When Safety Returns, Who Are You? Chonda Costin on Survival, Burnout, and Redefining Success

What if survival mode saved your life, and then quietly held you back once you were safe? That's the tension we unpack with coach, veteran, and mother of five Chonda Costin, whose journey from domestic violence recovery to military service to purpose-driven coaching reveals the hidden cost of operating in crisis long after the crisis ends.

The story is raw and generous: leaving an abusive marriage, joining the military at 25 with three little girls, twin beds and hand-me-down furniture, nursing through boot camp, and the sobering calculus of choosing safety for your children while learning, much later, to choose yourself too. This is trauma healing for mothers who built everything from nothing-and now face the harder question: who am I when I'm finally safe?

We dig into how survival patterns morph into professional habits for the high-functioning woman: constant firefighting, over-functioning, perfectionism recovery that never quite lands, and defining success by boxes checked instead of a life felt. Chonda breaks down the difference between reactive living and proactive design, using the same rigor she brought to program management—risk mitigation, clear milestones, and systems that actually fit a human nervous system. This is career reinvention meets emotional capacity building.

We talk about burnout masked by accolades, the limits of strategy without somatic awareness, and why blueprints fail without the inner work to implement them. Then we go deeper: self-permission as a daily practice, community as a stabilizer for the over-functioning mom, and honest feedback as the fastest route to self-awareness when you've spent decades performing strength.

Motherhood and identity crisis run through every chapter-early years defined by survival and post-traumatic growth, parenting teens that demand new leadership, and the often ignored earthquake of empty nest syndrome. 

We share practical ways to redefine success through life transitions, from evolving boundaries with your kids to business models that respect your healing journey. This is for the military mom transitioning home, the veteran mother finding purpose beyond service, and any woman navigating midlife pivot after years of putting everyone else first.

Expect a mix of hard-won wisdom and pragmatic steps for leaving corporate, reinventing yourself, and mothering through seasons: questions to spot whether work still feeds you, a simple framework to exit survival mode, and ways to align goals with values so your time feels as good as it looks on the calendar. This is raising teenagers, parenting adult children, and finding yourself again—all at once.

If you're ready to move from reactive to proactive, from crisis to clarity, this conversation offers the messy map that only you can make. This is healing from abuse that doesn't erase your strength—it redirects it.

About Chanda:

Chanda Coston is a Business Strategist, Navy Veteran, and devoted mom of five who helps women move from chaos to clarity in life and business. As the founder of Chanda Co., she guides high-capacity women, especially those in midlife transitions, to build structure, strategy, and systems that support their peace, purpose, and profitability.
After the military and corporate, Chanda realized too many women were over-functioning and under-fulfilled—pouring into everyone else while their own dreams sat on hold. Now, she teaches them how to rebuild with clarity, confidence, and calm, designing lives and legacies that actually feel good to live.
Her message is simple but powerful: success doesn’t have to mean sacrifice. With the right framework, you can build what you’re called to create—and still be present for what matters most.

Find Chanda:

 chanda-co.com | Instagram: Instagram.com/ch

If you’re ready to stop living on autopilot and start leading your life with deep presence, I’d love to work with you. Book a free interest call here: Click Here

💌 Want more? Follow me on Instagram @themotherhoodmentor for somatic tools, nervous system support, and real-talk on high-functioning burnout, ambition, healing perfectionism, and motherhood. And also pretty epic meme drops. 

🎧  Did you love this episode? Be sure to follow and please take a quick moment to leave a review and send this episode to a friend. I'd love to hear from you on how this podcast impacted you, send me a DM or an email. 

Transcript

Welcome And Mission Of The Show

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a somatic healing practitioner and a holistic life coach for moms, and this podcast is for you. You can expect honest conversations and incredible guests that speak to health, healing, and growth in every area of the world. This isn't just strategy for what we do. It's important to be. I believe we can be wildly ambitious while still holding ourselves in our humidity as we. I love combining deep inner healing with strategic systems and no nonsense talk about what this season is really like. So grab whatever weird health beverage you're currently into and let's get into it. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I am so excited for my guest today. Will you please introduce yourself as we get started here?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Absolutely.

Meet Chonda: Mom Of Five, Coach

SPEAKER_02 0:53

My name is Chonda Costin. I am mama of five, adult children. I made it. Okay. Grandmama of four. That is the gift after the children. Currently in the coaching space, I've had quite the journey. I love working with women because I can completely relate to our journey, right? And all the mini hats we wear and how we survive and evolve, to put it nicely.

unknown 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

So really excited to be here for this conversation. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Oh, absolutely. I was so excited to have you when I was looking over the information when you were like submitting for the podcast. And I was just like, there's something about her and her journey, and like the way that you responded to some of the questions I asked you that I was like, okay, I want to have a conversation with you. Tell us a little bit about your career and motherhood journey and just like wow. Because when I was reading over it, like military, corporate, coaching, like for you, what is that what is that journey of your motherhood and your life looked like till now?

Leaving Abuse And Joining The Military

SPEAKER_00 2:03

How much time do we got? No, seriously. We've got we've got all the time. That's what I love about podcasts. We could spend the whole time if we wanted.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

