Ina Coveney
Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking to Priscilla Hansen Mahoney, founder of Blazing Trails Coaching, a business coaching company for people in the trades. We're going to talk all about this, especially because Priscilla has made a name for herself.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
In a male-dominated industry. And I've got the stories for you!

Ina Coveney
Priscilla, I'm so happy you're here.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
I am so happy to be here. When I met you at the Women's Conference in Maine, I just felt an instant energy from you. I could not say no to you. You were like, "Come on down, hang out with me."

Ina Coveney
I am so glad that you did. It’s quite a drive, so thank you for coming all the way down from Maine.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Sure, no problem.

Ina Coveney
To our wonderful studio in Wakefield, Massachusetts.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
It’s beautiful. You call it your Boston studio, but we’re in Wakefield. It’s very nice.

Ina Coveney
I was at the conference, and I’m almost always scouting for superhumans—people who really strike a chord. And when I saw you speaking, I nudged the person next to me and said, "Superhuman. We need to get her." I want everybody to hear your stories right here.
Why don’t you tell everybody what it is that you do and who you help right now?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Sure! I work with companies in the skilled trades—whether it’s arborists, roofers, remodelers, HVAC professionals—basically, anyone in the skilled trades. It’s my background; it’s where I came from.
I help them build a better business. I help them build teams, be profitable, and actually enjoy what they’re doing.
I have programs, whether I’m with them in the field, working with their leaders on-site, or whether I’m working with them from my office in South Portland. There’s a wide range, but that’s typically what I do.

Ina Coveney
Okay, you need to help me out because we’re going to get into your story, and I need to know—what are rutabagas? Because I hear this is an important piece.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yes, it’s an important piece! It’s a rutabaga.

Ina Coveney
Thank you. Rutabaga.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
It’s a yellow turnip. That might be easier to pronounce.

Ina Coveney
Yellow turnip!

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
It’s a root vegetable. Some people love them, some people hate them. They’re usually on a Thanksgiving table or in a stew.
But I grew up on a rutabaga farm in Falmouth, Maine, and we were the largest distributors of rutabaga in the Northeast. We distributed to Hannaford, Boston Market, and all over. My dad is really the person behind that.
My grandfather wasn’t a crop farmer—he had dairy cows. But they originally grew the rutabagas to feed the cows. Then my father took over and started growing rutabagas for the market.

Ina Coveney
If there’s one thing I took away from your story when I heard it at the conference, it’s that your dad really saw something in you.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yeah.

Ina Coveney
I mean, he seems to have sparked that entrepreneurial spirit inside of you. Can you tell me what it was like growing up with your dad and what lessons you learned on the farm?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oh, there are so many. Everyone tells me I need to write a book, and I probably will.
I always joke that I have to wait until my family kicks off before I release a memoir—so Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t get uncomfortable.

Ina Coveney
Right.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
My dad is 85. He is still farming. Still doing his thing. My mom is 80, still living in the same farmhouse my father was literally born in.
But the lessons he pushed on us kids were that we needed to gain more skills than just what was at the farm. Would he have liked us to stay and continue the farm? Probably. But at the same time, he was very realistic—he knew we needed to live our own lives too.
So he always encouraged us to get an education. My mother was actually the one who really pushed for that. To this day, she scolds me about my handwriting.

Ina Coveney
I don’t think moms ever stop doing that!

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Right? She sees me signing something on a digital pad, and she’s like, “That’s not your signature!” And I’m like, “Mom, this is not my actual bank signature. This is just for the receipt.”
She really pushed education. There were nights during harvest season when we’d be out in the shop until 10 p.m., and she’d come out and say, “Elwyn, you need to let them come inside and do their homework.”
She really valued our education. My father did too, but she was the one who pushed the grades.
So I went on to get a business degree. I wanted a job in an office with air conditioning. That was my only career criterion at the time!

Ina Coveney
Which is kind of ironic.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Right? Because now I mostly work in places without air conditioning! But he wanted us to find our own thing.

Ina Coveney
One thing that stood out to me from your talk was that you didn’t grow up thinking systemic gender discrimination was a thing.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yeah.

