About Shirley

When I wrote things weren't smooth sailing on the home page, I meant from the beginning.

I grew up with a mom who has OCD and was physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive. I was the youngest of four and as a little kid all I wanted to do was go outside, play and feel loved. 

As a result I became a perfectionist that was scared of making mistakes and upsetting my mother or others. As I got older though- I saw college as my way out of my toxic environment. It was my path to freedom, peace, and to success. 

Being a perfectionist helped me be the first in my family to graduate from college with degrees from Syracuse and Harvard. 

But it caused a lot of needless stress when I began working with project managers who ignored my warnings about problems in their approach, didn’t understand my job, didn’t communicate effectively, and made work unnecessarily challenging. I felt like a failure and my stress levels went through the roof. 

At one point I couldn't even hold back the tears when my colleague asked how things were going, because they were just that bad! I was miserable and it was impacting my time outside of work too.

Then one day over the holidays, I was on my laptop- frustrated that I had to write up my own job description during my time “off” because my new supervisor still didn’t know what I did. I started thinking about getting a new job. But then I realized- I had put in a lot of work into projects that hadn’t even launched yet and I wanted to see them through. I deserved to see the fruits of my labor. I just had to figure out how to make my job less overwhelming in the process. 

I decided to get professional help. I learned to pick my battles according to my priorities, and reframe situations to be less frustrating. 

This helped make things more manageable,  but later on when I used my life savings to buy a rental property out of state that started bleeding money- it wasn't enough. Not only was I losing a lot of money- I had challenge after challenge with tenants, contractors, and repairs. It was all I could think about. It began costing me my health, productivity and joy. 

I knew this wasn’t good for me so I joined a stress reduction program. That program really helped me understand how to approach my problems in a more manageable way. 

The property continued to be stressful for a while but I reached a point where I didn’t feel as overwhelmed and I started to trust in my ability to handle things. 

Life will continue throwing stressful curveballs, but now I know I can trust in my ability to be resourceful and gain peace quicker by how I view and navigate any challenge. And THIS is what I coach my clients on so they can gain the highest levels of success. 

If you're ready to gain work-life balance without guilt or sacrificing success- email me at hello@shirleyspade.com and we'll set up a time to connect.  

I would love to hear from you. 

Sending you positive energy,

- Shirley Spade, EdM