How Lauren Maillian Turned Personal Branding into a Strategic Career Asset
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Description
If you want to leverage your skills for entrepreneurial success, Lauren Maillian’s story is a masterclass in turning opportunities into long-term growth. Starting at just 19, Lauren didn’t pursue modeling for fame; she used it as a springboard to invest in real estate and launch her career in business and investing.
As the founder of LMB Group, a strategic advisory firm partnering with high-growth consumer brands, Lauren has built a career on innovation and leadership. From owning a vineyard to advising startups and writing a best-selling book, she has paved the way for women in business. Lauren’s journey highlights the importance of core values, confidence, and continuous learning for anyone aspiring to create lasting impact.
In this episode of the Branding Room Only podcast, Lauren shares how to harness momentum and build confidence as an entrepreneur or investor. You'll hear her expert advice on breaking into entrepreneurship, navigating venture capital, and using your talent and expertise to fuel personal and professional growth.
Chapters
00:57 - Lauren’s personal brand definition, three words to describe her brand, and the importance of aligning your brand with your core values and life experiences
4:21 - Lauren’s long-time mantras and the music she listens to when she needs to be innovative and channel her energy
12:14 - How the influences of her grandmother and parents shaped Lauren growing up as an only child on the Upper East Side of Manhattan
17:50 - How Lauren successfully got into real estate investment at a young age and used her capital to help other entrepreneurs build their brands and businesses
23:48 - The importance of collaborating with founders and how Lauren’s experience influenced her model for providing value to companies
28:58 - What has stayed consistent about Lauren’s brand throughout the different iterations of her firm and how she’s applied it to her personal life as well
32:27 - How Lauren has leveraged volunteer leadership opportunities to continue to build her brand
38:31 - Advice for brand-building through smart questions and business conversations as a woman of color looking to break into entrepreneurism or venture capitalism
43:07 - How Lauren’s improvement in her tennis game translates to business and leadership growth and success
48:38 - The importance of confidence and how Lauren learned to “go forth unafraid” and gain confidence in herself
Connect With Lauren Maillian
Lauren Maillian is a pioneering voice and advocate for women in business, leadership, and investing. She holds a Bachelor of Science magna cum laude in International Trade and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology and is the best-selling author of her memoir, The Path Redefined: Getting to the Top on Your Own Terms.
At age 19, she co-founded Sugarleaf Vineyards and became the youngest self-made winery owner in the country. She then founded LMB Group, a global strategic advisory firm that partners with high-growth consumer brands and organizations to leverage momentum and build to meet their strategic goals. She was the first Black woman to start an early-stage venture capital fund and is one of the youngest women to invest in and advise a SPAC (Athena Consumer Acquisition Corp).
Lauren brings 15+ years of experience in discovering and seizing hidden, profitable value across retail, CPG, lifestyle brands, luxury goods and more via growth, marketing, brand innovation, ESG, digital transformation, and partnerships. Her investing experience spans angel investing, growth and private equity, middle market, buy-outs, and public capital markets. She has advised and invested in over 50 startups, with her portfolio representing over $5 billion in market capitalization.
Lauren Maillian | LinkedIn | Instagram | X
Mentioned In How Lauren Maillian Turned Personal Branding into a Strategic Career Asset
The Path Redefined by Lauren Maillian
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Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi, everybody. It's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only, and I'm super excited about my conversation today with Lauren Maillian.
Lauren has advised and invested in over 40 startups with a portfolio representing over $5 billion in market capitalization. She is the founder of LMB Group, a global strategic advisory firm that partners with high-growth consumer brands and organizations to leverage momentum and build to meet their strategic goals. She is the author of The Path Redefined. Lauren, welcome to The Branding Room.
Lauren Maillian: Thank you so much for having me, Paula. It's great to see you. I'm excited.
Paula Edgar: Same. I’m excited. So, Lauren, what does personal brand mean to you? How do you define it?
Lauren Maillian: I define personal branding as your reputation and what you want people to know you for, but what people think of you as. Your personal brand is really what stands in the room when you're not in the room yourself.
Lauren Maillian: I love that. I think there's a lot of people who have had similar quotes around that, but one of the things I thought about when wanting to interview you is your personal brand is so strong, regardless of knowing the specifics, you want people to know what you do, but it feels strong.
That's not the case for a lot of people. Some people you can tell what they do, but the brand itself is not a brand. For me, for you, a brand is a brand. So I want to hear from you, how would you describe yourself in three different words or short phrases?
Lauren Maillian: Three words or short phrases to describe my brand would be innovative, confident, and empowering.
Paula Edgar: Love that.
Lauren Maillian: I will say I started posting some personal branding boot camps during the pandemic and now posting some of these as retreats in person in smaller group formats to really help people harness their personal brands and bring them to life.
But your brand should also have a look and feel. I think that's where a lot of people focus their look or feel in terms of a template. You can maybe templatize some of it, but I do believe in bringing your personal brand to life. But your personal brand should align with your values, who you are as a person, and your core values.
If you in real life are persistent, if you are resilient, if you are competent, that should come through in your personal brand. I appreciate you saying “strong”. I think over the years it might be strong in terms of Teflon tough just because of time and consistency.
