The G.E.M. Series Episode 4 Lean Into the Uncomfortable
[00:00:00] Blake: welcome to the GEM series powered by rocket level. On this podcast, we empower entrepreneurs to succeed by setting big goals, executing like a pro, and having a fearless mindset. The GEM series is all about investing in yourself. We're here to share the path, to getting what you want out of life. By sharing the stories of entrepreneurs who have done this themselves, providing thorough research from our team on what careers and habits are yielding the best results, and discussing the mindset it takes to overcome the obstacles that all future entrepreneurs will face investing in yourself.
[00:00:36] Blake: Putting in the work every single day. And this podcast is here to help you do exactly that. My name is Blake Chapman. I'm the vice president of the ambassador program here at the rocket level. And I'm thrilled to be your host for the GEM series. Hello, and welcome to the GEM podcast. Everybody. Today, we have a very, very special guest, Missy Pittard with us.
[00:00:57] Blake: Hi, Missy. It's so great to have you on Just to give you guys a little background about Missy. Missy actually interned initially forever ago. Really not that long because you've been moving at warp speed. But interned over here at rocket level with us studied at Georgia tech got a degree in chemical and biomolecular, biomolecular engineering.
[00:01:15] Blake: And then worked as a business analyst at one of the biggest consulting firms in the world, McKinsey and company. The transition has a passion for yoga, became a yoga instructor, and now is a co-founder of beaming health. So today we're going to talk a little bit about What, what brought you to this point from being passionate about, you know, chem engineering, to going into marketing, to ultimately starting something that was for you and aligned with what your passions are and what you believe in which is beaming health, which is helping families with children that have autism.
[00:01:49] Blake: And you know, also I read on the website that you're also branching out to help generally anybody with special needs to right. Super excited to dive into that. You know, the big thing with Missy is that most people, you know, I, and this is kind of my first question for you, right? Is. For many when, whenever they are in a position, like you're at where you get the big job at McKinsey some might feel like you've you know, arrived or like they'd be content with that.
[00:02:17] Blake: Right. But you seem to keep going after bigger goals. And now you're a co-founder of beaming health and working on a number of other projects. There's been this really big shift recently, where a lot of people are kind of taking a similar road to you and wanting to invest in themselves and go after their true passions.
[00:02:35] Blake: And this seems like what, what you're doing. So I want you to kind of start from the beginning. What led you down this road? 
[00:02:43] Marissa: Yeah. Blake, thank you so much for having me. 
[00:02:46] Blake: How are you doing? How are you doing? No, we're thrilled to have you. 
[00:02:51] Marissa: What led me down this road? It's such a good question.
[00:02:54] Marissa: It's funny how you always hear some of these things. It seems like people often sort of retrospectively say, oh yes, this is the perfect story. And the plan that I had going in of these pieces found, but now for, for, for me, all of this, it, the path was usually led. I just had some idea of where I was going.
[00:03:15] Marissa: And even if that place where I was going changed, I've always been thinking something. And for me, that's always been about healthcare and health. I grew up in San Diego around lots of really cool biotech stuff. And honestly just felt really lucky to grow up there. I felt like I was given so much and if I do something really awesome with everything I was given that yeah, like what am I doing?
[00:03:37] Marissa: You know, I have such a great community here with access to education that I had resources that I had. So I was just super excited to do something in health and. Yeah, that's 
[00:03:47] Blake: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, so you've always had this passion, for health. You know, but just because people have a passion for health, that doesn't mean that necessarily they would start their own venture.
[00:04:00] Blake: Right. So what made you do that? You know, not, not many people. Take the leap and go for it. Like, like you are right now. What, kind of led to that? Have you always had that mentality where you, the one with the lemonade stand out front and had this entrepreneurial mindset about things or yeah?
[00:04:17] Blake: What, what do you think about that? What are your thoughts on that? 
[00:04:20] Marissa: Yeah, that's a good question. I am the last person who thought it was going to start a company. Honestly, my brother was way more entrepreneurial than I, he was out there hustling always, and I was always super risk-averse. Studying was taking the path that was well-traveled.
[00:04:36] Marissa: And it really, for me, I was so lucky to spend the past couple of years at Stanford business school. And of course, being in the bay area, there's a lot of energy around startups and entrepreneurship. I was like, yeah, that's really cool. But you know, I really loved my time at McKinsey and plan to give back.
[00:04:51] Marissa: And for me, it was really just being in that environment really. How much I really loved and valued the flexibility and opportunity that came with starting something on your own. And I thought after that, you know, oh, maybe I'll do that. You know, in 10 years or something, when I have more idea where I'm headed, but I was so lucky to be paired up with my friend and our co-founder, Chris, in a class about making healthcare.
[00:05:17] Marissa: And he had brought this idea for what we're working on now, beaming health around improving the experience of families, of children with special needs. And it was born out of his work experience. And I was just so lucky to be in a situation where it was the right team. Right problem. Right. Time, I feel incredibly passionate about what we're working on personally and professionally.
