Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
How A Near-Death Wake-Up Call Turned Hustle Into Harmony with Shelley Meche'tte
What if the badge of hustle is actually the burden blocking your purpose? We sit down with speaker, strategist, and best-selling author Shelley Meche'tte for a powerful update on her journey—surviving three strokes in one day, finding her voice again, and letting grace, not grind, set the pace. Shelley’s story doesn’t glamorize near-death. It reorders what matters: identity over titles, alignment over applause, and stewardship over striving.
We unpack how purpose can stay the same at its core while the assignment changes, sometimes overnight. Shelley shares how she moved from a profitable but misaligned path to serving faith-driven women entrepreneurs with simple, grounded strategies that prevent burnout. Her framework of “solids and flexibles” is a practical game-changer: protect your non-negotiables, then let the rest breathe. From shutting the house down at a set time to prepping breakfast and clothes the night before, these small choices reduce decision fatigue and keep momentum steady. We also explore how intuition—the nudge of the Holy Spirit—guides pivots in business, relationships, and routines without drama or doubt.
This conversation is honest about fear and starting over. Shelley challenges limiting beliefs like “you can’t revamp after years of work” and shows how past experience becomes a blueprint for what’s next. We talk gratitude as a daily anchor, fulfillment as the truest metric of fit, and the reality of our finite time—what we do with the dash between dates. If you’re craving clarity, calmer days, and a business that aligns with your calling, this is your reset.
Subscribe for more stories that trade busy for purpose, share this with a friend who needs permission to slow down, and leave a review with one grind you’re ready to replace with grace. Your next aligned step starts here.
Connect with Shelley:
Website: www.ShelleyMechette.com
Instagram: @ShelleyMechette
Facebook: @shelleymechette
Free Gift: 6 Spirit-filled Affirmations https://shelleymechette.myflodesk.com/affirmations
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte. I am so excited because we have our first boomerang guest. I am so, so excited to reintroduce you to Shelly. I am just gonna go quickly over her intro and then we can chit-chat as to where we were when we chatted last time, about a year and a half ago, more or less, to where we are now and everything that's happened because there's so much that has happened since then. So I'm really excited to have a conversation with Shelly today. And honestly, I'm so honored that you came back and here to give us an update. Yes, absolutely. I love an update. I'm so excited. As a celebrated empower herment speaker, sell certified life purpose and confidence coach, life strategist, and best-selling author Shelly Mache empowers ambitious, faith-driven women entrepreneurs with simple yet powerful strategies to release burnout, trade, hustle for alignment and purpose, and confidently thrive in faith, family, and business. A three-time stroke survivor in one day. Shelly's journey from crisis to redirect redirected calling drives her mission to equip women with the mindset, boundaries, and spiritual grounding needed to lead balanced and fulfilling lives. Her story is a reminder that life success doesn't require constant striving, but rather aligned action and faithful stewardship of your God-given gifts. She has inspired thousands through her acclaimed books, including Seven Days of Happy Life is Better When You Smile, Empower Her Minds, and Women's Inspiring Nations. Shelly electrifies stages with her transparent storytelling, humor, and practical strategies, igniting transformation and possibility in every audience she encounters. As a life strategist, she inspires women to design purpose-fueled lives, inviting them to integrate drive with direction, leading from a place of grace, not grind, which we all need. Shelly is also the founder of the Power Her Full Woman, a platform dedicated to molding women into champions of their own lives through personal and professional growth. Her career has included roles in the industry giants like Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Sabian Entertainment. Her impact has been featured by CBS, NBC, ABC, Bakersfield Now News, Arc Seattle, and more. Shelley's empowering insights have grace platforms as The List, Shondeland, Voyage LA, and online magazine covers including Glam Vitious and Sister to Sister 2.0. In 2021, Shelly was honored as one of the top 25 women in business and later again as the 2025 Global Trailblazer by Courageous Women Magazine. That is amazing. Congratulations. She was featured in Voices of Change magazine on one of 2025's top 60 women leaders to watch. Shelly Mache is a paragon of transformation, empowering women to live boldly, freely, and without apology. Welcome again, Shelly.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I'm so excited. So, okay, give us an idea of where you were about a year and a half ago. Yeah. And just maybe a short snippet of the things that you went through prior to that so that we see why you were here a year and a half ago, your against all our odd story from then. And then what happened since then that has transformed you even more?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Again, thank you so much for having me, Maria. I'm so excited to be back. There is a lot, girl, that has happened. I love it.
