Start With Curiosity: How One Consultant Is Transforming Corporate Culture from the Inside Out – An Interview with Marti Ouellette

What if the one practice that could change your leadership, your parenting, and your marriage is as simple as getting curious?

Marti Ouellette, founder of MEO Consulting, has built a career on listening to what people aren’t saying out loud. As a child, she could feel emotions at cemeteries and see events before they happened. As a corporate consultant, she could walk into a boardroom and immediately sense where the real story was hiding. After decades of climbing the corporate ladder and nearly losing herself in the process, Marti finally walked away to build something different.

Today, Marti is an emotional intelligence trainer and mindset coach who works with leaders and teams to help them create cultures where people feel safe enough to be real. In this conversation, she shares the childhood gift she was told to hide, the moment she almost lost her husband, and the single practice she teaches every client to catch themselves in the story they’re making up.

Whether you lead a Fortune 500 team or just a family of three, this one will stretch the way you think about presence, listening, and what it really means to be seen.

Continue reading or listen in by subscribing for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or YouTube.

I want to hear a little bit about your own journey—your awakening into consciousness, mindfulness, spirituality. Did you grow up with some sort of faith background, or did that come through different experiences along the way?

Marti Ouellette: Great question. I had a grandmother who could see things, and I would see things too. I’d look to her for acknowledgment. It wasn’t like “I see dead people”—it was more that I could sense things before they happened. As a child, I just played with that. I could see what I needed to do before I needed to do it.

I also used to wander off to the park, talk to the trees, and talk to the beings around me. My family thought I was crazy, so it felt like I was living in two different worlds.

Did you tell anyone beyond your grandmother and your other family members about these experiences?

Marti Ouellette: No. My grandmother told me not to tell anyone. She was very adamant. She said I had a gift, though I didn’t really know what that meant.

One thing I loved doing with her was visiting the cemetery. Not because I saw people, but because I felt things—emotions, stories. Sometimes I’d walk past a grave and feel a deep emotion that wasn’t mine. It was like a movie playing in my head. I didn’t know if I was making it up, but I’d tell my grandmother what I saw, and she would just chuckle.

I did share a couple of things with my parents. I remember going to bed at night and leaving my body—seeing myself lying there, then thinking, I need to check on my brothers. I could go see them. We lived in Arizona, my grandmother was in Massachusetts, and I could go see her too and come back. I thought everyone could do that. It didn’t feel unique—it just felt normal.

As you grew up, did you push that down or let it grow? How did that unfold?

Marti Ouellette: In my teen years, I really pushed it down. I wanted so badly to fit in. My parents divorced when I was ten, and we moved to a new school district where I didn’t know anyone. I definitely didn’t fit in.

I became the person people came to privately—for conversations, for help—even the ones who didn’t acknowledge me in public. I wasn’t the cheerleader or the teacher’s pet. I was the quiet one on the side. But I learned to ask deep questions. I remember lying in the park, looking at the stars, asking things like, Why do I hurt? Why do I feel this way? Why are we here? Big questions.

Then, in my senior year of high school, everything shifted. My mom went to Hawaii on vacation and called to say she wasn’t coming back. She gave me a choice: go live with my father or come to Hawaii. But it was my senior year, I had my friends, I was working full-time—I chose to stay.

So I stayed in the house and started throwing parties—big ones. That’s how I got the nickname “Party Hearty Marti.” High schools from all over the valley would come. I became very popular, even though I wasn’t partying myself. It created a connection.

I also had friends whose families were struggling—some were essentially homeless—so they came to stay with me. I slipped into this role of taking care of people. As the oldest in a divorced family, I had taken care of my brothers, and now I was taking care of my friends.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that what I was really doing was helping people feel seen, heard, and valued—and that’s what everyone wants.

That’s a powerful gift.

Marti Ouellette: It really is. My first job was at a grocery store, and I loved the human connection. That moment when a customer felt truly seen—it lit me up. I worked in the bakery making wedding cakes, and I loved hearing people’s stories—why they were getting married, what mattered to them.

That curiosity carried into my career. I moved into manufacturing and process improvement. As I entered the corporate world, I was often placed on teams to improve systems. And I started noticing patterns. I could see what was going to happen before it happened—not just visually, but through listening. Hearing what was said, what wasn’t said, and what was underneath it all.

