November 23, 2025 • 58 mins
This week, Mandi Money sits down with powerhouse executive coach and host of Ambition Without Compromise, Monique R. Shields a woman whose mission is simple but profound: to liberate the professional imaginations of women of color.
From being a “lost English major” to coaching leaders across mental health, tech, and corporate spaces, Monique shares the honest, unfiltered truth about taking up space, transitioning careers, and surviving this messy middle season so many of us are navigating.
Together, Mandi and Monique dive deep into:
- The pressure high-achieving women feel to fix everything through achievement
- What it really looks like to slow down, pause, and rest — especially when the world feels on fire
- How motherhood becomes a catalyst for clarity and self-possession
- Moving through anxiety, identity shifts, and the comparison trap
- Why community and group coaching are lifelines, not luxuries
- The behind-the-scenes of building a coaching practice while keeping your peace
This conversation is the hug, the truth-telling, and the collective exhale you didn’t know you needed.
✨ About Monique R. Shields
Executive Coach • Podcast Host • Leadership Developer
- Instagram: @MoniqueRShields
- Website: moniquershields.com
- Podcast: Ambition Without Compromise
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, ba fam, let's be real for a second, and
y'all know I keep it a book. The job market
has been brutal, now not brutal trash, especially for women
of color. Over three hundred thousand of us have disappeared
from the workforce this year alone, and not by choice,
but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs, and stagnant wages
(00:20):
that keep cutting us out of opportunity. Our unemployment rate
has jumped to over seven percent, while our pay gap
continues to widen. I know all of that sounds dire,
but here's what I want y'all to know. You do
not have to wait for the system to save you.
That's exactly why I created the Mandy money Makers Group
coaching community. It is a coaching community that is built
(00:41):
for us by us. Inside the community, we're not just
talking about how to negotiate or to how to get
the job that you want. It's about finding purpose in
your career. It's about finding communities and others, feeling seen,
feeling heard, and also having a sounding board and a
mirror to reflect your own magic, your own sparkle right
(01:03):
back to yourself. In this community, you'll get group coaching
led by me, but you also get peer to peer
accountability with proven tools and resources that can help you
do what we have always done sin rise even when
the odds are stacked against us, despite all the challenges,
we will rise. If you're interested in joining the Mandy
(01:24):
money Makers community and having that support to bolster you
and help you tap back into your magic so that
you can lead your career with intention and heart and
your own intuition, trusting that again, please join us. You
can find information in the show notes of today's episodes
or go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy
(01:47):
m A n d I money dot com slash community.
I would love to see y'all there. Enrollment is open,
so please go check out mandymoney dot com slash community today. Hey,
hey va fan, welcome back to the show and welcome
(02:07):
to Washday WUSA. I am really excited to sit down
with today's guest. She is an incredible executive coach and
has been doing it for over a decade now. I
had the chance to just bump into her at a
recent conference that I was doing, and it was one
of those like serendipitous moments where it's like, oh, you
do this great work. I knew this great work, like
(02:28):
let's connect, and then it actually it didn't like make
it out of the group chat, but it made it
out of the you know, very short chat waiting in
line to do a fashion show in the middle of
a conference in Miami. You know, we made it happen.
My guest today is Monique Shields. She's an executive coach
and host of the Ambition Without Compromise podcast, and her
(02:52):
mission is very simple and also powerful. It's to liberate
the professional imaginations of women of color, CEOs and leaders.
You're in exactly the right place, liberate me me. He
brings over a decade of experience in coactive coaching, motivational interviewing,
leadership development. She's guided both emerging and established leaders through
(03:16):
some of their most transformative transitions. She hails from Stanford
Graduate School, where she ran or served as a facilitator
for the Women in Management program, and has a bunch
of other accolades and as you say, logos that we
can talk about, but that's not the important part. Monique.
It is just brilliant and amazing and I think if
(03:39):
I could sum it up, I would say she's your
favorite coach's favorite coach, and she's here today. I'm Brown Ambition.
I'm so honored.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you for having me. That was such a sweet
and energizing introduction. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I like to write my own scripts and then go
off of them immediately. I love that it creates like
a little risk, little sweaty. Is that kind of give
it a little squa? Yeah, real, start by by by
sharing a little bit about your own career story and
how what happened in your own transition a decade ago
to launch you on this path as a leadership coach.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
So I started out my career as a lost English major.
I went to Spelman College. I loved my time there,
and when I left, I wasn't sure what I really
wanted to do with myself, and so I took jobs.
I worked in finance in the back office at a
different couple different firms, doing like operational things, administrative things,
(04:37):
even helping with like legal in compliance things, just kind
of like a Swiss army knife in the back office,
doing all kinds of stuff. You lost English major, yes, ma'am,
Yes ma'am. But stillman was calling for me to pay
those student loans. So I had to to make sure
I figured something out. But during that time, again, I
was just I was working in learning, but it wasn't
anything that I was passionate about. Just really trying to
stabilize myself. I started exploring coaching. Was like longer story
(05:00):
that I'm not going to totally get into here, but
because I know there's a lot we want to talk
about today.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
But I started considering coaching.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
And when my husband and I moved from New York
to California to sort of reinvent life, to escape winters
and to just yeah, build our family, move at a
different pace, it was my opportunity to finally like truly
explore that. And so I started working at a mental
health startup that needed someone to lead a coaching team
(05:28):
to help coach clients through the mental health programs that
they had built. So that was fantastic experience and it
gave me my first taste of anything that felt entrepreneurial.
Prior to that, I was like, I cannot be an entrepreneur.
I'm not the entrepreneurial type. I need structure all the
things right, And it just showed me that, hey, these people,
while they were very, very smart, I had a great
(05:49):
startup experience with very smart leaders. They are making stuff
up every day. We're just we're guessing, we're trying things,
and you just keep getting up and trying again. And
so I was like, oh that this is demystified for me.
Now I can do that. And so yeah, yeah, when
you get that behind the scenes peak, it's like, oh,
(06:12):
there's the whiz, Like, I get what's going on here.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I can do this.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah, we're just all regular humans figuring the things out.
So I have my daughter, which then prompted me to
go ahead and make the lead because I wanted to
own all of my time. And I said, Okay, I
love this coaching work that I'm doing with in this
this business, but I want to own my time. And
the kind of coaching that I'm doing at was like
(06:37):
just coaching against different sort of mental health diagnoses was
wonderful and I'm so glad I have that in my background.
But I wanted to work I think more broadly with
women of color on you know, how they're leading and
living in their lives. So that's how it happened.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So what were the like, what were the types of
clients you started to work with at that startup. Are
we talking just like general population, you know, anyone who's
using this app? So you weren't able to like really
niche down.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No, I couldn't. I had we had no choice.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And I was coaching clients for the directly myself for
the first couple of years, but then I was building
a coaching team with the CEO, and so I was coaching.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Coaches to Ko Dark Alliance.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But it was you know, we I think we had
like a half a million users at one point, and
these are people all over the place who are who
were working through social anxiety, generalized anxiety, depression, those kinds
of things.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It was a CBT program.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh okay, yeah, I mean that sounds I'm like, I'll
sign up for that right now. I do all the
I'm kind of a I've given up sort of the
idea of any one type of therapy. I'm just like,
give me the smorgas ward. Let me try a little
something something, a BT, little CBT, little group coaching, a
little meditation, like it all is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That was one of a great approach.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, A similar to what you were saying about being
just demystified about you know what it takes to be
an entrepreneur and a startup and all that, Like when
it came to when it comes to the mental health journey,
for me, I've just realized that it's okay to try
it all. You don't need to necessarily have there's not
one there. We kind of get stuck on that individual therapy,
(08:23):
you know, which is fine because like obviously for so
long it was stigmatized, right, so like let's talk about
therapy in general before we get to like other flavors
of it, but taste the rainbow. It's kind of I agree,
it's kind of nice for that, all right. So you
are your coaching coaches and mental health. You also have
your daughter. I mean, career wise, up until that point,
(08:44):
were you sort of like I don't know. For me,
when I worked with a startup, I had been in
a traditional kind of corporate space, established big company prior
to that, and it was my way of like testing
something different and like getting to grow something. Did you
have your own story similar to that, Like were you
in like working for a big corporation before you switched
into the startup space.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So yeah, my very first job was at Simon and
Schuster Publishing, So that was a you know, Viacom company,
very big, you lost English.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Major, you ended up at one of the biggest publishers
I know.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And it was but I was lost in the sense
that I didn't I didn't want to build a career
in publishing, yet I was there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
But it was it was a great.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And graduate version of being lost, the champagne of being lost. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well, you know, you know how it's.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Not as glamorous as all that publishing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, okay, exactly, there's that, but you know, things feel
messier when you're in your own life than they sound
in retrospect right or from the outside. So yeah, I
started out that large Vicom kind of space. And it's
interesting when again speaking of retrospect, when I look back,
I'm like, okay, big, huge, you know sort of company.
(10:00):
Then the next companies I went to were like mid
size firms. I did work at a really small asset
management from at one point too, but they're working with
billions of dollars, So it does even though there might
be a smaller population of employees, it still feels, you know,
big enough. There's it's very very well resourced, which is
unlike a startup.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And then I did.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I kept sort of sizing down because one of the
things I did start to realize about myself is that
I liked the feeling of agility and nimbleness and like things,
not feeling like I have to ask sixteen people to
you know, request a packet of like pens for my desk,
Like I just I liked an environment that didn't feel
(10:41):
so constraining. So I think that was sort of happening
subconsciously as I moved along.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, had you planned on being a mom forever?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Was that always a goal of yours?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, I've always known I wanted to have kids always. Yeah,
I think I never really dreamed like, oh my wedding
day and the wedding dress. I mean, I wanted to
be partnered to raise kids and all that ideally for myself,
but I dreamed of kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, when you said you had your daughter and leading
up to that, were you still at the startup and
did you think this is not going to be conducive
to like the kind of life I want to have
as a mom and then you sort of sort of shifted.
How did that all come to be and how did
motherhood kind of play a role in that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, so I remember returning. It was interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Actually, So I've been talking about the one role that
I had there, which was I was a coach and
then director of coaching and all over time. But my
final role there actually happened when I came back from
maternity leave. I came back from maternity leave and startups
doing what they do, they changed. We started shifting from
selling direct to consumer only to enterprise, and because of that,
(11:53):
they needed somebody to help manage those enterprise relationships.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So a director of partnerships.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So that became my new time and it was just
my boss, who then also went on maternally.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
She's like, yeah, girl, you got.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It, and it was a right start a live.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I was like, yeah, girl, I've got a pandemic postpan.
What year was this?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
This was all pre pandemic.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
This was twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen in there, twenty yeah,
and uh yeah, And so I am that's.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
A whole different ballgame though, Yeah, absolutely obvious.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, but I will tell you what.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It built my confidence in a whole new way because
I think I felt very confident as a coach, and
I had grown my confidence as a manager of coaches,
but being like the front sort of external facing person
to manage these relationships of these these big, different, big
companies that we were partnering with and going and doing
presentations and having being in sales meetings and like flying
(12:52):
around with the CEO.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Like it was very.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, it was very stretching for me, and I think
that really helped me understand like, oh I can I
can figure this out.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I can figure this out, the entrepreneur thing.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
So it wasn't that things became too demanding necessarily. It
was just that even as accommodating and as wonderful as
they were, I think for a startup, they did a
great job. When I came back, there was like a
little fridge and a little private little room that they
had to build for me so that I could pump
and like have a moment. Yeah, they have little milk
(13:27):
fridge for me, and I built my little routines and
they let me ramp.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Back into my grouage and expensed it.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah. Oh well you could do that too.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
But it's sort of life, so that's nice.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But so it was it was like all the accommodations
and the and like I except these were wonderful people.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I loved working with them.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
But at the end of the day, I was I
just felt like I need to own my time fully.