SPEAKER_03:I love it. I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_00:From the last time that we were together. And I know the last time that I was here, we talked a lot about our value as women and being against all odds as far as us really understanding who we are. Because a lot of times we get trapped. We get trapped in our titles, we get trapped in value, and we get trapped in trying to figure out who we are outside of those titles. And so at that time, I was really an overcomer of my own insecurities and my own limiting beliefs. Because again, I was one who was a stay-at-home mom. And while I loved being a stay-at-home mom, what happened is all of my goals and my dreams, I felt like I was too late for. I couldn't accomplish them. And so me being able to live in my dreams of being able to act, I love acting. And when I became a stay-at-home mom, it's like, okay, I have to give this up now. Now who am I? What do I do? I do everything for everybody else. What happens to my goals, my dreams, my this? And as those years passed, I felt like my age determined value or what I did throughout that day. If I had a good day, met all the marks, yay, you're good. You're wonderful. But if you miss one of those marks, if you yelled at the kids, if you burned the dinner, or if the dinner wasn't ready on time, or if you skip claiming something, now you're terrible, you're bad, you're not a good mom. Getting rid of all of that was the transformation for me being able to step into not only the things that I love, my goals, my hobbies, my dreams, my desires, not just that, but understanding who I was as a person beyond the titles. And so I was working with women at that time who were female entrepreneurs, actually who were entrepreneurs, and helping them balance life and motherhood, balance business and motherhood. And as I was going through that, and I thought that's exactly where God wanted me to be. And I'm walking in purpose and girl, I was loving purpose and all of that. And then in May of this year, out of nowhere, what has changed the most is I survived three strokes in one day.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:One day. And what's so amazing and what excites me is the first stroke, of course, just took me by who took me by surprise. But the second one impaired my speech. And so every time I open my mouth to speak, I get excited because I couldn't talk.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So when I'm speaking about my experience, that's enough to make me just want to run down the street and start shouting because my speech was impaired. And then that third stroke, and all of this, like I said, happened in one day in the ER room. The third one almost took my life. But what I found as God has healed me and been healing my body, my mind, and has been healing me throughout this, is that purpose evolves. Purpose can change, and not the core of the purpose. If you're someone who loves teaching, teaching is the core of the purpose. How you deliver that can always be altered. You can teach your family as a stay-at-home mom. You're still teaching. You can teach in the school setting, you can teach in your neighborhood, you can teach a class. So the core of what I love, which is women and balance and being able to bring those things together, was always there. But what God showed me is that even in that, He's called me to something deeper, which now was to not have to grind and hustle at the things that we do in life. What I did is I looked back over my life and I found that I like to hustle. Ooh, I'm hustling. That was a badge of honor. Let me hustle for this and hustle for that. And what I found is in hustle was a lot of those issues that I was trying to help people with. That's why I'm tired still. That's why I'm burned out. That's why there's frustration because there was glory in the hustle, which is what he wiped away and said, What if you work through grace instead of grind? What if you work through harmony instead of hustle? I want to show you and I want to show, you know, I want to show entrepreneurs that you don't have to hustle to get what I've already designed. And so God reinvamped my path to now, instead of me working with my entrepreneurs and helping them balance, God has redirected me to work with faith-driven women preneurs, helping them balance life, family, and purpose with grace instead of grind. How do we work through grace to balance everything that He has called us to do and do it without the burnout?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, I can attest to feeling that. So last season of the podcast, so I've worked from home for many, many, many years. And about a year and a half ago, I got a job at a company outside of the home. And so I was driving into work and it became learning a new career because this was something completely new to me. I went from being in the travel industry for many years, in the health and fitness business for many years, to healthcare that I had no clue about. And just I I knew that I had a great work ethic. I was a fast learner. I I knew that I had all of the capabilities to move up in the company. I got a promotion in six months. Like I knew that I had it in me. However, it was learning something new and also editing podcast episodes. And like it became to it got to a point where I was like, this doesn't feel aligned anymore. And I need to maybe take a step back for a second and recalibrate myself because this has felt purposeful for the two seasons that I've done it, and I don't want it to not feel purposeful anymore.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And so I st stepped back and really focused on again getting better at what I had in front of me because it was a commitment that I made in terms of this new career and really developed that. And then this October I really felt called to bring back the podcast, and it didn't have to be like I had my original air date was like in June. It it was October, and I was like, okay, now is a great time. Like right now is a great time because now I feel aligned with it again. I feel like I'm here again, and it hasn't felt like I'm in the grind anymore. It feels like it's flowing again, like it feels purposeful again, like I feel like I'm doing it with just a different energy. Yeah. I never wanted it to feel like it was a chore, and that's towards the end, that's what it felt like. And I was like, oh no, sorry. I'm gonna recalibrate.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. But that's the whole thing. That's the whole thing. And what I'm not saying is that when we're doing things, that is not work. It is work. What I'm not saying is that it's not tiresome. It is tiresome, it can be tiresome. These are the things that come along with running businesses, these are the things that come along with being in purpose. What I'm saying is when you're striving, when you're striving to do everything, when you're not aligned and you're pushing for something that's not right now, God could be calling you to start a business. It doesn't mean that he's calling you to start it today. It could mean that for the next six months, he wants you to research. For the next six months, he wants you to get into some type of a group. And for all you know, while you're in that group, you're gonna meet the person who has the ability to take you to that next step. You don't have to strive for it, you don't have to grind so hard. Do you have to work? Absolutely. But when you work within God's grace, when you work within his timing, when you work at what you have been called to do and the time frame in which you've been called to do it, then what happens is you're graced for that time period, you're graced for that season. There are certain things that I did in my 20s. I'm not graced for now. I'm not graced. That was 30 years ago. I'm 50 now, 52. I'm not graced.
