Hosted by Timothy Henry and Raj Sisodia, this episode of “The Conscious Capitalists” podcast features Miren Oca, founder of Ocaquatics Swim School, board member of Florida for Good, and founder of Ripples of Impact. Oca shares her journey from aspiring physician to entrepreneur, explaining how leadership development, employee well-being, and a strong organizational culture fueled the growth of her business. She discusses transitioning Ocaquatics to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT), broad-based employee ownership, open-book management, financial literacy, and conscious capitalism, arguing that investing in people creates stronger businesses, lasting community impact, and a more meaningful legacy than traditional shareholder-focused models.

TRANSCRIPTION

Miren Oca 

So about 14 years into my journey is when I thought, okay, am I gonna go med school or am I gonna build a pool. I really, really enjoyed teaching swimming, but really teaching teachers and building people, and I found a little hotel pool, and I thought, oh, I'll just get this little pool, and I hired a person, and then I hired another person, and I really started to like hiring people. I had to learn to lean on people to help me survive, but I think that so many other people don't realize the value in building people, the value in focusing on leadership development, the value of investing in your culture. If more business owners did that, I don't think they think of it as an investment, they think of it as an expense, and really it is an investment that pays dividends.

Timothy Henry 

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of The Conscious Capitalists, with myself, Timothy Henry, and my partner in making the world a better place through business, Raj Sasodia. Hey there, Raj. Hey,

Raj Soia 

Timothy, good to see you again. You might notice I'm wearing a collector's item here. You know, if you remember our Bentley conferences every year, I've known

Timothy Henry 

you were wearing that. I wore my blue one yesterday, just so you know. I have my CCI one from the very beginning days. So, yes, indeed, 17 years, hard to believe, hard to

Raj Soia 

believe, you still have a few in the garage, you know, so pull them out,

Timothy Henry 

yeah. Well, today we have a really cool guest, she's an exemplar of both conscious leadership and how to build a really conscious organization. So, I'd like to introduce you to Miren Oca, a board member of the Florida for Good, and founder of Ripples of Impact. She's the owner and director of Ocaquatics Swim School, and she founded it in 1994 locally owned, community involved. She has five locations, and they have 6500 swim lessons a week, so multiply that by 50 plus weeks, and you get a lot of swim lessons. And I was just blessed in September to be in Miami and have an opportunity to tour one of her facilities. All I can tell you was that it was an amazing experience when Miren walked in, and the energy was just like the people were bound, it was just amazing, and I completely understand why parents are immediately like, "Oh, I want my kids to go here, all the way down to it was raining, and they had a gentleman at the front door who was an umbrella was walking parents and kids to their cars with an umbrella in the pouring rain, so just an amazing, an amazing accomplishment of what you've built, Miren. So, lucky to have you here. Welcome.

Miren Oca 

Oh, thank you so much. That was really a nice intro, and I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

Timothy Henry 

You're an important part of our community. And why don't we start with maybe the backstory, because you know it's not every day that we have unconscious capitalism a swim school, but little do you know that the swim school industry is a much bigger industry than we might otherwise think.

Miren Oca 

You're right, a lot of people don't think of this industry as a large industry, and you have actually spoken at the International Swim School Association in Dubai, so go figure. Dubai. So I started this business. I'm the founder of Ocaquatics. We started in February of 1994 but I had never planned to go into business. So my parents were immigrants, and my father was from Spain, and my mother is from Cuba, and they moved to the United States, and they opened a restaurant, and I watched them work 24/7 I mean, they worked every day, all the time. There were many days that my brother and my sister and I went to sleep at the restaurant, you know, under the desk with tablecloths, and it was just one of those things, I watched how hard they worked, I watched they did not build the proper systems and the proper, you know, they just didn't have the culture that maybe would have helped the business survive, and really it was hard, it was so hard, and I learned one thing, or I learned two things from watching them, I learned work ethic, and I learned that I never wanted to go into business, never. I wanted a good, safe, secure job. I wanted to go and be a doctor. I wanted to go to med school, so I earned a scholarship to attend Tulane University in New Orleans. And I was the biochemistry student. I was dreaming of med school. I was ready, you know, excited for my journey, and I got pregnant in college, so at the age of 19, I find myself pregnant, and I wish I could tell you that I was really grateful on that day, but I wasn't. I was, you know, super ashamed, super stressed. I had no money. It was a really tough time, but I decided, you know, I'd move to Miami to be clear. Was for my family, and I opened this little business to teach swimming lessons, just to get by, and it was completely out of necessity to feed my son and myself, and I thought I'll go to.. I got my degree, but when I graduated, my son was 18 months, so I thought there's no way I could go to med school with a toddler, so I thought I'll just go to med school when he's older, and now he's 33 years old, and I never went to med school, so you know how life goes.

Raj Soia 

Were you like a champion swimmer or something? Like, why swimming?

