MaYapinion®

Welcome Kristin Slink, the founder and CEO of TechAF, this week to the podcast. Here's more about Kristin in her own words:

Hi, I'm Kristin and I've supported hundreds of underrepresented founders to incubate and launch their tech business. Are you next? $147 billion in venture capital was invested in US startups in just the first half of 2021. Black founders received only 1.2% of those investments. Let's change that. Tech AF is a movement. We're sick of that status quo. The tech industry needs more diversity. It needs a lower tech-bro-ratio. It needs more people with different life experiences, backgrounds, gender-identities, skin colors, abilities, and perspectives. Resources exist for underestimated founders, but require you to have a product in the market with paying customers. Getting to this stage is HARD. Especially if you've never done it before. I've been in the trenches myself. At 27, I taught myself everything I needed to know to build my first tech business. Of course, I made a ton of mistakes along the way. But plenty of incredible people pushed me, too. More importantly, I refused to take no for an answer and blazed my own path. I went head first into a ten year journey that resulted in raising more than $55M in funding and going through the experience of having that business acquired, twice. Since then I've advised and supported hundreds of underrepresented founders through a variety of Atlanta's leading startup programs. Many of these founders have gone on to raise venture capital and implement growth strategies for scale. With Tech AF, I've developed a proprietary five-part system based on my unique experience that streamlines the path from idea to a fundable business. If you have a scalable tech idea and don't know what to do next - apply today and let's talk!

Connect with Kristin Slink here:

Website - https://www.iamtechaf.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinslink/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/iamtechaf/

Read and Listen more here:

Podcast Website

Download your Free Guide to Leadership here!

XOXO

Maya

Welcome Katica Roy to the show this week! Katica Roy is a gender economist, former Global 500 global executive, programmer, data scientist, and the CEO and founder of an award-winning SaaS company, Pipeline. CNN, CBS, Bloomberg, Cheddar, MarketWatch, and Yahoo Finance have sought Katica for her sharp and unconventional take on the day's headlines. An award-winning business leader with more than two decades of experience in technology, healthcare, and financial services, Katica is credited as a rare combination of expertise in and passion for gender equity, people analytics, and sales operations.

Pipeline® is a Denver-based startup that increases financial performance through closing the gender equity gap. Pipeline's® proprietary SaaS platform uses AI to assess, address and action against the gender biases costing the U.S. alone $2 trillion each year. This issue is not just about good sense, this is about dollars. Big dollars that turn heads to create social change.

As a leader, Katica doesn't fall into the trap of simply admiring society's greatest ills. She believes in using gender-disaggregated data to explain problems—then find solutions to them. Katica is driven by a passion to eradicate economic inequality and champions the rights of refugees, women, and children.

Connect with Katica here:

https://www.pipelineequity.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katicaroy/

https://www.instagram.com/katicaroy/

https://twitter.com/katicaroy

Checkout more at https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

Download your free guide here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

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Maya

This week is a solo episode on on why and how we have leadership backwards. This is something I discuss often on social media but also, I mention it in my interviews and other solo episodes. Therefore, I thought it was time to do a quick episode on this topic. This topic is the basis and fundamental inspiration for "How to be the Leader of Your Life." I wish that I had the tools of leadership and understanding who I am before I ever stepped into a leadership role.

Download the leadership guide "How to be the Leader of Your Life" here.

Check out more resources and visit our website here.

Don't forget to follow us on all social media as well:

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Instagram - @mayaroffler

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New episodes out Monday! Happy Motivation Monday!

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Maya

Welcome back Kerry Guard, CEO of MKG Marketing! We welcomed Kerry to the show last year to talk about her success at MKG Marketing and building remote and tactical teams. We loved her so much here at MaYapinion as an audience that we brought her back to talk about a new topic and some new challenges.

On the episode today, Kerry shares a deep dive into hiring and the transitions that are happening within her own company but in the ecosystem in general. The information that she shares with us is highly relatable for not only small business but all the way up to enterprise businesses. We are seeing these hiring trends at every level. Kerry's vulnerability and honesty as a leader is infectious as she shares the journey she has been on to constantly improve not only her hiring process but her internal ecosystem and culture.

Here's a bit more about Kerry and where to find her:

Kerry Guard (she/her) is a mom of twins - boy and a girl. She understands what work life balance really looks like and is on a mission to build a company that honors parents having a career and a life. She's out to prove you really can have both with policies like ensuring 20 days of vacation each year, no client emails after 6PM or weekends, unlimited sick days, and everyday flexibility.