[00:05:34] Marissa: It honestly didn't even feel like a choice. I just, it was something I had to do. And again, I'm so risk-averse. I wouldn't. Working on it, unless I just self felt so adamant that this had to exist and know that this will work and help a ton of people. 
[00:05:50] Blake: Absolutely.
[00:05:52] Marissa: So never feels like any choice. And now, sorry, one last thing…
[00:05:56] Blake: Please. Yeah. 
[00:05:57] Marissa: Whenever people ask you, oh, how is work going? How's it going? I really don't feel like I have a job. That is the difference. I really liked a lot of the stuff I worked on. It's still at the end of the day, it just, felt like work. And this now doing our own thing, starting our own company, even though I'm doing a lot of arguably similar tasks, it doesn't feel that way.
[00:06:17] Marissa: It just feels so much more purposeful. And that, that autonomy is really powerful. 
[00:06:23] Blake: Absolutely. There's so much to be said about, you know, obviously finding that kind of that autonomy and yourself and getting to do a little bit more of what you want. I think that's, we all want some version of that for ourselves, you know?
[00:06:36] Blake: And I, I can imagine it's super freeing. But you know, it takes a lot of discipline to be able to make the. That happened, right. There's not, there's not us. There's no instant gratification with it. There's, it's very much like a long-term grind. So what was, was there a moment in time where you were, you know, where you were just thinking to yourself, you know, this is something I want to do.
[00:07:01] Blake: And what kind of a game plan did you put together to get yourself there? Like, did you have, what were your, what were your goals like and how did you get to the point where you executed on those? And. What was your, what was your mindset around that? You know that's what we're all about here goals, execution, and mindset.
[00:07:17] Blake: So you're going to hear me bring it back to that every now and then too. You know, 
[00:07:21] Marissa: We, we love that. I have always been a super goal-oriented person. I do goals at the start of every year and a certain company was not on the list. So in this, in this case, I and my co-founder were in a class that started as a class project, and we started digging into it.
[00:07:37] Marissa: As part of that, when we were starting the company, we did a lot of needs findings of going out and talking to potential customers, just to say, would you be willing to buy this before we even start building it? And as part of that process, it brought us to an investor who wanted to write our first check, who was really adamant.
[00:07:52] Marissa: You're really onto something here. How much do you want? You both need to do this for real. And that was the catalyst for me and my co-founder to say, oh my goodness, this is a real, we're on to something real here. I bought it for a few weeks, to make sure we're really committed to both the concept and to each other and aligned on the kind of company we want to build and how we want to build it.
[00:08:13] Marissa: And if all those things are true, like in a lot of ways, the safest bet is you can make the design yourself. And it's kind of rare that you're in the situation we were, where we had access to the right, the right problem, the right team at the right time. 
[00:08:26] Blake: Absolutely. And I liked what you said about sometimes the safest bet that you can make is on yourself.
[00:08:31] Blake: I've found that that's increasingly true. As we, you know, especially nowadays so many people got laid off the last couple of years and now we're in this phase where people are actually calling it the great resignation, right. It's hard to, it's hard to even keep anybody. So what, you know, what would you maybe say to somebody that was.
[00:08:52] Blake: Thinking about going and starting something of their own, you know, and they, and it just based on your experience, you know, what, what, what would you maybe tell somebody the, one of the good things, maybe one of the bad things about it. 
[00:09:04] Marissa: Yeah. And I, yeah, am very familiar with the great recognition and all of that.
[00:09:09] Marissa: I would first and say first, just say, it's. So liberating, like I just would strongly encourage it. But as someone who's pretty risk-averse, what I would have said to myself before I'd made the decision is just the floor is high. Like if you have a path towards something that you could do on your own, that you feel pretty good about just thew the worst-case outcome isn't.
[00:09:38] Marissa: I got one. I don't have the most inspiring thing because the floor is high. What's the worst case. If there are so many opportunities, like you said, with the great resignation, if you go out there and really bet on yourself, you try something. The opportunities are pretty limitless and it's, and it's good to know that for a lot of folks, considering these types of opportunities, there are great options for them.
[00:09:59] Marissa: You know, if, if it doesn't happen to work out and that's totally okay. I just think getting comfortable with failure. Just shifting toward that mindset in my mind, you know, if you're not failing every so often or you really pushing yourself 
[00:10:11] Blake: absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Pushing your threshold, you know?
[00:10:15] Blake: I think that's, that's so true. That's something that I've definitely learned so much this year is getting to the point where you. You welcome failure rather than, rather than fear it. Because you're a, yeah. Like, you know, the floor, you know, it's, it's, the floor is pretty high like you said, and if you're not doing then ultimately that's kind of.
[00:10:38] Blake: Biggest failure, right? Because that's actually, well, I'd say that's 100% chance of failure is if you don't execute. So it's, it's, it's pretty simple. And I also loved what you mentioned about being somebody that is recognizing that even if it doesn't work out, there are still so many options that are available for people.
