Analiza: Welcome to the Women of Color Rise podcast. I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud Filipino-American executive leadership coach and former CEO of a nonprofit and Captain in the U.S. Air Force. I'm also the author of The Myth of Success: A Woman of Color's Guide to Leadership. It's based on the lessons learned by many women of color leaders, including those on this podcast. We talk with successful CEOs and C-suite women leaders of color and learn about their leadership journeys. I'm on a mission to support having more diverse leaders at the table. If you're a woman or a woman of color who wants to sit at that table, you're in the right place. Now let's get into today's show.

Hi everyone. I am excited. We are talking with Shovan Terrell Camper. She is a realignment coach, a speaker, a former therapist with over 3000 hours of coaching experience. She's all about helping individuals build self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and leadership from the inside out. She's the founder of leveraging Your Reality. It's a coaching practice focused on guiding people to create lives aligned with their values. Purpose and potential. She's got a background that bridges therapy and coaching. She's known for a direct thought provoking cell that challenges people to move from survival to intentional living. She works on breaking generational patterns, leading with clarity, and becoming callous for growth in your home, workplace and community. I'm so very happy, Shovan, to have you. Thank you for joining.

Shavon: Thank you for having me.

Analiza: So Shovan, this is Women of Color Rise. So I asked this question, it's my first question for all guests, but tell me about how you identify and how has that shaped your career path?

Shavon: Absolutely. I identify as a black female and it shaped so much of my path.I grew up in New York and Long Island around a lot of strong black women. And being taught to have a voice to say what you need to say and say, it clearly has helped me in many ways. I think the older I've gotten, the more I've learned how to refine. The power. It's a superhero when they first get their power, they're like breaking things and lighting things on fire when, and I think that's what it was like growing up with so many dominant, strong women around me.I had to learn how to harness the power of what I've been taught. And it has guided me so much in my life and career.

Analiza: So Shovan, you were a therapist and now a coach. And just in your work, you have talked, you talked directly about breaking generational patterns. Not everyone is as blessed as you, unfortunately, in having strong women figures, models for us about speaking truth, being strong.And so I'm curious, can you talk more about this idea of helping people break generational patterns? What do you mean?

Shavon: Absolutely. I tell you though, one of the side effects at least that I've seen in my family, and I've seen it in many families when you tend to have very strong dominant women, there are usually fewer men in the family or there are very beta men in the family.

So the generational curse in my family is that switch of learning true partnership with men. And that is something that the women in my family have historically struggled with and something that I had to struggle with for years until I learned how to be in partnership with someone who matches and exceeds my strength versus seeing them as a threat. I have some girlfriends who are incredible. They're really smart, they're accomplished, they care about the world, and yet they have a hard time finding that partner who you said it not only matches but is exceeding. And so I really resonate with that because.

Analiza: It's hard. We both live in New York and it is a hard market. So just talk to me about that. Like how do you tell clients, yes, you deserve the best and we got what we got? What, how is that, how do you balance that?

Shavon: Yeah. I think something that we have to recognize in general is the influence that society has on our upbringing and how it shapes us and growing up.I didn't know this back then, but essentially I was being groomed in more masculine energy. And learning how to move in very masculine ways. Like I come in, I own the room, like I can make things happen. All those things. And in having an over usage of masculine power it was also recognized and glorified. Oh, you go girl, that's good. All of the more feminine, softer things. Those things weren't valued very highly growing up in New York, trying to make things happen though it's interesting I didn't start to come into that. There even was a feminine side that existed until I moved to the south and I'm like, women are really different here.And seeing that difference was like, oh, there, there's they're operating it from a different vibe than what we operate from. So I think one of the things is especially like working with high powered women. That is used to leading, that is used to dominating. Many of us haven't had the opportunity or even the safety sometimes to tap into the softer, feminine sides to ourselves.And when we tap into our, that side of ourselves, more possibilities open up. Because when you get these male or whoever, like you get a male counterpart they're. Their stuff is not a threat to your stuff. So a lot of times very high powered women are attracted to men that have more of a beta vibe because like them, they are okay with coming up under.So just because I am this I have a business and I may act a certain way and run things a certain way. When I come near my male counterpart, I have to soften. Allow myself to soften. Before that was a threat. It was seen as a weakness. Now I know it's an opportunity for me to show up in different ways.

