Melissa Houston is a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA) who helps professional women and business owners overcome their financial issues in personal finance and/or business management.  Melissa helps women through practical programs that teach them what they need to know so that they become financially empowered.  Join her at www.melissahoustoncpa.com.

Melissa is well versed in her profession, not only from the point of her career experience but from the point of personal experience. Melissa has a great financial career, but she also shares the experience of not being completely satisfied in her career. Due to the missing piece in her life, she fell into a financial trap that placed her in financial debt. The debt was something that she had to face but the reason behind her debt was the real change that was needed.

Melissa shares the story of how she chose her career, how she fell into the trap of financial debt, and how she made the move to a career change. Melissa is a certified life coach, the host to Think Like a CFO Podcast, and a well-published writer on the topic of money. 

A mom at 14, the loss of love at 19, an illness that seemed fatal, and a journey of healing has resulted in a holistic health practitioner's career. Being a teen mom is hard and dealing with the stigma and judgment is extremely hard. We live in a world that places a high value on judgment, and it can profoundly impact the way we live and how we face the world. The most significant outcome is to release the stigma and judgment. It is possible with the pouring of love and support in knowing that you cannot undo a decision, but accept the decision and choose to improve the decision making.

Chaunice Collins has changed how she made decisions, and she did that by making the decisions to improve her life. She had to grow up amazingly fast. When most of her peers were hanging out, she raised a child and worked to support her child. The experience of being a mom made her strive for more, but she faced some challenging moments of losing the father of her child at the age of 19 and suffering health issues that were not clear to her.

Luckily, she had some great experiences working in the wellness industry and healthcare that enabled her to be open to alternative health practices. Chaunice decided to take responsibility for her health and well-being. She has changed her health and has influenced a healthy lifestyle to her family, friends, and people she cared for. Her healthy change has ultimately led her to shift her life to serving others as a holistic health practitioner. This change was not an overnight decision, but the decision was based on a life of serving, helping, and influencing.

This is how change happens. You have experiences that shape you. For Chaunice it was being a teen mom and wanting more. You then have more experiences, and people enter your life that will influence you. For Chaunice it was wanting to support her daughter, and the work she did for a chiropractor that taught her about alternative healing and her mom that started juicing. You then add more experiences that lead you to real changes in your life. For Chaunice it was the blending of alternative healing and working with patients with many treatments that were not being healed.  These experiences led to her to complete the training and become a holistic health practitioner.

This experience to change journey is not isolated to Chaunice. We all have experiences, influences, and the added experiences that lead us to change our lives. Chaunice took all of her life and blended it to grow, learn, and make decisions to better her life. These were hard decisions, but she refused to live off of the government. That decision alone kept her moving forward.

Chaunice has shared her journey that reminds us not to let your imperfect decisions stop you from becoming the best version of you and from holding you back from moving forward in life. She teaches us how our lives' decisions, experiences, and influences will lead us to follow our passions and go after changes that we want for ourselves. Ultimately, Chaunice has shown us that changing our life is up to us. 

It is hard to imagine the outcome of a failed relationship, the experience of abuse, or even life after a long successful career. We look at relationships as lasting forever. That abuse will leave scars for a lifetime and that retirement is the end of careers. We could not be further from the truth in thinking this way. Emily Harman is a great example of how we need to alter our thinking about the journey of life.

Serving, 38 years to our country as both a Naval Officer and civilian federal employee, Emily retired as a member of the Senior Executive Service in May 2019. Emily’s career started in the Navy shortly after women could serve in the Navy. She played basketball for the Navy and served in many roles before she ended her career as a civilian working with small business contracts. Emily found a new purpose and passion towards the end of her career, which lead to her creating the Onward Movement Coaching and Podcast. After retiring, she was able to build a community that focuses on “Authentic Conversations on Facing Adversity.” Emily is familiar with adversity and shares her story and shares the process of her journey.

Having a career change is a great endeavor but there is more to Emily’s story. Marriages that ended due to abuse and facing herself in the process of healing. The real inspiring result of the abuse is that Emily helped her husband during the last days of his life. We can learn forgiveness and healing from this part of Emily’s life.

Emily does share that self-care is essential when going through the adversities in life. She also encourages self-assessment. When life failures happen, there is a benefit in evaluating yourself to see how you can improve and learn from the experience. Emily did learn about her personality and how she placed others before herself. Emily is still helping people in a healthy process. Emily opens the conversation on adversities in life. However, it is not just about the facing of adversities but talking about them. Emily has created a healing platform, where people can openly talk and discuss the troubles of life and release the fears of judgment.