I don't want to have to be anywhere because I
need to be somewhere on behalf of somebody else's business.
So yeah, that's that's just what happened.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I was like it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Motherhood was a catalyst for me. I'm just like, I
need I need to own it.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, So then what did that look like? I mean,
I'm to be like completely transparent this. I mean when
I had my call with Ricky at ten, one of
my clients and I were literally on the phone at
ten and I'm helping her write the letter. I'll edit
her name out, okay, write the letter to her current
employer because she's she is she's spent full time with
them and wants to again own her time, wants to
(14:30):
own her time and wants to transition to an independent
consultant and then you know, take on other clients and
the work that she does. And it's really I mean,
I really enjoyed this part of it, like kind of
piecing together the like putting together the transition train a
little bit. So let's talk about your transition train. Was
it one day you're like, all right, guys, gotta go
(14:51):
or did you How did you work your way out
of that and into your own practice.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I think that I benefited from the fact that I
came back from eternity leave, which is a like clear
transition in life, and then came into a whole new
role which had completely different rhythms, completely different responsibilities, you know.
And so I was always in constant communication with my
(15:16):
boss about like, Okay, you know, how is this working
for you? How are you feeling? Where can you you know,
what would make things feel even better for you? What
are some of the things that you want to stretch into.
So I was just in constant communication with her about
how things were working. And though I did enjoy, and
I think I enjoyed even in retrospect more than maybe
I even did in the moment, because I realized.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
What it gave me.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I think I I communicated to her that like, I'm
a coach, though I'm being the director of partnerships and
I'm learning to be this person, but I'm a coach
and I want I really wanted to get back into coaching,
So that narrative was very easy to tie, like Okay,
you know, I think I was in that role for
maybe a year year and a half and I was like, y'all,
(16:01):
I think I need to figure out this coaching practice thing,
and it didn't make sense for me to go back
into the coaching team because again, the business has had
sort of re organized itself, and so yeah, it just
made sense. And I think the most important thing for
anybody is if you have the benefit of having a
(16:21):
at least a neutral to positive relationship with your manager,
is that there shouldn't be some surprise conversation that comes
out of nowhere. Sometimes if you just have a crappy manager,
obviously you can't bring them along. But if you can
bring them along a little bit around like where things
are aligning or not, you know, aligning with you over time,
then it's not it shouldn't be a.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Surprise as a manager. It's so much nicer when you
kind of feel brought in and it's not like I've
had both I've had you know, oh, we're going to
do this together and figure out how to transition you
here and get you to where you want to be.
And then I've had the like the we're doing what
you have what? Yeah, but that's a great point, and
(17:03):
I yeah, I've certainly said you know, even when it
comes down to like what's the tone of the message
or the email or the conversation, it's like, well, just
true to the relationship you know that you have. Yeah, okay,
So when you you finally had your last day, was
it like at that point were you already building you know,
what the practice would become and establishing you know, the
(17:26):
LLC and the website and getting clients and all that.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So I had the LLC a year before I ever
used it because I think I had kind of loosely
made the decision, but I didn't know exactly what my
timeline would be. But I was like I needed little
forcing functions and little proof points that like I'm doing this,
I'm building towards something eventually. But I had also although
I had all the experience coaching in the in that
role and I had prior experisions, whow I got why
I got hired and become a coach and co manager
(17:52):
of the coaches.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I never had like a certification.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I had gone into all kinds of different trainings and
we had clinical supervision with psychologists and psychiatrists and all
kinds of stuff. But I was like, I want to
go and get like a certification that's just like a
methodology that I believe in and I can kind of like.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Rest in a.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Little bit, I don't know, like play around in there.
So that was happening concurrently and my startup. Actually they
helped subsidize some of that certification for me as well,
so I was like part of it was me going
out and like, oh, I'm bringing this back internally because
I can bring these skills and we can pass them
on to the coaching team as well.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
What was but.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
The program was called a CTI Coactive Training Institute.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh okay god, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I was just looking for because I didn't know what
kind of practice I was going to build and which
means meaning like am I going to be you know,
enterprise like corporate focused or am I going to be
selling directly to people? And what I wanted the optionality.
So I was like, well, what what are companies hiring
for out here? So like the big companies and the
big you know, universities in the area, they were hiring
people from this program. It was like one of two
(19:01):
in this one I liked better. So that's how I
made that choice. So yeah, I was put I was
planting seeds, you know. And I also didn't leave one day.
I helped replace myself, so I was there, you know,
within the person who was replacing me for a few
months before I left, helping to hire this person and
to onboard them. And then I contracted with the startup
(19:22):
for an additional month or two. I forget exactly how
long that was. So they became my first client, you
sort of unofficially, even though I wasn't like providing coaching services.
But it made me feel like, Okay, I have a business.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Well I think that's a wonderful Yeah, I'm kind of
glad we pulled apart, that peeled apart that onion a
little bit, because I think it's a wonderful example of
how a transition can look. It doesn't have to be
it's like people, you know, you've probably seen this. Two
women get like really stuck on, like it'll have to
be so abrupt and like and then it will be
done and I have to be ready. I have to
(19:55):
have everything in this particular order, and then I'm going
to send this letter like I'm leaving, and then like
you know, deal with those ripple effects. But it can
be incremental and thoughtful and maintain relationships and if you
do a great job of that, then yeah, that you
can end up being your first client and ease you
into this new.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Path.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Hey ba fam, we got to take a quick break,
pay some bills and we'll be right back. So you're coaching.
You said you were kind of deciding enterprise or direct
to consumer. I mean, obviously, now you have this platform
that's like very targeted toward women, a woman of color leaders,
and what was it I can imagine, but what was
(20:43):
it about that path that ended up feeling right to
you versus pursuing like the corporate enterprise kind of approach.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
So I have both.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So what you'll see outwardly facing and is for it's
because it's direct to consumer. Folks are listening and if
I'm online, you know, on Instagram or LinkedIn or my
podcast even I'm speaking directly to folks there. But I've
always wanted to have a little bit of a portfolio
in my business, meaning you know, smattering of folks over
(21:12):
here and a smattering over here in different categories of
who I'm serving.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So I do, I do do corporate.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Contracts, and but it's just not as front facing because
those happened with through my private network and relationships.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, all right, I mean we love a diversified income, yes.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
As well, Yes, yes, yes we do, Yes we do.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But yeah that I chose that just so that, you know,
the winds change and I wanted to have some flexibility
in my business just in case. But I try to
be really thoughtful about I don't try to be I am.
I'm really thoughtful about who on either side of that
equation I work with. So it's been wonderful to be
able to work with partners even still today in this
(21:53):
wild climate that we're in. Who are you know, letting
me focus my work on some of the marginalized pop
relations in there within their employee base.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So I still get to like, have you touched that mission? Yeah?
But I do.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I coach men, you know all of that, that what
happens behind the corporate doors is kind of a little
different than what I'm doing out publicly.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, have you had to think? I mean we've heard
the anecdotes from women of color who's or just you know,
consultants or independent contractors who whose work has focused on
underrepresented people and groups and then having to sort of
deal with this post DEI anti woke climate that we're
in and completely rebrand what they're offering to stay afloat.
(22:40):
But it's great to hear. I mean, it seems like
in your case that hasn't necessarily been the case.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Like I wouldn't say it hasn't been the case, but
I've I've been able to work some things out.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Oh, I guess I could put it that way.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Been able to work some things out where I don't
have to truly compromise my mission. So I might be
broadening who I serve, you know, but I don't. I
don't have to completely lose who my like core is.
So that's kind of how I've been able to work
it out.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Okay, And at this point you have gone through that's
the pandemic. Then you started your business around time before
the pandemic twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen. Yeah, for me, it
always feels important to like put the time to do
through because it's so different. We started a business in
twenty fifteen versus twenty twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Yeah, kind
of really well positioned for the moment, right, I mean,
(23:31):
to have established it ahead of this like huge it's
hard to it's hard to put a like qualify how
huge the pandemic was in terms of shifting careers. But
then you know, we go through a few years later
and it seems like another seismic shift is happening with
this like current job market and economy has your How
(23:53):
has it been being a coach in this kind of climate?
Coach to coach, like.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah, do it, girls, it's hard over here.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's been a mixed bag for me. I think as
a coach, I thank.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
God that I do this work because when I leave
my coaching calls, I have hope again. When I leave
the coaching program calls that I'm doing with the group
of women that are supporting right now, my one on
one clients, even the folks I'm working with in corporate
or whatever, because I get to touch like a lot
of really wonderful people, even though I'm not always choosing
them directly, even in my corporate settings. I'm just I
(24:34):
get a spark back, a spark of hope back. So
coach to coach, the coaching parts was keeping me going,
girl Like, if I didn't have this work, I'm not
totally sure how.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I'd be coping.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But Yeah, it's more so personally, Like I think me
as a mother is has been most primarily impacted as
I try to envision a future for my children, as
I as I try to move through my days and
not see like the children the images of children around
the world and in you know, I'm outside of LA
(25:08):
in my own backyard with like ice raids and things
like that, like that, that is where I am most impacted,
I think personally and as a mom.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, that resonates, you know. One of my struggles has
been I mean I've I've had lots of I've been
like fairly, I've been pretty transparent with VAFAM about like
mental health challenges, and for me, what I didn't it,
what I didn't expect was like how kind of debilitating
the anxiety and depression for me became this past like year,
(25:39):
I would say, and it and I agree, like thank
goodness for the structure and like the coaching that I
have and like the when I get to work with.
But I was taking it really personally, like I was
almost feeling like, what is it about me that's making
it so hard to kind of push through these like
business these feelings and these childs unges and it's it's
(26:03):
been it's been real tough, like and I've had these
like existential moments where it's like, is this work the
thing that's making the most impact? And you know, is
it the most important? And what? You know, just like
the things that when you say it out loud, you're like,
come on, what am I gonna do? Everything is in
(26:25):
it's been tough. I don't know, like days like that.
I just the only thing that has been helpful is
like one obviously, therapy to opening my mouth and saying
the things you know that I'm struggling with out loud.
The women that you're working with, you know, and your
(26:46):
clients that you're working with, are they Am I the
only one? Are they also? You know? Are you helping
coach them through things like that too?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I mean I think that you know a lot of
us are just really high functioning and figure out how
to keep showing up and how to keep trying. And
if you don't know somebody intimately, you don't realize how
they're falling apart at the end of each day or
you know, barely pulling themselves out of the bed or whatever,
however it's looking for them, Like I resonate with that
(27:18):
feeling too of like why why is this? You know,
even though I know it's not rational to feel this way,
why is this impacting me?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Like?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Why why am I not able to like I keep
in craving this like fire where it's like I just
want to be like I want to rage against things.