SPEAKER_02:You look amazing, by the way. Let me just thank you. If you're watching with your eyeballs and you look amazing, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:But it's certain things your girl just can't do. There was a time when I would stay up to 2, 3, 4 in the morning working on things. And I was a mom at that time, but I would be up to 2, 3 in the morning, jump up at 6, get the kids together, do this, go to the grocery store, do errands, do this, do homework, come back, cook this, and I still didn't go to bed until 3 o'clock in the morning and do it all over again. Listen, at 9:30, I put covers on my ankles, y'all. And I'm okay with that. That that type of push is not where I am today. And I'm learning even more to listen to my body, especially after experiencing what I experienced. I'm learning, listen to your body. What's going on with your body? Even though I felt like I was taking care of myself, I see where there were things that I missed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I see that. And so being, and I don't want to push myself to the point of where I'm missing things.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I want to be able to stay in grace. I want to be able to stay in alignment. I want to be able to go back and say, Well, Laura, you called me to this. So you know, you're going to have to figure this out. I don't have to figure it out. You have to figure it out. And I just step in the footprints that you have left for me. What a life to live when you could turn it back over and say, You're the one who called me to this. This is gonna cost me$5,000,$10,000. I'm going to bed. I'm not gonna stress, you did it, you create it, I walk in it. What a life to live.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's in your hands. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:It's in your hands, you do it, Daddy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. Yes, absolutely. I love it so much. So it's just it is a different mindset shift. And I think that I feel my birthday was yesterday, so I happy birthday, happy birthday. Thank you. But I've noticed that with there was a time where hustle was like the name of the game.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And I have learned that my my intuition, because I truly believe that we pray, we pray to God, right? We pray and we're praying to God. When we listen to our intuition, it's listening to God speaking to us. I truly believe that because it has like you're the that that little guide that that in your belly feeling of like, or in your heart feeling of, I know that this is the way that I'm being led to. I feel that's the only person that could be is God telling us this is the way. Come on.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I believe that God absolutely speaks to us. The Holy Spirit is our leader, the Holy Spirit indwells, the Holy Spirit is saying to us, hey, go here, go there. That that conscious feeling, even for those who don't believe in the Holy Spirit, there's that gnawing, yeah, that beautiful feeling deep in inside of you because God is so good, He still allows that feeling of like, maybe I shouldn't go this way, maybe I shouldn't go that way. And in my life, I lean on the Holy Spirit because that is who who I believe in. And I believe that absolutely when we take the time to listen to the direction, I believe that God gives us that unctioning. So many times you'll hear people say, you know what? I felt something was wrong. I went anyway, but something told me that this was not gonna turn out right. And I and again, that's not to say that we're not going to run into trials, tribulations, hard times. That's not saying that the road is gonna be straight when we go down that road. There's there's issues with everything that has to do with life, business, and there's always lessons.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's lessons to learn. Like I feel like those things are needed. And I think that you're as unfortunate as it is to say that you had three strokes in a day and that you lost your speech, those things still had purpose in the world. Absolutely because it redirected you to where you are now. Yes, I have I've gone through many things in my life, and I truly feel that I still would not change a thing that I have gone through because I am who I am today. Yes. Because of the things that I've gone through. And I've evolved and I've grown and I've changed, and I could say, yeah, that was Maria from 10 years ago, but Maria from today has so much more wisdom, has learned how to listen to her intuition and learn how to feel guided in her next steps. It could be in anything, it could be in our relationships. I've been with my boyfriend now for six years, and we don't have a bad relationship. However, it has gotten to a point where it had become stagnant and it had become so in that mundane feeling. I one day was like, I'm gonna send him we had these like date cards to just spark conversation. And he was at his daughter's game, and I was like, I'm home. I'm like in the middle of cleaning. I'm gonna send him this little picture of this question, and so it sparked conversation, and now it's like we we send a card at least every day, or that's beautifully, but it starts conversations that yes, we may have talked about this six years ago, but we're not even the same people anymore.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:It's those inspiration-led yes like feeling that you're like, Oh, we may have not even gotten this far if this didn't happen. If I didn't have that, like I'm gonna send him a card. Yes, because it felt right, it felt like what maybe we needed. And now I feel so much more connected and so much more aligned with our relationship. Whereas maybe a few months ago that wouldn't have been the case. And so it could be in business, it could be, I feel like as we evolve, as we start listening to that intuition or God leading us, we it could be in any aspect of our life, but the fact that we learn how to listen, yes, step back and and not be so like focused on I gotta do do do do do and just be like what feels right and go that way because it makes things maybe easier to Yeah, I definitely believe that.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that because we're such go, go, go people, just our society, where just everything is go, go, go. I think a lot of times we don't take that time to sit back and hear because a lot of times we look at things maybe logically or we see where something, you know, is is a trend right now, or something is working well on this end, or this works great for that person in their relationship, or this works amazing for this person in that business. I think a lot of times we don't take time to sit in the quiet. We don't take time to sit with our own thoughts. We don't take time to literally ask God for the direction and the guidance, because sometimes we may see things that look great, that that are wonderful, that we think may work. But those are the times where we really do need to sit back and say, but is this the direction? Is this where I'm being led? Is this for me? Because I even had a nonprofit, which was a great nonprofit. I have a nonprofit now for women, but I had a nonprofit that was for high schoolers, and it was to help high schoolers prepare and get ready for college. And it was a great nonprofit. And and the parents love the nonprofit. And so it's not like there was anything wrong with what I was doing. It was profitable, it was helpful, all of these things. But somewhere in there, Maria, it wasn't aligned. Yeah, it was not aligned. And so I did not feel, I never felt settled. Yeah, even though other people loved it, even though people were like, Oh, yeah, I can't wait for next year or do this or do that. Every time I got ready to go to one of our one of our meetings, I was like, oh, another one.
SPEAKER_02:Another one, yes, another one.
SPEAKER_00:And I enjoyed what I was doing, which is the ironic part. I enjoyed what I was doing, but it's something about it that just wasn't it. And I remember praying about it, and I was like, What is this, Lord? I'm doing a good thing. And I remember God saying to me, You're doing the right thing before the wrong people. Yeah, and I was like, Whoa! And he said, Who do you love? Who do you enjoy? Who do you love to serve? And I said, Well, I love women, and it was like a light bulb just went off. It wasn't the fact that I wasn't in purpose or doing something that I was supposed to be doing, the alignment of who I was supposed to be doing it for was off. And so when I changed who my audience was, which was women, I haven't looked back. God has adjusted certain things. I may have switched up on working from withpreneurs to now with business, women, business owners. So it may have switched up here and there, but the core has been the core: loving women, loving to see women succeed, and loving to see them be able to balance without burnout.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that so much. And honestly, you could have just started a blueprint for someone else that is aligned to do what you were doing for those high schoolers. And so you maybe someone will say, Oh, do you remember that was so awesome? Yes, no longer here. How about I start it?
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Exactly. And that's the other thing. None of your experiences are for nothing. It doesn't matter if it worked, if it didn't work, if you liked it, if you hated it. All of these are pieces that create you. And so, in order for me, it's just my opinion, in order for me to have become the person that I did working with women, I needed that experience working with those teens, in my opinion. It taught me how to put a nonprofit together, it taught me how to organize, it taught me how to create programs, all of the things that I do now. But had I not done it then, yeah, that was part of the experience and growing. I was doing those things, just not doing them for those who I do it for now. But the core value is still there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It was, yeah, because it gave you the blueprint to start that for the exactly for what felt more aligned.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think and I feel that same situation or that same feeling for again any aspect of your life. Like parenting, even. So we we have this blueprint, right? I have three kids. I have a blueprint that I could maybe use from my oldest to my second to my third, but and I'm now flexible enough to understand that they are three different human beings. Right. And I can't parent them the same. However, there is a core base of how I want to be as a parent and what I would I want to be their safe space in all aspects. And that goes for all three of them, even if I'm serving them in a different way.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:So exactly that first that first nonprofit gave you the blueprint to use for this new one. And I love that. I love that so much. And it feels so good, but when it feels aligned, um it feels like it flows, it feels like it is work and it is hard work, but it is purposeful work and it exactly feels different in your soul.
