Skillr Profile: Shelia Malcolm

Shelia Malcolm is a resilience and self-confidence coach who helps people navigate divorce on the SKILLR App. She spoke with us about how her own personal journey led her to a career in coaching and why authenticity matters. 

Q: Can you tell me your name, your pronouns, and what you do on SKILLR?

A: So my name is Shelia Malcolm. [My pronouns are] she/her. On SKILLR, I am a coach. I am more of a resilience and self-confidence coach, especially after a divorce or some kind of trauma that people have gone through, and they've gone through counseling, but they're struggling to rebuild. So, I help them with their confidence and their resilience.

Q: I love that. That's a really rewarding job.

A: It is I love it. It really is.

Q: How did you get into your field?

A: Well, I don't know how long you have, but I'll give you the short version of it. From my own life experience. I was working in corporate America for 12 years. And at the peak of my career, my personal life took a dip in the downward direction. So, I had to figure it out, reinvent my life and to continue to show up and continue to deliver for my advisors and folks I was working with, and continue to make the grade.

And so, I had to figure it out. And I tell people all the time, if I could bottle it, I would sell it. But since I can't, I am teaching everyone about bouncing better, and really looking at things in their life, and fail forward.

Q: What would you say is your favorite thing about coaching people going through life after divorce?

A: Oh. It's so rewarding to really, again, look at my own life and see all the things that I've been through. And there's nothing like telling someone about a journey that you've been on. So, you can tell them the highs, the lows, the pitfall, and the possibilities, what to expect. So, I use my life as that roadmap, all the things that I had to learn, all the things that I had to do to reinvent my life and bounce back. So the rewarding thing is to see them make that shift and really stand on those painful things versus standing in it and it holding them back. But once they get the idea and understanding of failing forward, and I help them through that whole process, because I had to teach myself that, and I had to understand that pain is your teacher and how to use that to move forward in a healthy, positive way. So, just having them shift the needle from impossible to what's possible, that just bring me joy.

Q: I love how much passion you have. I can just see you have so much passion for what you do.

A: I do.

Q: What does a typical day look like for you in your profession?

A: Every day changes. It depends on who it is, where they are in their journey, what's happening. I do have templates that I use, but they're flexible templates that I switch up and tweak according to the situation. Because people come to me for different things. They will come to me because they're just struggling to really find your self worth, push past fear, and stop self sabotaging, and really own their skills and know who they are. It all depends on where they are in the journey.

So, I have a plethora of things that I use, but my goal is to first find out, "Where are you now? And where do you want to go?" And once they can tell me where they want to go, we figure, "Okay. Let's figure out the steps." And I help them design that roadmap to get to the place where meaning can be added to their life, and joy, and just, you know, say, "Ooh. Okay. I feel good here." Get them to the feel good space. Not just the feel good, but, "I can live here for a while," and move forward with all the tools that they will learn with me.

Q: Awesome. And did I see that you have a book out, as well?

A: I do. I do. It took me 20 years, girl, to write the book. One of the reasons why it took so long, because as a person I was shy many years ago, you would never believe it now, many years ago, and sharing my stuff, sharing my dirt, the mistakes that I made, all the dumb choices I made in my twenties, I didn't want to tell anybody about that. I just wanted to tell everybody about this wonderful lady, my grandmother, who raised me and gave me good values. But I didn't want to talk about the detours and the pitfalls in my life. So, as a person of faith, I could not write that book because God is like, "Nope. You need to tell everything." That's where you find authenticity, telling the truth and letting people see where you've been healed from. And I'm the evidence that it is possible.

But if I don't tell them the whole story, they won't really get the true feel that I do understand where they've been, I do understand where they want to go, I do understand the sting of pain and embarrassment and shame. So yeah, it took me a while to write that book. But once I got it out, that's like my little memoir to show my children, my grandchildren, and anybody who would read it, that it is possible. Whatever that thing is, whatever that's holding you back, it is possible to see a ray of sunshine, to see something that's better and that you can turn things around. Yeah.

Q: I love memoir. It's my favorite genre. So, I'm going to have to get a copy.

A: Yeah. Do get a copy and give me some feedback what you thought or maybe put something on Amazon, a little review.