She also hosts a podcast, which brings eight digital marketing experts to your ears every quarter. Each episode explores a new approach to help you, Marketing Leader, grow your business. Tune in.

https://mkgmarketinginc.com/about/digital-marketing-experts/kerry-guard/

Website: https://mkg.marketing

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerryguard/

Podcast episode she refers to at the end: https://mkgmarketinginc.com/blog/podcasts/performance-equals-potential-interference/

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Maya

https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

Catherine is a successful entrepreneur, business leader, and best-selling business author. She founded BluEra, a Profit 500 executive search, and team transformation company. As a top 200 growing company in Canada and top 10 in Alberta, and the best workplace, BluEra was a shining example of the Awakened Company System in action. With the sale of BluEra to DHR, Catherine now focuses on awakening the fire within organizations as the founder of The Awakened Company, a company aimed at awakening the fire within through passion, purpose, and playfulness.

The Awakened Company brings humanity back into corporate culture. Catherine is a certified Enneagram coach and uses this as a tool for self, relational, and organizational development. She has incredible experience with a very human-centered foundation. She is a sensitive, intelligent female leader and who you will definitely enjoy listening to...

Catherine in her own words, "I have helped to build a Profit-20 firm in the Province of Alberta and a Profit-200 in Canada, by doing things radically differently (especially in 2008 when I co-founded the firm). I successfully sold that company and transitioned the leadership. Everything in my life is dedicated to awakening - awakening ourselves, our relationships, our organizations, and our communities.

My vision is to be a healthy universal muse, radiating love, wisdom, and power in service to humanity and the planet. I believe that we either lead with positive intention or we will be led. Our organization now is an international thought leader on how to awaken corporate cultures. I am also a mother, wife, and very feeble human. I believe we are all leaders if we choose to be. My aim is with me wherever I walk. I lead not only in business but in the community as well. I am also a mother, Godmother, aunt, daughter, wife, sister, and colleague.

I teach at Queen's School of Business in innovation. I also volunteer for the Telus Spark Science Centre, and Impact Society, and have created The Awakened Project, which helps female entrepreneurs start up their own businesses with microloans. I believe our inner, outer, and secret realities are here to be of service to humanity and the planet."

Connect with Catherine below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bellcatherine/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5XwzGZacXitTYvb4NPdhgw

https://twitter.com/awakenedcompany

https://www.facebook.com/awakenedcompany

https://www.instagram.com/theawakenedcompany/

Listen and read more here:

https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

Don't forget to download the "How to Be the Leader of Your Life Guide" here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

Listen on every platform here: https://link.chtbl.com/MaYapinion

XXX

Maya

Welcome Leslie Kuster to the podcast this week for Motivation Monday! Leslie is the money and freedom guide for women over 50 who also want to fall in love with life again. Leslie's message is that "It's never too late" to create success, financial wealth, and a life of freedom. Leslie's book, 7 Keys to 7 Figures: The Women Entrepreneurs' Guide to Money and Freedom will be released in Fall 2022. It provides women entrepreneurs seven master keys to unlock a successful, money-making business. Women business owners, who have been struggling to build the business and life of their dreams are given the insights, principles, tools, and steps to claim the freedom and create the wealth they yearn for.

Leslie Kuster in her own words, "I am the founder of a clothing brand called Back From Bali. I ricochet the business from 5 figures to 7 figures in my 50's so I want to let women entrepreneurs know it is all possible. I am also consulting and have written an upcoming book called 7 Keys to 7 Figures, the Women Entrepreneurs' Guide to money and freedom."

Leslie shares why she is a leader, "I have created the life of my dreams. I have a successful money making business, I have retired my husband and at the moment we are traveling together, I have set up my business so that I work ON the business and not IN the business. I have lots of down time because I create my life."

