Miriam Meima  
If we think about authenticity, that's the extent to which I know myself and I am true to myself. It regardless of the situation. And effectiveness is based on what I have signed up for specifically in my career, but we could definitely apply this to life. What are the measures of success? And to what extent am I delivering on those, and I believe you can never seek one with while abandoning the other because that is unsustainable and will lead to burnout, and a really bad time.

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 leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I want to have conversations and hear stories from real people, real businesses, and just real life. My guest today is Miriam Meime. And Miriam has been a coach and facilitator for over 20 years dedicating her life to studying the overlap between business and psychology. Miriam has coached founders and executives at hundreds of companies, including a dozen valued at over a billion dollars. She's often partners with she often partners with companies from Series B all the way through going public and she works one on one with senior leaders, facilitates team offsides and develops customized leadership development journeys for leaders at all levels. Her specialty, is in helping people unlock the next level of performance while maximizing authenticity. And so I want to welcome Miriam to the show. Hello, ma'am. How are you?

Miriam Meima  
Hello, thank you. I know you were doing my introductions. But before that, I really did want to applaud you and your your intro just to this podcast. And on behalf of everyone listening. Thank you for all of the work you put in. I really believe podcasts are a labor of love, and they benefit the listeners so so much. So thank you for everything you've done in creating this extraordinary podcast.

Jeff Ma  
Well, I appreciate that. And your energy is infectious I love and while I was even giving my in show, you're over there like shimmying. I'm like I'm, we're, we're ready. We're gonna go. Really, really, really excited to have you. And as with every guest, I'm always first before we dive into anything else, wanting to hear a little bit of your story. And really specifically, what brought you to the passion and the drive you have today.

Miriam Meima  
Yeah, cool. So I all just, I'll start with basically, when I was a kiddo. Like, which version should I share? How vulnerable do I want to like, how much do I want to share? I mean, I'll honestly

Jeff Ma  
give me give me all of it, I want all

Miriam Meima  
of it, okay. As a little person, so I grew up in a house with one older sister, a mom and a dad. And they, my, my mom suffered from anxiety and depression. And so I realized very early that I never knew exactly which version of her I was gonna get, because it really depended on all sorts of things. And that her her emotional state, her mental state was really informed by a lot of traumas she had had had growing up. So I definitely believe in generational and intergenerational challenges. And so how that showed up for me is I learned how basically to notice what for most people is the unseen, to track energy and emotions and very easily anticipate what was what I was going to get from my mom. And I definitely felt a strong sense of responsibility for helping her find her way towards center. Fast forward, I now know it's not my responsibility to get people towards center, but I definitely have learned a lot of strategies to help with that. And it started from very, very, very early age and my dad love business. And he was very consumed with his work in in a way that I, I love my work too. So I invest a lot of myself in my work. But what I learned in my relationship with him is that if I wanted his attention, I needed to put myself between him and whatever he was focused on, which was work. So I from a very, very early age, started noticing things about he was an executive. So I thought about teams and team dynamics and what are the things he was stressed about which was like Budget and strategy and poor dynamics. And when he was also really interested in psychology and so I really grew up from a very early age kind of wired in a certain way. And people at 13 started to tell me I should become a business psychologist. And I was like, I don't know what that is. But it sounds great. And so I really have pursued this my entire life. Let's see, what else would I share so. But parents divorced at 12, I felt very alone in that whole system. And so this idea of business psychology helped me feel a sense of purpose. And so in my, my undergrad, I definitely studied those things. But what I, what I was didn't realize I was doing was I was pulling myself slowly out of my intuition. And into my left brain, I was trying to become a bit perfectionistic, in my approach to understanding how to be successful for myself, and how to help others be successful. And so early in my career, I was working as a consultant, working with companies like blue and Nintendo America and Clorox, and really studying their culture and mapping it to their business results. And I loved that work, I would basically take each day and just swim around and data and connect the dots between how people were relating to each other, and how that was driving their performance. And so if they wanted different results, what would they need to be doing different internally in each team are across teams. And it was really easy for me to get to see kind of the data come to life and imagine what it was like to work in these companies and to partner with exec teams around how to take action on those. But what happened is, I was like I said, Before, I was just very much focused on doing it, right. And I was highly critical of myself, every day all day, I was just replaying in my mind, what had I done what I had said, how I should have done it better how I should have said it better. I was, I was not at all kind to myself, I definitely had a high bar expected myself to not only meet it to exceed it, and was creating a kind of micro punishments for myself along the way. And in 2008, I was married, I was on my mom was, had gone through four years of cancer treatment, and she was in remission. So we were celebrating that. And then all of a sudden, my husband decided he didn't want to be married anymore. He was he was ready to move on. And after that, it was probably about six weeks later, my mom passed away quite unexpectedly. So I all of a sudden, just felt like the rug had gotten pulled out from underneath me. And all of the strategies I had built up on how to take care of other people how to succeed, how to get ahead how to perform, how to hit the bar, just weren't helpful anymore. And I literally lost touch with how to breathe, how to understand, like what's left versus right and up from down. Like I really just didn't have any way to calibrate anymore. And that's when I hired my first coach. So I had her help and help basically dropping out of my head connecting with my heart. So when we talk about love as a strategy as a business strategy, I really had lost sight of that. And that's true to who I am at my core, but I lost it, I lost touch with it. So she really helped me get out of my head, learn about emotions, process, my emotions, and from there drop into my gut, and my intuition and learn how to weave all of those together in the work that I do and the way that I move through the world.

