Jeff Ma
Hey folks, we have some exciting news for you all. We have just launched a brand new company founded on the tenets of our Love as a Business Strategy philosophy, the same philosophy that you've grown to know and love. This new venture is called culture Plus. Culture Plus is a culture as a service company that provides training experiences, consulting services, and digital tools to help companies achieve high performing and high reliability cultures and teams. To learn more, visit culture-plus.com. That's culture- plus.com. And now, let's get to the show. You know, I'm always excited to connect with others out in the world who are also working to bring humanity to the workplace. And today's guests are Giselle and David Taraba, who are co founders of Maitri Center for love and compassion. It's a really passionate discussion around the keys to successful workplaces. And they share their approach to bringing compassion to this equation. So I really hope you enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome to love has a business strategy podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We are here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from, and we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. Hello, I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And I'm here to have conversations and hear stories about how real people and real businesses operate around these these thoughts and ideas. So I have the pleasure of being joined by two guests today. Giselle and David Taraba. They are the co-owners of the Maitri Center for Love and Compassion. And I want to just read one line from their website. If you don't mind, it says, If you belong to an organization where staff turnover or staff sick leaves are high, where people feel devalued, excluded, and marginalized, we want to help you and your organization become a more loving and supportive place, then you've come to the right spot. So I'm excited to have them here. Because that's like, okay, that mission on at face value is super aligned. So I'm excited here to, to talk to them and have a great conversation around what that looks like in their world. So welcome to the show, Giselle. And David, how are you today?

David Taraba
Thank you for having us. We're great.

Gissele Taraba
Yeah, Thank you so much for having us.

David Taraba
Pleasure to be here.

Jeff Ma
I'm excited. I want to put you on the spot a little bit. I like to ask a random icebreaker question because I can it's my show. So just I'll go with you first. The question is, when was the last time you failed at something?

Gissele Taraba
Oh, failed at something wow, I kind of feel like I fail all the time. So which one? Um, I will just say yesterday. It what I mean by fail is like, for the way we perceive it, or at least how I perceive it. Failure is really just a redirection or an opportunity for growth. And so I'm constantly growing and learning and being kind of redirected we have to constantly pivot especially during COVID. And so there are times like I, I've really gotten to the point I feel that I treat myself with compassion and with mindfulness and can really deal with things from the stance of equanimity, right, like so. But there are times when I get really caught in my own drama and my own story. And so in those times, I feel okay, I'm, I'm reflecting back to myself what I'm thinking and believing, and therefore I need to kind of redirect. So yeah, so it's a it's a constant having to redirect when you're a business owner.

David Taraba
it doesn't always feel that way. In the moment, though.

Gissele Taraba
No,

Jeff Ma
I love it. Great answer. David. David, your question is, what's the best thing about owning a business together as two of you together? From your perspective, what's the best thing about being able to work

David Taraba
Best thing? Well, I don't know if I to narrow down to one would be a challenge. It specific to our business, it works really well because it's we're life partners so we're growing together, we've chosen each other on our journey as we develop and become more enlightened. So that in itself lends it to this business because we're in the business of spreading and sharing compassion and helping others maybe learn about that within their own life. So having each other in this is is awesome. To narrow down to one thing, it's it's kind of I don't know, maybe I would say this we challenge each other to grow. So often Giselle will have an idea and that she'll bounce off me. And we, I may push a little bit, too. We kind of pull out each other's limiting beliefs, I guess you could say. And in doing that, we can become a better version of ourselves. And we can bring, I think, a better product or shine a brighter light, I guess. It to keep it a little bit. Simple. Does that does that? I don't know.

Jeff Ma
There's no wrong answers. And that's, that's awesome to hear. I think you guys are both already moving into kind of the theme, I guess, if you if anyone visits the website or sees looks up what you guys do the word compassionate use earlier, all over the place. Want to dive into that, but I'd rather first start with your story. And Giselle again, I'll start with you. kind of high level, I guess, walk us through like Giselle, and David, or the story of Maitri, if you will.

