Team Mom: Life coach Martine Williams is helping women find themselves, one mompreneur at a time

By: Ashley Daniels

Now more than ever, women need a boost to snuff out the potential burnout that seeps into our lives. That’s where PDP (Professional Development Plan) professional and life coach Martine Williams enters – and she knows, because she’s been there.

Williams used to be a CEO at 31 Gifts, a direct sales company, leading a team of nearly 28,000 women for almost two decades. But despite her success as a “mompreneur,” she felt lost.

“Building a business and growing a family at the same time is amazing and also amazingly challenging,” says Williams. “I realized that I had been putting a lot out, taking care of my family, taking care of the business, and I realized that, although I was in a highly successful place in my business and in life – I had the house, I had two beautiful boys – I’d lost myself in the process. I just didn’t know who I was anymore when I looked in the mirror … I thought, ‘Who is this person? What does she enjoy doing?’ I loved what I was doing professionally, but there really wasn’t anything that was fun for me.”

That’s when Williams noticed that same “zombie look,” as she describes, in other women who were going through the motions in life

            “I call it the performance loop,” she says. “They’re just performing their lives versus living and leading their lives, performing for home, performing for the business, performing for the husband, and where are you in that process? And so, once I worked myself through that, is when I really felt called and led to reach back and pull women up. I get you. I understand it. And who better than someone who’s experienced those things?”

This epiphany was in 2015, when Williams rerouted her journey to what she does today to help women avoid what she calls the “quiet burnout.” As a keynote speaker, public motivator, and life coach, she conducts personal coaching, team development sessions, and workshops. She also hosts a podcast, “Life Coaching for Mompreneurs,” and co-published a self-help book, “The Daily Difference.”

The process she guides her clients through involves first realizing that there is a misalignment happening in their daily lives, just as you visit a chiropractor when your back is out of alignment.

“That’s the biggest thing I find with especially highly ambitious, high-achieving women that they don’t give themselves time to pause, and listen to what’s happening,” says Williams. “Your body is telling you, your mind is telling you, there are signals that are being thrown up, but you’re just not giving yourself permission to slow down. … The women that I work with judge themselves for feeling these things.”

The next step, she says, is acceptance of where you are right now, and the third step is taking action on how to get to where you want to be after realigning your life and your identity. To activate that final step, Williams uses a scientific-based tool called the ProScan, a personality and performance assessment survey that takes five to 10 minutes to take, but gives a very detailed report on who you are and what your natural strengths are.

“Most women downplay their strengths and highlight their weaknesses,” she says, “so this ProScan really helps them to get back in touch and get back in alignment with their power, who they are, and their natural strengths so that they can build a sustainable business without burnout and so they can spend more time on the things that are actually giving them energy, that are fun and easy and light for them to do, and less of the things that are draining their energy.”

Williams shares the success story of one of her clients in her 40s, who originally came to her in a state of burnout and in the midst of a career transition. After the client’s ProScan and six months of working together, she retook the ProScan to find that her natural strengths became more intense in the “redefining era” she was in.

“For her to see that in black and white on a chart, to see the work that she had been doing and to see her fully embracing who she is with no apologies was really cool to see,” she says. “I mean, I see it as a coach, but for someone to see it on paper that’s a scientific tool was powerful.”

So what does Williams do for her own self-care routine when she’s not helping other women do the same?

“I love ’80s and ’90s music, so I like giving myself a good jam session in the car,” she says with a laugh. “I think we overcomplicate self-care, and it can be as simple as putting in your favorite music. I also believe movement is medicine, so I keep myself active every day, whether it’s walking with a weighted vest or working out two or three times a week with weights. And I’m also a woman of faith, so I have devotion and prayer time in the morning.”

For more information, updates on speaking events, and to listen to episodes of her podcast, visit Martinewilliams.com.