Meet Selena Conmackie

We recently connected with Selena Conmackie and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Selena, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
When I think of resilience, my mother comes to mind. As a young child I watched her move away from her family to follow my fatherʻs career in the hotel industry. We left Hawaii to travel and she had to learn to do things ʻon her ownʻ without being able to call her parents and siblings for those things you would ask for help on. “Come help me make this dish” “Dad, can you fix this window screen” “Hey sis, can you pop over real quick and watch the kids?”

As time moved on, I witnessed her dealing with a divorce from my father. She had just had her third child and was barely a year old when they separated and the transition in our family was devasting for her. I watched her get multiple jobs to support us along with being the primary caretaker of 3 school aged children. She had moved back home to Hawaii, had the support of her family and trudged forward.

Seeing my mom through the years prepared me to handle mine. The loss of my father to cancer, my divorce from my daughters father, remarrying my second husband who was in the military and leaving my home to follow his career. And eventually starting my own business due to the military nomadic lifestyle that prevents stable employment for the spouse.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Selena Conmackie is a WordPress website designer and also helps small and medium-sized businesses with digital strategy — including social media management, email marketing and paid ads.

On top of the Aloha spirit, Selena’s clients love her hands-on approach so they get clarity and direction with their digital marketing, while maintaining a consistent presence across all social media channels and their website.

Selena also hosts workshops in-person and online workshops on digital marketing and is the co-host of 15{ish} Minute Coffee Chat Livestream and podcast where she chats all things business and online marketing.

When Selena isn’t hosting a workshop, learning the newest Instagram trend, or adding a plug-in to her client’s websites, you can find her spending time with her “ohana” (family), drinking coffee out of one her many Starbucks’ mugs, watching Real Housewives, or having therapy sessions with her rescue dog, Coco.

As a military spouse, Selena is a Chapter Ambassador for the Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs and a regular blog contributor for Spouselink.Org.

Additionally, Hauoli-Socially Inspired LLC is proudly celebrating its achievement in becoming an officially recognized Military Spouse Owned Enterprise.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
When I think of three words these come to mind. Aloha, Patience & Drive.

When starting my own business in 2017, I knew first that I wanted to incorporate my Hawaiian culture within my business ethos and operate on that mindset of serving Aloha to my clients, our projects and anyone else I would encounter along the way. I named my business after my father Hauoli and daughter (I gave her his name when she was born). Hauoli means happiness and that how I feel about life. Iʻm grateful everyday for the opportunities given to me and will always be in that lane of gratitude.

Starting your own business is not for everyone. Itʻs hard work when you become the person wearing all the hats but I was very driven to prove that I could do it. I learned a lot of patience during that time of learning, haha. So I tell others who are starting out, to give themselves some grace too and find a community of other like-minded business owners to talk about the daily grind and who understands it. Sometimes your family isnʻt the right people to help keep you on track.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I recently took a StrengthFinders34 quiz and LOVED what it told about me. And why I may have kept banging my head on why I couldnʻt be great in a particular area. Iʻve found humility in knowing what I do fantastically and what I donʻt, Iʻve taken the stuff I suck at and look for others that have joined my team to help.

Iʻve also taken from the report of my strengths that I am more kind to myself when I face a struggle with something and give myself more time to navigate through it if I find that I need to handle it myself.

So recently my business partner and I were at a retreat with a StrenthFinders expert & coach and were sharing a particular trait that was very low for both of us, she commented that’s most likely why our collaboration together was very harmonious versus being in a slight competition that some partnerships can present.

I hope readers will take a moment to learn about themselves, play to their strengths (but also know when to dial it down if needed), and know how to use those weaknesses to their advantage to help them achieve whatever task or goal they are working on.

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