We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shelby St.clair a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shelby, appreciate you joining us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business
Life happens, we get pulled away from our big dreams, goals and desires and before we know it years have passed and we’re still stuck in the same place we long to get out of. Just hoping, wishing and praying for things to change.
I launched The Boss Lady Agency in 2017 with the Soul goal of helping purpose driven women start and grow businesses that set their souls on fire. As time went on and my clientele grew I began noticing just how much “life” would takeover, pulling them away from their businesses, creating fears and limitations that set them back and made them believe that entrepreneurship wasn’t ever going to work out for them in the way they had hoped. This led to the first evolution of The Boss Lady Agency. In 2018 I began to intertwine business strategy with life coaching to help women gain control of their mindset, move through hardships with more ease.
This changed everything for my clients. Women were getting clearer, their focus was more easily brought back to what they desired to have in their life and moving through the hardships wasn’t taking as much time away from their businesses as it had before. But the universe had more planned for me…in July of 2019 my husband unexpectedly passed away while I was 6 months pregnant and in a single moment I experienced the hardest moment of my life that left me questioning everything.
How was I supposed to continue on? The life I had dreamed of and was building was gone in the blink of an eye. I questioned how I was going to run a business, support clients and be a single mom. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle it all. I feared my business failing all while failing as a mother. And while my emotions were taking over and my body was entering a state of fight or flight I knew one thing…I had to remain in control because every single thing that I felt/thought/embodied would become a part of who my daughter would be.
I knew that energetically if I allowed myself to lose focus of the life I had dreamed of I would be depriving my daughter of the most beautiful life so I took myself through the work that I had been doing with my clients.
I began diving deep into myself, understanding who I was and why I wanted to build The Boss Lady Agency in the first place. I knew that even though my husband may no longer have been walking besides me he was always walking within me. I allowed myself to hurt, to cry, to scream, and I also allowed myself to envision an incredible life as a single mom paving the way and creating a legacy for her.
The death of my husband may have been the darkest and hardest moment of my life but I chose to find the light I looked fear in the face and I chose to Face Everything And Rise!
This moment led to the greatest evolution and expansion that The Boss Lady Agency could have ever had. It led me to my true purpose of this work to be a source of light for purpose driven women who are ready to break the generational chains, release their limiting beliefs and fears, heal from trauma and step into the highest version of themselves! Over the past almost 3 years I have been able to take all of my life experience and put it into a sacred space that allows women to dive deep into themselves, aligning with their souls purpose all while building businesses that thrive off of their personal energetic strategy so that they can move through life in a state of confidence as they make and impact and an income!
We no longer allow life to take over. We are claiming our birthright of success and we are building the businesses and lives of our dreams!
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 stepped into entrepreneurship in 2012 starting and growing multiple businesses from the ground up, building teams and becoming a multiple six figure earner before launching The Boss Lady Agency in 2017. The Boss Lady agency was created with one big vision goal in mind: FREEDOM. I wanted to create a space that allowed me to have the freedom to shift the way starting and growing businesses was done, with the ability to work around my lifestyle, and to create expansive income while most importantly providing the freedom for other women to change their lives as they step into their highest selves.
I am a spiritual healer, embodiment coach, business consultant and the founder of Brunch with Babes. People come knocking down my door for many reasons, but primarily due to my experience and expertise in the duality between business, personal branding, emotional intelligence, and transformational healing. My method is informed by my certifications in NLP, Hypnosis, Reiki, Chakra and Sound Healing as a Trauma-Informed Life Coach, blended with practical, energetic business strategy and systems. Whether it’s through my private coaching, in-person events, group coaching containers, digital courses, or my podcast Behind The Boss Lady, I am the go-to coach for women looking to step into expansion, leadership, visibility, and soul aligned authenticity in their work.
I guide Purpose Driven Female Entrepreneurs through deep Soul Alignment work as they heal from trauma, fears, and limiting beliefs so they can connect with their authentic self and step into their power as the Boss Ladies they are while creating the life and business of their dreams.
I love cuddling up with a good cup of coffee and a book, saging my house, connecting with my guides, tapping into my inner child as I play with my daughter and fur babies, enjoying the beauty of the outdoors and cooking while dancing in the kitchen as I continue on my journey of personal healing, self growth and life expansion.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
That “hustling” is the only way you’ll be able to reach the success you desire.
I always had a massive disconnect with the word “hustle” and how it’s used by so many entrepreneurs as a way to create a sense of motivation. For the first 5 years as an entrepreneur I truly felt I had to hustle day in and day out, choosing to work over spending time with family, missing out on important life moments because “if I just hustle it out for the next few years my life will be everything I ever dreamed of and more”.
In those five years of hustling I did in fact reach massive success with each of my businesses but you know what I lacked? A connection to myself. I lost so much of who I was that I didn’t even realize how burnt-out, overwhelmed and disconnected from the people I loved I was. And truthfully all of that “success” didn’t matter in the end when I couldn’t function to keep going any longer.
The hustle mentality is really a scarcity mindset. The thought that if you work on your business 20 hours a day you’ll become a millionaire is coming from a place of needing to prove to yourself that you can push through and accomplish your big dreams and no longer needing anyone else in your life because you’ll make it on your own.
The real power is when you learn that you can take those 20 hours and crunch it down into 4-6 hours, getting the same amount done (if not more), having a social life and being present for all the big moments – I call this the flow state in business.
When I learned my personal energetic strategy and how my mind, body, and soul thrived I was able to create a state of awareness that allowed for hyper focused work time and led me to the place I am today. Where I get to be successful, continue growing & scaling my business on MY terms without having to miss out on a single thing. And the best part? It didn’t take me yeeeaaaarrrsss of “hustling” to get here,
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Two words: Authenticity and Connection.
When I stepped into the world of coaching I promised myself one thing – that I would show up for my future self no matter how hard the day was, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly so that women knew they weren’t alone on this journey.
I knew that if I wanted to help women create the business and life of their dreams I had to walk my own talk and take massive, messy action. I had to do the deep inner work to connect to myself so that I could be in a state of alignment that allowed me to connect deeper with others. Social media allows us to put blinders on our reality and only share the “good stuff” but that’s not real life and truly not what people need anymore. There’s enough comparing in our world, let’s not bring that into business too.
No one needs more “my life is perfect and you wish you were me” vibes. What women needed was to know that they can create a wildly successful business while being at home in their robe all day long, that if they still had yesterdays messy bun it didn’t mean they were unworthy of helping others, that if the dishes were piled up in the sink and they still had a basket of clean, unfolded laundry it didn’t mean that they aren’t valuable.
Being authentic in my work and showing all parts of myself and my life allowed women to see me as relatable while also holding the vision of what they desired to be for themselves.
When we are born we are pre-programmed with a belief system that says we either become who society wants us to be or we are shunned and pushed to the side, we aren’t picked to be on the basketball team, we get shoved out of the circle and because of that we become who we think we have to be to fit in. This leads to a deep disconnection with ourselves, our soul, and our true desires, leading you further and further away from your purpose.
So if there is anything you can do to help shift the way of the world and step into a position of being in your power it’s through deep connection (to self & others) and allowing your authentic self to shine through. We are all so damn worthy of being who we really are. There are people out there waiting for you to say “this is me, come join me on this wild thing called life”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thebossladyagency.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebossladyagency/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebossladyagency
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebossladyagency