Let's talk about it with Miara Shaw, CEO @Maven Business Academy

Welcome back to Let's talk about it, a newsletter where I ask trailblazing women and allies the real questions. It has been almost a year since I started this newsletter and I could not be more grateful that Lachlan Green inspired me to embark on this journey. The women I interviewed in the past year have taught me invaluable lessons and I feel lucky to be able to share them here. 

In this edition of Let's talk about it, I interview Miara Shaw, CEO at Maven Business Academy. Miara started her career as a gas trader but is now a full-time entrepreneur. As part of her venture, she is a business strategist, oil and gas consultant, and corporate trainer. Miara and I connected at a TransformHer event hosted at LinkedIn, and in this newsletter, I share Miara's perspective on navigating entrepreneurship, the power of planning, finding your balanced rhythm, and surrounding yourself with people who will speak your name. 

On navigating entrepreneurship:

As a consultant and coach, Miara works with a lot of entrepreneurs and has noticed that many of them don't take the time to anticipate the hardest parts of building their business. 

"People want to hear the good stuff and I wish they really asked more of the tough stuff because that's what makes you who you are and helps you excavate the things you really need to produce a good business."

Miara has realized that many people without entrepreneurial experience, particularly those who come from a corporate background, tend to take many aspects of a business for granted. 

"If you have no entrepreneurial experience, you will probably need more tenacity and perseverance than you expect. In the corporate world, if you need something from legal, you go to the legal department; if you have a tax question, you go to the tax department. As an entrepreneur, you are all of those departments."

Becoming an entrepreneur is highly romanticized, and it is very easy to forget the ‘less sexy’ parts of the process. In many cases, it is these parts that make or break the business. 

On execution:

In her work as a coach, one of Miara's main goals is to help take people from stuck to executing, and in exploring this, she has noticed that fear is one of the main blockers for execution. She has noticed women, in particular, are paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake. When working with clients like this, Miara tells them, 

"I promise you, you are going to make a mistake. It's going to happen, but that means that you're working and slowly figuring it out. If you're not making mistakes, you are not giving it your 100 percent."

This point resonates with me because, in the past, I found that I limited myself from trying new things and taking risks based purely on fear. Today, every time I want to say no to an opportunity of adventure, I first take the time to ask myself if I’m saying no based on fear. If I am, I force myself to take on the challenge and fight that fear. 

Another challenge that Miara recognizes in her clients is that they underestimate the amount of work that needs to get done for a job to be accomplished, and when they realize how much work it actually takes, they become paralyzed and can't execute. 

"As a Western society, we have gotten pretty lazy and think, ‘all I have to do is make two Instagram posts and send one to them and it's going to happen'. When that doesn't happen, we go to the next thing or we quit. When executing, you've got to be willing to keep doing it over and over again until you get the result that you want."

Expecting immediate gratification all the time is setting us up for constant disappointment. The road to success will have many bumps that we need to learn how to navigate. 

On consistently doing the internal work: 

As part of learning how to navigate the bumps in the road, Miara believes that we must be willing to dedicate time to work on ourselves. 

"The internal work is what helps us move past fear. It's what helps us be consistent, even when we're exhausted and discouraged."

Personally, I notice that when I become exhausted and discouraged, I start to neglect the habits that I know are essential for my mental health, and it only makes things worse. My strategy for preventing this from happening is to create a list of non-negotiables and make sure that they are on my calendar. For Miara, making sure you prioritize these non-negotiables is an essential pillar of professional success. 

"We cannot build amazing businesses externally and not be working on our internal self–this work is not skippable. One of my trademarked phrases is ‘CPR’, which says 'I’m Capable, Prepared & Ready?’ for my very next step, and once I take that step, I’ll be prepared for the next one'. What fear says is that you're on step two, and you're not ready for step ten, which is true, but you don't have to be ready yet."

On finding your balanced rhythm:

When thinking about our careers and personal lives, we are often encouraged to find work-life balance. In her work, Miara has found that work-life balance is very hard to achieve because aspects of both life and work are in constant flux.

"One of the things that I coach a lot about is creating your balanced rhythm, and that is the rhythm that works for your life. I don't use work-life balance because it feels like a fixed state that we're trying to get to and is common to everyone. The important thing to realize is that you are not going to get to a balance that works for every day. Instead, strive for a rhythm that you can adapt and adjust every day."

The power of adaptability is one that has come up various times in this newsletter, and it is helpful to note how adaptability should also apply to our personal life and routine.