I want to build and create and fight and and
I want to and then I what I really want
to a shrink and hide on under the covers, you
know some days and so.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Also you compare yourself to the version of yourself, well,
at least I do. I will compare myself to the
version of me five years ago who felt that fire.
I'm going to do I'm going to do that to death.
I'm going to fix this by doing and building and creating.
And I have not like and it yeah, it does something.
It's like very disorienting, almost like but aren't I that person?
(28:07):
And isn't that person better than this version? So this
version sucks saying all these really mean things to me
who should be my friend? But like, you know, ugh,
it's uh, I think it's also like and then when
that starts to happen, you you can sort of like
unless you're really, like you said, unless you're really speaking
(28:30):
to other people and like building more intimate relationships, it
really feels like you're out here in the streets, and.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
That isolation just compacts the shame or compounds the shame
that you know.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's like, yeah, but absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
The messy middle. I'm all up in the messy middle
right now.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
In a recent post of years you also talked about
like the achievement ladder and kind of breaking ourt is
that what it's called the my noteseah achievement ladder? And
how for you know, in a way like I would
achieve my way out of any sense of discomfort or
any challenging and and sometimes I can like mentally understand
(29:16):
this is not the time to be driving striving for that.
It's could be time to like reflect and rest and
you know, just stay still for a bit. But it's
so against sort of like like you said, that high
functioning like way of being that propelled me to where
I am today. And then can you talk a little
bit about those feelings of like if I'm not achieving
and accomplishing and doing something to like fix this or
(29:39):
to you know, get somewhere, to get that like external validation.
Then like what's the struggle there? Like why why do
we keep trying to stack those achievements and how do
we how can you help us slow down and like
break that habit?
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So I wish I had the magic saw the magic
what I said, I wish I had the magic solve
the magic pill. So this makes me think about a
woman who I'm obsessed with, Tressie McMillan.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
What's her last name?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
You know, I'm talking about the New York Times writer,
the scholar, the she's incredible. Anyway, she's a black woman,
she's a black scholar. She's a sociologist I think out
of U n C. She's a New York Times opinion columnist,
and she she's just brilliant and she just has her
finger on the puls of things. But anyway, I follow her.
(30:38):
I obsess over here because her work is her words.
Right now, Yes, immediately, everybody run to Tresci immediately.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Whatever her last name is, we're gonna find out.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yes, it's Jesse McMillan co cottomns.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I think that's right. So anyway, Tressie. I caught her
on a recent Instagram live or something that she was
just kind of talking. She doesn't do these often, and
she was kind of being transparent about the state of
several things in our world right now and in kind
(31:11):
of landing on.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
The personal impact and how she's coping.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
And one of the things that she said towards the
end of that talk was that, you know, like part
of what we can do right now, all I can
do right now is are the things I'm paraphrasing here
obviously that like hold me together, Like I just like
what will sort of soothe and hold me because when
(31:36):
the inevitable shit hits the fan, I'm gonna need me.
And so I really held onto those world words around
like the urgency to stop, to lick our wounds, to
(31:58):
be in the nothing new and the scariness and the
you know, and just to be give ourselves space to
hold ourselves sometimes because if we're caught up in the
constant doing with it, but there's this frenetic sort of
frantic energy that's, you know, that we're trying to run
off of. At some point those fumes, those that fuel
runs out and it turns to fumes and there will
(32:19):
be nothing left. I think, especially as I think of
myself as a mom and at this age. I'm forty
two now, I don't. I don't recharge like I did
live ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and I can't. I
can't push my nervous system because there will be a cost.
And when it is time to push or to act,
(32:43):
like when there's a true call to do what needs
to be done, I'm going to need myself. And so
I think we have I think we've been conditioned and
trained to.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Override our physical experience.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's our emotional experiences, the like spiritual experience that we're
having of ourselves day to day to suppress it, to
move past it in order to succeed in or survive.
And it's a hard habit to break. But I think
moments like this it becomes even more critical to to
(33:24):
try to try to release it and let it go
because at the end of the day, you're going to
need yourself and what have you done today to preserve
yourself so that she's there?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
You know, it's tough sometimes. I know with the women
that I coach, I sometimes feel challenged by like challenged,
like sometimes they don't want to be hearing that, Like
sometimes it's like but what do I do? No, No,
I need to know what to do, what to you know,
(33:57):
and and you know, for me, it's more like you know,
mid career to senior level, and like in terms of
the clients that I work with, and especially if they're
on a job search and a job hunt at a
time like this, it's like, but if I just do this,
or if I send this email, or if I get
this certification, and I'm like, if I'm looking outside the
(34:20):
window and it's like a category five hurricane, it's like
an umbrella and gonna cut it, you know, like it's
like seek shelter for a bit. It's difficult sometimes to
be the messenger of there's not much that we can
control in this moment other than like trying to self
soothe and like take care of us. Has that been
(34:41):
like have you how are your how have your clients
like responded to that to that?
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Oh, absolutely the same. I think that sentiment is always echoed.
It's like a constant conversation and.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
They're aware of it. You know.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
It's a big part of I think the work over
time is building that self awareness that like, Okay, I
know that I'm attaching myself to doing right now. It's
just because it's not very satisfying if you have always
known this past version of yourself to be super action
oriented and doing and crushing and you know, just busting
down walls, and this version of yourself right now is like,
(35:15):
she's not up for it. And that's the thing, is like,
we'll continue to sit and argue with ourselves and expend
unnecessary energy trying to get ourselves to a place that
we're just not there, and the sooner that we can
actually embrace the truth of what is happening right now,
which is like, girl, you don't have it. And until
(35:37):
you do, every idea you have for the networking and
you know, putting yourself in whatever rooms and showing up
for you know, the interviews or securing interview in the
first place, it's going to be subpar. You're not going
to show up with the energy that is required to
actually close the deal. You're not going to have the
kind of creative networking ideas that might actually you know,
(35:59):
help you navigate a world where it feels like everybody
is you know, vying for the same you know, shrinking
opportunities and things like that. It's like you're not bringing
your a game. So at some point you have to
realize like rest maybe just has to come first to
get in touch with who needs to be leading this
charge because you're not in any shape for it, you know,
(36:22):
but the resistance is always going to be there.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
It's not satisfying to hear that it never is.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And it takes time to feel the results of not
doing anything like it to do it in a healthy way.
I will say, it's almost it's like for me, I've
seen it's also it also can be damaging if you're
if you're trying to do the do less approach, but
you're you're beating yourself up for it instead of just
doing it, do it, but like do it in a
(36:47):
way where you're like you're doing it and you like it,
like you are supporting yourself through it. That's tricky, and
I think that's like when you talk about people out
there doing the silent struggle. I think that is what
it can feel like. It's like, you know, not much
is happening, not much is going on, and I think
this is the right you know this, but instead of
(37:08):
like leaning into it, embracing it again, it's like that,
but this can't be right, Like, but other people are
doing something else and this feels lazy, feels unproductive, and.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I think that's partially why. It's also there's such an
imperative around doing things together, like in community, because that
when you feel like you're the odd woman out and
you're the only one who is like I'm I'm I'm
falling behind. You know, look at everybody else, even though
you have no idea what's really going on behind the
scenes of everybody else, but it appears that way on
(37:44):
the surface. It's hard to give yourself full permission to
just know, I'm really going to slow down, I'm really
going to embrace this. No, we're all doing this. There's
a collective you sort of understanding and an intimate understanding,
not something that I'm like observing from a far. And
that's speaking of like group programs and things like that.
(38:05):
Group coaching as one of the options for how we
can support ourselves. That's part of like shifting your environment
helps to shift the permission you give yourself to become different.
It's hard to do it when you feel alone in it.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Group coaching was completely new to me until, like I
think a couple of years ago, we had doctor Joy
from Therapy for Black Girls on and she mentioned it,
and I was like, what do you mean. I had
only really ever heard of it in the context of
alcoholics anonymous or you know, like one of these supporting
support groups for addictions, and it's it is so Yeah,
(38:40):
I've done like obviously group coaching, but then like group therapy,
you know, on a specific I've done. I've done like
dialectical behavioral therapy group and it is so good. It's
so it's very helpful on those days when I am
feeling like you know that that's the seas of like
anxiety or whatever it can be. It's like, let me
go to my DBT journal, let me go to my
(39:00):
little my little worksheet over here and work through some stuff.
It is I can't recommend it enough. Is the majority
of what well you know you said you do group
an individual in the groups? Like what are the benefits
for the women in your group? Coaching? Like what do
you think it is that makes those sessions? And like
(39:22):
for anyone who's listening and who may want to find
a you know, professional development like coaching group, what what
can be what are some of the benefits they may
they make glean from that?
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Yeah, So will I will speak on behalf of my group,
because everybody runs coaching for their groups differently. And I
also think that group size matters because just in interpersonal
dynamics like group size shifts like meaningfully the dynamic above
certain numbers in terms of, you know, achieving things like
intimacy and real connection.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
But I'd say number one, it's for a curated small group.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
The people in the room have a lot of wisdom
to offer you, so it's not just you know maybe,
And I think this is wonderful for anybody who's leading
or coaching a group like this as well, is just
recognizing that you don't need to be the magic for everyone.
The group develops its own sort of collective magic together.
And so it's really wonderful when I'm in session with
(40:25):
my group. And for instance, there was a woman who
is being courted potentially by somebody in the financial services industry,
and she has no experience in that industry. Another woman
in the group does and has been there for decades,
and she was like, oh, well you might want to
ask this question.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Think about that.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
So, like little strategic things like that, just the expertise
that's in the room is a huge advantage of group
coaching in and of itself. But I think the more
intangible aspect of being in a group as you are
endeavoring to change, as you are endeavoring to grow and
expand and sort of transform things for yourself is being
(41:01):
witnessed is a really powerful thing when we are I think,
especially as like oftentimes hyper independent, high achieving, you know,
women of color, or just women in general, trying to
bootstrap everything. It's not I think we miss out on
a lot of the satisfaction and the joy that can
(41:23):
actually come in the process of working towards our goals.
And and a lot of that gets added back when
you're with a group who is cheerleading you on, crying
with you. When you're crying, you get to witness somebody
else is falling apart just like you. So now you're
not abnormal and falling behind. It's you know, recognize that,
(41:43):
like you get to recognize more of your humanity in
the process of, yeah, working towards your goals. And I
think that there's almost like there's it's priceless.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
There's no price you can put on that. It's it's
it's an incredible benefit.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Hey ba fam, we gotta take a quick break. Pay
some bills. And we'll be right back. It's important to
like establish I think, you know, I started the Mandy
money Makers in twenty twenty two, and it took a while.
I felt like for the women to like just to
get to know each other and to start to build
that trust in that bond. And it felt for me
(42:21):
like I was like, the less I'm talking sometimes I'm like,
this is the magic. Yeah, we need everyone to just
just not too much.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
I love hunting.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
I don't know if you hold your calls on zoom,
but zoom has like a zoom will tell you how
much you're talking compared to other people.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Oh, I have seen that. I'm not really paid attention
to that, but I've seen that all though.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Sometimes I'll be like, oh, she's talking too much. She'd
doing too much. Then, you know, especially in a year
like this, it hasn't been like you know, when I
started the Makers, that was twenty twenty one. You know,
it was a great resignation. There were it was a
it was a lot less friction in the job market,
there were more opportunities. You know, we learned a year
later that that was some of that was a lot
(43:03):
of artificial job growth that they had to then cut.