SPEAKER_00:And when you're called to it, even in the frustration, you can step out of it a little bit and you can say this is frustrating, it's hard to put events together, it's hard to do this, it's hard to do that. But because this is part of my purpose, because I feel called to this, because I feel drawn to this, because I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be at this point and in this season in my life, I can still get fulfillment from it. That's the difference. Are you being fulfilled even throughout the hard time, the frustrating part, everything not coming together the way it's supposed to, the T not crossing, how you want it to cross? But is there fulfillment in it? And if the answer to that is yes, you are right where you belong.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Ah, I love it. Okay, so give me some insight. You went from that hustle first mindset, obviously. Yes, to embracing grace. What was the turning point? And like, how did you make the shift in your daily and like your daily life and business?
SPEAKER_00:What is so awesome about that is it really was like you said, it really was just like a click. And I guess because I had time, y'all, I was sitting in that hospital bed, and not only that, but when I came home, I couldn't do anything. My mother had me on lockdown, y'all, and she would not let me work. As soon as I got home, I tell you, I was ready to jump into work. And my mom is like, I don't think so. So literally for an entire month, mind you, this happened at the end of May, but I have been back and forth to the hospital from May to probably July. I have been back and forth to the hospital and things happening. And so my mom, all of June, she's just like, No, you can't go anywhere, you can't do anything, you can't be on your laptop, you can't do anything. Well, that was very frustrating, especially in the beginning, because I love what I do. So I love to work. Remember, y'all, I like the grind, I like the hustle life a little bit. And so sitting there, I was like, hmm. Now what? Now what?
SPEAKER_02:Forced to be quiet.
SPEAKER_00:I was forced to be quiet, and I was forced to sit and say, okay, God, I have no idea how this is going to work because you are redirecting everything again. I am a person, I'm an ABC person. And so I like to know what's gonna happen at two, what's gonna happen at 245, what's gonna happen at 248. And I had no roadmap. My only roadmap was do the first thing, and then I'll give you the next thing. Yeah, and so the first thing that I was given was when I get get my strength back, tell the story. Yeah, tell the story, let people know that you're gonna be walking this out, walking out this new season of your life through grace and not with a full blueprint. Tell the story. That's all I got, Maria. Tell the story. Yeah, and so from there, that's where I'm building my community. I'm building my community with faith-driven women entrepreneurs who are ready to let go of the grind and embrace grace so that they no longer have to build through burnout. We're building businesses that are aligned with purpose. But in order to know that, we have to know what our purpose is. You're struggling in a business that you've been in for 10 years, that you haven't seen the profit, you've lost relationships, your kids are driving you crazy, you haven't been to no Christmas parties, all because you're putting pressure in a business that was never meant for you. So let's go back first and find out what have you been called to do? Where is your purpose? So now let's align your business with purpose. And when we bring those two together, now we can balance family, life, purpose, and business because those two things will come together.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I love it so much. So, what practical steps can women take to stop chasing busyness? Because we wear, unfortunately, we wear busyness with act of honor.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_02:So, how could we what practical steps could we absolutely take from stop chasing the busyness to start living with intention and peace?
SPEAKER_00:And that's one that you hit right on the head. We're gonna live with intention. So we're gonna be intentional with our days, and we're gonna be intentional with our mouth, and we're gonna be intentional with how we spend our day. Meaning, I'm gonna start number one, setting the tone for my day. What do you want your day to look like? Start that at night. Start turning them lights off, stop, stop being in a disarray before you go to bed. Pick a time and say, my house closes down at 10. My house closes down at nine. Babies are in the bed by 8:30. If you have teenagers or whatever, it's different. But decide, hey, by 10 o'clock, kids, that you need to be in your quiet space, in your room. You know, I'm no fluttering around the house. We're gonna bring the house down for silence. You will really be amazed about how you can set your tomorrow by how you're setting your tonight. And so when you calm your night, then you can create a morning that's not as rushed. And so when you create a morning that's not as rushed, you can get up the next day and you can say, I'm gonna take time to speak life into my day first before my day starts. Why? Because I set the tone for that already last night. So when you get up in the morning, speak life into yourself, speak spirit-filled words into yourself. Get up in the morning and grab a verse that night before. Grab your favorite verse tonight and then put it there and say, I'm going to wake up and speak this. I'm going to have a great day because this is the day that you have made. That's not to say that somebody's not going to get on your nerves because we didn't mix those things up. They probably will get on your nerves. But what you said is, I'm determined because this is the day that you have made, I'm determined to have a good day. So even when you get on my nerves, I'm going to let you bother me for about three seconds, and then I'm going back to having a good day. That's one of the things we want to do. We want to set our day. When we set our day, then our business works better, our daily activities work better, the home runs better because we have set the tone for tomorrow tonight. And then the other thing we want to do, which is something you know that you mentioned too about being flexible, you want to maintain flexibility. And you want to maintain flexibility because you want to allow God the opportunity to change directions for you. My stroke changed directions for me. But what if I was set in? No, this is what I'm supposed to do. No, I'm supposed to be with my entrepreneurs. No, this is where it is. I've built this business on my entrepreneurs. Yes, I have built a business on my entrepreneurs for over 15 years, and now it's been re-redirected to faith-driven womenpreneurs. Well, these things happen. But if my desire is to re is to remain flexible and say that I am in a position where I want to always remain in purpose. And if we're going to talk about being aligned and allowing God to drive us, then we have to be willing to let go of what we thought was going to be. And we have to be flexible. When we're flexible with our life, with our business, with our children, with our families, with our relationships, when we're flexible, we're a lot less likely to be angry, to be, and to be disappointed.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yes, so much. And it's so the first thing I want to say is I really on so many levels believe that when our past selves look out for our future selves, we set ourselves up to succeed, no matter what. So like I love that you said that you get like I put my clothes out at night so that I know in the morning that is not something I need to think about. That is one best decision that I have to make.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And my brain does not have to think about exactly what am I gonna wear today. No, I do that. And when I meal prep, when I prep my meals, I'm looking my past self is looking out for my future self. And I allow that to be like the blessing that it is. Yes. I stop looking at it as like, oh, it's another chore for now.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And I love to know what I'm gonna eat for breakfast. If I don't have nothing else prepared, y'all, I know what I'm gonna have for breakfast. And I know what I'm gonna have for breakfast because I know that if I get up in the morning and I'm searching for breakfast, my my day is already like, okay, now I'm running behind, now I have to do this, now I have to do that. So I prepare and set the tone so that I'm not running around trying to figure out well, what do I eat? Especially because I need to be more intentional about what I eat. And I don't want to always just grab a bowl of cereal. I want to really begin to fuel my body, then I make sure that at night I'm like, okay, what are you gonna have for breakfast? Even if I don't know what I'm gonna have for the rest of the day, I try to make sure that I at least know what I'm gonna eat for breakfast. And I try to do things like make soups so that when I'm hungry throughout the day, still, if I don't have a meal prepared, let me at least grab a little bit of soup while I try to think about what I want to do for tonight. So just so just little things, little things like that. And another thing is having a schedule, knowing what it is that you're going to do and not overloading it. Maria, if you already know that you have five things scheduled for today after work, why are you going to agree to help your neighbor move?
SPEAKER_02:Agreed. Why? Completely agree. I I can't even tell you how much I so part of my redirection with the podcast was all right, in order for me to keep this feeling fulfilling and this feel of flow, I need to set some boundaries. And so that first started with a schedule. So I will only record on Tuesday nights that that one night, and on Saturday like early afternoons. That's all. And if I have to, like yesterday was my birthday, yesterday was Tuesday, so I was like, I'm not doing one today, but I can open myself up, be flexible enough to open myself up for Wednesday so I can meet with Shelly.
