905 Maria Maldonado Smith:

Wings of Inspired Business EP905 – Maria Maldonado Smith with Host Melinda Wittstock

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Invest in your people because it will pay massive dividends because they will feel poured into. 82% of Gen Zer’s want a meaningful work environment and that is the future. They want to know that the work they do matters. Gen Zer’s don’t want the responsibility because they see it coming with nothing but negatives. Because we’re not doing a great job as leaders to, to make them want to climb the corporate ladder and they’re saying no, I would rather have my quality of life and my freedom, and I would rather be able to check out of work at night. I don’t want to be answering emails till 11 o’clock at night.

Melinda Wittstock:

Building a great team that delivers consistent and scalable results doesn’t mean working people around the clock or micromanaging them to frustration. Recruiting and team culture expert Maria Maldonado Smith says the old fear-based command and control models never work and your success as an entrepreneurial leader is to hire and empower around shared vision, value and expectations and to trust your team. Today we talk about the power of visionary goal setting, and how to align and empower your team to achieve their goals.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who started setting goals at age 9 and never looked back, from becoming the first in her family to graduate college and earn the title of Miss Kentucky to her award-winning success as a sales leader for Fortune 500 companies, and now as an entrepreneur helping companies large and small envision and meet their goals by creating company cultures that boost productivity and profitability. Maria Maldonado Smith is the founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of MMS Consulting and creator of its Executive Vision Imagery program.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we talk about how best to build and lead teams to success, how to build trust in your own team members so you don’t fall into the trap of micromanagement, and why it’s vital to recruit team members around shared vision and values – plus Maria’s entrepreneurial journey and what she’s learned working for a diverse array of clients from Disney to the US House of Representatives.

Melinda Wittstock:

Maria will be here in a moment, and first: A couple of updates. I’m busy building a safe social space over on Bluesky for female founders and investors to connect and support each other, so I’d love for you to join me there. Unlike all the other social platforms, Bluesky empowers you to create your own algorithms and no link to your business, blog or podcast ever gets suppressed. You can create a handle using your own web domain. Plus, it’s a public benefit corporation with a female founder and CEO. So, I’m focusing my social interactions on Bluesky – please join me – @melindawittstock.bsky.social. One other note – I’m now a venture partner and entrepreneur in residence at Zero Limits Capital – a new venture capital firm focused exclusively on funding women-led seed stage companies. I’ll have more news about that on Bluesky … so if you’re looking for funding and fit our technology based social impact thesis … you can catch all the updates and interact with me there. That’s @melindawittstock.bsky.social.

Melinda Wittstock:

What are the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make building a team? Turns out there are lots of ways to do it wrong, leaving you stressed out, overwhelmed and not getting the results and return on investment you wanted from your team.

Melinda Wittstock:

So today we’re going to focus on what it takes for any founder to recruit and lead an effective team. It all starts with having a clear vision and setting clear goals and expectations for the results you want to see from your team – and then being able to trust them enough to get out of their way.

Melinda Wittstock:

Easier said than done, right? That’s why we’re talking today to Maria Maldonado Smith, the founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of MMS Consulting and creator of the Executive Vision Imagery program. After 18 years of award-winning success in the corporate space as a sales leader for Fortune 500 companies across three different industries, Maria leapt into entrepreneurship to bring her experience, proprietary process and interactive trainings, to help companies understand the science and benefits of goal setting for their employees. Maria equips leaders, employees and organizations to clearly define goals and create a roadmap to achieving them, which allows for better alignment with corporate culture, leading to increased productivity and profitability. Maria has served numerous national and international clients, including US House of Representatives, Disney and Paramount Studios.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Maria Maldonado Smith and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Maria, welcome to Wings.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:

Excited to talk about goal setting. I’ve seen so many entrepreneurs over the years, really not do this very well. We don’t necessarily go into entrepreneurship with great managerial or leadership skills per se, and we kind of learn as we go, but success is really all about the team. What are the biggest mistakes that most entrepreneurs make when setting goals for their team members?

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I would say not having a clear vision would be the first one. I think often we head into entrepreneurship thinking, I have this idea, I want to see where it goes, and then we don’t. We might have the vision in us, but we don’t effectively communicate that or articulate that to our team. So, it’s hard to have a team of people carrying out a message if they don’t understand what is being asked of them.

Melinda Wittstock:

A lot of entrepreneurs are visionaries, but I think you, you, you kind of locked on something there that we’re not necessarily great at explaining it to people or maybe do we just sort of assume that people know, or are we just not good at articulating that vision?

