Meet Michelle Hadley

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michelle Hadley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michelle below.

Michelle, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I think a lot about resilience because my life has required an extraordinary amount of it. I believe resilient people are fundamentally optimistic, big picture thinkers. Growing up, I think it’s so important for us to have experiences where things don’t go our way – we don’t win or we don’t get the grade we wanted. These experiences teach us to pick ourselves back up and try again. I must have developed this somewhere along the way because, when I was in my mid-20s, I ended up in a very abusive relationship. He was a US Marshal. It was incredibly scary, and the abuse didn’t stop when I left him. In fact, it escalated.

About 6 months after leaving him, he (and the woman he had married) framed me for a crime. If you can imagine spending 3 months in a jail cell with almost no access to sunlight and being labeled as a snitch, it is a special kind of hell. After 3 months, the District Attorney said “oopsy! we got the wrong person.” But the life I had worked so hard to build had been destroyed – no more job, no more apartment, no more nice car. And I had lost my anonymity. It made finding employment almost impossible.

Still, I never gave up. I got creative, and I kept fighting. Eventually, I moved to NYC and reinvented myself. I rebooted my career and landed a management position at a beauty company.

And I fought back against the people who had tried to destroy me. It took me over 5 years, but I succeeded.

Resilience is about believing in the best while weathering the worst. It takes endurance and stamina. It requires hope and optimism. It calls for creativity and tenacity. I think we all have it if we can just take a moment to believe in ourselves and keep pushing.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

In November 2023, I was a new mom – motherhood is so transformational. I think it can be especially difficult because the life you knew before baby is gone, and it can feel like you’ve lost your own identity. I knew I didn’t want to be the kind of mom who had no passions or sources of joy and creativity outside of motherhood.

And motherhood really made me see myself differently. I was so self conscious before I had my daughter so I thought, “no one wants to look at me or hear from me. I could never be an influencer or create content.” I see things so differently now. Instead, I think, “Why not me?” I see the value in my voice and contributions.

I started a lifestyle mommy blog – yes, I know, I joke that I’ve entered my “basic B mom era.” But after the life I’ve had, I truly enjoy celebrating my creative side and leaning into something fun. We all need a little more fun.

In less than 6 months, I was getting brand collaborations, and I’ve continue to build and grow since then. While I post a lot on fashion and beauty, I also talk a lot about the realities of motherhood, how I deal with stress and anxiety, and other topics that are very authentic to my experience. I’m going to be launching a podcast soon because I have so much I want to tell my audience!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Empathy! It is a superpower. It enables you to connect with and understand people, and it has allowed me to develop some really deep relationships with some people who have been pivotal in my life.

Resilience! You need so much resilience to truly succeed in life. Even as an influencer/content creator, I get more no’s than yes’s, but I believe the key to success is continuing to try even after rejection.

Courage! This one goes hand-in-hand with resilience, but remember that courage is not the absence of fear – it is the guts to keep trying and fight even when you are afraid. Vulnerability takes courage, and you can’t truly connect with others without being vulnerable.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I love collaborating with others! It always enriches my content, and there’s nothing more powerful than getting an outside set of eyes to give you a new perspective. If you are a content creator or if you need someone to create content for you, I would love to chat to see if it’s a good fit.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Natalie Ladines of Ladines Media

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