But this year, I mean I really feel like it
hasn't like creating a sense of like tolerance for the
as Michelle Obama like, I love when she talks about
just like the nothingness of just like a normal day,
Like there's there's not these high highs, you know, not
(43:24):
everyone's getting a promotion or you know, a big career change.
It's like being comfortable with just like the normal, you know,
just like this level and not like judging it or
or like.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Making me wrong doing what it's like making it wrong? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, it's like like writing the I think you talked
about in yoga, how they ask you to like notice
your pain. I also like I appreciate that my therapist
and I was just like, I want to notice how
you're feeling right now, and I have, And as much
as I get annoyed by that in my own coaching,
I'm like, so we're feeling like frustrated by the lack
(44:08):
of like big you know, changes or opportunities, and like,
let's notice that. Why do we feel like so, why
is it so uncomfortable? I know why it's uncomfortable for
me to have a silence and a conversation that's just anxiety,
but like, you know, I think it's similar in like
our career. Why are we uncomfortable with the nothing big
(44:30):
kind of going on, just chilling, just making do you know?
It can be quite uncomfortable sometimes.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, because it's like a questionable what does this mean
about me? You know, and and my worth and my
value if I'm used to like the signal has always
been I know I am okay. I know that I am.
I am good at my clients. I tend to attract
a lot of good girls, Like that's you know, that's
definitely my profile, and like I know that I'm being
like I'm good, you know, if these these things are happening,
(45:03):
these I feel like I am climbing the ladder. There's movement,
I'm keep getting rewards and and the you know, the accolades.
So when that stops, it's like I'm not good anymore.
Like it becomes like an identity crisis a little bit,
I think for us. But it's true, it's like, no,
that's not really necessarily what this means. It's kind of
(45:27):
like this might just be the season that we need
to be in, you know, it might be.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I can't feel that more in therapy yesterday. Literally it
was like, but that's external validation. Don't need that. It's
so nice though, but it is. I was talking to
my husband about it. My husband's like, well, okay, he's
listening to the external about and I'm like, yeah, I
need to really like stop. I've been like I've been
falling back into an old habit of really like craving
(45:55):
it because when your self esteem is like at a
low or at a low point, or like you have
these ebbs flows and then you're like, oh, I could
just use a great email, like or like real, just
a little something, just something to take the edge of.
And he's like he's like, oh so, And he was like, okay,
(46:17):
so should I like compliment you more? And I'm like
that's not the same. It's not the same, and like
you can comp like you always have to compliment me
like at a base. It's not really getting at it.
I have no answers for that. It's just like but
noticing it, noticing I was in a very vulnerable kind
(46:41):
of space. It's like, you know, like things are just
hitting me a bit differently these days. It's tough. Thank
God for the kids though, thank God for them babies.
They get off that when my five yearl gets off
the bus, and it's like okay, everything else can disappear,
and you sort of have this other outlet, this other
(47:03):
and there's not like an achievement ladder at least yet.
I don't. I gotta hope I don't toxify it, but
like I don't have it. I don't feel an achievement
leader when it comes to being a parent. Yeah, it
feels more like it really is like tending a little bit,
like a like a method of like tending a garden
or something. I don't feel that same amount of pressure,
(47:24):
and it's become this like very I did not dream
of being a mom. I really was like ambivalent about it.
But I think the biggest surprise for me was how
much like peace it has brought me, even though it's hard. Yeah,
you know, but there's just like a every day there's
(47:45):
like a thing, there's a routine to it. There's the
there's getting to watch him learn and read books and
play with his brother, and like the arguments to tend
to and the there's a I don't know, it just
starts to feel like that's real.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's just it's real. It's
like it's real, it's organic. You can like you can
see that.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
This is like.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
There's no pretense, there's no additional narrative here. It's like,
you know, it's like, oh, we're cleaning up your pooh
now cool. Like I'm just I'm very present.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
We're here for real things.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
When does when do I no longer have to white?
But it's like around what age?
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Girl, I'm I'm not even gonna go there with you, because,
you know, do you like to surprise you?
Speaker 1 (48:38):
No? Wait, how many kids do you have?
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I have two? I have an eight year old and
a three year old.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oh okay, I have almost six and a two year old.
Oh man, and you're in California.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Mm hmm, yeah, I'm outside of LA.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
But you were from New York.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
No, I'm actually from the Midwest, from a small town
in southern Illinois. So from there, from where I grew up,
I went to school in Atlanta, and then I immediately
went from Atlanta to New York. I was in New
York for about ten years before coming to California. I
started in the Bay the startup and then came down
here after the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Went a hole around the whole country, just popping around
a little bit. Do you feel rooted in California now?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Like, family wise, Oh, I do.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
I wish that my I wish that my extended family
were closer by. Like I would love for my parents
to be here. I always wanted the like grandparents up
the street kind of thing. But they come for like
long visits. My husband's mom also comes for like long
stays and so they get like good quality time that
(49:45):
kind of a thing. But we are kind of like
out here, you know, we're in so but but grounded
in California. I don't know, addicted to California.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I just feel like at this point, I'm California now
and I've totally been absorbed into the culture on.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Such an East Coaster. I'm like, oh man, but Atlanta
has been calling to me. I think I'm heading back
okay from Atlanta, Oh okay, And I'm from and I
live in New York now. I live in the Westchester
outside of the city. And yeah, I'm craving that my sister,
my mom. I've just been doing it alone, I mean,
kind of isolated out here and I've I've I've made
(50:26):
my village and I have my you know, mom, friends
and stuff. But I'm just kind of hit the place
where I'm good. I want to like see how it
feels to have Auntie down the street of mom and
all that. You know, one thing I will admit I
was never great at like hiring that village, like hiring
the nannies and the supports and stuff. Okay, I never
really got that. You know, I don't know if I
(50:48):
if I would do so much differently now, But like,
do you have any like any strategies or any like,
you know, systems that you've put in place as a
working mom that have helped, you know, keep things going,
keeping that train running smoothly.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Girl? So absolutely.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Home cleaning, Like we have somebody who comes every couple
of weeks or so and cleans the house.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
That is that brings me so much peace and joy
and she's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Oh okay, okay, yeah, there's nothing like that.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
And every time you've a bad I have a bad experience,
it's like then it's another six months before I'll try
another one. You burned, yes, And it's always that someone
raved about and I'm.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
Like, and then didn't it? Okay, Yeah, I get that
I've been lucky with cleaners. I don't know, we've gotten
good referrals and it's actually come through. But but beyond that,
I've just learned to resource myself. If if mommy is good,
we're good. You know, so I we haven't. We did
(51:53):
a nanny share when my my daughter was little, when
I went back to work, and that was wonderful. It
was like in a little house up the street, there
was like us in another family. I think it was
just us another family, maybe two families. And that was
great until she went to a proper like preschool, little
(52:15):
Montessori school.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
He center too.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
But outside of that, it's like, do I have a missuse,
Do I have some like like to get my nails
and I have my nail tech? Do I have like
my my black woman dermatologists. Do I have like the
people who are keeping me together? That is, that is
where I invest the most, and then within my business,
I don't currently have my sister and I love her.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
I loved her so much.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
But it just wasn't working out for us long term
because of just like logistically, she wasn't able to leave.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
She has like still up really a full.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
Time position and we were trying to make it work whole,
still holding out hope, but I think you need a
lieutenant in your life, an operational lieutenant in your business.
You got to have that second in command. And that
is like my goal to get that back. And then
I think one of a lot of theomen that I've
worked with have some sort of like house admin, somebody
who sort of flexes between nanny and au pair house
(53:15):
admin that's just kind of like maybe they do a
little meal prep, maybe they organize things for you know,
around the house, or I don't know. I've never had
this person, but again, I've had like long, very hands
on grandparents stays. So I think that's why I've never
really needed to because I've had that supplemented heavily through family,
(53:38):
like live in family for months and months and months
at a time.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
It's just someone to come and set up the house
like like like an OPS manager for your business, but
like for your house, like here's how it's going to run. Yeah,
I'm just excited we finally got one of those letter organizers. Kind.
One thing about having an elementary school student is the amount.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Of papers child.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Are they single handedly keeping the paper industry alive?
Speaker 3 (54:03):
My god, I mean, I'm like, I don't remember this
many work sheets. This, I'm like, why there's so much paper?
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Don't they have an iPad to work? You want to
do tablets? But yeah, so I got like a ten
slot like giant, ugly thing and it's just like this
is great.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
Then I did hire a home organizer and she came
in and kind of changed my life.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
She helped me realize the systems that were lacking in
just the psychological drain of walking into different spaces and
not knowing with labels exactly where things should be.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
And I was like, this, this has this has shifted
my nervous system. I thought things were organized, they were not.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Want I need?
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah something highly recommend.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Okay home ogen organizer. Oh the idea of like a
house manager that just sounds so like Hollywood celebrity and
a normal person for that, I don't.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
Know, you know what, I have not done it myself,
but my the client that I know who just hired
one recently. You know she does well for herself, but
not like bajillions of dollars. Well, I don't, I don't know,
so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
I should ask. I'll ask. I'll find out.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Yeah, maybe, like, yeah, I guess I dreamed of on
the South, so it might be you know, yeah, that'll
be different. I gotta get the egg. Yeah, getting out
of New York is great. It's going to be great financially.
I like double my income just by leaving. Well, Monique,
it's been such a pleasure. I'm really glad that we
bumped into each other again. I can't express enough how
(55:41):
weird the circumstances were at a Miami Vice costume outfit
competition fashion show at color com. It's really great to
cross paths and thank you so much for the work
that you're doing for us and for your clients. Where
can be a fan find you and find out how
to work with you and all that, all the great
things you offer.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, well, I'm always chit chatting over on Instagram. My
handle is Monique R. Shields.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
Everywhere, I'm basically Monique Oarshields Moniquarshields dot Com. I'm on
money Garshields on LinkedIn, but Instagram is the easiest way
to kind of connect and see what I'm up to.
And then obviously there's my podcast Ambition Without Compromise.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Which episodes come out every other week.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
So oh, we love our podcasts. All right, ambition without compromise,
get your round ambition, get your ambition without compromise.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Get all the ambition, get it all unapologically.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Thank you so much, Monique our shields for joining us.
All right, ba fam, you know what to do. Go
follow her everywhere, download the podcast, make sure you follow,
leave a review, and we hope to see you again.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Hey, ba fam. Let's
be real for a second, and y'all know I keep
(56:53):
it a buck. The job market has been brutal, no,
not brutal, trash, especially for women of color. Three hundred
thousand of us have disappeared from the workforce this year alone,
and not by choice, but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs,
and stagnant wages that keep cutting us out of opportunity.
Our unemployment rate has jumped to over seven percent, while
(57:16):
our pay gap continues to widen. I know all of
that sounds dire, but here's what I want y'all to know.
You do not have to wait for the system to
save you. That's exactly why I created the Mandy money
Makers Group coaching community. It is a coaching community that
is built for us by us inside the community, We're
not just talking about how to negotiate or to how
(57:37):
to get the job that you want. It's about finding
purpose in your career. It's about finding communities and others,
feeling seen, feeling heard, and also having a sounding board
and a mirror to reflect your own magic, your own
sparkle right back to yourself. In this community, you'll get
group coaching led by me, but you also get peer
(57:59):
to peer account of with proven tools and resources that
can help you do what we have always done since rise.
