Today we’d like to introduce you to Shana Francesca

Hi Shana, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?

I was born into an abusive household and raised inside a religious cult. My humanity, my curiosity, my life, was not honored and valued. I was seen and treated as property, someone to be raised and groomed, not nurtured and empowered.

When I left those environments at 26 and began building my life, I realized, despite my best efforts, I had very little idea how to be a healthy part of relationship or how to identify those who I could build healthy relationship with. That’s the part that I think that is so sinister and most people don’t think about.

When you grow up in a way that you are required to abandon yourself for someone else’s gain, and taking care of yourself is labeled as selfish, abandoning yourself is normalized, and when you try to reclaim your autonomy you are overcome with guilt and shame. You feel like and behave as if you need to hide even basic self-care or constantly explain yourself and defend your actions.

I also had no idea how often I was policing the people around me. Since I believed I needed to justify my self care maybe others do too, ‘indulging’ in a hot shower that lasts longer than five minutes or taking time to do your hair and makeup for longer than a 10 minutes might fall into the category of being high maintenance. You have to justify it so as not to be seen as vain and self-centered or attention seeking, rather than someone who cares about and for themselves and enjoys taking care of yourself and showing up in ways that empower you.

For these reasons and so many more, I realized I wanted to know what healthy relationship and leadership were and are. My life didn’t feel humane it felt like a trap a cage I desperately wanted out of. I had to ask myself, how do we show up in a way that embraces our humanity and everyone else’s? What does it empower and facilitate?

This began the last fourteen years of research on my part to answer those questions. I now share what I have learned along the way through my keynotes, workshops, consulting and podcasts. Any opportunity I talk about what I have learned. It changed my life and changes the lives and leadership of those i am able to share it with.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

Absolutely not. I struggled with imposter syndrome for years. I had gone to school for interior design. I was required to go to a university that was founded on the same ideology as the cult I was raised in and I had no intention of doing that. I wasn’t a legal adult yet, I was 17 when I went to college, and didn’t have any support from extended family and had no friends outside of the cult. I knew I needed a degree and refused to go to a college that most women were sent to in order to be chosen as someone’s wife.

I had to choose a major that was “gender appropriate” and not available at the university my father was insisting I had to attend. So I chose interior design. Being a designer taught me many skills and gave me many tools to empower my clients. I created physical environments that reimagined the best parts of themselves, their greatest stories, triumphs and memories. I became their mirror, reflected back to them who I saw them as. I got to know their lives, their dreams, their aspirations and crafted spaces that facilitate the ways they want to connect with clients, people they love, people they might learn to love, their hopes, and dreams.

Eventually I realized there was a larger conversation undergirding my work and interior design was a limiting medium. I went out on my own as a designer in 2019 and by 2020 I realized I wanted to make powerful changes in the world that I couldn’t with interior design as the center, there was more. I was being asked to speak at events and lead group coaching and be a part of powerful conversations that were less and less connected to interior design. I spent the next three years building what is now Concinnate while running my interior design business before discontinuing that business two years ago and fully leaning into speaking and consulting.

It’s been four years since I created what is now Concinnate and two years since I walked away from interior design as my main source of income. Those first two years, that’s where imposter syndrome had me in a chokehold. The thing is, no one EVER asks me what I went to school for because it isn’t relevant. My lived experience and nearly a decade and a half of research is what people are interested in. I wish I hadn’t allowed it to hold me back for quite so long.

For anyone who has bootstrapped not one but two businesses, we can tell you it is not easy, it will cost you everything you have and everything you didn’t know you had but if you stay dedicated to curiosity you will find that you will pivot your way right into what you are meant to be doing. You will pivot right into your purpose and profitability will follow.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Concinnate LLC?

Concinnate is a professional and personal development training and consulting company with ethical leadership and relationship as the focus. I am a keynote speaker, consultant, and scholar of intentional and ethical leadership and relationship. I believe we become infinitely more impactful as leaders and as humans when we understand the power of community and our role inside of it—knowing that an organization, family or friend group is a type of community and needs to be honored and cultivated as an ecosystem where every part and person must be honored and empowered. This transforms relationships, inspires creativity and innovation, and drives profitability.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?

Stay curious. Whatever you do, stay curious, open to change, find mentors, persons or companies you want to model your business or aspects of your business after. But most of all, be willing to learn more, and change your mind.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.concinnate.world/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/concinnate.world/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAFmDzdt3-CutdjGR8NNIxg

Image Credits

Jamie Dunek