We recently connected with Therese Skelly and have shared our conversation below.

Therese, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I’ve been in the coaching space for two decades. Truthfully, the mission has evolved over the years as I have! But in the beginning, I became aware that I, like many other women who focused on having a business while raising their children, was trapped. Even though my marriage was in trouble, I didn’t feel empowered financially to be able to leave, as most of my time and attention was on my boys. Eventually my ex pulled the plug, and I was thrust into being a single mom…and then the recession hit. I went from a married life where we were very comfortable financially, to now battling all kinds of financial hurdles. I became wildly aware of my own mindset and money issues, and after losing my house and car to the recession and subsequent bankruptcy in 2010, I vowed that I didn’t want another woman to have to go through that because she was under-earning.

I became inspired by the very hard working moms who were either tied to businesses that didn’t light them up, or stuck in relationships because they were not excelling financially. So it became my initial mission to make sure these women learned to own their value and charge what they should have been charging, because I discovered that sooooo many women in the service based business space wildly under-value themselves, and give too much of their time, for too little compensation.

After being in the business coaching space for awhile, I started seeing that the beautiful clients I loved to work with had “visibility” issues. That meant that they were hiding parts of themselves. Marketing and online activities proved to be a challenge for some in that they struggled with hidden doubt, shame or the messages that they had to be perfect, didn’t have enough to say, or were afraid of getting real. (Especially women over 40. There’s a ton of conditioning we lived through about putting others first and not drawing too much attention to yourself.) Then my work shifted even more to my motto that you can have a business you love, make good money, serve the people you are here to serve, have time for your family, AND…be boldly self-expressed!

So many women have been told they are “too much” or think there are certain ways they have to show up, versus allowing their authentic expressions to emerge. But here’s the deal…your prospective clients want you to be relatable! Yes, credentials and experience are important, but as I see it, being REAL is the true commodity. That means I model authenticity and vulnerability. I work with women in all facets of their life because as I always say, “you can’t take your life out of your business.” Plus, far too many in the coaching space don’t have the skills nor desire to do the deep/personal work I do.

My mission was also shaped as a result of the Covid crisis where so many people were traumatized, had personal losses, or financial setbacks. It wasn’t business as usual any longer. The country was split. There was a collective trauma, and so many of my clients (myself included) suffered tremendously. So the emphasis became even MORE about healing and rebuilding. And yes, we could talk about re-building business, but I was (and still am) far more interested in helping women find restoration after life has given them hard things. I feel like my clients have had the Phoenix bird experience, where they are building from the ashes something even more beautiful. So while we work on business, it’s truly my mission to make it a safe space for my clients to bring ALL aspects of their life to be supported around. And that’s quite unique!

Therese, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi, these days I call myself The Intuitive Business Mentor. I’ve been in the business coaching space since 2003. Prior to that I was a practicing psychotherapist with a Master’s Degree in Counseling. Truth is, I loved that work! I never thought I’d leave it. I had a private practice that allowed me to make a bit of money, see a few clients, but be room mom and totally available for my boys, Danny and John. In 2001 I decided to go to life coaching school, and started integrating those two worlds.

But a very cool and what I know today to be a ‘soulfully aligned’ opportunity emerged. After I became a life coach, I went to a business networking event. (My very first one, ever!) From there I got on the company’s newsletter list. One day I saw an ad that said, “Business coaches wanted.” Here’s the funny part of the story…there is NOTHING in my background that would make anyone think I was qualified! I have my counseling degree, and my bachelor’s was in Criminal Justice. I worked in a prison. I worked in a drug treatment center, an in-patient psychiatric hospital, and with lots of clients, but had never taken a business course, read a business book, and aside from a stint working as a terrible employee of an insurance company when I was 17, had not even worked in the business world.

Yet, there was something about the ad that pulled me in. I’d say that it’s the first time I was VERY aware that my conscious mind was not making the decision, because I knew I was totally unqualified. But my fingers were on the keyboard filling out the application, and two days later I became a business coach for a very reputable coaching company.

Talk about imposter syndrome!!! I was terrified! But my soul, (and God) knew what the plan was, so I had tremendous mentoring by the folks at Premier Coaching. They saw the seeds of greatness, and trained me well. In those days I was a marketing strategist, but as I was working for the company and ultimately starting to build my own practice, I discovered what would later become the work I focused on. First…I didn’t own my value. I could not articulate my brilliance well, nor sell my services which is a tough way to start!