Gissele Taraba
Yeah, I never thought I would be doing my treat. To be honest, my dream was always to work in child protection. I was always wanting to help families and children, especially who experienced child abuse. And so when I finally realized that dream, and I got there, I saw it witnessed a lot of suffering. I witnessed a lot of suffering in terms of the workers, trying to help the families and not knowing how I witnessed a lot of suffering and the children and the families that we work with. And so the way that child welfare is set up is not set up, to remind people their own power, it's not set up to remind people their own self love and self compassion in how it aspirations it's in, you know, right or wrong. It's how it's set up, it's really focused on fear. And so I felt really challenged to make a difference I had originally intended to, you know, really be able to help the families and be able to help the children and the workers. And so I really, I started to burn out myself, I saw a lot of the suffering, and I really identified with the suffering. And at the same time, I was kind of going through my own journey. I had anxiety for quite a bit of my journey in this lifetime, and was having panic attacks and so on. And I think I hit a point where I was kind of done with my negative thinking in my in my fears, and my worries. So I was a meditator and was doing, you know, practicing mindfulness. But I didn't hit upon compassion, self love and self compassion, really, until I started looking for a solution to the suffering I experienced and witnessed in my fellow colleagues in the client. So I want to try to find a solution to their suffering. But what I found weirdly was a healing for myself. And so through experiencing, you know, mindfulness and compassion, and then tapping into a greater love for myself, I was really able to kind of, from my perspective, really heal a lot of areas in my life, including my relationship with my husband, I saw how I was through my own fears, contributing to at times disharmony. And so I brought this the compassion based approaches back into my workplace and actually saw transformation, but in small pockets, and so I left the workplace wanting to do this on a larger scale, having seen and felt and experienced the change firsthand. I wanted to do this on a larger scale. And so David was already an entrepreneur and so we talked about doing this together, but I'll let him talk about his journey.

Jeff Ma
David, what's your what's your add on or take to all that?

David Taraba
So the question just to reiterate, the question was what was my journey together?

Jeff Ma
Maitri but also your your part of the journey I guess your half of the journey? Sure. Maitri and even just your own personal journey? Yeah.

David Taraba
Alright. Sure. I won't go into too much detail. The I've always been always been searching and on the path to my own awareness awakening enlightenment. Ever since I was a baby. That's this was the lifetime for sure. This was in so in that journey, or on that journey, rather. I witnessed a lot of suffering. Predominantly within myself. I woke up and I was I understood a lot of where I was suffering and how I was suffering. So I chose for myself to work through that. And it was self direct itself, everything that I would just stumble upon different people at the perfect time in my life to, to remember things from and so on and so forth. And it got, it just kept going, which was wonderful. I'm not complete. So, but anyway, and that led to eventually, at one point of my life, maybe I don't know, five years ago, I had a, an idea of, I guess, an awakening to want to start to share, I felt I got to a place in my own journey where I wanted to start to share and with others, and kind of bring my wisdom to the, to the table, so to speak, for others to hear and maybe grab pieces of like, like those before me have done for me and others. So I proposed that to Giselle. And at that time. Within her own journey, she wasn't placed to do that. So we kind of just kept moving on. And now you fast forward to where we are, I guess this would be a few years ago now. And it was the timing was right, and kind of came together, right Gisseles journey aligned with mine. And we chose to kind of it just kind of all came together perfectly. And I don't know what else can I say?

Jeff Ma
No, that's great. And, and for the listeners, I guess, break down a little bit about Maitri itself. And like what, what you guys are all about and just give the elevator pitch for that? Yeah, of