Her Move Now shares the stories of Women that have built confidence in change. Emily is exactly an example of how in the journey’s we learn and grow. After 38 years in the military to a life in personal development, coaching, and podcasting, she is the purest example of what we as Women are capable of. Emily can be reached on the Onward Movement Facebook Group and www.EmilyHarman.com

Not every childhood experience includes having warm supportive parents with loving homes and the perfect scenarios that lead people to become successful adults. Unfortunately, it is just the opposite for many people. There are many adults living their lifes scared by their childhood experiences and fighting to overcome the lives that they were born into. Elaine Alec had some very traumatic life experiences; sexual abuse by men in her community, witness of abuse, and exposure to alcohol at the age of 10.

Elaine changed the path of her life. She gave up the alcohol and faced the pain in her life. She faced the childhood traumas and made peace with her past. Her process of healing included talking about the experiences and her thoughts. She found that talking through the experiences has helped her work through the vulnerability. Regardless of it all, the journey, the experience, and her feelings; she is a great mom, a professional and a strong woman.

Elaine created a plan and a vision. It did require her to ask for help along her journey. She took the risk and built her confidence in the change. Your past does not have to hold you back. Elaine is a great example of this. She did struggle with alcoholism, but she was able to learn from the people in her life. She had to recreate herself and repair the damages from the years of her drinking. Elaine has also found her worth through holding her values and a reputation built on integrity.

Calling My Spirit Back is Elaine’s first book. She is a partner and owner with Alderhill Planning Inc. and works with Indigenous communities across Canada to promote healing in planning, governance and. Elaine shares much of her work on her YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/elainealec and her website www.elainealec.com and her social media accounts www.instagram.com/elaine_alec_writer_speaker and www.facebook.com/elainemackensiealec

What does your daily routine look like? Do you get up on the morning, hit the snooze button a few times, hoping that first cup of coffee would magically appear next to the bed. Then you muster the energy to get out of bed, decide on the wardrobe of the day, and look at the time to see is it full make up or full hair today? The morning does not stop there, are the kids ready, is lunch packed, and good heavens “where are my keys?”

Now you are off and ready to face the commute to work. If you are lucky there are no accidents and no construction delays, you might just have a chance for that second cup of coffee. Or the first if the magical one never appeared. Lucky you have made it through the morning, but there are hundreds of those following and there were a hundred of those prior.

When do we notice that the routines are not working for us anymore? When do you review your level of happiness with your families, career, and relationships? What if you are not feeling happy with the routines and not feeling joy in the work that you do?

This was my story. I had the complete vision of working for money, pushing myself at all cost and keep going. Then I realized that I was not a happy in my career, for over 15 years I was a Radiation Therapist.   I wanted more and had some goals that needed dusting off and goals that had not existed yet. The problem was that I worked hard for this career, my children sacrificed a lot for me to go to school and work two jobs. Not to mention, there was not another option at the time, or so I thought.

I was ready for change and the first step to make a change is acknowledge it. I had to be ok with wanting more. My co-workers were happy in their roles but why wasn’t I? Once I had a family member ask me, “why can’t you be grateful?” Just because I want more does not mean that I am not grateful. I had to let go of all the outside influence and listen to myself. I had to acknowledge that I wanted to change and to become okay with it.

The second thing, I had to look at my skills and see what I needed to move forward. I knew that I wanted to move my career forward, and this change would not be backward. I could not decrease my annual income. In looking at my skills, I realized I could not speak publicly. In fact, I could bomb public speaking and have dates and times to prove it; college graduation, autism presentation, and the managers meeting which was the ultimate speaking bomb. This was the one skill that kept popping up and I kept ignoring, but after the managers meeting and looking at my skills, I could no longer ignore it. I went to work on it.

Building that one skill alone made the most drastic change for my day to day life, while at a career that I was not feeling happy to be in. I still worked hard and still was very compassionate and caring to my patients. I loved the work that was being done, but I was ready for more. Unfortunately, many of us cannot just quit a job or change careers when we have a family to feed at home. You can start building the skills you need, and you will start to feel a greater sense of accomplishment.

This brings the third step of change, action steps. Again, you may not be able to quit your job right away. Now that would not be very smart if there are mouths at home and utilities to pay. However, you can start working on the skills. The way to build skills is by taking action steps. Steps being the key word. This means small steps to the skills and have each step lead you to the goal. I share my running story to make this visual. I started running and when I say started, I could not run. I went to the track at the local high school and planned a routine. I would walk the length and run the edges. Then it became run the corners and walk the length and eventually I could run a lap, then two laps and it lead to half marathons which is 13.1 miles of running. Yes, I did run the entire 13.1 miles without stopping. My goal was a half marathon but really it started by running the edge of a track. When you look at building skills or making changes, please realize it is the small action steps that are repeated that will lead to the big changes.