Even when the odds are stacked against us, despite all
the challenges, we will rise. If you're interested in joining
the Mandy money Makers community and having that support to
bolster you and help you tap back into your magic
(58:21):
so that you can lead your career with intention and
heart and your own intuition, trusting that again, please join us.
You can find information in the show notes of today's episodes,
or go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy
m ndimney dot com slash community. I would love to
(58:42):
see y'all there. Enrollment is open, so please go check
out mandymoney dot com slash community today
Hey, ba fam, let's be real for a second, and
y'all know I keep it a book. The job market
has been brutal, now not brutal trash, especially for women
of color. Over three hundred thousand of us have disappeared
from the workforce this year alone, and not by choice,
but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs, and stagnant wages
(00:20):
that keep cutting us out of opportunity. Our unemployment rate
has jumped to over seven percent, while our pay gap
continues to widen. I know all of that sounds dire,
but here's what I want y'all to know. You do
not have to wait for the system to save you.
That's exactly why I created the Mandy money Makers Group
coaching community. It is a coaching community that is built
(00:41):
for us by us. Inside the community, we're not just
talking about how to negotiate or to how to get
the job that you want. It's about finding purpose in
your career. It's about finding communities and others, feeling seen,
feeling heard, and also having a sounding board and a
mirror to reflect your own magic, your own sparkle right
(01:03):
back to yourself. In this community, you'll get group coaching
led by me, but you also get peer to peer
accountability with proven tools and resources that can help you
do what we have always done sin rise even when
the odds are stacked against us, despite all the challenges,
we will rise. If you're interested in joining the Mandy
(01:24):
money Makers community and having that support to bolster you
and help you tap back into your magic so that
you can lead your career with intention and heart and
your own intuition, trusting that again, please join us. You
can find information in the show notes of today's episodes
or go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy
(01:47):
m A n d I money dot com slash community.
I would love to see y'all there. Enrollment is open,
so please go check out mandymoney dot com slash community today. Hey,
hey va fan, welcome back to the show and welcome
(02:07):
to Washday WUSA. I am really excited to sit down
with today's guest. She is an incredible executive coach and
has been doing it for over a decade now. I
had the chance to just bump into her at a
recent conference that I was doing, and it was one
of those like serendipitous moments where it's like, oh, you
do this great work. I knew this great work, like
(02:28):
let's connect, and then it actually it didn't like make
it out of the group chat, but it made it
out of the you know, very short chat waiting in
line to do a fashion show in the middle of
a conference in Miami. You know, we made it happen.
My guest today is Monique Shields. She's an executive coach
and host of the Ambition Without Compromise podcast, and her
(02:52):
mission is very simple and also powerful. It's to liberate
the professional imaginations of women of color, CEOs and leaders.
You're in exactly the right place, liberate me me. He
brings over a decade of experience in coactive coaching, motivational interviewing,
leadership development. She's guided both emerging and established leaders through
(03:16):
some of their most transformative transitions. She hails from Stanford
Graduate School, where she ran or served as a facilitator
for the Women in Management program, and has a bunch
of other accolades and as you say, logos that we
can talk about, but that's not the important part. Monique.
It is just brilliant and amazing and I think if
(03:39):
I could sum it up, I would say she's your
favorite coach's favorite coach, and she's here today. I'm Brown Ambition.
I'm so honored.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you for having me. That was such a sweet
and energizing introduction. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I like to write my own scripts and then go
off of them immediately. I love that it creates like
a little risk, little sweaty. Is that kind of give
it a little squa? Yeah, real, start by by by
sharing a little bit about your own career story and
how what happened in your own transition a decade ago
to launch you on this path as a leadership coach.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
So I started out my career as a lost English major.
I went to Spelman College. I loved my time there,
and when I left, I wasn't sure what I really
wanted to do with myself, and so I took jobs.
I worked in finance in the back office at a
different couple different firms, doing like operational things, administrative things,
(04:37):
even helping with like legal in compliance things, just kind
of like a Swiss army knife in the back office,
doing all kinds of stuff. You lost English major, yes, ma'am,
Yes ma'am. But stillman was calling for me to pay
those student loans. So I had to to make sure
I figured something out. But during that time, again, I
was just I was working in learning, but it wasn't
anything that I was passionate about. Just really trying to
stabilize myself. I started exploring coaching. Was like longer story
(05:00):
that I'm not going to totally get into here, but
because I know there's a lot we want to talk
about today.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
But I started considering coaching.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
And when my husband and I moved from New York
to California to sort of reinvent life, to escape winters
and to just yeah, build our family, move at a
different pace, it was my opportunity to finally like truly
explore that. And so I started working at a mental
health startup that needed someone to lead a coaching team
(05:28):
to help coach clients through the mental health programs that
they had built. So that was fantastic experience and it
gave me my first taste of anything that felt entrepreneurial.
Prior to that, I was like, I cannot be an entrepreneur.
I'm not the entrepreneurial type. I need structure all the
things right, And it just showed me that, hey, these people,
while they were very, very smart, I had a great
(05:49):
startup experience with very smart leaders. They are making stuff
up every day. We're just we're guessing, we're trying things,
and you just keep getting up and trying again. And
so I was like, oh that this is demystified for me.
Now I can do that. And so yeah, yeah, when
you get that behind the scenes peak, it's like, oh,
(06:12):
there's the whiz, Like, I get what's going on here.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I can do this.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah, we're just all regular humans figuring the things out.
So I have my daughter, which then prompted me to
go ahead and make the lead because I wanted to
own all of my time. And I said, Okay, I
love this coaching work that I'm doing with in this
this business, but I want to own my time. And
the kind of coaching that I'm doing at was like
(06:37):
just coaching against different sort of mental health diagnoses was
wonderful and I'm so glad I have that in my background.
But I wanted to work I think more broadly with
women of color on you know, how they're leading and
living in their lives. So that's how it happened.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So what were the like, what were the types of
clients you started to work with at that startup. Are
we talking just like general population, you know, anyone who's
using this app? So you weren't able to like really
niche down.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No, I couldn't. I had we had no choice.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And I was coaching clients for the directly myself for
the first couple of years, but then I was building
a coaching team with the CEO, and so I was coaching.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Coaches to Ko Dark Alliance.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But it was you know, we I think we had
like a half a million users at one point, and
these are people all over the place who are who
were working through social anxiety, generalized anxiety, depression, those kinds
of things.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It was a CBT program.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh okay, yeah, I mean that sounds I'm like, I'll
sign up for that right now. I do all the
I'm kind of a I've given up sort of the
idea of any one type of therapy. I'm just like,
give me the smorgas ward. Let me try a little
something something, a BT, little CBT, little group coaching, a
little meditation, like it all is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That was one of a great approach.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, A similar to what you were saying about being
just demystified about you know what it takes to be
an entrepreneur and a startup and all that, Like when
it came to when it comes to the mental health journey,
for me, I've just realized that it's okay to try
it all. You don't need to necessarily have there's not
one there. We kind of get stuck on that individual therapy,
(08:23):
you know, which is fine because like obviously for so
long it was stigmatized, right, so like let's talk about
therapy in general before we get to like other flavors
of it, but taste the rainbow. It's kind of I agree,
it's kind of nice for that, all right. So you
are your coaching coaches and mental health. You also have
your daughter. I mean, career wise, up until that point,
(08:44):
were you sort of like I don't know. For me,
when I worked with a startup, I had been in
a traditional kind of corporate space, established big company prior
to that, and it was my way of like testing
something different and like getting to grow something. Did you
have your own story similar to that, Like were you
in like working for a big corporation before you switched
into the startup space.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So yeah, my very first job was at Simon and
Schuster Publishing, So that was a you know, Viacom company,
very big, you lost English.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Major, you ended up at one of the biggest publishers
I know.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And it was but I was lost in the sense
that I didn't I didn't want to build a career
in publishing, yet I was there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
But it was it was a great.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And graduate version of being lost, the champagne of being lost. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well, you know, you know how it's.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Not as glamorous as all that publishing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, okay, exactly, there's that, but you know, things feel
messier when you're in your own life than they sound
in retrospect right or from the outside. So yeah, I
started out that large Vicom kind of space. And it's
interesting when again speaking of retrospect, when I look back,
I'm like, okay, big, huge, you know sort of company.
(10:00):
Then the next companies I went to were like mid
size firms. I did work at a really small asset
management from at one point too, but they're working with
billions of dollars, So it does even though there might
be a smaller population of employees, it still feels, you know,
big enough. There's it's very very well resourced, which is
unlike a startup.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And then I did.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I kept sort of sizing down because one of the
things I did start to realize about myself is that
I liked the feeling of agility and nimbleness and like things,
not feeling like I have to ask sixteen people to
you know, request a packet of like pens for my desk,
Like I just I liked an environment that didn't feel
(10:41):
so constraining. So I think that was sort of happening
subconsciously as I moved along.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, had you planned on being a mom forever?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Was that always a goal of yours?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, I've always known I wanted to have kids always. Yeah,
I think I never really dreamed like, oh my wedding
day and the wedding dress. I mean, I wanted to
be partnered to raise kids and all that ideally for myself,
but I dreamed of kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, when you said you had your daughter and leading
up to that, were you still at the startup and
did you think this is not going to be conducive
to like the kind of life I want to have
as a mom and then you sort of sort of shifted.
How did that all come to be and how did
motherhood kind of play a role in that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, so I remember returning. It was interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Actually, So I've been talking about the one role that
I had there, which was I was a coach and
then director of coaching and all over time. But my
final role there actually happened when I came back from
maternity leave. I came back from maternity leave and startups
doing what they do, they changed. We started shifting from
selling direct to consumer only to enterprise, and because of that,
(11:53):
they needed somebody to help manage those enterprise relationships.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So a director of partnerships.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So that became my new time and it was just
my boss, who then also went on maternally.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
She's like, yeah, girl, you got.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It, and it was a right start a live.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I was like, yeah, girl, I've got a pandemic postpan.
What year was this?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
This was all pre pandemic.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
This was twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen in there, twenty yeah,
and uh yeah, And so I am that's.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
A whole different ballgame though, Yeah, absolutely obvious.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, but I will tell you what.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It built my confidence in a whole new way because
I think I felt very confident as a coach, and
I had grown my confidence as a manager of coaches,
but being like the front sort of external facing person
to manage these relationships of these these big, different, big
companies that we were partnering with and going and doing
presentations and having being in sales meetings and like flying
(12:52):
around with the CEO.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Like it was very.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, it was very stretching for me, and I think
that really helped me understand like, oh I can I
can figure this out.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I can figure this out, the entrepreneur thing.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
So it wasn't that things became too demanding necessarily. It
was just that even as accommodating and as wonderful as
they were, I think for a startup, they did a
great job. When I came back, there was like a
little fridge and a little private little room that they
had to build for me so that I could pump
and like have a moment. Yeah, they have little milk
(13:27):
fridge for me, and I built my little routines and
they let me ramp.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Back into my grouage and expensed it.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah. Oh well you could do that too.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
But it's sort of life, so that's nice.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But so it was it was like all the accommodations
and the and like I except these were wonderful people.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I loved working with them.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
But at the end of the day, I was I
just felt like I need to own my time fully.