Ina Coveney
When I heard that, I related so much because I grew up the same way. My parents were very corporate and believed in a meritocracy—work hard, do well, and you’ll be rewarded.
So if I didn’t get a position, I would think, “Maybe I just didn’t deserve it. I’ll try harder next year.” When I heard you say that, I was like, “Yes! That’s how I felt too.”
Can you share what your experience was like?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yeah, it’s funny because I knew I would get mixed feedback from the conference. About 98% of it was positive, but some women in the audience didn’t like what I had to say.
And that’s fine. I expected that. I even opened my talk by saying, “I am not an expert on gender studies. I am just telling my story.”
In my teens and 20s, and even into my mid-20s, I really didn’t think discrimination was a thing.
My father treated every woman on the farm as an equal. In fact, I think he treated my sister and me like boys—we were just one of the guys.
When I got into a lawn care career, I was treated the same way. I didn’t realize at the time that that in itself was a form of gender discrimination—I wasn’t even recognized as my own gender.
Looking back, I realize that kind of erased some of my strengths and what I brought to the table.
But I was nervous about giving that talk at the conference. I actually put my hat in the ring on a dare from a friend. She was like, “You have to speak at the Women’s Conference!” And I thought, “Ah, they don’t want to hear from me.”
When they actually accepted my talk—and then asked me to do it twice—I was amazed.
And I realized my side of the story doesn’t get shared a lot. But when I started facing discrimination, it was later in my career—when I started competing for leadership positions.

Ina Coveney
Right.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
And that’s when I started to feel it. When I started to excel, I became a threat. And that’s when I realized, “Oh… maybe what I’ve been hearing from other women is actually true.”

Ina Coveney
Right. And I just have to say, for anyone listening, Priscilla and I are not saying that discrimination doesn’t exist.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Not at all.

Ina Coveney
We’re not saying that systemic discrimination isn’t real. What we’re talking about is that we grew up not being told from the start, “Hey, the deck is stacked against you.” That wasn’t the narrative we were given.
So when things happened, we saw them differently. It didn’t mean discrimination wasn’t happening—we just weren’t looking for it.
I’m really curious—what was it that you said at the conference that upset some people?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
You know, the feedback I got was actually very fair. When I read it, I thought, “Yeah, you’re dead on.”
Most of it was that I didn’t have the same experiences that other women have had. And because I wasn’t speaking from their point of view, they couldn’t relate to me. Some felt like my experience wasn’t representative.
I fully expected that response. I was actually surprised I didn’t get more of it. Because when you grow up in an environment where you don’t believe discrimination is real, and then you get slammed with it in your face in your 30s, it’s a shock.
In my 20s, I was working alongside men. I wasn’t competing with them. I wasn’t taking their jobs. I wasn’t trying to be their boss.
But when I got into my 30s, that changed. I started to compete. I started to excel. I started to grow. And suddenly, I was threatening a lot of men around me.
That’s when I thought, “Maybe what I’ve been hearing from other women is actually true.”

Ina Coveney
Right. We don’t have the luxury of ignoring it forever.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly. Men can ignore it because they don’t experience it. But at some point, women don’t get to not be women.
There comes a time when you can no longer pretend this isn’t happening. You can no longer ignore it.
And social media has really opened my eyes to the sheer ugliness of it all.

Ina Coveney
Oh, 100%.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
I’ll give you an example. Back in May, our governor in Maine, Janet Mills, signed a declaration to support women in construction. It included grants, education, job creation, and making sure workplaces were safe for women.
One small piece of it was DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). But guess what the comment section focused on?

Ina Coveney
Oh, I can imagine.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
It was full of people saying, “Oh, now we’re letting unskilled women onto job sites?”

Ina Coveney
Wow.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
The assumption was that women are unskilled, unqualified, and don’t belong.
For me, I wanted to jump into the comment section and fight every single person. But I also knew my voice would be going into a void.

Ina Coveney
Yeah.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
What I try to do instead is prove them wrong.