[00:10:57] Blake: And that it's probably the right season to try something. Right. And go after it. I mean, people are calling it the great resignation. There are also these terms like the Yolo economy, which you might've seen too. Right. And I, you know, some people are, are, are, you know, there's mixed, mixed reviews on, on it from multiple different people.
[00:11:17] Blake: But I think I get really excited about it because I see a lot of people that are going to be doing What they're truly driven to do. And I believe that when you're doing what you're driven to do, that brings out the best in you and gives you the most opportunity to make a true impact. What do you kind of think about this great resignation that's going on right now and the YOLO economy and you know, this, this big shift, what do you think is like are going to be some of the outcomes of it? 
[00:11:43] Marissa: Yeah. I would say the big shift that I hear about all the time from folks that are part of this resignation is just everyone is in the absence of being able to be in the community and the office, which a lot of us didn't no longer have these past couple of years, it became very clear how much you cared or didn't care about the actual job you were doing or the content of what work I knew.
[00:12:06] Marissa: And I still have a lot of friends who loved their jobs in part or largely in part because of the great people they got to work with. All of a sudden, everyone's not around the great people that they love to work with anymore. And it just I think caused a lot of people to start to say, do I really find meaning and purpose and enjoyed the work itself?
[00:12:25] Marissa: And so I think that's, that's an outcome that we're seeing and we're super lucky as a company. That's more mission-oriented to be benefiting from that and getting a lot of interest from folks who do want to make a difference in their work. That's probably the biggest, biggest one that I would see.
[00:12:41] Marissa: Along with, you know, all the other things that came out of the COVID. 
[00:12:46] Blake: Absolutely. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Also for our, for our viewers, are you hiring over there right now?
[00:12:55] Marissa: Yeah, we are always hiring. ABR always be recruiting.
[00:12:58] Blake: amazing. I, you know, something I wanted to ask about a little bit because whenever I was, you know, doing, doing me, my talks with, with VU, obviously who's our mutual acquaintance here. I, you know, I was looking and I was like, what, what sparked it in you to go from working at Mackenzie to pursuing something new, like, like going after yoga for all those years to like, I wanted to maybe talk about that period of your life.
[00:13:21] Blake: And yeah, I hear about what you yeah. How, how maybe you grew from that and, and you know, where, where you were, where your head was, was that in that, in that phase of life? Because I think it's really inspiring that yeah, you, you. Wanting to be somebody that's really well-rounded and do some and, and seize the day.
[00:13:38] Blake: That's kind of what I see because I'm, I see somebody that's, that's taking the present moment and going after something and developing maybe another passion of yours. But I won't fill in the blank. So I'd love to hear from you, you know? 
[00:13:49] Marissa: Definitely I, yeah, when I was working in consulting, we went, we were on a retreat at work and the question was asked to all of us, what is missing from your life?
[00:13:59] Marissa: Like what is, what is something. That you really value her love that you don't feel like you're, you're getting right now. And after doing some reflection on a lot of that, I realized the thing I was missing was performance. So I love music. I used to do a lot of improv and theater. I love to be on a stage and put on a show.
[00:14:15] Marissa: And at the same time, I also really love health and wellness and did a lot of yoga myself. So through conversations with a friend of this retreat, my friend brought up the idea of, well, why would you. You could go and teach yoga, which coincidentally is actually a perfect path. The perfect combination of those things, the things I was missing around performance, you know, you design the sequence and pick the music and you set the stage and you create a space for people.
[00:14:40] Marissa: So I, yeah, I left that really excited that year. That was one of my, I try to do three big goals every year. And that was one of my minds that year to go and get trained. And I'm so thankful. To have done that and now try to do yoga classes for friends all the time, but that was sort of the impetus for that was just thinking about what, what is it that I'm sort of missing that I'd love to have more of in my life and how can make that.
[00:15:06] Blake: happen. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's what, you know, we're all trying to, to whenever I guess whenever I say we anybody that's watching this podcast right. Is anybody that wants to invest in themselves and enrich their lives in some way. There's I think there's a lot of fear around maybe satisfying that part of yourself.
[00:15:27] Blake: Like me. I, I play music a lot as well, and that's something that I'm incredibly passionate about. Yeah. And you know, a lot of people don't take the time to indulge, you know, go after those passions and grow that part of their brain. It seems like for you, it's been so productive, you know, finding, finding a way to marry passion with work.
[00:15:46] Blake: So could you tell me a little bit, about that? Like, is there, can you see ways that, you know, your passions overlap? Your career and how they all kind of go weave and weave in and out of each other and, and how one informs the other. 
[00:16:00] Marissa: Yeah, it's such a good question. Cause I don't know that it's something I did super consciously, but I think because I think a lot about why I do what I do write in relation to work and hobbies, it sort of naturally sort of happened.
[00:16:15] Marissa: It's like, oh, I love things related to health. And then I just sort of actively tried to see where. Overlap just to do more of the things that I loved as an example with yoga. And now that we're building this company for families of children with autism I'm this year, one of my big things is to get trained, to teach yoga for children with special needs and all the things that come along with that.