Because I walked through this in my own business, I could then see it and support the women clients I was working with. I discovered that no amount of strategy could overcome a faulty belief system, or subconscious blocks that often would create havoc or impact results. I was able to weave in my understanding of marketing, selling, messaging, copywriting with mindset, because that’s so crucial. Most people know what they should be doing, but often can’t figure out why they are not! But I can.

Along the way, I also discovered that I’m wildly intuitive. Truthfully, in the beginning, it scared me. Remember…I came into the space 20+ years ago and there was no talk of “feminine energy” or intuition or God. It was hard core business and marketing only!! So when I discovered that I knew things beyond what my professional training gave me, I did it with my clients, but was afraid of marketing it for being seen as a crazy person!

But my clients ended up informing how my work would unfold. For example, I’d have clients say, “I don’t need help with strategy today, but can you check in on why my sales are slowing down? So I’d pick up my pendulum, tune in, and be given wildly accurate answers that there is no way they could have found themselves. Women who couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t get visible or land on who their target market was, were blown away when I’d find the answers that were often related to something that happened when they were children, or even a family trauma that happened before they were born. (This is epigenetics…the understanding that we carry in more than our families DNA, we also very likely carry trauma passed down from generations.)

Today I run mastermind groups, and see 1:1 clients. I catalyze powerful transformations that unlock income, impact, and inner freedom—so my clients no longer sacrifice their soul, family, or sanity for success. I’m not just coaching. I’m helping women come back to themselves and build businesses that reflect their power, truth, and desires.

In my work, the clients cherish me tuning in and discovering why they are blocked, where it is, and how to flip it. My belief is that strategy is only about 10% of the equation. And with now 40 years of working in the personal development space, I see time and time again, that the unconscious parts of us can either serve, or set us back. My work is extremely precise and often mind-boggling! Believe me, it took me a while to trust it, deliver and always give thanks to God for the gift I have. In the beginning it was as if I was watching someone perform something so freaking cool! I used to be blown away by what my intuition pointed to. But today I humbly roll it out, much to the delight and service of my clients.

What sets me apart is that I have so many decades of not only professional experience, but equally important, lived experience. I’ve had a child who struggled with addiction and mental illness. (Now he’s clean and sober, thank God!!!) I’ve dealt with death and divorce, abuse, and betrayal. And I think all these experiences are a gift in that I can hold space. I can witness whatever my client brings with love and grace and compassion. And I’ve had a ton of success in the business space, helping my beautiful clients break free of their limits and create business and lives they love.

I’m a huge fan of alignment. That means that my coaching suggestions MUST fit with my clients values, lifestyle, goals, time/family etc. Too many in our industry offer cookie-cutter approaches, but I’m just enough of a rule breaker/rebel that HOW DARE I think I know better than you what you should do! LOL..

On a personal note my boys were both born naturally, with the assistance of a midwife. Those wild and wonderfully empowering experiences shaped who I am when I work with clients. I’m not some authority/guru who is “doing coaching to you,” but more a partner in helping you birth the life and business you desire. My role is more of a guide/companion (with a boatload of skills and expertise) but we are creating together.

Another uniqueness….I am super relational. I’m real. For most of my clients, we end our calls with, “I love you” and mean it. They aren’t just people who pay me to help them grow. I become a partner. I love the in between session texts and messages when my clients check in and share their successes, or ask for support when things are not going well. So check out my website’s About section to see more about who I work with and how I work. It’s very intimate and if you are a soulful business owner, you would love my style.

The thing that I’m probably most proud about is that clients come to me thinking they have to do business a certain way. But not on my watch!! I looooove my God-given gift of intuition, because it’s like I can see into them. I can see their secret desire and help them not only say yes to it, but then become the woman who is the embodiment of it. I can move them beyond their uncertainty and help them work with who they really want to work with, do work they love, and feel like they are living their soul’s mission. They step into new ‘identities’ and find their just-fit clients. They have greater joy, confidence, and deep gratitude.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Let me tell you about a time that I literally thought would kill me….
Dec 28, 2020 my beloved dog Finley got out, was hit by a car and died. That shattered me because she was one of those “soul-mate” dogs. (If you are a dog parent, you know what I’m talking about.) She was only 3 and was truly the love of my life.

Three days later my son Danny came home with Covid. Three days later, it hit me. Hard. So freaking hard. My heart was already broken, so I’m guessing my immune system was really compromised, but it was one of the early and very bad variants.