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I think it’s a little bit of both. I think one thing is as an entrepreneur myself, I have a very clear vision for what it is that I want to accomplish. When I bring other people in to work with me, I have to be very clear and set those boundaries of this is what it is that I am working to build or that I want to achieve off of, based off of like this particular program, this particular workshop, this particular group coaching cohort that I am hosting. To be able to identify like, what is the main outline of it and then give that to someone else for them to help me follow through on has been really the key to my success. I would say that anytime, whether you’re in corporate or whether you’re an entrepreneur, just when things trickle down and it’s like playing the game of telephone, right? By the time it gets to, to the last person, it’s completely changed. And that’s because we have kind of that failure to create the consistent messaging around what it is we’re working to achieve. I think the other thing too is that I don’t expect anyone else to be as passionate about what I do more so than me.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

The reason I left corporate, the reason that I spread my wings and said I want to go do this is because I believe wholeheartedly in the work that I do. And so that’s hard sometimes if I am a hiring a contractor to help me because I’m trying to exude that same level of enthusiasm and passion in hopes that they will, it’ll be contagious and hopes that it’ll rub off on them. But it doesn’t always work that way because sometimes they look at it as just a job, as an opportunity to get paid. I think we have to be mindful of that, that that’s why a lot of entrepreneurs do kind of keep their, their vision or their goal to very, very close to them. But in order to, to grow, in order to expand, we do have to let people in. So, understanding how to tell your story and how to create messaging around it that is cohesive and consistent is the best piece of advice I can give to, you know, an entrepreneur that’s trying to build a team or is trying to grow the messaging around what it is their business is doing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. And then how that ties into the results. I think where we fall down sometimes too is with very clear expectations of what success actually is, right? Employees, team members, looking for feedback and looking for guidance. You know, that takes a lot of time, you know, for an entrepreneur or a CEO to really get that right. Like set the expectations of what success actually means in executing that vision. So, take me through your process of how you help people actually get good at that.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

It all starts with communication. And then, I mean I have a process, I have a five-step process that aligns with all of my workshops, my leadership retreats, whether they’re corporate, whether they’re entrepreneur, whether they’re in the educational space, both K through 12 and collegiate. All of it is pretty much the same. That’s what’s interesting too is my process in and of itself is very consistent across every, whether I’m talking with a kindergartner or whether I’m talking with a CEO of a company. So that was something that I think simplicity where I would start is the KISS method. We’ve got to keep it simple, stupid.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And because that’s how, that’s how we metabolize things, we metabolize things slowly and, and when we can understand them, then we can start to pick up other concepts. I would say that having standard operating procedures for any company, any team, any organization, any entrepreneurial group, is paramount. We have to have a standard operating procedure so that everyone knows what the heck they’re doing and how they’re and how they’re operating. It’s level setting the expectation. And as entrepreneurs I think we sometimes, because I do believe that entrepreneurs are more visionary-esque than most. And so, we kind of dive headfirst into things without thinking and just make a lot of assumptions that people are going to understand what it is that we’re doing because we’re so passionate about it or because we’re so involved in it. And that’s not the case. This is why we have to have those operating procedures in place.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And sometimes that’s not our strong suit. If we are a creative visionary, if we are someone who is more creative and, and is more the, you know, 64,000-foot view, it’s a little bit harder for us to get more granular and more detailed. So, this is where we gotta hire someone. We’ve got to Google or we’ve gotta do our research on, you know, how to build, you know, some, some standard operating procedures. There are so many free resources out there. You know, I have a, I have a process that I have followed pretty consistently whenever I’ve brought someone on. Because an aspect of my business and my consulting firm is I do hiring and staffing for different businesses. So, within each business there has to be a different set of standard operating procedures.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

When I’m working with a corporate company and we’re building out, you know, we’re doing a vision board workshop and we’re talking all about personal professional goals in the corporate setting or in the entrepreneurial space. As an aside, 82% of small businesses cite that they have used a vision board in order to be successful. And when they have, they’ve accomplished over 50% of their goals. So, it’s very important and that’s very much a part of my, my process. And I would say it should be a key and integral part of any entrepreneur’s process. But we need to do, do so with very clear alignment to our goals. It’s not just a fun craft or project that we put together with some friends over a glass of wine.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