Jeff Ma  
I appreciate you sharing that story. And there's so many pieces of it that I think are very honest and real and help connect me to some of the pieces of that and we've all experienced ups and downs, I guess of life. But connecting what you said to a theme, I guess, that I've experienced is that a lot of times in order for us to do the work to get to a place where we're able to access our heart a little more like you like you mentioned, it often comes after, you know, trauma or really tough times and it's no it's the same for people. It's same for business in the book. The book is all about our business basically going to the very, very rock bottom before coming back up. So I guess my question is, as we do this work you as a coach and a facility Tater. How do you when you work with folks who are not at rock bottom? Who don't have this catalysts? You know, where do you where do you begin to help people in that journey?

Speaker 1  
It's such a wonderful place for people to come to the work is in a moment of possibility rather than desperation, I, I really think it's, it's helpful access point is just to come either at a place of neutral and start to orient towards where am I what's current state compared to what is my desired state, but again, from a sense of possibility or optimistic kind of desire, rather than feeling that despair, that sense of if I can't figure out how to do this differently, I just, it's this isn't feeling sustainable anymore. So if your question is, how do I do it, it's really just connecting the dots or creating a, what I call, it's essentially a strong relationship with that desired future state, I want my client to be able to create a lasso, that they just kind of wrap around this North Star that they have for themselves for their career, or for their company or for their life. And it's something that's so compelling that it allows them to activate all of the same things that we naturally do when we're at a point of hitting rock bottom.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, makes sense. And I, I guess, to kind of build on my or add on my question, I guess, I'm also curious, it feels like a lot of, especially leaders in business, but humans in general, a lot of times don't go towards this place have of working on themselves, until they recognize a need or a desire, like everyone wants to improve. But especially like I mentioned, business leaders, a lot of times they're starting in a place where they've already in their minds paid their dues, they've walked the walk for a long time, and they've made it and they know, like, they feel like there's they don't recognize a gap. And maybe there's a lack of self awareness in many cases. You know, what's your experience with that type of mindset?

Speaker 1  
Think, you know, if people can just start to enjoy what they do have and celebrate what they do have. So there's people who are just asleep, they're going through life, and they're asleep, to what they've created, what they've cultivated internally, what they've created externally, what they've achieved in their career, or what they've cultivated in their life. So just starting to pay attention and celebrate the good things is usually a really wonderful place to start. Because I believe that the less we have to prove to ourselves or others, the more capable we are at focusing on the good and amplifying it in our lives and in the world. And so I have no judgment, if if there are people who are not self aware, and they're feeling like good enough about what they've created. Great, I'm about it, let's just celebrate everything. And typically, as they start to celebrate, they start to notice, they're more apt choice than they ever realized about what they could have. And so that that is usually a second leverage point. Again, I don't have a preference, but usually that's what happens, they start to notice they start to wake up to what is happening, and realize that if they have a choice, which they do, although they might not have realized it yet, then they might want something else. And that makes sense. Local adage of what got me here won't get me there usually ignites the sense of exploration.