Miren Oca 

I was on the swim team, and I went to Tulane. I had a partial scholarship, and I wanted to, you know, swimming is what I knew, and I knew that I loved teaching swimming in high school, so I thought this is what I know how to do. I can, I can rely on that, and, and I liked it. I really, really liked teaching swimming. I loved working with the children, and it was just fun. It was really fun for me. So, so that's how I decided to do this. That was all I knew how to do, really.

Timothy Henry 

And just to add a little bit to the flavor, that I mean, 6500 lessons a week, you need to have systems in place, you need to have management, you have five locations, you know, you're partly in the real estate business, because you got to find the right location, you've got to often convert it, you know, some have pools, some don't, and you know, so it's a much more complicated thing than just, oh, I'm gonna do swimming lessons, so right. You grew, you grew the business significantly. Was there a tipping point where you suddenly realized this is something that I can really, you know, make a good go out? This is this is something that I'm going to be a long-term commitment to, because I can see multiple, I have a vision, multiple locations, and lots of people.

Miren Oca 

Yes. Well, it started, you know, I was just going to homes, backyard homes, and teaching swimming lessons, and so that's how I started. And then I found a little hotel pool, and I thought, oh, I'll just get this little pool, and I hired a person, and then I hired another person, and I really started to like hiring people. I think you know, I had to learn to lean on people to help me survive. So, I think that's what really became the foundation of what we built later on. I didn't know it then, but that's what really helps us today, is that we lean on people, we build our people to build the business. And so, you know, over the years, I found a little pool, and then I got kicked out of that pool, because our business was growing, and then I found another little pool, and I got kicked out of that pool, you know, these were hotels, or country clubs, or private schools, and one day I decided, if I'm really going to do this, I need to build, so about 14 years into my journey is when I thought, okay, am I going to go med school or am I going to build a pool, and I decided I'm going to build a pool, I'm going to do it. I really, really enjoyed teaching swimming, but really teaching teachers and building people, and that's when I really started that leadership development. That's when I started all those programs, and that's that's when we built our first pool, and I actually read Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, and that is what helped me see, you know, I've got to put culture in place. I really need to define our culture and write it down, and, and really get it solidified, and that's where I think the rest of it is history. You're, as you know, just kept going,

Raj Soia 

you know. You said gaming on people and developing people. It just reminded me I was in St. Louis yesterday, and Bob Chapman from I wrote "Everybody Matters" We just launched the 10th anniversary edition, and it happened to be a combination of his 50th year of completing as a CEO, the company being 140 years old, right, and, and now having acquired about 150 companies, but it was always about the people. I mean, he just trusted people, and he said we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people, and the business is sort of the financial engine that allows us to do that, and it feels like so putting people at the center, and even the industry, or whatever it happens to be, revolves around ultimately uplifting and giving a better life for people. I think that seems to be your driving passion as well.

Miren Oca 

It does, and it makes so much sense, you know, when we have this conversation, and we talk about Bob Chapman, and I mean, he's a man, you know, he's a mentor that he doesn't even know he's a mentor, because I've just read the books, and just like you guys, but I think that so many other people don't realize that the value in building people, the value in focusing on leadership development, the value of investing in your culture. If more people did that, if more business owners did that, I don't think they think of it as an investment, they think of it as an expense, and really it is an investment that pays dividends. So I, and Anne, I wonder if I came to this because I was never meant to be in business, and so you know, when I first had my son, I thought I got to figure this out, let me go to the bookstore. And libraries, because I couldn't afford the books, so I would sit in those stacks and read the books, and I would read about Jack Welch, and I would read about, you know, business, and I thought, that's not the business I want, that's not what I want to do, and so maybe because I didn't want to be in business that way, I did it differently, I don't know, but I am so thrilled the way my life has worked out. I mean, it has been the most fulfilling and satisfying journey that came from that detour in my life. And you know, I'm just so grateful the way it worked out.

Timothy Henry 

And when you talk about the culture, it's really important for us to understand that your business is kind of unique. On the one hand, you know you've got the whole maintenance and logistics management, you've got the people at the front desk, you've got the marketing and all that, but your instructors come and go, right? I mean, they're young people, for some percentage of them, this is a part-time job they're going to do for a while now, some of them I saw obviously get bitten by the Mirren Bug, and then they stay and they go grow, but talk a little bit about the challenge of building a culture where the business naturally has a sort of turnover and a rhythm of turnover at the front line. How do you manage that to keep the culture alive when you've got that, and just give us a rough idea, roughly what percentage would naturally turn over in a given year.

