From Survival to Strategy: How Coaching Helped Shontell Edwards Reclaim Her Voice, Value, and Vision

Client Highlight: Shontell Edwards Student Support Advocate → Systems Thinker | Community Architect | Voice for the Underserved

💠 The Starting Point: A Life Built on Service, A Future Clouded by Burnout

When Shontell Edwards began coaching with Melanie White of Sisyphus HR, she didn’t come looking for a resume refresh or a job title upgrade. She came looking for herself.

A passionate advocate for college students and a powerhouse behind the scenes of student success programs, Shontell had spent years pouring into others. She was the one making sure students had food, housing, scholarships, mentorship, and emotional support—often filling the cracks that entire systems ignored. But in doing so, she had lost sight of something vital:

“I didn’t know how to talk about what I do. I didn’t know how to own it.”

She was exhausted, underpaid, and emotionally invisible in environments that claimed to care.

That’s when she found Melanie—and everything changed.

🎯 The Coaching Process: A Mirror, A Map, and a Movement

Unlike typical coaching that starts with a job board or skills checklist, Melanie began by helping Shontell reconnect with her power. Their early sessions focused on what Shontell already knew—but had never fully claimed:

• Her ability to move systems.

  
  

• Her gift for seeing what others miss.

  
  

• Her tireless leadership—even when it wasn’t acknowledged as such.

  
  
  
  

“Melanie helped me say out loud what I’d been afraid to admit: I’m the glue. I hold it all together. But I’m more than a helper—I’m a strategist.”

Through a combination of mindset work, resume and LinkedIn transformation, and deep listening, Melanie helped Shontell reframe her narrative—not as a burnout story, but as a blueprint for systemic change.

Together, they:

✅ Created a bold, mission-centered LinkedIn bio that reframed her “invisible” work as organizational strategy.

✅ Named the themes running through her career: wraparound support, equity-building, advocacy.

✅ Crafted a transferable skills map that tied her work in higher education to roles in government, foundations, and nonprofit innovation.

✅ Identified her voice as a thought leader in spaces where real change is needed—especially around youth development, educational equity, and care infrastructure.

But most importantly? They gave her permission to dream bigger.

🔁 The Inner Shift: From Invisible to Indispensable

What makes Shontell’s story extraordinary is not just a new job title—it’s the identity shift that happened in real time.

In her own words:

“Melanie didn’t just tweak my resume. She reminded me of my worth. She reminded me that the way I think, the things I see—they’re data. She told me, ‘The workaround is the insight.’ That was huge for me.”

Shontell came into coaching not fully seeing the systems she’d already been managing. She left knowing that her life’s work was not remedial—it was radical.

She went from apologizing for her passion to monetizing it.

From hiding in titles like “assistant” or “coordinator” to owning her place as a strategic partner who can build wraparound systems that actually work.

🌱 Vision Work: Planting Seeds for the Next Chapter

By the end of the coaching journey, Shontell wasn’t just clearer on her past—she had a bold, expansive vision for her future:

🌟 Becoming a consultant or advisor to institutions failing to meet the real needs of students. 🌟 Launching a collective focused on community care infrastructure. 🌟 Writing and speaking about her experiences to shift policy and practice. 🌟 Building a legacy around nurturing others without sacrificing herself.

“Melanie made me feel seen in a way I didn’t know I needed. She held a mirror up, but it was also a map. It wasn’t just ‘You’ve been through a lot.’ It was, ‘Look at what you’ve already built.’”

💬 Words from Shontell

“There was no judgment in this space. Only clarity. And it helped me remember who I was before the exhaustion set in. Melanie didn’t just coach me. She reflected me back to myself—stronger, wiser, more powerful than I thought.”

🪞 Why This Matters

Shontell’s story illustrates a truth too often ignored in the coaching world: transformation isn’t always a new job—it’s a new lens. It’s the moment someone stops shrinking, starts naming their value, and begins designing a life that honors everything they’ve already carried.

This is the core of Melanie White’s methodology. She doesn’t just fix resumes. She helps people rewrite the story they tell about themselves—and then equips them to live it out boldly.

✨ Melanie’s Reflection

“Working with Shontell was sacred. She’s been holding communities together for years, but no one gave her language for what that really meant. Our coaching work was about reclaiming her own voice—and designing a future that reflects her power.”