Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mcclain Sampson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi McClain, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I consider myself to be a risk taker in my personal and professional life. I’ve tried to live my life and build a career by staying connected to my own self-awareness and self-growth. I took a risk when Ieft my job, a place to live and the safety and security of “doing what is expected” of a 25 year old to backpack around the world for a year. I took a risk when I decided to end a marriage that wasn’t providing the supportive partnership or the model of love I wanted to emulate for my small children. And, I’m currently taking a risk by starting a new career as a coach at the tender age of 53. All of these decisions required me to honor what my inner voice is telling me and to have the audacity to believe that I can make my dreams come true. I think that sometimes it can feel like the biggest risk is just betting on yourself!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I entered the world of academia in 2011 when I joined the University of Houston as a tenure track professor. At the time, I was a mother of an infant and a toddler and married to a person who was also launching his career as an educator. I have a masters and a doctorate in Social Work which enables me to pursue knowledge and make solutions for improving individual lives but work toward changing systems that individuals are affected by. Although I achieved what I was “supposed to” by obtaining an academic job and securing tenure, I felt restless and dissatisfied with how I was doing my life’s work. I was ready for growth. I wanted to make impact on a bigger scale and I wanted to work with people who want to make changes in their life but often don’t know how. I enrolled in Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach Training program. I am now able to add “coach” to my set of skills.

I have always had a passion for helping women see their own strengths and to take charge of their lives. When I had my first child, I was shocked at how little my own experience, knowledge about mental health and wisdom of my own body was ignored during pregnancy and the postpartum phase where society expects moms to “bounce back”. It was during this time, my first pregnancy and my first year of my Ph.D. program, that I became determined to elevate the need to value maternal and reproductive health. I’ve spent my academic career pursuing grants and writing papers to lend evidence for why mom’s mental health should be prioritized. But in the last five years, I’ve experienced a series of professional and personal losses and challenges that made me want to use my passion for a more direct impact.

In 2022 I founded Hear Me Roar Coaching. Within this business I bring my 12 years of experience as a professor and researcher into the world of life coaching to help women who are dedicated to being a parent and are also ambitious professionals. Through years of research and running programs that helped pregnant and postpartum moms to improve their mental and physical health, one theme emerges. Moms need support and they need resiliency & self-efficacy. Moms thrive when they are able to be their whole self, not just the roles they inhabit. Research, and my own journey, shows that this is only possible when she has support and when she believes that what she does and who SHE is matters.

My services include one on one coaching session, public speaking and group classes to provide support and strategies to juggle the multiple and often competing demands that moms face at all developmental stages of their kids lives. I help to make being a dedicated parent and ambitious professional a rewarding and sustainable experience rather than an excruciating and draining one. I have two teenagers and am a single parent. I have lived, studied and taught the strategies of “balance” in a unique manner that prioritizes authenticity and eliminates self-doubt and guilt. I offer single sessions, 6 week, 3 month and 12 month coaching packages.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I am currently writing a book that details my experience as a mother who made the incredibly difficult decision to send her son to therapeutic rehab for mental health and addiction when he was 16. I write that although I had been through a divorce, a two year stretch of professional sabotage and my father had committed suicide in 2019, experiencing the terror of my kid’s addiction and self-destruction is what nearly broke me.

To make the decision to “send him away” was the most heart-wrenching, difficult moment in my life. The decision starts a process that is life changing for the kid and the family. Through the experience of parenting him here and from afar I have done extensive amounts of self-growth, self-coaching and family therapy to change habits and patterns in my own thinking and behaving. The fact is that I have grown stronger as a person and a mother due to my own tenacity and resilience. I knew that was a pivotal moment not only for my son, but it was also an opportunity for me to grow and overcome so much self-doubt, guilt and fear that was running my life and my parenting. I have learned the value of emotional discomfort versus avoiding it at all costs.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I have had to unlearn so many lessons! The one I will share during this interview is related to having to unlearn the tendency to give my power away when in a leadership position. It was my first time running a program and managing a budget of 5 million dollars. Although I had written the grant, designed the way the program would be delivered and had a decade of maternal health research informing my ideas for how to run things, I gave much of the decision making power away.

I was intimidated being the first female to run a program of this size with a budget of this size. I didn’t trust my own instincts of how to lead and I gave that power away. It turned out to be the worst professional decision since the person I trusted to run the program, more than I trusted myself, created a hostile work environment through fear and bullying. It took two years of hard work to regain the trust of what few employees were left on the team after I was finally able to remove the person I had put in charge. It was a humbling yet empowering lesson to learn that I needed to trust my own ideas and abilities. Seeking guidance and input is a wise practice, but if you have created a project, you must be responsible for the implementation and monitor how your team is being treated.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hearmeroarcoaching.com
• Instagram: @hearmeroarcoaching
• Facebook: @Hear Me Roar Coaching with McClain
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcsampson
• Youtube: @HearMeRoarCoaching-HMR
• Other: My LinkedIn address takes you to my page and there is a Hear Me Roar Coaching business page embedded.

Image Credits

Photo Credit of headshot and family shot: Angela LaMonte. Only Once Images.
Photo Credit of me alone, with orange shoes: Kimberly Parker