No, seriously. I will say I have been like super blessed, super lucky, all of the things, right? If you had to think of where I started out and where I've landed. So, like I said, I have five children from the ages right now of 31 to 20. But when I started in the military, I actually ended up in the military. So I had three young girls and I was leaving an abusive husband. And I actually, I mean, I don't think I can get penalized for this now, hopefully not. But at the time, we weren't even divorced. And I used my marriage to him to get into the military because I had too many dependents as a single person to go in. And I kind of strung him along until I was in like in school. And when I came home from A school and I was supposed to go to my first command, I finally told him, like, I'm not coming back to you. And it was one of the hardest things I had to do, but I knew I had to do it for my babies. And so, like, I was in survival mode, and it was one of the realest things that you go through. I think, you know, I recently had a conversation with one of my daughters, and clearly I won't say her name because she doesn't know I'm having this conversation about her, but she was recently in a domestic violence situation, and the hardest thing you have to do as a mom is kind of relate to your child your own experience. And I told her, I said, you know, I didn't leave your dad because I loved me enough. I left him because I loved you guys enough. And the military was like the thing that I landed into, right? I will say at the time when I left him, we all ended up sleeping in like a family member's room, and it was a twin bed, and then there was nothing else. And I finally landed a place like in public housing, and we had no furniture. And some maintenance man came to do maintenance and saw like I had these kids and I had no furniture. And so he brought me somebody's used furniture, right? And so that was kind of my my beginning on leaving my husband and telling him, like, I'm gonna come back to you, but really I had no intention of going back. I just need to string him along to make that transition. And so that was that was the military. It was like the thing that I ran to for solace and solitude and

Survival Mode And Mother-Led Courage

SPEAKER_02 4:20

stability because I had these three little girls that were looking at me as an example and looking at me for all of life existence, which I think you know, you you guys get as you know, every woman gets as a mom, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Um how old were you? How old were you when all of this was happening?

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Like when you became a mom, like so I had my first kid when I was 19. And so when I went into the military, I was 25. Much older than the average person that enters the military, right? Most kids go when I'm between 17 and 19. So I was an old chick on the block that was going through boot camp with all the responsibilities. But I showed up and I did my best because I knew it wasn't for me, right? It gave me everything I needed the finances, the good credit, the stability with the guaranteed paycheck, the health benefits, you know, in order for me to create a life outside of the chaos that I had in a marriage. And so that was the military for 10 years until it wasn't. And so 10 years later, I had two more kids at that time. And I decided I didn't want to be in the military anymore, and I needed to be home with my children. And so that was my next pivot, which was just as scary, but I think just as necessary. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I'm curious when you were in that season of deciding to leave and deciding to join the military and just kind of like I mean, quite literally bootstrapping, like military boots, right? To like to like make to change your and your kids' lives. It's so interesting. A lot of people constantly hound on like the self-love and self-care. But I I personally believe that that is one of the beautiful gifts that motherhood gives us. It's a it's a heavy gift, but it is this realization of I it's on me. It's on me. Like these babies, like I'm leading them. And if I don't do it, there's no one else who will. And I think I think that's where a lot of women start a healing journey or a survival journey or like a I'm gonna make a hard decision that like I might not have made if it was just for me. But I think self-love can start from loving others well. I mean, I learned how to love myself well by looking at how I loved my babies and then being like, if I want this for her, shouldn't I want it for me? I'm curious if you've had a similar journey with that. I did. Mine didn't come until later.

Recognizing Survival Patterns In Corporate Life

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Yeah. But thank God it came, right? I think in the moment, I remember, actually, I remember after I had my third daughter, for whatever reason, I was sick, like when I came from the hospital with her, and I nursed my kids. And so he had come in from work and I was, I just had her and I wasn't feeling well. And he came in and he was like, All you do is lay around with this baby. He's like, I gave her to you, I would take her from you. And for the first time in my life, I was like, I'm gonna have to kill him. And then I started having the thoughts like he's gonna kill me, and you know, I'm gonna be gone and he's gonna go to prison, and then what's gonna happen to my girls, or he's gonna try to kill me and I'm gonna kill him, and I'm gonna go to prison and what's gonna happen to my girls. And so then it began, like, I've got to get away from him, right? And so it's a very sobering thought to think like it took for him to threaten the life of my newborn baby for me to even consider my the life of my my other children or all of my children. I hadn't even considered myself in that. It was like, what's gonna happen to my girls if something happens to me? And so that was like, okay, what now? Like, how do we do this? And it wasn't like something that happened overnight. It took me months, like it's it takes you six months from the time you have a baby to go into the military. So literally, when I left for the military, my youngest was six months old. So I went in with leaky sore boobs for those that nurse and can understand to traumatize to deal with any type of postpartum depression or depression. It was literally about survival, like focusing on this has to work, this has to work, right? Because I needed like I needed it. They I needed it for them at the time. I didn't know I needed it for me, but it was enough to know that like I needed it for them. And so, yeah, loving them and then loving myself, loving myself came much later, but then God, but yeah, definitely loving them. So quite the journey from making the decision and coming to that like conclusion, like recognizing the need to leave, and then actually walking it out. Like we I could give you so many stories that go down that line about that journey over the six months of actually breaking away from him.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, the the awareness and the decision making. I think I think people avoid going to that mental emotional space of even telling themselves the truth because they think that like once they know they have to take immediate action. And what I've learned with coaching is the more you can help a woman tell herself the truth with permission that like you don't

From Reactivity To Proactivity In Life

SPEAKER_00 9:40

have to act on it yet. It's okay if there's some skills or some support or resource building that has to happen before you make the move, but you have to start with this awareness of like, this can't keep going, this isn't working, this is wrong for me, this isn't healthy, this isn't safe. And I think it's hard for some women to get there with survival mode because you get into this survival mode, but then when do you ever get out of that? And I'm curious for you. You were in like major survival mode. Personally, I mean, like this is like layer upon layers of like having to having to survive and be strong in these moments where, like, you know, ideally you're being like doted on and cared for in this season, you didn't have that luxury, you didn't have that. So I'm curious for you when did you recognize I'm in survival mode and have the option or the availability or the point of life where you could finally say, like, I don't want to be in survival mode anymore.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

