Instagram story viewer> @mrsmahm> Posts

Michelle A McElroy

@mrsmahm

1.5K

followers

2146

following

Relationship Coach & Founder of AIMarriages | NFL Wife | Sr. Contract Writer | Advisory Chair @thenationalfootballwives

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Y’all, I’m on the COVER! 🎉✨

I’m so honored and honestly a little emotional to be featured in The Women Who Empower Chronicle. This conversation with Dr. Alicia Michelle Straughter was one of those interviews where you look up and realize you’ve been talking for hours because the questions hit so deep.

We dove into how I learned to prioritize my marriage even when motherhood was screaming for all my attention, why couples who’ve been together for decades can still become strangers, and how building a marriage legacy is just as intentional as building anything else significant in your life.

After 30 years of marriage—including 6 years as an NFL wife—and now coaching high-capacity couples through Activating Intentional Marriages, Inc., getting to share this message on a platform like this? It’s a full-circle moment.

If you’ve been following our journey, thank you for being part of this. And if you’re just finding us—welcome. The full feature digs into what it really takes to build a marriage that thrives, not just survives.

Click the link in bio or comment “EMPOWER” below to read the full interview. 💛

#ActivatingIntentionalMarriages #MarriageLegacy #WifeForLife #HighCapacityCouples #CoverFeature by @mrsmahm

3

63

10 months ago

You lead in every other room. But leadership at home requires a completely different playbook.

For a long time, Ray and I operated under an unspoken rule: whoever brought the issue to the table owned the table. If you had a rebuttal, a different perspective, or your own hurt in that moment, you had to hold it. You couldn't introduce your play until it was your turn.

We thought we had a communication problem. We didn't. We had a self-governance problem.

When you are both high-capacity leaders, you are wired to direct the outcome. But in marriage, trying to manage your partner is a losing strategy. We used to let out-of-town friction derail our trips because we were running old plays—dumping our analytical weight on each other and expecting the other person to just carry it.

The shift didn't happen because we learned a new communication trick. It happened because we both committed to the individual work. Self-Governance (Pillar 2 of the Mental Conditioning Framework™) isn't about controlling your spouse. It's about mastering yourself so the partnership actually has room to breathe.

When you both do the work, you both get the table. You are not broken. You might just be running a playbook that no longer fits the season you are in.

Coach-To-Couple Question: In your last conflict, who were you more focused on—managing yourself, or managing your partner's reaction?

#IntentionalMarriage #HighCapacityCouples #SelfGovernance #EmotionalIntelligence #MarriageCoaching by @mrsmahm

3

11

4 months ago

What a week!

SuperBowl Sunday. Championship performances. And the launch of Performance-Driven Partnerships.

I'm still processing the overwhelming support, the messages flooding in, the couples already diving into the Mental Conditioning Framework™ and I'm so deeply grateful.

To everyone who's already grabbed a copy, shared the news, or simply said "this is exactly what we needed", thank you. You're the reason this work exists. You're proof that high-capacity couples are done settling for marriages that just survive their success, you're ready to build partnerships that thrive because of it.

And just like how the championship teams we watched last weekend didn't get there by accident, your marriage deserves that same level of strategic development.

Because the game doesn't last forever, but your marriage has to.

📖 Performance-Driven Partnerships is available NOW on Amazon and the momentum is just getting started.

👉 Join the couples who are training their marriages like championship relationships. Link in bio or search "Performance-Driven Partnerships" on Amazon.

Let's keep this momentum going. Your marriage is worth it. by @mrsmahm

3

27

8 months ago

Tired of failing at relationships? 💔

Tired of conversations that start with good intentions and end in a fight? Tired of walking away feeling like you got it wrong again, like maybe something is wrong with you as a woman?

Hear this: you’re not failing. You’re being asked to grow. And you can’t build the love, the peace, or the life you want on a foundation you haven’t had the chance to strengthen yet.

You’ve been giving everyone else your best. Tomorrow, it’s time to pour into you. ✨

**Becoming Her: Mastering the Woman Within, Part 2**
📍 Row 24, Chicago, IL
🗓️ Tomorrow, Saturday, October 10th
⏰ 1:00-4:00 PM

Come for the honest conversations. Stay for the clarity, the community, and the woman you’re about to meet in the mirror. Plus, enjoy our small business marketplace 🛍️

🎟️ Tickets are still available! Grab yours now. Link in bio.

Don’t wait for the next hard conversation to decide you’re ready to change. Be in the room tomorrow. 💛

#BecomingHer #MasteringTheWomanWithin #WomenEmpoweringWomen #PersonalGrowth #ChicagoEvents SelfAwareness HealingJourney by @mrsmahm

20

5

7 days ago

Most high-capacity women see self-governance as a performance upgrade. A smoother version of the same unregulated reaction, delivered with better timing and a lower volume.

But self-governance isn't about managing the moment better. It's about no longer needing the moment to go your way in order to stay steady.

That distinction matters most in a marriage where both people are wired to direct outcomes at work and then walk through the door still in that mode. Lowering your voice while your insides are still running the show isn't growth. It's ego with better PR.

Pillar 2 of Mental Conditioning Framework draws the real line: self-governance is staying regulated internally, regardless of what's happening externally. Not a trait you're born with. A rep you build, one real moment at a time, in your actual marriage, under actual pressure.

Coach-To-Couple Question: where have you confused controlling the moment with governing yourself?

If that question stirred something, don't let it stay theoretical. We're spending a whole afternoon on this together at Becoming HER: Mastering the Woman Within, because knowing yourself on a feed is one thing, practicing it in real time with other women doing the same work is where it actually sticks.

📍 Row 24, Chicago, IL
🗓 This Saturday, October 10th | 1-4 PM
Tickets are on sale now, link in bio to grab yours today.

#SelfGovernance #MentalConditioningFramework #BecomingHER #HighCapacityCouples #EmotionalIntelligence by @mrsmahm

3

4

10 days ago

You've spent years training your body for discipline and your mind for strategy. But has anyone ever trained you for the three seconds after your spouse says the wrong thing at the wrong time?

That gap, the one between the trigger and your response, is where most marriages are quietly built or quietly worn down. It rarely happens in the big, dramatic moments. It happens in the small, unremarked ones: the tone you take after a long day, the comment you let slide into a jab, the silence you choose instead of the conversation you're avoiding. Self-governance isn't about suppressing what you feel. It's about refusing to let an unexamined feeling make decisions your character would never sign off on.

Here's the reframe worth sitting with: leading her, the woman within, isn't a soft or secondary skill. It's the one that determines whether the leadership you've built everywhere else actually makes it through your front door. You cannot out-perform an unmanaged internal world forever. Eventually it shows up at home, with the person who sees the parts of you the resume doesn't.

This is the exact work happening at Becoming HER: Mastering the Woman Within, live on Saturday, October 10th from 1 to 4pm at Row 24. Tickets are available now, click the link in my bio if you want in the room.

Coach-To-Couple Question: Where are you leading everyone well except the woman who has to come home and still be a wife?

#BecomingHER #SelfGovernance #HighCapacityWomen #IntentionalMarriage #AIMMarriages by @mrsmahm

3

6

11 days ago

Becoming HER isn't about arriving at a finished version of yourself. It's about remembering who you were before the titles started stacking up.

Somewhere between the promotions, the roles you play for everyone else, and the seasons that ask more of you than you feel equipped to give, it's easy to lose the thread of your own identity. But identity isn't something you build from the outside in, it's something you recover from the inside out, one honest, loving look at yourself at a time.

But that self-examination is the starting line, not the finish line. The sweeter work is what comes next: self-governance. Not in the stiff, white-knuckle sense, but as the gentle, daily practice of choosing yourself first, your peace, your boundaries, your energy, before you pour into everyone else's. You cannot give away a wholeness you haven't practiced internally. A higher you isn't a feeling you wait for, it's a choice you get to make for yourself, over and over, rep by rep.

And I am so excited about who's joining us in that work. On the panel this round is Suheir (SuSu) Barakat, owner of S2 Grills and a true entrepreneur, philanthropist, and community advocate. Her story is such a beautiful picture of self-governance in action: building something of her own from the ground up, leading boldly, and still showing up fully for her community, because she learned to lead herself first.

Join us Saturday, October 10th from 1-4pm for Becoming HER: Mastering the Woman Within, an afternoon made for women who are ready to stop performing wholeness and start actually living it.

Tickets are on sale now, so click the link in my bio to grab yours today!

Coach-To-Couple Question: Where in your life are you still waiting to feel ready, instead of choosing to govern yourself into readiness?