Visit Leslie here:

www.lesliekuster.com

www.backfrombali.com

Connect with Leslie below:

www.lesliekuster.com/7mistakes free eBook 7 Mistakes Most Women Entrepreneurs make and what to do instead!

www.instagram.com/lesliekusterofficial

https://www.facebook.com/LeslieKusterOfficial/

www.linkedin.com/in/lesliekuster

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBtp1gkqsNilja1ehn4NHHw

Listen and read the podcast here:

https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

Grab your copy of, "Be the Leader of Your Life," here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

Welcome Nina Simons to the podcast this week! She is Co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bioneers. As a social entrepreneur, her work has spanned diverse sectors and genres, including the arts, philanthropy, the corporate and nonprofit worlds. She is passionate about reimagining leadership so that all women and girls can whole-heartedly aspire to it. And cares deeply about being a good ally, and social healing by rebalancing racial and gender equity.

She co-edited Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and authored Nature, Culture, and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership—being released as a second edition in June 2022 with a discussion guide and embodied practices — and which has won awards in the categories of women, intersectionality and racial justice. To learn more about her, or where she may be speaking or teaching, visit ninasimons.com or bioneers.org.

Bioneers is an innovative nonprofit organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet. Founded in 1990 in Santa Fe, New Mexico by social entrepreneurs Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, we act as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges.

A celebration of the genius of nature and human ingenuity, Bioneers connects people with solutions and each other. Our acclaimed annual national conference and local Bioneers Network events are complemented by extensive media production including a vibrant online media presence, award-winning radio and podcast series, book series, and role in third-party media projects such as Leonardo DiCaprio's movie The 11th Hour and Michael Pollan's best-selling book The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Our dynamic programs and initiatives focus on game-changing initiatives related to Restorative Food Systems, Biomimicry, Rights of Nature, Indigeneity, Women's Leadership and Youth Leadership.

Nina in her own words:

My life has been an exploration of how to best serve what I most love, while cultivating myself to grow into who I believe and sense I was born to be. This has involved lots of exploration and a path that's quite self-made, and as I've explored how to shed self-limiting conditioning and cultivate leadership flourishing by cofacilitating retreats for women leaders who were diverse in every way, those women and experiences have grown me. I've partnered with a very strong-willed and brilliant man, which has required me to step up my game on every level. I've reached a place in my own life where I've created the life, leadership, love and creativity I always wanted, and I want the joys of that integrated life to be reachable for every woman and girl. And I believe the future of our species - and life on Earth - may depend upon it.

Visit Nina Simons here:

https://www.ninasimons.com/

https://bioneers.org/

Grab her book here

Find her on Social Media:

www.facebook.com/Bioneers

https://www.facebook.com/nina.simons

Instagram: @bioneers & @1ninasimons

Twitter: @bioneers & @ninabioneers

LinkedIn:

Linkedin.com/company/bioneers

Linkedin.com/in/nina-simons

Check out the website for more info on the podcast:

https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

Download the "How to be The Leader of Your Life" Guide Here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

Welcome Becca Powers to Motivation Monday! She is an award-winning Fortune 500 hi-tech sales executive, best-selling author, speaker, and Founder and CEO of Powers Peak Potential. In her 20+ year career in sales, she's worked for large companies including Cisco, Dell, and Office Depot, achieving President's Club 7 times while leading teams of 110+ and hitting $500 million in annual revenue.

Becca intimately knows the struggles that have come as a cost to her high achievements. Through nearly losing it all, she was forced to discover a more supportive and sustainable path to success that she now teaches to others. She founded her consulting and coaching agency to help high achievers and high-performance sales teams obtain skyrocketing success without sacrifice. Through workshops, seminars and her signature coaching program, Becca works with individuals and organizations to create sustainable change by training them to thrive from the inside out without the cost of compromise.

In addition to being an executive life coach with specialties in shadow beliefs and trauma awareness, she's also a Kundalini yoga teacher, and incorporates many holistic modalities into her coaching practice. In 2021 she released her best-selling book, Harness Your Inner CEO - Rise into Passion, Prosperity, and Empowerment to increase her ability to help others become the CEOs of their own lives.

Becca currently resides in South Florida with her husband Jeremy and their 4 children. For more information, visit www.beccapowers.com and tune into her podcast, The High Achievers Club on your favorite podcasting platform.

Becca in her own words, "I became the CEO of my own life by taking charge of my journey. Through prioritizing my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health I was able to reassess what was important to me and found out that success, health, and happiness can co-exist, if you put your own needs first. I learned the hard way through working myself into chronic health conditions that there is a formula to living a life that thrives both personally and professionally. By shifting focus and applying this formula: "The Self + The Soul + The Success = Success Without Sacrifice" to my life I became more successful yet had more time to do the things I love. This ultimately changed my life's trajectory, resulting in an epic transformation that allowed me to truly become the CEO of my own life and start living a life I love! I'm now able to share my journey and the lessons learned as a motivational personal empowerment guide that gives others the tools they need to become the CEO of their own life."

