and matching up people in companies through this behavioral analysis. So it takes something very difficult to pin down and complex, which is people. But if you measure what drives them, you can accurately predict what behaviors they will have and what their needs are so we can create a Thrive equation. It's clear, it's measurable, and the data is unassailable. So that's one piece but once you have the right people in the right role, you must create a culture where they want to stay. You have to love them. them, and they have to love you. It's a must. And the people who love their jobsare the right fit at the right in the right culture and the leaders and in the HR departments, really everyone. People who have this sense of their own agency and their own accountability to create love, to create that their own engagement and to create engagement amongst each other amongst departments through the hierarchies. This is the other piece of it. It's great when you get the right people in the right role. But if your culture sucks, they will leave and find one that doesn't. And I want to help them basically create a nest where everybody feels great, and everybody belongs and everybody's growing. There's no reason why self actualization shouldn't happen at work, we spend the majority of our adult lives at work, and companies that help people grow, especially with millennials and Gen Z. That is what they want. They want purpose. They want mission, I want to help companies build that sense of mission. And if they've got it, help them communicate it regularly. And more importantly, this is one of my like trademark words, create cultural continuity across the EX they need to know exactly what your culture is, the moment they see your recruiting your job post, it's in there. If you are not inoculating every piece of content with the DNA of your culture, you are missing an opportunity, you're missing an opportunity to start a relationship with the people that you want to work that you want to be loyal to you and use that discretionary effort, you have to put the discretionary effort into inviting them as the CEO, invite that entry level person into your family. And you are the head of that family, male, female doesn't matter. You are the head of that family, you set the tone, what are the house rules people should know before they even get a 15 minute interview phone call.That's how that's what I want to do. That's what I'm that's what I'm doing. It's what I love to do.

I love that. I want to post something for you because you talk a lot about culture fit. And the way that we like to help and teach around culture fit is almost like this two very opposing statements. Number one is like for those who are seeking a company seeking people who are looking for that cultural fit all the things you just said, which is seek that look for it, see if it's plastered everywhere, and like, really look, with your heart for the right cultural fit. And then the kind of ironic flip side is, as a business, as you're hiring and recruiting, stop looking for a cultural fit, and look for a culture add. So you're looking for people who are bringing something table that you don't already have that are bringing not another one of somebody you have or a mold that you have or something that you've got in spades, but more so something that you're that's more unexpected, something that can maybe even potentially mold and change your culture. What are your thoughts on that type of approach?

Maura Barclay
Yeah, that's a that's a next level meta business that I'm so glad that you brought up because I've had the the privilege of speaking with some founders. There's I can think of one in particular on my on my show on the on the CChange podcast. And they said, because I'm always like, and you know, people like us who are like, Why is it so hard? What is going on? What is the disconnect? Why isn't DEI working? This is not rocket science, I don't understand. And they helped me understand. First of all, it takes a group of homogenized people, predominantly white men to look around the executive team and realize, Oh, crap, we're all the same. Now we have things that we don't know. And nobody do help us know what those things are. So that's the first thing. They have to recognize that it's needed. And that there is this phenomenon that happened that that just made such complete sense. And I would say I'm no neuroscientists, but based on the research that I've done to inform my own process and the programs that I put together.We are wired to resist the other. We are wired to be a little bit suspicious of things that are different than us. Right? Alright. So alright, so people who are listening and not watching, Jeff is nodding, we're getting a lot of smile and nod with each other. So this particular founder was smart at the emotional intelligence And the self awareness had enough of that, that he recognized what they have been doing. And I think every hiring manager is doing this and not realize you're doing this particularly hiring managers because they got a job to do they got those roles to feel, they don't think they want to feel equipped, they want to fill them well, those two things are mutually exclusive, sometimes, by the way. So unless you have a tool, and you're being data driven, I found out I've recently come to you know, I saw the light. So to your point, Jeff, these men, these people, predominantly white are looking for DEI, they're looking for something different, that feels the same. So their, their, their requirements, their criteria, exclude the very people that they're trying to hire because of systemic racism. And he's like, I have all these things like I think he called them blue chip candidates. So they had all these boxes that they wanted to tick, they wanted to see that they went to these types of schools got this type of training, these types of internships had these types of experiences. All right, no, go find DEI they'll go find diverse candidates like, no, that's why there's this big push right now to higher on skill and attitude. Because really, that's what you need. All you need is that skill. And frankly, you can, I think you need attitude first. I mean, if you're hiring someone to to code, they need to know how to write code, okay, but who, who cares where they got it, give them the opportunity to to demonstrate their skill, then make sure that they have an attitude that has a growth mindset. And once you've got that, with the exception of some other factors that are in the job target, that's all you need, like stop looking at resumes. This is the idea. Yeah, this all of us, oh, we don't hire resumes, we hire people bull shit, bullshit, because people with my skill set had this crazy skill set, I would never be able to get an interview, I would have to have a ninja rewrite my resume. Because people like me, it I've built a six figure business in the height of COVID, by myself, that I had to hire an assistant and an ops manager, I could never get hired anywhere, because people are in these blinders this framework of what hiring is. And we need to give the system not the people because the people are awesome, but the system needs an enema, because it's not working. And we need to redefine what we're looking for. And when we get that feeling of this feels weird, and it doesn't feel like it's a good fit. That's where you begin the search. It should feel unfamiliar and a little bit weird. Changing the criteria. But you know, you have to have a culture where you have the freedom to be creative, and innovate, be it'd be a little bit disruptive experiment, this whole this, this whole system needs to be innovated everything, we get technology to support the role, or we get the like hiring. But the system itself doesn't necessarily change. It's just been automated and, and made more efficient. But it's it's humans bringing their bias because that's natural, to the process. So culture add will feel different. So the moment you get that feeling of this feels like something that unfamiliar, that's where you start.

