Meet Coach Ve
My Mission
I am on a mission to
coach Black, Latinx, Indigenous women
of color and nonbinary people of color to
go after every single one of your goals
with confidence and compassion
for yourself, by coaching you to
1) create a clear plan for your goals aligned
with your values, gifts, inner geniuses,
and what you want most
2) identify, disrupt, and overcome the things that hold
you back, so you can confidently achieve your goals
3) practice having
no judgements, no comparisons, and no fixed ideas
as you elevate your life
so you can hold yourself and hold yourself accountable.
We do this work together guided by the HM.A
systems engineering framework, the holistic
problem identifying and goal setting framework
I've created based on the human-centered,
systems engineering framework (Holden et al., 2014)
I use for my
dissertation research.
About Me
Hello friends! I'm Vanessa (she/they),
Ve for short, the creator and accountability coach of
Hold Myself. Accountable (HM.A).
I am a first-gen, queer, Latina, human-centered
engineer with multiple sclerosis (MS) from Phoenix, AZ.
My ability to
set clear goals, systematically plan
my goals to overcome doubt, fear, procrastination,
and lean on my supporters allowed me
to be one of the first in my family
to
1) graduate from high school, 2) obtain an AS in
science, 3) B.S.E in electrical engineering,
and obtain a 4) M.S. and 5) Ph.D candidacy in
industrial engineering.
Right before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
in the spring of 2019, I'd placed at the Yale
healthcare hackathon, published
a first-author research paper, completed a research
fellowship at the NIH and a summer UX research
internship with Blue Cross Blue Shield, mentored
undergraduate students of color, and was working
on my dissertation research on making health
information technology (IT) more inclusive
and equitable for the LGBTQIA+ community. I used a
systems engineering framework to holistically
examine and propose evidence-based solutions for the lack of
representation of LGBTQIA+ health issues in health IT.
My life and career looked perfect on paper, but I was miserable.
I was beyond tired of
proving myself to the
people around me and feeling like I wasn't enough.
My success was measured with metrics like how sleep deprived
I felt and looked, how "white" I could sound,
and how much I could achieve.
My heart was heavy from supporting my peers
as we endured abusive, racist, and exploitative
learning and working conditions that
repeatedly attempted to dim our gifts and
inner geniuses. These experiences made me question whether I:
>> was a real engineer because I realized I couldn't care
less about solving data problems but rather problems
marginalized people faced in the systems they navigate?
>> could continue obsessing over
achieving non-stop, under high amounts of stress
and as my physical and mental health declined?
>> truly desired to be in STEM,
a space that would financially sustain me but
upholds racist, capitalistic, exploitative ideologies
that directly hurt me and my BIPOC communities?
>> had pursued a STEM career thinking
I wouldn't be enough otherwise and where this idea came from?
>> could create something
to support motivated people to
overcome self-defeating ideas and habits often caused by their
environments, so they don't have to struggle like I did and can achieve what they've
always wanted without sacrificing their health, sense of self, and/or self-worth?
Many of these thoughts manifested themselves in my life
as self-doubt, procrastination, and lack of
motivation. As a result,
my depression
worsened and I contemplated ending my life or transforming
the life I had into a life that truly honors my geniuses
and holds space for my physical and mental health.
The gift of my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis was
being forced into pausing my entire life
to heal from a 1.5 months of severe daily dizziness
and blurry vision (a MS episode), being exhausted
of my toxic academic environment,
and answer the
above questions.
Today, I am on a mission to
coach Black, Latinx, Indigenous women
of color and nonbinary people of color
to go after every single one of their goals
with confidence and compassion for themself
by helping them
1) create a clear plan for their goals aligned
with their values, gifts, inner geniuses,
and what they want most
2) identify, disrupt, and overcome the things
that hold them back, so they can confidently achieve their goals
3) practice having
no judgements, no comparisons, and no fixed ideas
as they elevate their life
so they can hold themself & hold themself accountable.
We do this work together guided by the HM.A
systems engineering framework, the holistic
problem identifying and goal setting framework
I've created based on the human-centered,
systems engineering framework (Holden et al., 2014)
I use for my
dissertation research.