[00:16:36] Marissa: So that'll be a really fun way to take oh, something I love and apply it to where I'm working professionally now. But I think there are opportunities for everyone. ER, hopefully, a lot of times it's just taking the time to actually think about that and then just. Make a plan to get it done. I'm one of those people.
[00:16:55] Marissa: I need a lot of accountability in my life. And so I'm a big proponent of, I have a whiteboard. I have a tracker on my own computer where I set up my goals over periods of time. And I'll tell them to friends or family too, just to make sure I'm really…
[00:17:10] Blake: Putting it out there. Yeah. Accountability. Absolutely.
[00:17:17] Blake: And these goals that you're setting are, are these on an, on an annual basis or like a five-year thing or what's, what's that 
[00:17:24] Marissa: like? Yeah, for some of the bigger things I'll do around new year's classic, but I'll try to do really tangible three things every year. So it's very clear at the end of every year.
[00:17:36] Marissa: Did I do that or did I didn't did I not? So I love to do that. And then day today on a more regular basis, I love the concept of atomic habits, it's one of my favorite books of all time, but it talks about how every choice that you make is casting a vote in favor of an identity. So I know this is super meta, but you become the kind of person you want to be, and you say like oh, I'd love to be someone who's more musical.
[00:18:03] Marissa: For example, it's like, okay, well, you can just say that every day. Or you could say, okay, maybe it's as simple as You know, I'm going to start taking music lessons next week, or I'm going to create time 10 minutes every day. Things like that are things we can all do. And I found, I've just been trying to push myself more on casting votes in favor of the person I want to be in a lot of categories, so.
[00:18:26] Blake: Wow. Yeah. Well, okay. So it sounds like, you know, you're a very goal-oriented person, so you, you, you have no trouble at all and yet, and you have a good. For setting those goals and you know, analyzing them. And then the execution piece that, that maybe that's where that would fall in is, is a that's how you allow yourself to be able to execute them.
[00:18:46] Blake: I'd love to hear a little bit of like, what is your, your, your kind of mindset around all of this, to where you're just open-minded and able to, able to just lean in and, and go after something. Because I think so many people, you know, I, I found like there are so many different ways that you can. Push yourself to move forward.
[00:19:06] Blake: A lot of it is like, just, don't obviously there's like the base level things like don't focus on what you can't control. You know, be a welcome failure, like we were talking about, but for everybody that's listening, like what are, what are your things that maybe, do you have any, like, mantras that you give yourself?
[00:19:21] Blake: That kind of, I don't know if you're into mantras. I'm definitely a mantra-driven person. Yeah, 
[00:19:28] Marissa: no, I get roasted by friends all the time for my mantra.
[00:19:33] Blake: Me too. I'm like I'm so yeah, I will, I will go into that, but yeah, I've definitely, I like that too. 
[00:19:39] Marissa: You can go so far as to put mantra at the end of emails, periodically and tolerable to them.
[00:19:46] Marissa: But one that I have right now is Muhammad Ali. If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough. 
[00:19:51] Blake: Yeah. That's amazing.
[00:19:54] Marissa: That’s the bottom and yeah. I also appreciate, I dunno, I'm someone who's really comfortable with discomfort and failure. I kind of thrive on it. And I, as you've been asking questions, I've been trying to think about why that is.
[00:20:07] Marissa: I think it's just realizing it at the moment when failures happened for me. And I talked to people about it. People really connect with it, or there's something really powerful about failing and then sharing that with other people. I just, I think I love connecting with people more than almost anything and what I've realized.
[00:20:25] Marissa: When I fail on something and then talk about it and think about what I've learned from it. It draws a lot of people are drawn to that and you end up connecting with more people and learning from that, it's just this really powerful cycle. And I think it's gotten me to this place where it's like, oh yeah, failure's awesome.
[00:20:38] Marissa: I learned things and I can ask people and it makes other people feel like, oh, it's okay for me to fail. We're all humans and trying to do good things. And yeah. So I think that's sort of, what's the cycle there for me has been, it's just trying. W, you know, head toward the things I want to make happen. And then if it doesn't work out, that's okay.
[00:21:01] Marissa: We've learned, we've talked about it and connecting people because of it and it's yeah. It's fun. 
[00:21:07] Blake: Well, it seems like he might have the superpower of reverse engineering failure. Right. And taking it backward from, okay. Why did I fail to provide, learning from that? And then going to a point where you can you know, explain, Hey, this is You know, this is like how we, we got here.
[00:21:25] Blake: This is what I learned from the experience. And being really open about it and you know, honestly being grateful for it. That's something that I've found that if you can lean into failure like that yeah, it's, it is, it is a superpower in the sense of it allows you to, you know, you know, like this is me.
[00:21:41] Blake: Just like with working out or anything like that or in yoga, you know, this is like as far as I can go, and then you can see how much further you can go the next time, you know? And you wouldn't know that if you didn't fail I, oh, go ahead, sir. No, no, you please.