#BecomingHER #HighCapacityWomen #IdentityWork #AIMMarriages #IntentionalGrowth taken in Row 24 Chicago by @mrsmahm

78

13

14 days ago

Clarity about who you are isn't the finish line. It's the starting point. The real work is what you do with that clarity when no one's watching, when you're tired, when the old patterns feel easier than the disciplined ones.

"Becoming HER" is built on self-governance: the daily discipline of managing your reactions, your energy, and your choices on purpose instead of on autopilot. You already know things about yourself. The question is whether you're governing from that knowledge or just carrying it around.

I'm so excited to be hosting this one inside ROW 24, a beautiful space co-owned by Dana Fountain, one of our panelists for the day. Dana has spent over 20 years building her name in Chicago's beauty industry as a Beauty Business Coach, Salon Suites Owner and Venue Owner, and let me tell you, that kind of longevity doesn't happen without serious self-governance of her own. She'll be joining us to talk candidly about what it really takes to stay grounded while you grow, reinvent, and build something meant to last.

If you're a high-capacity woman who can lead a boardroom but loses her footing at home by 7 PM, this is your room. Built for the practice, not just the insight.

Coach-To-Couple Question: Where in your week do you know better, but you don't yet govern better?

Join me Saturday, October 10th from 1-4 PM. Click the link in our bio to grab your tickets today!

#BecomingHER #HighCapacityWomen #SelfExamination #IntentionalGrowth #AIMMarriages taken in Row 24 Chicago by @mrsmahm

101

14

14 days ago

3

7

17 days ago

Chicago, we're back! And, this time, we're going from examining the woman within to MASTERING HER!

Join me, Michelle McElroy, your keynote speaker & executive producer and our host, Amber Staples, President of the National Football Wives Association and CEO of Stapled Events, to take it a little deeper this time. Because, if the last installment got you looking honestly at who you are, this one is about what you do with what you found.

30+ years of marriage and six years inside the NFL life taught me this: the title changes, the season changes, and the roster changes. But, who you are at your core is the only thing that has to hold, and mastering her takes more than insight. It takes governance.

Becoming HER isn't a one-time process or a soft skill you pick up when life finally slows down. It's the conditioning that shapes how you show up everywhere, including the marriage you come home to.

If you're a Chicago-area woman who's tired of saying "I'm good" when you're really just tired, I made room for you at this table.

📍 Row 24, Chicago, IL
🗓 Saturday, October 10th | 1–4 PM
Tickets are on sale now and Early Bird Pricing ends September 30th!
Click the link in my bio to grab yours today!

Coach-To-Couple Question: Where in your life have you examined who you are but haven't yet governed how you show up from it?

Be there because I'd love to have this conversation in the room with you. 🤎

#ChicagoEvents #BecomingHER #IdentityBeyondTheTitle taken in Row 24 Chicago by @mrsmahm

3

12

21 days ago

CHICAGO! Join me as I host the second installment of Becoming HER: Mastering the Woman within.

How many times have you said “I’m good” when you were exhausted? How many times have you put what you want on hold because somebody needed you?

We can get so used to being the wife, the mom, the friend, the business owner, the one who handles everything, that we forget to ask ourselves who we are and what we need. I want us to have an honest conversation about that.

We’ll hear from women on our panel about what it looks like to find your way back to yourself, and @mrsmahm will give our keynote. There will be food, drinks, and time to connect without having to pretend you have it all figured out.

We’ll also have a Small Business Marketplace, and we still have spaces available. If you own a small business and want to join us, DM me for details.

📍 Row 24, Chicago
🗓 Saturday, October 10 | 1–4 PM

I’d love to see you there. 🤎 taken in Row 24 Chicago by @mrsmahm

3

15

23 days ago

✨ BECOMING HER: MASTERING THE WOMAN WITHIN — PART 2 ✨
You showed up once already. Now it’s time to go deeper.
This isn’t just another event — it’s a room full of women choosing to master the job, the relationship, and the life they deserve. Real conversations. Real growth. Real becoming.
📍 Row 24, Chicago, IL 🗓️ Sunday, October 10th ⏰ 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
We’re also bringing in a small business marketplace to spotlight and support women-owned businesses at this event 🛍️ — want a table? DM me for details!
Tickets are limited and moving fast. Don’t wait until it sells out to decide you wanted to be in the room.
🎟️ Grab your ticket now — link in bio!
#BecomingHer #MasteringTheWomanWithin #WomenEmpoweringWomen #SheDidTheWork #ChicagoEvents by @mrsmahm

3

7

23 days ago