Mandy Rayleen Slape, BSN, RN, NC-BC, CNOR

I attribute my success to the resilience I developed during a difficult childhood and the lessons I learned from the challenges I have faced throughout my life. Growing up with family violence and instability taught me resilience from an early age, although I also learned to suppress my feelings, which I later recognized as unhealthy. Having four children gave my life purpose and taught me unconditional love. My faith and surrender to my higher power during a difficult season of burnout helped me find meaning in adversity and shaped me into the woman I am today. My military service taught me accountability, leadership, and resilience, while my years in the operating room further developed those values alongside my surgical conscience. Learning to forgive myself, especially for the moments I fell short as a mother and as a nurse under pressure, has also shaped who I am today.

The best career advice I ever received started in the military when I was only nineteen, working as a Hospital Corpsman on the newborn floor. At that point in my life, I never believed I could one day become a college graduate. I came from a family where no one had graduated from college. My father was a high school dropout, and my mother immigrated from Mexico and only made it past the second grade. College felt unfathomable.

Then one day, I worked side by side with a pediatrician who told me I should go back to school. She said if she could do it, I could too. She had been raised in a single-parent household with her mother in the inner-city ghetto, and she had still put herself through medical school. Hearing her story, I felt, for the first time, that it might genuinely be possible for me, too. I believe God placed her in my path at exactly the moment I needed to hear it.

I would not become a nurse for another fourteen years, but I took the next step. I chased those goals. I used the medical field as a stepping stone, becoming a surgical technologist first. I was always told that nursing was a great field, one where you could always go back and do more if you wanted a change. And here I am today, pursuing my Family Nurse Practitioner certification in grad school.

If I were speaking to my younger self, I would tell her that she matters too. I would encourage women entering nursing, coaching, or any caregiving field to stop putting everyone else before themselves and to recognize their own worth from the start, not after burning out first. For much of my life, I wanted to stay small and avoid being seen, even while caring for others in some of their hardest moments. What I have learned is that self-care is not separate from being a good nurse, coach, or caregiver; it is what makes sustaining that work possible. You matter just as much as the people you care for. When you do not learn to care for yourself, it becomes difficult to keep giving to others in a way that lasts. Sometimes it takes reaching a breaking point, no longer recognizing yourself, to realize how essential self-care and self-worth truly are. My advice is not to wait for that breaking point, the way I did.

One of the biggest challenges I face is imposter syndrome. I have become confident and an expert in my work in the operating room, someone others rely on in high-stakes moments, but stepping into a new role as a business owner has sometimes made me question myself in ways I did not expect. As I build my wellness coaching business, I am intentionally doing uncomfortable things, including creating social media content and putting myself out there in ways that once felt completely outside my comfort zone. In those moments, I remind myself that God is in control and that stepping into the unknown is often exactly where growth happens.

Another significant challenge is learning the marketing side of entrepreneurship: building a clientele, getting people to say yes to my services, and figuring out how to translate what I know clinically into something women can find and trust online.

As for opportunity, I think this is one of the most exciting times to be doing this work. More women are finally naming what they have been quietly living with: perimenopause, burnout, the sense of losing themselves in midlife, and looking for something beyond generic wellness advice. There is a real opportunity to bring nursing science, faith, and whole-person coaching together for women who have felt unseen by both traditional medicine and typical wellness spaces.

Integrity is my number-one value. I learned the importance of always doing the right thing through my military service and through my responsibility as a surgical conscience. Respect is also extremely important to me, and I believe in always treating people with respect. Accountability follows close behind, taking ownership, especially when I have fallen short. Love guides everything I do; it is foundational to how I show up for others. Forgiveness has been one of the deepest lessons of my journey, learning to release what I cannot change and extend grace, both to others and to myself. I also value bringing joy into life through laughter, allowing my inner child to rejoice.