While that is also fun, it really needs to be tied to your goals. The vision board really is just a visual representation of the goals that you put on paper that you then outlined an action commitment plan for that you have spoken with your team about and shared the goals and communicated them effectively. And then when you then mirror that exercise and then now you’re learning from your team, you’re better understanding what their needs are, what they want, what their goals are. You might have an idea of what you think their goals are. And then they could shock and surprise you when they, when they’re given the opportunity to really share what it is that they’re, that they’re passionate about, what their ‘why’ is. I think that’s, that’s another, another big piece of this.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes, exactly. So, say you hire somebody to, you know, fulfill a role. And you need clear expectations of like, not only what they’re doing, but like, yeah, why they’re doing it, and what success would mean. Some of the things I’ve seen a lot of people do is hire somebody to do something, but not necessarily be conscious even themselves of what the result they want of doing that thing is and then is not really necessarily paying attention or giving that team member the guidance that they need and the feedback to be able to fulfill on that role. And I think that’s frustrating for the team member. I think they want that. Don’t you think

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Absolutely. I think what you’re also describing is kind of the opposite of being more of a micromanager. It’s kind of that person who is just so hands off that they almost seem aloof or just out of touch with, with, with, with the person. Like, we can trust our team members so much that we kind of just let them loose and let them fend for themselves. And we really need a good balance. You know, they don’t want to be micromanaged. They don’t want keystrokes counted. They don’t want every minute of their day accounted for.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

You know, trust that they’re the right person for the job. If not, then don’t hire them if you have any reservations about that. Give them that flexibility, give them that autonomy, give them that responsibility of your trust. But at the same time, we’ve got to level set the expectation and that’s a, that’s a ground level type of event. If that’s not happening when you first onboard them, like if you don’t have an onboarding process or procedure, whether you have one team member or 500 team members, you have to have an onboarding process for them, they need to know, you know, like I said, what are those SOPs? You know, how am I going to show up in my day every day? Let me understand, you know, let me help you understand what my personal goals are, why I wanted this job. A lot of that most likely will be accomplished during the interview process, but those are good reminders because if you are moving at a fast enough clip and you’re hiring people, you’re, you might not remember everyone. It’s good to take the time.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

The next piece of that is to slow down, is to slow down and spend time with your people. Get to know them, get to know why they’re there, why they’re showing up, get, understand what their why is. Ask them these three questions. What is it that they want? Who do they want to become? I think that’s open ended. Who do they want to become in that role? Who do they want to become, you know, as a member of your team? Who do they want to become in their life in general? And then the third thing is what do they want to create? What do they want to build? So, the way that you reframe those for your organization is, you know, what do you want to get out of this job? Like, what do you want? How can I help you then get there. Because now if I know what it is that you want, now I have a better roadmap to helping you get there. If I know who you want to become through this process, maybe it’s that you want to become, you know, a stronger manager of time, a stronger leader, you know, a better and more effective leader, a more a servant-based leader, whatever that may be. Now as, as the, as the, the team lead, as the CEO, as the business owner, as the leader of the corporate team, you now have a direct answer to who are they? Who do they want to become? And then the third thing, what do they want to create? You know, maybe they want to create a legacy at the company, maybe they want to create a lasting position for themselves.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Maybe they just want to create some job stability. Like I think all of it is fair and all of it is warrants, you know, just that vulnerability and honesty. But that comes with, with immediately building that trust from the very beginning and saying, you know, I hired you for these reasons, but at the same time we’re going to still be doing a lot of things together because I need to be in this with you. Because if you don’t care, then they’re not going to care either.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. And knowing what motivates them too The other aspect too is being aligned on values. I think sometimes in the hiring process, right, people can hire the wrong person because it’s not a good culture fit or it’s not really aligned on, you know, the values of the company. Who are the types of people that you want to work with and why? Being clear on that and being able to elicit that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Because I think some bad hires, you know, it happens because not only the miscommunication that you’re talking about, but. But there’s just not an alignment. Like people are just pulling in different directions and not necessarily, you know, aligned on values or culture.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I agree completely. I think you’re spot on. I mean, I think core values is a massive miss. If they’re not being. If they’re not being brought into the conversation of the interview process or if there is a red flag and you’re ignoring it all because someone might look good on paper. Those are things definitely to take into consideration. And you’ve got to consider the existing team members that you have brought on board.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

How will this person fit in with them? Will they end up fracturing what you have worked so hard to build? You know, are they a person that you could see them becoming combative or insubordinate? I mean, all of those things. I think sometimes, depending on the level of questions and how deep you get in the interview process, should reveal themselves to you throughout that process. And I say definitely trust your gut and your instinct when it comes to that, and don’t make the higher. I always say don’t be quick to hire someone just because you need to fill a spot. Wait for the right person to come along, because they will, they will, and you will thank yourself so much for waiting. I’ve worked at too many companies who, you know, turnover’s high, retention is just staggering. And so therefore that impacts the level of engagement from your other employees as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, I’m interested in this tension, like going back to what you’re saying about micromanaging versus being remoteOn the remote side I don’t think it’s because they necessarily want to be. It’s because of the overwhelm for a founder, especially if a company’s growing really quickly and to that point of hiring really quickly and getting. Getting overwhelmed and just not being able to be on top of it. Like, you know, it comes down to having the systems in place and all of that. But sometimes the way companies grow, like, if it’s really succeeding, that’s actually a really dangerous time.

Melinda Wittstock:

And that, that’s where a lot of this stuff can fall down. And, and on the flip side of it, the micromanaging is interesting too, because. Yeah, you mentioned it’s a lack of trust, but that comes down to, I think for entrepreneurs who in the early stages are used to doing everything, it’s hard to let go.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yeah. Or control freaks.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Sometimes people fall into micromanaging only because actually they’ve made the wrong hire. Like the person really isn’t working out.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yeah, yeah, right. I agree with you. I agree with you. Sometimes we hire in haste because we think, well, we just need to get the position filled. We need the team to be full. Like, like, you know, having a full team or having a complete team is the goal. As opposed to, as opposed to finding the right fit, finding the right person. When, you know, I’d rather a position stay open five months until the right person comes along that actually fits the team and fits the dynamic of what I’m, what I’m looking for.

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Maria Maldonado Smith, founder and chief empowerment officer of MMS Consulting.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s go back to the beginning of how you got into this whole space. You were doing this for, corporations. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in terms of being able to execute on this for companies? Where was it going wrong? What got you excited about, about helping companies with this?

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Well, a couple of things. I mean, I spent a little over 18 years in the corporate space. I was in three, across three different industries and in a sales leadership role for the better part of 11 years. And so, when I reflected on my own journey and part of the reason I decided to leave corporate and do this work, not only because I believe in it, but was, I mean, I saw the level of stress, the lack of support when you’re in a sales environment. Especially you sometimes depending on where you’re located, you most likely are on an island. And so, you are working within your, your region or your area. You have to trust as a leader.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

When I first started out in leadership as well, I was also a hiring manager. I had to hire and build my team. And as I was building my team, I noticed that we were hiring in haste. We were simply hiring because we just needed someone in the market to service the clients and customers that we were working with. And there were many times when I didn’t want to hire someone, but leadership was pressuring me to make those types of, those types of hires. And after a while, after a couple of them didn’t make it, and we had to, you know, see them into a different opportunity, I think that’s when they started to realize, okay, all right, we’ll slow down, we’ll take this a little bit slower. And that maybe meant that I was working the market, you know, with, you know, by myself. I was working that market until I could find the right fit.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I was then inquiring from our own clients and customers who have you worked within this area or this market that you think would be a great fit. From there, I started to identify that not only were, you know, were we lacking in that space of kind of just hiring in haste, we also weren’t really getting to know our employees that well. And so much of it was focused on the results, and so little was focused on why are the results important? Why, why, why are you going out every day? What’s your why, why are you waking up every day? What’s the purpose that you have for this role? You know, I’m. We’re not putting people on the moon. I’m not doing brain surgery, so I’m not saving someone’s life. I’m literally in a sales role. So, what’s your why? Because at the end of the day, we all have reasons why we wake up and go to work. And it’s just getting to know your people.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And I think that’s probably one of the bigger misses as well, is we move so quickly and we are so fast paced these days that we don’t slow down and get to know the very people that are working with us, especially in a corporate environment.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, so also in a remote work environment as well. That’s also tricky because you can sometimes just really not know what’s going on with someone, like, emotionally or Any of these things, because it’s just that that lack of face to face is actually really challenging. And so how much can you really do this effectively, you know, on, on Zoom and such? And you were about to go into like the pandemic, which of course just ended. Everything about the way we work, what have you seen changed and what’s the best way to do this? Because so many companies are remote now.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

