A self-development and executive leadership life coach who helps those who are caregivers to children or elders take care of themselves, Margot M.J. Swetman came into her profession after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was no longer building dorms on the beach, so there was need for her position. She had to decide whether she wanted to continue with education or do something else, trying her hand and going the psychology route. A friends of hers at church told her about a case manager position being open, and she went for it. Ms. Swetman became a life coach after taking care of her father for several years, who had Parkinson’s disease. Her father was an English professor and poet, and one thing she liked to do with him was to put books together of poems he had previously written. He developed a system of teaching grammar called the “Nine Questions of English,” so she took his system and is making it into a book.
Ms. Swetman has served as a life coach since 2017, and concluded her position as a case manager at the Catholic Dioceses in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 2009. She was also the assistant dean of students and an adjunct professor at William Carey University. Prior to the start of her professional career, she pursued a formal education at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, earning a Bachelor of Science in economics in 1996. She then attended William Carey University, where she received a Master of Education in English education in 1997 and an additional Bachelor of Science in economics in 1998. She went on to attain a Master of Business Administration in 1998 and a Master of Science in counseling psychology in 2007. In addition to these academic honors, Ms. Swetman is a certified life coach in transition and executive leadership coaching through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), and is a certified energy leadership index master practitioner.
Active in her community, Ms. Swetman was an officer and board member at Lions Sea ‘n Sun Camp in Mississippi, and a board member of the Lighthouse Business and Professional Women and the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi. She is also the former vice president of the St. Stanislaus College Band Booster Club and the Bay St. Louis Lions Club, as well as a volunteer with St. Vincent de Paul in Biloxi. Ms. Swetman further maintains involvement with the International Counseling Federation.
Ms. Swetman’s motto is to love all, trust a few and do wrong to none. She would like her peers to feel safe and that they can confide in her, and that she was qualified to help them. She is motivated by helping others and having the flexibility to be there for her family, and she enjoys doing research and became an expert in it out of curiosity, personal experience and spirituality, becoming a lay minister for the church. Throughout her career, Ms. Swetman’s mentors were Sandy Williams, a licensed professional counselor and a good friend of hers, Cindy Tapley, Dr. Lisa Cummings, Dr. Carol Jones from graduate school, and her father, Dr. Glen Swetman. She attributes her success to hard work, patience and faith. She took advantage of opportunities as they came up.