Analiza: Okay, Shovan, there's so much there. I'm thrilled and I'm grateful for your expertise here. Frankly, Siobhan as well, I grew up with a strong female mother who just exuded, we can do it. We can do all things. And my father was in the Navy, so he was gone most of my childhood. So I wanna say this because it was this tension between my mom who really handled everything.This is how I thought. Leaders are, so you're strong, you handle all the things, which we know is important to bring to your community and ask for help, but at the same time I honestly do not like to be feminine. As A-C-E-O-A feminine CEO sounds like an oxymoron.

Shavon: It does. Unless you're at a Louis Vuitton or something like that, where it's gotta be some beauty brand where it's got, you have some pretty face plus their CEO. It's hard for me personally to say, okay, to be a strong leader, actually, let's embrace our feminine side.

Analiza: So I can dive deeper to say I get this gist of softening yourself, but what does it look like at a top role where you wanna show that you can own the room?And that you can make decisions and at the same time you wanna soften and be feminine. Give me some concrete stuff here. Siobhan. What do you mean?

Shavon: Yeah, it reminds me I was working with a pretty high level engineer. Indian women actually still work with Indian women high, up in the rankings in a male dominated industry. And essentially she is like a big part of our work together was her figuring out how to be herself. She was like, I could show up this certain way at home and then I have to show up really differently when I come to work in order for my voice to be heard. So hers was a little bit opposite of, I'm softer at home, but I need to be more masculine in the workplace. And I wanna be clear, like it's not about, masculine energy is wrong or feminine energy is right. It's more about having options and using what's appropriate. So in, in being a CEO right, one of the things I have been working on is as opposed to what I need to do. Go put forth go 'cause that's the masculine side. It literally puts forth. It's more so I look at like, how can I nourish? How can I nourish my business today? How can I nourish my family today? How can I nourish myself today? Versus what do I need to get done? And you see how I like thinking about how I can nourish this and what do I need to get done?Those can create two different task lists. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think that's another way, and I think so many times we confuse this concept of strength. One of the things I had to work on with my coach was redefining what strength means. Okay. And originally I had strength defined as I can do any I, I could do anything and everything I wanna do that strength.So when I went into situations in order to feel strong, it meant doing anything and everything I could do to get the outputs that I wanted to get. When I redefined my definition of strength, I redefined it as strength is the willingness to evolve past my fears. Wow. That shifted me trying to, how I showed up strong took on a completely different look.So gimme a specific example because I was a tangible example. Yeah. It's funny, I was on the phone with my husband last night and he was complaining to me about my son. He needs this and he needs that. And normally I come back at him like this, and I'm trying to prove something. I decided on this conversation.Let me just listen to him. I just listened to him and when he was done saying all he had to say he was like what do you have to say? I said, right now, I said, I have a lot to say, but I don't think right now is the time for me to say it. 'cause I notice myself being defensive.

Analiza: Wow. Wow. That is powerful.That is powerful. What I hear you saying is it's about choice. It's about being able to pick the right time to be your authentic self. And let's stop with these blanket definitions of what is a good leader, what is a strong leader? And actually, can you, and I love your definition, I wrote it down here, the willingness to evolve past fears. Talk about strength. Can it get any harder, is to face fear and actually go past that. I loved this so much and I also appreciate Siobhan that you brought in parenting. I find that my kids are my best teachers and I, yeah. I don't show my best self at night when I'm not nourished and I we're talking about the kids and so Let's talk about this because one of the reasons we're both C-suite coaches I wanted to talk with you specifically, is that you said, I'm a coach and I apply coaching to parenting. So talk to me about that. What does it mean to apply coaching to parenting? What kind of topics do you support people with?