It went to my lungs and knocked me out of commission. (Though I’m blessed that I never had to be hospitalized.) I was unable to walk around the block because my lungs were so damaged, and my doc put me on prednisone to try to take some of the inflammation away. In addition to this, my son Danny was living with me and I was the care-giver for both of us.

So I slowly worked on getting my health back. I’d walk a little, see a few clients if I could, but barely did any marketing.

And for some reason we still don’t understand, Danny started decompensating. It could have been “Covid-brain” where there was lots of neuro inflammation present. Or maybe that backlash from him abruptly stopping an anti-depressant. Or maybe he was smoking too much pot. We’ll never know for sure, but my son who only had a little bit of anxiety in his life dove into a full blown manic episode. At first it was kind of funny. He didn’t sleep but the content of his speech was harmless. He was initially super chatty and focused on funny things. I was working with our family doc and trying to get him on the right meds, and after 14 sleepless nights, he finally started settling down.

But then came the scary parts. He became delusional.

My other son was away at college in another city two hours away. So it was just me at home with the young man who was slipping further and further into becoming a person I no longer recognized.

Then it happened. After a month or so of him escalating and showing extreme anger, his delusions became paranoia. Much of the focus seemed to turn to me.
And this was the most terrifying and lonely time I have ever lived through. First, the meds were doing nothing to help. Nor were there any resources. I’d call crisis units, and when they would be on the phone with him, he would snap out of his craziness!! He’d answer all their questions calmly, so there were zero options for help. It made no sense how he could be lucid one moment (thus avoiding the help he desperately needed,) then snap back into the crazy stories his head was telling him.

The hardest part is that no one could understand what I was going through with my beloved boy. Many told me to kick him out. Some suggested I get a gun because they truly believed my normally sweet and kind and soulful son had turned into someone who could potentially hurt me. If I didn’t answer his call, my son at college was terrified something happened to me because of Danny’s rage and unpredictability.

And my heart was breaking. Still sick with Covid, limping along with my business, trying to serve the clients who had hired me, but my mind was trying to wrap around the very distinct possibility that my beautiful boy would never return. I’d be stuck with a 26 year old severely mentally ill man on my own, with no support.

Knowing what I do about chronic stress, I began to see how much of a toll it was taking on me. I truly feared that my body was so ravaged with stress and adrenaline that surely cancer or some disease would follow.

So I reached out to my beloved life coach Richard. I told him the situation, and that it was literally killing me. In addition to being a coach, this man is also a minister. And what he said to me in that session was the thing that finally shifted things around.

He said: “Therese, the God in you is bigger the the stuff in your life” I asked him to repeat it again. And then I asked him to help me connect to that and begin to embody it.
It was the first moment of hope. I didn’t feel alone. Knowing and being reminded that there is a God in Me that I could turn to shifted my perspective. For the first time in months, I had a glimmer of hope.

Here’s what you need to know. Danny didn’t get better right away. Actually he got worse, but that necessitated getting him hospitalized, which got him stabilized. In July, one of his dear friends told me he’d like to have Danny come and live with him. This guy is a wonderful young man and an EMT/Firefighter, so I felt safe to have my son there.

Let me finish the story and tell you the happy ending. While I got a break because the house no longer was chaos filled, Danny plummeted into alcoholism He was “psychiatrically stable, but was numbing out with alcohol. But God is good! All the prayers I was praying on his behalf worked…And on 8/31/22, he came to my house asking for help. That was the turning point for our family. Danny made getting sober a full time job. And today I’m wildly proud of the man he is. He’s working as a Behavioral Health Tech in a substance abuse rehab facility. He has the most amazing girlfriend. He’s going back to school to finish his degree and he looks absolutely fantastic.

The funny thing is that even though he got sober back in 2022, my nervous system took an additional 18 months to realize the trauma was over. And of course, my business had taken a huge hit between being so sick with Covid, and dealing with this.

The cool part…I was able to serve the clients really well. It’s as if I was carried by God because I surely had zero reserve. Yet the clients continued to get great results. In fact, most people didn’t know the depth of what I was going through during this time.

And after? Having survived all this? It birthed in me so much understanding and compassion for those who want to run a business but life throws curve balls their way. I created a program called “The Phoenix Experience” because so many women would show up and have been wildly sidetracked in their goals. They needed their nervous systems tended to. They needed to reevaluate their priorities. The work became more about restoration first, then creation.

Today my family is strong and even though we survived something hellish, it is a gift because of the great work Danny is doing in the world, and how much it has helped me be a better guide to those I’m blessed to work with.

