Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise
but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success.
Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick,
your host, and today my special guest is Teresa Malito-Connors. She's the founder of Dr. MC's
Self-Care Cabaret, a suite of theater-inspired self-care and professional development services
for professionals. Dr. MC holds a PhD in educational leadership. In addition to her doctorate and
published research, she is a licensed K-12 counselor with a master's of education and school
counseling. She also holds a BA in theater studies. Her true joy is bringing her scholarship,
her experience, and her zest to audiences of all kinds nationwide. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Sheila. Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
I'm excited to have you join us here today. Let's start by asking you how you got to doing
what you do today.
Yeah, thanks. So let's see, how did I get started? Well, it's been a little bit of a non-traditional
path, I think, if folks were listening to the intro. What started out as an undergraduate
degree in theater has somehow turned into a self-care business.
And a PhD. So I had dreams of going to New York and doing the theater grind and being a full-time
performer. And I did that for a little bit, traveling back and forth to New York. But it
wasn't enough. I always was feeling a pull back to education. So I found myself working, back
actually at my local high school as a secretary for a program that was running there. And I just,
I found that the work I was doing was related so much to school counseling. And I loved working
with kids. My mom's an educator. And so it just kind of, it was very comfortable for me. And I
thought, let me go get a master's in school counsel. Well, I loved that. And I loved being a
school counselor. I ended up getting hired at a therapeutic high school here in Massachusetts.
So I'm now got kind of launched into the special education arena. And then from there, I got
kind of realized that had kind of run its course at the time. But I was also, it was great
experience. And I learned so much about working with kids with mental health issues, early onset
psychosis, eating disorders, real significant depression, anxiety. So I was finding it kind of
difficult to manage my own mental health and stress in that environment. And I went to my
director one day and I said to her, you know, express that that this is this is a lot of,
I'm finding myself like, you know, unable thinking about my students when I'm at home at night,
like not like being able to separate myself. And she said to me, you need to learn how to not take
that with you. She didn't offer any additional support or guidance or direction on how to do
that. She just said I needed to figure that out. So I thought, oh, okay. And that sent me kind of
on a journey to start studying self care and stress management. And I was in my 20s at this point and
was really turned to the work of Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Cheryl Richardson, Louise Hay,
and all those self care experts who have come before me. At this time, though, I thought this
was like just like a me problem. Like this was just something that I was experiencing and other
people didn't have this issue. Well, then as I moved through my career, I ended up in a position
where I was now supporting, it was a statewide or trade association that I worked for. Now I'm
supporting all the private special education schools here in Massachusetts, as well as listening
to stories from my mom and my mom's friends about teachers and burnout and stress and the
workload and how difficult it is. And I'm thinking this is not, we got to fix this. This is not,
this is not helping. We need to, you know, allow teachers more time and autonomy and take care of
them. So I had always toyed with the idea of wanting a PhD and that now it kind of seemed like
the right time. So I went to Lesley University here in Cambridge, Massachusetts and studied
educational leadership, my main area of scholarship being self care and renewal for leaders and
teachers. I wanted to study how as a leader in a school, if you practice self care, but also
promote it for your students and for your staff, as well as your students, like how do you help
your students? How will that impact student outcomes and what, you know, and school culture
and climate and retention rates? I mean, we've had a crisis in this country with education
that was brewing long before COVID. COVID definitely sped things up a little bit, but anyway,
so as I'm working my way through the doctoral program, I realized, you know, this is information
that not just educators need, everybody needs this. So I decided to start a little Facebook page
called Dr. MC's Self Care Cabaret, which brings in my theater experience and my love of theater
and performing arts, as well as my self care expertise. And that has grown to date. I've done,
oh gosh, I don't even know, probably close to 300 presentations at different schools and organizations.
I have an online course, which Sheila is very familiar with and actually helped me build
the back end of that. An online course for creating trauma sensitive classrooms for students.
And the work has now expanded to cover other areas in addition to self care, but I always feel like
self care is the underpinnings of everything because you have to take care of yourself in
order to be able to care for others. And yeah, it's cliche, the hole you can't pour from an empty
cup, but it's also very real. So we also have a podcast, I've been published in educational
text as well as textbooks and lots of stuff. So it's been kind of busy, but I do keep a pulse
in education. In addition to all of that, I am still a special education administrator in the
greater Boston area. So I still have a pulse of what it's like really being in a classroom today
and in a school because it's different post pandemic learning is very challenging.
So help me just define or clarify some of what that was a lot of self care means, right?
Yeah. Just like you said, you can't pour from an empty cup. So in general or on average, right?
What are some of the issues or obstacles that people face that prevents them from
maintaining or practicing self care? Yeah. So great question. So I'm not here to talk about
mani-pedis and bubble baths and forced smiles. That's not really self care. What we talk about
is really the foundation of how you show up in the world, like the things that you do every day
to manage your mental health, manage your emotional needs. And that really gets deep into
different areas and they're called the 10 domains of self care. And we really look at like how we
move our body, how we soothe ourselves, how we rest, how we maintain relationships, what does
our environments look like, how we practice self compassion and teachers and especially other
helping professionals and entrepreneurs. Like we just want to kind of take it all on. We think we
can do everything. And especially I think with educators, because there's children who are
in the mix and nobody goes into education to, you know, they want to support children and go extra.
And I've seen so many people that just go like they will give and give and give and give,
but what happens is then you run the risk of burnout. So that's really common that teachers
and helping professionals have difficulty filling their cup first. So they're better able to care
for others. Well, and that happens with entrepreneurs as well, right? Having to wear so
many different hats. And sometimes even if you delegate certain things, you're still
responsible or overseeing them. And absolutely, you know, it's hard to set those boundaries where
you say, okay, time to stop. You don't just clock out, right? Right, right. No, you don't. And you
don't as an educator or helping professional, you just, it's very difficult to set those
boundaries. And that's a lot of what I talk about in my work is setting clear boundaries and helping
people manage stress. And I mean, there was a New York Times article last summer, it really upset
me. And it talked about folks 35 to 50, male adaptive coping mechanisms on the rise and alcohol
related deaths in women are like skyrocketed. So that to me means that people aren't, they don't
know how to cope in healthy ways. They're turning towards unhealthy coping mechanisms. When really
there's so many other things you can do, but it does take work and intentionality to build that
foundation of self care so you can stand strong on it and show up as your best self.
Well, so now you've got your own business, what have been some of the challenges that you have
faced managing your business? When you start a business, there's, I think, cutting through the
noise, there's a lot of experts out there, and a lot of people that are just trying to like sell
you their thing. And there's a lot of temptation, I think, to get like, to buy this person's course
and take this and it'll, you'll make a gazillion dollars or do this and it's gonna, you know,
triple your Instagram followers, like all these things. But really, a lot of it is noise, a lot
of it is just people trying to make money. So as an entrepreneur, you have to be very careful and
a little guarded, I think, with where you're willing to invest your time and energy because
you don't have unlimited time and energy and you don't likely have unlimited resources. I mean,
I certainly don't as an entrepreneur. So I need to be careful and mindful about where I spend my time
and energy because there's a fine line between something just being a hobby and something
becoming a business. And I think, you know, and I've worked with mentors and I've done a lot with,
like I know, Sheila, you've done work with SCORE, which is a phenomenal organization. There's also
Entrepreneurship for All, E for All, they're nationwide. I've done, like those types of
organizations will really help you and give you the foundational information that you need. And
there's others as well. You know, and I had one of my mentors at E for All say to me, you know,
I was taking every little gig that would come my way, every presentation. Some of them I wasn't
getting paid very much. Some of them were even volunteering. Of course, this was in the beginning.
This was great because it helped me, you know, hone my presentation and get my name out there
and all of that. But it was taking so much time and energy to do that that it was preventing me
from being able to finally sit down and put together my first course or to get the
approval that I needed from the state so that I can award professional development points to
educators who take my course. So it was preventing me from doing some of those other more foundational
aspects of my business because I was running crazy with the kind of the smaller things.
And so I think, you know, just realizing that if you want it to be a business, you have to
treat it like a business. And sometimes that means cutting through the noise and really focusing on
the goal and asking for help. Well, and I love it because you're an educational consultant or,
you know, wellness consultant. And sometimes a lot of the experts that end up being entrepreneurs
didn't take those business courses along the way. So the fact that you looked for that support
through different organizations, you basically had businessmen take the courses along the way.