Shavon:Becoming a coach has definitely made me a better parent. And it makes me think back to that whole masculine, feminine side of leading. A lot of it has to do with perceived power dynamics, and when you come into parenting there is a perception that the parent has a higher dominance than the child. And whenever we're seeing someone less than us, dominating them is what's important. And coming beyond the power dynamics in parenting is a massive step of, it's the same thing with that masculine feminine. I'm not trying to show how strong I am. I'm working to hold space. And in many relationships, including parenting, a lot of times we're not holding space for all of who people are in all of their humanness.We are trying to drive out what's wrong and cultivate and pull in what's right, and that is a tiring relationship. I hear you telling Shavon that this needs to dominate and show I'm more, I'm stronger than you. And second, that I'm right. I'm not just more right than you, but I'm right and you are wrong.

Analiza: And that dynamic is unconsciously at play all the time.

Shavon: Often.

Analiza: Yeah. Tell me so, okay. Imagine that parents can see that, okay, I don't wanna be in this power struggle and I also don't wanna be right. That is a. To get over that too, your definition of strength is evolving past fears. That's animalistic, right? I wanna show I'm dominating and I wanna show righteous is also I'm stronger than you. So I just wanna connect the two because how do you tell a parent what this kid who's four or even 12 or whatever age. That, yes, I am wrong and I'm not stronger than you. I just wanna get to that piece because it's not yeah, we can accept that and move on. Like how do you get to a place where that's not the point? That's not true actually.

Shavon: Yeah. And I think this is the beauty of embracing that feminine side of we're not trying to prove anything or be right about it.It's more let's see what we have here. I think parenting like leadership is a lot about influence and dominating is a way to be influential. It doesn't make it the most productive way to be influential. And I think as a parent like me, I was parented with domination. So that is the set of tools that I received to then pairing. In becoming a coach, it gave me another set of tools to be with my kids with. It wasn't about doing this because I said it, and now it turns into. Having conversations like we talk about chores, right? Who wants to do chores? Most people don't.I don't even really wanna do chores. But do it because I said so. Turns into a conversation in my household of let's talk about contributing to shared spaces. I hear this. Instead of domination, we're talking about community and we're talking about sharing and contribution which is a very different context, right?

Analiza: I don't feel like that's not personally how I grew up, and it's, I don't think it's really modeled. I'm thinking about spaces, where do we have this, even in the work environment, right? Like these are rules. You follow the rules. If not, you get in trouble. It's rare, you know how. How can we all say it's rarely so collaborative, and yet you're saying it's a possibility, right? You're saying this is a possibility. Where have you found examples of this, Sean, I'm curious 'cause you are someone who's studied it and done work yourself on this and supports other leaders. But have you found examples where you're like, you know what? When I think of this kind of style, I look to, I'm thinking about TV shows, I'm thinking about where is this? Where's this fantasy place?

Shavon: There's an amazing woman. She wrote this book, the Conscious Parent. Yes, man. That book opened up my perspective, and I wanna be really clear.A lot of times people think in absolutes. This is, if I do it this way, is the way I always have to do it. There are times when you have to show your kid there is a pecking order here. And you keep things structured, but that doesn't meet spec options. As a parent, there are options, and there may be times where you have to roll out the no, get in place right now.Especially when safety's on the line. Get back. We don't have time to be communal. Get out of the way before you get hurt. [00:18:00] Yes. It's more of what are the options we have in our parenting style versus leaning toward the most familiar style. It's really powerful. I'm gonna talk about triggers because you have talked about in your ranking, generational patterns living with intention, and yet there's trauma.

Analiza: As a therapist you are in training you know that there's real trauma. We're not just coaching my head here. In fact, more so we're coaching the unconscious. So I wanna bring this up, and especially as women of color I don't know your experience, but I have experienced personally, and so how do you support that? You're like, I'm gonna hold hands, and then all of a sudden you're in the ring, you're like, Nope. Knives out. So yeah, talk about how you know be real, that there's trauma and. We wanna shift from survival mode to thriving mode, but there's real trauma.

Shavon: Yeah. I think this is a big piece of why I push so much.Hey, start with you. Don't try to change your kids. Don't try to change your spouse. Don't try to change your boss. Start with you because in order, like first there's like this awareness piece. We have to be, see. For, lemme tell you this one step back in relationships, right? The relationship with ourselves for most people is one of the most abusive relationships they've ever experienced. You gotta repeat that. For most people, one of the most abusive relationships they've ever experienced is the one with themselves.