Miren Oca 

Well, I think the swim school industry is like any other business that hires young people, and I think they really do. There is a lot of turnover, and I think we used to have a lot of turnover, and once we once I decided to build an indoor pool, and then I started developing people, and people could see a career path. We always called it their career path. More people started to see the other thing that we had is we had, we have boomerangs, which they stay with us, they work with us in high school and college, and then they leave to get their real job, but then they come back to us, and our goal is that 100% of them come back to us, either to work with us, or as parents, or with their neighbors' children, or with their cousins, and their nieces and nephews, and things like that, but as we started to develop people, I realized I needed to keep building locations, because I had more people, more leaders, so that's how I built number two, and then you know, number two, honestly, I was just driving to a warehouse to pick up pool supplies, and it was, they were getting evicted, and I thought this would make a good, good swim school, so I looked at that, and that became our next location, and then you know, the same very similar things happened with number three, four, and five, they were really, really lucky incidents, but you know, I was ready for it, because we had built the people, so because we had built the people, when these, these opportunities came in front of us, we could continue growing, so it really was, it's been very, very great, so

Timothy Henry 

I can't emphasize enough the feeling of walking into one of your facilities, just the joy and the happiness, and the, and you know, it was just so palpable, and then you, then we went, and we watched the kids in the pool, and besides the kids being all happy and laughing, the instructors were smiling and warm, and it was just an amazing testament to the benefits of building a really strong culture, and you also mentioned that you started to develop leaders. So, tell you a little bit about that journey of like building the culture and building leaders that fit with the culture. How did you think about that challenge?

Miren Oca 

So, I couldn't take people to a place I hadn't been before, so I find myself as an early 20 something year old trying to learn how to run a business and how to be a leader, so I really needed to learn leadership development for myself, and so I'm reading all these books, I'm a huge reader, and I am studying, and I'm thinking about all these things, and then I start putting little classes in place, and I start putting little workshops in place, and we started doing lunch and learns. We have a leadership book club that we've had, probably for 18 years, and we read two or three books a year. And so those are the things I did them because I was doing them for myself, you know. And I mean, I was in my early 20s, I was making lots of mistakes in leadership. I didn't know what I was doing, but those early learning moments - Gary Ridge talks about mistakes as learning moments - those early learning moments helped me give grace to my early 20 something year olds that work with me now, and I know that they can get better, they can learn. We just have to put the right tools and resources in front of them. So, we do a lot of lunch and learns, we do a lot of, a lot of events where we, you know, we little retreats, where we do, and our leadership is not about how to teach a better backstroke, it's about emotional intelligence, it's about teaching empathy, it's about teaching listening skills, and how to have difficult conversations, we. Have all of those kind, you know, it doesn't have anything to do with swim school specific. We talk about conscious capitalism, and that's why I think when you visited, it was really funny. I promise we did not plant this, but one of the managers walks around the corner with her computer, and a big conscious capitalism sticker is on the cover of her computer, and then that location also had a conscious capitalism sticker on the refrigerator, I couldn't have even planned that, so it was perfect, but they're learning these things, and I'm giving them these tools, and they're putting, they're using them, it's a good reminder,

Raj Soia 

Miren, I think the magic of conscious businesses is the founders' energy is brampable in them, and you did not have the downside of a formal business education, which would have taught you all the wrong things, right? We were able to come into it fresh, right, and with just a human lens. And then I was starting to see what I lovely phrase I just heard today, the unrealized potential of capitalism, right. We leave so much on the table because we make it about these little narrow things, and the numbers, and so forth, and, and I like to say, in my business education was all about the head and the wallet, we left out the heart and the spirit, right, and that's I think what you brought naturally to it, not knowing that you're supposed to check that at the door and leave it at home, right, and I think that's that's a big part of the power of this, either the other thing I love about this, your story, you know, is universalizing the idea of conscious capitalism. It can work in any industry and in any size company. It's not a luxury good that you can only afford after you attain a certain scale or in certain sectors, you know. So, I think in that sense, it's a beautiful illustration of the fact that anybody can do this.

Miren Oca 

You know, I love that you said I didn't have a traditional business background, because I think you know traditional business leaders and, and professionals, and you know, owners are taught to chase ROI, or taught to chase return on investment, and as impact leaders and people in this space, we know there's something more than just the numbers, and for me it's really important to think about the ripples of impact. I have a nonprofit that we call the ripples of impact, and it's ROI, it's redefining ROI for business, and it's about the choices and the decisions you make, and I have a pebble on my desk, because it's about the pebbles you make, you, you have, you drop every single day that create those ripples. Those are the choices you make in business, and all the different choices we make create these ripples that go on. You might not even know what they look like years later, but now 31 years later, I see a lot of ripples coming back to us, and it's really a cool thing, and it's because we dropped these ripples, or these pebbles, a long time ago. So one of the biggest pebbles that we use at Ocaquatics is personal financial literacy, and so we teach personal financial literacy to anybody who wants it, and it has been a game changer. You know, I got a phone call yesterday from one of our team members who was visiting a home, and she said this is the one we make an offer, and she called me to tell me they were making an offer on the home, and it was because she had taken our courses, she had saved the money, she had a down payment. That gives me chills, you know. That's just, yeah. And that's a pebble. It's a pebble that we did a long, long time ago, but it just creates these ripples. Now she's creating ripples in her community, her team members, and everything. So, and then the personal financial literacy, I mean, selfishly, for the business, it's great for the business, because once people get confidence in their personal financials, they can understand business concepts better, and so we produce, you know, open, we can introduce business concepts, and that led to open book management, and we've done open book management now for about four years, and that's been amazing. I mean, our team members understand how much money we make and how much we pay to labor. You know, 50% of every dollar goes and goes towards labor, and you know how with the difference, the with how we make decisions and how we do increases for pricing and how we do increases for play. They now are part of that, and that we did that before we became employee-owned,