I don't want to have to be anywhere because I
need to be somewhere on behalf of somebody else's business.
So yeah, that's that's just what happened.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I was like it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Motherhood was a catalyst for me. I'm just like, I
need I need to own it.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, So then what did that look like? I mean,
I'm to be like completely transparent this. I mean when
I had my call with Ricky at ten, one of
my clients and I were literally on the phone at
ten and I'm helping her write the letter. I'll edit
her name out, okay, write the letter to her current
employer because she's she is she's spent full time with
them and wants to again own her time, wants to
(14:30):
own her time and wants to transition to an independent
consultant and then you know, take on other clients and
the work that she does. And it's really I mean,
I really enjoyed this part of it, like kind of
piecing together the like putting together the transition train a
little bit. So let's talk about your transition train. Was
it one day you're like, all right, guys, gotta go
(14:51):
or did you How did you work your way out
of that and into your own practice.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I think that I benefited from the fact that I
came back from eternity leave, which is a like clear
transition in life, and then came into a whole new
role which had completely different rhythms, completely different responsibilities, you know.
And so I was always in constant communication with my
(15:16):
boss about like, Okay, you know, how is this working
for you? How are you feeling? Where can you you know,
what would make things feel even better for you? What
are some of the things that you want to stretch into.
So I was just in constant communication with her about
how things were working. And though I did enjoy, and
I think I enjoyed even in retrospect more than maybe
I even did in the moment, because I realized.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
What it gave me.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I think I I communicated to her that like, I'm
a coach, though I'm being the director of partnerships and
I'm learning to be this person, but I'm a coach
and I want I really wanted to get back into coaching,
So that narrative was very easy to tie, like Okay,
you know, I think I was in that role for
maybe a year year and a half and I was like, y'all,
(16:01):
I think I need to figure out this coaching practice thing,
and it didn't make sense for me to go back
into the coaching team because again, the business has had
sort of re organized itself, and so yeah, it just
made sense. And I think the most important thing for
anybody is if you have the benefit of having a
(16:21):
at least a neutral to positive relationship with your manager,
is that there shouldn't be some surprise conversation that comes
out of nowhere. Sometimes if you just have a crappy manager,
obviously you can't bring them along. But if you can
bring them along a little bit around like where things
are aligning or not, you know, aligning with you over time,
then it's not it shouldn't be a.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Surprise as a manager. It's so much nicer when you
kind of feel brought in and it's not like I've
had both I've had you know, oh, we're going to
do this together and figure out how to transition you
here and get you to where you want to be.
And then I've had the like the we're doing what
you have what? Yeah, but that's a great point, and
(17:03):
I yeah, I've certainly said you know, even when it
comes down to like what's the tone of the message
or the email or the conversation, it's like, well, just
true to the relationship you know that you have. Yeah, okay,
So when you you finally had your last day, was
it like at that point were you already building you know,
what the practice would become and establishing you know, the
(17:26):
LLC and the website and getting clients and all that.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So I had the LLC a year before I ever
used it because I think I had kind of loosely
made the decision, but I didn't know exactly what my
timeline would be. But I was like I needed little
forcing functions and little proof points that like I'm doing this,
I'm building towards something eventually. But I had also although
I had all the experience coaching in the in that
role and I had prior experisions, whow I got why
I got hired and become a coach and co manager
(17:52):
of the coaches.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I never had like a certification.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I had gone into all kinds of different trainings and
we had clinical supervision with psychologists and psychiatrists and all
kinds of stuff. But I was like, I want to
go and get like a certification that's just like a
methodology that I believe in and I can kind of like.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Rest in a.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Little bit, I don't know, like play around in there.
So that was happening concurrently and my startup. Actually they
helped subsidize some of that certification for me as well,
so I was like part of it was me going
out and like, oh, I'm bringing this back internally because
I can bring these skills and we can pass them
on to the coaching team as well.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
What was but.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
The program was called a CTI Coactive Training Institute.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Oh okay god, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I was just looking for because I didn't know what
kind of practice I was going to build and which
means meaning like am I going to be you know,
enterprise like corporate focused or am I going to be
selling directly to people? And what I wanted the optionality.
So I was like, well, what what are companies hiring
for out here? So like the big companies and the
big you know, universities in the area, they were hiring
people from this program. It was like one of two
(19:01):
in this one I liked better. So that's how I
made that choice. So yeah, I was put I was
planting seeds, you know. And I also didn't leave one day.
I helped replace myself, so I was there, you know,
within the person who was replacing me for a few
months before I left, helping to hire this person and
to onboard them. And then I contracted with the startup
(19:22):
for an additional month or two. I forget exactly how
long that was. So they became my first client, you
sort of unofficially, even though I wasn't like providing coaching services.
But it made me feel like, Okay, I have a business.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Well I think that's a wonderful Yeah, I'm kind of
glad we pulled apart, that peeled apart that onion a
little bit, because I think it's a wonderful example of
how a transition can look. It doesn't have to be
it's like people, you know, you've probably seen this. Two
women get like really stuck on, like it'll have to
be so abrupt and like and then it will be
done and I have to be ready. I have to
(19:55):
have everything in this particular order, and then I'm going
to send this letter like I'm leaving, and then like
you know, deal with those ripple effects. But it can
be incremental and thoughtful and maintain relationships and if you
do a great job of that, then yeah, that you
can end up being your first client and ease you
into this new.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Path.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Hey ba fam, we got to take a quick break,
pay some bills and we'll be right back. So you're coaching.
You said you were kind of deciding enterprise or direct
to consumer. I mean, obviously, now you have this platform
that's like very targeted toward women, a woman of color leaders,
and what was it I can imagine, but what was
(20:43):
it about that path that ended up feeling right to
you versus pursuing like the corporate enterprise kind of approach.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
So I have both.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So what you'll see outwardly facing and is for it's
because it's direct to consumer. Folks are listening and if
I'm online, you know, on Instagram or LinkedIn or my
podcast even I'm speaking directly to folks there. But I've
always wanted to have a little bit of a portfolio
in my business, meaning you know, smattering of folks over
(21:12):
here and a smattering over here in different categories of
who I'm serving.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So I do, I do do corporate.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Contracts, and but it's just not as front facing because
those happened with through my private network and relationships.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, all right, I mean we love a diversified income, yes.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
As well, Yes, yes, yes we do, Yes we do.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But yeah that I chose that just so that, you know,
the winds change and I wanted to have some flexibility
in my business just in case. But I try to
be really thoughtful about I don't try to be I am.
I'm really thoughtful about who on either side of that
equation I work with. So it's been wonderful to be
able to work with partners even still today in this
(21:53):
wild climate that we're in. Who are you know, letting
me focus my work on some of the marginalized pop
relations in there within their employee base.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So I still get to like, have you touched that mission? Yeah?
But I do.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I coach men, you know all of that, that what
happens behind the corporate doors is kind of a little
different than what I'm doing out publicly.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, have you had to think? I mean we've heard
the anecdotes from women of color who's or just you know,
consultants or independent contractors who whose work has focused on
underrepresented people and groups and then having to sort of
deal with this post DEI anti woke climate that we're
in and completely rebrand what they're offering to stay afloat.
(22:40):
But it's great to hear. I mean, it seems like
in your case that hasn't necessarily been the case.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Like I wouldn't say it hasn't been the case, but
I've I've been able to work some things out.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Oh, I guess I could put it that way.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Been able to work some things out where I don't
have to truly compromise my mission. So I might be
broadening who I serve, you know, but I don't. I
don't have to completely lose who my like core is.
So that's kind of how I've been able to work
it out.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Okay, And at this point you have gone through that's
the pandemic. Then you started your business around time before
the pandemic twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen. Yeah, for me, it
always feels important to like put the time to do
through because it's so different. We started a business in
twenty fifteen versus twenty twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Yeah, kind
of really well positioned for the moment, right, I mean,
(23:31):
to have established it ahead of this like huge it's
hard to it's hard to put a like qualify how
huge the pandemic was in terms of shifting careers. But
then you know, we go through a few years later
and it seems like another seismic shift is happening with
this like current job market and economy has your How
(23:53):
has it been being a coach in this kind of climate?
Coach to coach, like.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah, do it, girls, it's hard over here.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's been a mixed bag for me. I think as
a coach, I thank.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
God that I do this work because when I leave
my coaching calls, I have hope again. When I leave
the coaching program calls that I'm doing with the group
of women that are supporting right now, my one on
one clients, even the folks I'm working with in corporate
or whatever, because I get to touch like a lot
of really wonderful people, even though I'm not always choosing
them directly, even in my corporate settings. I'm just I
(24:34):
get a spark back, a spark of hope back. So
coach to coach, the coaching parts was keeping me going,
girl Like, if I didn't have this work, I'm not
totally sure how.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I'd be coping.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But Yeah, it's more so personally, Like I think me
as a mother is has been most primarily impacted as
I try to envision a future for my children, as
I as I try to move through my days and
not see like the children the images of children around
the world and in you know, I'm outside of LA
(25:08):
in my own backyard with like ice raids and things
like that, like that, that is where I am most impacted,
I think personally and as a mom.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, that resonates, you know. One of my struggles has
been I mean I've I've had lots of I've been
like fairly, I've been pretty transparent with VAFAM about like
mental health challenges, and for me, what I didn't it,
what I didn't expect was like how kind of debilitating
the anxiety and depression for me became this past like year,
(25:39):
I would say, and it and I agree, like thank
goodness for the structure and like the coaching that I
have and like the when I get to work with.
But I was taking it really personally, like I was
almost feeling like, what is it about me that's making
it so hard to kind of push through these like
business these feelings and these childs unges and it's it's
(26:03):
been it's been real tough, like and I've had these
like existential moments where it's like, is this work the
thing that's making the most impact? And you know, is
it the most important? And what? You know, just like
the things that when you say it out loud, you're like,
come on, what am I gonna do? Everything is in
(26:25):
it's been tough. I don't know, like days like that.
I just the only thing that has been helpful is
like one obviously, therapy to opening my mouth and saying
the things you know that I'm struggling with out loud.
The women that you're working with, you know, and your
(26:46):
clients that you're working with, are they Am I the
only one? Are they also? You know? Are you helping
coach them through things like that too?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I mean I think that you know a lot of
us are just really high functioning and figure out how
to keep showing up and how to keep trying. And
if you don't know somebody intimately, you don't realize how
they're falling apart at the end of each day or
you know, barely pulling themselves out of the bed or whatever,
however it's looking for them, Like I resonate with that
(27:18):
feeling too of like why why is this? You know,
even though I know it's not rational to feel this way,
why is this impacting me?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Like?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Why why am I not able to like I keep
in craving this like fire where it's like I just
want to be like I want to rage against things.
I want to build and create and fight and and
I want to and then I what I really want
to a shrink and hide on under the covers, you
know some days and so.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Also you compare yourself to the version of yourself, well,
at least I do. I will compare myself to the
version of me five years ago who felt that fire.
I'm going to do I'm going to do that to death.
I'm going to fix this by doing and building and creating.
And I have not like and it yeah, it does something.
It's like very disorienting, almost like but aren't I that person?
