Challenging Norms and Finding Your Own Path with Miriam Haart

Joining Christine on today’s episode is entrepreneur, engineer, and designer Miriam Haart. Miriam’s a content creator who continues to empower women to be their true selves while learning new skills and using their voices. She’s also one of the stars of the Netflix series My Unorthodox Life, and she opens the episode by discussing becoming a public figure, the positive feedback that motivates her, and the impact of having an audience. She also shares her journey from a childhood spent in a fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish community to the transformative moment of questioning her religion to leaving the community, studying at Stanford, and getting into the tech world.

Next, Christine asks Miriam for advice on how to get into crypto as a woman, for whom the industry can often be intimidating. Miriam speaks to the inequality in the tech space and the importance of encouraging women and other minorities to get involved, so they’re not excluded from the technology that shapes the world. She also has some advice on how to get started with crypto and points out that the technology isn’t just good for making money but also has the potential to do real good in the world. For example, Miriam points out her own NFT, which donates 100% of its profits—almost a million dollars—to reproductive rights organizations. She also shares how learning to code when she was a teenager empowered her and can do the same for women by giving them a way to build the world they want to be part of. And Miriam closes the show by discussing some of her next projects, including her new podcast, and sharing her message to the world—to throw off societal pressures and find your own path to happiness.

For more information and other episodes on companies and entrepreneurs who give back, please visit TheGiveBackModel.com. That’s where you can also let Christine know about companies you’ve found that give back, and check out The Give Back Model merchandise, where $5 for every sale goes to charity. Thanks for listening!

Episode Highlights:

• Becoming a public figure with 'My Unorthodox Life' on Netflix
• Miriam’s journey through religion and toward Stanford
• The importance of creating equitable tech
• How women can be empowered by the tech industry
• Miriam’s next projects, including new podcast 'Faking It'

Quotes:

“Getting to Stanford from that background and that lack of knowledge of Math, Science, English, critical reading, critical writing, was really hard. It was really, really hard. I studied three hours every day for two years to get to Stanford, to build my score because I needed at least a thirty-one on the ACT’s because that was their minimum.”

“I think it’s so important for women to get involved in the space because if we’re not involved, we will be excluded from these very deep, underlying technologies that will change the way of how we interact with each other over the next hundred years.”

“A lot of the time, we think that tech just grows, and it’s like the innovation just happens. But really, there’s people who are creating these innovations. And there’s a lot of systems in which the thought happens that excludes a lot of people or promotes others. And so we have to find a way to create equitable technology.”

“For women, who oftentimes don’t feel like they can just be loud and be outspoken, technology’s a way to do that and to create products and things that you wish existed for yourself. And so also, that’s one thing that I think is so beautiful about women getting into technology, it’s kind of that they get to create things that they wish existed, they get to feel empowered by being able to actually build the world they want to be a part of.”

“I just encourage people to try to find a way to follow their own path, be brave, take those steps. Because at the end of the day, they won’t just make themselves feel better, be happier, but they’ll inspire people around them to do the same. And then it’ll just become the norm to do you.”

Links:

The Give Back Model website TheGiveBackModel.com

Follow The Give Back Model on Instagram @thegivebackmodel

Miriam’s website

Miriam on Instagram @miriamhaart

Faking It on Instagram @thisisfakingit