Gissele Taraba
course. So we offer I guess, two major streams, which is we work one on one with individuals to help them remember their own self love and self compassion, from our perspective is an unlearning. We believe that at our core, we are loving and compassionate beings. And that's our default setting. But we have learned all of these ideas and thoughts and beliefs that keep us stuck and keep us not being loving to ourselves and others. And so for us, it's an unlearning, where take we take you on a journey with us on really kind of unmasking and kind of releasing some of those limiting thoughts and beliefs that David was mentioning. And so we do that via one on one support, as well as workshops, we like to work with groups of people, because we feel that people work best together in community. And so they learn from each other, they see, hey, I'm not the only one, you know, struggling with this particular thought or this particular journey. And so they create, you know, kind of groups that, you know, come together. And the other thing we do as well as we work with businesses, to to increase the amount of compassion in the workplace, I think, you know, you had mentioned talked about businesses earlier, we kind of made emotions wrong in the workplace. It's wrong to feel emotions, it's wrong to be vulnerable, it's wrong to make mistakes. So I love that you started with a failing question. And so we come in, we help organizations kind of remember the humanity of the workplace and starts in look at policies and procedures, and see whether or not they're really treating someone humanely. Like as a human being, are they treating somebody as a number? And so in through compassion, we feel it helps us have difficult conversations and lean in. Right? And so that and that's helpful for organizations in dealing with recent equity issues, issues of bullying and harassment. In my ideal bubble world, I would love if somebody workplan who has bullied and harassed someone, if they could actually take some compassion basic lessons, if they could learn about compassion, rather than what we do, which is tend to be more punitive. The last thing we do is we produce the loving compassion podcast as well as when we talk to different people about the power of compassion and the power of love.

David Taraba
Yeah, we missed anything. Well, yeah, we do. We're we are working to add a bunch of online self serve content, because it's harder to get into person, like in person groups work. So we're developing that we're doing, you know, video segments where we come together that are it's like downloadable self serve content kind of thing. So it's, it's like pieces of our bigger programs that are taken and you learn as you as you desire. So that's one thing. But I just wanted to emphasize that at the Maitri center, we're all about taking responsibility for your journey. So even in the in the workplace, or in the it's all based on the personal journey. So your work experience comes from your personal journey, your perception, your perceived reality is going to picture back to you wherever you are. So in the workplace, it's still where what you're going to be a vibrational match for is what you're going to see. So we have, we don't just throw things out there, like, just follow this and you're good to go. It's all about, like, we're more about the inward journey. And then that creates a different outward lived experience. And we do that from the business perspective, and the person personalized perspective, and there is overlap there, right? Because really work is we're trying to re envision work to be something that, you know, excites you to do, because first of all work should be we want to get rid of work, you just get up and do something you love to do. And if then, you know, your abundance will flow. And everything will be I think a lot more it'll be created from a place of joy versus, you know, the we've all had those. I've had the jobs where you dread going. Yeah, so

Jeff Ma
I really, I really love all the things you're saying in a way me like especially because it's like I'm hearing. I'm hearing like ourselves myself, but personally like Love as a Business strategy, all the things that we talked about, but like in a different through a different filter through a different lens, I think, I think there's like kind of two universal themes that everybody can understand and align on one is like work in all of its forms. And the other is love on the other as humans we are, we're wired to want desire, accept and share love, right? But what's interesting is when these two things overlap, there's an infinite amount of ways it actually plays out. And so while those two things are universal, out in the world, I'm sure as you've seen as well, everyone's approach to is different, everyone's philosophies to a different, and especially hearing, some people come at it from more of a spiritual sense, some people come at it more from a logical place, some people come at it from a process perspective. And I love I love having conversations that with that diversity of thought, because at the end of the day, I think the goal of for many is the same is to bring that humanity back, bring it front and center so that we can have be like humans who work together and not work a workplace. It's silly humans, right. So, so I love that I love I love it. Sorry, go ahead, David,

David Taraba
I was just gonna add that I feel what were a big, what we're seeing a lot of right now is the reaction. So you know, you have these mass exodus of employees that are, you can't find them anywhere. And it's based, not on necessarily their own understanding and awareness, but it's a reaction to, okay, this no longer works for me, I don't really understand any of why, but I just can't do it anymore. And it may come through as I'm a victim of some circumstance, but really, it's the opportunity to grow and evolve. And then step into that other, that next version of yourself where you start to do those things that you want to do. So there's been a push for the majority of people here on earth that a lot of them are, don't really understand why and we kind of do try to bring a little, you know, shed some light on that just with our viewpoints. We don't have all the answers by any stretch of imagination, but it's it's a it's a teach learn right, like, we're not here to just those days are gone when you you know, you try to come up with a system and you think you're the best you got it all down and you follow this and you're going to you know, you're going to be a millionaire that's done it those those that time is I feel over so we kind of are are just, you know, to your point, just trying to share and bring that awareness to those people that maybe don't understand it, but have gone through that. Oh, there's something else there. There has to be something else here for me to do. You know,

Jeff Ma
yeah, absolutely. I'm curious if you could share some of the foundations I guess, I mean, everything everything, I'm sure that you've built into your organization, your system, you know, it's it's, you've got your approach and I'm really curious like what, what kind of is your unique take on like, where do you start like give me the kind of the starting points and where where people go when they work with you in terms of compassion, especially.