Ina Coveney
But aren’t we tired of doing that?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oh, absolutely. It’s exhausting. But I’ve realized that having one-on-one conversations is more effective.
If I sit down with a male business owner and he says, “I want women working for us, I want a diverse workforce, but I don’t know how,” that’s a conversation worth having.
I point out what’s lacking—whether it’s proper fitting PPE or making sure their female employees aren’t being undermined in meetings. And most of the time, these business owners want to change.

Ina Coveney
Right.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
But it doesn’t happen through mass outrage on social media. It happens through real conversations.
And I also think that sometimes, what we call “mansplaining” is just a guy trying to help. He doesn’t realize it’s condescending. But when we show them how it comes across, they can adjust.

Ina Coveney
Can you tell the boardroom story that you shared on stage?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oh, sure!
So, I became the president of a very male-dominated industry group. Consulting, believe it or not, is extremely male-dominated. I was the first female president of this organization in its 40-year history.
And what happened next was interesting. As soon as I became president, suddenly, more women started joining the board.

Ina Coveney
Oh!

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yeah! Before me, there was usually just one woman on the board, and guess what position she held?

Ina Coveney
Secretary or treasurer?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly. Some kind of administrative role.
But once I became president, more women joined. And I watched a situation unfold.
One of the women stood up and presented an idea. It was a great idea.
Then Bob to the left said, “I just want to make sure I understand this idea…” and he repeated exactly what she had said.
Then Joe on the right said, “Bob, that’s a great idea!”

Ina Coveney
Oh my god.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
I was sitting there like, “Did that just happen?”
And I saw her face just fall.
So, as president, I had the power to redirect the conversation. I said, “Madam Secretary, can you please capture Catherine’s idea in the minutes? Catherine, was that exactly how you wanted to phrase it, or would you like to rephrase it to make sure we capture it correctly?”
That’s how you push the credit back to where it belongs.

Ina Coveney
That is such a powerful move.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
And I tell this story to rooms full of men, too. I say to them, “Be aware of when this happens. Don’t be Joe. If you see it happening, push the credit back where it belongs.”
And to be clear, this isn’t just a gender thing—it happens to junior employees, to introverts, to anyone whose voice isn’t being heard.

Ina Coveney
I walked out of your talk so riled up because it brought back so many memories of my own experiences.
Can I share one?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oh, please do!

Ina Coveney
So, I was leading a team in IT, and part of my job was creating training materials for users.
One day, the training director of the company received my instructions and emailed my boss saying, “These are the best-written instructions I have ever seen. I just wanted to tell you what a great job your team is doing.”
And my boss responded—copying me and my male contractor—and said, “Yep, Bill is doing a great job over here.”

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oh no.

Ina Coveney
I was dumbfounded. Bill was a contractor who literally just printed and distributed my instructions.
So I privately emailed my boss and said, “You do realize I’m the one who wrote the instructions, right?”
And he replied, “Yeah, but Bill’s doing a good job. Let him have the win.”

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oh my god.

Ina Coveney
And I was like… what?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
That’s exactly the kind of thing we’re talking about!

Ina Coveney
Yeah, and it took years for me to realize, “Wait a minute, this is a pattern. This isn’t just a one-time thing.”

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly. And for a long time, we think, “Oh, I just need to work harder. I just need to be better.”
And then we hit a point where we say, “Hold on—why am I doing their job for them, and they’re the ones getting promoted?”

Ina Coveney
Yep.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
That’s when we start to wake up.

Ina Coveney
Yeah, and that’s when you start questioning everything. At first, it’s like, “Okay, maybe I need to work harder, improve more.” But then, year after year, when the pattern keeps repeating, you start thinking, “Wait a second, this isn’t about my performance. This is something else.”

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly. And that’s when it really hits you. You realize that all this time, you’ve been on this self-improvement hamster wheel, thinking, “If I just get better, if I just communicate better, if I just adjust…” But at what point do we stop and say, “No, this isn’t a me problem. This is a system problem”?

Ina Coveney
Right! When do we stop trying to fix ourselves and start fixing the environment?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yes! And that’s when we start looking at our male colleagues and thinking, “Why are they getting promoted when I’m the one doing the heavy lifting?”