That came during my corporate sprint. And I the reason I can recognize it is because one of the exercises I did at some point I decided I wanted to be self-aware. And so I I'm in the self-aware personal development journey, right? And I'm like doing all the things and doing all of the all the exercises, and I it's interesting how my skill set aligned to it, right? One of the one of my positions was an obsolescence program manager, right, for the military, and to to mitigate all their obsolescence. And we always talked about being reactive versus being proactive, and how being reactive costs so much more money, and how being proactive, right, to mitigate or accept the risks is so much easier, but it's also so much less expensive. And it was like during that time where I started looking at my life, and I started thinking about how I was managing like all the things, everything, whether it was my finances or my time or my relationships or my children. It was just like, I don't want to be like this. I just I need to understand like everything in my life, you know, in survival mode, you're constantly reacting, reacting, reacting, putting out fires, trying to make sure that things are better and everything is balanced. I was like, Well, how do I get to the other

Empty Nest, Identity, And Self-Rediscovery

SPEAKER_02 12:10

side of that spectrum? And what does that look like? Right. And so one of the things I constantly ask my clients is when they tell me they want something, I say, Well, what does that look like? Tell me what you see, and so it's getting them to talk back to me on that, right? And so, but that was from me learning to do it myself because when you go through some so much, right? Because I have very humble beginnings, so even as a child, I didn't have an easy journey to go into a toxic marriage. I was looking for love, but that was not love, clearly. And so it's like, okay, now I'm in a situation where I have these little humans that I'm responsible for, who I love with all of me, and I want better, but at some point, I was like, okay, well, now we're stable. You know, I also want better, not just for them, but now I want better for me. And it's like, okay, I gotta read a book. Okay, but what does the book say? Okay, I gotta do these things. And as I'm dwelling into all this information and I'm trying to do all this work, I kind of got to face myself. And it's like, well, you know, all these things in your life are very toxic, they're very reactive, right? It's it's if you want to come out of that, then you have to do something different and you have to identify like what's on the opposite end of that, and slowly start structuring things differently, and slowly start even speaking to yourself differently and giving yourself permission, right, to come away from that because it's almost ingrained in you because you've done it for so long, at least I did.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, I mean, it it's a pattern that's been built over time, and I I think something to note too, because I think a lot of women, there's a lot of talk recently in the coaching world of like you're living in survival mode, you're you're running on fight and flight. And for me, it's really important that we slow it down and be like, survival mode makes sense, like it is the uh the only thing that's available a long term, the other the other option is not surviving. Like, I think we can really demonize these nervous system responses or life choices or life responses, and I think it's so appropriate to slow it down and be like, there are seasons or moments of our lives where like survival responses are very much appropriate. I think for me, and I'm curious your thoughts on this. I think what's what I want women to start becoming aware of, all of us, all people, when am I safe? Can my body feel that it's now safe to come out of survival mode and find a way of living and breathing and mothering and working that isn't survival? Who am I outside of that survival mode? How, what does like ambition look like when it's not running on full cortisol?

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Like, oh yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Because that's you know, it's not that you can't work or hustle or have all of these things, but it's like it's done without such an intensity. So I'm curious for you. Once you started kind of realizing you were safe, you had at least enough stability, enough safety, we're never fully safe, we're never fully stable, but like enough safety, enough stability that you wanted to come out of that survival mode. What was that process look like in motherhood

Community As A Safety Net

SPEAKER_00 15:30

or work? Or like, was there one specific thing in your life that like kind of was like the hinge, or was it like all these little things is what it was sounding like.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

I was gonna say, yeah, I think for me it was like breadcrumbs, right? It was just like this journey. I think one of the sayings that I love to quote is when the student is ready, the teacher appears, right? And so when we're ready to apply certain lessons in life, I think it just kind of shows up as an aha moment, as a quote, as a kind word, as a book, as a podcast, right? I another thing I normally well I've been speaking about lately is being an empty nester, right? And so I'm not empty nester right now because some of the kids came back, but I was for over a year. And it was one of the hardest times of my life. And so, and the reason I talk about it is because I feel like there's not enough conversations about what a woman goes through when their entire identity is tied to motherhood. And when that's being stripped away for the first time, I was on my own. I didn't have to care for anybody, I didn't have to consider nobody, I didn't have to worry about where you were going, if you needed some help, if I had to be home, if I had to cook your dinner, if I needed to do laundry, if I had to watch my grandkids. It was just me and my dog. And it jarred me, right? And I was sad a little bit. I can be honest, right? This is a safe space, but it also made me consider me. Like, you spent your entire life catering, pandering, nurturing, loving everybody else. And so now that you're here with yourself, like, do you like yourself? Are you happy with yourself? Like, what do you want to do?

Advice To Moms In Hard Seasons

SPEAKER_02 17:15

What do you want to look like? Where do you want to go? What do you want to eat? How do you want to spend your days? What's next for your life, right? So even though I had kids young and my kids are grown and I have grandkids, I'm still fairly young. So it's my next season, right? And am I am I okay to pursue something else? Do I just give up? Like, what do I do? So, but I think that is a part of our evolution as like over time, right? We just don't necessarily take the time to consider it with so much death. I mean, I had a lot of time just to just to sit and think, right? But what you said is is relevant and it's valid because children go from being very needy to being you know a little independent, you know, they go through that. I got it staged, mommy. You know, you just have to sit back and watch and hope they don't hurt themselves to actually turning over the keys of your car one day. So one day, you know, you're helping them move into their dorms or their new places. It's like, what just happened here? And so for me, even though my children had moved out and they had lives and they had jobs, we're still all in the same city. So my grandkids came home every day, and it was just like I didn't have to consider so many things. And I was like, wait a minute, who are you? Like, you know, and so making it okay though, so to transition through those phases, I think community to answer your question, I think is is needed on so many levels, whether it's a safe friend group or it's you know, uh organization, or if it's a a business space or whatever it is, but being around people who can support you in the season in in your journey, right? And be that safe space that you can kind of throw stuff against the wall and they won't judge you for it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

And it sounds like in every season of life, your definition of success changes and looks different. And and I think our identity changes. And when you're in that young kid season of motherhood, it is so awe-consuming. I mean, it it's a lot, and even when your kids get bigger, I think a lot of women start realizing, like, oh, what is my identity wrapped up in? Yeah, I'm curious, and this isn't the direction we plan to go for this conversation, but I just have to ask because I'm sitting here like you're the kind of girl I want to ask this to. Now that you're in this season of motherhood, of life, of womanhood, yeah, when you look back on those seasons, obviously you can't know what you know now, but like what would you tell us who are still in this season as someone who like is just on the overside of it?