But also I hope that it feels strong because that is reflective of my life experience. My life experience has forced me to become strong, resilient, resourceful, Teflon tough myself in many ways, both thick skin, strong mind, strong spirit unapologetic.
I've been building businesses as an entrepreneur before we had a movement for women to build businesses, before we had a movement of people of color, making investments into companies, before the double minority women of color, let alone Black women became investors or board directors.
A lot of this work I've been doing before it had a coalition or a community or a group around me or us. Even I think of how you and I met, you and I met many years ago on an Apollo board and we were still few women at that table. We see now women in these roles of sitting on boards and owning their power. I hope that that comes through in my brand but more importantly, I hope that whoever is building a brand, man or woman, that your true essence comes through.
Paula Edgar: That part, that authenticity that people use so freely but sometimes don't really understand exactly what I think it's supposed to mean. All right, so tell me this, do you have a favorite quote or a mantra?
Lauren Maillian: My mantra changes. The book that I wrote 10 years ago, I'm actually in the process of coming out with a new edition of the book right now, is The Path Redefined, that has been a mantra for me for a very long time. This notion of redefining your life, your path, your personal brand, and your goals of being in permanent beta, a term that's coined by Reid Hoffman, that we're always starting.
We should always be starting. You can look at that as a leadership lesson. You can look at that as a personal branding lesson, but never resting on your laurels and always taking an iterative approach to your life, your career, your brand, and how you show up in the world is my mantra.
I would say the path redefined, it encapsulates a lot of growth mindset, innovation, accountability, authenticity, all of those things. I think the other mantra would be the subtitle of my book, which is “Getting to the top on your own terms”.
I've always believed in the ability for myself, but for other people as well, to get to the top on their own terms, to have no mountains high enough, no dream is too big. No goal is unattainable. The only thing limiting you is yourself.
This notion of reminding yourself, like if you look at yourself every day and say, “I can get to the top on my own terms,” if you believe it, truly, truly, truly believe that, there's so much that you can accomplish in life in career. I feel as though I'm living testament to that in many ways because in many ways, I say often I shouldn't be here based upon statistics, based upon what I am on paper, what I have been on paper, single mom, early entrepreneur, all the things that I'm also not on paper, not Ivy League educated I've spoken at Ivy Leagues, given talks at most all of the Ivy Leagues.
I didn't graduate from one. I went to FIT. for goodness' sakes and really proud of the degree that I have but I think we are living in a world where we are constantly looking for validation, acceptance, and belonging.
Paula Edgar: Yes. You said a lot just now, and I love it. I'm going to ask you my third intro question or fourth intro question and then get into what I think we're about to get into when you talk about your story.
Tell me, before we jump into that, do you have a hype song? When they're going to get full Lauren Maillian coming on the stage, what's playing in your head? Or if you're having a bad day, is there a song that picks you up? They could be the same song or different song.
Lauren Maillian: No, it's actually funny that you asked that. I think a lot of women, I've played Beyonce, I've played Kelly Rowland songs, I've played different songs at different moments. I've had my time where it was a lot of gospel songs and church songs.
I needed less hype and more faith. I needed more nurturing and fulfillment to feel confident enough to go up in some big stages or to prepare to walk into some rooms and some meetings.
Funny enough, in the last couple of years, I've wanted less influence in terms of how I don't want to feel so dependent on something else to give me the confidence to show up in moments where I need to perform at my best and highest self.
A lot of my own personal development and personal transformation that I've been working on is from within. Yes, there are some things that I might enjoy listening to, but I listen to a lot of binaural beats.
I listen to different hertz at different times within day to set different moods and to help my mind channel in certain directions so the music that I'm playing when I need to be innovative, it's not lyrical, it is more instrumental in terms of channeling my energy and less hyping me up.
At nighttime, I used to be the typical entrepreneurial night owl who had all of their greatest ideas at one o'clock in the morning. I have changed that to really work with my circadian rhythm in a lot of ways so that I have the highest levels of energy during the day so that I can maximize time with my family and I can maximize getting great sleep.
I came up in the game as the entrepreneur that would work until three or four o'clock in the morning and fall asleep at my laptop and get up and take my kids to school and come back and take a nap again until 10:00 in the morning and then get my day going and work with people on the West Coast. I had all these excuses for why I could start my day later.
Whereas now, I'm so focused on making sure that I get to actually optimize this life that I have earned and created for myself, my children, and my entire family, which means that I actually want to use my daytime when my kids are at school to get my work done, my ideas done, all of that so that I'm free by a certain time in the afternoon and the evening to be fully present with the people that I love the most and that I've done all of this work for.
So my music choices haven't been about hyping me up as much as it's been about channeling my energy to be my best and highest and most productive self in different moments throughout the day.
Paula Edgar: I think you probably gave the most robust response to that question I've ever received in my podcast and I love it because it talks about self-awareness in it too. So I totally, totally love that as a response.
It makes me actually think even more about the strategy of you and your brand because that optimization piece is something that folks, I think most people don't get to until they're much later in their career because they're reaching but you're reaching and optimizing at the same time and I love that. I think that that is fantastic.
Lauren Maillian: Some of it I'll say is circumstantial. You have to remember. I had my son at 22 years old. I had my daughter at 24 and I was a single by 24-year-old mom to two kids under two. Fast forward, I am 39 with a son who just started his senior year and a daughter who is a sophomore.
While you might say people learn it later in life, I have spent my life and career around most of my peers being 10, 15 plus years older than me so I'm learning from them. I'm watching them. I'm taking pieces from what I see them do in their life that I appreciate and love and want to implement in my own life but I'm also acutely aware of the fact that I'm not going to get this time back with my children. I'm not.
So if I want to go back to having a different schedule, I can do that by 42, I will be an empty nester. I also feel that pressure in my personal life to achieve more of that harmony than might be normal for somebody my age but it's also circumstantial.
I've had to level up in many, many ways, again, personally and professionally my entire adulthood, starting at 19 when I started my very first company, I was responsible for people and their salaries and their well-being, their livelihood. That's extended over the years and put more and more responsibility on my plate.
Paula Edgar: Well, I think that's a perfect segue into the question I have, which is where did you grow up and how did that shape you?
Lauren Maillian: I grew up in New York City. I grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which at the time was actually called Spanish Harlem, right on the border of where on the Upper East Side became Spanish Harlem. Now, it's more legitimately I think called Carnegie Hill these days and the way that I grew up was an interesting matchup actually. I have a father who is from Louisiana but raised in South Central LA by a strong willed mother.
My grandma passed away just two years ago, but she was the most remarkable, incredible, strong-willed, resilient woman I've ever met or known in my life. My father had this old-school upbringing.
I grew up with constant stories of his experience of riding the back of the bus and segregation and all of these things that weren't designed for him to have, so they certainly weren't designed for me to have, let alone my children to have.
So that was always something that he was driving home constantly. My mom grew up all around the world in an Air Force family so provided a much different um upbringing, consistency and upbringing but also some shelter and that sense of normalcy.
My grandma, when she was alive, worked a very stable, safe, consistent job at the Air Force Base as a switchboard operator back in the day when switchboards were a thing.
My mom had a present figure at home all the time. The two of them in meeting many years ago and then having me, they decided to move to New York City soon after they got married, now they're divorced, but back in the day. They both moved to New York to take their careers to the next level.
My mom was a model. My dad was an investment banker and one of the very first on Wall Street, he's considered one of the Black trailblazers on Wall Street. He was the first African-American managing director at First Boston back in the day then at Salomon Brothers and I say, as you know, it's not a joke but hopefully it can be a little lighthearted, that while I grew up with some level of privilege, I also knew that there was not a lot to go around so the joke not joke reality is that if I had had siblings, I certainly would not have grown up the same way. It would not have been even possible.
Everything that they could have given to three or four children—and I'm an only child—was all channeled into me but what was also all channeled into me was their very high expectations of success and growth.
I remember the extra homework my dad would give me on the weekend as a kid reading and writing different books that he would buy that I would have my own projects just to report to him on.
That his expectation again, was always rooted in these stories of, “You have this because I'm choosing to invest this in you and not do this for myself.” This idea of having to work harder than everyone else is something that was ingrained in me because of the way that my father was raised.
My mom taught me grace and poise and enunciation and being a lovely young lady and dressing nicely and having etiquette and all those sorts of things. My dad possessed those things as well. But if you choose to take lanes, those are the lanes my mom took and the lanes that my dad took were like, “Don't be smart. You're going to work hard. You're not just going to work hard. You're going to work harder than they think you can work and you're going to always do it and you're going to always outwork everyone and you're going to be the smartest person in the room and you're going to learn when to speak and when to listen.”
Fast forward to my career when folks have asked me over the years, “How does it feel to be the only in the room?” That was the baseline, be the only in the room and not based on skin color or gender, be the only in the room that's excellent because that was the baseline.
The expectation that I had to work harder or do more was ingrained in me from about three years old with extra chores, extra homework, and extra expectations across the board.
I carried that through with me into my entrepreneurial career. I carry it through with me into my board service as a board director today, as an investor today, adding value to companies to my portfolio. It is the baseline for how I know to show up in the world.
Paula Edgar: I love that, especially shouting out to also my father who give me extra homework for my folks who are listening, my dad from Barbados, all of you know and he used to get this thing called the West Indian reader and it had like all these extra, they' be like, “What's 12 mongoose times 12?”
But I remember when I went to boarding school and they were like, “How do you know all these things that you know?” and I was like, “Because homework was like a baseline. There was always more things to do.” I would write all the time. So I appreciate understanding what comes from having parents who expect more and actually challenge you to do.
Okay, you started going into your career path but I want you to tell us how did you get into investment? How did you get into the space of killing it, especially such a young age?
Lauren Maillian: I started my very first company at a young age. I modeled for a long time since I was a little girl and my modeling career was never about being a model, it was always about a means to an end of investing, making money, being excellent, being big, being successful.
It's always been everything I've wanted to be. I've always wanted to succeed, be known, and be great. When I modeled, I started taking my modeling money into buying real estate.
I started making my first real estate investments at 17 with my modeling money. I was purchasing homes on lis pendens pre-foreclosure and turning them into Section 8 housing opportunities and that gave me a guaranteed rent role.