Jeff Ma  
Love it. Let's let's jump into your specialty and you know, like your, you know, what you call unlocking the next level of performance while maximizing authenticity? What does that look like? What is that exactly?

Speaker 1  
Okay, so that often, I think, effectiveness and authenticity, I think of them as two axes. And so I mostly work with senior leaders and entrepreneurs. But I, obviously this applies to all humans. But if we think about authenticity, that's the extent to which I know myself and I am true to myself. It regardless of the situation. And effectiveness is based on what I have signed up for specifically in my career, but we could definitely apply this to life. What are the measures of success? And to what extent am I delivering on those? And I believe you can never seek one with while abandoning the other because that is unsustainable and will lead to burnout, and a really bad time. And it's like, well, if we have a choice in life If which we do, then I don't have bad time. So if I want to avoid having a bad time, I want to track both of those. That's, that's what leads to a really fulfilling existence is to be both authentic and effective. So we should definitely choose roles where we want to be delivering on whatever the expectations are, meaning like we care, and then knowing ourselves or being authentic to ourselves. So in in most cases, one, each person has an easier time accessing one than the other. On some people just being true to themselves. They're uncompromising, they're just they know themselves through and through, but they might not be noticing the impact that they have on others, they might not be noticing how their choices influence the state of mind of other people or the ripple effect they're having. And so starting to wake them up to that is really important. Others are really attuned to people around them, and what success looks like that they've lost touch with who they are, and what matters to them, and what they need in order to feel supported. So whatever, wherever someone is, in the moment, I usually track against those two axes and start to activate the other one, in order to help them recognize what might be next for them and the trajectory of their business or their team or their lives.

Jeff Ma  
That makes a lot of sense. And he had me thinking of myself, I'm drawing axes for myself, in terms of, of that, what does, what does that work look like? And I understand there could be different types, depending on which side you're accessing. But in general, can you share kind of like, more tangibly, what kind of work they do in order to achieve that outcome?

Speaker 1  
Sure, yeah. So for people who are really aware of themselves and but maybe less attuned to this effectiveness axis, I ask them questions like, What do you want to be known for? So it's not what do I want to feel? Or what, what do I want to be delivering? But really, what do I want to be known for as a leader? And start to? So that that's just a practical question. And then I start to say that most people, I really, really do believe that most people on this planet, minimize the impact that they're having on others. And everybody's always influencing others. Right now. I'm influencing you, you're influencing me, we are just most most people aren't tuning into it. So then I ask people to either gather some data, or just imagine the feedback that they would get from those that know them best that what they how they describe you, does that match what you want to be known for? Or not? And so that's one piece of the puzzle. Effectiveness, usually people they want more of themselves, or they're being asked to provide more deliver more in their role than they currently are. And so again, that's a helpful data point of understanding what's possible, or what am I orienting towards? What am I striving for? And then you in most cases, people both need to unlearn some old patterns or behaviors, as well as learn new patterns and behaviors to better align with who they want to be how they want to show up, but then, again, to get those results. So the specifics of it really depend on the role. A lot of leaders are so focused on executing, and that's been necessary to prove themselves but as we get into different levels of management, or strategy work. Executing is only one piece of the puzzle, we now need to be able to influence others, we need to have a time horizon that we're orienting towards a certain level of patience and attunement to communication. Those are the kinds of things that most people haven't paid attention to. And so there's, there's definitely skills that fall under each of those that would allow them to be more effective in their role while still maintaining authenticity.

Jeff Ma  
But as I'm clicking on things are clicking for me, so if I look a little like scatterbrained is because I'm like literally in my own headspace right now. But I want I want to build off of these skills, you're talking about some of these. Some of the things that we talked about before recording this show was around time management. So we're talking about kind of the mindsets around time and I believe you say energy management. Can you share a little bit about how that fits into the piece of the puzzle?