[00:21:55] Marissa: Two other things that came to mind is one of my, the CEO of one of my clients while I was in consulting.
[00:22:01] Marissa: We did a workshop. Oh, it was big on you. Don't learn from your mistakes. You learn from reflecting on your mistakes. And so I actually co-opted something he did and shared that he did, which was anytime there was a failure in his life that was particularly notable. He would take the time to sit down, write about it in this word, a doc that he has, and write about what he learned from it.
[00:22:20] Marissa: And. How he would change based on that, which I thought was really powerful. And so I've tried to do the same thing too, and there are more notable times in life that have been challenging, just taking the time to sit down and think about it instead of just letting that go by. It was one 
[00:22:37] Blake: that's so powerful.
[00:22:39] Blake: I love that. I'm going to start doing that today. I think that's, I think that's great. Being able to go back and, you know, Reflect on it, months down the road, or, you know, maybe when you're not swept up with all of the like euphorias of coming to a realization is, is really empowering, I think. And also when you're down, you can look back and reflect back and be like, oh, I've, I'm like light years past where I was maybe a year, a year ago or anything like that.
[00:23:08] Blake: How long have you kept this kind of running work? Going so far. 
[00:23:12] Marissa: Yeah, that's a good question. Probably since 2017. So it's been wild five years now. 
[00:23:17] Blake: Oh, that's amazing. So yeah. Do you flip through it every day? Every now and then, and 
[00:23:24] Marissa: yeah, definitely. It's almost like a journal on its own. Right. And it's kind of fun.
[00:23:28] Marissa: It's like time traveling to go back and read it. But like there was a word you said that I really like a lot and emphasize a lot around gratitude. I'm a big believer in the power of. The power of handwritten, thank you, notes to others. And also I use a gratitude journal every day. It's the other thing I get roasted for in addition to my mantra is 
[00:23:46] Blake: I'm all about it.
[00:23:49] Marissa: It's called the five-minute journal. They have a book and an app, but it's, I, I don't know I was an engineer. I never liked writing very much. So it was really nice to have this very short, structured way for me to start every single day with what are the good things, what are the gifts. Going on, what am I going to do to make today a great day?
[00:24:07] Marissa: And all of that stuff has been really helpful for me. Yeah. 
[00:24:11] Blake: Well, that's a, I think that's another, another great one is also being able to, you know, as much as you're going after your failures is also, you know, practicing gratitude and also tracking your, your, your, your wins too. Right? You know, for me, I think it's important for everybody to kind of have mental backstops that they can always go back to if they feel like they really hit a wall and then come back to another place where you felt like yeah, this is, you know, I've achieved this and pull all these things that can kind of fuel you and move you forward.
[00:24:42] Blake: So yeah, I, I love the, yeah. I love the gratitude journal. I'm a big fan of journaling. Tracking all of that down. So the fi you said it's called the five-minute gratitude journal, the five 
[00:24:54] Marissa: Yeah the five-minute journal.
[00:24:55] Blake: Okay, cool. I want to hear, so unless you have a thought but I just want to hear a little bit about like, cause it sounds like.
[00:25:06] Blake: You do all kinds of stuff right now. What are you doing that you're the most excited about right now? And yeah. W what, what's maybe like a, a particular project that you're working on that that gets you the most fired up? Yeah, 
[00:25:17] right 
[00:25:17] Marissa: now. Yeah, definitely. I mean, the vast majority of my time, these days is with startups, with gaming health.
[00:25:24] Marissa: We're moving really quickly and making a lot of good progress and learning a lot and learning what's working, learning, what's not working. The project I'm really excited about is we're building out a parent community, which is so cool. I'm a huge believer in the power of community and just setting up the right systems in place to help people come together to help everyone is really excited about that.
[00:25:48] Marissa: I've been learning so, so much. How do get a community off the ground and do a lot of reading about how many people you need to start and what are the kinds of things that foster trust and how do you keep up engagements that are super excited about the potential for that? Everything that comes with that.
[00:26:05] Blake: Oh, that's a that's that's incredible. Yeah. The power of community is, I mean, it's so crucial. I work with communities and maybe in a different capacity, but in the same way, I, you know, I, we, I work with small businesses. Right. And the whole thing that makes me so excited is to see that small business have this direct impact on the community.
[00:26:25] Blake: And they quite literally are the community. So, you know, w with community building for you, has that always been a focus and your life? And you know, I, it sounded like initially, your driving force was this desire to give back after learning about biotech and health and all of this, but this, it sounds like maybe community is a pretty big factor in this, this whole thing, too.
[00:26:49] Marissa: I loved what you were talking about and why you love working on small businesses. For me health it's health has just behind pretty much everything that we do. And it's something it's so easy to take for granted. I've just always had a kind of latent interest in that, but when it comes to actual work for me and like why this matters so much and why this company matters so much, it's just unreal to me how hard it is for families of anyone with complex conditions, but also special needs to just find access to the most basic things that they need.