SPEAKER_02 20:05

I would tell them a few things, right? I would tell them to take time to enjoy the moments because they go very quickly, right? I would tell them if they're dealing with hard situations like I did with,

Spotting Burnout Behind “Success”

SPEAKER_02 20:20

then they are enough. They are stronger than they know. If it is abuse to get out, right, because you deserve better, love yourself and love your babies. If you're not in a hard situation and it's just hard, get around some people that can support you and encourage you to remind you that you are still enough, and this too shall pass. You'll get through it, right? And so, but there is sunshine after the rain. So go dance in the rain, right? Yeah, and that's perspective. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I tell people all the time, my grandchildren, I get to enjoy them because I didn't enjoy my children, right? I was so busy surviving and thrive, like getting trying to get over to the other side. It's like I went from one thing to the other, high school dropout, I got a GED, went into the military. I was in college, so I ended up in the military too. And my husband, we would fight every other semester because he had he said I was seeing somebody. So one semester he was good. The next semester he wanted to knock my head off because he thought I was seeing somebody in college, and so it was like military full-time, school at night, right? And it was like, okay, I'm building, I'm building, I'm trying to check all the blocks, get a house for them to live in so they can have somewhere decent to come home to, and just trying to have them experience all the things I never experienced, but never type quite taking a moment to enjoy the moment. So now that I have grandchildren, I can just kind of sit with them and play with them and watch them explore and have the coolest conversations that I didn't necessarily take the time to have with my own kids. And we have great relationships, think I just super grateful. Sometimes I'm like, how did that happen? Like, but yeah, no, just you know, we don't because we're all kind of moving so quickly and because the world's moving so fast, it's like at this age, I wish I had to slop down a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and just to tell you this, I work with a lot of women who are still working on their relationship to their mothers. And one commonality that I have found, and I hope this encourages you, it wasn't just how they parented them then. It's who they are as a person now. Like as adults, they look to their parent and say, This is a person I would want relationship with if they weren't forced to

Strategy Versus The Human Side Of Business

SPEAKER_00 23:00

blood. Like this is a person I like being around. So that's just a testament to you too of like, I have noticed that with women of it's not just about what their parents did. It's it's about who their parents are still becoming and still growing up to be, which is always an encouragement to me. I know that's one of the gifts that I have of my parents, of like, I've gotten to watch them grow up, like I've gotten to watch them grow and heal. And it certainly sounds like you're still someone who's like consistently. I'm curious, yeah, when you so fast fast forwarding a little bit to that corporate era when you found that you were still in survival mode and you're coming out of survival mode, and now like you're coming into like coaching other women. I'm curious, like, how do we spot when we're in survival mode? How does someone know that they're in survival mode?

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Honestly, a person has to want to know, I think. Because self-awareness is key to many things, right? I think the beauty of a coach and a therapist and a counselor, only in this one way, right? Because I don't think they're the same, definitely not, is that a lot of times we mirror what the person or client is trying to say to us, right? So what I hear you say is is really getting them to getting them to see themselves, hear themselves, um, be honest with themselves, to stand in a level of truth. And a lot of people don't want to do that because then it forces them to be responsible for the information that they've just owned. And so if a person's not willing to do that, then it becomes harder because you then they are like, Well, you're attacking me. That's not who I am. I didn't, I didn't do that. And it's like, oh, yeah, you did. I didn't say that. Well, that's not what I meant. It's like, well, you said, you know what I mean? So I I think the importance in that is a person that wants to know like where they are is starting to do the work. Like if you ask the people that's closest to you, like, hey, I just want to ask you a really honest question, no judgment, I won't hold it against you. And you can't hold it against them, right? It's like, hey, I'm you know, I just want things to get better. I'm trying to improve, you know, my relationship with myself, and I just want to self-identify in some areas. What do you think about my relationships? Are they healthy? Are they toxic? Where am I in that? Ask the closest people to you. They won't lie to you if you have that relationship with them. And then based on their answers, whether you agree with it or not, right? Take some time and start looking at some literature or some books or something that will educate you so that you can start saying, Well, maybe I do do that. Because at the end of the day, you know yourself. Yeah.

Coaching With Integrity And Individual Fit

SPEAKER_02 26:00

And it's and it's changing that, like I said, I did a lot of the work, but it was also changing the self-talk. Reading books on positive words and affirmations and journaling and things that will calm me down and calm my brain down. And right. And it's like, okay, well, what do I like? Like I'm really big on sunrises and sunsets. I have a trillion pictures. Sunrises tells me that I'm grateful for another day, right? Sunsets tell me I made it another day. It doesn't matter what happened in between, right? Because the good comes with the bad, but I made it on both ends, and that gives you perspective, right? And so, but it's things like that. You gotta find a thing for you because it's different for everybody. Yeah, I have a friend that's into grass. I don't know why. I I don't get it, but it's it's their thing, right? I'm like grass, like everything goes back to grass. Like, what are we talking about? But whatever does it for you, whatever helps you identify yourself in your journey and your perspective and where you are and and how you're grown and evolving as a person and how that how you and how it makes you interact with other people, because that's the second most important thing outside of ourselves is our relationships. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah. When you're in when a client is in a season where they're like, okay, I'm really, really successful. Here's how successful I am. Why am I so burnt out?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Well, that really depends on a few things. Yeah. Right. So one of the moving along in my journey, the way I identify myself in that is based on my response. On paper, I was successful, right? I did the thing. I did all the things double masters, grass hers, certifications, corporate, you know, the home, the car. I was like, I'm doing the thing. The kids are grown, they're all doing their own thing. And it's like, why am I not fulfilled? Why is this? Why am I over it? I left the government and I went into government contracting with the intent to start my own business, which I did. And in my mind, I was gonna be a mogul and I was gonna be, you know, I was gonna make all this money off of the government because it was there to be made. And I have no doubt, given my ability to persevere and my determination, that I would have succeeded. Except as soon as I made that transition, I lost my brother to gun violence. And he was 27. And it shook me because you lose a person that's older, and it's like this old age, right? You're sad, but there's a peace that comes to it because it's we all are born, you know, to pass. And you lose someone to terminal illness, and it's you know, it's sad, but it's also like it's beyond your control. But to lose someone so violently, it was like it it just jarred me, right? And I started a nonprofit. So all of my energy went into building this nonprofit because I wanted to serve people to make sure that what happened to us was less likely to happen to somebody else. And I still worked in my business, right? Because I had

