Episode 174: The Right Path - How Maryam Sharifzadeh Found Her Calling in Sports Management and Entrepreneurship

Maryam Sharifzadeh is the founder of Zass and Office Yoga. She grew up in the Bay Area and went to school at UCSD for her undergrad. After college, she worked at Cal and Stanford before starting her own business. She is passionate about helping people stay healthy and fit, and her programs reflect that.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How Maryam Sharifzadeh's background in swimming led her to start her own business in sports management
2. How Maryam Sharifzadeh's experience of training for a marathon swim taught her to enjoy the process
3. How Maryam Sharifzadeh's work in sports management helps athletes find careers after their sports

 

You can find Maryam on LinkedIn and check out her Business.

 

Remarkable Quote:

“I don't think I was ever not doing the right thing because everything I've done in the past has helped me get where I am. But I really knew I was doing the right thing with office yoga because everything was so exciting. I didn't care about anything else. And I think that's when I really knew I was in the right place, which is great."

 

Sponsor

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Transcription:

[00:00:00]

Welcome back to another episode of Your Next Stop. This is Juliet Hahn. In this episode, I interview Maryam Sharif Zade. She is the founder of Zass and that's Zen as a service, Z AAS and also Office Yoga. Love this story.

 

[00:00:17]

I love how founded sports and then what she created out of it. You do not want to miss this. It's really a fascinating and in this episode, which is really cool, and I hope if you're listening to my other episodes, you'll notice in this one how the story builds. In some other episodes, it might be a circle. And this one builds in such a unique, wonderful way.

 

[00:00:41]

So you can find Maryam on LinkedIn. You can also find Office Yoga on LinkedIn and Zas on LinkedIn. Instagram. It's kick Zas. And that's Zaas.

 

[00:00:53]

Office Yoga underscore is where you can find that on Instagram. And you can also find Maryam as well. I am excited for you guys to dive into this episode. Have you ever been listening to your favorite podcast and that moment comes up and you think, oh, my gosh, I need to share it? Well, now you can with picked cherries.

 

[00:01:12]

What I love about Picked Cherries so much is that when I'm listening to my favorite podcast and that moment comes up that I want to share, I can take a Snippet, which is called the Pick Cherry, and I can send that to my friends and family so they can get involved in the podcast that I love. It's almost like sending an IG or a tik tok available now iOS and Android. If you're not picking cherries, are you really listening to podcasts?

 

[00:01:39]

Welcome back to another episode of Your Next Stop. I say it again, I say it every time, but I am so excited for my next guest, Maryam Sharif Zada.

 

[00:01:54]

And we're all laughing because we all know how I pronounce names and this one has been a doozy. However, we've had to reschedule a couple of times, so I've had a little time to practice. Yes, you have. And emailed it. Nice work.

 

[00:02:08]

Thank you. All right, so Maryam, I want to jump into this because you're doing some really fun things. I first want the listeners to know where they can kind of find you. You were on LinkedIn, and I'm going to have you spell your name. First name is Maryam.

 

[00:02:24]

Maryam. And the last name is Maryam Sharifzadeh. As you said, it's S-H-A-R-I-S-C-A-D-E-H. Great. And then on Instagram, you can go to Kick Zas.

 

[00:02:38]

And that's kick like the word. And then Zaas, and then office yoga underscore. So if you guys are not driving, don't be doing this if you're driving, because this will all be in the show notes. But I know that my listeners have suggested and asked, hey, can you shout out where they can find you? Because sometimes people like to look as they listen.

 

[00:02:59]

There's multitaskers. Well, welcome to your next stop. I'm really excited to have you here and dive into your story. Yeah, I'm happy to be back. Thank you for having me.

 

[00:03:09]

It's always good to see you. Yes, you too. All right, so we're going to dive in. You're going to give us a little background of where you grew up and if you went to university, what you studied. And then we'll get into the kind of the meat of the episode.

 

[00:03:21]

Yeah, I'm happy to. I grew up here in the Bay Area. I'm a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. I feel like you're unicorn here from Iran. So I'm first generation Iranian American Americans, but happy to be here and settling in.

 

[00:03:37]

I grew up and I went to high school in the East Bay, played water polo and sports there. And then I went down to San Diego at UCSD for my undergrad. So I did a lot of work there. Actually, I think a lot of the work I'm continuing to do I developed at my time at UCSD. I came back here to study sports management at USF.

 

[00:03:58]

Great California native have been up and down the coast. Right. And now I remember because just so my listeners know, we have talked before and so I do know a little bit more about your story than I typically know a guest. But one thing that you said in the past was that in your native there was women didn't do a lot of sports. Can you take us through a little bit how sports became active in your life?

 

[00:04:22]

Yeah, it definitely wasn't in my family background. You know, my family again, is from Iran and women definitely don't do sports. They're still to this day, which is unfortunate. So it wasn't something that my mom really instilled in me. But luckily I met some friends early on and maybe I think it was end of middle school, early high school, I started to get into water polo and it was just because the person I was carpooling with would take her daughter to water polo practice and I was with them, so I had to also go.

 

[00:04:52]

So that's how I got into it, which was the best thing that could have ever happened to me at the time. But it was just by luck and the environment that I was in, I got put into that situation and played water polo. I still open water swim to this day and teach swimming and all sorts of different activities. So that's where it stemmed from. You had said that swimming really was something special for you.

 

[00:05:17]

Can you take us through a little bit? And I believe you just finished because I know when we talked before you were training, so can you take us a little bit? Really? How special? I mean, people love to swim, but then there's people that love to swim and love competition.

 

[00:05:29]

And I think you really are one of those people. Yeah, I do. I love to swim. It was my first sport that really just resonated with me. I tried a bunch of things, but when I got in the water, it was just a fish.

 

[00:05:40]

And I say this now, swimming is like yoga in the water. The yoga and swimming actually have a lot in common if you really dive into it. But I taught swim lessons growing up. That's how I paid my bills. I taught it in college and then afterwards, and I lost lost touch with swimming for a little while.

 

[00:05:56]

But, you know, about five years ago, I got into open water swimming. So I'm here in San Francisco, and there's a big open water community. We have a great training grounds. The Bay is great training grounds for Channel swims, marathon swims. So I dove in and I've done a number of things.

 

[00:06:12]

Swim across Lake Tahoe, swim around San Francisco. And I was training to swim across the English Channel. I did all the training. I was so prepared. I flew out there, I was so ready, got every detail in, and then I go out and there's a storm.

 

[00:06:28]

A storm hits England, and I don't even get the opportunity to try. Wow. Yes, it was very humbling. Very disappointing, but very humbling in every way. And that's so much of what open water swimming is.

 

[00:06:44]

Right? You can't change the environment. You have to work with nature. And so I did six months of training, all this prep, and nature was like, no, not your time. Right.

 

[00:06:56]

And was that supposed to happen in October? Yes, I think we're rescheduling. And that was why I was like, hey, I have this big thing. No. Right.

 

[00:07:04]

Which is so exciting. I would love to dive into that a little bit, because when you train so hard for something and you have your heart so on it and then it doesn't happen, can you take us through a little bit of that journey? How you cope with that, what you did? Yeah, it was very sad. Of course.

 

[00:07:24]

I was very disappointed to think I put so much time and energy. I think it was about 300 plus hours that I had spent training in the water over almost 200 swims, I think I did, to prepare to do this one swim. But you know, what I really wanted out of this training season was to enjoy and embrace the training. Not to just grind it out, but to really have fun with it. That was the goal.

 

[00:07:49]

And then the swim itself was going to be hard, but I wanted to enjoy the process, and so luckily, I did. I figured out how to enjoy the process. So when it came to, you know, realizing that there was a storm happening, I cried. Of course I grieved. I was like, I can't do this all over again.

 

[00:08:06]

So much time. But when I look back, I was like, you know what? I got what I needed out of this. I enjoyed the process, and that's what it was really about. I can come back to this if I want to, but at the end of the day, it's just one swim in comparison to all of the training I did, which I really did enjoy.

 

[00:08:23]

And I love that. And I love that because I think it's so important. And just knowing you a little bit, I figured that you got something out of it, because I think that's something that it's really important for the listeners to do whatever it is that you prepare for or whatever it is that you think is going to happen, and I'm going to take it to childbirth really quickly. So many women I've talked to, you have this childbirth plan and it never goes. I don't think I've talked to one person that was like, yeah, but it went exactly how it is.

 

[00:08:50]

And it is one of those things you mourn what you think you were exposed to experience, but if you can get your mind into it and then take out of what you did experience, it just makes your life so much better. So I love that you kind of turned it around. Yes. And thank you for making that comparison, because a lot of people I don't have children myself, but I know a lot of women who say marathon swimming is a lot like childbirth. You spend all this time training and preparing for it, and then you go through this, like, 14 plus hour marathon swim that's really painful.

 

[00:09:21]

And you think about it like, why am I doing this? I never want to do this again. And then afterwards, you're just elated and. Then you do it again. Yeah, you want to do it again.

 

[00:09:31]

It's so funny. Yes, I love that. So I want to go back really quickly to university. So I know you went to a couple of different schools. What did you study in undergrad.

 

[00:09:40]

And if I missed it, I'm sorry. That's okay. I studied business and undergrad. Okay. I did not miss it.

 

[00:09:45]

I was like, I don't think that you said that. I know what you said you did next. So you said business. And why did you go that route? Was business something that always fascinated you?

 

[00:09:54]

I was really good at math. It came very natural to me, and I liked problem solving. So I think that was just of all the other options that I had out there, that one just seemed to fit what I wanted. And the classes listed a bunch of math classes, economics and things like that. So I didn't really want to go into biology or chemistry, anything like that right now.

 

[00:10:20]

That's great. And then what did you study when you went to San Diego? That's what I was in San Diego for, my undergrad. So that's when I studied, and I came up to USF. San Francisco studies sports management.

 

[00:10:31]

You did? Okay. So then after you studied sports management, I love this part of your story as well. What kind of unfolded? Where did your path take you?

 

[00:10:40]

It took me to Cal and Stanford at the same time, so I was working at both places, which was fun for me at least, but I ended up staying more with Cal, and I was again working with the sports the athletic department at Cal, we would help all the athletes develop skill sets. We already have the skill sets. They're great team players, but we would help them develop or transform, really their skill sets into what would be a good employee or good at business. So it was helping them find careers after their sports. And then I also taught a lot.

 

[00:11:16]

It helped coordinate a wellness program on site for employees. So all of the UC Berkeley employees and faculty and staff, we ran a wellness program for them, which really helped me start office yoga in the long run. Right? Yeah, because I was going to say, what kind of motivated you to start that? What were you saying around you that you thought, okay, you know what?

 

[00:11:40]

I think that this is something I need to explore. There was an existing program already that was pretty bare bones, and I think at the time, I was just an entrepreneur, really an entrepreneur, but I was within the walls of UC Berkeley, so I can only do so much. So I was starting to create, like, the next step. I was like, well, we have this baseline program, but what happens after that? So I got the green light to go ahead and create an even more extensive program for the people who have already graduated.

 

[00:12:08]

And so it was really fun. I got to look at sleep, stress management, physical health and training, and nutrition was another aspect of the program. So it was really well rounded and well encompassed and gave me good footing for office yoga and now SAS. Right? I love that.

 

[00:12:25]

And so when you tell us a little bit about, like, when you decided, okay, I'm not doing what I'm really meant to be doing, but I think I'm going to ask you that question. But I want everyone to kind of think about this, which is really cool if you think about your story from in the beginning, how you kind of started the water polo and then got into sports. Man, you know, sports management is because you really fell in love with that sport, and I think it's something that's really important. As you said in your culture, it didn't happen for women, and which makes, as you said, so sad because that really kind of catapulted you into what you're doing today. And think of all of those women out there that have the miss opportunity because it's not encouraged.

 

[00:13:11]

I think it gives me even more momentum and inspiration to keep going down this path and forging ahead in sports and this industry. It's not a women's world, definitely. And I think I realized I don't think I was ever not doing the right thing because everything I've done in the past has helped me get where I am. But I really knew I was doing the right thing with office yoga because everything was so exciting. I wanted to come home and fix the PDF.

 

[00:13:39]

I wanted to come home and create a new class plan or just look at the whole quarter up ahead. And I was just so excited to do that. I was canceling dates to go home and work on work stuff because I just wanted to do that. I didn't care about anything else. And I think that's what I really knew I was in the right place, which is great.

 

[00:13:58]

And I love that you said you don't think that you were ever in the wrong place. And I say to everyone, because there will be people like, oh, my gosh, I listen to your podcast and I think I'm not on the right path. And I say there's never a wrong path. I truly believe that. I think we learn from every path that we are on and if we may never find the path that we're meant to be on, if that makes sense.

 

[00:14:19]

And I believe in God. If you believe in the universe, whatever you believe in. But some people don't ever find that, like, what God created us for. I truly believe, but I don't believe that you're ever in the wrong path. I think every path that you're on, you need to be aware.

 

[00:14:33]

You need to listen. You need to feel the feels like, okay, this doesn't feel good anymore. Is it just that I'm in a little rut? I need to change things up? Or is it I am completely need to pivot, right?

 

[00:14:44]

I need to pivot in a whole new thing. But you're going to take what you learned on that one journey, that one path, and then bring it into the next thing. So I really don't believe anyone has ever really truly on the wrong path. So you start doing the sports management stuff, and then you start doing this wellness, and then when did you I guess I asked you that question and never let you answer it. When did you realize that you needed to pivot?

 

[00:15:08]

I realized I needed to pivot. It wasn't like this grand moment, but I stopped working at Cal. You know, it was becoming very difficult to manage a bunch of things. I was part time there. I was part time here.

 

[00:15:22]

I was all over the place, and I was going through an instructor training, a teacher training program for yoga, and I just had this I guess it was a moment where I was laying down in Shavasana and like, what would I do? I have time now. I have space in my schedule. What would I do if I, you know, can do whatever I want? And I just thought of this one office yoga client that I had, and I loved them, I knew them, I had been with them for two years.

 

[00:15:49]

We had a great rapport, and I was like, well, maybe I'll just teach a few more of those until I figure out what my career will be. Because to me, an entrepreneur is not a career. I was never taught you can run your own business, or anything like that. So for me, it was just a temporary thing I would do until I figured out what my next career path would be or a job to apply to. And really, within four months, I had so many inquiries and clients and people wanting this.

 

[00:16:14]

I was like, Maybe this is a thing. So I never really thought it would ever turn into what it is now, but it was just being open and sort of curiosity that really led me down this path. I love that. And when you said that you had a client for two years, take us through that. How did that come about?

 

[00:16:31]

Yeah, I was doing a number of things as you do when you're a fitness instructor and yoga teacher. And one of my colleagues introduced me to one of her friends, and they wanted yoga in their office, and I taught yoga at the time, so she connected us. It was great. Her name is Michelle Kim. She's a big dei advocate right now.

 

[00:16:54]

She's phenomenal. So if you get a chance to follow her, follow Michelle Kim. And she's the one that brought me into my first client, which was Movewood, and I was with them for about nine years.

 

[00:17:07]

We had a really good rapport, really good just relationship, and it's fun to teach those employees for so many years. Right? And so take the listeners a little bit, because people are going to be like, Office yoga? I mean, I think it says what it is, but if you can kind of explain what you would do as you went into these corporations yeah, so. This was again, about ten years ago, so it's a little different now with the pandemic.

 

[00:17:29]

But I would go in and just move the furniture around. I would walk around, I would get people together. I'd be like, hey, I'm here. It's yoga time. And then we'd go into either a spare room or an open space, and I would lay out all the mats, and then we would just start about an hour practice.

 

[00:17:45]

Nowadays, it's probably a little bit shorter because people don't have that full hour, and they're not always in the office. So things have changed a bit. But it was so fun to do that, to get the space together, to walk around, pull them away from their desk. It was very playful. It was very fun.

 

[00:18:02]

All the open desk environment in the offices then, so everyone is just all in the same place, and we would have a really good time. We did that a couple of times a week in the office. It was such a good team building, you know, activity, and it was a great physical exercise for them. And then they would tell their coworker, and so, you know, the classes would slowly build, right? Because it is an important thing.

 

[00:18:24]

And I think that I feel like people have gotten a little bit more mindful right after the pandemic. I don't know where it is now because I feel like people are forgetting. But I do feel like it's important to move. I mean, we talk about this. I'm not an education, but I have kids that are in school when a teacher will be like, oh, well, they're a little fidgety.

 

[00:18:43]

And I'm like, they're sitting for eight. Like, okay, we'll get people to move in during the day, and I don't care what age they are, I have to move. Like, I am someone that is a mover and a thinker. And just to give you a little side note, this is really funny, someone I teach people also how to start a podcast or share their story and, like, what to do, like, if they're going on the podcast circus or, like, if they're going to media. And one of my clients was very fidgety, and I said to her, you need to do something.

 

[00:19:10]

And now I'm giving away all my secrets, but I have, like, a clip, and I have, like, a rock that I rub, and I literally just put that because that settles me, and it just lets me sit here. I'm still moving, but you can't see it and it's not distracting. And so if you think about someone that has to sit for hours and hours and their brain needs to move. So I love that you brought that into office yoga, and I love into the office, and I love that people probably at the beginning were like, no, I don't want to do this. But then they would see their coworker come back a little maybe not as crazy, maybe a little bit more pleasant.

 

[00:19:43]

And so they thought, right? They thought, let's try this. So I love that that came to you, and I love that you were trying all these different things because of your fitness background and what gave you peace. So I know you mentioned something a little while ago that you didn't know anything about being an entrepreneur, so there was none of it. You had none of that background.

 

[00:20:06]

There wasn't, like, a distant uncle that had it. Nothing. I would send my invoices sporadically, like, every seven weeks on an Excel sheet. Here you go. And my dear, Dear Sam client move web, can you just send us, like, a monthly invoice a little bit more regular?

 

[00:20:31]

Right? I had no idea what I was doing, but they were so sweet and they didn't care. So obviously I figured it out as I grew up and made established the business, but I had to learn everything along the way. Right. And what do you think gave you that kind of curiosity to follow it and be like, this is actually what I'm going to do now.

 

[00:20:55]

I'm not going to go back into corporate America. This is what I feel like my path should be. There was a lot of demand for it at the time because again, there wasn't really an established yoga program for businesses. So I was at first to market, which was really helpful. So there was a lot of demand, and I loved it so much.

 

[00:21:15]

Like, again, I was canceling friend dates or regular dates, and I wanted to go home and figure out how to create a trademark or do invoicing. I just wanted to figure that stuff out. These were tiny little challenges along the way for me to be able to do something I really enjoyed. So I think that honestly, that passion behind it was so helpful. It made the challenges seem a lot smaller.

 

[00:21:40]

Right. Which is so important for people. And that is what we do discuss that a lot, is that it's important to find that passion. Because if you have a passion, a guest that actually his episode just went out Monday, and he says that it doesn't matter if you have $2 in your pocket. If you have passion about something, you're going to make it work because you just have to keep following that passion.

 

[00:22:01]

And it is really, really true. So I'm going to take you now. So you did that. You were in there. The demand, I think what really fueled it, it was like, okay, this is what I'm doing now.

 

[00:22:11]

I can actually make a living at this. This is great. And then the pandemic happened. So take us through a little bit how you pivoted and shifted during that. Yeah, the pandemic was I mean, the pandemic is rough for everybody, but I just started with Twitter a few months before the pandemic, and they wanted us to service all their employees globally.

 

[00:22:31]

So I figured out how to get an online classes set up for them, just particularly for the international employees that they have. And that was maybe about a month before the pandemic. So it's fairly new programming. The pandemic hit, and I was like, oh, God, everything's shut down. It wasn't sure what to do.

 

[00:22:49]

I was like, hey, I can teach classes online for you temporarily. Remember? It was two weeks we had shut down, and then it was four weeks, and then it was eight weeks. We had no idea how long it was going to be. Right.

 

[00:23:01]

Luckily, I had set up an online platform already for one client. So then I transferred everybody over there temporarily to see how long this was going to be until we go back into the office. And so I'm grateful that I had that. But it was really tough because teaching online is so different than teaching in person. And I really struggled with that.

 

[00:23:20]

And I know a lot of yoga teachers did, a lot of people did. So that was something I had to wrap my mind around. And the way I really settled it was I just looked at it as a very different thing. It's like teaching in person is very different than teaching online. This is a different experience.

 

[00:23:37]

And then when I looked at it as a very different experience and I stopped comparing them, I got to see the benefits of teaching online, the amount of people that we can reach and the privacy that the students had and just the connection I could build with them virtually versus being in person. They're just different. One is not better than the other. And when I figured that out, I was like, okay.

 

[00:23:59]

Right, because you do say, I'm thinking of people that I've worked with in the past who maybe wouldn't have joined the live yoga because they didn't know yoga. They were uncomfortable, and maybe they didn't feel good about it. So did you find that you were reaching also a little bit of a different audience when you were doing it virtually? Yes, it was a much wider and broader audience. A lot of people who, again, would be intimidated to show up to a yoga studio, let alone with their co workers.

 

[00:24:26]

So they would come, but they would just leave their cameras off, which is fine. I'm totally okay with that. They have their privacy. And when they started to feel more comfortable, they would talk to me after class, and then they started to show their face. So it just took time, but it was amazing because I don't think that person would have ever come to a studio or to an office yoga class.

