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Summary
In this episode, Mike Dauphinee sits down with Serena Tillman, licensed master social worker, certified personal trainer, Pilates instructor, and founder of a women's community group called Esther's Daughters, for one of the most honest conversations of the season. Mike and Serena have known each other for 28 years. That history shows. This isn't a polished success story. It's a real look at what it means to navigate marriage, motherhood, career pivots, and identity — all at once, without a map, and with everyone around you having a very loud opinion about what you should do. Serena talks about learning to turn down the volume on other people's voices and turn up her own. About the moment she quit her first job out of Columbia before she'd been there six months, and what it cost her to make that call. About postpartum isolation during a pandemic, a premature baby born during a planned absence, and what it actually looks like to build a village before you need one. And about the one thing she'd tell anyone standing at the start of a decade they can't yet imagine.
About Serena Tillman
Discipline · Harmony · Empathy · Maximizer · ConsistencySerena Tillman is a Nike Trainer, Lagree and Treadmill instructor, nonprofit founder, and self-described "COO of the Tillman Family." She is the founder of Esther's Daughters, a women's community organization rooted in faith, fellowship, and purposeful living. Serena approaches everything from household management to personal wellness with intentional, systems-driven thinking, and is passionate about helping women build lives of integrity, impact, and illumination. Based in Montclair, NJ, she brings energy, clarity, and heart to every conversation.
Learn more about Serena:
Visit her website
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Takeaways
- The voices don't go away when you make a confident decision. You just get better at turning down the volume.
- Navigating alone still requires community. The compass is yours — but you need people to help you read it.
- Healthy people ask for what they want. Asking isn't weakness. Waiting in silence is.
- Do it scared. The courage isn't the absence of fear — it's moving anyway.
- Not everyone gets access to your zone four. Be intentional about who does — and invest in them the way you want them to invest in you.
- It is not one size fits all. The deviation from someone else's path isn't failure. It's yours.
- The plan B you build before crisis is what keeps you standing when crisis arrives.
- You don't need to see the finish line. One foot in front of the other is enough.
- Build your village early, before you need it. You can't draft people in an emergency.
- Maximizer never quite feels like enough. The growth is learning that the drive doesn't have to be answered every time.
Soundbites
- "You have to intentionally turn down the volume of the voice that's saying, what will they think? And turn up the voice that says, I've made good decisions before."
- "It is not one size fits all. And you need to be okay with the size that fits you."
- "Do it scared. You just have to. My heart rate, my pits, you just have to do it."
- "Healthy people ask for what they want."
- "Not everybody needs an explanation as to why we do what we do."
- "No is a complete sentence."
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