(28:07):
And isn't that person better than this version? So this
version sucks saying all these really mean things to me
who should be my friend? But like, you know, ugh,
it's uh, I think it's also like and then when
that starts to happen, you you can sort of like
unless you're really, like you said, unless you're really speaking
(28:30):
to other people and like building more intimate relationships, it
really feels like you're out here in the streets, and.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
That isolation just compacts the shame or compounds the shame
that you know.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's like, yeah, but absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
The messy middle. I'm all up in the messy middle
right now.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
In a recent post of years you also talked about
like the achievement ladder and kind of breaking ourt is
that what it's called the my noteseah achievement ladder? And
how for you know, in a way like I would
achieve my way out of any sense of discomfort or
any challenging and and sometimes I can like mentally understand
(29:16):
this is not the time to be driving striving for that.
It's could be time to like reflect and rest and
you know, just stay still for a bit. But it's
so against sort of like like you said, that high
functioning like way of being that propelled me to where
I am today. And then can you talk a little
bit about those feelings of like if I'm not achieving
and accomplishing and doing something to like fix this or
(29:39):
to you know, get somewhere, to get that like external validation.
Then like what's the struggle there? Like why why do
we keep trying to stack those achievements and how do
we how can you help us slow down and like
break that habit?
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So I wish I had the magic saw the magic
what I said, I wish I had the magic solve
the magic pill. So this makes me think about a
woman who I'm obsessed with, Tressie McMillan.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
What's her last name?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
You know, I'm talking about the New York Times writer,
the scholar, the she's incredible. Anyway, she's a black woman,
she's a black scholar. She's a sociologist I think out
of U n C. She's a New York Times opinion columnist,
and she she's just brilliant and she just has her
finger on the puls of things. But anyway, I follow her.
(30:38):
I obsess over here because her work is her words.
Right now, Yes, immediately, everybody run to Tresci immediately.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Whatever her last name is, we're gonna find out.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yes, it's Jesse McMillan co cottomns.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I think that's right. So anyway, Tressie. I caught her
on a recent Instagram live or something that she was
just kind of talking. She doesn't do these often, and
she was kind of being transparent about the state of
several things in our world right now and in kind
(31:11):
of landing on.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
The personal impact and how she's coping.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
And one of the things that she said towards the
end of that talk was that, you know, like part
of what we can do right now, all I can
do right now is are the things I'm paraphrasing here
obviously that like hold me together, Like I just like
what will sort of soothe and hold me because when
(31:36):
the inevitable shit hits the fan, I'm gonna need me.
And so I really held onto those world words around
like the urgency to stop, to lick our wounds, to
(31:58):
be in the nothing new and the scariness and the
you know, and just to be give ourselves space to
hold ourselves sometimes because if we're caught up in the
constant doing with it, but there's this frenetic sort of
frantic energy that's, you know, that we're trying to run
off of. At some point those fumes, those that fuel
runs out and it turns to fumes and there will
(32:19):
be nothing left. I think, especially as I think of
myself as a mom and at this age. I'm forty
two now, I don't. I don't recharge like I did
live ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and I can't. I
can't push my nervous system because there will be a cost.
And when it is time to push or to act,
(32:43):
like when there's a true call to do what needs
to be done, I'm going to need myself. And so
I think we have I think we've been conditioned and
trained to.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Override our physical experience.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's our emotional experiences, the like spiritual experience that we're
having of ourselves day to day to suppress it, to
move past it in order to succeed in or survive.
And it's a hard habit to break. But I think
moments like this it becomes even more critical to to
(33:24):
try to try to release it and let it go
because at the end of the day, you're going to
need yourself and what have you done today to preserve
yourself so that she's there?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
You know, it's tough sometimes. I know with the women
that I coach, I sometimes feel challenged by like challenged,
like sometimes they don't want to be hearing that, Like
sometimes it's like but what do I do? No, No,
I need to know what to do, what to you know,
(33:57):
and and you know, for me, it's more like you know,
mid career to senior level, and like in terms of
the clients that I work with, and especially if they're
on a job search and a job hunt at a
time like this, it's like, but if I just do this,
or if I send this email, or if I get
this certification, and I'm like, if I'm looking outside the
(34:20):
window and it's like a category five hurricane, it's like
an umbrella and gonna cut it, you know, like it's
like seek shelter for a bit. It's difficult sometimes to
be the messenger of there's not much that we can
control in this moment other than like trying to self
soothe and like take care of us. Has that been
(34:41):
like have you how are your how have your clients
like responded to that to that?
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Oh, absolutely the same. I think that sentiment is always echoed.
It's like a constant conversation and.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
They're aware of it. You know.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
It's a big part of I think the work over
time is building that self awareness that like, Okay, I
know that I'm attaching myself to doing right now. It's
just because it's not very satisfying if you have always
known this past version of yourself to be super action
oriented and doing and crushing and you know, just busting
down walls, and this version of yourself right now is like,
(35:15):
she's not up for it. And that's the thing, is like,
we'll continue to sit and argue with ourselves and expend
unnecessary energy trying to get ourselves to a place that
we're just not there, and the sooner that we can
actually embrace the truth of what is happening right now,
which is like, girl, you don't have it. And until
(35:37):
you do, every idea you have for the networking and
you know, putting yourself in whatever rooms and showing up
for you know, the interviews or securing interview in the
first place, it's going to be subpar. You're not going
to show up with the energy that is required to
actually close the deal. You're not going to have the
kind of creative networking ideas that might actually you know,
(35:59):
help you navigate a world where it feels like everybody
is you know, vying for the same you know, shrinking
opportunities and things like that. It's like you're not bringing
your a game. So at some point you have to
realize like rest maybe just has to come first to
get in touch with who needs to be leading this
charge because you're not in any shape for it, you know,
(36:22):
but the resistance is always going to be there.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
It's not satisfying to hear that it never is.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And it takes time to feel the results of not
doing anything like it to do it in a healthy way.
I will say, it's almost it's like for me, I've
seen it's also it also can be damaging if you're
if you're trying to do the do less approach, but
you're you're beating yourself up for it instead of just
doing it, do it, but like do it in a
(36:47):
way where you're like you're doing it and you like it,
like you are supporting yourself through it. That's tricky, and
I think that's like when you talk about people out
there doing the silent struggle. I think that is what
it can feel like. It's like, you know, not much
is happening, not much is going on, and I think
this is the right you know this, but instead of
(37:08):
like leaning into it, embracing it again, it's like that,
but this can't be right, Like, but other people are
doing something else and this feels lazy, feels unproductive, and.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I think that's partially why. It's also there's such an
imperative around doing things together, like in community, because that
when you feel like you're the odd woman out and
you're the only one who is like I'm I'm I'm
falling behind. You know, look at everybody else, even though
you have no idea what's really going on behind the
scenes of everybody else, but it appears that way on
(37:44):
the surface. It's hard to give yourself full permission to
just know, I'm really going to slow down, I'm really
going to embrace this. No, we're all doing this. There's
a collective you sort of understanding and an intimate understanding,
not something that I'm like observing from a far. And
that's speaking of like group programs and things like that.
(38:05):
Group coaching as one of the options for how we
can support ourselves. That's part of like shifting your environment
helps to shift the permission you give yourself to become different.
It's hard to do it when you feel alone in it.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Group coaching was completely new to me until, like I
think a couple of years ago, we had doctor Joy
from Therapy for Black Girls on and she mentioned it,
and I was like, what do you mean. I had
only really ever heard of it in the context of
alcoholics anonymous or you know, like one of these supporting
support groups for addictions, and it's it is so Yeah,
(38:40):
I've done like obviously group coaching, but then like group therapy,
you know, on a specific I've done. I've done like
dialectical behavioral therapy group and it is so good. It's
so it's very helpful on those days when I am
feeling like you know that that's the seas of like
anxiety or whatever it can be. It's like, let me
go to my DBT journal, let me go to my
(39:00):
little my little worksheet over here and work through some stuff.
It is I can't recommend it enough. Is the majority
of what well you know you said you do group
an individual in the groups? Like what are the benefits
for the women in your group? Coaching? Like what do
you think it is that makes those sessions? And like
(39:22):
for anyone who's listening and who may want to find
a you know, professional development like coaching group, what what
can be what are some of the benefits they may
they make glean from that?
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Yeah, So will I will speak on behalf of my group,
because everybody runs coaching for their groups differently. And I
also think that group size matters because just in interpersonal
dynamics like group size shifts like meaningfully the dynamic above
certain numbers in terms of, you know, achieving things like
intimacy and real connection.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
But I'd say number one, it's for a curated small group.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
The people in the room have a lot of wisdom
to offer you, so it's not just you know maybe,
And I think this is wonderful for anybody who's leading
or coaching a group like this as well, is just
recognizing that you don't need to be the magic for everyone.
The group develops its own sort of collective magic together.
And so it's really wonderful when I'm in session with
(40:25):
my group. And for instance, there was a woman who
is being courted potentially by somebody in the financial services industry,
and she has no experience in that industry. Another woman
in the group does and has been there for decades,
and she was like, oh, well you might want to
ask this question.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Think about that.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
So, like little strategic things like that, just the expertise
that's in the room is a huge advantage of group
coaching in and of itself. But I think the more
intangible aspect of being in a group as you are
endeavoring to change, as you are endeavoring to grow and
expand and sort of transform things for yourself is being
(41:01):
witnessed is a really powerful thing when we are I think,
especially as like oftentimes hyper independent, high achieving, you know,
women of color, or just women in general, trying to
bootstrap everything. It's not I think we miss out on
a lot of the satisfaction and the joy that can
(41:23):
actually come in the process of working towards our goals.
And and a lot of that gets added back when
you're with a group who is cheerleading you on, crying
with you. When you're crying, you get to witness somebody
else is falling apart just like you. So now you're
not abnormal and falling behind. It's you know, recognize that,
(41:43):
like you get to recognize more of your humanity in
the process of, yeah, working towards your goals. And I
think that there's almost like there's it's priceless.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
There's no price you can put on that. It's it's
it's an incredible benefit.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Hey ba fam, we gotta take a quick break. Pay
some bills. And we'll be right back. It's important to
like establish I think, you know, I started the Mandy
money Makers in twenty twenty two, and it took a while.
I felt like for the women to like just to
get to know each other and to start to build
that trust in that bond. And it felt for me
(42:21):
like I was like, the less I'm talking sometimes I'm like,
this is the magic. Yeah, we need everyone to just
just not too much.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
I love hunting.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
I don't know if you hold your calls on zoom,
but zoom has like a zoom will tell you how
much you're talking compared to other people.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Oh, I have seen that. I'm not really paid attention
to that, but I've seen that all though.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Sometimes I'll be like, oh, she's talking too much. She'd
doing too much. Then, you know, especially in a year
like this, it hasn't been like you know, when I
started the Makers, that was twenty twenty one. You know,
it was a great resignation. There were it was a
it was a lot less friction in the job market,
there were more opportunities. You know, we learned a year
later that that was some of that was a lot
(43:03):
of artificial job growth that they had to then cut.
But this year, I mean I really feel like it
hasn't like creating a sense of like tolerance for the
as Michelle Obama like, I love when she talks about
just like the nothingness of just like a normal day,
Like there's there's not these high highs, you know, not
(43:24):
everyone's getting a promotion or you know, a big career change.