Timothy Henry 

so Miren, you know, you bring up the idea of employees and employee ownership, so let's go explore that for a moment. You know, that pretty big decision, because I know that you had been thinking about it for a while, and then you explored lots of options. What was that journey to employee ownership like for you, where was the spark, and what are the lessons learned for some of our listeners who might be interested in hearing a bit more about it? So, what was the spark, and what was the process like for you?

Miren Oca 

You know, I was just building this business, things were going really well, and somehow we were, we were doing very well financially. And we were also getting some, you know, attention in the media and things like that. We were a certified B corporation. We became the first swim school on the planet to become a certified B Corp, so we got a little attention in Forbes magazine, and we got a little attention in different things, and somehow I think we got onto private equity's radar, and they started, um, calling, and honestly, the first meeting I ever had with three gentlemen at one of the pools, I didn't even have shoes on, because they came early to the meeting, and I was on the pool deck, and I didn't even know what PE meant, I just didn't know, you know, it was, you know, it was a long, it was 10 years before I even started thinking about all of this, and I thought, you know, then I had some other phone calls, and some other people, and I started to think, you know, I guess I need to think about the succession plan. What is going to happen with this? And the first thing I did is I went to my son, Ian. You know, my son had - he was the reason why this business existed. So I went to him. He had worked in the business for 14 years, and he was amazing, and he had chlorine in his blood, and he would have been a natural fit, but he didn't want it, you know. This was not this was my business, not his. And so, you know, he told me, "I want you to do something else with the business, and so I thought, "Okay, I will sell it to my employees, and I started looking at this DIY. I'll sell it to these five employees, or I'll sell it to the executive team, or I'll see who, and I realized that wasn't what I wanted. I really wanted broad-based employee ownership. I wanted the custodians who had been there for 15 and 16 and 17 years to enjoy ownership as well. And so I looked - the first option I looked at was a worker cooperative, and I explored that, and I really thought it was interesting, very interesting model. I spoke to a number of worker cooperative CEOs, and then there were some reasons why it wasn't going to work for us. So then I looked at an ESOP, an employee stock ownership plan, and it was something that I thought was perfect. It was a perfect fit, and I hired an attorney, I did a valuation, I did a feasibility study, and we were on our way, and I was very excited about it. And then I found out about New Belgium Brewing, they were a certified B corporation that was an ESOP that had sold to private equity, and I thought, wait, how did that happen? You can't sell, what is that? So I realized that the trustee of an ESOP is a fiduciary, and they have to sell to the highest bidder, so you know the ESOP could be sold, and I really wanted something to protect our mission and our purpose and what we had built over the time, and that's when I found the EOT, and the EOT is an employee ownership trust, it is the primary form of employee ownership in the United Kingdom, but there were fewer than 50 in the United States when I did this transaction, and it uses the same perpetual purpose trust model that Patagonia used for their transaction when they exited and moved it to the beneficiary, is the environment, in our case, the beneficiary are the employees, the beneficiaries are the employees who qualify, and so we have now been employee-owned through this structure. You know, now it's November, so you know, 19 months, and it is - it's the best business decision I've ever made of my life. It is going so incredibly well, and it's checked all the boxes. I did an ownership transition, but you know, so many people ask what changed when you did this, and I say everything and nothing. So, everything changed with ownership, but in terms of leadership and management, everything stayed the same. So, it allowed me to have an ownership transition, and now I'm the CEO. But now we can work on that leadership transition. It really has been tremendous.

Timothy Henry 

So, give us a couple highlights of things that you say, "Oh, met all my expectations, exceeded them. So, what are a couple highlights that come to mind when you think about this?

Miren Oca 

So, it's broad-based. So, what we did is anyone who hits 2500 hours becomes an owner of Ocaquatics, so they don't buy in with money, they buy in with dedication, and that means our entire custodial staff became an employee owner when we did this transition, and that was really special to me, because that's what I wanted, and we have a ton of part-timers that are that are employee owners, which is super cool, because they have been there that long, we've had a lot of opportunities to now share all this open book management. Now people are more interested. A lot of people ask me if this was like a light switch. As soon as we transition to employee ownership, if everybody now suddenly acts like an owner, not really. We had to build this in four years. We had to really start exercising that muscle for years before, but when I announced that transition, everybody's like, oh, now I get it, and now they're even more, they're they've leveled up, and they're so excited about it, and you know, when we first did this, for like the first six months, we had um, AMAs ask Mirren anything, and they could, they were at night, and they could bring. Their family, they could bring friends, because so many people were asking them questions, and they didn't know exactly how to answer them. So we said, "Bring people. I want my goal is to become a case study and spread the message of employee ownership to businesses far and wide,

