It was an absolute treat to sit down with Shawna Beckmann and chat about all things life on The Red Bra Project YouTube Channel. Growing up most of her entire life in Minnesota and a #midwest girl at heart, Shawna married her high school sweetheart, graduated college and started her family with two beautiful babies. Soon after, her family relocated to Connecticut (where they had zero family & friends!) for her husband’s career where they continued to grow their family, X’s two more children. Talk about a big change, eh?! 😉 Truuust me when I say, this is just a small peek into several of the topics we covered during our conversation – we are truly honored to share a little bit of Shawna’s story with you.
Shawna opens up about a crazy part of her life before motherhood where at the age of 21 she was unexpectedly diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She went in for a doctor’s visit for some strange bloating in her belly and the assumption that she would probably leave with some OTC medication, no big deal. It turned out that the doctors discovered Shawna had a tumor the size of a grapefruit on her right ovary and on her left, another tumor, the size of a lime. She immediately went in for surgery and needless to say everything happened at a whirlwind speed. Her doctors advised her that if she wanted a chance at having a family, it would be best to start right away. The doctors explained that had they detected the ovarian cancer any older, they would have had to remove everything.
It took two years for Shawna & her husband, John to have their first born and two more years to have their second child. Then, the next three Beckmann babes were born – boom, boom, boom back to back, right in-between two huge out of state moves! Shawna laughs as she is certainly blessed with five amazing children all under the age of seven, “It’s been crazy, but it’s been good. We’ve always wanted a large family, but having them so close together was sort of unplanned, planned,” she said. We have a deep appreciation for Shawna sharing their journey with us as it can be really tough sometimes to share with so much vulnerability.
We weren’t kidding when we said we covered several topics in our short time with Shawna. Shawna is a Sales Coach where she absolutely loves helping women to effectively communicate & sell in a way that feels good about what they are doing. Shawna’s passion for what she does and how she helps women comes across the second she starts talking about it, she literally lights up! Of course, it was only natural to ask Shawna how she got “here” to owning her own successful business and she took us down a brief trip to memory lane.
Graduating in 2008 when the job market was suuuuper tough, Shawna remembers applying with over 200 applications, each having a specific cover letter and fancy resume. She went through career coaching & practice interviews and still could not secure her first job post graduation. She ended up doing some reception work that lead to a job in tissue donation where she learned how to navigate through extremely tough conversations with family members about tissue donation moments after their loved one had died. WOW. Talk about acquiring skills…and quickly! Eventually, some boss challenges came up and Shawna started to think about what else she could do, right now, at this moment.
Shawna decided to start her own cleaning business and just naturally started telling people she could clean their house and they hired her. Having cleaned houses her whole life and passing white glove test after white glove test from her Mom, Shawna knew a thing or two about exceeding expectations for a clean home. Her business exploded, in a great way! About two years after starting it, roughly12 employees and a move later, she decided to sell that business and take things online. This time, her focus was selling clothes and within seven short months, Shawna sold 6 figures worth of clothes — all online! While that was a fast & furious success, what Shawna really enjoyed about it was the online part, not schlepping the product perse….so, back to thinking block she went.
She thought about what she naturally enjoyed doing. Connecting with people, relationships, marketing, online business in the digital world, all which lead her to becoming a Sales Coach and starting HEY HEY SHAWNA MAY. She took all of her past experience(s), listened to the struggles that women were having within sales (product & service) and started helping them to break through those challenges and start having massive success. Glowing in our interview, Shawna says, “It’s been amazing, it’s like the best business ever, it IS my favorite!”
Yet,another incredible story within our short time with her and these are just the cliff notes! We often say the growth is in the journey and this is one story of evolution you simply cannot miss. You can check out the whole conversation right here.
Right around the 12:00 minute mark of the interview Shawna answers the question, “Throughout everything….what is one piece of advice that really stuck with you?” Her answer was SO good — she explained that she remembers reading somewhere that the only difference in your life a year from now will be the people that you meet. She shared some fantastic perspective and Shawna inspo as we like to call it about how vastly different her life has changed from year to year and how it literally has to do with the relationships and people who she meets and genuinely gets to know in her life.
We joke about almost a decade being spent in diapers at the Beckmann house, how having 5 kids under the age of 7 has actually tied in directly to her massive growth and success in her life & business with incorporating the lifestyle of flexibility into the picture, daily. This interview is jam packed with so many nuggets of inspiration, stories, resources and life perspective from the wonderful Shawna Beckmann, who truly shares her inner strength every single day with everyone she encounters in such a beautiful way.
Red Bra Moment: Shawna asks herself, “What is the worst thing that can happen?” when pushing through fear and / or embarrassment, then, she does it. Yessss!!!! Just like that. “You find out whatever that is, you can handle it, you’re gonna get through it and it’s gonna be ok,” Shawna said.
We hope this story inspired you or someone you know on some level, we know it did, us! Feel free to share away.
Connect with Shawna on IG @heyheyshawnamay and through her website at www.heyheyshawnamay.com
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Much love,
Renee
