How the Inner MBA Helped Maria Luisa Alderuccio Turn Everyday Work Into a Path of Conscious Leadership
Maria Luisa Alderuccio was already helping lead two companies when she joined the Inner MBA. She was a co-founder of both and responsible for marketing strategy across them. One was a marketing and human-development consulting firm, the other was a growing online project devoted to helping people live more consciously.
Maria was busy, experienced, and already committed to inner development. She had also been meditating for at least five years. But there was a frustrating gap between what she understood about self-awareness and what happened when somebody pushed one of her buttons at work.
Difficult relationships with partners and employees could quickly pull her into reaction. She wanted the relationship to improve, but she also wanted to be right. As Maria described it, she was trying to have a better relationship “but on my own terms.” And she could see that the pattern wasn’t only affecting her. It had become an obstacle to what the company itself needed.
Meditation Had Helped. But What About the Moment Someone Pushes Your Buttons?
Maria already knew how to meditate. What she didn’t have were tools she could reach for in the exact moment a difficult interaction was unfolding.
“When people push your button you’re going to react,” she says. The Inner MBA helped her learn to pause long enough to notice what was happening inside herself. What was she thinking? What was she feeling? What emotions were present?
Instead of immediately acting from the reaction, she could bring awareness to it and choose something different.
“With that self-awareness, to choose a different answer… that not only transformed me, but transformed the relationship.”
The effects spread beyond her work. Maria says her relationships improved with her partners, her employees, herself, her boyfriend, and other people in her personal life.
Work Started to Mean Something Different
Something else happened that Maria had not necessarily expected. The Inner MBA changed the way she experienced work itself.
Before the program, much of her attention went toward what needed to get done. The task, the job, what she had to produce, or what the client needed from her.
Afterward, she began seeing her everyday work as part of her own inner development. “Now it’s like my work is my spiritual path or my inner development path.”
That meant a difficult meeting or complicated relationship was no longer merely an interruption to the real work. It was part of the work.
Maria began carrying a different kind of awareness into her days:
“What person am I being in this situation?” “What energy am I bringing here?” “What person do I want to become?” “What does the other person need?” “What am I here for?”
For Maria, purpose became something that could live inside ordinary professional life, rather than something separate from it.
“It’s so much more than just the things that I have to do.”
She Became Calmer. And That Changed the Way She Led.
As Maria applied the practices, she began noticing practical changes in herself. She became more present, more patient, and calmer. That internal shift gave her greater clarity about what a situation actually required. She listened more. She spoke earlier instead of allowing difficult issues to sit unresolved.
And conversations she once wanted either to avoid or to win began to look different. Previously, she says, she often wanted her point of view to be “the only answer.” Now she became more interested in finding a place where different needs could be acknowledged.
“I am on the path of becoming a better leader.”
Productivity and Humanity Didn’t Have to Compete
One of the things Maria valued most about the Inner MBA was the range of perspectives represented in the faculty. She was learning from successful business leaders and CEOs alongside spiritual teachers and people from very different disciplines. And seeing those worlds together helped her recognize a pattern in her own leadership.
At times, Maria could become intensely focused on productivity. The task, the output, the business. In those periods, relationships and her own inner development could receive less attention.
At other times, she could move too far in the other direction, concentrating so heavily on keeping people together that her own needs and the needs of the work became harder to hold. The program helped her see that she didn’t have to choose between the two. Human development and business performance could strengthen each other.
“What I found… with the CEOs and all of these business people that we have, is the importance of both and that both get better together.”
That realization changed the way Maria saw her businesses.
“I Can See… the Forest and the Trees”
That broader perspective began showing up in the decisions Maria was making. She describes herself as becoming more peaceful, calmer, and happier. She challenged some of the limiting beliefs and assumptions that had been shaping her behavior. She became more confident with her team. And she began approaching employees, partners, and business strategy differently.
“I think I can manage the business differently now.”
Then Maria uses an image that captures what had changed.
“I can see… the forest and the trees.”
She could still see the immediate task in front of her. But she could also see more of the whole system around it: the relationship, the team, the company, her own internal state, and what the situation ultimately required.
For Maria, that expanded perspective became one of the biggest changes in how she worked.
The Online Community Was a Surprise
Maria had assumed that one thing would probably be missing from an online program. Real connection. Because the Inner MBA happened virtually, she expected there would be little opportunity for networking or meaningful relationships with other participants. Her experience turned out to be “completely the opposite.” “You have plenty of opportunities to network.”
The community became particularly valuable during the more intensive inner work of the program. Other participants weren’t there to dictate what Maria should do. They reminded her of what she was working toward. They encouraged her. They offered perspectives she might not have reached by herself.
And because people were sharing so much of their own experience, Maria found that listening deeply to somebody whose life looked very different from hers could still teach her something about herself. “It’s like a support that you have.”
Knowing that other people were moving through the work alongside her made it easier to keep going.
She Got More Than She Expected
Maria says plainly that the program exceeded what she thought she was signing up for. “You really get much more than what you think the curriculum is.”
Part of that came from the faculty. She describes the experience as being coached by experts across the different areas of business and human development. Participants could ask questions during the program and, in some instances, communicate with teachers afterward. But Maria also stresses that the depth of the experience depended partly on what she brought to it.
“The more you give to the class, the more you’ll get.”
For her, actually doing the practices and engaging the material turned what was already a substantial curriculum into something “beyond expectations.”
“You Will Not Only Become a Better Leader, but a Better Person”
When Maria was asked what she would tell someone considering the Inner MBA, her answer was simple: “You will not only become a better leader, but a better person.”
What mattered to her was that the learning wasn’t confined to a business course. “What you learn in this class will be with you for the rest of your life.”
She had already seen it change how she related to herself, how she handled relationships, how she led people, and how she thought about the companies she was helping build.
She also wanted busy professionals to know that the workload hadn’t made participation impossible for her.
There was substantial material, but she could work through it around an already full life and catch up when necessary.
For Maria, the greatest shift may have been the disappearance of a boundary she had once placed between business and inner development. The meeting became part of the practice, the difficult employee conversation became part of the practice, the moment she felt herself wanting to prove she was right became part of the practice. Her business was still a place where things needed to get done, but it also became a place where she could become more conscious of who she was while doing them. The Inner MBA helped her bring the person she wanted to become into the way she worked, led, decided, and related, making the business itself part of her path of growth.
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