David Taraba
I can touch on it. Yeah, you guys I wouldn't say that what we do is, is unique or groundbreaking or anything like that, I don't really believe that, at this point in humans, story will say humanity story that, like most everything has been thought of before. And then that's why we have the opportunity to experience it. But that's something maybe we don't want to go down ever. So I would say that our foundation is well, to keep it simple to, to start having a relationship with oneself and honest relationship with oneself where you face your truths. You see your shortcomings as nothing more than just steps on your journey. And once you start to develop that relationship with yourself, and you can actually say to yourself, honestly, I like me, that's a big, big opportunity. And that's hard, right? Like, if you would ask 100 people to stand in front of a mirror, and really ask them to say I like you to the reflection there. There's going to be a lot of energy that's like it's it can feel edgy, right? It can feel pulled, you can feel pushed, you have these thoughts come in that say no, or come up with some, you know, excuse as to why you're not good enough. And so what we do is we try to as a starting point, it's to explore the relationship with the individual.

Jeff Ma
Can I interrupt with the breaking question? What about what about people who already love themselves too much? Like, what about what about people who don't have a problem with who they see the mirror, but who they are to other people is a problem, because of how they

Gissele Taraba
Can I tackle that, because that was one of the things that I was going to mention, which is the concept of awareness, right? So what David is talking about is an awareness of how we actually treat ourselves and other people. And I would say that so there's this kind of mistaken belief that narcissism is actually you loving yourself too much. But truly empowered people, people that truly, truly love themselves and fill their own bucket, do not need to disempower other people, they don't need to take power from others, they don't need to, they just don't need to kind of engage in again, because they're always enough. They don't need to have other people love them. They don't need to take things, they don't need to have accolades because it comes from within, I mean, they have these things because they attract them, but with joy and ease, not from resistance or will. And so I think that's the misconception, one of the things that we encountered is that misconception about self love and self compassion, which is it's narcissistic people can love themselves a lot. But then her other people, if you truly love yourself, you have so much more love to give to other people in you do is from the place of allowance in resistance, you don't need the other people to be any different. And I think that I will say that that's where we're a little bit different. And no, David, you know, may disagree with that, because, you know, I get his viewpoint. But what I mean is, is that, so some of the compassion work that we do rests on the the belief that, you know, compassion is allowing all things to be. And that's really, really challenging. Because it means that we don't see people as toxic, they may have behavior that is not the behavior we will choose or want. But that's really the concept of compassion and unconditional love, can we see the divinity and other people can we see their humanity and not judge them and not expect them to be different and not ask them to change, really understanding that the only people that we can change ourselves? And when we love ourselves fully and accept all of the flaws, we're able to observe the flaws and other people go, okay, just just who they're being right now, or who they're acting as right now. We can we can actually truly learn to love people in a better way.

David Taraba
Yeah, and if I may just add to that, the idea of loving is, I think misunderstood. So when we speak of love, we speak of true unconditional love. So it doesn't come with any possessive qualities. And that's why it has to start from oneself. It has to come from within, in order to be reflected to a joy filled experience. You can't as you said, Love yourself so much and just be super in love with yourself and then you know, hey, judge everyone around you. It's I challenge that I that's, I feel an impossibility because you don't actually love yourself. Because unconditional love for yourself comes through allowing the self and Once you allow the self, you have to start to allow things around you as to what Giselle was, which was touching on. So it's not even a choice. It's just when you when you truly have some unconditional love and you experience that your whole perceived experience just changes. And it just, it just changes without even trying in the possession. Like we have. There's different, like, love is often very possessive as we describe it as in the human experience, right? It's, it's you love me or this or if you don't love me, or if you do this, you don't love me. That's possessive, it's possession. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's not right or wrong. It's just a place, it's a perception. So where we work is try is just to go beyond that, you will still experience that because we're here having the human experience, yet you will see it for what it is. And then you can go and see beyond it. And that is where the magic of the change in perception really starts to take place. Yeah.