Q: It's interesting what you were saying about how you tried to write it without like showing the, I guess, uglier parts of your journey. But the best memoir writing I find is when you can be so honest and authentic on the page. And that's what people really connect with. So, I'm glad you found the confidence to put that out there.

On SKILLR, we're all about learning and growing and taking small steps to gain new knowledge and skills. So. What's one thing that you're learning about right now or interested in learning more about?

A: Well, the social media space. I'm learning that, learning new tools every day, how to market myself and how to get out there so more people can find me. So, I'm learning all these little nuances and little things like, "Ugh. Yeah."

Q: Complete the phrase, "When I'm not working as a divorce and life coach, I'm..."

A: When I'm not working as that, you can find me in nature. I get my energy from nature. You may find me listening to a great audiobook. Because I do believe in lifelong learning. I believe in building up my arsenal, stuff in my toolbox to continue to grow and to learn. I believe we should be forever students.

You can also find me encouraging and talking to young adults. That's another sweet spot of mine, just really helping them navigate life, their professional, as well as their personal life. Because I remember being at that age when I made mistakes and really didn't have a confidante or someone to really talk to about it, how to pivot from where I was struggling, trying to figure out life.

So again, my life is an open book. You can find me in those spaces on my walks. Sometimes I take young adults with me on those walks. And sometimes we were talking on the phone while I'm out there enjoying nature. And I used to live in Florida years ago and I used to tell them, if you want to meet me in my office, which was on the beach, at sunrise, get out there and then we can help navigate and figure out where you need to go and what needs to happen next. So, I love nature.

Q: It's the best place to have an office.

A: Yes. I love it.

Q: What would you say to people who want to learn more about coaching, but are maybe nervous or confused about where to get started?

A: I'm so glad you asked that. Because sometimes people confuse coaching with counseling. Counseling is, they deal with the stuff back there, the traumas, the issues, the dramas, and whatever, what happened back there, childhood stuff. Coaching more focus on where you are now and where you want to go. I'm the forward person. So, I'm the person that the therapist or the counselor would hand the baton to, and say, "My client is now ready to do life, is now ready to move forward and figure out what next, achieve their goals. They need an accountability partner. They need to really have some tools, some steps to get this thing done wherever "there" is for them, wherever they're saying that they want to get to."

So, I don't really deal with that. In the coaching space, whenever that would come up, I would have to pause things a minute and ask them to take a little leave of absence in the coaching space and really deal with some stuff if that's getting in your way of moving forward. So, because I'm not licensed in the therapy counseling space, I'm more a coach, I help you drive your future. I help you figure out next steps, and figure out legacy, figure out, what is it you want to do with your life? What are those things that you've been putting off and you really want to accomplish? I'm that person. That's what I do.

Q: Thank you for explaining that. I feel like, yeah, there's a lot of confusion for people who haven't tried, maybe coaching or counseling, about how they're different. So, I appreciate that. I don't have any other questions, but is there anything else that you want to share about yourself, about coaching, about SKILLR?

A: One of the things that I also remind people of the kind of coaching that I do, I'm what I call a tour guide. I'm going to go with you on the journey. I'm going to go with you and then tell you the highlights, what's up ahead, what to expect, and set those expectations for you. But there are some types of coaching or people who want to give you advice and they're like travel agents.

They're sending you where they've never been. They're sending you places and telling about things that they've never gone through. So what I do, I use my own personal journey, the skills that I've learned in my training, as well as in my own personal life, rebuilding my life and reinventing myself. The tools that worked, that worked for my past clients, that are really growing and doing things now, moving and shaking, and didn't think it was possible.

So, I use my life to let them know that authenticity is for real. You can move past where you are, especially that painful place, because pain is your teacher. It taught me lots of lessons. And I say to people, "Until you ask that pain, 'What are the lessons?' and you wait and you listen for the lessons and learn them and implement them, you will be forever be in that same space. But if you want to go forward, if you want to fail forward, if you want to do life from a place of strength, you've got to engage with pain and ask pain, 'What did you come to teach me? What am I supposed to learn?" And be willing to listen and implement what you have learned to make your life better."

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