Episode 166: Maria Moskver
CEO of Cloudvirga
00:46:59Subscribe and listen on…
Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | PocketCasts | iHeartRadio | Player.FM Podcasts
Today's guest is Maria Moskver, the CEO of Cloudvirga. Her experience as a tech GC and CEO demonstrates the many places a law degree and business savvy can take you. In this conversation, she explains her leadership philosophy, her move from the legal side to the business side, and the increasing seamlessness between the two. She also shares tips on navigating an in-house role and the role of mentors and culture in building a career and fostering a team that benefits the whole enterprise. Join Maria Moskver as she sits down with MC Sungaila, and find inspiration in her work today.
About Maria Moskver:
With over 25 years of executive management and legal compliance experience, Maria Moskver has boldly established herself in the mortgage industry. As CEO of Cloudvirga, she leads the fintech firm in developing innovative point-of-sale solutions tailored for mortgage lenders. Maria’s leadership was pivotal in transforming Cloudvirga from a startup to a market leader, culminating in its 2021 acquisition by Stewart Title. As CEO, she continues to lead Cloudvirga in influencing the evolution of technology in the mortgage industry.
In 2023, Maria’s expertise earned notable recognition. HousingWire named her a “Woman of Influence” and “Vanguard” Honoree, she received Octane’s High Tech Award for “Best Tech Company CEO,” Mortgage Banker Magazine bestowed her the”Legend of Lending” title, and Inman included her as one of their “2023 Best of Finance.” Additionally, under her leadership, Cloudvirga consistently ranked on HousingWire”s Mortgage Tech100 list from 2019 to 2024, marking its influence in the industry.
Maria’s passion for advances in housing technology led to her active participation in the MBA’s Technology Working Group. She is also Chair of the California Mortgage Bankers Association’s Legal Issues Committee and has been active with the CMBA since 2015. Maria also advocates for women and minorities through her volunteer work. She is currently on the board for the Women Leaders of Octane OC, a California non-profit in the tech sector, and served as an advisory board member for Delta Data Services, a minority and woman-owned tech company.
She takes great pride in her work and acknowledges the importance of having a diverse background and using that background to push forward the mission of streamlining the mortgage origination process and advancing the cause for more professional women in technology roles.
Tech Executive And Former General Counsel
In this episode, I'm very pleased to have in the show the CEO of Cloudvirga, Maria Moskver. Welcome.
Thank you, MC. I'm honored to be here.
Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you agreed to do this because you have an amazing journey both to this country and also from law to business, which a lot of people will be interested in also. I wanted to start first with the law piece and then the business piece. What made you decide to go to law school or think that being a lawyer would be something you wanted to do?
The funny part is I never wanted to be a lawyer but I ended up practicing in a law firm for a long time. I wanted to go to law school to understand how to negotiate contracts. At the time that I went, which was in the late '90s, I had this very advanced idea that I would be able to negotiate transactions in Russia. That's where I came from. That did not happen.
I did my JD MBA and entered the financial services industry right away. I've stayed in that industry both in law and business. For a while, I had my firm, which was also very fun from the perspective that I could do estate planning, which is outside of my realm of financial services but it's still somewhat related. I enjoyed that but then I decided to go back in-house and that's where I spent the majority of my career as a general counsel.
I seem to recall there was an interesting story about one of your first jobs. You went with a connection from your school. Can you talk about that?
That's the quintessential mentor story. I had a professor in economics in undergrad who introduced me to an alum from Colorado College, which was my undergraduate. She had started a company in Denver where I used to live. I was employee number four at that. That was my first startup at the beginning of my career in financial services. I did everything. As employee number four, you have to do everything. It was a fantastic experience and it set me up for the trajectory of operations and law simultaneously.
That fortuitous connection early on can sometimes impact your trajectory or even some of the fun of your career to some degree. I have a friend of mine who is one of our elected Orange County Board of Supervisors. When she first moved here, she knew nobody and sent snail mail letters to women lawyers who she thought might be willing to have coffee with her or were doing work on behalf of other women and girls.
I was one of the people she sent the letter to and 1 of 2 who responded to them. Ever since that time forward, we have been friendly and supported each other in each other's careers. You go out on a limb and talk to someone or be introduced to someone. You never know where it might go and how your life can be enriched.
The power of connections is very true. You never know where it can go.
Did you think you wanted to go into financial services? Did that happen in that particular position?