Gissele Taraba
My own journey. That's what I found, sorry to interrupt. But I found that's what I found, the more that I loved and had compassion for myself, and all those things I didn't like about myself or thought they weren't perfect. The more harmony I had in my relationships, because I didn't need people to give me stuff. I didn't need them to be different. I could just accept them as they are because I accepted myself as I was. And I think does that mean that I'm 100%? Perfect? Of course not. It's a journey. It's a choice we make every day, every day, I choose to be more loving and compassionate. And sometimes, I falter. And I make a mistake and judge someone and I go, okay, that's okay, I can go back and forgive myself and ask for forgiveness, and then try again. So it's a choice you make every day.

Jeff Ma
I love it. And I think I love to see the passion you guys have for, for this message. I think that the the challenge that I that I pose for you, and I'm sure you face all the time. But essentially, it's like, that's a tall order, right? That's a tall order for many business like "business minded" individuals, especially in leadership, who have spent 2030 years building what they have, the way they have, which is often through fear and hierarchy and other things. So there's a huge gap of self awareness for these leaders. And there's a huge trick, there's a huge trickle down effect of how they behave and how they, the people they surround them with and the types of behaviors that are that are around there. How do you how do you break through that? I guess, how do you challenge the notion that, you know, the first person is leaders, first thing this leader is going to say is, like, you know, like, how does this affect my bottom line? And I know the answer that because I'm in this line of work as well. But But, but But yeah, go ahead, I see you guys already have?

David Taraba
Well, I would say it's not up to us to break through anybody's boundaries. Like that's not what we're here to do. I'm not here to push, and go solicit you to try and see something within you that you don't see within yourself. So this won't work for people that aren't open to their own growth. So if you're a business owner, and you're having a conversation with yourself, why how can I improve my business, that's, that's very now you're, now we're talking. But if you are stuck in the strange ways of the old, write those old ways that what you were talking about, it's not going to work. So because we're not here to try to sell you on a thing we don't have. It's not like we're having a system, it's, it's all we're here to do is share, right? And maybe guide through some wisdom through some learnings, because of our own experiences, and what we've learned from others. And it just, that's how it kind of comes through in a simple way. So the and that's when it goes back to the individual's journey, you have to have that kind of desire within yourself to kind of see how to re envision and expand upon how things are at the current moment. So you may be successful, but then you may on the personal side, you may see things are not maybe working properly, or until you're not properly but you know, in the most desired outcome. So that that may be the impetus because one will reflect the other is that

Gissele Taraba
yeah, exactly. I agree with everything you said David, in the sense, especially since none of this works like I know many people that have gone to therapy for many years and they're still in the same loop because unless you choose to change into try something different. Nothing's going to change. Einstein said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and having a different outcome. So we would say to those people, try it, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I tried as a director and I took teams that were considered, "the most dysfunctional". And people told me, or you have the most dysfunctional teams. And they transformed, and it was their choosing.

They had to choose to change. And by the time I left the organization, there were the best teams, we will get seated to me, Oh, you did it. And it's not no, it was not me. They chose they came together, I just gave them a platform and opportunity. I did them as I wanted them to treat me. And so these people made a commitment, because the truth of the matter is, people don't get hired, they don't want to be the people that are harassing other people are not performing. It's amazing how much with some acknowledgement and praise people, they work 110%, even if you don't give them additional money, or benefits that carrots and stick mentality doesn't work. What works is inspiration, aspiration, passion, feeling like somebody cares about them. That's what grows businesses, that's what really makes people flourish is everyone's in for the same goal, everyone has the same vision. And I think what happens over time is that people forget that they get very afraid, they start to think, oh, you know, this is going to cut into my margin. But if they were to give those people excellent pay and benefits, those people need the company to succeed in order to gain more. So it's everyone's working towards the same vision, it works,

David Taraba
it works. And just to add from the manager that are the owners perspective, as they change and grow within themselves, their business experience will change and grow. And that may look different, it may look just as status quo just bigger and better. You know, I don't know everything about that how it's going to look, yet, the people who aren't aligned to that will, will have to fall away. So if they have trouble there, and they have staff that are just in it for the whatever, paycheck, the nine to five, and they're like, I don't know how to make this work. I've tried this, I tried this, I tried this, as they grow as someone grows and their perception change in their experience. If these people are no longer a match to be in that environment, they'll find a way to just be excused, so to speak, you know, they'll they'll just go out of the picture. So the because the idea of this whole power down, power over approach that we're used to is, it's gone. People don't want that people really don't want that. They may not know it, but they just they don't.