Raj Soia 

and so if somebody wants to cash in their ownership or sell it to they can, there's a mechanism where they can actually convert that into, into money,

Miren Oca 

so the employee ownership trust, the trust owns it's just like an ESOP, it's trust ownership, just like an ESOP, however, there's no stock that's given to a team member, so as long as they work at Oak Aquatics, at the end of the year, it's like a sophisticated profit sharing plan, so at the end of the year, after you have your profit, there's a profit waterfall, so we put some into a capital expenditures fund, we put some into a reserves account, and then everything that's left, it's split amongst the co-owners that are there, so they get all of their the profit, then we put half of it into a check and half of it into their 401 k, and so there's not there are no exchange of shares, so if they leave, they get the amount of profit until the day they leave, but there's no repurchase obligation, as in an ESOP.

Raj Soia 

And the other thing I noticed that you did for employees was, in case of emergencies, you give them a $2,000 interest-free loan, and I think that that addresses a real challenge for a lot of people, right? That I think there was some data a few years ago that 40% of Americans had less than $400 in the bank, and they literally, they needed $2,000 was the was the number cited by the National Bureau of Economic Research. If they needed $2,000 within 30 days, they would not know how to get it

Miren Oca 

right,

Raj Soia 

and that, that really helps get people over some, you know, some of the, you know, the potholes that life throws at us, you know, and we take them for granted, but for a lot of people, they can be life changing,

Miren Oca 

they can be life changing. Absolutely, yes, you know, we started this probably 20 years ago. Personally, I was doing this personally when somebody needed money. I mean, I have loaned money for all sorts of things: tires, down payments on cars, down payments on homes, all sorts of things. And I have no one has ever defaulted on a loan ever in the 20 years I've been doing this, but about five years ago we formalized it and actually put it through the business, and we set an amount - it's $2,000 at a time, it's interest-free, and it's something that they don't need to tell, you know, it can be - we didn't want people cashing out their 401 k, and that's what we saw happening, you know, if you hit that pothole and you can't afford to fix your tire, you cash out your 401 k, that's just crazy. So, in addition to doing all this personal financial literacy about why you keep money in your 401 k, and you don't pay the penalties, you don't pay the entry, you know, those things to withdraw. This was just help. I didn't want them to go to these payday lenders or those kinds of things, because that's just it's that stuff is really crazy that it exists

Raj Soia 

to keep your pool metaphor. There's a lot of sharks out there swimming around waiting for people to get into a vulnerable place,

Miren Oca 

capitalizing on that, capitalizing on it,

Raj Soia 

right? Because you miss a payment, I mean, the interest rates are crazy, and then if you miss a payment, then it just becomes, you know, unbearable completely. So,

Miren Oca 

yes, but that's a business. It's a form of business. It's a form of, you know, I guess capitalism, but that's where we need this conscious capitalism. We need to show that this is not because so many people do think that business is that they're always in it for them, they're always in it for the owners, they're not looking out for the people, and that's why we need conscious capitalism to show that it is a stakeholder model, and it's something that we're here, we can't build the business without building our people or taking care of our people, so

Timothy Henry 

so I'm wondering about the business impact of going to this employee ownership trust, how would you sort of say, oh, it's been a the impact on the business performance over the last 19 months. What are some of the business trends that you've noticed as a result of this?

Miren Oca 

We've written some really aggressive budgets and some forecasts, and we haven't hit our budgets, we haven't hit our top line revenue because we were so excited about it, you know, but that is part of the learning that comes with being an owner, and we're doing this, but we've hit the bottom line, because they've managed the expenses, they've looked at, hey, do we, you know, what are some different ways we can do some of the things we're doing, they're constantly looking at, and it's not in cutting people, it's in cutting some of the expenses that we had that we didn't realize, or we could do a phone service differently and save money, or we could do an app to do some of the things that we were trying to do. They've become more efficient, but I love that they're always thinking like an owner, you know. At one point, I will tell you, like one day the custodian can. Came and said I don't think I need a new mop, it's okay, and I said, you need the new mop, it's okay, they've kind of gone to, they're really searching, but that's great, they're thinking like an owner, and they're really trying, and I love that they have ownership, they know that we're going to listen to their ideas, and they feel comfortable, they trust us to bring forward those ideas, which I think is important,

Raj Soia 

and what's the mechanism? Is there an idea box, suggestion box, or do you send an email to some address, or how do you, how do you receive those ideas?