The process to change that I utilized, first acknowledge the change. You must accept that you are ready for change and be ok with the personal desire for it. Second, look at your skills or the skills that you are lacking. This will give you an idea of what you need to start working on. Third, you need to act and small action steps lead to big action. In all of this remember that you are not a tree and are not stuck in one spot in life. You can make a change that you want and improve the level of happiness in your life.

Roaring through Life’s Obstacles with Lynne Butler

Threepeats are not always in sports; in fact, threepeats happen when life throws us obstacles. We are living life and “bam” obstacle and then “bam” another obstacle and then “bam” again another obstacle. This series can create a negative mindset and become a challenge to face your daily responsibilities. How do you get through a series of obstacles?

Lynne Butler from Lynne and Company experienced the threepeat series of obstacle. She was going through an unexpected divorce, lost her grandchildren in a tragic accident and lost her dad to cancer. This was the most challenging time of her life, but she had people depending on her. Lynne had a daughter and mother that was depending on her to support them through their pain and she herself was experiencing pain. It was during this time that she found her purpose to help other people.

Lynne had to dig deep and deal with herself, she had to become resilient to find her power and thrive. The reality was that this was Lynne’s third divorce, and she knew that she needed to work on herself. She needed to change her mindset and deal with her issues. In this process, she developed the ROAR method and shares her actionable steps to go from defeat to victory.

In this podcast, Lynne and I discuss that when obstacles hit, give yourself some time to deal with the emotions. You need to acknowledge the feelings and make daily goals that will get you through each day. Some days the goal may be to take a shower or getting dressed, but the point is to have a goal. 

Lynne found that her obstacles had given her the tools to help others. She is a Certified Life Empowerment Coach, a Speaker, and an author. She helps people power through the changes that result from obstacles and sometimes multiple obstacles. She shares her hard story and openly discusses her experience and how she got through.

Lynne Butler can be found on at  https://www.lynneandcompany.org/

Susie Aguilar CEO and Founder of The Unorthodox Business Mom shares her journey of being a new mom and going thrrough a divorce, declaring financial disaster, and being diagnosed with cancer, Susie Aguilar felt like her world was crumbling. Rather than let these challenges tear her down, she used this to fuel her to be a better mother and woman. While the journey was difficult, she was able to leverage personal growth and determination to establish her and her daughter’s future. She is equipped with the knowledge of what it takes to get to the next level. Through her story and guidance, you will feel empowered to take action in your life no matter what hurdles you face. 

Susie has taken her experience to help others through her one on one coaching as certified John Maxwell Coach. She is the host to The Embrace Fear Podcast. Susie shares her tools of creating a positive environment, using positive trigger words and mentoring women. 

https://www.unorthodoxbusinessmom.com/Fromoneononecoaching,hostingtheSheEmbracesFEARpodcast,andfacilitatingexecutiveretreats

Dr. Hossna Sadat obtained her dual bachelor's degree in history of the near east and political science from the University of California, San Diego and a master's degree in education with an emphasis in multicultural counseling and social justice from San Diego State University. She has her doctorate in educational leadership: Concentration in Community College/Postsecondary Education from San Diego State University. Her dissertation title is Unveiling the Phenomenology of Afghan Women in Community College. Her study unveils the voices and lived experiences of Afghan women diaspora, leaving a war-torn country to experiencing community college in the United States. Dr. Sadat is also a post-graduate researcher and continues to research the inequities of communities of color and the intersectionality of women.

She currently works as a Counselor & Assistant Professor at Palomar College. She is also a part-time faculty member at National University, Sanford School of Education where she teaches master's degree level students in counseling.

She has worked in the education sector since 2002 serving in multiple roles within student services and instructional services. She has been teaching since 2009 and has taught counseling, psychology, and sociology. At age 24 she became the youngest dean in the state of California and served as an Interim Associate Dean and Acting Dean for School of Social/Behavioral Sciences and Multicultural Studies at San Diego Mesa College.

Dr. Sadat received the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award at South Thames College in England, where she worked as a lecturer for 5 years. Recently she was awarded the George Boggs Award for Exemplary Research and Practice for her dissertation at San Diego State University. Also, she received the equity champion award for Palomar College at the community college leadership recognition event this year.

Dr. Sadat continues to be a social justice and human rights activist. She continues to research and campaign on topics such as racial equity and empowering women. This year she plans on presenting topics such as racial microaggressions in academia and the importance of understanding critical race theory when scaling racial equity in educational settings. 

Recommended Books and Articles:

Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and

violence against women of color. Crenshaw, K. W. (1991).

Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. Crenshaw, K. W., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Critical Race Theory. Delgado, R., Stefancic

Women of color and feminism Seal Studies. Rojas, M.

Microaggressions: More than just race. Psychology Today. Sue, D. W.

Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal,K. L., & Esquilin, M.

www.hermovenow.com

https://www.hrw.org/topic/womens-rights