Mckaye Medina

To be honest, my autoimmune illness… and my mom.

I know a lot of people with autoimmune issues are catered to & coddled, and for the majority of cases, rightly so! but my dad passed away when I was 9, so my mom had to be a ma and a pa all wrapped into one. That gave her a firm edge that I used to misunderstand but now appreciate so much.

I have a vivid memory of teenage me telling my mom after dinner that I was exhausted and my body was hurting. I asked her if I could go lay down instead of helping with the dishes, which was a common family ritual we did together right after every meal.

She looked at me and said, “McKaye, I know you’re hurting, but since you have a chronic disease, this is going to be your normal for the majority of your life. It’s not fair, but that means you’ve got to learn how to do everyday tasks regardless of the pain if you want to live a normal life.”

Something about that really sunk in because I’d seen others in my life with similar health conditions, and I noticed how easily it could take over their entire identity—dreams, hopes, ambitions, all down the drain. I don’t say that out of judgment, at all. I know how debilitating health problems can be. But I realized right then and there that I wanted to take my power back.

Crohn’s has taught me resilience, responsibility, and the importance of extreme ownership.

No one was coming to save me. If I wanted to get better, I had to become an active participant in my own healing. For me, that meant doing all the little things: focusing on my diet, getting quality sleep, prioritizing healthy relationships, detoxing, taking supplements, working on nervous system recovery… all of it.

And those lessons translated directly into my career in sales and recruiting. They require discipline, emotional resilience, adaptability, and the ability to keep going through challenges. The same mindset that helped me manage my health is the mindset that has allowed me to thrive professionally.

I don’t think I would have achieved the success I have in sales without first learning how to stop being a victim of my circumstances.

Do what you love—but don’t expect love to be easy.

I think choosing a career should be a lot like choosing a spouse. Use logic, consider the logistics, all of that. But at the end of a long, exhausting, really hard day, you should still be able to look at what you’re doing and think, “Damn. I’m still all in.”

You should still feel pulled toward the mission. Still feel proud to be part of it. Still have that feeling of, “This is hard, but I want this.”

If you lose that completely, you might just be in the wrong field.

Don't give up. Sales can be challenging, and it can be intimidating at first, but I’ve seen firsthand how much women can thrive in this industry. Through my recruiting work, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with a lot of talented women, and when women step into sales and stick with it, they often become some of the strongest performers.

Sales isn’t just about being the loudest person in the room. It’s about building relationships, listening, communicating, being intuitive, and being resilient when things are hard. Those are strengths that so many women naturally bring to the table. I’ve noticed women in sales are few and far between but when women stick it out long enough to get good, they grow quickly into leadership roles because they bring so many unique skills to the table.

One of the biggest challenges in our field right now is the inevitable takeover of AI. To be honest, it’s a little scary.

But ultimately, I think that’s also where the biggest opportunity lies.

People are going to become increasingly inundated with mechanical, impersonal interactions. And because of that, I believe the people who are genuinely good at sales are going to become incredibly valuable.

Because the fact of the matter is, sales is hard. You have to be comfortable with rejection. You have to be able to read people—their values, their tone, their inflection—and then use your intuition to understand what’s actually the right fit for them.

If you’re really good at that, companies will pay top dollar for a human who can genuinely understand people and communicate the value of their product.

At the end of the day, we’re social creatures. We crave trust and connection, especially when we’re making decisions that impact our businesses, our careers, and our futures.

So I think the challenge for salespeople is that we’re going to have to become more human, not less. We’ll have to lean harder into authenticity, emotional intelligence, and our ability to actually connect with people.

And I think that’s also the opportunity. The more the world becomes automated, the more valuable genuine human connection becomes—and the salespeople who can provide that will have a lot of opportunity and, ultimately, a lot of financial security.

Without a doubt, impact and growth. I want to be part of something that genuinely helps people, and that’s something I look for in the companies and opportunities I choose to be involved with. If I don’t believe in the mission or feel like the work is creating value, I won’t feel aligned or fulfilled, plain and simple.

But I’ve also always been drawn to sales because it’s a career that constantly challenges you. You’re never going to be fully comfortable in a sales role. That's the beauty of it-- and there is always an opportunity to improve, learn, and grow. I value being in environments that push me to become better, whether that’s professionally or personally.