We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maki Moussavi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maki below.
Maki, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My personal development journey came with the recognition that many high-achieving, goal-oriented people share the same conditioning challenges around the paradigm of success – both in terms of what it takes to be successful, and what the measure of that success looks like. When I was immersed in my own self-examination, I also observed the smart, talented people around me at work. I saw my own experience reflected back to me, and recognized that many of my colleagues where just as dissatisfied as I was. Why were we all tolerating it?
Once I successfully worked through my own conditioning and success paradigm shift, I knew I wanted to help others do the same. My corporate experience, and before that, my training as a genetic counselor, provided a foundation of real-life experience and skill to do the kind of deep assessment and reconditioning that making a fundamental shift requires. Better yet, I found the work to be fascinating, energizing, and deeply fulfilling.
Many people battle fear, self-doubt and risk-aversion when they consider making a big change in their lives. Because of my focus on high achievers, I often work with high level executives and business owners who appear to be the picture of success on the outside, but don’t have the deep sense of satisfaction to go with it. It’s scary to closely examine what keeps us stuck in place, and to ultimately own our part in how we got there. The work I do with clients is a sacred space of safety and compassion to examine those parts of ourselves that feel too vulnerable to share with others.
I truly believe that our real, raw power lies in what we most fear looking at. If you can make peace with, and even embrace, every part of who you are, you become unstoppable. You become so aligned and clear in your authenticity that you are unconcerned with comparing yourself to others, worrying what they think, and making decisions based on expectations. You get back in the driver’s seat of your life and proactively decide how to show up, where to put your energy, and who gets to be part of the ride with you.
One very humbling aspect of my work that is the privilege of being part of someone’s personal journey. It’s my role to act as a catalyst and guide to helping my clients make the changes that will allow them to show up as themselves, in their full power. Clients will often tell me they feel like a completely different person after going through coaching, and I remind them that it’s really that they’ve given themselves permission to be who they’ve always been after digging out from the layers of conditioning. There’s a liberating, even exhilarating, aspect to this work that is the reward for doing the uncomfortable work.
Recently, I’ve expanded to engaging with groups in workshops, facilitated sessions, and retreats. It has also always been my goal to reach people I may never meet, which is why I wrote a book, The High Achiever’s Guide: Transform Your Success Mindset and Begin the Quest to Fulfillment, and started a podcast, Musings of a HIgh Achiever.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Building relationships has been the key to establishing my reputation. One particularly challenging aspect of my move from my corporate job to the work I do as a coach and author was that my network was out of alignment with where I wanted to go next. I made a commitment to being open to finding new groups to associate with, accepting invitations to meet new people, extending my own invitations, and generally connecting with as many people as I could. I had no agenda going into these meetings; I wanted to get to know the person and to be of service if I could. This approach led me to connect with amazing people who introduced me to others, and over time that authentic approach laid a foundation of trustworthiness and integrity that I enjoy today. Transparently, this is not a quick-fix approach – it’s taken years to get to this point, but I’ve done it in a way that is authentic and organic for me.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The biggest lesson I’ve had to unlearn is the notion that there’s a “winning formula” to follow when it comes to the pursuit of success. No matter where you are professionally, whether you work for someone else or yourself, someone is trying to push their version of what success looks like and what it takes to get there. I had followed those rules all the way to “success” in my corporate career that left me feeling empty and restless. What I hadn’t anticipated at the time I made the leap into solopreneurship was that there is just as much formulaic messaging around how to be successful on your own. Luckily, I had that awareness going into my new business adventure, but I still had to learn through trial and error when to take or leave certain advice about how to create success. Ultimately, I completely redefined my success paradigm to be more holistic and to do what feels aligned to me rather than following formulas.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.makimoussavi.com
- Instagram: @makimoussavi
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maki-moussavi/
- Other: Book: The High Achiever’s Guide https://tinyurl.com/h84b54fj Podcast: Musings of a High Achiever Apple – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/musings-of-a-high-achiever/id1659105187 Spotify – https://tinyurl.com/2p9t3d8m Google – https://tinyurl.com/27twnpr9