Myrth Profile: Emma McLaren, Founder & CEO
Emma in Mexico
You’ve probably seen some blog posts from our founder, Emma McLaren, around here over the last several months. She’s passionate about true self care, mental health experiences, and solo travel. You can usually find her devouring books, practicing yoga, or dreaming big about the future of Myrth.
But do you really know her? We thought it would be fun to delve a little deeper into the mysterious history of Emma.
After nearly a decade of globetrotting as a sustainable seafood consultant and ocean conservation warrior, Emma is planting roots. She’s lived, worked or explored in over 60 countries – 45 in the last 10 years. Quite a feat, but given Emma’s ambition, intensely supportive global network of family and friends, and powerful curiosity, it’s not all that surprising. You may have heard of her persona, Emma the Nomad? These days, though, she prefers to be known as a nomad-in-residence--to be more specific, a resident of Santa Cruz, where she’s growing her own roots alongside the coastal trees.
Not long after Emma McLaren accidentally stumbled upon Santa Cruz, she found herself at home. You see, at the time she found herself in Santa Cruz, Emma was just beginning to map out her third career. It was a bit of a long and winding road.
She graduated with an undergrad degree in development studies and spent 4 years developing her skills in the land of the not-for-profit, ultimately moving into environmental stewardship and social marketing. She left it behind to travel the world for her first big adventure, but she returned from that journey to the harsh reality of an economy steeped in recession and a lack of job opportunities in her old field.
That’s when, after some challenging years of unemployment and family couch surfing, she discovered marine management – a complete career shift. Her Master’s degree laid the groundwork for an exciting, fulfilling, and unique experience working as an ocean advocate and marine manager. Spurred by her love of the ocean and scuba diving, Emma worked with many levels of ocean conservation and sustainable seafood management, from community-supported fisheries to small scale oyster farmers in northern Scotland to the big dogs by the names of McDonald’s, Walmart, and the Irish Government.
And although it was an extremely satisfying and complete career, Emma soon felt drawn to a life purpose beyond fish and ocean conservation. Mental health and well-being were calling to her, and she knew that tech was going to play an integral part in fulfilling that calling.
Unlike her last major career transition, though, there’s no master’s degree for “starting a tech company to help people live more fulfilling, intentional, and connected lives.” Emma figured that her best strategy was to throw herself into the deep end: get involved and learn as much about tech and the startup world as possible. In other words?
“Take the leap and build your wings on the way down.”
So she got to work. In between planning for Myrth and building out the beginnings of the platform, Emma started devouring books (averaging a book a week) and listening to all the podcasts (at least one a day). She also jumped into the local start-up community in Santa Cruz volunteering as a mentor and judge in the region and also signed up for all kinds of classes including swing dance, improv, stand-up and yoga.
And what of Emma’s dreams of changing the world of mental health and wellbeing through tech? It is still a work in progress, but Myrth is getting some serious buzz within the self-help community and digital wellness industry. Myrth is a member of the Digital Wellness Collective. Built around human connection and community, Myrth sets its intention on normalizing self-care and creating better habits through accountability, partnership and simplicity, all encompassed in software.
Why this focus? Well, Emma is rarely without her phone – a dependency rather than an addiction, as it is also the reason why she can honestly say that she has consistently read, meditated, exercised, minimized her unhealthy screen habits, and ate better than ever since implementing the Myrth protocol almost a year ago. And even when she falls off the wagon, which she occasionally does with screen time, Myrth helps her get right back on. It is simple and yet powerful.
We also love the logo she chose, a sloth, because doesn’t that seem counterintuitive? But she explained:
“We have traditionally measured productivity by hours worked or energy used, but Myrth takes a different approach believing in slowing down, reducing choice and refusing to say you are busy. The sloth encircled in green encompasses our company values: doing more by doing less, slow tech, leading with heart, cherishing time well spent, and employing a mindful business strategy - hence our logo.”
Maybe she’s onto something. “Moving fast and breaking things” could perhaps use an overhaul to “moving slow and building things,” don’t you think? Emma’s rich professional and personal experience is perfectly suited to doing just that. She’s worked at large and small scales, in fast-paced industries and slower ones, and her adventures around the world have exposed to all sorts of different ways of structuring our lives. We’re looking forward to growing with her and seeing what’s next.