So, in the work that I do, part of the reason I left, you know, corporate was because I said, gosh, you know, I want to build, I want to help build stronger teams, I want to be part of the solution, and I want to be a problem solver. I saw what was happening with the great resignation In September of 2020 and then 2021, with everyone, you know, leaving a lot of their roles and either leaving corporate for good and trying their hand at entrepreneurship, or leaving one company for another. What I realized was I wanted to be part of the, of the solution. And so, I designed a program called Executive Vision Imagery. All around my love and passion for the neuroscience of goal setting, habit formation, positive habit formation, and then the power of vision imagery or vision boarding. There’s so much science linked and connected to our ability to accomplish a goal when we can see it, when we can visualize it. I’ve been vision boarding with my family for years. So I took what we had been doing in our home and mapped out the process basically that we, that we use and created this, this program and I started slowly taking it into two companies and within two weeks of leaving corporate, you know, landed my first client, worked with them for 15 months, really kind of building out the process with them, alongside them, implementing certain strategies, helping to retain their current employees, helping to grow the team and company culture, and then also working to build a solid foundation for succession as well, so for leadership down the road.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

So that’s really how the pandemic kind of impacted me and my purpose. I knew that I was going to leave corporate in 2019, in the fall of 2019, shortly after we had relocated for a third time in less than eight years. So, uprooting three kids, three new schools, a new state, a new community, all of the things I found myself realizing that I probably, probably my time in corporate was short lived. I really used the opportunity when the pandemic happened, I used it as the gift that it was for me. I realized it was a horrible time in our world’s history, but I Think a lot of people found themselves really reevaluating and questioning what their purpose was and what their why was.

Melinda Wittstock:

The pandemic was a great pattern interrupt, and you had in that moment with that because suddenly everything stopped, right? And you could reflect and think well what do I really want? And really reevaluate or you could be in fear like so there were so many great businesses actually started at that time. Often there are, you know, in times of just big kind of schisms of change.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yes, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Because the people were proactive and think, oh well actually this is an opportunity. How can I, how can I leverage this to, to be who I really want to be? And that I think, you know, was a particularly positive. Even though it was hard. I’ve seen so many great new businesses start in that way and also have to learn how to work differently. I think a lot of that is still shaking out in terms of, you know, with that you mentioned before, you know, the great resignation or how to really keep employees engaged. Where you have these ‘command and control’ corporate cultures, for instance people coming in and working in their cubicle and working for certain hours and that just lack of flexibility, all that went out the wind. Nobody wants to work like that.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yeah. And you, and you hit the nail on the head when you said that. It gives us, it gave us the time to slow down. And I think that’s the biggest key. And so, what I try to do with teams is to remind them, hey, don’t forget what we learned, what the pandemic taught us. Don’t forget that. Slow down with your team. Do the leadership retreat, do the two-day leadership retreat.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Invest in your people because it will pay dividends, massive dividends because they will feel poured into. 82% of Gen Zer’s want a meaningful work environment and that is the future. They want to know that the work they do matters. So, this is who most hiring managers are hiring in at entry level positions. This is who eventually they will end up being. Wanting to be wanting to promote Gen Zer’s don’t want the responsibility because they see it coming with negatives, nothing but negatives. Because we’re not doing a great job as leaders to, to make them want to climb the corporate ladder and they’re saying no, I would rather have my quality of life and my freedom, and I would rather be able to check out of work at night. I don’t want to be answering emails till 11 o’clock at night.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I don’t want to be on call on the weekends. Like, I want to enjoy my life because there’s more to living than working. And, you know, that was very much and always has been, you know, a mantra of my husband. We don’t, we don’t live to work, we work to live because we very much love our vacations and we love the free time that we get with, you know, with our family. I think we got to get back to some of those core principles and values that the pandemic taught us or reminded us of that we have since so quickly just readjusted the other way. I’ve talked to too many corporations and team members within corporations here of late who’ve said that the company has abandoned the people first mentality and gone right back to profit first. So, it’s like, wow, how quickly we’ve forgotten, you know, where we came from over the past, you know, few years and some of the significant impacts that the pandemic had, like I said in a positive way for us, reevaluating and taking the time to slow down and get to know our people.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, it’s really interesting in this context too because it’s not just remote work or Gen Z and what they want and you know, women in the workforce really needing much more families generally like really benefiting from a much more flexible structure. So, if you’re a results driven culture, you know, to me, I don’t care if our engineers, want to work at 4:00 in the morning, you know, whatever, right? It’s not really the hours, you know, it’s the results. And so that presupposes that it’s really about clear results, is about trusting your people to set their hours in a way. I mean, there’s trust, but then there’s accountability. So, them knowing kind of what the results are, being able to communicate. If there’s a block or whatever that they have the support and whatnot to get through, you know, a challenge or this kind of thing, but it’s really being really clear as a CEO or as an executive team of setting up those structures and just being very, very clear about it. And I think the pandemic is kind of interesting in a sense because it allows us to reimagine that and be better.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, companies that have really effective teams are always going to be the ones that win, like the ones that have joyful cultures, you know, are going to win hands down every time. If people are showing up in fear, they’re not going to be doing their best work, you know.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Absolutely. When you are leading with that fear, then, exactly. The only way we know how to react is, is to. It’s like that frenetic energy, you know, it’s a tension, there’s a tense energy. And when we, when we evaluated like chronic illness and all of this throughout the pandemic, one thing that we noticed was, you know, in companies, part of the reason there was a great resignation was because we had companies who were just pouring down on their people, asking them to do so much more with less people would leave. And then they were on hiring freezes, so they weren’t refilling the position. And it’s just putting more and more stress on people.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And part of the issue that we’ve had coming out of the pandemic is some of this level of not getting out, not being able to get out of the fight or flight response. We’re kind of living in this perpetual state of chronic stress and illness and sleep deprivation. Which is why if we can provide flexibility for our team members, if we can give them an opportunity to decide when it is, they work. Like you said, if an engineer wants to work at 4:00 in the morning, because physiologically and biologically, that’s when they work the best, I am all for that. If they can get the job done and get the results, then I think we gotta trust that they’re going, that they’re going to do that when we give people that autonomy. I talk about this often in the youth space and in women’s empowerment with younger children, especially kids want to. And as I raised two teenagers and then an almost eight-year-old, they want freedom, they want autonomy, they want independence. They want to know that their opinion matters and that they’re valued for who they are as an individual.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

