Danielle Shoots | Bringing the Real You to Work

There’s no one-and-done course that can teach you to be a great leader. It requires a willingness to learn and improve every single day. That’s no small task, which is why Danielle Shoots created Daily Boss Up.

Subscribers to Daily Boss Up receive inspirational quotes, prompts and constructive homework on their phones every morning. It’s based on Danielle’s experiences leading teams, which started early — when she was just in her mid-20s.

At age 26, Danielle was the youngest CFO in the history of the Colorado State Health Department. Later, as Comcast’s VP of finance, she officially became the youngest VP of a Fortune 50 company.

By then, Danielle had spent over a decade taking charge at home. She got pregnant at the age of 16 and gave birth to her son Micai (who just graduated from high school). She also has a daughter, Layla, now 13.

Despite her pioneering resume, Danielle admits that leading teams did not come naturally to her. She struggled to delegate and to share her authentic self with her colleagues, something she now considers essential.

Learning to lead shifted Danielle’s career focus. She started out in finance but realized she was more interested in exploring leadership and what makes a great leader. 

At the same time, Danielle was managing her anxiety through journaling and blogging. “I'll write about it: that's my therapy,” she says.

Writing about her experiences opened up new opportunities. In 2018, Danielle gave a TEDx talk about millennials in leadership roles. That led to a blog, which led to Daily Boss Up. 

Today, Danielle measures her success by the people she’s helped to empower at work and as leaders.

“What I'm good at is bringing out the best in people and putting the right people on a team to get a project done. I think my legacy will be around growing people and hoping that people are better after they've interacted with me.”

👩🏾 Name: Danielle Shoots

⚙️ What she does: Entrepreneur, consultant, keynote speaker, and founder of Daily Boss Up, a subscription service delivering advice, inspiration and prompts to aspiring leaders via their smartphones.

🦄 Company: Daily Boss Up

💎 Words of wisdom: “If you're learning, then you're probably a pretty great leader. If you're curious, you're learning, and you desire to be better, then I think you've probably got it right.”

🔍 Where to find her: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Website

💡 Learning curve: Danielle landed leadership roles from a very young age, but she admits that she was not a great leader at the time and found being in charge of a team really hard.

💡 Teamwork: Despite the challenges, Danielle realized that she was more interested in leadership skills and motivating her team than she was in business operations and finance.

💡 Getting personal: Early on, Danielle struggled to bring her authentic self to work. She now believes this is crucial for a happy work life, and deliberately models it for her team.

💡 Growing together: Danielle had her son Micai at age 16, and sees parallels between motherhood and leading at work. All you can do is your best, and make the effort to keep learning.

💡 Black lives matter: As a Black woman with Black teenagers, seeing the racism she’s experienced her whole life finally acknowledged in the protests was emotional for Danielle.

💡 Write it out: While leading others, Danielle has also learned to manage her anxiety. The habit that changed her life was journaling — it helps her get her worries out of her head.

💡 Lessons in leadership: Daily Boss Up gives subscribers a daily dose of inspiration every morning to help them work on their leadership skills and personal development.

Danielle Shoots:

“I decided that being a teen mom was not something I was going to share with people at work. It was really crushing me as a leader because I couldn't be authentic. I learned a lot about authenticity and vulnerability and leaning on people who work for you.”

“In the first couple of days [of protests], my mental health was really taking a beating. This isn't a new fear. This is something that as a mom of Black children and growing up as a Black woman, this is all part of your existence. At first, it was painful to watch the world notice the way it did. And then I started to get my hope back and feel like we're a part of history right now.”

“Anxiety feels like one of the loneliest places on earth. I think anxiety does its best work on us when we don't share it.”

“I don't think there are that many bad bosses. I just think there are people who haven't been given the tools.”

“There's a really big difference between a goal and a plan. Set goals, be unapologetic about your goals, and then don't be over-prescriptive when it comes to the plan, because the plan is going to change a thousand times.”