Redefining Success In Parenting And Work

SPEAKER_02 29:10

to pay my bills, I still had younger children, I was in school, and I was doing all the things, but I wasn't doing it that way. It was burning me out because the passion, the thought, the desire was gone from it. And it just didn't make sense. So I was like, Well, how can I coach? How can I serve? How can I teach? How can I come alongside? Because now that it feeds me in a way that this it doesn't. And so when you get with clients who appear to be successful and they're so burnt out, we're gonna do the business piece. We're gonna check your systems, right? We're gonna see if you're really burnt out because it is not enough time, because you're burning everything at two ends, your team is not right, your systems are not in place, right? But the other part is gonna be. Are you doing this because you need the money or are you doing this because it feeds you? Are you are you moving on purpose or in passion? Are you moving because you're materialistic, right? Like what are we doing? But typically you can learn through those conversations exactly what's at the root of it. And a lot of times they'll find out like it's it's just the ends to a means. It's not the thing that feeds them.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Man, and what you just shared, I find that to be so true. One of one of my things that like people are so well intentioned, but whenever I see posts or content that's like, here's my blueprint and strategy for coming out of burnout. I feel like there's a lot of those. I'm always just like, the strategy doesn't matter if we're not aware of what's actually going on with the woman, though. And like, but that's that's not scalable in the like that that has to be a relational slowing down awareness thing. It's not just a strategy. And let's be honest, I think a lot of women who are successful entrepreneurs, successful businesswomen, we love a good strategy. We're like, give me the strategy to throw on this, give me the strategy to fix it. And we try to apply that to our humanity, and it just doesn't work. And it's like, if if this is a burnout problem that like really is a strategy, yeah, let's find a strategy for it. Sometimes that's true. But I can think of so many women who came to me who were like, I really need help with time management. And they pull up their Google calendar. I'm like, girl, you've got better time management than I do. Like, it's not about the system of your time, it's how your time feels. It's it's the feminine concept of time, it's the like presence, it's the quality of your time, not just the quantity of your time. But I think our culture loves a strategy, loves a blueprint. They're so sexy and fun. And like what's not as fun is slowing down and being like, we don't know until we ask the ask the questions and sit in it for a little bit and look around our lives and tell ourselves the truth about what's working and what's not working. I mean, I know so many women who are like in this season, they've had to slow down their business a little bit, and that's not necessarily what they wanted to do, but like it wasn't working. And for them, there were things that were more important.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Yeah. Absolutely. When I first stepped into coaching, I tell people, I said, you know, I thought I was just gonna do strategy. And what's interesting is that most people don't even know what a strategist is. So when I put on my strategist hat, which is very project management, right? Very Six Sigma, black belt, let's streamline processes, workflows, let's talk about they'll be like, Oh my god, where have you been? Yeah, you know, I didn't even because they don't have a clue really when I say strategist, like I'm a business strategist. Let's get your business in order so that it flows and it makes sense. For management, yeah. They can operate effectively, right? But then I realized most of the women I work with they needed a coach. And so that's speaking to the emotional, the feminine side, right? The partner relates to them as a woman. So they say, Why do you only coach

Freedom, Boundaries, And Evolving Motherhood

SPEAKER_02 33:20

women over 40? Well, because we're in the same journey and I can relate to them and I can tell them what worked for me and how I see myself in this, and then how what they can take away from it, right? Because I know it works because I, you know, and it's like, oh, okay. So business coach and strategist, yes, that's exactly what that means. So, and I and I say that I can give you a plan of action that eliminates all the noise and tells you everything you need to do. But if you don't deal with this, you don't deal with you, you can't do anything with that, it's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And frankly, strategy only works if you have enough capacity to implement it. I think and if you have enough emotional mental regulation and maturity to be able to find yourself at the roadblocks that can and will come to be able to like problem solve through perceived failure, through actual failure, through the like actual implementation, because like strategy is really sexy and fun. And I think everyone loves like a new like, give me your blueprint of what to do next. Everyone loves that, but like actually doing the thing, actually implementing it, it sometimes feels terrible and it does not look sexy and it does not feel fun and flirty, but like that's the true stuff that I think most people struggle with is the human side of business. It's the human side of success where it's like you can be massive, massively successful at business and still functioning, by the way, especially if you're a high functioner and feel emotionally or creatively or relationally burnt out because you don't have a reason for doing what you're doing anymore, or you want to do it differently, or you need is there too much output, or is there not enough input? Like there's so many different ways to solve for, prevent, heal, change, burnout. But I think sometimes people don't get there because they're so quick to be like, what's the strategy?