 

[00:24:47]

Right? Because that's the thing. So that's the thing that's really beautiful is that the connection, even though and I think it's because you also spun it right? Because you were like, okay, I need to see the benefits of this, see who I'm helping. And then those people behind the camera were like, okay, I need to release stress.

 

[00:25:06]

This is a different stress than I was having when I was in the office. This is like especially if it was parents with kids, kids trying to study and teach them preschool. I mean, that was back at that. I was fortunate because my kids were a little bit older and a little bit more. They also knew, like, I was like, now this is your guys.

 

[00:25:28]

If you need my help, obviously I'll help you. But here's the steps. You ask the kids in the class, google it. Ask your brother or sister. Ask dad, and then you can ask me.

 

[00:25:45]

But they knew it. But I mean, I just think about that. So that was, like, a great thing that you really got to bring to another clientele, to another group of people that maybe would never have tried it. So it kind of broadened also what you were doing, which is, if you really think about it, it's really a beautiful thing because it brought peace to people that maybe weren't going to have that. Yeah, and the reach, too.

 

[00:26:05]

I would have never been able to teach someone in Tokyo or someone in New Delhi or Singapore. Now we're getting people from all over the world in our classes, which is phenomenal, and to be able to hear, especially during the Pandemic, to hear their perspectives of what was happening, because we had our insular perspective of just the environment we were in. But when I got a real story from someone in Mexico and how they were shutting down, it was very interesting. Well, so I don't know if I ever shared that with you, but when I had my podcast started in 2019 and it was more of a personal journal stories and then during the pandemic, I did a segment called Quarantine Stories and I interviewed people around the world. And that's when I fell in love with the interview process because I was curious about what was happening around other environments.

 

[00:26:51]

And I would literally skip down the stairs, and the kids would be like, who do you talk to? And I would say, this person over in England. They can't even go out of their garden without like, there was cops. Like, okay, you've been out once. You're not allowed out again.

 

[00:27:03]

And they were like, what? And I was like, we think that there's some things that are tough here. Think about other spots. So I think that's really cool that you said the same thing. It's just connecting with people all around is just a beautiful thing.

 

[00:27:17]

It's such a kind of a cool and understanding other people's environments and what it's going through them, it makes your situation I don't want to say more comfortable, but also not as bad. And that sounds so simple, but you kind of are like, oh, wow. All right, I'll take what I have. Yeah, it gives you some gratitude for what you do have and perspective of what else is out there. Because everyone needed they all had the same issues where they needed yoga or meditation or movement.

 

[00:27:50]

We're all in different places. We all have different needs. We all have bodies that need to be moved and taken care of. So it's very interesting to have those new perspectives. Right.

 

[00:28:01]

That's wonderful that you did that. So then I want to know, when did Zas come about? Where did that? And take us through that a little bit. Yeah, zas came about.

 

[00:28:09]

I founded it at the beginning of this year, in January of 2020. It was in the works of 2022. It was in the works last year. But because the Pandemic was going on for so long, and I had now created again, a different type of yoga practice and service. I figured Office Yoga, and I'll backtrack a little bit, but I created Zas because I knew it was going to be a virtual offering for my clients, and I wanted to keep it that way because of the way that we can expand and reach new demographics.

 

[00:28:40]

And within Office Yoga, I always had an instructor training program. So that was the way that I can train other teachers to be able to go out and work with clients. And so under Office Yoga, I had the corporate facing and the instructor facing, and the audiences were very different. So it was my way of being able to separate them. So Office Yoga is now primarily an instructor training program.

 

[00:29:00]

I can work with yoga teachers and help them go out into the world and offer their passion and their stories. And then Zas will be primarily for our clients, our corporate facing clients. So that's the service that we offer out to the business world. So that was the separation that I was much needed and happy to have at this point. Right?

 

[00:29:19]

And that's the thing. I mean, that's when you are an entrepreneur and you see, okay, it's time for me to grow. I always say you go on a straight path, and then it gets a little stretched, and it goes a little wider, and then it gets back on that path, and then it gets a little wider, and it gets back on that path. And it's all those times that you grow as a businesswoman, as an entrepreneur, but also it's learning. You're learning as you're going.

 

[00:29:44]

And there are things that happen in your environment, the pandemic being one for you and then being like, okay, what do my clients need? How can I help? How can I help serve even a bigger audience? And so your story, if you really think about it, and I know that there are Zigzags in between, but it really is each of your experiences, you can see where it's built. And that's what I love about doing podcasting.

