This week on the Mompreneurs podcast, Coleen Otero shares her inspiring journey of reinvention. The branding mogul, author, and founder of CEO Chicks sat down with Mompreneurs host Nancy Redd to reflect on how losing everything ultimately set her on the path to success.

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Otero became an entrepreneur early on.

Growing up, Otero taught herself how to style hair. “By the time I was 16, I was that girl in Brooklyn on the weekends, it was like, one after the other coming in and getting their hair done,” she said. “I started to learn how to do my own hair, that’s how I got started. I often tell people that problems produce products and services. It was that very problem that helped me become the entrepreneur that I am today.”

She went on to achieve her dream of owning a full-service salon and spa. But when the Great Recession hit in 2007, she lost everything including her salon. Her family was forced to downsize and start over. Rebuilding and recovering “took about a good five to eight years,” she said. “The kids were still so young, that’s why. So I needed a lot of help and support from family members in order to get there.”

She reinvented herself after her losing everything.

After shuttering her salon, the mompreneur rebranded herself and found success as a celebrity hairstylist. Her gift for personal branding evolved into a powerful tool for helping other women succeed in business. The natural problem-solver embraced a new vision for herself and focused on where she was valued. “I started to pay attention to what was coming in my inbox. It began to shift, and I ran with it,” she said.

Despite experiencing great loss from the financial crisis, Otero is grateful for the wisdom she gained from overcoming such a challenge. “That season, while it was so difficult, was so necessary and I would not change a thing. It catapulted me into where I am today.”

Otero turned her branding expertise into a thriving business.

Otero officially retired from the beauty industry in 2018. Today, she oversees her own branding agency, Your Branding Xpert. “Back when I transitioned out of the beauty industry, those skills began to translate into branding,” she said. “I created a team, and we come together and create magic for amazing visionaries. So that’s the branding side, where I’m helping create the brand for you.”

She created CEO Chicks to empower women in business.

CEO Chicks is Otero’s other enterprise focused on building community and sharing knowledge. The organization, centered around a community of diverse CEOs, aims to educate and support female entrepreneurs.

“CEO Chicks is all about education, community, and yourself as a member becoming a voice and an advocate for other women. It’s about networking — coming to see where you can give, not just take. That’s one of the biggest things: that we truly learn to operate from a place of abundance, and when you do that you lack nothing.”

“I love to see people win. It is the reason why I get up. It’s so rewarding to me, to see someone go from one level to another level, that may have struggled in times past and felt as if they didn’t ‘deserve’ a specific role or a specific level of income, or they’re the first to do XYZ.”

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Being a mompreneur is a ‘daily journey.’

Otero is a mom to four boys and a “bonus daughter,” all between 12 and 26 years old. The busy mompreneur delved into the so-called balance of it all.

“I think that balance is a myth,” she said. “It’s a daily journey, just figuring it out everyday. I’m an entrepreneur and a mom, so I have to constantly prioritize. My children are now at an age where they don’t need the hand-holding like they did before. There were times that I walked away from an opportunity because I needed to invest the time with my children.”

“The things that make a marriage work, the things that make a family work, the things that make a business work, it’s not sexy, it’s not flashy, it’s mundane. It’s those disciplines, it’s the things that people don’t necessarily want to hear or talk about.”

Catch new episodes of ‘Mompreneurs’ every week.

Every week, we celebrate beautiful Black entrepreneurs who are simultaneously amazing business moguls and awesome moms. We listen to their life stories and inspiring advice. Catch new episodes of Mompreneurs every Monday on MadameNoire’s YouTube channel. Or listen to the podcast online at Urban1Podcasts.com.

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