That's not true. I studied economics. I loved finance. There was always that passion for that area. I used to study stocks and their movement when I was younger. I always had that as a passion but I don't think I would have told someone, "I want to go into the mortgage industry."
Sometimes you don't know until you get in and you think, "There's something in this that resonates with the things that I like," and it may not be obvious. I want to ask you. Did the Law degree help you in your negotiations?
Here's a classic law answer. It depends on what kinds of negotiations. This is a true female trait in negotiating for myself but I don't think I would have had that skillset in negotiating transactions had I not gone to law school.
Is that because of negotiation skills that are taught in law school, which were barely starting to be taught when I was in law school? I was in one of the first negotiation classes or clinics. It was out there but it's getting a little more mainstream. Understanding the legal implications and drafting things in itself could help you be a better negotiator because you know the limits of things.
Understanding the limits and the different perspectives on how you can make those converge to negotiate something effectively is something you learn over time. I should correct what I said. I didn't learn it in law school but I picked up skills that would help me to be able to negotiate effectively.
Plus, the MBA. The business school was right next to the law school. The law students were always working alone on problems and researching. The business school had teams working together and implementing projects. It was a different culture.
All of the projects were team projects. I can't say that was always good because you might have a team that didn't want to do anything but it forced you to work in a team. It's very different than law school.
There are leadership skills and teamwork skills from that. If you go to law school, you tend to get those later.
They're trying to focus more on business aspects and some of the softer skills for lawyers like emotional intelligence and negotiating. Those are all very valuable for lawyers.
It's helpful to be effective much earlier in your career. Tell me about the in-house counsel roles that you had even at your current company. You were in the general counsel role and then moved through other aspects of the C-Suite to your position now. Maybe we can talk about your in-house roles, what you enjoyed about those, and any tips you would have for those who might be interested in becoming general counsel.
Startup number one where I was employee number four is where I learned how to balance so many things at once. We were closing on average twenty transactions a month. This was before the housing crisis when things were very unregulated. We had securities flowing through constantly. You had to be on top of it. Later on, what was interesting in my career was that I watched the crisis develop. I could see what was going to happen with the regulations because there were none.
In addition to being a transactional attorney, I was a regulatory compliance attorney in the space. That's my expertise. When I was a very young lawyer, I was probably seven years out at that point, I got to be on the stand all over the country testifying about what we were doing with these mortgage processes because that's when the crisis was already unraveling. I got to meet with the DOJ early on in my career. All of those things set me up for understanding how to be an effective general counsel in terms of keeping everything documented and being able to explain things very well. You have to be prepared all of the time.
As my career developed, I very much realized the importance of understanding the business from beginning to end, going to the actual operations, and seeing how they're doing the operations. I didn't ask enough questions in the beginning. I noticed that good lawyers ask a lot of questions and that's important to understand because otherwise, you're relying on what people are telling you. You don't know what you don't know.
Really good lawyers ask a lot of questions.
I was thinking. People may describe how something is done but it doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. You can't know that or figure it out unless you understand the process and the goals.
Some of the skills that are invaluable as a general counsel are being neutral, not taking a side, having a true poker face, taking in everybody's perspective, and always maintaining your integrity. That's probably the most important skill for me, at least in my career. The thing that I value the most is having that integrity. You have to keep a lot of secrets. People will tell you things. My go-to statement is, "I've been a general counsel for many years. You don't have to worry about everything. Unless you want me to tell people, I will not tell anyone."
You are the touchpoint for so many different people and different parts of the organization. You are able to see more prismatically as a result of that, which is valuable for the company. Especially in a startup, a new industry, or an industry that's on the verge of turning into a highly regulated industry, you can feel that pressure, "We want to do the business this way. It's more efficient. It will make us more money in the short-term," or whatever it is, especially if you're the only lawyer in the mix and you don't want to be the department of no. How do you balance facilitating the business and, on the other hand, making sure you're maintaining your integrity? For some people, especially in the startups where you're employee number four, that can be hard.
That's the question that everybody always asks, "How do you balance that?" I interviewed somebody and he asked me that because he was in technology. He said, "How do you do that as a CEO with your legal background?" Going back to what we talked about, you have to understand the business from the beginning. What are they making? Why are they making it? What are the goals of the business? Your objective as a general counsel or chief legal officer is to be an advisor to the business because you're there to help the business succeed. If you take that lens on your decision-making, you can be somewhat pragmatic and careful but you can still further the growth of the business.