 

[00:30:09]

It's so fun. Some people go from A to Z back to E back to F, and then it all comes together in a nice little box. Yours was literally like little stepping stones of your whole life up until where it keeps growing. So that's just so beautiful. Yeah, thank you for noticing that.

 

[00:30:27]

Yes. And I get fascinated with that. Like, that totally fine. I know it's also the way you explained it, but if you really think about it from the water polo and when you really can think about that picturing you in the car and being like, I might as well try it. I'm sitting here.

 

[00:30:42]

It's my ride home. I got to do it. To then falling in love with swimming and then doing that. So thank you for sharing it in that way. It's such a beautiful story.

 

[00:30:54]

What do you think is next? I mean, what do you feel? Whether it's your open water, whether it's swimming, whether it's the businesses, what do you feel is coming up next in your life? I really want to spend more time with the instructor training program and helping the yoga teachers get out into the corporate world. I want to help businesses by having more teachers available that are quality is always a big piece for me.

 

[00:31:19]

So I really want good teachers that really know what they're doing and feel confident going in there and can really hold a client for a while and help the business grow and develop through the lens of yoga. So the yoga teacher training is a huge one. I did it a little bit before the pandemic, but I think putting a little bit more time and energy into that is really where my heart is lying right now. So that's next for me. And then something I want to keep as a personal thing.

 

[00:31:47]

But it really does fuel the work that I do. So I'll still be in the open water. I think I'm kicking English Channel down to 2025, which is great, right? So that will be in the works too. But I think the yoga teacher training right now is going to be where I want to put my time and energy.

 

[00:32:05]

And I think what and I really think and it could be the practice of yoga that you do, or I call it daydreaming. Some people call it meditation. But I think that you've really have learned how to do that for yourself, and you really know yourself and the fact that when you feel that excitement, that's where you know it's leading you. And that's what life is about, right? To do those daydreaming, do that meditation, whatever it is, if you need to sit still and meditate, if you need to move.

 

[00:32:32]

And daydream, that's why I call it daydreaming, because meditation, I always feel like you have to be there. It is to explore your mind and think what's exciting, think what's out there, think what your life could be. And it doesn't mean that you're not happy in your life that you're doing, but why not put a little fun into it and just think, okay, if I did this, where would my life go? Or if I did this. I mean, that's what excites me in life.

 

[00:32:55]

And I think it's just something that a lot of people miss out on because they don't give theirselves the opportunity to do it, because they just feel stuck and they don't want to, like, let themselves down. Like, oh, I have this idea, but I don't want to go pursue it because what if I fail? And I think that's just sad. Yeah, you can at least try. You can always go back to where you are now, but to just try a little effort and see where it goes.

 

[00:33:19]

I 100% agree. Okay, so I know we said in the beginning, but can you share with people where they can find you, where you hang out the most? And I know you also have websites, so people can go there if they're like, wait, I want to learn more about this. My company needs this. Yeah, if you're interested in jazz and as a service, it's just Zas.com Z Aas.com, and that's primarily on LinkedIn.

 

[00:33:41]

So you can find us me on LinkedIn. You can find Zas on LinkedIn. And if you're interested in office yoga, it's office yoga.com, which is fairly easy. And I'm mostly on Instagram for office yoga. So it's office yoga underscore you can find lots of training information and fun information.

 

[00:33:58]

There little tidbits on Desk Yoga if you'd like that. So I'm easy to find. I just spell my name, but easy to find what's easy. That's so true. Well, Maryam, thank you so much for joining your Next stop.

 

[00:34:13]

I really appreciate it and always love connecting and seeing what you're doing. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Of course you guys know what to do, like share, rate, and review. And if you listen to this and you're like, oh, that's cool. You do not know who in your life actually needs to hear this episode, whether it's about Maryam's, her life, or it's a company that's like, you know what?

 

[00:34:33]

I actually need to explore that. Or it's an entrepreneur that doesn't know where to go, and they're right now doing something on the side, but think that they are supposed to be in corporate America, but maybe they're not. So this story will help someone along the way. So, like, rate, review, and share, and we will see you guys again this week with another episode of Your Next Stop. I hope you liked this episode of your next stop.

 

[00:34:55]

Please subscribe to my channel, share with your friends, and join in each week.