I was able to decrease my financial risk but gain an asset. Then fast forward ended up starting my very first official business, which was the vineyard and winery, which made me the youngest self-made winery owner in the country when I was 19 down in Charlottesville, Virginia in the Monticello region. That was a real estate investment turned into an internationally recognized wine brand.
From that, I had an exit at 26 and I didn't necessarily know what else I was going to do, the opportunity to exit came sooner than I could have imagined. I had a lot of folks that talked me off of the ledge of holding on and not exiting, which would have then impacted the rest of my career but it was with that liquidity that I then said, “What am I going to do next?”
I remember being introduced to all of the greatest financial advisors and folks to manage your wealth. I sat on my capital for some time, but at the same time these wealth managers were coming to me and I wasn't making any decision because I was afraid.
I had a couple of folks hit me up and go, “Well, scared money makes no money.” I was like, “Okay, great. You just scare me even more. You're not going to scare me into submission. It just makes me even more concerned.” At the same time, I had entrepreneurs coming to me saying, “You've just had this exit,” there again was not a space for women as entrepreneurs, there was not a space for people of color as entrepreneurs, there was not a space for anyone that wasn't in Silicone Valley quite frankly.
It wasn't really about being a woman or being Black, it was about all the people who had felt othered who had an idea who had seen my wild and crazy idea at 19 result in an exit by 26.
I had these two inbound communication flows. One was from these wealth managers wanting my money and one was from all these entrepreneurs with ideas that they thought were as wild and crazy as me starting a vineyard with zero wine industry, wine and spirits background and it felt safer and easier, more exciting, and more familiar for me to help them build their brands and their businesses.
I still wasn't comfortable giving my money to those wealth managers or to those entrepreneurs but those entrepreneurs were happy with something that the wealth managers weren't, they were happy with just Lauren, my brain, my aptitude, my experience, my expertise, my connections, and my know-how, and strategy at the table. I became an advisor to some of these businesses that had come to me.
This is in the time when a lot of tech companies were subscription-based. Remember the time when everything was a subscription? It was all the rave in the VC world, and then everybody had an upsell for their subscription and how many people could you get at $9.99, $19.99, $29.99 to have a big old company?
Again, some of those businesses that came to me were tangential to wine, spirits, hospitality, food beverage, consumer package goods, CPG, and what have you. Some were just excited by the distribution that I had for the business or the fact that I had built a direct-to-consumer business before we even called it D2C.
I built a 90% direct-to-consumer company before that was a thing. The result was that I became an advisor. I watched my advisor equity stakes grow in these businesses. I watched my time and my talent without even my treasure result in multiples that I said, “Wow, this is cool. I want to do more of this.”
I got into investing by first investing my talent, not my money. Then where I got to see and understand where I was best of service as an advisor, was then where I started putting my capital to work.
Then I started putting my capital to work in both ways, both with a wealth manager, but also as an investor. That's how my investing journey really started. There are companies that I've helped usher through the unicorn status to M&A, private equity acquisitions.
There are companies that I receive dividends from today, some that have gone on to have their massive exits, some that have gone on to have acquisitions, aqua hires of those teams but that's where I was able to first get comfortable with the idea of investing, but also really get clear on where and how Lauren Maillian adds value.
Paula Edgar: The interesting thing about that, because I'm thinking like, “Okay.” I love talking about time, talent, and treasure. Everybody always wants the treasure, but in my mind, the talent is that piece that you can't really monetize, but it sounds like you can.
My point is that having not been in the space, but then coming in the space, how then do you have the conversation about, “I can give you all of me, all Lauren, and advise you,” then negotiate that into what that means for a piece of what the pie is.
I think that that's really bright right there. The promise of me has a value and this is how much I want for that in exchange for that. How does one do that?
Lauren Maillian: I mean when I got into the world of advising, I was also asked to then advise some accelerators and incubators so I saw their model. I saw their model of everything from $25,000 to $500,000 in capital in exchange for anywhere from 3% to 10% of their business.
I saw what they were providing to them so I was able to see the blueprint. Also, part of what I was helping founders with as well was helping them negotiate with investors, how much of their company they should give away.
Again, this was before VCs, venture capitalists, or angel investors were founder-friendly. This was the time when a lot of the venture capitalists were seen as predatory vultures in these businesses. It was like the VCs against the entrepreneurs. What we see now today is very, very different. We now see the entrepreneurs going to dinners and retreats and going to Saint-Tropez with their investors.
That's new because now the founders are the new kids on the block that are the founders, the creators, the influencers, we're in a completely different day and age and world right now.
But at that time, me being an entrepreneur who had had an exit, who was also advising and then began writing checks was so unheard of that I could give them both advice.
I could literally sit there and go, “Oh, as your advisor, I say this, and this is best for the company.” But I know that this particular investor is not going to go for it because these terms behoove you, but not the investor.
Now you get more of that where you have these win-win scenarios that folks are to achieve but 15 years ago, that was absolutely not the case. I got to learn from seeing the agreements that were being presented to founders that I was advising and supporting and that were in my portfolio but also in looking at the models that were kind of getting institutionalized from the Y Combinators and the 500 Startups and remember when Comcast LIFT Labs started.
They all had their value ad, some were network, some were a series of or community of advisers that we could have access to, some with platform or reach or digital services for something, office space, production value. There was something that they were providing.
So it allowed me to work backwards into creating a structure that worked right for me. That's still something that I continue to fine-tune today, whether I'm sitting on the board of a company or advising a founder, first-time founder, second, or third-time founder.
We work backward a little bit in terms of which of my skill sets and experiences you want to tap into. How much of my expertise are you looking to utilize? What does that look like in terms of time and deliverables?
We work backwards. We work backwards into figuring out what is the equity that makes sense. I have always taken a win-win approach. When I'm working with founders in that kind of way, I think it's appreciated that I'm asking for equity. In exchange, that means I'm incentivized to win because I have skin in the game with you. If you lose, I lose and I don't like losing.
It's really not that hard of a conversation when you frame it in that way because there are folks that are out here that will provide a service that I can give you in strategy and then tell you who to hire and how to have them work and how to set them up.
You would pay that person a salary. You would pay that company your retainer fee, and if you lose, they win. That's a very different setup. This collaborative approach is one that I've always really taken to heart and taken pride in. It hasn't failed me yet.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I feel like even in response to the question, there are the pitches in there. It's like, “Here's what you're going to get if you do X.” One of the things I love talking to folks who are in innovative spaces and entrepreneurs is that they've always got the bullet points and it makes me happy because again, I think that's where you cultivate those things to have a strong brand, so that it's not wavering, so that I can feel confident in what you're saying based on how you're saying it. That was so key in what you just did.
The next question I was going to ask you, I'm not going to ask you because you just answered it.
Lauren Maillian: I want to know what it was now.
Paula Edgar: It was what are some of the ways you built your brand? What platform networks? But I'm like, “You just told that, right?” My question for you is, in all of the different iterations and continued iterations of your brand, what is something for you that stayed consistent?
Lauren Maillian: LNB Group stands for Leverage Momentum and Build. That's been consistent. I believe in creating and generating leverage momentum and building. I also believe that it can come from a lot of different avenues, a lot of different levers, a lot of different skill sets.
I think that stayed consistent. Leverage momentum and build. You have to do that every day. You look at the biggest companies and brands in the world. If they don't leverage momentum, they definitely don't build. If they rest on their laurels, if they do the same thing over and over again, they stay stagnant, they are obsolete and onto the next, that's exactly where there becomes space and opportunity in the market for newcomers.
I think that's been the most consistent part of mine. The company is 13 years old. I have believed in the same set of values, the same approach to success for 13 years. Again, spent a lot of time recently reflecting on my life and my career and where I am and I'm so insanely grateful to be where I am in this moment in time and life, in space.
But I've also taken those same three words and lived them and breathed them as principles in my personal life. I have had to leverage momentum and build in every title, every hat, every responsibility I've ever taken on as a single mom, as a single mom trying to get my kids into school in New York City, nursery school, private school, keeping roof over our head, maintaining consistency, even going back to my Christmas present hacks back in the day when I couldn't really afford Christmas gifts. That was leverage momentum and build. Like on Earth was I going to get Christmas?
It might sound silly, but I used to buy all my Christmas gifts Christmas night online because my kids were so young and I was like, “They're not going to know the difference, the tree's up. These gifts cost me 50% less if I just wait.” But it was always about extracting the maximum amount of value. It was always about leveraging momentum and building.
How can I leverage momentum to build the greatest life, the best lifestyle, greatest opportunities, the most money, the greatest portfolio, those are the tenets that drive me and I think those are the tenets that will always drive me but also ones that leave room to be fluid and to make movements that can be lateral at times, that can be based upon trend, insight, or data, but that always keep you building.
Paula Edgar: When you just laid that out, I thought to myself, “Over all of that, throughout all of that, too, is strategy.” I can see the wheels moving. What else is next? So my business tagline is “Engage your hustle.” What you just said is exactly how I feel about them.
I'm like, “What’s next? Are we still going?” It's not killing yourself through hustle, so I don't say stagnant. That growth mindset is always there. What am I going to continue to do, build, and also enjoy? Joy is a big part of that as well. So I love, love that.
All right. Cool. You have talked about your board pieces of this too and leadership and again, we met through volunteerism in terms of the arts at the Apollo. How have you leveraged some of those volunteer leadership opportunities to continue to build your band?
Lauren Maillian: You just said it because I was going to say I wasn't really volunteering, yes, I suppose I was volunteering but that to me was a leadership opportunity.
Paula Edgar: Absolutely. I was a single mom when we were on that board together. When I spearheaded the Apollo Young Patrons, I will never forget, Jonelle Procope was the president and CEO of the Apollo Theater. The Apollo wasn't necessarily, at that time, embracing us young folk who did not yet have a lot of money to give back to them.
So it was like, “Okay, where's the they’re there, Lauren?” I'm like, “I’m going to show you that they're there. I'm going to show you.” Now look, now look at you, look at me, look at other folks that were on that board with us that are partners in private equity firms and millionaires or on their way to becoming millionaires or maybe even billionaires in the future.
Who knows where they're going to be? But they are a lot further ahead than they were when we were all together in that conference room. I remember some of the times I'd bring wine from my vineyard and we'd order pizza and this and that. We'd potluck our board meetings. Now if we wanted to, we can meet up at fancy restaurants with white tablecloths and order [inaudible] like, should be used to.
That to me was a leadership lesson. That's what I mean when I say the idea of wanting to be on boards, it's wonderful, but we now have a push towards women on boards. I wanted to be on boards 15 years ago, not 20 years ago, 20 years ago when I was 19, I didn't want to be on boards. I didn't probably really understand what boards were.
But 15 years ago, by the time I was beginning to exit my first company, and I had to engage with boards, I had to understand valuation of business and how to value my company and how to exit my company, payment terms, and all these sorts of things, that is when at about 24, 25 years old, it took me about a year and a half to exit the vineyard and winery to value the inventory, to value the machinery, to value the real estate, to value the underlying land, to value distribution contracts, look at historical sales.
It was not a 30, 60, 90-day process. That's when I started saying to myself, “I want to be on boards. I understand why boards are important. I want to be on boards.” But again, I didn't have the luxury as a single mom of saying, “I'm going to go to HBS.” I thought I was.
I applied like I wanted to, but that was just not realistic for me to what? Leave my babies in New York and Harlem and hop on a train as a single? Who was going to watch my children? How was I going to do my homework?
I was going to afford to go to school and take the train and keep lights on and not work. It wasn't even an option. The Apollo, spearheading that Young Patrons Board, proving out a model, being able to work closely with the team, being able to have that network effect, and as you know, that for me, turned into co-chairing Dining with the Divas.
Dining with the Divas is still such an important annual event that happens at the Apollo with the most powerful women in New York and the arts and even women that come from across the country just to participate in that luncheon on Valentine's Day.
That gave me network effect. That gave me exposure to boards and governance and how to present your ideas and how to vote on your ideas. I have a quorum and proxies and all of these things that set me up.
Ultimately, it was the Apollo board that I was on. I was on the board of the Children's Aid Society because I had given a sizable donation at the time to the Milbank Dunlevy Center in Harlem to reopen their pool because they had this pool that kids of color were supposed to have had access to and it had no water, it had no lifeguard. It had nothing.
They had a swim team and created opportunities for them and even that gave me exposure to the greater Children's Aid Society both the local office but then the greater organization on a national scale and even leveraging Children's Aid Society and the Apollo, it was both me leveraging those opportunities in terms of how I spoke of the experience that I gained but it was also my fellow board members and even the presidents of the organizations, the leaders, the executive directors, the EVPs, SVPs, and other senior leaders seeing the ideas I had, how I showed up, how I executed on my ideas, that opened doors and invitations for inbound opportunities for me in board service.
But it was certainly a switch. It was certainly a switch from non-profit boards, which yes, is volunteerism to compensated boards rooted more in governance and growth that become areas where you can make a mark and make a living.
Paula Edgar: Yes, that is definitely on my vision board goal because as a lawyer, they're always asking for you to be on boards. But I'm like, “Now I want to be on board where we're going to monetize this.” I think so much of what I did, to your point, I've always been leading something since when I was very, very little and you going in high school and college, etc, and understanding that you learn people but you also learn networks, you learn leadership style.
There are so many different things. That's why I asked the question because I think sometimes people undervalue the opportunity that exists in giving a little bit because you get so much if you leverage the opportunities properly, and you just gave a masterclass in how to do so. So I love that.
For all of us entrepreneuring folks out here, what advice do you have for people who are trying to build a brand, particularly, especially now, women of color who are looking to break into entrepreneurship or venture capital?
Lauren Maillian: You put yourself in the places that you want to be. Even if it feels uncomfortable, go and do your homework. When you ask questions, make sure they’re smart questions. When you have decided that there's an industry that you want to be in, read, watch, I don't care if it's YouTube masterclass.
I'll say I recently watched and fell in love with, I already liked her, but I watched Martha Stewart's masterclass on Masterclass. I was just like, “Brilliant!” I watched it twice. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I want to know her.” So I'm putting it out there. I want to know her. It's on my list of things to do and I'm going to make it happen by the end of this year somehow, I'm going to know her, maybe your audience will help.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say, “We'll figure it out. We're all going to rally together and make sure you get to meet Martha.”
Lauren Maillian: But the way that she has stayed steadfast in her own vision utilizing and repurposing every area of her life, her business, her interest, her expertise, her know-how, her creativity to feed another part of her business to create this whole circular ecosystem is just brilliant, right?
Paula Edgar: Yes.
Lauren Maillian: But I think a lot of us say in life like, “Oh, I want to meet somebody,” it's very rare that I say, “Oh, my God, there's somebody I really want to meet,” but I'd be darned if I didn't do my research on Martha Stewart and I go meet Martha. There are folks who say, “I really want to meet whoever,” I won't even rattle off names because--
Paula Edgar: Oprah, Beyonce. Continue.
Lauren Maillian: Yeah. I mean, yeah, but you know, the world is so controversial these days so it's like I don't know what's safe to say. But whoever you want to meet, wherever they are, whatever they do, do your homework. Do your homework. If you want to be the next CEO or a leader of a tech company, of a consultancy, of whatever, do your homework.