I think of it like a watch. A well-made watch will tick perfectly forever. But it’s the people around it that can disrupt the flow. I began to see how people show up differently depending on the environment. Someone at work is often not the same person you meet outside of it. People wear masks, armor.

That became personal for me, too. My father worked in public relations—everyone loved him in public—but at home, he was a completely different person. That contrast made me deeply curious about authenticity.

Looking at your career—Air Force, Fender, CVS, and now your own consulting—what’s the thread that connects all of it?

Marti Ouellette: I love discovery. In every role, I started in manufacturing or project management, improving people, processes, and systems. Corporate is always focused on improving the bottom line.

But what I realized is this: people create the systems. People create the processes. So instead of just fixing systems, I started looking at the people.

I began noticing how their thoughts and beliefs about themselves, their boss, or the company were directly impacting everything. That’s the thread through all of it—people create stories about themselves, and those stories stop them from being authentic, open, and fully expressed.

I worked with a leader once—Peter, at CVS—who had a large team. He was constantly pushing: Do this, do that. But he wasn’t listening. His team wanted to share, ask for help, and report challenges, but he couldn’t hear them.

I challenged him to slow down. To simply repeat back what he heard. And he couldn’t do it. He realized his mind was always two steps ahead, which he thought made him a strong leader. But it actually kept him from being present.

That shift—learning to truly listen—transformed not just his leadership but also his relationships at home.

How much of what you’re describing is an innate gift, and how much can be learned?

Marti Ouellette: There are a lot of leadership and transformational trainings that teach presence, listening, and awareness of the stories we create. Those things can absolutely be learned.

But there’s also something more intuitive that happens for me. Sometimes I’ll be shown a story, a moment, almost like a movie for someone, and that can be the exact thing that shifts their perspective.

For example, I was in a training, and a woman was struggling to see where she was stuck. Suddenly, I could taste and smell oranges—so vividly. I went over to her privately and asked, What do oranges mean to you? She said nothing.

Later, she came back to me in tears. She realized it was connected to her father—one of her happiest memories was eating oranges with him, just being messy and joyful together. That memory unlocked something for her.

So there’s a kind of knowing, a sensing, a feeling. I don’t always know what to call it. I hesitate to label it as clairvoyance, but there’s definitely something there—something that allows me to see and feel beyond the surface.

And why is that? Why do you sense that you have a resistance to that?

Marti Ouellette: I think it comes from my years in corporate. There’s this fear that if I fully own that part of myself, I won’t be taken seriously—that people won’t respect me in the same way.

And the truth is, it doesn’t always show up as a clear “message.” Sometimes it’s just a feeling, a knowing, or a sense of seeing something beyond the surface. Maybe those are all the same thing, just expressed differently.

There was a time in my life when everything looked like it was going well. I was married, had children, and from the outside, it all seemed stable. But then my husband attempted to take his own life. And I remember thinking, How did I not see this? How did I not feel it?

I went into survival mode. He had served for over two decades in the military, and this was PTSD surfacing. So I shifted into action—take care of him, don’t stress him, manage everything. I took it all on.

We moved to Arizona, and a few years later, he shared that those thoughts were returning. He hadn’t acted on them, but they were there. And something inside me knew that something needed to change, though I didn’t yet know what.

I went to a training where we were asked to share something we’d never said out loud—something difficult. And I admitted that part of me wanted him to succeed in his suicide attempt. It felt horrible to say, but it was true.

What I realized in that moment was that I didn’t want him to be gone—I wanted my pain to stop. I had been living entirely in my head, suppressing what I felt, overriding what I sensed, trying to manage life logically instead of emotionally.

At that time, I was deep in corporate life, teaching certification courses, collecting credentials, and helping people advance their careers. I loved helping people grow, but something was missing. I wasn’t truly seeing them. It was PowerPoint presentations, workbooks, and tests. People would come in after long workdays, exhausted, and I started creating more interactive experiences to engage them. I could see how much it lit them up.

But none of it was lighting up my husband. And I kept doing more, thinking that was what living was. Every night was filled with activities and responsibilities. I was a volleyball mom, a hockey mom, serving on boards. I thought I was fully living.

But I wasn’t. I was living from my head, not my heart.

So one day at CVS…

Marti Ouellette: I was leading project teams, and I loved getting to know the people on them. In corporations, people are often assigned to teams without being asked, and they’re already overwhelmed. I would coach them—ask them what they really wanted, what actually mattered to them.