That doesn’t change just because we go work for a company. We still want that same freedom, autonomy, independence. We want that level of trust. And I think like I said at the very beginning, I think it all ties back to communication. Just how are we communicating with our people? You know, are we pouring into them? Are we helping them to understand that they’re not just a cog in the wheel, they are, they are a spoke in the wheel. And without them like this, the operation doesn’t work. And I think that’s where it feeds back into that, you know, meaningful work environment and needing to know that I might be responsible for only $4 million of the, you know, total sales for my company, but I’m $4 million of the total sales. Like, that’s something to get excited about.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And if I can produce those results, I should be rewarded and recognized for the efforts that I put into that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, exactly. So, Maria, I’m really intrigued by your bio in terms of who, who you’ve done this work for whether it was a Hollywood studio like Disney or Paramount from there. Also, the US House of Representatives.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yeah. Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Big kind of, you know, so, so tell me a little bit about, like, the politics. What were you doing? Were you helping, like, you know, Congress people with their staffs and whatnot? Was that, was that the role and what was that like?

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yes, such a surreal opportunity, and I hope to do it again this year, although it is an election year, so it might, it might have to be pushed to 2025 to kind of wait for things to settle down. But, you know, we, we conducted the workshop in the Capitol, so that was pretty, just fantastic. I’ve graduated with. My degree is in political science. I interned in D.C., so it was great to be back and be kind of among some of the areas that I used to run around when I was an intern a long time ago. But yes, it was working with staff of congressional offices because they run the gamut from 22 years of age interns to fresh out of college to I’ve been doing this for years. And so, it was a way to bring them together for team cohesion, for them to understand, like, you know, their, their jobs are very high pressure.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

They deal with a lot of angry constituents at times. And so how can we pour into them? And, and really that’s what the workshop was designed to do, was you, you, you serve someone at all times, because in whatever role or capacity that they’re in, within that congressional member’s office, they’re constantly serving, whether they’re the intern or whether they’re the chief of staff. So, this was a way for them to have a leadership retreat for themselves to be poured into, to say, okay, now let’s give you that time. Remember, like we said, slow down. Let’s. Let’s let you slow down, and let’s do it in a way where we’re all together in this room. So, like, they took the entire day off, which I think is. Says so much about the level of thoughtfulness and the level of care that the members have for their staff.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I thought that was a big thing for me was that they allowed, you know, they gave them that opportunity and they championed it. I thought that was super cool because it’s just like anything else. I think it’s same thing with teachers, same thing with doctors, same thing with lawyers, same thing. Healthcare providers, oh my goodness. I do a lot of work with healthcare providers in the pharmaceutical space, in the healthcare space, with hospitals. These are people who are high stress, high level positions and they’re constantly pouring into other people, so their cup is completely being diminished. They are all about results on behalf of the hospital, on behalf of their patients, on behalf of their private practice, if they have that in addition. So, they are running and gunning at all times.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