[00:27:20] Marissa: And I feel it just fires me up to blood boiling plays. So to think of. Families that are spending hundreds of hours and thousands and thousands of dollars every year to get stuff that they should be getting right away. It's just unacceptable. And I just get so fired up about the injustices in healthcare and the criminal justice system.
[00:27:39] Marissa: All of that stuff is, it really gets me going. And whenever friends come to me and like, oh, you found this thing. You're so passionate about that. So lucky, I don't really know. To start. Another mantra I love a lot is, what's something you would die for. Like, find something you had done for it.
[00:27:55] Marissa: And this is definitely that category for me. 
[00:27:59] Blake: Oh yeah. That's I think that's so, so powerful. The idea of like, what is something that, that, that you would die for because. There are so many of us that we probably do have these, we all have some sort of ideal that's ingrained into us. So it sounds like for you like that just been like a, a driving force, make it, allowing you to kind of, you know, lean into this and work as, as hard as you can to make it happen.
[00:28:25] Blake: And I, I guess my point here, right, is, is whenever you start fighting these driving forces, do you ever feel like you kind of tap into. When weightless energy sometimes you know, seasons of that. 
[00:28:36] Marissa: Yeah, exactly. It's a bit what I was talking about before and for better or worse, right. It doesn't feel like work.
[00:28:42] Marissa: And the challenge of course, that comes with that is that I ended up wanting to work on it all the time. And you know, sometimes, sometimes, you know, we all have seasons where that's required, but it is such a marathon, not a sprint. And so I do have to make sure I'm gut checking myself when those. 
[00:29:01] Blake: Yeah. It got to give yourself time to heal up and yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I, I've obviously been talking to everybody at the office and they were saying that you know, whenever you were working here as a, as, you know, as an intern, A while ago you would bring your guitar to the office.
[00:29:19] Blake: And you've always been like really, you know, and like creative and inspired. And I wanted to know, like, where did you get all of that creative inspiration from like, you know, you, you mentioned, you know, risk-averse and you seemed like you're pretty multi multifaceted as a person, you know? I love to know where, yeah.
[00:29:39] Blake: Where do you, where do you draw some of that creative inspiration from, and are you kind of a free spirit also is, and in addition to being very like driven and focused and all this, yeah. 
[00:29:50] Marissa: It's such a good question. I, I really hot. That's an IM question. I mean, my visceral reaction, I just love to learn.
[00:30:02] Marissa: I love. I like learning news bangs. It's one of my favorite things. So I think that's probably the primary driver behind this. What might look like kind of a random smattering of interests, but I just genuinely love, love learning and getting, getting into. All kinds of different things recently tried Brazilian jujitsu just because it’s cool.
[00:30:20] Blake: Oh really?
[00:30:22] Blake: I just went to a class two. 
[00:30:24] Marissa: That's super cool. Right. It's just so much going on. My favorite quote of all time is this George Bernard Shaw quote, this is the true joy in life being used for a purpose, defined by yourself as a mighty one. And then the other part is like being used up when you when I die as part of the quote.
[00:30:41] Marissa: And I want that a lot, not in a morbid way, but I do think about life is so precious and we only have so much time. And I just am always trying to, I don't know, learn, spend time with people. I care about working on things that fire me up. And I think that sort of drives some of this maybe free spirit creative energy.
[00:31:00] Marissa: I would say my brother is also incredibly creative. I think my parents did something. Playing lots of music for us growing up, or just always being supportive of us, trying. Experimenting with new things. And I'm so grateful for that. So I think that's part of it too.
[00:31:16] Blake: It goes a long way. Your parents always introduce you to new styles of music and new foods.
[00:31:24] Blake: And you're, you're like, okay, I'm the nine-year-old who's eaten sushi before, you know, 
[00:31:31] Marissa: I think there's something to that. Both my brother and I are extremely into all kinds of creative stuff like that. 
[00:31:36] Blake: That's, you know, It's funny. I was I just did like a general Google search to try to, you know, gather some also additional insights.
[00:31:45] Blake: And I saw that you were also an adrenaline junkie a bit. So is that something that still holds up today? Are you still. Are you skydiving as well? What, what, yeah. Tell me a little bit about that too. 
[00:31:55] Marissa: Yeah. I think the general theme in all of this is I really thrive in uncomfortable situations.
[00:32:00] Blake: Yeah. You really do. You really do. I think that's, 
[00:32:05] Marissa: I love everything from running in the bulls in Spain and I was like, yes, sign me out.
[00:32:08] Blake: Really. 
[00:32:11] Marissa: Stuff like that. And then two years ago, my brother and I kidnapped my mom, blindfolded her, and we all went skydiving together, stuff like that. 
[00:32:23] Blake: That's me that's kind of my nightmare for some reason.
[00:32:25] Blake: I'm very much into like, I love stuff like that, but skydiving seems like such a that's like the ultimate surrender to me for some reason, you know? But no, so, so thriving in the, in the uncomfortable, that does seem to be like kind of a common theme for you, what would you, you know, what would you tell the people that.