Jeff Ma
Wow, that is pretty incredible. I, I'm just kind of jaw on the floor right now around just the actual story and journey itself of, of where you've been, what you've gone through all the different hoops you've had to go through to land here. And it's so interesting, because where you landed is like, in a way, the same destination as myself and many others in one way or the other. And yet, we're here for different reasons, we're here with different motivations. It's really, really cool to see that because, you know, while you come from this lens of harassment and white male dominated things, those are actually my targets, too, right? Like, when you talk about bringing love as a business strategy to the corporate world? Yeah, in America. In most of the world, we're talking about the white male, heterosexual male CEOs and things like that, who traditionally will see the word love and kind of either scoff at it or dismiss it or feel uncomfortable around it. So your mission is my mission. And it's really cool to see your story play out to come alongside kind of how ours played out as well. So yeah, thank you for sharing that that was really, really inspirational to even start with.

Yeah, you're hitting on so many things that man that really hit home, we talk about all the time. And it's it's really great to hear from your perspective as well. Because it's hard to get these points across people. What I've found is that as as we worked on culture, and and love and all these things, and whether it's di or all these other problems, it makes a lot of sense when you get it. But you have when you work with people who don't get it. You know, the traditional method has always been to break it into these pieces that are really polarizing be like, Oh, humans have bias and people like What do you mean, I have bias I'm not, I'm not racist. I'm not all these things, and you'd lose them. And what we've seen time and again, is that when you want to talk about real change and real progress in these cultural spaces, all you no matter what you're talking about, all you're really asking people to do is to get uncomfortable, is find a way to move away from their comfort zone, whether it's how you hire and di in the way you use staff and things like that, or it's just the types of conversations you're willing to have or it's that process that's been in place for years and years. But guess what that process was created by a person that person didn't trust anybody? So that's why that process exists like being willing to, like you said, try and experiment and just do something like we found any time people are doing things that are just uncomfortable that they really don't want to do and errantly Good things come out of it, for the most part, you're learning something you're growing, you're having that mindset to grow out of it and unlearning things that you've known to be true that you've assumed are factual, you're able to suddenly be like, well, maybe there's a different way, maybe there's something else in the world is missing. So much of that, that that process and that that thought, and it's, it's, it sounds like that's exactly what you're trying to draw to people in all the things that you're doing.

Maura Barclay
Exactly, Jeff, but I and I think one of the reasons that we are having so much inertia, is that without getting political, let's just say, we have developed an outrage, culture and outrage society, there are people who benefit monetarily greatly from this outrage, society. So it is very strategic. And there are people who are, you know, most people are unaware that they are being manipulated in this way for the gain of of companies. And again, like I don't want to get too specific about it. But let's just say a good example of this is there's a reason you don't hear a lot of happy stories on the news. And let's just leave it at that. There's, it's very intentional, there's not when it comes to business, nothing's being done by accident, folks. So just take that, just take that tuck that away. So to your point, because of this outrage, fingerpointing cancel culture, business. And listen, I understand that that's how revolutions start. That's so that's how change starts is getting angry, I understand that. But what we have here is, in my opinion, we have developed a, a shame and blame mechanism that inhibits people from taking a harmless look at themselves, we have created Jeopardy around personal growth. So that when you are confronted, so to speak, quote, unquote, when you're confronted with your own bias, instead of a natural sort of curiosity of Oh, I wonder how my cultural conditioning has limited me and my point of view, and I'm really curious the point of view of someone with different lived experiences, how that could enrich me and how I could enrich them. This is more like natural nature. This is a presumed positive intent conversation you and I are having the moment that we get blame, shame and judgment into the mix. Nobody's going to step into that mess. Nobody, because you don't have we're not, we are not culturally conditioned to appreciate love and accept ourselves. Because if we did, the advertisers couldn't sell us anything. And Northern, neither could be Big Pharma. And this is this is not like, what it was, what is it called when you think like this crazy, this? Oh, it's all machinations of the big businesses. It's not like that, but there are certain businesses that are in the business of keeping you just a little bit unhealthy. They don't want to solve your problem. They want to make it so that you can live with your problem with with their product. Yeah. So it's just capitalism. It's America and America. You know, like air Ravenna really has it nailed. Like, if you could, if you could get to wellness, and happiness and love and self exploration and personal development in ways that felt supportive and loving and everybody was in it together. Nobody was perfect. It would really take down the chronic stress and all of the neurological and immune responses to that chronic stress. So and this is a whole nother thing about what love does. Love as an energy is very nourishing. It's very healing is very, very powerful. It is it is our greatest power on this planet. And it has been diminutized into this in my opinion. Awful, ridiculous. saccharin sanctimonious I'm gonna go on with the adjectives February 14 Nonsense. Romantic love is My goodness, it is a grain of sand on the on the beach, human love as a as an energy is as large and powerful as the universe. It is largely I believe, why we're here is to transform ourselves through it, because love has the filial love. And we can unpack that it has the qualities of compassion and unconditional acceptance.