Eventually, I got called into HR and was told to stop coaching my employees. I had the highest turnover in my group—not because people were quitting, but because they were moving into roles that truly fulfilled them.

I remember going home and talking to my husband about it. And he said, When are you going to take your own advice? You’re miserable.

That hit.

At the time, he was a stay-at-home dad. We had a real, honest conversation about what we both wanted. He realized he wanted to be a teacher. He went back, started working with autistic children, and his mental health completely transformed. He loved it.

And I realized how much I loved working with people—helping them peel back the layers of what they think they should be, and reconnect with who they actually are.

That moment in the training, when I admitted what I was feeling—it wasn’t about him. It was about my own pain. And that awareness changed everything.

I’m curious about the resources you bring to your work now—specifically, Human Design and the Gene Keys. How did you come across them, and how do you use them?

Marti Ouellette: I don’t start there. I never begin with someone’s chart or profile. It always starts with a conversation. There’s usually something in their life that’s creating friction—something they’re “rubbing up against.” And I listen.

I listen for their language, their patterns, the assumptions they’re making about themselves. And then, if it feels right, I might introduce Gene Keys or Human Design.

To me, they’re like a blueprint—a kind of three-dimensional astrology. I grew up watching my mom read her horoscope every morning, and I always thought it was too generic. But when I was introduced to Gene Keys, it felt completely different. It was deeply personal.

I don’t often use it in group settings. My work with companies has shifted from traditional SWOT analysis—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats—to something much more human. Instead of creating plans that sit on a shelf, I help leaders truly see their people and help people feel seen, heard, and valued.

Gene Keys supports that.

For example, when I first explored mine, I was told my life’s work was stillness. And my immediate reaction was resistance. Stillness felt like laziness to me. I was always in motion—doing, achieving, pushing forward.

But then I learned that the shadow of stillness is stress—and that’s exactly where I had been living.

The gift that bridges the two is restraint. And I realized that my natural ability to listen deeply—to what’s said, what’s not said, the energy beneath it—requires restraint. It requires stillness.

Each aspect of the Gene Keys includes a shadow, a gift, and an essence. And it’s not something you study—it’s something you sit with, contemplate over time.

Recently, I experienced just how powerful that stillness can be.

My mother passed away at the end of December. On Christmas Day, she came over, and my kids were taking care of her, trying to help her with everything. She was frustrated, insisting she didn’t need help, that she was going to live to be 100.

We walked her out to her car, and normally I would have felt stressed—trying to manage the moment, smooth things over. But instead, I stayed in that space of stillness and restraint.

As she was getting into the car, I heard a clear message: This is the last time.

My mother was known for her “Irish goodbyes”—she’d just leave without hugging or saying goodbye. But this time, I stopped her. I turned her around, hugged her, and told her I loved her.

A couple of days later, she passed peacefully at home.

That moment—being present enough to hear that, to act on it—that’s what stillness has given me.

There’s a quote I love, though I may not say it perfectly: Live loud from your heart, and there will be no need to speak.

That’s what I bring into my work. Because right now, we’re living at such a surface level. We’re not truly connecting. We’re not seeing each other.

And one thing I always share—with clients or anyone—is this:

You can’t be in judgment and curiosity at the same time.

So start with curiosity. Just start there.

We have a great interview with Richard Rudd on our website. He also has a wonderful show on Gaia called Gene Keys, and you can visit their website and get your free Gene Keys profile, which is a great place to start.

I’m curious about your work in the corporate world. I only spent three years in that world right out of college, working for a paper distribution company called Unisource. It was very corporate, and I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t the environment for me. But many people do thrive in that world.

It’s easy to talk down about corporate culture, but the truth is, it’s a huge part of so many people’s lives. Our world is run by corporations and the people who work in them. There’s a stigma around corporate culture not being people-centered—not being a place where people are truly seen. Is it possible to create an environment like that inside a corporation? Or really, inside any organization—a school, a nonprofit, anywhere there’s pressure around performance and results? How do you create a culture where people feel seen and heard when there’s such a strong focus on the bottom line? Is it possible? And what’s the first step?

Marti Ouellette: I have to believe it’s possible. Especially in the current climate, I really do.

When I say I think, I always catch myself, because that’s a head answer. My heart tells me we are heading down a dark path when we stop valuing each other. When everything becomes profit-driven, there has to be another way.