You basically had business mentors to help you answer questions along the way.
It's great for someone trying to start, you know, or turn their expertise in what business. So I love
everything you have done. I follow you on all the social media. Thank you. Your course, I,
of course, not only love it, but love the fact that you're also receiving those points, right?
So you're not just out there offering the course, but it goes towards these requirements that they
need to meet. With that in mind, what is your next milestone? So my next milestone, I would love to,
at some point in the near future, be able to focus all of my energy on Dr. MC, self-care cabarets.
Right now, as I mentioned, I do still have a full-time position as a school administrator.
And I think that's amazing. And I think in my business, I should always have a pulse on what
is actually going on in education. So I think that's a huge downfall of some presenters that
go into schools, you know, their classroom experience or their school experience might be
from 20 years ago. Classrooms don't look the same as they did 20 years ago. So if you're standing
in front of me in a professional development workshop, and you're telling me what things were
like 20 years ago, that's kind of a turnoff for a lot of the audience to be like, this isn't
relative. This isn't, you know, recent current research, like your research is current. My
publications are current. And the experience is current. So having that I love having that
pulse in a school. So in some capacity, I'd always like to be, you know, maybe part time or something,
but to be able to be more full time in the Dr. MC self-care cabaret would be my next milestone.
So for aspiring business leaders, and entrepreneurs, what advice would you offer to help them
prioritize their self care while trying to achieve, you know, their personal or professional goals?
Yeah. So you have to remember that you are not a unlimited resource, you yourself. So you have to
make sure you're taking time for yourself. You have to listen to your body. And what it's telling
you, I'll share a vulnerable example last fall, I think I was kind of burning myself out. I had
several gigs last October, just running around different conferences, there's schools plus the
start of a new school year, plus just life, maintaining a social life and spending time with
friends and family. And I got really run down and I got really sick. And I couldn't like shake it.
Well, in that moment, like the business kind of came to a screeching halt. I tried to keep things
going that I could keep going or that I have other people that do work for me and support me. So I
was able to keep some things going, but that was really, really scary. And so making sure and
thinking back on it, I recognize where I had given too much of my energy. So and not I wasn't taking
care of myself, even as a self care expert. Sometimes we don't take care of ourselves,
you know, coming back from that, it's been more about prioritizing like, wait, what are the things
like I haven't restarted my podcast. I have also have a podcast, haven't restarted it. That's okay.
That can, that wasn't like a priority. The priority was the things that were bringing in money.
Let's get those back up and running. I had to shift some, some presentations around. I had to
cancel some, some of them I lost. Some of them I was able to reschedule, but focusing on those
things and the course, I really wanted to get the course up and running. So we focused there,
but it really took like kind of taking it all down to the basics and like, okay, what are the most
important pieces? I wasn't going to be able to just flip everything back on some things were
going to have to wait. Social media kind of took a little bit of a back burner. I wasn't able to post
as much as I like or engage with my communities is like, but it's okay. So knowing where the
priorities are and knowing the things that you, you know, you can ask for help or that you can
delegate, or they just don't really matter. Like it's okay to let those go because you
have to keep yourself healthy and functioning and managing your stress. Otherwise you're your
business. So you have to, you have to prioritize yourself. Yeah. Health comes first. Where can my
listeners learn more about you, find your course or follow you online? So I have my website,
drmcselfcare.com and on there you can find a link to my podcast page, presentations, the online
course. I also host joyful movement dance parties every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern Standard Time, free
for folks to join. So there's information on there. It's called Dance Break with Dr. MC because
movement is very important to me and making movement accessible for other folks is also very
important to me. So that helps with that. And I'm also on social media, most active on Instagram
and Facebook at Dr. MC self care DR MC self care and on LinkedIn, Theresa Malik, O'Connor's or
Dr. MC self care cabaret. Love it. Well, thank you so much for your time and joining me today.
Awesome. Thanks Sheila. And thank you all for joining us on another episode of Milestone Moments
in Business and Leadership.