Ina Coveney
And why am I the one constantly being told to soften my approach?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yes! That part. The “you need to change” narrative. I had to become hyper-aware of how I was presenting myself. It’s like, “Oh, you’re too direct.” Meanwhile, Joe over there is even more direct, and he gets called a great leader.

Ina Coveney
Right.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
And the thing is, when we do finally start realizing what’s going on, it’s so frustrating because it feels like we wasted years thinking it was just us.

Ina Coveney
Exactly! And that’s why conversations like this matter. Because if I had heard this when I was younger, I would have caught onto it so much sooner.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Same here. And I think that’s part of why women are so passionate about this conversation. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Ina Coveney
Yes! And I think men, in general, don’t understand the weight of it. Because they don’t have to carry it. It’s not something they ever had to think about.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly. And I don’t say that as a dig at men—it’s just a fact. They can ignore it. We can’t.

Ina Coveney
Right. And you mentioned earlier that sometimes men don’t even realize they’re doing it. They don’t wake up thinking, “I’m going to hold a woman back today.”

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
No, of course not. Most of the time, they think they’re being helpful. And when you point it out in a way that isn’t attacking them, a lot of them are willing to change.

Ina Coveney
That’s why I love the way you handled that boardroom situation. Instead of calling them out and making it confrontational, you just redirected the credit back where it belonged.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Yes, and that’s something women can do right now. If you see another woman getting her ideas co-opted in a meeting, push the conversation back to her. Say, “That was a great point Catherine made earlier. Catherine, do you want to elaborate on that?”

Ina Coveney
Exactly!

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
It’s a small move, but it makes a huge difference.

Ina Coveney
I love that. Okay, I have to ask—what do you think is the biggest misconception people have about you as a successful business coach in the trades, having come from a male-dominated industry?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Oof. That’s a good one. I think one misconception is that because I work in a male-dominated industry, I must be “one of the guys.” That I don’t care about gender issues, or that I’m not aware of the challenges women face.

Ina Coveney
Right.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
But the truth is, I see it. I hear it. And I care deeply about making the workplace better for everyone. I want to make sure that women—and anyone who has been marginalized—have opportunities and feel safe.

Ina Coveney
That’s so important.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
And another misconception? People underestimate me. I walk into a job site as a short, gray-haired woman, and they assume I don’t know what I’m talking about. Until I start talking.

Ina Coveney
And then they’re like, “Ohhh.”

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly. Then suddenly, I have their attention.

Ina Coveney
That’s amazing. Okay, final question.
If someone listening right now is dealing with this exact situation—whether they’re in a male-dominated field or they just feel undervalued at work—what is one thing they can do in the next 24 hours to improve their situation?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Have a brave conversation.
If you feel like you’re not getting credit for your work, if you feel like you’re being passed over for opportunities, or if you’re being treated unfairly—dare to speak up.
And I know that’s scary. But here’s the thing—sometimes, when you have that conversation, you’ll find that the other person is actually willing to change.
And if they’re not? If they dismiss you or gaslight you? Then at least you know. And then you can decide if you want to stay in that environment or if it’s time to move on.

Ina Coveney
That’s such good advice.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
And if you’re not in a position to speak up directly—because let’s be honest, some workplaces aren’t safe for that—then reach out to someone who can advocate for you. Find a mentor, a coach, an ally. You don’t have to do it alone.

Ina Coveney
I love that. Priscilla, thank you so much for this conversation. It was amazing. I feel like I just relived your talk from the conference, and I’m so excited that more people get to hear it.
Where can people find you and follow your work?

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
You can find me at blazingtrailscoaching.com. I’m also on Instagram—though, to be honest, I could use your help with social media, Ina!

Ina Coveney
We’ll work on that!

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
But seriously, if you want to reach out, send me a message through my website. Whether you loved this conversation or you’re in that 3% who didn’t, I want to hear from you.

Ina Coveney
We love all perspectives here.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Exactly.

Ina Coveney
Thank you again for coming all the way down from Maine. This was such a powerful discussion.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney
Thank you for having me!

Ina Coveney
And thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode of The Superhumans Podcast. Make sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss another super episode.