On setting boundaries: 

Miara believes that in order to find your balanced rhythm, you need to set boundaries and oscillate between them. 

"The rhythm is set by the boundaries, and we are the ones who are responsible for these boundaries. If I say that I won't be on my electronic devices after 7 p.m. and I'm not going to start checking them again until 8 a.m. the next morning, then I am the one who needs to respect those limits. If my hypothetical boss pinged me with something not urgent after 7 p.m. then I would be violating my boundaries and preventing myself from achieving a balanced rhythm."

Like Miara, I have certain activities and boundaries that I set up every day, and when I don't follow them I feel completely out of balance. For managers, it is important to consider that when sending an email out of working hours, even if you don't expect a response until the next morning, you might be encouraging your reports to break their balanced rhythm. Now that we don't have physical boundaries between life and work, being intentional about our boundaries is increasingly important.

On the power of planning: 

Miara believes that being good at planning is a skill that has been key to her success and has helped her maintain her balanced rhythm, even in the most difficult times (like when her kids were growing up.) Looking back at raising a family, Miara sometimes doesn't know how she did it but does know that both she and her husband are very punctual and organized people. 

"We also taught our kids the power of planning and being organized. For example, they knew they could not come to me with plans on a Friday after school and expect that I'd rearrange our whole world to get there. They knew pretty much that by Wednesdays, every demand for the weekend needed to be on the table. There were four of them and two of us, and we wanted them all to get to where they should be, but they needed to be aware of the planning this requires."

I have always been taught to respect other people's time, and hearing Miara's story emphasized the importance of doing this. When we don't take the time to plan things and end up in a situation where we show up late to a meeting or dinner, we are also affecting others’ plans and their ability to find their balanced rhythm. Whenever Miara found that her kids were not respecting her time and her planning, she always made it clear to them that their lack of planning didn't constitute an emergency for her. This is a good reminder that others' lack of planning shouldn't constitute an emergency for us. 

On learning how to say no: 

One very important part of planning and respecting our boundaries is learning how to say no, and actually say no to things that will put us in a position where we risk losing our balance. 

"There are some people that are just not comfortable saying no to people, and I always tell them to get in front of the mirror and practice. Practice saying: 'No, that does not fit my schedule'; 'Hell no'; and 'Can you email me the details of that so that I can look at them?' By not saying yes immediately you give yourself the time and space to learn all the details, and decide whether or not it works for you."

As women, particularly in more junior roles, saying no is often very hard, but not being able to say no means we end up taking on tasks that might not serve us or that we don't have the bandwidth for. By taking the time to get comfortable with saying no, we are also taking the time to own our ability to make informed decisions and do the things that are right for our life and career. 

On finding people who will speak your name: 

Miara believes that one of the most effective tools that women can find to jump-start their careers is finding people who will speak their names when they are not in the room. 

 "One of the things I think women can really do in the corporate space is to not only make sure they have a good mentor but also have a really good sponsor within the company. By having this, you will always have someone who will vouch for you even when you are not in the room."

Finding a sponsor is not always easy, but when looking for one, Miara believes that finding ways of building a mutually beneficial relationship is the key. 

"When talking to a potential sponsor, have clarity around the conversation, what your requests are, and how you can support the other person. They might not, you know, need you to speak up on their behalf because they are ahead of you. But there are many other things you can share with them that will potentially be beneficial for them."

For Miara, it is clear that women have to be intentional about forming these relationships because they likely won't happen organically, particularly not in the era of COVID-19. The intentionality piece should not be there just to inform building the relationship, but also to make sure that the relationship helps take you where you want to go. 

"I don't think it's just about them being able to speak your name, but that they identify with where you're trying to go. By making sure this happens, you will have someone who will always help you identify the correct path for you."

I have been extremely lucky to find amazing sponsors at LinkedIn, and it is clear to me that my career would look radically different without people who have supported and elevated me in my past two years at the company. 

Thanks, @Miara for your time and what felt like an amazingly productive coaching session. Your journey from oil trading to entrepreneurship is incredibly inspiring, and many of the philosophies you have adopted in your coaching really resonate with my own philosophies of life. 

Thanks, @Sofi Arimany, for your edits and support. I could not do this without you.

Thank you to my readers. I hope this newsletter inspires you to find your balanced rhythm and determine the boundaries you need to set in order to achieve it.

See you in two weeks, 

@codebloodedbitch