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

Oh this one is an easy one!! Remember, I’m in my sixties so I have had to unlearn a TON about how women show up! In fact, I wrote a best selling book called “Love Based Mission: How to Create a Business That Serves Your Soul.”

The premise of the book is that women have been conditioned to give so much to their families (or church, or community) that they often shy away from playing a bigger game. They are often the ‘helpers’ who get self esteem by being needed and caring for others.

This was me! Why do you think I was a therapist for over 20 years? I got my needs met by helping. I got a sense of value when I was needed. Because in my family that came with loads of trauma, I was taught that my needs didn’t matter, so my focus was always on sacrificing myself for others. It made me feel important.

So how did that show up in the early days of my business? I was running lots of “Proving energy.” That meant I doubted my value so I would overgive and try to be “everything” to my clients. I didn’t have great boundaries, was super burnt out, but also weirdly needed my clients to like or love and keep me around!

I remember at least 15 years ago at a women’s business retreat. I was in the hot seat and the suggestion was to shift the clients I had been working with, and move to a more biz savvy, higher achieving population. I literally could not fathom doing that. I felt guilty leaving anyone behind. I worked with lovely people who often were not to be able to flip things in their businesses. So I’d take on more responsibility and try even harder. But they didn’t change. And that’s the codependent dance that women have been taught for years. Sacrifice yourself, work harder, stay out of the limelight, and look to others for approval.

But oh man is that exhausting!!!

I remember about 10 years ago after having my first five-figure launch calling my marketing manager in tears. I told her I was burning it all down. The business as I was doing it was draining the life out of me, and I wasn’t good to myself or my children.

So the unlearning began.
Plus in an 18 month period starting in 2015, My mother died suddenly, my father-in-law two weeks later, the boy’s dad didn’t wake up from a heart attack and two other significant relationships also ended. And something shifted in me.

It felt like I had nothing left to lose. It was like a tsunami had come through my life, ravaging all that I knew, so I got to start from scratch. That meant my schedule changed. I only worked 3 weeks a month. No nights, no early mornings. I tuned into my very exhausted and weary body and asked HER what she wanted. I said no to clients. I raised my rates. I spoke my mind and I didn’t take any shit any longer.

My family and my health became primary. Especially after Jim, my beloved ex-husband and best friend died suddenly. The boys were shattered, so I pulled in again and learned to focus only on what gave me energy.

And here’s the crazy part….
Between this period of all the deaths, and the time that Danny was so sick, I had to totally unlearn who I was in the business world. See, I’d been quite proud that I was a six-figure coach. Joining that elusive club tapped right into my proving energy and somehow legitimized me even more in the marketplace. I wore it like a proud badge of honor.

Until my business went pretty flat with Danny and me being so ill during Covid. I lived on SBA loans, and in September of that year when I had an injury requiring surgery that would put me out for more months, I was taken to my knees. We finally got Danny out and doing better, and now I can’t use my hand? It was almost too much, but the funniest thing happened. I had to sit with myself. See, I love coaching and marketing. I love sharing my wisdom. I love writing and being online. But I truly didn’t have the energy. Through lots of ranting to God, the answer kept coming that the ONLY thing I was to do right now was to heal. Truthfully, I was kinda pissed because I wanted to jump back in. But the Divine Guidance over and over just said that my #1 focus was not on my business, but on my healing. That meant that I surrendered. I let it all go. Worked a bit. Minimally marketed, and did lots of inner work. And as a result, I became aware that my identity was quite wrapped into my income and being a successful coach! I was pretty shocked because I wouldn’t have thought that about me.

So I asked myself these questions….

Who am I without my work?
Who am I without helping?
Who am I with less income?

The answer came so powerfully that it allowed me to surrender to my situation and have peace with what was happening.

The answer….
“Therese, you are LOVE. That is the unchanging quality of you. It is always present and you bring it with you wherever you are.”

Holy shit! Here I’d been chasing approval and money, and when it all fell away, what mattered the most was the way I show up.

Can I tell you that I love this part about me so much? I have the wisdom of a wise sage and the compassion of Mother Teresa. (With a bit of kick-assness thrown in.)

The biggest blessing from this “unlearning” is that I can spot the conditioned responses in my clients and invite them to be more free in how they live. It’s been such a cool process to go through. Today I’m free. I’m a sovereign woman and can help my clients find that as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thereseskelly.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereseskelly/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therese.skelly/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thereseskellyaz/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/tnskelly

Image Credits

Candace Smith
Steve Cozart
Karianne Munstedt