Miren Oca 

Well, we actually every single week there's a form that people can fill out, we want an idea a week, that's what we tell everybody, I want an idea a week, because you're on the front lines, you know that gentleman carrying teen, you know, parents out to their cars with umbrellas. He might say, can I get a golf umbrella instead of this little tiny umbrella I've got, you know, like they are on the front lines, they've got the best idea, so they can give us an idea a week. And do we always get an idea a week? No, you know, they'll say, "I'm still thinking. Sometimes the ideas we've tried them before, and we want to talk to them about what our experience has been with some of these ideas, but sometimes we get the best ideas. You're like, "Why haven't we thought of these things? So, I think it's just being open and honest. You know, a lot of people said, "Should we put out confidential suggestion boxes out? And won't want to do that, because we don't want this to be where you feel like it's a secret. I don't want to tell. We want you to feel comfortable. We're, we're always going to be happy if you give us an idea, whether it's something we follow or we something we show you how we've done this in the past and what happened with it. So we want people to feel comfortable signing their names to their feedback. In fact, with our employee net promoter scores, we are.. I mean, we had a newer operations manager who joined us a few years ago, and he said people sign their name to their feedback. How does that happen? Like, there's no conf, you know, people just sign their name, they want to tell us their name, because that way, if we have questions, we go back to them, and we say, okay, what can you tell me more about this? Can you help me understand what you were saying about this? And there's no retaliation. We want people to trust us, to give us their ideas, and to tell us when something's not going right, because that's the only way we can.

Timothy Henry 

I love that. At one level, ideas are free, right? I mean, it's a great example of the inspiration that you create when you have a culture of caring and meaning, and then you have these ideas, because you know you can't mandate an idea a day from somebody, you know it's it comes from this place, I care enough, I want to make a difference, How can I do that, and some weeks you must get like 60 or 70 ideas, so there must be some way in which you manage those, or there's a workflow that you follow for that. Well, what is that?

Miren Oca 

So it's an idea a week that we ask for, and the managers respond to the team members, and they have to, there's like a form that it all comes out on, it's all on the spreadsheet, and also the manager's response. I spoke to this team member on this day and explained to them how we've done this in the past, and what thing, because ideas can come, and if nothing ever happens with them, then the team members don't want to keep contributing, but if they know they're being heard, and we do look at, I look at every single idea that comes across every single week, because really we get great ideas, and they're silly little things. Some of them are little things, like we should swim with pumpkins during, you know, this time of the fall, and what are we doing now during this week? We're swimming with pumpkins, and all the kids get to hold pumpkins in the pool, and it causes the most engagement on social media. It came from a team member, you know, just those types of things that we're, if we're just always looking, okay, give us more, give us more, what have you got? And that, that really has helped our business in small ways, but also in large ways.

Raj Soia 

I want to learn more about your activism, and also Florida for good. I've heard about that, I think, from Timothy. But tell us a little bit about that entity. Yes, and what that entity does, and your role in it. And is that.. is that part of a national thing? Are there.. is there a Mississippi for good, or is it.. is it just a Florida thing?

Miren Oca 

Florida for good is was created in by a B Corp in Orlando, Jared Myers, I think he's a, he's a friend of conscious capitalism as well, and he started the For Good movement in the state of Florida. We operate a chapter of Florida for Good Miami, so it's called Florida for Good Miami, and we serve as the B local, so every group, every organization, you know, every area around the country has a B local, where all the B Corps kind of get together, but in Miami, there weren't very many B Corps, so we did like an umbrella organization where it's B Corps, Conscious Capitalism members, 1% for the Planet Partners, anybody who's B curious, or anyone who just wants to learn more, you know, come to. Our meetings, and we share different ideas, and it might be about conscious capitalism one month, or becoming a B Corp, or the B Impact Assessment. And we've done lunch and learns, we've done events. We recently just held the Build conference, the B Corp Leadership Development Conference in St. Pete, and it was fantastic. It was really great, really amazing to have Timothy there with Sarah Schwimmer from B Lab Global with Kate Williams for 1% for the Planet. I mean, on a panel together, that's amazing that we're all getting together to show that we're all in this together, and together we're stronger. So that's why we love the Florida for Good movement, and and we do whatever we can to keep, to keep talking about this. We say it's constant gentle pressure in Florida, because you know we have, politically, it has been there, have been some interesting challenges, but we're not political statements, we're just people statements, and these are things that have made our business better. So, why wouldn't everyone want to do them?

Raj Soia 

So, building on that, you talked about ESG and DEI, and now the climate that we have been in the last few years, where it's a very convenient thing for people who don't want to deal with things, to label it woke and just dismiss it all, right? And I think swimming against that tide is very important right now, we can't let that swamp all of the things that we believe and we know to be true and good, right. So, so, how are you staying aligned with that? And is there a broader community of business leaders? Is it also through Florida for good that people are getting sort of the collective courage to do the right things?

Miren Oca 

You know, I think that's a really great question. It's a super timely question, because of everything going on in the world. And yes, Florida can be a challenging environment with conversations around these kinds of things, but I think we've learned how to frame the messages differently. You know, maybe we don't use the words ESG or DEI, maybe we just use different words, and I think we try not to use any kind of politics or labels when we're talking, obviously, but we lead with people and performance, like this has helped our business. This is great for business, and so it's great for teamwork and trust and all these things, and I think that people see that message, they see that we're doing all these great initiatives, and it really does help improve our business, and it helps that it helps our team members be happier too. They want to work for an organization that is doing these things, that helps our customers be happier, and then that helps our bottom line. You know, those ideas resonate everywhere, no matter someone's political view. They see that someone is doing well because they're doing good, that usually, usually is a, that's the best marketing tool that there can be. So, oh,

Timothy Henry 

what I love about this is, you know, as we say within conscious capitalism, it's just a better way of doing business, and you just described it. You know, super happy customers lead to repeat business, word of mouth, marketing, all those things, which don't necessarily show up on a spreadsheet, but it's a better way of doing business. Now, there's another group that's coming at this somewhat from the, oh, I want to do good, and are not necessarily, you know, connecting it to how they run their business. They, they want to, you know, have a program versus what you've done, which is build it into the core of the operating system of your business. So, how do you help somebody when they come to you and they say, 'Oh, I want to, I want to do good, and it's like, 'Yes. And how do you have that dialog with them that it's, you know, this isn't about an initiative you do on the side, this is about how you build and operate and run your business day to day. How do you have that dialog with people?

Miren Oca 

Well, I think we, you know, we've heard Timothy, that we've heard Raj and Bob Chapman talk about this in terms of you can't run your business and not treat people well and make as much money, squeeze as much money as you can out of the business, and then write a big check to charity, and that's common practice. We see that a lot, and so I usually talk about the way that we treat our people is that will ripple out into the community, that will ripple out into how they treat our customers, that will help our bottom line. So we talk about treating our team members, and this is not mine, it's somebody else's, but treating our team members as our number one customer, and I had a new hire orientation last night, and I talked to them about our team members are our number one customer, we are going to do everything we can, and I showed them their career path, it's a plant, and I tell them they are seeds, and we're planting them in the dirt, and they're going to grow, and these are all the different ways they can grow, and they're going to drain our academy, and they can take personal financial literacy, and they can get the Calm app for free, and these are all the different things they can do, but the way by taking care of them, they're going to do the. Rest of the work, the, you know, they're gonna take care of the customer. I can't take care of 6500 people, I just can't do it. That I can take care of really, really great care of our managers. Our managers take care of our team members. Our team members take care of the customers and each other. We've had so many weddings come out of connections at Oak Aquatic Swim School. I've been to a lot of weddings. We have so many lifetime best friends that are found here, and that means so much. That's so meaningful, and I think it pays dividends too. So,

Timothy Henry 

yeah. So, what's your advice to small business owners who are listening to this and going, God, that's inspirational? Where do you tell people to start when they, when they come to you, and, and say, how did you do it? And what they're really asking is, you know, how do I do it?

Miren Oca 

So, I think, you know, the back to the pebbles, you know, I tell them to think about the pebbles they're dropping every day, like, what, what does that mean, what, what are the choices you're making that create these ripples, because we can create negative ripples too, you know, we can do some negative stuff. So, what do you do to create positive ripples? And then I have really been thinking about this lately, is instead of looking at your dashboard and just having KPIs, add an impact indicator, and impact indicators are maybe a story, you know, maybe it's an environmental initiative you're doing, and how you've saved on carbon, or maybe it's a story just tracking the stories of people coming back telling you these amazing things that are happening, like the new homeowner that we're going to have at Ocaquatics, you know, those stories are often they mean more than statistics on a spreadsheet, and those stories travel further. People like to talk about stories, so I tell people just to start tracking the stories and try to make decisions and drop pebbles that are going to create more stories of what you want your business to stand for, because I think that that's the ultimate ripple of impact.

Raj Soia 

So we like to end with a few fun questions, so let's start with that. Well, and what's your favorite way to unwind at the end of a long day? I'm assuming it's not to take a swim.

Miren Oca 

No, it's not to take the swim at all. I love reading. I am a very big routine person, so I have my very, very structured routine for health. What I eat, I have to listen or read something every single day, and it just.. it's what keeps me feeling engaged, inspired, and normal. So that's really, really important to me.

Raj Soia 

And do you read hardcover about our physical books or Kindles, or do you listen to them?

Miren Oca 

I have hardcover books, and if you look at my books, they are marked up and dog-eared and highlighted, and little notes all over. I mean, yes, my, my books are very well loved. I know some people say that I destroy books that way, but oh, I love.. and then the next time I read them, because I am a fan, I do believe that people need to be reminded more than instructed, and sometimes you need to reread the book a few years later, because you're on a different path of your different point on your journey, and it's really interesting to see what I highlighted then, and what I would, what stands out now to me. So, I'm a big fan of rereading books,

Raj Soia 

and this will be a tough one, because of how many books you read, but which is the book that you would say has changed how you lead the most?

