We were lucky to catch up with Mercedes Gibson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mercedes, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned – both working inside nonprofits and later coaching within them – is that workplace culture is revealed far more by policy than by values statements.

I used to assume that tension or dysfunction at work was mostly about personalities or “team dynamics.” But over time, I saw a different pattern: the healthiest organizations weren’t the ones with the best slogans, they were the ones with the most intentional protections for people who are usually last in line – especially women, caregivers and staff navigating major life transitions, like maternity leave or health needs.

When those policies are strong, everything else tends to stabilize. Communication gets clearer, expectations are more consistent, and managers rely less on informal gatekeeping. When they’re weak, what looks like interpersonal conflict is often actually confusion created by unclear systems.

That shifted how I build my own work. I now start from the edges—asking who is most likely to be unsupported or left guessing—and design for them first. Because when you take care of the most vulnerable person in the system, you usually end up improving the system for everyone.

Mercedes, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Mercedes Gibson is the founder of The Self Integrity Project, a coaching and leadership development practice that supports high-achieving women of color in cultivating self-trust, alignment, and sustainable success. Through strengths-based coaching, she helps clients build careers and lives that reflect their values, lived experience, and long-term vision—not just external expectations.

She also serves as an Economic Strategist at The Greenlining Institute, where she advances policies that expand economic opportunity for small businesses of color. Her work focuses on racial equity, climate resilience, and community economic development, with an emphasis on improving access to capital and infrastructure for historically excluded entrepreneurs.

Across her coaching and policy work, she helps lead the Climate, Community & Economic Resilience (CCER) Series, a statewide initiative bringing together lenders, policymakers, and community organizations to design more equitable climate and small business finance systems.

With over two decades in nonprofit leadership and economic justice work—and as a lifelong Oakland resident and small business owner—Mercedes brings both lived experience and professional expertise to everything she builds.

What sets her work apart is a consistent focus on alignment: creating systems and supporting leaders in ways that don’t require people to abandon themselves to succeed.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

There was a period in my life when I was deeply driven by a very narrow definition of success – more money, a stable career, a better home, promotion, and proving I had “made it” beyond the conditions I grew up in.

I come from a background where many of the people who raised me or shaped me passed away young, often due to drugs or illness. So my focus became survival through achievement. I was determined to build something different for myself, and I tied my worth to external markers of success.

But in that pursuit, I ignored what was happening internally. My mental health was declining, but I kept pushing. I told myself I didn’t have time to slow down because I needed validation from outcomes—titles, income, recognition.

Eventually, I hit a breaking point and had to step away from work to take a mental health leave. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made, but also one of the most necessary. I was fortunate to be in a workplace with strong leave policies, and when I returned, my position was still there—and unexpectedly, I also received a 9% raise during that time.

What I learned from that experience is that resilience isn’t just about pushing through. It’s also about listening earlier, especially to the parts of yourself you’ve been taught to override. I had to learn, in a very real way, that ignoring my own signals came at a cost—and that healing requires the same seriousness I once reserved only for achievement.

Now I understand resilience as something more honest: the ability to stop, recalibrate, and choose yourself before collapse forces the decision for you.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Yes – there are a few resources that have really shaped how I think about leadership, coaching, and even entrepreneurship.

I’ve always been drawn to self-help books, but over time I realized not all of them land the same. A turning point for me was completing a two-year program in positive psychology, where I learned there is an actual science behind well-being and happiness. That shifted something fundamental: it helped me see that happiness isn’t just personality or luck—you can study it, practice it, and build it.

A big part of what I took from that work is that you can learn how to feel better and function better, even if it’s not your “natural” default. But the key is getting honest about what actually supports you—not what you think should work or what looks impressive from the outside. It’s about noticing what puts you into flow, what regulates your nervous system, what brings you back into yourself.

For me, that might look like something simple: incense, quiet time, or a small beauty ritual. For someone else it might be cooking, walking, or creating something with their hands. It’s usually not complicated or expensive – it’s in the everyday practices that restore you.

Two books that have stayed with me are *The How of Happiness* and *The Body Keeps the Score*. Neither is a perfect roadmap, but both gave me language for something I already knew intuitively: that the body carries wisdom, and we lead better when we actually listen to it.

More than anything, these resources reinforced my philosophy as both a coach and a leader: sustainable success isn’t just about strategy—it’s about nervous system awareness, self-trust, and learning how to return to yourself consistently.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mercedesgibson.com/self-integrity
• Instagram: @theselfintegrityproject
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mercedesgibson/

Image Credits

Derrick Miller Handley