Speaker 1  
Yes, I okay. So not all time is created equal. There are moments when I My energy is high, I'm feeling present. My mind is awake. I am able to to produce more or create at a higher quality than I can, in another moment of the day, when I'm tired, maybe I'm hungry, I'm feeling scattered, I'm feeling down or my attention is being pulled. So most people when they're thinking about time management aren't taking into account their energy. And so I when I'm thinking about time management, I think first about mapping energy to time. And most people have a very predictable rhythm throughout the day. And I really like people to literally chart out. And people could do this as they're listening. It's like you have the morning on the left side of the page, you have the night at the right on the right side of the page, low level of energy at the bottom high level of energy at the top, and to really create a graph with curves around basically, where are you starting today? Are you starting really high, and then it starts to fall off? Or are you starting low, and it starts to come up, or is your energy sustained throughout the day, but simply having that awareness is step one. And then we need to start to preserve those peaks of productivity, those peaks of energy, those are priceless, those are, that's when the real magic happens. And so we think about what is the highest and best use of me in a day, I want as much as possible to preserve those peaks to align exactly with those. Those those highest intentions are, my priorities are the highest impact investments of my time. I also really believe in people making intentional micro actions to have higher and more sustained levels of energy throughout the day. So it's really good to drink water, it's really good to take deep breaths, it's really good to get outside, it's really good to prep for our days in advance, you know, there's some very reliable actions that we can take to set ourselves up to essentially to be a better version of myself. And to have a better day, I need to make sure that I'm allocating time to those when I'm doing them in advance. But everybody has their own list. And so knowing what your list is, and knowing that they're the choices that we make, in terms of getting ahead of our energy management, will serve us tenfold. I mean, they really well, the ROI on those micro investments is huge. The, the quality of our presence, when we show up to a one on one might have a lasting impact on someone on our team for a month. So those little things, those little tweaks are not to be underestimated. I'll pause for a second. I feel like I'm just rattling off some best practices. But

Jeff Ma  
is this No, no, it's great. It is 100%. It's useful, it makes perfect sense. So simple exercise was something that I think it can make a real big difference. And I think I already do like literally when you mentioned the one on ones. I already do this, like not the whole exercise. But I do this to some extent, because there's a certain part of my day that I just don't schedule one on ones because for me, like the most important thing is, is the culture around me and how I connect to people. And I feel like there's a certain part of day, I just do not do people justice. It's like, it's like a catch up time. It's a drowsy time, it's kind of a frustrating time for me in general. And I'd rather just be heads down, like knocking out some to do list items. But But, but I found that yourself. I learned that because for a period of time i i in a way forced myself to do one on ones because again, I was like trying to move towards better leadership making better habits. And one of my commitments was around increasing my one on ones and increasing the quality of the one on ones with people who I think deserved. Like more like that I wanted more from and then could use more from me. And so I started booking these like, all over the place and just like bothering people and things like that. And just over time, I realized, look this there's this period, like just shortly after lunch. And like, for for a few hours where I would find myself like listening to people and just kind of like not listening, not hearing what they're saying. And I'd have to apologize. And like I'm sorry, like, I lost my train of thought and then just be kind of it. It was very frustrating. And it wasn't this big exercise where I met my energy. I'm gonna go do that now. But it makes perfect sense now. And I think that that's it, it really made a big difference because now I do them kind of in the morning or in the case of some people who are overseas, I do them like pretty late at night because I find that I have another spike of energy. Right?

Speaker 1  
Yeah. Oh, it's great that you know that about yourself and then you can communicate it and then you can align your schedule around it. You don't. I find that very rarely do we actually have to radically compromise. I really believe that people we are able to map our days and the things that are most important for us to deliver, we can map them to our energy. And most people that I talked to what you're describing is very, very common. I have people all the time come to me and say, I just, I'm really struggling this with this one person on my team, there's the way they show up to meetings, fill in the blank, and there's a level of complaining. And then when it comes down to it, it turns out that the those meetings are happening in a moment, when the person that I'm talking to their energy's really low, they aren't available to talk. So they're more critical. They're more frustrated. But it really has to do with how they're showing up to the call, and simply moving that to a different moment. Like, here's a, like your mornings or your evenings, all of a sudden, their veil ability is so radically different, that the interaction has improved. And all of a sudden, what was someone that maybe we need to exit this person that disappears? And it's simply a question of how can we best collaborate and set you up for success. So the kinds of of changes that can happen interpersonally when we honor our rhythms is extraordinary.