As a general counsel or chief legal officer, your objective is to be an advisor to the business because you're there to help the business succeed.
We were talking earlier about that. It was less common for a general counsel to move into a CEO or business C-Suite role but in talking about it that way, you are talking about those roles very similarly because both of them have to balance all of the different departments or parts of the company for the overall good of the company. There's a similarity.
It helped that I built a business while being general counsel. That experience was tremendous for me because I did it firsthand. It's not that I was always a layer removed. I maintained my general counsel role while I still ran that business line. That was a great experience.
You understand the business hat and the business side because you were doing that.
The only time it got a little bit tricky was when those decisions came out about general counsel operating in a business capacity. When are they giving advice? That's a nuanced area and you have to tread lightly there but it is manageable.
It's still in a little bit of flux about what that standard is depending on where you are. The Supreme Court didn't decide the case. You have to understand how you're operating at that point. It seems to me when you're talking about this that there's a seamlessness to you in how you see things. To you, the business and the legal side are integrated or united toward this particular goal for the company. In both roles, you want to maintain your neutrality but also your integrity and character in the course of doing that. You're not compromising yourself in terms of doing that.
You're one of the few people I've talked to who have this flow. It's almost like it's in your body. You intuitively understand this connection between the legal and business side. You seem very comfortable like a little fish swimming between the two of them. Not everybody has that. Your skills and the different experiences that you had along the way contributed to your comfort. It's what comes across in both of those.
Thank you. I appreciate that perspective. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about it that way. I am not hyper-specialized yet.
Across in-house roles and various management roles and companies, it's common to have this sense. It's important that you have a very horizontal view and broad view of the company, not just a vertical movement to broaden experience but another way is to do what you've done to be in the different roles and garner skills along the way that can be then used in the next position
For example, people may not think, "I want to work at a startup." People might say, "I want to work in a big company. I feel more comfortable in that setting." Sometimes you can get skills from very different settings that can then be used in the ultimate role you might have in mind as a C-Suite in a larger company.
I did an internship during law school at a very large software company that is publicly traded. I got to do all the reporting and help with that. I thought, "This is great but I don't know if I could do this day in and day out." Maybe it's the type of person that I am that I need to do different things. It's probably a little bit of ADD in a good way, as my dad says. We're all ADD in some way or another.
A large company isn't always going to afford you that experience. You will tend to be a little bit more isolated in your area but there's valuable experience there too in terms of the way that you interact with people. At the end of the day, it comes down to that. Who is your client? How are you interacting with them? Those are all very important skills that we aren't taught in law school that you gain through experience.
I also get the sense that you treat everyone with a similar level of respect. Sometimes lawyers can be like, "You don't know the law." They treat those who are not trained in the law a little bit differently but you have respect for all of those, even talking about the different roles in the different companies. That comes across. People appreciate that.
Thank you. I appreciate that. You can learn something from everyone.
That's where the creativity comes from. Sometimes it's a brand-new thing but often, it's connecting different ideas and disciplines. The only way you can do that is to have some understanding or familiarity with a different discipline or role in the company.
It's looking at it from a different lens.
Tell me about the move from general counsel to your current role as CEO. Did that seem like a natural evolution or something where you said, "In retrospect, when I look at it, it makes complete sense but I wouldn't have thought of it at the time?" Maybe it's a little bit of both.
If you ask my husband, he would tell you that I should have been in this role probably a long time ago and I just didn't know it. Part of it is me accepting that I am ready for this role and I understand the responsibility that it brings. It goes back to having that broad lens of the business and being able to help the business achieve success. That's what it comes down to, which you can do in different roles but I prefer the broader lens.
I started at this company a few years ago. It was in the B round when I came. Candidly, it was the hardest GC role for me in my career because there was so much to clean up. It was a very messy startup. Everybody knows that by now. I had to do some things that I've never had to do in my GC career that I will move on and not say more about. It's very challenging from that perspective. I became CFO and then COO. We were acquired years ago by a publicly traded company called Stewart, which primarily does titles. They asked me to be CEO.
Talk about the prism and the whole view of the particular company. You've had that from the various roles that you've been in that company alone. Also being part of a publicly traded and larger company is a whole other adjustment too.