I don’t want to dismiss corporate completely. I liked my corporate work. There were great people I genuinely wanted to work with. And when people feel seen, heard, and valued, they will go to the ends of the earth with you. They’ll help create results. Just not at the expense of their humanity.

I think when you truly see people, you can move forward together—shoulder to shoulder—and actually cross the finish line in a meaningful way. Because right now, what I see is that the rich are getting richer, the middle class and poor are getting poorer, and we are not walking the talk when it comes to humanity.

I’m not a religious person, but I do believe we are losing our way. If we keep going down this path, what kind of world are we leaving for our grandchildren?

Real transformation is going to require people to get uncomfortable. And more than that, to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. It’s going to take leaders willing to stop and ask bigger questions.

I remember hearing about a CEO years ago who lowered his own salary and paid everyone the same amount—something like $75,000. I still wonder what happened with that. What became possible because of a decision like that?

What comes up for me in this season of my life is something Richard Rudd is exploring in a retreat called the Sage Line. In my own reflection, I realized that I’ve taken on something very close to the Bodhisattva vow.

Tell me more.

Marti Ouellette: The Bodhisattva vow is the commitment to help awaken others before fully awakening yourself. It’s a vow in Buddhism, and when I read it, I was floored. Because I felt it.

There is something in me that wants to stand for this planet, for people, for each individual being truly seen, heard, and valued.

That’s also where my work with foster children comes from. I wasn’t a foster child. I don’t even know exactly how that work started. I just felt called to serve in a selfless way.

I could volunteer at the PTA, be the volleyball mom, the soccer mom, do all the visible things. But there was something different about giving my time and energy to foster children—kids who so often get pushed aside and overlooked.

Their stories are heartbreaking. And at the same time, my heart also goes out to the parents whose children have been taken away. There are so many painful circumstances, and so many people who don’t have the support they need.

I know I probably sound ethereal saying all this.

One of the first steps you mentioned in helping people feel seen, heard, and valued is curiosity. So what does that actually look like? How do we cultivate curiosity in everyday life—especially in the middle of political division, economic disparity, and all the tension people are carrying? And really, it starts in our own homes, doesn’t it—with our partners and our kids?

Marti Ouellette: Emotional intelligence starts with self-awareness. So the first place to practice curiosity is with yourself. Is something actually happening, or am I reacting to what I think it means? Did something happen, or did I make up a story about it?

I remember coming home from work one day. My husband and the kids were all in the kitchen. Connor was maybe five, and Abby was around nine or eleven. I walked in, set my things down, opened the trash drawer to throw something away, and found it overflowing.

The old me would have felt the fire rise immediately. I would have been ready to yell: Who didn’t take out the trash? Why am I the one always doing this?

But instead, I started saying out loud what was happening inside me. I said, The trash is overflowing. And I’m noticing I’ve made up a story that all of you think I’m the maid. I’ve made up a story that I’m the caretaker and that nobody else sees this.

And just like that, I was naming the story instead of reacting to it.

Because the event itself was neutral. The trash was full. That’s all. It was the meaning I attached to it that created the emotional reaction.

That’s where curiosity begins.

It begins with noticing the reaction and asking, What story am I making up right now?

And you can practice that every single day. Someone cuts you off in traffic, and you feel triggered. Something rises in you immediately. You create a whole story about who they are, why they did it, and how disrespectful they are.

I had a coach once who told me that every time someone cuts me off, I should imagine they’re trying to get to their mother before she takes her last breath, or racing to the hospital because their wife is having a baby.

Because the truth is, we’re always making up stories anyway.

Yes, maybe they get one-tenth of a second ahead of you. And then you end up at the same stoplight, and suddenly all that emotion didn’t get you anywhere. But what if it was just an event? What if it didn’t mean anything about you?

We give away our power every time we make up a story—about ourselves, about another person, about an event. Human beings are meaning-making machines. We create stories about everything.

I could make up a story about my mother dying. I could make up a story about my husband trying to take his own life. But at the most basic level, those were events. The meaning is what we layer on top.

And it’s the same in a corporate boardroom. Peter asks a question, and everyone in the room makes up a story about why he’s asking it. He makes up a story about why they’re responding the way they are. And everyone reacts to the story instead of becoming curious about what is actually happening in the moment.

That’s the work. Slowing down long enough to see clearly.