Analiza: Say more. What do you like to do more? I'm like, wow. Okay.

Shavon: Yeah. The way I think it's this first piece of, oftentimes we don't even recognize that we are in relationship with ourselves.It's not even categorized as a relationship. It's the first thing. So it's ignored any relationship that's ignored. No one wants to be in that relationship. And I think there's this other piece of, because. Focusing on oneself is usually categorized as selfish. Many people ignore and disregard themselves in so many ways.

Even things like when people say you are your worst critic. That is language for saying it is okay for you to abuse yourself. No, I don't. Yes I can be, I can give myself feedback. Yes, I can be open to making critiques of myself, but I'm my worst critic. That's me too, I'm about to stop it, step in and start abusing myself.Why did you do this? How'd you do it that way? Yeah. And when we're in a relationship with ourselves, a lot of things that we say to ourselves in our mind or in private would be unacceptable in another relationship. Completely unacceptable. And some of these things we won't even say out loud around other people.

Analiza: Yep.

Shavon: That's how you know it's abusive.

Analiza: Oh my gosh. So when you get people to a place where they say it out loud, right? I imagine you would have clients too who are just like, oh, I just can't do it. I, no, I'm scared like I, here I go again. You are doing my stupid thing. You hear it and they interrupt, but I don't ever get to, and I love that you are pointing to it.Let's actually talk about that relationship with yourself. Often I'll talk about the mindset, but I'll never talk about the relationship or rarely I wanna talk about this because you now imagine that the client is seeing, oh, you know what? That is not particularly positive and I wouldn't want, how do you get them to this place of, what is your relationship with yourself and how do we. Change that relationship. Love yourself. What does that piece look like when they can now see, you know what, I actually don't, my self talk's not so positive.

Shavon: Yeah. One of my favorite things to do is scaling. So have people like let's rank your, the healthiness of your relationship with you on a scale of one to 10. And having them get real. Here is where I am, here is how I'm in relation with myself. And some people are like, I didn't even consider that I'm in a relationship with myself, so it can't be high 'cause I'm not even considering that it's a relationship that exists. And I think once people have the concept of having a relationship with me.Naturally things start clicking. They're like, that makes so much sense because of this. And when I think about it this way, it clicks. But if that relationship stays out of awareness, how we show up in life as a parent, as a leader is missing this connector of, I also have a relationship with me.

Analiza: Oh, that's so beautiful.Because whatever the relationship that we have with ourselves is. We project that on others. Exactly. Like I'm tough on you Shavonne, but I'm tougher on me and I don't even know that I'm tougher on me. I'm just like, come on Shavonne, you can do better. I'm like, I can do better. I'm never good enough.So Shavon and then you're not. So it's obviously amazing, but it's I've been in the nonprofit world for over two, two decades and it's, and if when we're with young people I, if we don't face this ourselves. Gosh, do we perpetuate generationally? Oh man, we mean so well for these kids.And yet this relationship with self was so powerful, Shavon, if you're not even aware and hoping to heal that the bystanders, our children, our students. And so thank you for this. I wanna just open it up. Have I? What about, is there anything else when you think about it? Relationship with self parenting, coaching, applying to parenting that I haven't asked you that you're like, Hey, this other [00:24:00] thing that I wanna share.

Shavon: Yeah. What's standing out as you ask that question is when we stay in these roles of trying to maintain power, whether it's in leadership or in parenting, what happens is the person that is being suppressed in whatever way they stop seeing us as a human.

Analiza: Say more.

