We were lucky to catch up with Meghann Trapp recently and have shared our conversation below.

Meghann , appreciate you joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I am an Air Force veteran and served 10 years. During my time in the military, I had many times that were challenging, frustrating and seemed impossible to get through. Specifically, I was sexually and physically assaulted while deployed. There were times I didn’t think I could continue on and I knew I had to dig deep and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Prior to this, basic training and Fire Academy helped prepare me for these times, during exhaustion, physically demanding situations and many other experiences taught me to dig deep and keep going. I can elaborate on these further when asked.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I didn’t really set out to do anything Im doing now and that’s how my coaching and speaking business came about. I had been in the military for 10 years and planned on retiring eventually. I had been a Firefighter for 14 years (10 of them in the Air Force) when I was sexually assaulted while deployed to the Middle East. I came home to a unit that was set on forcing me out of the military and destroyed my career and reputation because of it. I had achieved many awards and metals, including military Firefighter of the year as the only female in my dept at the time and another Air Force Achievement medal for the work I did during that same deployment. I felt betrayed and destroyed by people I sacrificed so much for and dedicated my life and career to. I quickly unraveled after getting out and felt lost and had no passion for anything. I then was introduced to NLP and a mentor at the time who told me he could absolutely help me. I took my NLP Practitioner course in May 2019 and it had such a massive transformation in my life and shift in my entire perspective and mindset. I was able to release so much of my PTSD-MST and past trauma from years of significant emotional events. I now help my clients and others like myself do the same, through hypnosis, time line therapy and many other skills and tools to do so. I started sharing my story publicly and now have several interviews on podcasts, shows, military bases working to change the way they handle sexual assault within the military and DOD and even in a veteran’s magazine. I am grateful and humbled that my story and trauma has been able to help me heal and empower others as well.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Honestly, I had no idea I was doing so at the time. I just felt after having such a huge transformation and shift in my thinking that my story was and is powerful and can help others. I went live on Facebook about a month or two right after going through my first NLP course and I immediately started getting private messages, comments, people reaching out about their own stories and thanking me for stepping up. Most said thank you for sharing this and please keep sharing it, telling it and so on. It was then that I knew I was on the right path and just started telling anyone and everyone as much as I could about my story. The key is consistency. I know that sounds so cliche but it’s so true and really changes things when you keep going.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Biggest shift during my healing process was unattaching myself to the label and thinking of myself as a victim. So many times I kept hearing it during the investigation and even years down the road when meeting with others. I sometimes use this now because I want to catch the attention of my ideal client or those I directly want to connect with but I had to retrain my brain to acknowledge how limiting that label was if I truly believed I was still a victim of my assault. What I mean by that is, I’ve come through this and I now and thriving. I chose that word instead to help focus on empowering others. If I still truly believe in a victim, I’ll get stuck in that label and how can I help others move from that mindset if I’m limiting myself in that belief?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.meghanntrappcoaching.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/meghanntrappcoaching
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/meghann.trapp
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghann-trapp
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/MeghannTrapp