Is it possible for there to be an environment of safety in an organization where I can process out loud? To say, “I’m feeling disrespected,” and then explore where that’s coming from… without putting my job or relationships at risk? How is that possible?

Marti Ouellette: It is possible. It really is.

I’m a certified conscious guide facilitator, and part of our work is going into organizations and helping leaders create that kind of environment. Let’s say you’re bringing your leadership team together for a three-day strategy session—your typical planning for the next few years.

The question becomes: do you want your leaders to show up as people pleasers, telling you what they think you want to hear… only for things to fall apart later? Or do you want them to speak honestly?

We teach leaders how to create safety—how to open a space where people can actually share. Because people won’t take risks if they don’t feel safe, and what organizations need are people willing to take risks.

Playing it safe isn’t profitable.

As you’ve gone through your own transformation over the years—you mentioned you have three kids—how have they experienced that shift in you? And how has it impacted your relationship with them?

Marti Ouellette: They’re such a blessing.

When I started doing this deeper work on myself, my middle son was finishing high school during the pandemic. He did his senior year and first year of college online, and he carried a lot of fear—fear of being rejected, of doing things wrong.

And I knew, from the work I was doing, that a lot of that came from me.

We had a conversation where he brought up a memory from when he was a child. He had come home with a progress report full of zeros, and I reacted strongly. His version of the story was that I ripped his gaming system out of the wall and threw it down the stairs. My version was that I calmly unplugged it and put it away.

But instead of correcting him, I gave him the space to say everything he had been holding onto. He raged. And I just stood there and let him. I didn’t interrupt, didn’t defend myself—just let him empty it all out.

He’ll tell you today that everything shifted after that.

There are pros and cons to being their mom now. They’ll joke that they hate talking to me because I just ask questions instead of agreeing with them. If they come home frustrated with a teacher or a boss, I’ll say, I’m curious—what do you think their perspective is?

They want me to jump in and complain with them, but instead, I guide them back to curiosity.

And now I see it in them. They’ve become curious, too. They come to me asking, What could I have done differently? And I just keep asking questions. I don’t tell them what to do.

My son Ben, for example, struggled in college. I would ask him, What’s stopping you from advocating for yourself? And underneath it was fear—fear of being rejected, of being seen as not smart enough.

My daughter recently gave a Monday morning pep talk at her corporate job in front of the entire company. She was terrified. But she did it because they’ve all learned that growth happens in discomfort.

They’ll tell you I went from being a frantic, always-on, 100-miles-an-hour mom… to someone very different.

Now they introduce me as their guru.

Most of your work now is with teams and organizations. Can you walk me through how you work with people? What kinds of teams or companies do you support?

Marti Ouellette: I work with anyone who wants to go deeper with their team.

It could be a newly formed team, a team that’s been together for years but feels stuck, or a team that just wants to reconnect. I come in as a co-creator. If you already have an agenda, I can help shape it into something that brings people from their head to their heart.

That’s really the longest distance we travel—the distance from head to heart.

But it requires willingness from leadership. If you want your team to be open and vulnerable, you have to be willing to model that. That doesn’t mean sharing your deepest secrets. It means being real about what’s happening.

I might ask questions like:

• What are you afraid will be discovered about you at work?
• What do you think others already believe about you?
• What’s a difficult moment in your life that shaped you, and what did you learn from it?

These are ways people can share honestly while still standing in their strength.

I love working with groups of around 40 people—that’s a sweet spot—but we can scale much larger with a team.

What’s the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to explore working together?

Marti Ouellette: The best way is through my website—you can book time directly there. You can reach me at MartiOuellette.com.

Is there a social platform where people can find you?

Marti Ouellette: I tend to avoid social media. I prefer real, intimate conversations. But you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

For someone who now feels called to this work but is afraid of being vulnerable as a leader, what would you say to them?

Marti Ouellette: If you’re afraid to be vulnerable, your team can feel that.

And they’re not truly listening to you.

When you wear a mask, when you show up inauthentically, people know. So the real question is: what’s stopping you from owning that?

This work isn’t about what you do. It’s about who you are for others.

Start by getting curious with yourself. What story are you telling about vulnerability? What are you afraid people will see?

That’s where the shift begins.

Well, thank you so much, Marti. You are a force—you clearly can make things happen, and at the same time, you’ve been incredibly open and vulnerable with us. Thank you for sharing your story, your heart, and these practical tools to help people take their next step forward.

Marti Ouellette: Thank you, David.