1st Chair with Theresa Thames

Hello my loves. And thank you so much for joining me today. I have a very special guest with me. Her name is Teresa Times and she is an executive mindset coach. And today we are going to be talking all about how to level up, right? How to become and get into that first chair. And we came up with this concept because we both played instruments and I played the flute. What did you play?

Girl? I played the clarinet.

And if anyone, any overachievers out there who played instruments growing up, know that that first chair was everything and you were always in the pursuit of that first chair. And you know, one of the things that we realized as we talk back and forth was that we're always kind of in search and pursuit of that first chair. And so we wanted to just talk a little bit about that today and really get some clarity around how can we do that. So Teresa, thank you so much for coming here and gracing us with your amazing wisdom and presence and person.

Thank you so much. I really am excited about this conversation.

Me too. Girl, I can't wait. You're giving me life already. So before we get into it, girl, I want to talk about your business and who you serve, right? So that people get a really clear understanding of like what you do. I always think like people can talk about themselves and what they do better than I could ever do it. I'm not going to read off somebody's bio. So talk to me about what you do and then I'll tell the people how fabulous you really are.

Well, I am the founder and CEO of so Joy Coaching LLC and I help high achieving women of color get unstuck in their personal lives while navigating a demanding and high stakes career. And they do that by cultivating boundaries and prioritizing self care. And joy.

Yes, I love that. Now how did you get into this work? Like tell the people who you are and all the amazingness that you do.

In my non coaching life, which is still my coaching life, I am an ordained pastor and being, being a pastor, I have the unbelievable privilege of walking with people through different journeys of their lives. However, what I also realized looking around at my colleagues, that many of the women in ministry were struggling and many majority of the women of color were absolutely struggling. And so I was thinking about how, how is it possible that women who are in leadership, women who are intellectually like just powerful and brilliant and can do above and beyond, not be able to thrive in their lives. And I didn't want thriving to be just about the material things of thriving, but really about joy and this place of inner peace and unapologetic authenticity and how that looks in your life in real, tangible ways.

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about joy. I think this is, like, such an important concept, and how do you define it? And then I'll talk a little bit about how I have defined it for myself.

Yeah. I believe that joy is different from happy. Happiness, I believe, has to do with what's happening around you. Happiness is situational, is an emotion. I believe that joy is a character, that it's something that you cultivate. It is what centers you. It is what keeps you steady. It is the thing inside of your gut that anchors your life, and no matter what situationally is happening around you. I grew up in the black Baptist church in Mississippi. I called it Baptist, Baptist, and Pentecostal. And the song that they would sing is like, this joy that I have. The world didn't give it to me, and the world can't take it away. And just this idea of this deep well of joy that positions me that whatever comes what may, that I'm going to be okay. And that is the foundation of why I focus so much on joy and less on bubblegum pop wrapper happiness.

Yeah, I love that so much. Well, my definition of joy is not as intense and beautiful as I just say. I had a really hard time, I want to say about nine years ago. I was a little bit depressed. My.