This is an opportunity, whenever I do workshops with them, to pour into them and to help them understand that if they’re going to lead a team, then they need to lead themselves first. And so, we talk a lot, we use a lot of analogies. You know, put, put your oxygen mask on first. That’s why they tell you to do that on a flight. Because if I can’t help myself and I can’t help someone else. And, and so that’s a lot of the work that I do is it’s mindset, it’s motivation, it’s, it’s action driven. And we set goals in that workshop. They’re spending all day writing out their goals, they’re writing their core values.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

They’re ironing out a mission statement. You know, it may only be a couple sentences and it may be kind of rough and they’re going to revisit that, but they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re doing the hard work to pour into themselves to make themselves a better version of who they are so that when they show up to work, when they show up for their company, for their people, they, they are, they are their most authentic self. And that is a very contagious and encouraging environment to be a part of.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, 100%. You know, it’s interesting in the political sphere because presumably you’re working for, you know, a representative or whatever that you believe in their mission, so there’s potentially already alignment. I think in, in a corporate scenario, it’s the, the mission is less obvious sometimes.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Yes. And in full transparency, I’ve had workshop participants in corporations come up to me afterwards and say, your workshop actually solidified and validated that I don’t belong here. I’m like, oh, yikes. Okay, well, hey, you know what? At least I was able to help you accomplish that today. But listen, that’s the thing. Sometimes we show up for things because we, we need a paycheck. We need, we need money.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I will never fault anyone for saying, I just, I need to get a job because I have to support myself or support my family. We do what we have to do. Sometimes I think when we gain a little bit of traction and a little bit of ground and we have an opportunity we’ve maybe saved or we’ve gotten ourselves to a point where we can start making some decisions that are us focused and that have the goals and the dreams that we want to fulfill as our, our first kind of inclination, then we can make those decisions. And so that conversation actually then bled over to a LinkedIn conversation, which then turned into me working with this particular employee on road mapping her the vision for her life and her future. And for her, it meant going back to school and it meant obtaining a degree in something completely unrelated to what she had been doing because her true passion was helping people in another way. So, kind of cool. But yeah, I would say in a corporate setting, we sometimes are a little bit more misaligned than we are when it’s nonprofit work or when it’s government work.

Melinda Wittstock:

In your bio it says at age 9, you, you decided you were going to set goals. At age 9, you decided you were going to set goals for yourself. To be the first person in your family to, to go to college, you achieved a whole bunch of things. You actually Miss Kentucky as well. There’s not a lot of nine-year-olds necessarily that have that clear vision and like for goal setting and whatnot. What, what do you think, think was it about you in particular that knew that you needed clarity, and you needed goals and that you were going to work towards those goals?

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Well, I’d like to say that I just came up with that exercise all on my own, but it was actually an exercise that our teacher did with us. She asked us what to get out a piece of paper. It was the third or fourth day of school and it was at the very beginning of school year. She said, get out a piece of paper and write down three goals.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

That’s all she said; three goals, gave us no guideline, no parameter. And I mean I, if, if you’ve, if you’ve studied the Enneagram or you’ve ever heard of it. I am an Enneagram enthusiast through and through. I also have traits of an achiever. I’m the daughter of an immigrant. I think that also plays a big role. Played a big role and still does to this day in, in my just innate and desire to, to constantly be dreaming and constantly be accomplishing things or setting goals. But yes, it was, it was at the direction of our teacher.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And so, I wrote those three goals down really because we weren’t given a guideline and she didn’t say long term goals, she didn’t say short term goals, she just said goals. I took it and ran with it. I’m a dreamer. I’m very much, like I said, an enthusiast. And I knew I wanted to go to college third grade pretty. I was probably still eight at this point. But third grade, you know, was kind of the, the turning point for I think a lot of kids. Like that’s when you start to realize like what college is or you start to realize what higher education is primarily because your parents probably have been talking about it a lot.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

My father had the equivalent of an eighth-grade education. He was never given the opportunity to have a formal education because he had to work on his family’s ranch in order to help provide for the family. And when he was given the opportunity to come to the United States, it was literally on the back of a horse. You know, my dad, he was, he was too tall to be a jockey, but I think he would have loved, loved to have been one. So, the next, his next, you know, best bet or best, you know, thing that he enjoyed was caring for horses. So, exercising them, training them. And then that turned into a 30-year career breeding horses, and that’s how he found his way to Lexington, Kentucky, the horse capital of the world.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

That’s where he met my mother. So, I think a lot of that played a huge part in our upbringing. You know, we knew the story of my dad coming to this country. And I think anytime you are raised by an immigrant parent, or both of your parents are immigrants, there’s just this sense of legacy and that you’re tethered to. And so that was a big piece of it. That was really a big piece of it, the Miss Kentucky portion of it. I just been, had been watching Miss America with my mom since I was a little girl and I was like, I want to be Miss Kentucky.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I want to represent my home state at Miss America. And then the last one, I put. I think I put I wanted to be a United States Senator, which is hilarious because ironically, you know, I work, I’ve done work with you at U.S. House of Representatives, but I shared that with them and, and I said, no, thank you. I do not want to actually be a member of the House of Representatives or the United States Senate. Not in today’s political environment. I would never sign my family up for that.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

That would be just. I mean, yeah, might as well go. I would have better results jumping off a cliff. So. So that one I use as an example to show that, you know what, sometimes when we’re young, we say things to impress people. That was probably me trying to impress my third-grade teacher. But I also do distinctly remember my father watching a lot of C Span. And that’s how he learned English.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

That’s how he learned hand gestures, communication. Because politicians were very lively and they had very, they had higher level of vocabulary. So, my father, while he didn’t have a formal education, was very intelligent and was a very quick learner. Phenomenal. Like a great mathematician could always help us with math homework. And I think in a, in a different life, could have been a doctor, for sure. And, and I think that that also was when I would go to work with him and see him interact with horses and just how he would tend to them and care for them. I think had he been given opportunities to, to seek an education that he could have done, you know, even, even, even more phenomenal things, you know, with his life.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

But yeah, so that was, Those were, those were imparted on us. And I think that’s probably why I put that. But ultimately, I did end up going to college and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2004. I won Miss Kentucky the next month. And that’s because I went home, and I transferred that piece of paper onto a Post It note. And that post it note hung on my mirror until I was a senior in high school, about to head off to college.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

I was looking at those goals every single day for 10 years. And that does something to you. It definitely motivates you and keeps it at the forefront of your mind. Which is why the vision boarding with, with. With, you know, in corporate space and entrepreneurial space with children, with collegians is just incredibly powerful.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. Amazing. Well, look, I want to make sure that everybody, because I think everybody does need assistance in this area, I, I have very few people who, who get this right. And the entrepreneurial journey, you know, as, you know, as an entrepreneur yourself, is one of a lot of trial and error and failures and a lot of learnings along the way. So, for anybody listening to this that would like to find out more about working with you, what’s the best way?

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Best way is my website. It’s mmsconsultingfirm.com and you will find, you know, options for businesses, options for, you know, collegians, because I’m a speaker on college campuses across the country and then for individuals as well, who are wanting to elevate, you know, their life to their standards. If you are an entrepreneur, by all means, reach out to me. I have a contact form on the, on my website. You can see all of the, the speaking engagements that I do. You can see I even have content. I’ve got a freebie on setting boundaries because I think that’s a big aspect of the goal setting space is, you know, are we adequately setting boundaries so that we can be successful? And so that’s a freebie if you want to join. And then I have, you know, I have a weekly newsletter that goes out called the 2020, and it’s about kind of seeing clearly and having clear vision for our goals.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

That goes out every Thursday morning. And then I have a podcast that is on hiatus right now because I took a summer sabbatical. I am back to recording and that will be popping up soon. But you can catch last season’s episodes. It’s called Creating the Vision, where I talk with entrepreneurs, I talk with corporate, corporate leaders, I talk with moms, I talk with all kinds of. All kinds of unique and amazing individuals on how they are setting and creating the vision for the life that they’re now living. And, you know, and you know, spoiler alert, not hardly any of us got it right the first time, so.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

And our path to success has not been linear by any means. I’ve really enjoyed doing the podcast and talking with so many unique, different individuals, similar to what we’re doing today. And then I’m most active on socials, on Instagram is where I’m most active, and LinkedIn, so I would say those are the two. But I’m on Facebook, I’m on every single platform. Maria Maldonado Smith. My website again is MMS consulting firm dot com. And you can also order my workbook called Creating a Vision Board, which is more, more consumer facing and that’s on Amazon and that’s available so you can just Google that and it walks you through five step process gives you some templates in the background.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much. We’re going to have all of that information in the show notes so like if you’re driving or something like that or jogging. Yeah you’re listening to this. Don’t worry that’s all on the website and everything so people will be able to get in touch with you. Maria, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Maria Maldonado Smith:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate. Yeah it’s been very fun. Thank you.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Maria Maldonado Smith is the founder and chief empowerment officer of MMS Consulting.

Melinda Wittstock:

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Melinda Wittstock:

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