Gissele Taraba
Yeah, absolutely. And I love what David said, because one of the things we talk about is reimagining. A lot of the times what I saw when I was in leadership, was that people kind of had a story about someone. So let's say you did something, Jeff, and then you became that story. So nothing that you did, it could have been anything good. But if you had a story where you did something, you were painted as the bad guy or the the office problem, and then people didn't see you outside. So one of the things we talked about is reimagining people can we reimagine them not as one dimensional but as a holistic person and then tried to get in understand what they need. And so in exactly what we've noticed is either people will align to that vision or they will leave. And you can also allow people to leave and release them with love. It doesn't have to be so acrimonious as it is sometimes you can terminate people even with love.

Jeff Ma
Agree, yeah. I love it. Again, speaking to so many of the themes that we touch on here on the show all the time. So it's it's really refreshing to hear it through this lens. I love that you guys have your own take on your own twist, but we're all kind of aligned to the same kind of outcomes here. And that that gives me hope. You know, for me personally, I feel like the world can feel bleak at times I apologize for the the the pressing questions that I throw at you in terms of like, some of the worst case scenarios, I guess at times, but that's what's out there as well. Right? I mean, we're having a lot of like, I mean, the people leaving the workplace in droves is due to a lot of these these prominent corporate workplace cultures that that just drive. So it's like it's it's a pandemic of its own. From my perspective, and it affects lives in a real way. Right. It affects, you know, the amount of time we spend at work, the amount of energy that we put into this affects our health, our families, all these things. So it is a problem that I'm excited to help to solve, I'm glad to have folks like you guys in the fight with it. So this was awesome. I wanted to make sure to save some space to for, for you folks to talk, you know, just briefly about your podcast and your business, just leave how people can get in contact with you or find you.

Gissele Taraba
Yeah, thank you so much. So our podcast is called a loving compassion podcast with Giselle. And what we do is we share stories of loving compassion, and how that positively influences our lives and how it can transform our lives. So we have different guests that come and share their stories. So check it out.

Jeff Ma
Awesome.

David Taraba
Sorry, can I just say one thing that I just want to say you and this isn't a judgment towards you, it's just anything. You mentioned the word, they were in a fight a fight to make, you know, business different than to change that. And I just want to say that as long as we perceive something, as a fight, we're, we're limited in where we can go with that. So I would, because this is a we're going through this evolutionary opportunity as a humanity, like we're all doing this together. And I just want to kind of spin that fight and turn it into something that is bigger than that, right? Because a fight has two sides, it has the the antagonist and the victim, you know, and we don't want to, I want to where we want to go is beyond that. That's where we try to go. So it's about the reenvisioning. So just to maybe look at that in a different light. Because it's truly not a fight. The only person we fight is ourselves. Right? Because the only one that suffers is ourselves. I suffer through my journey. I'm fighting myself, if I'm a victim to somebody else's thing. I'm, I'm in hell, in a lot of ways. I'm doing that to myself, especially in the business world, right, the whole idea of feeling stuck. So I just wanted to say that like, again, it's not a I don't want a judgment or anything.

Jeff Ma
I appreciate that. It's a great, that's a great point. And it's a good perspective. I love that. You brought that up, I think it's a important mind shift for me. So I really like that. I'm gonna write that down right now.

To the audience, thank you for listening in today. Really appreciate your time. And please, as always, continue subscribing telling your friends and checking out our book Love as a Business Strategy at your retailers. Really appreciate that and a special thanks again to Giselle and David for joining today. We will have a fresh episode for you out next week as well. So with that, wish you all