[00:32:43] Blake: You know, trying to bring this back to this idea of the big shift and people that are wanting to go after what they want to what are maybe some of these practical ways that you encourage yourself to keep? Because not everybody's addicted to it. And maybe, maybe, I mean, I would imagine that maybe you do every now and then reach a point in life where you're like, I am a little nervous about this.
[00:33:03] Blake: Like, do you have something that you tell yourself before you just go for it? 
[00:33:08] Marissa: I am not sure about the specific thing I'd tell myself, but I'd say the general advice I would have for anybody is just to get started. Like it's, it's so easy to just say, oh, tomorrow, like it's not the right time or, oh, maybe when I'm here when I'm there.
[00:33:23] Marissa: And there's just, it's just so easy to let the time go by. And so I think just putting, just getting started and even, even, even, even, even if it's in a really small. If you're thinking about starting something new, finding ways, like reaching out to people who are doing these things, you're thinking about maybe doing and see, most people are so excited to share and help other people, especially if it's a topic they're excited about.
[00:33:47] Marissa: So just strongly encourage anything you can do to start to explore these things you've been thinking about and just commit to yourself, you know, I'm going to reach out to X, many people or whatever it is, something really small. And then before you know it, you're going to be well on your way. 
[00:34:04] Blake: Absolutely.
[00:34:05] Blake: No, I think that's amazing advice for anybody that that's wanting to get started and, you know, going after something, or just generally going kind of leaning into the unknown or the uncomfortable is yeah. That's, that's amazing advice. Something I wanted to touch on too was obviously you went to Stanford and you attended their program over there.
[00:34:24] Blake: I was hoping that you could, you know, tell me a little bit about it and how it influenced you. Yeah, your, your, your story with that. 
[00:34:31] Marissa: Yeah. I was so lucky to spend the past couple of years there are a lot of ways friends ask what business school is. Like I say, it's everything, in my opinion, high school should have been, you know, you learn how to do your taxes and your finances and how to have difficult conversations and think about what a meaningful life means to you.
[00:34:49] Marissa: And these really big things were so, so valuable, but of course, above everything else was just the people there, the people and the professors included the friends I made the. The speakers were all so, so helpful in helping me think meaningfully about what I would want to do next and giving me the confidence to feel like I could take this leap into entrepreneurship.
[00:35:10] Marissa: I'm just so inspired by everyone that was around me there and felt lucky to spend these past couple of years there. 
[00:35:18] Blake: That sounds like it was a really transformative experience for you. And I mean, this, this led you to be able to start this. The startup, right? Like you met your, your, your co-founder in this, in this program as well. Is that right? 
[00:35:31] Marissa: Yeah, that's right. I was so lucky to meet my friend, Don co-founder of Chris. We'd always been friends because we love healthcare and we're a business school and yeah, I just, it was so nice to have I, now I don't, underappreciate how nice it is to be founding a company. It was somebody that I already knew as a person first and just know that I could trust.
[00:35:52] Marissa: And what they were about and feel confident taking the leap together. 
[00:35:57] Blake: Sure. Yeah. That is a that is like a different dynamic shift, right. Going from being a friend to all of a sudden going on this venture together. So what would you say to anybody that's like, you know, considering what partners should they join up with?
[00:36:10] Blake: Like what gave you that reassurance? And. You know, I'd love to hear about that too. 
[00:36:16] Marissa: Yes. There is a lot of content out there about that process that I highly encourage people to go take a look at, but it's, I can't emphasize enough the importance of making sure you're taking the leap with the right person and really aligning early on.
[00:36:31] Marissa: What is the kind of vision we have for this company? What kind of organization do we want to build? What are our roles and responsibilities and goals and making sure all of those lineups, sometimes they're not the easiest conversations? So the earlier you can help them the better. And to whatever extent you can explore something together early on is great tubes.
[00:36:52] Marissa: You can already start to get a feel. How do we work together? What does that feel like? And even now, Chris and I were so lucky to be friends and have this background working on this in a class together. But even now we do feedback every, regular feedback sessions with each other, and make sure we're really operating in a way that's helping us both feel secure and excited about what we're doing every month.
[00:37:15] Blake: Yeah. And does so does Chris fill a different skill set, then you do as well? Like what's a, you know, obviously, you're, you're leaning into the uncomfortable and it seems like you're a real, you know, starter, right? Like you'll get things going. So I'd love to hear, you know, how do you, how do you find somebody with the personality traits and, and ability to fill in some of the things that maybe aren't your necessarily your highest strengths?
[00:37:43] Marissa: Yes, Chris and I were super lucky in this way. We're super complimentary. Another way you could put what we qualify me as is just kind of shameless because I love discomfort, which has been really helpful for us on, you know, getting out there and talking to people who would be potential customers, potential advisers.
[00:38:01] Marissa: That's, that's been really helpful there just for me on the growth side and selling and marketing the business. And Chris is an absolute wizard when it comes to building anything so blown away, he was a product manager for four years at United healthcare group. And just the way he's managed a team of developers to build such an incredible product and design in such a short time, it's been unbelievable.
