
Teri Coaxum, professor, business coach, and founder and CEO of Coaxum Connects wrote her debut book Peaceful Pondering: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Inner Peace in hopes that people will allow themselves to become a priority in their lives. “The book is about finding that off button,” the motivational speaker told So Booking Cool. The self-help guide, published by Xlibris, discusses the important distinction between integration and balance when it comes to leading a peaceful life–something Coaxum has learned from her own amazing and loaded career.
In 2004, Coaxum became the first African American woman Deputy State Director for Senator Chuck Schumer. Prior to this role, she was the Project Manager of Community Relations for the former Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes. She would eventually become the Regional Advocate for the Office of Advocacy’s Region II during Barack Obama‘s presidency, in which she served in the Small Business Community. Coaxum reveals she manifested working for the Obama Administration and put it into her vision book (not board!)

The New York-based educator (John Jay, Metropolitan, and Medgar Evers) also discusses mentors and sponsors, and networking vs. social climbing and opportunists, all of which she says can be distinguished by nurtured relationships. She also mentions some of her favorite self-transformation books, including those she has recommended to her students. Check out the full heartfelt interview above!