Miren Oca 

Well, I think early, early, early days, the most impactful, influential book for me, probably the first business book, one of the first business books, is The E-Myth Revisited. So it was a book for me to help me systemize and structure my business, because before I wore every hat, I was doing every single job, and this taught me how to build a franchise, how to think of it as a franchise and build it that way. I didn't want a franchise, but it just helped me think through the system of business. But then, since then, one of my favorites, I have two more, Integrity by Henry Cloud. I loved Integrity. That book really spoke to me. And then also, of course, a book that I read every year is Atomic Habits by James Clear, and I love that book. And I think that we might be giving out that book to our team this year, because that has been an interest. So that might be our holiday gift to our team this year.

Raj Soia 

What is a podcast that you listen to that you don't miss a single episode of,

Miren Oca 

would it be cheating if I said Conscious Capitalist Podcast?

Timothy Henry 

No, how much do we pay you to say that? No, go ahead.

Miren Oca 

I love it. I think, besides

Timothy Henry 

the Conscious Capitalism Podcast, yeah,

Miren Oca 

I am a fan of Simon Sinek. I do listen to Simon Sinek. I do have, I should probably look at my phone and see all the different podcasts I have here, but I do, I do like listening to podcasts, I really love listening to books, I read books, I also listen to books, sometimes I listen to them and also read them afterwards, so, but you know, I've really started listening to the mid. Life chrysalis, and it's very interesting, especially for the time I find myself in now, and it's been really, really interesting. Listen, really like it.

Raj Soia 

Yeah. And what? Who's the leader that you admire, either alive or historical? It could be from business could be from any share,

Miren Oca 

there are so many. I think the first one that comes to mind today is Mother Teresa, because she has.. there's a really wonderful quote, and I think this is where I started getting.. I have her quote in my office, and it is about casting a stone that creates a ripple, and I think that that is exactly what we can all do, and we have to decide whether that's going to be a positive ripple or a negative ripple. I know, I think Jane Goodall is another one that is just amazing, an amazing human being, and her life, her legacy, just tremendous, and her whole idea was everybody makes a difference, you just have to decide what kind of difference you're going to make. I think those are very similar messages, so I think it shows that we have to be very intentional about the pebbles we drop, the decisions we make, the difference we want to make. So that's it's really important to me.

Raj Soia 

What is a conscious company that you love, besides your own. I

Miren Oca 

have really, there's so many B Corp companies out there that have really, really admired and respected and watched them through their journey, but I have to say one of the companies that I really like following, and I love listening to their podcast as well, and you do so much work with them, is Barry Wehmiller, and how it's a huge manufacturing company, and yet you can be conscious in how you treat your team members and how you treat people, and I think that shows us that you can do this in any industry. This is not just soft, fluffy, touchy-feely stuff that you do in a swim school. This is something you can do in every business across every industry.

Raj Soia 

One lesson I've learned from Barry Ray Miller and from Bob is, is that when you create a business like that, which I call a healing organization, right? And yours is as well. You move from a compulsion to grow to an obligation to grow.

Raj Soia 

The compulsion to grow comes from ego, and I need more, more, more, right? And I won't be happy until I'm the biggest fish in the pond. The obligation to grow comes from a place of service that I've got a model and way of doing things now that really has such a beautiful impact on employees and customers and communities on the planet that I need to grow it for that reason, right, because it's going to heal more and more the more it grows, and I think so. Bob's handed over the reins now to Kyle, his son,

Miren Oca 

right

Raj Soia 

Kyle's ambition is to take it from 4 billion to 20 billion, and to be on a shadow of a doubt, then that people and performance go together and show that you know by superior performance and extraordinary cultures together. So I think you're, you're in that same right, the healing business that will grow beyond Miami, right? Who knows, maybe beyond swimming at some point.

Miren Oca 

Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. It's funny because I've always thought of I was building the business, I had this obligation, especially a responsibility to grow, especially as we were growing leaders, but I've realized that people don't like the word responsibility or obligation, other business owners. So now I use the word they have an opportunity, and this opportunity adds to your legacy. This builds those ripples of impact. It adds to your legacy. It makes the impact you've had in this world so much more. And I really like the word opportunity, because they'll listen to that more than responsibility, obligation. You have to do this, because I used to use those words, and now it's this - is we have this gift, we get to do this. This is amazing. So, why not? To you know, why not keep doing it? That's why I'm still here, almost 32 years later.

Timothy Henry 

Well, Miren, you are amazing, and the example you've done with Ocaquatics Swim School is inspiring. And thank you so much for joining us today. Really loved having you.

Miren Oca 

Well, I appreciate the pleasure has been mine. Thank you so much for having me.

Raj Soia 

Thank you, thank you, Miren.

Timothy Henry 

Thank you, Miren, and thank you to our listeners, and on whatever channel you've been listening. Please feel free to hit the subscription button, and if you enjoyed today's podcast, and you'd like to give us some feedback, or give us a rating, please go over to Apple iTunes and leave us a message there, and a rating. We always love to hear from you. Finally, a big thank you, not only to Miren, but to our producers, Rainbow Production, and to Conscious Capitalism Inc, who sponsors this podcast every week? Thank you all, and we'll see you next week.