[00:38:24] Marissa: I such a black box to me. It's very impressive. So really lucky. 
[00:38:30] Blake: Yeah, that's very lucky. That's no, that's so special to be able to find somebody that yeah. Covers that side of things. And then, you know, on the other side of it, Chris is like, I would, you know, I don't know. I, I get, I don't know Chris obviously, but I would imagine, you know, if you're not the one that's amped up to go talk to people and, and, you know, make those necessary connections to move the business forward, then you're really grateful when you can find somebody that is able to lean into the lean, into the uncomfortable and yeah.
[00:38:55] Blake: You know, shamelessly go after something. Yeah, 
[00:38:57] Marissa: No, and Chris definitely does in his own way too. We have different styles, but yeah, in general, we're very complimentary and are very aligned on just the direction we want to go, which has been invaluable. 
[00:39:13] Blake: Amazing. And you know, so kind of going from, you know, your entire career from point a to where you're at now it, it seems like.
[00:39:23] Blake: And this is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently is obviously compounding interest is one of the most like interesting, you know, a phenomenon that's out there just in the sense of its seemingly limitless ability to grow and grow and grow and grow. But I, I like to think about, you know, compounding efforts and the ability to invest in yourself every single day and push yourself and lean into failure.
[00:39:46] Blake: What would you know, how would you say that you relate to maybe your ability to invest in yourself daily and you know, focus on like your ability to grow over a long period of time by focusing on the, on the daily? Is that something that you know, you, you are conscious about at all, or, 
[00:40:04] Marissa: Just to make sure I understand the question, see, yeah.
[00:40:07] Marissa: You mean like, how do I. Sort of manage weeks or just like progress across different dimensions of life. Is that kind of.
[00:40:18] Blake: Yeah.Yeah. So yeah. Thank you for that. I'll let me break it down a little bit differently. So on you know, whenever you're looking at you have this, you know, really big, maybe a one-year goal or anything like that, how do you get to a point where you're saying I am going to on a daily basis?
[00:40:35] Blake: Push me as hard as I can to achieve these, these mini-goals so that at the end of the year, I can reflect back and see, you know, that I've invested in myself and, and compounded my, compounded my skills to the point where I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm Unrecognizable to the person I was two years ago or however long ago.
[00:40:54] Blake: What are these little, little things that you do? I know we've talked dove into a little bit of that, but I'd love to hear anything else that you do to kind of keep yourself sharp and focused on these things. 
[00:41:03] Marissa: Yeah, definitely a couple of things that came to mind when he said that just really encourage everyone to move there, to do.
[00:41:10] Marissa: To their calendars. If you're anything like me, if it's not on my calendar, it's not happening. So I, every week, every two weeks, I'll try to shift everything that I want to get done from a list somewhere into here's the. A window of time when I'm going to do this thing. I also think there's something really powerful about timeboxing, a lot of tasks and activities in general.
[00:41:32] Marissa: We'll take as much time as you give them. So sometimes I'll do a fun exercise for me where I'll think something will take away more than half an hour, but I'll say I'm going to do as much as I possibly can in 30 minutes and see how far I get. Okay. Yeah. So we'll do a lot of stuff like that. But the other thing you made me think of is I color code my calendar, which is nice on this point of balance.
[00:41:52] Marissa: So I really clearly in easily can take a look at my calendar every week and say, is this right? Is this, is there too much green? Do I need more yellow? Like w where, where am I? Where am I missing? What's off here. So those are some things if they're ever.
[00:42:11] Blake: Those are so helpful. I'm about to just like take notes of all of these.
[00:42:17] Blake: I'm about to color code my entire, my entire calendar. I color code, but maybe not in that way though. So that's I think that's a really. Amazing tip. So Missy, thank you so much for hopping on this with us. I wanted to, you know, give you the floor. Could you just tell us a little bit about what's in the future for you?
[00:42:36] Blake: Where can people find you? You're going to be doing really big things. And like I said, in the beginning, you're moving as seemingly warp speed, so I don't think anybody's going to be able to completely Tet ever catch up with you, but you know, in the, for right now, how could, how can people find.
[00:42:52] Marissa: Yeah, no, I would love to connect with anyone or anyone who wants to talk about goals or digital health or starting a company. You name it, and you can always find me at marissa@beaminghealth.com. I also feel free to reach out to me on any social media platform and yeah, always happy to connect.
[00:43:16] Marissa: I love meeting new people.. 
[00:43:17] Blake: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It was amazing to get to meet you. Finally. I've heard such great things. Th that is it for this episode of the GEM podcast. Everybody. Follow us on Instagram, follow us on Tik talk and be on the lookout for future episodes and go check out all of everything that Missy has going on right now.
[00:43:41] Blake: All right. Well, thank you so much, Missy. And yeah, have a great day.
[00:43:48] Blake: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the gem series, the podcast for anybody dedicated to investing in themselves, stay tuned for our next episode, and look in the links below for resources that you can use for yourself until next time. This is Blake Chapman, and remember to be awesome and do awesome things.