Jeff Ma  
On the intersection of culture, like love as a business, strategy and time, one thing that I get a lot when when talking to folks who wholeheartedly believe in, in kind of the culture that they want to build and the culture of love, and they want it. But one of the first things out of their mouth is that they just don't have time. They just don't have time to dedicate to, you know, for one reason or another. Maybe in their mind, this is done all through one on ones, or they have to have all these additional things that aren't currently on their calendar, which is already filled from morning to night. What what do you have to say to these folks, or I guess what's your take on time as it alludes to kind of culture and how it affects how we can build better relationships in the workplace? Yeah, it's

Speaker 1  
such a good question. So I hear that a lot of I don't have time. I think it's helpful to start with a non negotiable. So saying something like a good culture is non negotiable. If we've decided that it's negotiable, then we get stuck in it's it's now on the list of prioritizations. Where does it fit in? And it becomes unnecessary complex. So if we assume and start with an assumption that having a positive and an effective culture is non negotiable, now, it's just a question of how do we implement it? And yes, time is a limited resource. And so we want to be thoughtful about how to invest it. But then I go back to those axes of what's authentic and what's effective. So I think about what's authentic to be. And for each leader, that's different. Some people really like to communicate, verbally, some people are very visual, some people like to type and have very thoughtful messages that they're sending out in written form. But what is my form of communication? How is it that I authentically would want to go about investing in culture? And then the other question or the other axis is just what's effective? So all my team and my business based on current market conditions, what's the culture that we need to have? Or what's the culture being asked of us? And then you start to just kind of connect the dots. And it's not that hard. There's ways of doing all of this asynchronously investing in? I know, because I've worked with the researchers out of the University of Michigan Business School are literally tying culture to business results. So I don't know what you you know, anyone who says that I'm like, What do you think that you're gonna get by not focusing on culture? So I see it as a means to an end. And it's just a question of how to do it efficiently and effectively. And there's, there's always an answer. This is not it's not hard. It's not actually a big lift to work on your culture.

Jeff Ma  
Oh, With time winding down, give me one like in your, you know, when I talk to coaches and things like that, there's usually you may have one kind of go to top of mind kind of saying or tip or advice for leaders out there, that they that they may not have, you know, thought of before and that may help them what what is your, what is your one with a moment of wisdom you'd like to share across?

Speaker 1  
I really, really, really want to underline this sense of the impact that we have on other people. And so I'll share a very short story about 20 seconds at Starbucks that changed my life. And hopefully this is like a wake up call to all of your listeners that realize that we are all having an impact on others. So the more intentional we can be about how to show up with those on our team, the better. So the short story is I will, as context I hate waiting in lines, I hate it. I'm just really bad at waiting in lines. And I one day really needed a cup of coffee. And I was on this stretch of highway in Colorado, that there's only one coffee shop, it's one Starbucks and a longer three hour journey. And so I stopped and there was a line out the door. And I thought I just like it was like torture, the idea of going without coffee was torture, the idea of waiting in line was torture, decided to wait in line. And I just couldn't wait to get out of there was being so patient. And when I finally got in the door, that place was a disaster, it was very clear that this had been this place had been busy all morning, because just shelves were cleared off there. You know, like the mugs were in the wrong place. Everything was a complete disaster. could not wait to get out of there, I finally get to the front. And the person at the front says Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get? You just she's just looking down. And I don't know what came over me. But I paused. I looked up, I made eye contact with her. And I said how are you? It seems like it's been really crazy in here. And she started to cry. And she said, I have served over 300 people this morning and that one person has looked me in the eye. And that one person has asked me how I'm doing. Thank you so much what can I get you. And in that moment there was I it that cost me nothing that moment. But me noticing her and seeing the other human on the in front of me. And giving her my attention cost me nothing if if anything I walked out of there more filled up. And so when we're moving through our days, especially those of us in leadership positions, if we aren't noticing the humans around us, then we are losing out not only on our potential positive impact, but on our greatest leverage in terms of driving results. So just comes back to being located in our bodies enough, grounded enough centered enough resourced enough so that we can show up for those around us. And usually, if we can do that, the rest starts to take care of itself. And we can execute and our team can execute. And we can unlock that next level of performance the way that we really want to.

Jeff Ma  
That is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that story and very inspirational for me. And I'm going to have some micro actions and micro movements in my head already around that. So Miriam, with that. Thank you so much for your time today. Your energy has been incredible and your wisdom has been so valuable. And I want to thank our listeners as well for listening in as always, and make sure you check out our book, Love as a business strategy, of course. With that, I hope you everybody have a wonderful week and Miriam, thank you again for the time.

Miriam Meima  
Thank you so much.