We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shonte Youmans a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shonte, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is different for everyone and everyone’s journey is intended to be different. But I can tell you that success starts with you believing in yourself first before anyone will buy into your success. There is no timeframe for how you achieve success or how many times you experience failure. What matters is that you don’t ever give up on you and your dreams. Success starts with your mindset, beliefs and confidence that you have what it takes to achieve your 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 am Shonte Youmans, aka “The Voice” CEO and Founder of Fresh Start Consulting.The #1 Communications Strategist, Speaker, Author and Travelpreneur. She shifts the rooms she enters and makes an impact on every person she encounters. #1 Best Selling Author and #1 International Best Sellers.

Fresh Start Consulting helping you change your words to create the most effective message and allow your communication to shine through adversity.

I was a little girl with a dream who became a woman with a vision. But I allowed dream killers to deter me from fulfilling my dreams and my calling! I was shrinking back to make others comfortable and to fit in spaces, rooms and relationships I didn’t belong in.

It became an internal war with self that I didn’t feel like I needed to fix because the people around me made me feel comfortable being stuck!

I was the introvert who was okay with being in the background. I am called to serve women who shrink back because they feel like their voice doesn’t matter recognize Communication is their Superpower.

I am called to serve women in supervisory roles recognize how important communication is when they are leading. Authenticity is the key to connecting with those on your team. As a supervisor if you are good to your team, they’ll be good to you. It is my passion to teach women how to be better communicators and be more effective.

I am called to serve teams who lack the ability to communicate to achieve the best results! There isn’t one way to communicate on a team. There are multiple ways to communicate and I create strategies to help everyone see the different perspectives that will help achieve the goals.

I am proud that I went through the pruning phase of my life to strengthen my faith. I love having conversations that challenge people’s perspectives but challenge my own perspective. I am an active listener to fully understand and share the most positive feedback.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I started this entrepreneur journey at a time when I was trying to escape a place where I felt trapped. But I started and was still allowing people who of no importance affect my ability to achieve the success I desired. I was trying to weather storm that God sent to build me up but I thought it was sent to destroy me. I had every reason to throw in the towel, give up on my dreams and stop believing in me! But God I stayed the course and I tapped into my faith account. I leaned in because God said I made you in my perfect image and you are more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ. I am going to be a household name because I know there are other people who can relate.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I have stepped out and stepped in to who God called me to be. This allows me to be my authentic self and share life experiences and life lessons. I have been through a lot which allows me to extend grace and compassion. Sometimes I just know where someone is coming from and how they might feel. I am the “Black Sheep” of my family. So this is personal for me. I connect with people and provide real information with solutions.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Shonte Youmans
• Facebook: Shonte Youmans
• Linkedin: Shonte Youmans

Image Credits
Theo-Barbados