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Well, yeah, one shoe fits all kind of approach.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

No, I agree. I think one of the unfortunate things of this season that the world is in, and I'll say the world, you'll get it in a minute, is that social media, I think, is a gift. I think, but it's made everybody very microwave ish. And so, like you said, one stop shop, same shoe for everybody's foot. Give it to me. I need to get it done in you know, two seconds, not realizing, like, wait a minute, let's come have a moment, let's talk about it, let's get into the thing. Oh, I don't have time for that. Just tell me what I need to do, just give me the framework, right? And it's like, well, you know, I can give it to you, but you you're missing a piece. Yeah. So, and trying to get them to understand that. And so I told I said one time, and I said, if you don't make your girls non negotiable, no one else will. Which I say to all my clients, but I said it in an open platform, and I said, I get, I'm not saying, you know, people don't have stuff. I got stuff, I got five kids, I got grandkids, I got aging parents, and I said it just like that. And someone it was posted, and someone came. I was like, Oh my god, I can't believe she said that, and she triggered me and she made me feel like I was insignificant because how dare she say and I was like, but it wasn't meant like that. It's saying that I can be your coach, I can hold your hand, I can try to hold you accountable, I can give you the plan of action to make sure that you can hit all your marks. But if you don't make it non-negotiable, if you don't do the work, right, it's not going to serve you. All of my clients get a client resource guy, personal development. The second thing they get is a plan of action milestones, which is a strategy piece. I hold you accountable to execute. But if every week when you walk away, if you don't do the work, when you come back to me, nothing will have changed. You will just tell me how you didn't have time, you will tell me how all the things got in the way, you will tell me how it was too much, right?

Choosing, Permission, And Getting Unstuck

SPEAKER_02 37:20

But so what am I here for? And it's like that's not being mean, right? Like you said, it's not gonna happen overnight. You're gonna run into things. So when we go through your plan of action, I'm like, these are your dependencies, these are your risks. Do you understand this document? Do we need to talk about the verbiage? And they're like, no, but I didn't ever, I never thought about that. I'm like, yeah, for everything that you must accomplish, there's a risk. You either need to mitigate it or you need to accept it. Oh, okay. Well, I'm giving you a heads up so you can plan for it. That's my job. So it's like, oh, okay. So I'm here to help you, but the other part is like, here's your mirror, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:02

You gotta yeah, you gotta help yourself. Well, the key, the key is you're you're there to help you. And it's like it's it's so interesting because I think we we have a culture that has a weird I'm curious your thoughts on this. I think we have weird relationships to leadership. I think a lot of us have only experienced leadership where it's like either toxic masculinity or toxic femininity. And I think unfortunately, with coaching and therapy, I think a lot of people have developed relationships where they some there, there's nobody is acknowledging that there's still a power dynamic. Not that I actually have more power than you, but you intellectually and emotionally are paying me money, saying she has something that I might not have.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

And I always name that with women because I all and I'm constantly trying to name that dynamic and bring them into this awareness of this is your life, your strategy. What matters is if this works for you, your framework, how you do your marriage, how you do your motherhood. Like if people come to me and they're like, What did you do as a parent? Sometimes what I did as a parent will be super helpful. And sometimes you are parenting a different kid than me. You are a different, you're a different fundamental human being than me. You're married to a different husband than me. You're living in a different socioeconomical city. You like everything about you is fundamentally different than me. So, yes, I'll share my experiences and I'll share my stuff. But my fundamental job as a coach is to help you figure out your stuff and what you're gonna do about it or not do about it and why. Right. And I think a lot of a lot of here's what I was getting to. I think a lot of

Closing Reflections And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_00 40:00

coaching culture has sold people the idea that coaches in general have a magical framework that other people do not have. And I'm like, first of all, my framework won't work for you because you're working with different parts and pieces. Like I'm in a different season than you. Even like you, I'm sure you could come into like I'm sitting here like this. I know this woman could come into my business and like tell me some shit that I did not know. I I'm just sitting here like you would have so much fun getting your hands on me in my business. No, but like I know that you could see something and tell me something that I didn't see or didn't know. And it's so important that it's not just about you putting your imprint on me, it's you witnessing what is my own. Anyways, all that to say, I'm just curious, like thoughts disagree, agree, kind of agree.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