Connect with Becca here:

https://www.beccapowers.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beccapowers1313/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beccapowers1313/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccapowers1313/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@beccapowers1313

Grab here book here!

Listen and read the podcast here:

https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

Grab your copy of, "Be the Leader of Your Life," here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

Welcome Alinka Rutkowska to Motivation Monday this week! Alinka is the CEO of Leaders Press (www.leaderspress.com), a USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling press, where she creates books for entrepreneurs from scratch and launches them into best-sellers with a 100% success rate. She runs a hybrid publishing house with traditional distribution (via Simon & Schuster) through which more than 500 entrepreneurs have been able to share their stories with the world. 172 of Leaders Press authors have become USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling authors. Alinka has been featured by Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Entrepreneurs on Fire, and numerous other outlets. Her mission is to help 10,000 entrepreneurs share their wisdom with the world by 2030.

What makes Alinka a leader? She runs a hybrid publishing house with traditional distribution (via Simon & Schuster) through which more than 500 entrepreneurs have been able to share their stories with the world. She help writers with their book and then launch it to best-seller status and she says that we make every project we decide to work on a passion project.

Follow her and Leaders Press here:

https://leaderspress.com/

linkedin.com/today/author/alinkarutkowska

Learn how to write a book here:

https://leaderspress.com/how-to-write-a-book/

Listen and read the episode here:

https://mayapinionpodcast.com/

Download the guide, "Be the Leader of Your Life" here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

What does it mean to be the Leader of Your Life?

Most people believe that you must have a title like Director or Vice-President at a Fortune 500 company to be a leader. Others think you must own your business or be an advocate for a great cause. None of that is true to be a leader. In my opinion, we have leadership backwards. We put so much pressure on people to achieve a certain status before they can "lead' that we have lost the true meaning of leadership. Before you can lead others, you must understand how to be the Leader of Your Life.

We have leadership backwards because we often are throwing individuals into situations before they even know who they are, especially who they are as a leader. We promote someone to lead a team before she knows what her values are for herself. We decide someone is ready to take on a new project before even examining whether it aligns with her personal mission. When we are interviewing and hiring, we often fail our teams as we don't take the time to understand what their vision for their life may be or what they feel their purpose is in this life. Why do we do this? Because no one did it for us and we are repeating the pattern.

How do we change the narrative of leadership? And most importantly, how do we take control and be the leader of our own lives first? The core basic steps for us to take are to truly understand what our values, mission, vision and purpose are before we even step foot into an interview, a job, an office, a promotion, new business endeavor, the list goes on. Leadership begins within you and understanding yourself so that you can give back to others with your core values from a place of purpose, clarity of vision, and feel aligned with your own mission.

What happens when we go about jumping into leadership the other way around is counterproductive and we learn what doesn't work. It can be helpful and that's exactly how I discovered what my values, mission, vision and purpose were not at all. However, it led me to start to understand that I got lost in corporate "culture" and like a chameleon, I would change into whatever those key elements were for the companies I worked for. I'm sure without a doubt that you have done exactly the same thing. It does not matter if you are a CEO, Business Owner, Stay at Home Mom, Part-Time Worker, Full Time Student, Unemployed individual seeking your next role, or just taking time to learn about yourself. You are the Leader of Your Life. Therefore, you are already a leader.

How to become the Leader of Your Life?

You do not need someone to give you permission to lead or be given the corner office with a title. You are already a leader. Your values, mission, vision, and purpose will drive you throughout your life and dictate your personal leadership. These four important pillars will guide you to succeed in any aspect of life that you choose to embark upon because you will have clarity about yourself as a person and as a leader. That is why we have leadership backwards. We bring people into different cultures; work, home, community, church, and so on. People oblige and join these communities. However, you will join, create, and naturally attract and lead the right communities in every aspect of your life when you are the leader of your life. Why? Because you will dictate your environment, your environment will not dictate you, and your values, mission, vision, and purpose will drive the environment you create and attract. You will ultimately know yourself.

Download the guide here: https://www.subscribepage.com/howtobetheleaderofyourlife

Listen and read here: https://mayapinionpodcast.com/