Shavon: Yeah, it's this piece of oh, it reminds me when I did some coaching with a mother daughter combo, and they were having tension.They were not seeing eye to eye, and I was. Coaching, like working in group coaching you're working with both people. Sometimes you are speaking to one person while the other person is observing. Essentially. In, in, in the experience, the daughter got to see her mother as a human and not the title of mother. And it opened up more space for empathy, compassion, understanding than she's ever had with her mom. Because I essentially had her mom, there was this tension I had her look at let's work through this tension. And she worked through the tension in front of her daughter and her daughter was like.I don't even know. Like I didn't even so gimme if you don't, we're not gonna share names here, but what's the tension about her wardrobe? What was the thing about that? She, the, so being vulnerable, I'm like, what is she sharing? That's, what is she sharing? Yeah. I wanna recall it correctly.It was something around mom being worried about perceived loss of control. Like losing control and trying to keep everything on top of each other and when the daughter would. Would come in and wanna hang out with her in her room. The mom always seemed cold and reserved and she's just trying to get things done. And the daughter was creating her own narrative of, my mom's not available, she doesn't wanna hang out with me. She's not busy. She's busy. I'm not welcome in this space. And the mom was like, no, that's. That's not what was happening. I was working, I have 50 million things I'm doing and this is happening.That's happening. I think we recognize it, but we also normalize it a lot of times in parenting and in family at home, our family is getting our leftovers. Like we worked all day, did this all day, and we come home and they just get what's left.Yeah. And it is not like trying to function from leftovers. It's just less available. And when you're trying to make sure I do, I have all these things done, and your kids are trying to engage you, we don't even realize the ways in which we're rejecting their engagement. Wow.

Analiza: So powerful. Siobhan, I love this conversation.You're so wise, and I know you have a workshop coming. I wanna hear about that. As we close, let's do lightning round questions.

Shavon: Yes.

Analiza: First question. Chocolate or vanilla ?

Shavon: Ice cream vanilla.

Analiza: Cooking or takeout?

Shavon: This has changed in the last two months. Cooking.

Analiza: Climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Shavon: Climb a mountain.

Shavon: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Shavon: Yeah. If Crocs count as sandals all the time.

Analiza: How qould you rate your karaoke skills of one to 10, 10 being Mareah Carey?

Shavon: A three.

Analiza: What's a recent book you read or a book you love?

Shavon: Recent book I read, the Cell Esteem Prophecy.

Analiza: What is a good professional development you've done?

Shavon: A good professional development event. That's a good one. I have the last, the best professional development event that I've taken in the last year has been this informed coaching. And learning how trauma informs people's experience and how the brain works and really digging into it from a mental, like how the brain works, how it impacts the body was really eye-opening.

Analiza: And what's your definition of a boss mama?

Shavon: A boss mama is a person who is willing to embrace all parts of herself and she's also willing to ebb and flow off what's needed. She could be the softer her, she could be the commander, but she gives herself space to be the different types of her.

Analiza: What advice would you give your younger self?

Shavon: I would tell my younger self to expose yourself. Learn, expose yourself to new, different, whatever you think is right, challenge it. See what other options are available.

Analiza:: And then where can we find you? LinkedIn, anywhere else.

Shavon: Yes, I'm on LinkedIn.I'm on Instagram, YouTube. All at leveraging your reality. Leveraging reality. Wonderful.

Analiza: Then last question. And I think this is a workshop question for you. Final ask, recommendation, parting thoughts to share.

Shavon: Yes, something. For many years, well over a decade, I have been given workshops in corporate spaces and a lot of the workshops I give are around the human side of leading and recently.Last month I was doing a workshop and I started with, we're about to talk about something that most people don't formally learn. And I realized that a lot of the workshops that I give are informal education, listening, communication, they call it the Softer Skills. And I have recently created a workshop series that is for families.For you to bring me to your home, to your groups. So whether it could be a group of siblings, it could be a group of cousins, it could be a book club. Bringing me in to start doing workshops so that you all come together and learn a new set of. Skills. Oftentimes we know we're deficient in some skills but we don't do things to enhance those skills and get better at simple things. Like my first workshop is listening to understand. The skill of listening is not formally taught in any education. Anything. So we're usually using things we've handed down that have been handed down to us or things that we have just picked up along the way.But to really sit down and learn about the different types of listening and when to use them and how to use them and see, and how effective they can be when used appropriately is game changing for teams and families.

Analiza: Wow. I love that. It's very exciting and I will share the link with our audience. Shovan, I so appreciate your wisdom and your stories. Thank you.

Shavon: Yes. Thank you for having me.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time to hear today's podcast. 3 things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, you can get a free chapter of my book, The Myth of Success: A Woman of Color's Guide to Leadership at analizawolf.com/freechapter. And lastly, if you're interested in executive coaching, please reach out to me at analiza@analizawolf.com. Thank you so very much