Do your homework not just on that person, but do your homework on their role, their job, watch videos, hear them first-person, watch videos from folks that they have worked with, read books, read articles, read op-eds, watch them on stage, watch how they respond, see who they inherited their role from, look at how they've done things differently.
There's so much that you can learn through observation. We don't always have to have access. There are so many people that I have not had access to earlier on in my career where I learned from watching, I learned from even listening to how other people told stories of those individuals.
I mean, there's someone that I met years ago finally, but I had been hearing about them from so many people that by the time I met them, I was like, “I feel like I told you,” because so many people that followed your career, worked on your team, worked at agencies that reported into your team, I already learned about how they think, how they strategize, what they expect, how they communicate, how quickly they disseminate ideas, what execution looks like for them.
We can put up barriers to goals that we have based upon, “Hey, I'm not in the room so I'm limited.” Well, yeah, sure but we're all limited some way somehow. Even if you get in the room, you don't get unfettered access for like 24 hours.”
So even if you meet the person or have dinner with them, you got 90 minutes at best. But no, not really. How many times, especially when I did start getting access to really powerful influential people in business, they would invite me for breakfast and it would go like this: Meet me at the Hyatt Regency at [inaudible] in park. I have 8:30. 8:30 did not mean an hour, 8:30 meant 8:30 to 9:00.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Yep.
Lauren Maillian: It meant 30 minutes.
Paula Edgar: Yes.
Lauren Maillian: Those 30 minutes should be well-informed, smart not a, “Hi, how are you and how are your kids?” I mean, sure, ask them how they're doing and what's going on in their life, but add value to them and make the best use of their time so that you are asking smart, informed questions, and through that process, you show your own ingenuity, you show your own intelligence but you also show your own thought process.
I mean even now, this might seem silly to some but this is very true, I started playing tennis about two years ago, a year and a half I suppose really, but I started playing more casually two years ago, and I started playing competitively, consistently 18 months ago and competitively about nine months ago.
Paula Edgar: Oh.
Lauren Maillian: Through playing tennis, I've opened a whole other world that I never expected. That's not why I play tennis. But the people that have watched me improve my game in tennis are like, “Oh, wow, if you are improving on the court in this way, what are you doing at work?”
Paula Edgar: I love that.
Lauren Maillian: Or even my coach will say, so it's interesting, this actually started a thing where I live at my tennis club, because I was working with a coach in the beginning. I would get up so early to do my tennis so that, again, I would have my day free.
Nobody knew I had a coach because they weren't up as early so they were confused. I only used the coach for about three months and I learned a tremendous amount and it was actually the coach that said, “Lauren, you can keep working with me but if you really want to get good and reach your goal, you got to start playing with a lot of different people. Because the coach will hit to you and you get in the cadence, you get in the rhythm, and they might run you,” I would ask them, “Run me, make me work, make me go lateral side to side, deep corners. Work me, don't make it easy.”
Long story short, he is the one that said, “Start playing with other people because you need to see what's unexpected. If you really start competing, you're going to be up against someone.”
In tennis, you don't really know who you're going to play until that moment. You don't know who's in the lineup so you can't really do your research like you might be able to in some other sports on who's going to move. You don't know who you're going to play. You know the roster but you might not know who's chosen on the roster to play against you, singles or doubles.
Me then improving from my own self-correction, from hearing the coach that I still wasn't actively working with, but hearing them in my head when there were certain things I wasn't doing right and playing with different opponents, that alone made folks say to me, and one guy in particular that I would end up playing with, would say, “Short-term memory, kid.” He's older than me, very successful tech entrepreneur.
He said, “I see you beating yourself up. That's not going to work on the court. Short-term memory.” So I would always then hear him in my head, “Short-term memory, kid. Short-term memory, kid, because you got to play the next play.” Then when he started seeing how I played differently, within two weeks literally, and it’s like, “I keep hearing you in my head. If I'm playing with you or against you, I'm hearing you in my head. Short-term memory, short-term memory.”
That translated into business conversations and business opportunity. The other thing that was interesting is they watched me start tracking my stats on my watch and then on a performance device, a WHOOP. I was tracking my heart rate. I was tracking my water intake, I was tracking my body fat by choice.
Nobody's telling me to do these things, but I wanted to perform at my highest self. I stopped drinking. I wanted to be lean, mean, I wanted to perform, I wanted to see how great I could perform and push myself in my own iterations and people watch.
It's a life lesson. It's funny because I didn't necessarily play sports competitively as a child, but I now see how people fall in love with sports, why people fall in love with sports, the leadership skills that you can gain through sports, the analytical skills that you can gain through sports, the patience, the precision.
But when you're learning that, imagine the people that are around you, those who are as smart as you or smarter, those who are as big of a risk taker as you are, or those who might have ideas as wild as you. Because what a wild idea to start playing tennis at like 38, 37 and a half and say, “I want to be great,” it's like, “Okay, goodbye.”
Someone else who has a big vision and business and life, they're like, “Hey, she's not afraid of a big goal.” It translates. All of this to say, for your audience, being in the room doesn't always matter. But when you're in the room and the work you do before you get to the room, people watch.
In your greatest opportunity, your greatest scenario is that all of the work you do prepares you for a moment to be in the room, even if it's a split second, for someone to observe your talent, your drive, your ability, your pursuit of greatness.
So I want to tap you on the shoulder and say join me in something that I'm doing because I see all these other qualities and characteristics in you and I can teach you everything else, you can learn everything else, you can watch a video, get a book, go to a conference, or whatever else to gain that domain expertise. But I want you on my team because I want someone who shows up like you show up.
Paula Edgar: That is like a snapshot, I could just see the clip that's going to go viral. It's so perfect. I knew that we were going to do this, this, this, and time is going to run and and of course, that's what is happening. So number one, you must come back for part two of me and Lauren take over the world.
But before I go, I have to ask you two questions that I ask everybody, which is this, well, actually, I'm only going to ask you one of them because you already answered one, and don't worry about it, you did.
It's a similar question to what I asked before about what is an authentic aspect of yourself that you'll never compromise on but you already answered that in the other question about what stays consistent so that was a nice dovetail.
The podcast is called Branding Room Only, which is a play on standing room only and so my question is always what is something that people are going to want to experience about you that will have them in a room where there are no seats and they can only stand to see you? What is that skill, experience, opportunity, whatever it is that they're going to stand in a room for you?
Lauren Maillian: A couple that I can say. It's hard to choose one.
Paula Edgar: Choose one.
Lauren Maillian: I will choose your confidence. There are so many smart people in the world who aren't confident. There are so many closeted ideas and innovations that don't see the light of day because someone's not confident because they don't think it's smart.
They don't think it's great. They don't think it's refined. They don't think it's polished. They don't think it's ready. They don't have a co-founder. They don't have a funder. Whatever it is. If you don't have that unshakable confidence in yourself, you won't be able to see the potential of your own greatness and yeah, I hope that people who see me, work with me, listen to this episode feel confident.
It's funny, I went to Dalton as a little girl in New York, but I have to preface that because now Dalton is, it's always been a well-regarded private school, but now it is known as a diverse place so I have to preface this with the context of saying, when I went to Dalton in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, it was not a diverse place.
I was the first kid in the history of Dalton to skip a grade. I skipped second grade. I was the only Black kid in my class from nursery school until middle school because it was not known to be a diverse place.
When people ask me now, do I feel comfortable being the only in certain rooms, of course, been the only feels like my whole life. But what's funny is that Dalton's motto, even though the school was not a place that I felt very welcomed, it gave me a heck of a lot of confidence.
It forced me to be confident, forced me to be confident as a Black girl showing up with braids, glasses, braces, big old feet. I was nine years old with a woman size nine shoe.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Lauren Maillian: I had to be confident. My mom used to make some of my clothes. She loves sewing on her Singer sewing machine. I mean all these things that I know my mom thought again that she was giving me like this perfect package, bless her heart, it wasn't the coolest thing at school. So this idea of confidence, I was forced into.
But funny enough, the motto of Dalton, even though it's not place where I had a wonderful experience, quite frankly, is “Go forth unafraid.” That motto is probably the only thing I like about the school, to tell you the truth, is the motto, “Go forth unafraid,” because that's what it taught me to do.
In many ways, it might have taught me to run away from some of the things that I experienced at the school because it taught me everything I definitely didn't want. I didn't send my kids there when we lived in New York. I was pretty clear on the kind of experience in school life I didn't want and that directed me towards what I did want.
But “go forth unafraid” has become something that I've had to tell myself sometimes when I look in the mirror. I really hope that people, if they're in a standing room only with me, feel comfortable and they feel confident and that they can go forth unafraid.
Paula Edgar: I think that that is a wonderful synopsis and something to give folks some inspiration to, which is also, I think, another word that I would use when it comes to thinking about you. To know that even if you, yourself, is not there yet, that you can get there. You're obviously showing over and over again that the path is one that you'll continue to define as you go on it.
Tell us how, tell my people, how they should find out more about the book relaunch and stay in contact with you and what's up with you?
Lauren Maillian: I'm @laurenmaillian on social media everywhere. So if my last name is too long and complicated, put MAI, and you'll get to it, it should pop up. Instagram, LinkedIn, I'm super active on. I have a newsletter there, laurenmaillian.com. I have a community of over 13,000 that are reading and listening to my advice on a weekly basis.
I'm hosting retreats, experiences, and masterminds as well. I'd love to have you there, Paula, so maybe we can get some of your audience to come join us together at a personal branding retreat or brand-building retreat, whether it's their personal brand or their business.
And the book, The Path Redefined, is coming out with a new edition just in a couple of months, will be out in probably two months. Really, really excited about that. The book came out in 2014. It came out 10 years ago with this mantra of the path redefined and this subtitle that I really wanted to spur a movement of getting to the top on your own terms.
The new edition is distilling 10 years worth of updates of me taking my own medicine, redefining my own path, getting to the top on my own terms. If I can do it, I want everyone else to be confident that they can too.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I'm glad that we have paths that cross and continue to cross. Thank you for being on the show. You must come back. We will definitely talk soon. Everybody, thanks for being in my room. Tell everybody. I mean, everybody needs to listen to this episode, to figure about their path to number one, decide that they should start tennis and also to never stay stagnant. See you all next time. Bye, y’all.
Lauren Maillian: Thank you.
