Beach Girl or Manure? She Finally Chooses Herself - Vanessa Davis Frederick (Ep. 41)
Today on the Fairy Boss Mother Show, I met Vanessa Davis Frederick, a woman who calls herself a mother, a wife, a beach girl, a community helper, a creative resource-finder… basically everything except her own identity.
This is someone who can source manure for farmers, champion community projects, win prizes for okra, raise kids, run VA work, help small businesses grow. But she’s doing all of it without a clear sense of who she is or where she’s going.
So here’s the challenge:
Can I help Vanessa stop being the runner for her community… and finally step into the identity she’s been avoiding?
Let’s meet Vanessa Davis Frederick.
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Watch the Episode:
See Vanessa open up about her loss of identity after COVID-19 below.
Before the Fairy BOSSmother
When Vanessa walked into my show, she brought an entire village with her… not physically, but emotionally. Her identity was scattered across roles she inherited over time, rather than ones she consciously chose.
She introduced herself as a mother, a wife, a beach girl, a community developer, a helper, a VA, a civic leader, and someone raised in a household where service was the default. Her parents ran a nonprofit, so she grew up being the girl who got things done for everyone else. It was baked into her DNA long before she ever had a choice.
During COVID, she was let go for being the only working mother on her team. That one moment cracked her identity right open, and she’s been floating ever since. She started picking up VA work. She started helping farmers. She started sourcing manure so others didn’t have to pay for it. She did a little of everything, and nothing that actually built her future.
Vanessa was living a life of reaction, not intention. And she was exhausted, but she didn’t recognize it. To her, this was “being useful.”
What she didn’t see is that this extreme form of helpfulness came with a cost: she had no idea who she was outside of service.
During the show
On the show, I held a mirror up to Vanessa, the same mirror she never gives herself.
We started listing all her identities. At one point she said, “My number one priority is being a beach girl.” And two minutes later she casually mentioned she was sourcing manure for farmers again. That contradiction was the entire problem. She thought she was prioritizing herself… but her actions told a completely different story.
Vanessa doesn’t run a business. She runs errands for an entire community. She doesn’t position herself, she waits to be pulled. She doesn’t communicate her value, she just shows up and fixes things.
She is deeply capable, but she doesn’t see herself as a business owner. She sees herself as the village manure runner, the fixer, the one everyone calls when they need something done.
The turning point was when I said: “You keep calling yourself everything. Now tell me who you actually WANT to be.”
She froze. She didn’t know. This is what happens when identity is built on obligation rather than intention.
So I helped her sort through her identities and strip away everything that wasn’t aligned with the lifestyle she wants, a beach girl with freedom, income, boundaries, and sovereignty.
By the end of the show, Vanessa finally saw it: She can’t build her future if she keeps operating like the community’s unpaid assistant.
She must become the woman she keeps trying to serve.
After the show
By the end of the show, Vanessa had one clear mission: to stop diluting herself.
She now understands that she cannot keep six identities on standby and hope for clarity. She is choosing, intentionally, the version of herself she wants to build a brand around.
She’s re-evaluating her offers, restructuring how she speaks about herself, and beginning to release the responsibilities that were never hers to hold. For the first time, Vanessa is claiming an identity rooted in choice, not obligation.
And the journey starts now.
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