SPEAKER_00:And you get to choose that. You see, you get to choose.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And it felt once I did that, it didn't feel like this was taking over my life.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:It was a part of my life.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And that's the difference. That's the difference. Allowing things to be a part of your life, understanding that there's some things that I call solids. There's some things that don't change in life. If you're a person who works a nine to five in this season, your solid right now is that you have a schedule that's blocked from nine to five. So that is the solid that's in your life, meaning that's just not going to change. So now what we do is we add flexibles into our life. We add flexible activities. Why? Because we can remove them at any time. What happens with us is we get stuck in the flex and you forget, okay, I record on Tuesdays, so I have to record on Tuesdays. My birthday is on Tuesday. I'm so upset because now I have to record. When recording is a flexible in your life, the solid in your life is my children have to be picked up by three. That's a solid. What's solid in my life is I have to leave the house Monday through Fridays at 7:30 in the morning to so I can make it to work by nine. That's a solid. Me recording is not a solid in my life. It's a flex, it's a flexible activity that I get to choose and say, I can rearrange this to make this day, this week, this season more harmonious. Where can your activities harmonize with one another? And that's what we're looking for. That's how we begin to flow in grace and let go of the grind. You would have been unhappy, you would have been angry that you couldn't celebrate the way you wanted to, your birthday would have felt rushed. And why? For what? When you get to dictate the flexible activities in your life, and that's why remaining flexible is a wonderful way to allow yourself to walk in grace and let go of some of that grind.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love it so much. Oh, so much. This is amazing. So, how can faith-driven women integrate alignment with God's plan while pursuing their goals?
SPEAKER_00:Ah, yes. One of the ways that I am learning and that I am and that I am sharing with my new community of how to integrate is number one, being able to take some time to be quiet. And being able to take some time to journal. And also number three, speaking words that that God has spoken in your life. We've got to get our tongue under control. When we get frustrated, and I'm guilty of this, when we get frustrated, I can't learn this. I I'll never be able to do this. Are there some things that are challenges? Yes. Are there some things in my life that I'm not getting ready to play with the challenge? I'm just gonna hire somebody to do it because that's where your your blessing is. Yes. You have been equipped to create websites, not me. And I'm not gonna bother myself with it. So it's not even a matter of whether I can learn it or whether I can't learn it. It is not my my testimony, therefore, I'm gonna give it to. Somebody else. But when we begin to sit and say what we can't do or what we'll never do or I'll never be like this, or when we continue to compare ourselves to other people, it knocks down what is for us. And so one of the best ways to be able to integrate is to become intentional with your solids and your flexies. What is a solid in my life? What is the flexi at this season? Maybe I only have from four to six on Tuesdays to be flexible with my time. So then from 4 to 420, I'm going to sit quietly because that's the time that my kids are older. They don't need me to help them with homework as much. So from 4 to 4:20, 4:30, as they're doing their homework, dinner is prepared. I'm going to take that time to steal away and say, I'm going to sit and I'm going to be quiet. I'm going to journal and I'm going to see what do I hear in this time. That's how we begin to integrate things. That's how we begin to have self-care and the importance. That's when we begin to hear when we're not always talking and when we're intentional about taking the time to do it. I think that's where that's one of the most beautiful things that happened when my mama took my laptop from me, y'all. I had to be intentional. I went through a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of fear that was happening in my life. I was scared that I was that I was going to go into another stroke. I was scared every time I had a headache. I really had to lean on my faith. But what happened in that time is I also learned to listen a little bit more because I was so vulnerable and I was hanging on to my faith so hard because that's all that I had. But I was vulnerable, I was open, and I could hear a bit better. I could feel God's presence a bit more because I slowed down long enough to allow Him to speak to me and to allow myself to actually listen, which again, I blame my mama because she took my laptop.
SPEAKER_02:But that's thank God for your mama. I yeah, I agree. I feel like, and I and also I feel like when we are when we are tested in these moments of health crisis and things like that, it it gives us a certain, I feel like it gives us like a certain perspective. Oh absolutely. And the oh wow, we I could have not been here.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Right. Huge reality.
SPEAKER_02:It's a huge reality. Yes. And I've been in that situation a few times in my life that I've been like, wow, I could have not been here anymore. Yes. So where so what else? Like that means that I'm still here and there's a purpose behind.
SPEAKER_00:And there's a purpose, yes.
SPEAKER_02:I need to find that.
SPEAKER_00:And what is that purpose? The reality is this all of us are gonna meet the same end, and it is sucky when you think about it, but all of us are going to meet the same end. But when you go through a situation where you really have like met death face to face, and God has allowed you to still be here, you you look at things a bit differently, and you begin to go, okay, there really is a reason. There's a reason why all of us are here, but there, but today I could have not been here. When my daughter saw me that night when I got home, she said to me, She was like, Wow, I cannot believe that I woke up with a mother and today I would have gone to bed without one. She's like, just to see you. It's like, wow. So even her just coming to the realization that this is life. One day we're here, and then one day we're not. And it does give you a different perspective when you come face to face with your fatality. And it helps you to understand I don't have all of this time. And even though I feel like I understood that before, it's different now. It's like not only do I know I don't have that kind of time, but I know I don't have that type of time. And I don't want to waste that time not giving what I'm supposed to give, not discovering what I'm supposed to discover, not living the purpose that I'm supposed to live. I don't want to live like that. I want to make sure that I have done and am doing everything that I've been called to do. I want to leave this earth empty. I want to leave the earth coffin dust because I'm so empty, because I've done everything in this time that I've been given. We have a dash, we have a dash, we have a birth date, we have an end date, and we have a dash. What are you doing in between those two dates? And how will you leave a legacy?
