Today we’d like to introduce you to Marlene Clark.
Hi Marlene, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My business partner, Craig and I, are both native Texans and twenty years apart in age. We met in the personal growth and transformation space here in Austin 37 years ago,and a couple of years later got married at the beautiful Barr Mansion. I was running my own seasonal business that I had started at age 16, renting inner tubes on the Comal River and going to school at what was known then as Southwest Texas State University. I was also having fun as a tri-athlete and personal trainer. Craig was in commercial real estate. His business came to a screeching halt with the 1987 residential and commercial downturn in Austin.
Soon after, we moved to California and continued to participate in, train, and lead transformational programs. The consulting firm Craig worked for focused on corporate clients. I got hired by a former patent attorney, as the first business coach in his firm, working solely with lawyers. This was a great fit, since they were the first to admit they needed coaching more than anyone!
As soon as I got pregnant, there was one thing we had agreed upon, our babies were going to be born on Texas soil. Just ask any Texan, it’s a thing. We moved to Houston to be close to Craig’s folks and had our first daughter, Christa Marie in 1994.
A year later, we decided it was time to do our own thing and formed Momentum Consulting, Inc. We wanted to bring everything we had learned together, from the challenges we overcame in our own relationship to our experiences in consulting, and make a difference within organizations, where lots of people spend most of their time – at work. I continued to coach executives remotely while Craig traveled two to three weeks a month.
Having moved back to Austin a couple of years later, we had our second daughter, Caitlynrose. Fast-forward, she is now a human performance coach, bringing her own unique style of spiritual growth and accountable communication. And we have our oldest daughter, Christa, who is a UX/UI Designer, to thank for our badass website.
Interesting fact, 2000-2001 we lived as a family in Indonesia and returned just a few weeks before the 9.11 attacks. After the girls got a little older, I started to travel with Craig for off-site programs. Along with the 1:1 coaching that we and our core team of consultants do, these intact team off-site programs are where the magic really happens for people – and for us. We all love what we do because it is who we are. People end up having individual and team conversations they never could have imagined having. We’ve been practicing and teaching vulnerability even before it was cool to let your freak flag fly.
We’ve traveled the world and have learned, first hand, that no matter where you go, everyone is dealing with the same thing, facing the beauty and the challenge it is to be human. We’ve been to Burning Man as a family. We love Austin and our little home tucked in the woods of West Lake Hills. This dynamic and growing city is our home plate. I’ve taken hundreds of hours of yoga teacher training with Breath & Body Yoga. I try to start most mornings swimming in Barton
Springs and Craig’s done 5 Spartan Races and is still smokin’ hot at 77. We’re learning from the next generation. They have much to teach us.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Yes and no. Knowing what we wanted to provide and our purpose in what we do has always been clear. Over the years we have purposefully and slowly grown our consulting team. I think the biggest struggle has been to successfully communicate what it is we do, although, we are finally getting better at this. Nearly all of our work comes from word of mouth and referrals. Once a company has been through our process, they share it. So that can mean traveling to wherever those new clients are located. However, one of the many benefits is that we all stay busy providing remote executive leadership coaching.
2020 we all pivoted to using Zoom, but it’s just not the same as in-person. We could have monetized our work into online products and struck it rich. But that’s just not what we’re in it for. What we do is experiential in nature and can be quite transformational. As a leader, you’ve got to be ready to hear the tough feedback and grow along with your team. So it’s not for everyone.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We have been working with companies and organizations to accelerate performance for over the past 25 years. We lead transformational initiatives that drive value and connection across the entire organization.
Our focus is bringing consciousness to how the world does business by helping senior leadership transform the ongoing challenges of building trust, opening up real lines of communication, and creating alignment amongst their teams and across their organizations.
We work together to break down the barriers that cause dysfunction in teams. We explore the impact this can have across the board and reveal the water they’re swimming in.
Another one of our core competencies is helping clients purposefully and intentionally design and integrate authentic and meaningful cultures.
And as I mentioned, our executive one-on-one leadership coaching uncovers the real blind spots to address. Each of us has a laser-focus on the stuff you can’t see, like where you’re in your own way and how much you can unintentionally impact others.
What sets us apart is that our work transforms individuals themselves, starting at the top – where they take accountability for how they impact the rest of the organization. They learn how to effectively listen to their people and make the changes necessary to have the outcomes they want.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
What I’m most proud of is that we are ourselves. We’re the same people in our personal lives as our professional lives. We give our clients permission to do the same. We make it safe to fully be yourself as a leader and learn to trust yourself and others.
I think the fact that we are authentic and vulnerable individually and as a team makes it safe for leaders to open up and take accountability themselves. And we develop life-long relationships out of this.
Also, we genuinely care for people, enough to give them the tough love that no one else will at the top of an organization. Being brutally honest with our clients is the best way to honor them.
And lastly, having the tools to teach people how to hold others to account without blame, to do it in a way that builds trust and strengthens relationships.
Contact Info:
- Email: marlene@momentumconsulting.com
- Website: https://www.momentumconsulting.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momentumconsultinginc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MomentumConsulting
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marleneclark/
Image Credits
Nathan Peavey, photographer
