We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Shelli Frazier Trotman Scott recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Dr. Shelli, thanks for joining us today. The first dollar your firm earns is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.
I was a guest speaker for a women’s summit and advertised a workshop I was hosting. It would be the first event I would host, and I donated a free ticket as a raffle item for the summit. An attendee of the summit reached out to me to ask if I would conduct a separate workshop for people employed at one of the largest public hospitals in the country…and so I did!
The attendee also shared my website with the VP of HR, who scheduled a meeting to share that she wanted me to conduct a workshop for the hospital managers. It was an extraordinary situation!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As a newly divorced single mother with a four-year-old, I decided to move to a new state for a job as a professor. I believed it would give me the flexibility I needed to raise my child and build a better life.
Soon after, I found love again. I remarried, gained two beautiful bonus daughters, and set my sights on tenure—the promise of stability, recognition, and a lifelong career.
After I became eligible for tenure, I put forth my tenure materials, hopeful. But the response came back: Denied. I was devastated. I had done everything right—or so I thought. And in that moment, I began to wonder: Is this what I really want?
While I wrestled with that question, a colleague of over 20 years came to work visibly ill on a Monday. She left work to go to the ER, but by Friday, she was gone. Two weeks later, her office was packed up. Her space was empty, but the hustle and bustle around it continued—unbothered. Unchanged.
That was my wake-up call.
I ultimately earned tenure and promotion. Then came leadership roles and full professorship. But even at the highest level, I didn’t feel valued. I was working nonstop, missing family moments, and running on empty. My husband was unhappy, my children needed me, and I was disappearing from my own life. I had reached “the goal,” but at what cost?
I decided to make a change. From that breaking point, I created The Octopus Method, a transformational framework that helps me protect my personal space, optimize my productivity, and prioritize my self-care. It allows me to lead, love, and live with intention.
It worked well for me, so I decided to share my knowledge with others. I partner with companies to solve leadership gaps and talent loss by building confident, communication-savvy teams.
As a behavioral strategist, transformative leadership and development speaker, and trainer, I bring clarity, alignment, and retention-focused strategies to every client.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One lesson I had to unlearn was that my work and my worth were limited to education.
I only saw myself through the narrow lens of academia and limited my impact to academia, school districts, committee rooms, and conference presentations. Although I led with integrity, built high-performing teams, and created spaces where people could thrive, my focus was on curriculum, instruction, teacher preparation, academic outcomes, and behavior management. I missed the fact that my retention rates were almost unheard of; the only time people left my team was to move into better roles. Instead, I minimized the transferability of those skills, thinking they were somehow “educator-only.”
It wasn’t until I created The Octopus Method—out of sheer necessity—that I realized I was building something far bigger than a time-management tool for the academic/education realm. I was building a life design framework for high performers, leaders, creatives, and caregivers – people in any field struggling to balance achievement with alignment.
When I came to that realization, things began to shift. I started to connect with people outside of education. I presented in non-academic spaces and started connecting with entrepreneurs, executives, founders, people in finance, tech, and healthcare. I found that they too were overwhelmed, overcommitted, and over it—and I recognized the very things I thought were only “education-specific” were applicable and life-changing for them. My leadership lens, systems thinking, and experience navigating complex institutions and managing high-capacity teams translated.
I had to unlearn the idea that my impact had borders. I now know that my calling is not confined to any one space. My impact is portable. My voice is valuable wherever people try to lead and live well. Unlearning that limitation shifted my perspective and led me to become The Leadership Luminary—serving across industries and making transformation tangible for leaders who want to thrive without losing themselves.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
When it comes to managing a team and keeping morale high, we should lead with humanity, clarity, and consistency.
People don’t stay because of a title or a salary alone; they stay when they feel seen, valued, and supported. I make it my business to know the people with whom I work, not just what they do but who they are and what motivates and challenges them. Then, I align their work with their areas of strength.
I also believe that clear expectations and open communication are necessary. Ambiguity kills morale. However, trust builds when people experience success, recognize the presence of success, and observe their leader modeling that same accountability.
Small, authentic recognitions go a long way. Saying things like ” Thank you,” “That was a good idea,” or ” Your voice matters” makes a difference.
The bottom line is that morale isn’t a one-time boost—it’s a culture you build daily. When your team knows they’re safe, supported, and their voice matters, they’ll give their best to you and the mission.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://theoctopusagencyllc.com
- Instagram: theoctopusagencyllc
- Facebook: TheOctopusAgency LLC
- Linkedin: iamdrshelli
- Twitter: iamdrshelli