SPEAKER_02:I have yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All I could say is yes, because I believe all of that so wholeheartedly. I feel like this is why I even started the podcast, is because I knew that stories like these were what people sometimes needed to hear because in some of those situations we feel so alone that this gives us the purpose for us to continue to find find our way.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So I I I love everything that you just said. So just to wrap up a little bit, what do you feel? And we've had this conversation before. So, what do you feel now were the limiting beliefs or roadblocks that you had to overcome to get to where you are now?
SPEAKER_00:What I think I had to overcome is the fact of you won't be able to revamp.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:After you've done something for so long, you can't revamp. And so I think that my limited belief was what do I do now? Because you already have built this community. You're not going to be able to do this again, you're not going to be able to restart again. So all of those things like coming at me at once. How are you going to do this again? People already know you for this. So you're not going to be able to do that, or blah, blah, blah. So I think that has been probably the biggest thing in my head. Uh, now you're starting from scratch. You had this many followers. Now you don't have this, or people are not going to follow you into that. And that's one where I've had to do, like I said before, and say, You did this, sir.
SPEAKER_02:So do your thing.
unknown:Do your thing.
SPEAKER_00:You did this. So now you take me and show me what to do. So yeah, I that's where that's what I'm walking in now, being led by faith and not by sight. And I don't really like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's hard because we like to have control. I do. I feel you to like my soul. I feel you. I we like to do things a certain way. Yes. And when that doesn't shape out, you're like, exactly. I don't know what to do with it now.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Exactly. So that's where I am right now. And that's the limiting belief that I think I've had to overcome. And it's going to be, I don't want to say it's going to be a slow journey because anything can happen, but it is learning again, it is trusting again, it is evolving again. But this time I get to do it with 20 plus years of experience.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I love it. So give me, I know that we talked about this, but a daily habit that you say that you have figured out that has to be done now going forward.
SPEAKER_00:I think for me, my daily habit really is waking up in gratefulness. And it's not like I wasn't grateful before, but as you've stated, there's a mind shift that happens when you go through certain things. And so waking up is more powerful to me than anything else in the world. Waking up, being able to speak is the greatest gift other than life itself that God gives me every single day. And so I even hate to use the word habit because it's me waking up with a grateful heart. And that I believe is the most wonderful thing that anyone can do to wake up and be grateful for what you've been given. That doesn't mean my day is gonna be all miraculous. That doesn't mean I'm gonna even enjoy all the aspects of my day. What it means is I'm grateful for the breath that has been given this day.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes, yes, yes. I love it. Oh my gosh. This is amazing. So you told me that you're going to gift our listeners with a little something. So give us a little bit of details on that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we spoke a little bit about habits that we can begin in our lives that will really help us to balance out family, business, purpose, all of those things. And one of those things that I talked about is us being able to speak right to ourselves and to be able to align our words up with who we've been called to be. So I would love to leave a gift with the listening audience called Six Spirit-Filled Affirmations. I know that many people speak words of affirmations into themselves, but for the faith-driven womanpreneur, we want to align those affirmations with the word of God so that it has even greater power in our lives because he has spoken them to us. And I would love to leave that gift for your audience, six spirit-filled affirmations.
SPEAKER_02:I am so excited. So we're gonna go ahead and leave a link in the show notes so that you have access to that. And I'm gonna, as always, put Shelly's information in the show notes so that you can stay connected with her on social media and really connect with her outside of just our podcast. So I am so honored to have had you back.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much. It was an absolute like joy to just see this new evolution of Shelly because it was already amazing and now it's just Stephen stepped up more.
SPEAKER_00:So oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure to be here. I appreciate you so much for sharing your platform with me.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So, listeners, as always, check out the show notes for you to be able to connect with Shelly and for you to get the affirmations as well. Thank you so much for listening today. And as always, peace out, love your life. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Bye bye.