And we are not trained to love ourselves at all, we are trained to gather things to prove that we are worthy of love, different, different. Again, I feel like this is the root of everything if if there's a particular gender in charge. And this is completely subjective, just want to be clear, I'm not man bashing at all. It just so happened the way that we evolve. It's man in charge right now. That's the way we evolved, things could have gone totally differently. It could have been gay, Asian women in charge of everything. If if the history had been different, it could it's completely subjective. So the fact that I'm talking about white men, again, it's just what is no judgment in it whatsoever. But if we have a particular gender or a particular type of person in charge, and the earth is not doing so well, and we've got a lot of issues, whoever's in charge, is also in charge of some of the issues. Just some degree, not all of it, it's not all on their hands, we all have our personal accountability, we all need to practice a little bit more personal responsibility, my opinion. And that's part of the culture training that I do. It starts with the CEO, but then it is supported by everybody, everybody's got to step up. Yeah.

Jeff Ma
More I want to feed off of your energy for the rest of the day. So I can just have it, store it and use it for for months and months. Because I just love it. I'm just overflowing with this. But alas, we arrive at a time. But I want to also make sure I save a little bit of time. So we can talk a little bit about your podcast, I want listeners to be able to know where they can hear more of what you're having to say in the guests that you bring on that amazing show. So could you talk a little about C-change?

Yeah, C-change. And it's spelled like this the letter C as in like C suite dash change. And that because I talk about white white men and how they've been a whole I feel there's a lot of them are suffering and they're suffering from there from from a heart perspective, from a love perspective. I believe there are a lot of men who see that what's been the way we've been doing things isn't working. But there's still a prevailing culture, there's still the, you know, status quo, this conventional thinking. And there's a lot of I believe there's a significant population of of white men sitting in senior leadership, either on boards or executive teams right now that know that it's time they know, it's time to bring diverse voices, they know it's time to bring some people of color and some women into the decision making teams because of all of the unassailable data about how, how much more productive those companies are, how much more profitable those companies are. But they don't know where to start. They don't know necessarily how to do it, what best practices are, they just never necessarily seen it modeled. C-change is i i interview predominantly, but not exclusively, predominantly self proclaimed rich white guys who have put women in their roles as President, as presidents or men who actually work, you know, work for women, CEOs and senior leaders who have consciously brought in diverse voices and done it, they say it's not easy, but they've done it well, they've done it successfully, even though it's done. Well, you know, day by day, I've created this podcast so that others in their in their same demographic, can listen to it without feeling judged, feel like they can relate because they're in the bro club together. And they can hear they can hear these these ideas and these suggestions from other guys that they can relate to. Because I can't tell them anything. I've never walked a day in a white guy CEO shoes, but I can interview the men who have. So they're talking about best practices and how they came to the realization that they needed to do it, how they did it, and how it's been since they did it. And my desire is to get more senior leaders, influencers, business influencers. If that's you, please connect with me, because I'd like to talk to you see if you'd be a good fit for the show. And also share the show share the show with with individuals who need that support, but in a non judgy way, like hey, it's not easy to be in a rich white guy right now. You've got all the power but is not real. There's a lot of issues there. The rug has been pulled out from underneath you and to some degree. So I want to create psychological safety for these men so that they feel safe to lift the velvet rope and bring some other voices to their leadership teams. That's what the show is all about.

Amazing. Maura, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I really appreciate all the energy you brought. Everything you had to share was really profound for me. So I hope the audience enjoyed that as well. Thank you so much for your time today.

Maura Barclay
Thank you so much, Jeff. It's a real pleasure.

Jeff Ma
And thanks to our listeners once again, we always appreciate you tuning in and we hope you will also continue to check out our book Love as a Business Strategy available, where it's always been available on Amazon and other places and subscribe rate the podcast. Tell your friends, and we will see you all next week.