Today we’d like to introduce you to Maria Maldonado Smith.
Hi Maria, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
As a third-grader attending St. Peter and Paul Catholic school in Lexington, KY I had big aspirations for this life. My teacher at the time asked us to write our top three goals down. While most of the class listed goals pertaining to the immediate moment and thought no further than the next month or year, I wrote down the following:
To graduate college
To become Miss Kentucky
To become a United States Senator
It was these three goals, written on a piece of notebook paper that were later copied onto a yellow post-it note that would hang on my mirror until I was almost a senior in high school that started my love for:
Goal setting and accomplishing
Dreaming big, being absurdly optimistic and positive
Helping others by using my gifts
After 16+ years in corporate America, having won sales awards, a promotion to a sales leader and earning tenure as a coach and developer of people, I left the corporate world to do what was put on my heart a few years ago – serving, empowering and motivating women to embrace their most authentic selves. My expertise lies in the following areas:
Vision Board Creation and Accountability for Individuals, Groups, and Small Businesses
Interview Preparation: career, corporate, and pageantry
Career Transitions
Motivation, Inspiration, Empowerment, and Support
Bringing out the very best in YOU!
My company, MMS Consulting Firm, is a place where all women can come to feel their best. It is my absolute passion to empower women and boost their confidence.
Personally, as a Mom and Wife…
Two of my life’s greatest achievements are: marrying my husband and building our family with three of the most spectacular, and sometimes not so spectacular, humans on this side of Heaven. My husband and I are each other’s biggest supporters. We challenge each other daily to be better, to love more, and to choose happiness. Our children are an extension of that foundation and it’s in this daily display that our love for them and our desire to see them be the best versions of who they were designed to be, is rooted.
Socially Conscious: Supporting the Working Mom through my Passion Project
Throughout each aspect of my corporate career, becoming and then being a working mom was one of the hardest transitions. As I began having more and more conversations with the women on my team, those I led and those I knew from friendships to networking groups I was involved with, the consistent message I kept hearing was that we needed help – we needed more. We needed to feel seen, heard and provided resources to help us navigate the transition from working woman to maternity leave, to working mother.
My blog, Confessions of a Corporate Mom: Managing Motherhood, Marriage, and Maniacs, has hosted guest bloggers, provided support, solidarity, and empowerment to working moms across the globe. It has given me a passion project outside of my work as a consultant to fill my cup and given me an even deeper sense of purpose and belonging.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No road to success is paved smoothly. There are always setbacks and roadblocks but that doesn’t mean you give up or give in.
So much of life is predicated on our ability to have a positive and optimistic outcome during the toughest moments. How we react to things happening and our decision to push forward tells a lot about a person. Two aspects of my personality and approach to life are tenaciousness and resilience. I am a firm believer that most things in life are solvable and I’d rather work towards a solution than stand around complaining about the problem.
Some of my biggest struggles occurred early on in my career and were associated with the guilt of being a full-time, traveling, working outside of the home mother trying to juggle all of the things.
At the beginning of my career, I was laser-focused on climbing the corporate ladder so I sacrificed my family for my work under the misguided perception that in doing so I would be viewed as the achiever I am and therefore rewarded as such. Over time, that desire faded because I realized that the value of those sacrifices weren’t worth the payoff.
I’d have to show up at work as if I didn’t have children, ready for the day and focused completely on my job. And then at home, I felt the urge to be “just mom” without any distractions from the work day. The two were always competing and it was never copacetic.
Making the decision to show up at work how I do in my personal life was the biggest gift I’ve ever given myself. It changed my perspective so much.
There will always be obstacles and challenges in life but like Charles Swindoll so famously wrote in his piece, Attitudes, “I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
As you know, we’re big fans of MMS Consulting Firm. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
I specialize in bringing out the best in each of my clients. Whether they come to me looking to create the vision for their future and desire consistent accountability coaching and support, or they’re looking to crush their pageant, collegiate, or career interview, I have them – and you – covered.
What Makes Me Different?
My Experience: I have over 16 years of corporate success. I volunteer in the Miss America organization as a local and state judge, judging in the National space for other pageant systems as well as coaching and developing young women in their interview preparation + cultivating a unique brand with my vision board method and process.
My Method & Approach: The goal is flawless execution. My fun and friendly demeanor provides a quick connection with an audience. Accountability coaching and consistent follow up are cornerstones of my method.
My Passion: I truly love helping others realize their potential and claim their confidence in whatever it is they’re striving for. My passion for setting up an audience for success is woven into the fabric of my core values and belief systems; that every person has such unique and precious qualities about them that set them apart.
My successes: I have worked with women who have held themselves accountable and subsequently achieved their goals and accomplished big dreams. I’ve helped others land their dream job, make career transitions they never thought possible and I’ve watched contestants excel in the pageant world, with many going on to win their local and state titles. My approach is simple but my passion and process is what helps my clients be the best they can be.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Luck is the result of preparation meeting opportunities. So often in life and in business, we look at other people’s success or station in life and assume it is luck that has helped them get to where they are. And in some instances, this holds true. But, if we take a deeper dive into the majority of people’s past, their path, and the work they’ve been doing along the way to their success, we find that the preparation and sweat equity along the journey have led them to their “lucky” moment.
Networking is a huge part of the luck I’ve had in my life and in my business. It’s connecting with the right people, following up, building a relationship first and foremost, and then allowing the opportunities that come from the groundwork laid to happen as they do.
Pricing:
- Vision Board 1:1 Monthly Coaching = $750
- Vision Board 1:1 Quarterly Coaching = $500
- Vision Board Monthly Group Coaching = $250
- Vision Board Quarterly Group Coaching = $125
Contact Info:
- Website: mmsconsultingfirm.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariamaldonadosmith/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/confessionsofacorporatemom
- Other: confessionsofacorporatemom.com
Image Credits
Image Credits: Kelsey Malicote of The Malicote Creative Co.