It's like being comfortable with just like the normal, you know,
just like this level and not like judging it or
or like.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Making me wrong doing what it's like making it wrong? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, it's like like writing the I think you talked
about in yoga, how they ask you to like notice
your pain. I also like I appreciate that my therapist
and I was just like, I want to notice how
you're feeling right now, and I have, And as much
as I get annoyed by that in my own coaching,
I'm like, so we're feeling like frustrated by the lack
(44:08):
of like big you know, changes or opportunities, and like,
let's notice that. Why do we feel like so, why
is it so uncomfortable? I know why it's uncomfortable for
me to have a silence and a conversation that's just anxiety,
but like, you know, I think it's similar in like
our career. Why are we uncomfortable with the nothing big
(44:30):
kind of going on, just chilling, just making do you know?
It can be quite uncomfortable sometimes.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, because it's like a questionable what does this mean
about me? You know, and and my worth and my
value if I'm used to like the signal has always
been I know I am okay. I know that I am.
I am good at my clients. I tend to attract
a lot of good girls, Like that's you know, that's
definitely my profile, and like I know that I'm being
like I'm good, you know, if these these things are happening,
(45:03):
these I feel like I am climbing the ladder. There's movement,
I'm keep getting rewards and and the you know, the accolades.
So when that stops, it's like I'm not good anymore.
Like it becomes like an identity crisis a little bit,
I think for us. But it's true, it's like, no,
that's not really necessarily what this means. It's kind of
(45:27):
like this might just be the season that we need
to be in, you know, it might be.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I can't feel that more in therapy yesterday. Literally it
was like, but that's external validation. Don't need that. It's
so nice though, but it is. I was talking to
my husband about it. My husband's like, well, okay, he's
listening to the external about and I'm like, yeah, I
need to really like stop. I've been like I've been
falling back into an old habit of really like craving
(45:55):
it because when your self esteem is like at a
low or at a low point, or like you have
these ebbs flows and then you're like, oh, I could
just use a great email, like or like real, just
a little something, just something to take the edge of.
And he's like he's like, oh so, And he was like, okay,
(46:17):
so should I like compliment you more? And I'm like
that's not the same. It's not the same, and like
you can comp like you always have to compliment me
like at a base. It's not really getting at it.
I have no answers for that. It's just like but
noticing it, noticing I was in a very vulnerable kind
(46:41):
of space. It's like, you know, like things are just
hitting me a bit differently these days. It's tough. Thank
God for the kids though, thank God for them babies.
They get off that when my five yearl gets off
the bus, and it's like okay, everything else can disappear,
and you sort of have this other outlet, this other
(47:03):
and there's not like an achievement ladder at least yet.
I don't. I gotta hope I don't toxify it, but
like I don't have it. I don't feel an achievement
leader when it comes to being a parent. Yeah, it
feels more like it really is like tending a little bit,
like a like a method of like tending a garden
or something. I don't feel that same amount of pressure,
(47:24):
and it's become this like very I did not dream
of being a mom. I really was like ambivalent about it.
But I think the biggest surprise for me was how
much like peace it has brought me, even though it's hard. Yeah,
you know, but there's just like a every day there's
(47:45):
like a thing, there's a routine to it. There's the
there's getting to watch him learn and read books and
play with his brother, and like the arguments to tend
to and the there's a I don't know, it just
starts to feel like that's real.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's just it's real. It's
like it's real, it's organic. You can like you can
see that.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
This is like.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
There's no pretense, there's no additional narrative here. It's like,
you know, it's like, oh, we're cleaning up your pooh
now cool. Like I'm just I'm very present.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
We're here for real things.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
When does when do I no longer have to white?
But it's like around what age?
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Girl, I'm I'm not even gonna go there with you, because,
you know, do you like to surprise you?
Speaker 1 (48:38):
No? Wait, how many kids do you have?
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I have two? I have an eight year old and
a three year old.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oh okay, I have almost six and a two year old.
Oh man, and you're in California.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Mm hmm, yeah, I'm outside of LA.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
But you were from New York.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
No, I'm actually from the Midwest, from a small town
in southern Illinois. So from there, from where I grew up,
I went to school in Atlanta, and then I immediately
went from Atlanta to New York. I was in New
York for about ten years before coming to California. I
started in the Bay the startup and then came down
here after the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Went a hole around the whole country, just popping around
a little bit. Do you feel rooted in California now?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Like, family wise, Oh, I do.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
I wish that my I wish that my extended family
were closer by. Like I would love for my parents
to be here. I always wanted the like grandparents up
the street kind of thing. But they come for like
long visits. My husband's mom also comes for like long
stays and so they get like good quality time that
(49:45):
kind of a thing. But we are kind of like
out here, you know, we're in so but but grounded
in California. I don't know, addicted to California.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I just feel like at this point, I'm California now
and I've totally been absorbed into the culture on.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Such an East Coaster. I'm like, oh man, but Atlanta
has been calling to me. I think I'm heading back
okay from Atlanta, Oh okay, And I'm from and I
live in New York now. I live in the Westchester
outside of the city. And yeah, I'm craving that my sister,
my mom. I've just been doing it alone, I mean,
kind of isolated out here and I've I've I've made
(50:26):
my village and I have my you know, mom, friends
and stuff. But I'm just kind of hit the place
where I'm good. I want to like see how it
feels to have Auntie down the street of mom and
all that. You know, one thing I will admit I
was never great at like hiring that village, like hiring
the nannies and the supports and stuff. Okay, I never
really got that. You know, I don't know if I
(50:48):
if I would do so much differently now, But like,
do you have any like any strategies or any like,
you know, systems that you've put in place as a
working mom that have helped, you know, keep things going,
keeping that train running smoothly.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Girl? So absolutely.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Home cleaning, Like we have somebody who comes every couple
of weeks or so and cleans the house.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
That is that brings me so much peace and joy
and she's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Oh okay, okay, yeah, there's nothing like that.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
And every time you've a bad I have a bad experience,
it's like then it's another six months before I'll try
another one. You burned, yes, And it's always that someone
raved about and I'm.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
Like, and then didn't it? Okay, Yeah, I get that
I've been lucky with cleaners. I don't know, we've gotten
good referrals and it's actually come through. But but beyond that,
I've just learned to resource myself. If if mommy is good,
we're good. You know, so I we haven't. We did
(51:53):
a nanny share when my my daughter was little, when
I went back to work, and that was wonderful. It
was like in a little house up the street, there
was like us in another family. I think it was
just us another family, maybe two families. And that was
great until she went to a proper like preschool, little
(52:15):
Montessori school.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
He center too.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
But outside of that, it's like, do I have a missuse,
Do I have some like like to get my nails
and I have my nail tech? Do I have like
my my black woman dermatologists. Do I have like the
people who are keeping me together? That is, that is
where I invest the most, and then within my business,
I don't currently have my sister and I love her.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
I loved her so much.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
But it just wasn't working out for us long term
because of just like logistically, she wasn't able to leave.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
She has like still up really a full.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
Time position and we were trying to make it work whole,
still holding out hope, but I think you need a
lieutenant in your life, an operational lieutenant in your business.
You got to have that second in command. And that
is like my goal to get that back. And then
I think one of a lot of theomen that I've
worked with have some sort of like house admin, somebody
who sort of flexes between nanny and au pair house
(53:15):
admin that's just kind of like maybe they do a
little meal prep, maybe they organize things for you know,
around the house, or I don't know. I've never had
this person, but again, I've had like long, very hands
on grandparents stays. So I think that's why I've never
really needed to because I've had that supplemented heavily through family,
(53:38):
like live in family for months and months and months
at a time.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
It's just someone to come and set up the house
like like like an OPS manager for your business, but
like for your house, like here's how it's going to run. Yeah,
I'm just excited we finally got one of those letter organizers. Kind.
One thing about having an elementary school student is the amount.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Of papers child.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Are they single handedly keeping the paper industry alive?
Speaker 3 (54:03):
My god, I mean, I'm like, I don't remember this
many work sheets. This, I'm like, why there's so much paper?
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Don't they have an iPad to work? You want to
do tablets? But yeah, so I got like a ten
slot like giant, ugly thing and it's just like this
is great.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
Then I did hire a home organizer and she came
in and kind of changed my life.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
She helped me realize the systems that were lacking in
just the psychological drain of walking into different spaces and
not knowing with labels exactly where things should be.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
And I was like, this, this has this has shifted
my nervous system. I thought things were organized, they were not.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Want I need?
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah something highly recommend.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Okay home ogen organizer. Oh the idea of like a
house manager that just sounds so like Hollywood celebrity and
a normal person for that, I don't.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
Know, you know what, I have not done it myself,
but my the client that I know who just hired
one recently. You know she does well for herself, but
not like bajillions of dollars. Well, I don't, I don't know,
so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
I should ask. I'll ask. I'll find out.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Yeah, maybe, like, yeah, I guess I dreamed of on
the South, so it might be you know, yeah, that'll
be different. I gotta get the egg. Yeah, getting out
of New York is great. It's going to be great financially.
I like double my income just by leaving. Well, Monique,
it's been such a pleasure. I'm really glad that we
bumped into each other again. I can't express enough how
(55:41):
weird the circumstances were at a Miami Vice costume outfit
competition fashion show at color com. It's really great to
cross paths and thank you so much for the work
that you're doing for us and for your clients. Where
can be a fan find you and find out how
to work with you and all that, all the great
things you offer.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, well, I'm always chit chatting over on Instagram. My
handle is Monique R. Shields.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
Everywhere, I'm basically Monique Oarshields Moniquarshields dot Com. I'm on
money Garshields on LinkedIn, but Instagram is the easiest way
to kind of connect and see what I'm up to.
And then obviously there's my podcast Ambition Without Compromise.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Which episodes come out every other week.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
So oh, we love our podcasts. All right, ambition without compromise,
get your round ambition, get your ambition without compromise.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Get all the ambition, get it all unapologically.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Thank you so much, Monique our shields for joining us.
All right, ba fam, you know what to do. Go
follow her everywhere, download the podcast, make sure you follow,
leave a review, and we hope to see you again.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Hey, ba fam. Let's
be real for a second, and y'all know I keep
(56:53):
it a buck. The job market has been brutal, no,
not brutal, trash, especially for women of color. Three hundred
thousand of us have disappeared from the workforce this year alone,
and not by choice, but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs,
and stagnant wages that keep cutting us out of opportunity.
Our unemployment rate has jumped to over seven percent, while
(57:16):
our pay gap continues to widen. I know all of
that sounds dire, but here's what I want y'all to know.
You do not have to wait for the system to
save you. That's exactly why I created the Mandy money
Makers Group coaching community. It is a coaching community that
is built for us by us inside the community, We're
not just talking about how to negotiate or to how
(57:37):
to get the job that you want. It's about finding
purpose in your career. It's about finding communities and others,
feeling seen, feeling heard, and also having a sounding board
and a mirror to reflect your own magic, your own
sparkle right back to yourself. In this community, you'll get
group coaching led by me, but you also get peer
(57:59):
to peer account of with proven tools and resources that
can help you do what we have always done since rise.
Even when the odds are stacked against us, despite all
the challenges, we will rise. If you're interested in joining
the Mandy money Makers community and having that support to
bolster you and help you tap back into your magic
(58:21):
so that you can lead your career with intention and
heart and your own intuition, trusting that again, please join us.
You can find information in the show notes of today's episodes,
or go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy
m ndimney dot com slash community. I would love to
(58:42):
see y'all there. Enrollment is open, so please go check
out mandymoney dot com slash community today
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