It has been a great partnership. They let us operate independently. We get to drive our roadmap to our hiring. It's brought the level of formality that was needed for a startup because startups can be very messy from my experience. There is that nice compliance. I don't know the way to describe it. They have policies that you need to follow. Everything is a little bit more structured in that perspective but at the same time, you can still be a startup in terms of what you're creating from a technology perspective, which I love having those two.
That's important. Some of that kinetic energy is needed for the creation and evolution of the tech but maybe isn't needed all over the place. That's good for them to recognize that, at least to this point. That can be a challenge because you are mixing cultures. How do you do that successfully? Part of it is recognizing where that part of the culture is part of the success of the product and the company itself. You don't want to mess with that.
My prior experience was in private equity. I had two exits with private equity and it's very different. This one could have gone either way. It could have become more constrictive but thankfully, they have been supportive and it has been a good transition.
The company is providing an important data platform that they need. We talked a little bit about mentors early in your career in terms of facilitating introductions and your first job. How have mentors or sponsors played a role since then throughout your career?
It has been tough, honestly. I had more mentors when I was younger because I immigrated here and I didn't have English as a first language. They were always either a teacher, a principal, or somebody who nudged me along and helped me to gain that confidence but the further that I've gotten in my career in the C-Suite, the harder it has been to find mentors or sponsors. There are people that I could go to in my network that I can bounce ideas off of but I don't necessarily have that, "This is my mentor," anymore, unfortunately. I wish I did.
The further that I've gotten in my career in the C-suite, the harder it has been to find mentors or sponsors.
It's important to talk about it for a number of different reasons. One is because people don't always recognize after the fact, "That was a mentor." You should have recognized them and been thankful. Not everybody helps people in that way. They saw something in me and I appreciate that they saw potential and success. It's beautiful to be able to recognize it at the time or even later.
Some people may think, younger people in particular, that a mentor or a sponsor is one thing, or it might be somebody who's with you throughout your whole career. For some people, that is their experience but for a lot of us, that may not be the case. There may be people who are helpful at certain junctures. You may not see them at later junctures but they're still valuable and important in the journey. Some people are there in the moment to provide you with what you need to get to the next step. That's as much valued and valuable as someone who's a longstanding mentor.
There are people that I can call and ask them a particular thing.
The experience is different. Some people have the image of it as one thing. It can be that but it can be other things too. It's to be open to that help as well and value it as much as the other kinds of help because it can be the right person at the right time. It's the right nudge, which is part of what I think about this show. I hope that some of the stories resonate with some people more than others. It will be that nudge for you to take that chance or say, "That person looks pretty put-together but they had some challenges early on too. That's okay. I should keep going."
I try to do that with my teams and people that I work closely with. I always try to support them and be that mentor. That's very important to me.
That's one of the only things you can do when you've had that in your life. Sometimes you can reciprocate to that particular person but most often, you can't. The way to put that positive energy forward is to pay it forward to other people and be that supporter or that particular role for them that you had.
Especially when my daughters aren't interested in it. Maybe they will learn something from me indirectly.
There are things that you absorb and you don't know you're absorbing.
It's osmosis. I hope you're right.
I remember when I was in high school or even younger. My mother was in real estate and she would take me with her. After school, I would go with her and be in the room when she was negotiating things, showing a house, or whatever it was. I would be quietly reading in the corner, seeing her in that role and hearing the negotiations and all of that stuff. I feel some of those coming out. It's part of the DNA from being in the room.
My mom inspired me. She has always been a professional. She was a professor. It's that indirect osmosis.
That was smart of her to do that, "She's coming along. She's going to be in the room. She's going to hear some of this stuff." She's a pretty bright person and she understands that kind of thing. Your daughters don't think they're going to follow in your exact arena.
I don't think so. We will see. One wants to be a teacher. The other one wants to study neuropsychology. We couldn't get more different. No tech, no law, and no business. That's okay though.
You need to do what's meaningful for you and what's calling you because that's what you're meant to contribute.
I hope some aspect of my mentoring and coaching them has influenced them. At least I could see the neuropsychology.
I can see something there.
Even teaching is an indirect reflection of what I did with them.
They're blossoming to their full potential and doing things that they care about and that they think are meaningful and can contribute to the world.
I was hoping they would go into tech. We need more women in tech. I don't know how to get more women into tech. I want to be able to mentor women and girls in that realm but I don't know how to spur that interest.
