We recently connected with Dr. Shunte Howze and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Dr. Shunte thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
My philosophy has always been that you never stop growing and learning until you’re dead. God has a purpose for everything that comes about in our lives. With that, my mission is to share my story and journey in this thing called “life” in order to make an impact in the lives of people that are trying to discover their life’s purpose despite obstacles and challenges that we all face. I want to help others figure out what their purpose is by helping them to establish realistic goals and develop a customized plan to specific to their needs or support those that know their purpose but may be stuck and need that coach to help them get to the “endzone” (for all my football fans).
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I would love to! I am Dr. Shunte’ Howze, the mother of two beautiful daughters, Genesis and Zion. I am the owner of SGH Consulting and Supportive Services (2008), Purposed-Life Coaching Services (2019), and the founder of Genesis Outreach, Inc. (2007). My entire life, since childhood, has been spent serving, helping, and giving to others. My grandmother, mother, and others around me life’s story of doing just this made way for my passion. I guess I would say that I was “born into this” but later realized that it was my life’s purpose. My life has been one of when passion meets purpose for Human Services. I have spent most of my professional career in social services, community outreach and engagement, and personal development with children and adults with a special interest for those with mental health, psychological, and behavioral disabilities.
Although I have done many things in my professional career, I found my purpose and passion in life coaching. Purposed-Life Coaching Services, LLC was birthed out of my own personal life of ups and downs, mishaps, and brokenness, it was there where I found my strength to persevere through the odds and understand that it is life’s journey that processes you for your purpose. My logo is the butterfly because in understanding the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to the butterfly, there is a period when the caterpillar goes into the cocoon. It is in the cocoon when things get messy because it decomposes itself, I call this the purge of everything that has held you down and back, childhood trauma, adult trauma, life circumstances, and the ugly things that you have to deal with. In dealing with these things, just you and God, you learn a lot about yourself. You also begin to discover who you are without the interference of outside influences. It’s in that place that you find your strength and you move from brokenness into a place of healing and wholeness. It was in this place that I found my purpose.
Purposed-Life Coaching Services is unique in that I am creative in my approach to coaching, whereas my clients aren’t just getting information for application, but they are getting an experience. An experience in a way that I sometimes don’t know how we got there but we did, and my clients are healed, set free, delivered, and moving forward with their purpose in life, their families, their homes, on their jobs, starting their businesses, and just becoming a better version of themselves. My role as a coach is to support, challenge, and encourage my clients. It’s also my job to help them get to the foundation of their challenges in order to empower them to make wise choices about the rest of their life. My specialty area is working with parents that are single, divorced, co-parenting, and just trying to balance life. My other areas include stress management, coping skills, financial goals, career change, starting/scaling a business, accountability, mindset and success coaching. I provide services in-person and virtually, so I am able to reach clients around the world. I also do speaking engagements, host workshops and seminars, retreats, and more.
I am most proud of my clients! I am proud of my clients for choosing themselves and realizing that a part of self-care and self-love is positive mental health. Those that called and I answered, I understood the assignment as their coach, and they entrusted me to help them to develop a clear, precise plan in helping them achieve their goals. They did it! They are happier, healthier, and at peace with life now. I am blessed to be a part of that journey with them.
Join the Purposed-Life Movement by purchasing one of the products letting people know that you are living your purposed life and trusting the process! A portion of the proceeds benefit my non-profit organization, Genesis Outreach, Inc that allows me to do more community outreach services at no cost to families that are in need of basic life resources to include shelter, clothing, educational needs, and other support services for those that are low-income, facing homelessness and/or currently homeless.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Whew! The pandemic brought on a lot. Instability, fear, but it also forced me to move out of my traditional way of doing business. See, I was the old school social worker that met with clients wherever convenient for them, face-to-face. I consider myself a very basic tech. My comfort zone with technology only expanded to emails, texts, phone calls, video chats with family and friends periodically, and a little social media. Well, when the world shutdown in March 2020, I had to figure out how to move out of this comfort zone in order to make an income to survive and maintain all that I have worked hard to build. No, it wasn’t easy at all, and it was very uncomfortable having to shift to learn a world that was always intimidating to me. From learning how to do add-ons to my website, that I initially paid someone to build out, to me to trying to see how I can be as effective with my clients virtually as I was in-person.
My Squarespace tech team became my “BFFs“ as I was reaching out to them every chance I got to ask questions on how to add sections and other features to my website since my budget had changed and I could no longer afford to pay a website manager. I had to research different virtual platforms that would allow my clients options for us to do virtual services. I also took some classes with Google, Squarespace, and social media platforms, that I am still working to master.
With these changes and challenges, I have been able to learn, understand, and apply what I’ve learned to now have a successful coaching business online and in-person. My word of advice is to never be afraid to learn something new. You would be amazed at how this information can take you and your business to the next level. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of FREE resources available to you. Do your due diligence to make sure that the services and information is reputable and go for it!
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
When I began my state contract, I did so without having to take out a business loan or seek funding from any outside sources. I took money I was making from the consulting side of my business to build the supportive services side that ended up coming at a cost. A cost of my mental, my sleep, and my peace. I was making great money, but not really understanding that the checks that were coming in were all invoices that hadn’t been processed months before, but I was still having to make payroll every 15th of the month. It wasn’t until I sat down with my accountant, and she broke the news that I was working on a rolling budget that ultimately wouldn’t allow this side of my business to sustain much longer without change with accounts receivable (payments coming in on a consistent basis with state and within the contractual timeframe noted). She asked how I was able to do this, and I told her with the grace of God. This was devastating news because I knew that I would have to make some changes with staffing as well as become more aggressive in receiving payments in a timely manner which could cause some issues.
All of this came with wins and losses (lessons)! It came with sacrifices of my time with my children, family, friends, and for myself. It came with profits and losses to the point where I couldn’t pay myself because I had to make sure that I always paid my staff. There were times that due to invoices not clearing yet, having to take my own personal money from my household to make sure that my staff was paid while making payment arrangements on my own bills. The question becomes, what are you willing to sacrifice now to get to your bigger picture? To live your Purposed Life? These two scriptures are what kept my faith strong and knowing that things won’t always be this way: “To whom much is given, much is required” Luke 12:48 and “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” James 1:2-4
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.purposedlifecoaching.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/purposedlifecoaching/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Purposed4Life/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/purposedlifecoaching/?viewAsMember=true
Image Credits
kelleyraye.com | @xokelleyraye