No, I agree with everything you're saying because, and to your point, we're like, I'm sitting here thinking as you're talking, we have very similar thoughts, experiences, perspectives. And one of the things I always ask my clients is what does success look like for you? Yeah, right. So everyone that comes into my programs, they do a 50 question survey. 50 questions is pretty extensive. I've some people complain about it, but most people don't. They just say, Wow, it's really eye-opening. You asked me some questions I didn't consider, or you know, you make me think about some stuff I hadn't thought of. But I immediately know a person that takes a long time and it's not a lot of uh information there, they're not serious about their business, they're closed off, they don't want to share about themselves because it's about personal development as far as time management, productivity, focus, procrastination. It talks about limiting beliefs, but it also talks about KPIs and metrics, right? It also talks about your vision and your mission, your, you know, what do you want to achieve in your business, forecasting, you know, all those things, but it gives me a really good snapshot. Like I can read through and it's like, oh, okay, they're on their stuff, they've done the work, or I can say, they're wasting my time. I know before we start this call, it's gonna be a waste. And so it's always goes back to I can sit here and dream of something for you if you tell me you want to do something, but it's not realistic because it's not it's not my dream, it's yours. So I need you to tell me what success looks like for you in this season of your life based on your passions and desires, your dream, right? Your family situation, because we all have different situations. So I can tell you about mine, I can tell you how I've laid mine out, what my business model is, why it is the way it is, what's important to me. And you may say, Oh wow, I didn't think of that. Oh, you know, I want to borrow that piece, but yours is gonna have to fit you, like mine is gonna have to fit me. And so I agree 100% on that. I I don't always find that I'm understood in these spaces by other coaches, and that's okay because I think the people that's for me are for me, right? Yeah, and it is unfortunate. I think that's a part of the lack of integrity that I find in this space, right? So every coach has a coach. I've had several, some good ones and some bad ones, but I think I try to do, I think how you do anything is how you do everything. So I try to be integral, right? And I'd say, well, if that's what they're doing, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna do what I feel is right, and so I'm gonna show up the best way I can for my folks, but that's not just throwing a you know, three points and a I don't know, my three-point framework.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I I think too, we we've both said this a couple times, but that idea of regularly coming back to what does success look like in this season? And I know for me in this parenting season, that can change monthly. Like it was literally in the middle of this year where all of a sudden I was like, my definitions of parenting success have to so we're in the teenage, we're we're parenting a teenager now, um, and our teenager happens to be very spicy in all of the best ways. Um they will be a fundamentally wonderful adult. And you forget that like when you're parenting someone, like I'm like, you know, I want them to have a strong will and be able to assert their boundaries and you know, question authority. And then I like forget that like they're gonna practice all of that on me. It's very just and also like I'm just I'm a sensitive little one, you know. I am. I'm strong and I'm tough, but I am I'm sensitive, I'm heartled, I'm emotional. My tendency as a mother is to have my head just right up their butt. So I have to like pull myself back. I have to like, I tend, I have a tendency when I'm unhealthy to overparent. And all of a sudden, I realized our season of parenting has shifted. And I have to redefine how I look at being successful as a mother is different now than it was a couple months ago because something has shifted in her. And so something has to shift in me. If I want to lead her, if I want to manage well, I'm going to have to learn different leadership strategies. I'm going to have to figure out better emotional regulation strategies for myself so that I have such a deep center of gravity that I'm not getting pulled and sucked in, that I'm not overreacting or underreacting. But again, like that success meter, that success metric in business. I'm consistently having to look at, oh, this looks different. It's just recently in my business where I went like, oh, I don't enjoy doing the things that like they were working, but like I can do this, but I don't really want to. I could probably force this, but I don't have to. I don't need to, and I don't really want to. Like it's not a survival thing in my business right now. But I think I know so many entrepreneurs and businesswomen who we start our own businesses so that we can be our own bosses and then find out that we're terrible bosses to ourselves. Right? This revelation of like, I built my own business so that I could go to the gym when I want, so that I can be home for kid things, so I can have but then we end up not doing it. What like now?

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Well, I'm not like y'all, okay. Let me say that first. And it could be the wisdom, okay? Could be all this great hair.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

The hair, the hair flip was perfect. Could be the wisdom. It probably is.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

No, seriously. I recently had somebody say, What do you like about entrepreneurship? I'm like, oh, the freedoms. What are you talking about? Like the freedoms, the time freedom, right? The financial freedom, the do what I want to do when I want to do with freedom. The yeah, and you you're just free to choose. If I want to change a program, I phase it out and I change it. And I say, after this date, I'm no longer offering this because I've decided to go another direction. Why? Because it serves me better, right? So no, I I get that now. Let's go back a little bit to the parenting piece. I applaud you for that. It it I think four out of five were adults. I don't even consider my son to have been an adult at that point, even though he was 18.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

But we're yeah, that's that's a fair assessment. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

So no, like, as I always tell people, like, children don't come with books on their back, like you really are fig figuring it out as they grow up, and everyone is born different, right? So it's like a joke on you. You think you have a down pat with the first one, and then the second one comes and throws you for a loop, which is pr pretty much how it went. My oldest daughter is very mild-mannered, very calm, very she didn't have like a rebellious moment until she was like 21, to give you perspective. And at that age, it's like, okay, really, this is what we're doing. But her sister, three years younger than her, she always had me on my toes, always, and so it was just like, what? And and you know, I got five, and that explains it. So, what you're saying is completely accurate. It's like parenting is in phases, and it's for those who don't realize that it is a phase, they will find that they will lose their way, right? In the journey, and they will have some regrets. I love that you're super self-aware because I meet a lot of people, and most people are not, and so I get quiet around them because I'm a truth teller, and if I open my mouth, they'll get offended. People say they want the truth, but they don't want it. But when children are younger, they need you to almost be overbearing, right? Almost being like, do this, do that, come here, do that. And and from that, you go from telling them everything to do, you go to explaining everything to them because you want them to understand, and then you go into trying to teach them life skills and things like that to prepare them, and then you go into a position of guiding and transitioning into a friendship because at some point you realize that they're not obligated to keep you in their life, and you want to keep that position. And if you don't change that relationship dynamic along the way, then you'll find that a lot of children will break away because they want to assert themselves as those young adults, right? Almost as if they have something to prove, but then the relationship becomes damaged along the way. And if they do find themselves in sticky situations and thank God mine did not, then they are less likely to tell you about those situations if you've broken that relationship because you didn't honor it. And so, kudos to you, mom. Give you your flowers because it sounds like you got it, right? So I think the beauty of me having a really good relationship with my children is I when I overcommunicate, I am big on boundaries, kind of, uh, as much as a mom can be, right? And so if I feel like they're pushing back or they want space, I give them space. Does it mean I don't cry when I'm by myself? Absolutely, I'm a mom, right? Because I don't always understand what they're going through, and nor do I force my way in like into their situations when they invite me in, although I don't always agree with their stance or what they're doing or how they're going about it. If they ask my, you know, position, I'll tell them because they know not to ask me if they don't want to know the truth, but otherwise, I don't. And sometimes they'll say, Mom, I don't want a mom, I want a friend. I've heard that numerous times, and I would rather be quiet and be in the room, right? Than voice my opinion and get kicked out and then have regrets about what happens afterwards. And so yeah, it's definitely an interesting game where you're dealing with different personas, right? Four girls, and none of them are the same. And my son is different from the four girls, so that explains it.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah. Well, and I think too, people underestimate how much like your personality as a person is going to deeply impact your motherhood. And like I'm laughing at your boundaries, kinda, or I just I it it's something that like boundaries. I'm constantly, I'm consistently renegotiating and looking at, you know, what are helpful boundaries, not only for me, but for them, like learning how to leave them alone, learning how to like give them a little bit more like freedom and ability to like not make force my parenting on things that don't need to be parented. Like at some like I think when I'm so self-aware, and I think a lot of times I expect my teenager to be, and then I have to remind myself like that, no, like that's not actually like that age appropriate, honestly. Like, but that's really hard for me. So I have to like wait, like leave them alone sometimes. And for some parents, that would be terrible advice. Like they they need to like be paying more attention and being more proactive, yeah. Like, but you know, it's all in. I I think this is where strategy comes in, is when you start saying what's working, what's not working, how do we shift that? And relationships are just patterns, yeah. It's patterns of conflict, patterns of emotion, patterns of connection. And so that's where I love like both entrepreneurship and motherhood. Like it's relationship, yeah. One thing I love that I heard from you you know how to use freedom well. You you sound like a free woman who trusts herself. I I think there's so many women who have more freedom, but they still feel like a caged animal. And I think that's part of the like they're still running on these survival mechanisms, even though like the doors open, they're not locked. Like they have access to do something different, but they're still stuck on this pattern of relationships or the their own healing or their business, where it's like you have freedom to do something else. You have at least some wiggle room, you have some margin of what is it that you want to do? What are you choosing? What are you choosing? I feel like that is one of the most powerful questions that I ask other women and myself on a regular basis. What are you doing? Who are you doing it for? And are you aware that you're doing it? Because you could interrupt the pattern of what you're doing and do something so nonsensical. You could, I my one of my favorite examples, I could go buy a cake from Walmart and eat it for lunch. I could like I probably won't do that. Like, I could pick up my shoe and throw it. I don't know why I had that thought one day, but I was like, you could just be walking in a crowd, take off your shoe, throw it up in the air. Like there's all these random nonsensical things that I'm like, try to think of the most crazy weird thing you could think of. You could do that. I could stop doing my business today if I wanted. Yeah, I don't want to. But as soon as you re-engage that choosing mechanism, that freedom of like, I'm a grown-ass adult. Right. No one is forcing me to do this. You like, even if you're in a corporate job, you could technically go quit. You could go brush all the stuff off your boss's desk and throw them middle fingers if you wanted to. You might not want to. There might be consequences to that, but you could, you could, and from from there, if you think of like the polarities, now you're back into the choosing.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

No, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

That completely resonates. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Well, I'm just curious when when someone's stuck, if someone's listening to this and they're listening to you and your story, and they're like, okay, this girl's got wisdom. Where do I where do I start? I feel stuck.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

I think a lot of what you said resonates because I'm really big on giving yourself permission. And so I I use that a lot of times with my clients. It's like, today I want you to give yourself permission to do the thing, right? Whatever the thing is. And let's just start with giving yourself permission, right? Yeah. So every day I want you to look in the mirror and say, you know, Chonda, today I give you permission to be great. I give you permission to be loved. I give you permission to be powerful, I give you permission to be ambitious, like whatever you feel like needs to be said to empower you to your next, give yourself permission, right? And I think that's very closely related to choosing, right? It's because your word told so much power to hear yourself say that you have the leeway, you have the right, you can have the audacity, right? It's like, okay, so what am I choosing? Are you gonna choose yourself? Are you gonna choose to be powerful? Are you gonna choose to be great? Are you gonna choose to be ambitious today? Are you gonna choose to do the thing that makes you feel great about yourself and how you show up? Like, what is the thing that you're not choosing? Because when you're stuck, what are you stuck in? Are you stuck because you're confused, you don't know which way to go, right? Do you need clarity? Let's get you clear so we can get you on your way. But then if that's not what's holding you, let's talk about what's holding you. What is the limiting belief in here? And what is the thing that's limiting you in your heart that says you're not good enough to move forward? Is that the thing? You're not worthy. Is that the thing? Like, what is it that you're telling yourself? You're not capable, like what's the conversation that keeps echoing in your mind and let's deal with it. Let's say the opposite of that. And I want you to say it to yourself so you can hear yourself speaking life to you, and then we'll move from that place. But first, I just want you to give yourself permission, right? And go from there because we all ultimately, even when we see ourselves in a negative light, we know what the opposite of that is. So if you don't even know what to say to yourself, think about all the negative things you hear and the noise, write those down and think of the antonym. What's the opposite of that? Let me let's go to the opposite. So instead of focusing on those, let's just say the positive.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

I love that. And I think too, I've I've run into many, many women who are like, I don't know what I want though. I don't know what success looks like. And it's like, great, tell me what it would look like and feel like to be a failure. They're like, I don't know what I want. Okay, tell me what you don't want. Let's start there. Let's start there. And then we have a direct, there's almost always a direct line to what you do want, to what success is. So it's like, if you can't get to the if you can't get to the positive, start with the negative. That's great. That's fine. Start where your awareness is, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

This conversation was so much fun. I absolutely loved having you on the podcast today. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_02 58:28

My website is chonda-co.com. Really easy. C-H-A-N-D-A-C-O.com. And you can find me on social media at Chonda 2 underscores C O. Perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

And I'll I'll have links and everything, but this I loved this conversation. It lit me up so much. So thank you so much for being a guest today.

SPEAKER_02 58:52

Thanks for having me. It was absolutely it was good. It was enlightening in the sense of sometimes we forget to look back. And so it makes you feel grateful, right? I think when you look back, sometimes it's like that's the importance of looking back. Yeah. So thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor podcast. Make sure you have subscribed below so that you see all of the upcoming podcasts that are coming soon. I hope you take today's episode and you take one aha moment, one small tangible piece of work that you can bring into your life to get your hands a little dirty, to get your skin in the game. Don't forget to take up audacious space in your life. If this podcast moved you, if it inspired you, if it encouraged you, please do me a favor and leave a review. Send an episode to a friend. This helps the show gain more traction. It helps us to support more moms, more women. And that's what we're doing here. So I hope you have an awesome day. Take really good care of yourself, and I'll see you next time.