Where do you think that comes from? That continues to be the case. I wonder what that is, how early that starts, or whether there's a perception of it. There are ways to be involved in tech that aren't in the quintessential way that you think of being tech. You don't have to be a software engineer. You don't have to do this and that.
That's what I tried to explain to my girls. You can understand business and be in operations but be in technology, which is where everything is headed. I don't know how we teach that in schools. They don't even teach financial literacy in schools. There are things that we could improve on. I try to spend my volunteer time with causes like that where I can make a difference like mentoring and teaching.
Luckily, there are some programs like that trying to get the interest early and talking about that. I don't know about the engineering perspective but arts education and music education are integral to some of that too even though it doesn't seem like it. Those are generally good at math and enjoy that music. Each feeds the other. I almost think that a strong arts education is an important part of education in a way.
I did have that. I was lucky to have that.
Even in my era in school, we still had a robust arts and music program but then soon after that, the funding wasn't there for it. I think about that when I work with the symphony, all the music education programs that they do, the student symphonies, and things like that. I'm like, "This is important paying forward."
Even theater teaches you public speaking. I did all those.
That's part of the development. That's good in terms of paying it forward. You talked about mentoring and paying the mentoring forward but here, you're forward to the next generation early on in terms of igniting their interest in tech. That's good to hear. What advice would you have for those in tech or anywhere who might be considering either an in-house counsel role or maybe eventually a business side C-Suite role?
At a high level, trust your intuition. If you are headed that way, there isn't anything that can stop you. Generally speaking, and there are studies that confirm this, women tend to be less confident. They may not pursue a role that they don't feel they have all the qualifications for.
"Do I have 100% of what all the qualifications are? It's 75% and I'm learning the rest."
If your intuition is telling you, "This is something I'm interested in," then know that you can do it. Realizing that your ideas are as valuable as anyone else's is a very important way to move forward. Some business training is helpful, a little bit on understanding financial statements or something critical to operations of the business. They have classes for CLE where you can analyze financial statements. That's a great CLE to take for sure.
That's the idea of getting an education in some of the more practical business components.
You don't have to do an MBA. If you want to be well-versed, learn every area of the business and interview people in different departments. I always approached the business from the perspective of, "What can be improved?" Otherwise, you're just taking it for face value. You don't know what you don't know but if you look at it from the perspective of, "What can be improved in this particular process? What's missing," then you will start to put some of the pieces together for your role as a GC.
You need some emotional intelligence to convey that to people. If you're going to convey it, you need to make sure that you're not offending people who have done it this way forever.
I am shaking my head because that's probably skill number one. That's a great point because they do have classes on emotional intelligence if you feel like that's something that you want to learn more about. For example, I spend a lot of my free time reading organizational psychologists because they're very helpful in that macro view of relationships in the business or your personal life. It's all relevant.
When we're thinking about education, sometimes we think, "Do I have to go back to school? Do I have to take a CLE?" That might be part of it for some things but there's a lot of free stuff on YouTube and a lot of books you can read. You continue to learn that way.
Going back to organizational psychology, Brené Brown does TED Talks. Read some of the books that they have published. It's all very valuable.
She's good at explaining those concepts and having people understand how important they are. She's great in that regard. I'm going to ask you in the lightning round for some book recommendations or books that you enjoy. Maybe we can put some of those in there. Usually, I end with a little set of lightning-round questions. I'm going to start. Hopefully, you're all right with them. The first question is this, which talent would you most like to have but don't?
Telling stories. In my culture, people tell anecdotes. Here in the US, leaders that I admire always know how to tell a story and it's much more absorbed. I would love to be able to do that one day.
Storytelling is important for so many different things. Even in my work as an appellate lawyer, we're telling stories, which are true based on facts and a record. It's not a fairytale but it's still storytelling. All the techniques that go with it are important.
Especially in the law.
I remember when I was interested in different kinds of writing and taking classes in creative writing, short story writing, and all of that. I remember talking to some of the professors, "What we do as lawyers is storytelling." They were flabbergasted. They're like, "We're used to seeing wherefore, there as, and all of those writings." They couldn't fathom how this could be storytelling. I brought a few of the opening paragraphs of some of the appellate briefs that we filed and they were like, "There is storytelling in there."
The best lawyers are great storytellers.
The best lawyers are great storytellers.
It was fun. I learned so much from those classes. I took so much. Good writing is good writing. Taking those techniques is great.
I minored in English as an undergrad. I very much value it.
Who are some of your favorite writers then, speaking of your English minor?
I only read nonfiction because of time. I do podcasts too. I'm particularly interested in medicine because I have some interesting medical conditions. My dad is a retired doctor. For writing, I would say Malcolm Gladwell. I've read a lot of his books. I read all of those psychologists like Amy Cuddy, Simon Sinek, and Adam Grant.
I was thinking about that. When you started talking about it, I was like, "Adam Grant."
Susan Cain wrote a thoughtful book called Quiet. I loved that book.
She's tremendous. The thing that she, Simon Sinek, Adam Grant, and Malcolm Gladwell have is this ability to put together different points, explain them to see trends and commonalities, and then explain them in a way that you're like, "I understand that now." The value of introversion, especially if you're an introvert, can be hard to articulate but when Susan Cain explains that in the books, you're like, "That's it."
I related to that one. For podcasts, Andrew Huberman MD is very good.
When you said that, I was like, "Huberman." The Peter Attia Drive is also a good one.
My mom told me about him. I'm going to make a note.
That goes in the same category as getting health information directly. He does a great job of studies. He keeps up with various studies. He does and explains things, "It says this or doesn't say this. Here are the limits of the particular study," which I'm always interested in. Take it with a grain of salt based on that.
I enjoy those. On the tech side, I would say Lex Friedman who's at MIT.
I listen to him too.
Those are some of my favorites.
The other ones I find interesting have more eclectic guests but they're interesting. Rich Roll who used to be a lawyer and has become an endurance athlete and an author is an interesting guy. He has a very eclectic set of guests from endurance athletes to entertainment to professors like the ones we have been talking who have interesting things to say about the area of study.
Thank you for telling me.
That's a good one. Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO is good.
Thank you, MC. I hadn't heard of these. I heard some new ones.
There are some new ones to add to your list. Who is your hero in real life?
That's a hard one for me. It's my parents. They came here during the Reagan project. It was the Cold War. It was a very hard time to come here. My dad started his medical career all over. I watched him work two jobs and study for his boards. They taught me the meaning of hard work, education, and following your passion. Those are my heroes. I hadn't thought about it.
Thinking about that, especially our family members who came to this country and started over, is a whole level of grit.
I still remember the arrival into this. We came to Texas first and they did an article on us in the Dallas Herald, "The Russians had landed like the aliens from outer space."
It was a different era right there.
Unfortunately, we're headed back there.
What your parents did to come here is amazing.
I appreciate that.
For what in life do you feel most grateful for?
I don't know how to describe it but it's my stable sense of mind. Your mind can wander. Mental health is such an important thing to think about. I've dealt with that in my family. I'm very appreciative of that and for my family, both of those things.
That's so interesting that you said that because the one thing I get from you is you're very steady. The waters are calm and it's comforting to feel. It's nice to feel that and have stability from that. Given the choice of anyone in the world either with us or not, who would you invite to a dinner party? It could be more than one person.
I would love to have dinner with any of those people we talked about.
That would be amazing though. Everyone is such a great podcast host. You are going to have to talk between yourselves and share some time.
I would love to have them over for dinner. If I could, I would love to invite my great-grandparents because there's so much history there that has been lost. We don't have any record of it. It would be fascinating to learn about Stalin, what they lived through, and all of that.
Last question, what is your motto if you have one?
Do things with intention. It's pretty simple but I often tell my team, "Care about what you're doing." I got a very nice award here in Orange County in the tech community. Part of my speech was about authenticity, innovation, and care. Care is that intention.
I was thinking about that because it could be in so many different ways, not haphazardly with some larger goal but the point you're making, which is doing something with intention, also means you're doing it with care and thinking of others or the outcome of what you're doing as well instead of just going through the motions. That's where innovation can come from if you're paying attention in that way but also, there's so much more meaning to what you're doing and therefore satisfaction if you have that.
You create your purpose and significance if you're intentional and thoughtful about what you do.
I'm glad you brought that out a little bit more because I was like, "I wonder what she means by that." When you described it, I'm like, "I see where she's going with this." To say that to your team is also nurturing to the team because you're giving them permission to find the meaning in what they're doing. If you have that meaning, you're going to do better work too. Thank you so much, Maria, for joining the show and sharing your insights and amazing journey.
Thank you so much for having me, MC. I enjoyed the time and getting to know you. Thank you for bringing out the best in me. I appreciate it.
You're very kind. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.