Tanyika Mayhew Butler
Disruptor of High Functioning Survival Mode | Author | Speaker |  Creator of UGLY Wins™

 | Asking the Question Most People Never Ask: What Is This Success Costing Me? Can I Afford to Repeat It?

Be Excellent. Not Exhausted.™

 

About Tanyika Mayhew Butler

Most people know how to measure success.

Few people know how to measure what success is costing them.

Tanyika Mayhew Butler is an author, speaker, and creator of UGLY Wins™, a framework that helps people recognize when achievement is being sustained by patterns that have become too expensive to repeat.

For years, Tanyika was successful.

She earned degrees.

Built a respected career.

Led teams.

Raised a family.

Received professional recognition.

And kept going.

What most people didn't see was the growing cost behind the accomplishments.

In 2015, while receiving one of the highest professional honors of her career, Tanyika was also navigating a life-changing diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.

The applause was real.

The achievement was real.

But so was the reality she was carrying behind the scenes.

After a medical crisis landed her in the hospital during Christmas, she began asking a question that would eventually change her life:

What is this success costing me?

That question became the foundation of her work.

Drawing from nearly three decades in education, leadership, counseling, caregiving, and lived experience, Tanyika recognized a pattern she now sees everywhere:

People are succeeding.

But many are succeeding through patterns that quietly create exhaustion, overextension, strained relationships, declining health, loss of joy, and constant recovery.

She calls these UGLY Wins™.

An UGLY Win™ is a real success achieved through a pattern that becomes too expensive to repeat.

Today, Tanyika helps audiences recognize those patterns before they feel or deal with repercussions.

Through her signature frameworks—including UGLY Wins™, The Repeatable Loop™, Basketball in the Boardroom™, and The Burden Bag™—she teaches people how to evaluate the cost of success, build healthier patterns, and create results they can afford to repeat.

Because the goal isn't simply to win.

The goal is to create wins that don't require sacrificing your health, your relationships, your peace, or your life outside the achievement itself.

Her message is simple:

The Success Was Real.

The Cost Was Real Too.

Be Excellent. Not Exhausted.™

The Behaviors Behind the Framework

The UGLY Wins™ framework is built on three pillars:

Rhythm™

 

Role Clarity™

 

Recovery™

 

But frameworks don't change lives.

Behaviors do.

In the months following my mother's passing, I found myself reflecting on many of the lessons that had shaped my life.

As grief quieted the noise, I began to see something I had never fully recognized before.

Many of the principles behind my work were not ideas I learned in graduate school, leadership training, or professional development.

They were behaviors I had watched my mother model every day.

Long before I had language for UGLY Wins™.

Long before I understood the hidden cost of success.

Long before I created a framework.

What I once viewed as everyday lessons began to reveal themselves as a system for living, leading, and sustaining success.

Today, those lessons serve as the behavioral foundation of my work through what I call:

Basketball in the Boardroom™

5 Behaviors That Keep Success Repeatable

 

These behaviors support the three pillars of The Repeatable Loop™ and help transform success from something that is merely achieved into something that can be sustained.

Because sustainable success isn't built through one decision.

It's built through the behaviors we repeat every day.

What began as my mother's way of moving through life has become one of the greatest influences on my work.

And eight months after her passing, I finally had the clarity to see it.

Learn more about Ms. JACKIE'S Playbook

 

Start Your Leadership Conversation

MEET THE DISRUPTOR

Tanyika Mayhew Butler
Disruptor of High Functioning Survival Mode | Author | Speaker |  Creator of UGLY Wins™

 | Asking the Question Most People Never Ask: What Is This Success Costing Me? Can I Afford to Repeat It?

Be Excellent. Not Exhausted.™

 

About Tanyika Mayhew Butler

Most people know how to measure success.

Few people know how to measure what success is costing them.

Tanyika Mayhew Butler is an author, speaker, and creator of UGLY Wins™, a framework that helps people recognize when achievement is being sustained by patterns that have become too expensive to repeat.

For years, Tanyika was successful.

She earned degrees.

Built a respected career.

Led teams.

Raised a family.

Received professional recognition.

And kept going.

What most people didn't see was the growing cost behind the accomplishments.

In 2015, while receiving one of the highest professional honors of her career, Tanyika was also navigating a life-changing diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.

The applause was real.

The achievement was real.

But so was the reality she was carrying behind the scenes.

After a medical crisis landed her in the hospital during Christmas, she began asking a question that would eventually change her life:

What is this success costing me?

That question became the foundation of her work.

Drawing from nearly three decades in education, leadership, counseling, caregiving, and lived experience, Tanyika recognized a pattern she now sees everywhere:

People are succeeding.

But many are succeeding through patterns that quietly create exhaustion, overextension, strained relationships, declining health, loss of joy, and constant recovery.

She calls these UGLY Wins™.

An UGLY Win™ is a real success achieved through a pattern that becomes too expensive to repeat.

Today, Tanyika helps audiences recognize those patterns before they feel or deal with repercussions.

Through her signature frameworks—including UGLY Wins™, The Repeatable Loop™, Basketball in the Boardroom™, and The Burden Bag™—she teaches people how to evaluate the cost of success, build healthier patterns, and create results they can afford to repeat.

Because the goal isn't simply to win.

The goal is to create wins that don't require sacrificing your health, your relationships, your peace, or your life outside the achievement itself.

Her message is simple:

The Success Was Real.

The Cost Was Real Too.

Be Excellent. Not Exhausted.™

If you are interested in working with Tanyika.

The Behaviors Behind the Framework

The UGLY Wins™ framework is built on three pillars:

Rhythm™

 

Role Clarity™

 

Recovery™

 

But frameworks don't change lives.

Behaviors do.

In the months following my mother's passing, I found myself reflecting on many of the lessons that had shaped my life.

As grief quieted the noise, I began to see something I had never fully recognized before.

Many of the principles behind my work were not ideas I learned in graduate school, leadership training, or professional development.

They were behaviors I had watched my mother model every day.

Long before I had language for UGLY Wins™.

Long before I understood the hidden cost of success.

Long before I created a framework.

What I once viewed as everyday lessons began to reveal themselves as a system for living, leading, and sustaining success.

Today, those lessons serve as the behavioral foundation of my work through what I call:

Basketball in the Boardroom™

5 Behaviors That Keep Success Repeatable

 

These behaviors support the three pillars of The Repeatable Loop™ and help transform success from something that is merely achieved into something that can be sustained.

Because sustainable success isn't built through one decision.

It's built through the behaviors we repeat every day.

What began as my mother's way of moving through life has become one of the greatest influences on my work.

And eight months after her passing, I finally had the clarity to see it.

Work with Tanyika

How Do You Carry an Award in One Hand and a Diagnosis in the Other?

 In 2009, I learned firsthand what happens when recognition and responsibility increase at the exact moment capacity is silently compromised.

That year, I was named Middle School Counselor of the Year—
and diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the same season.

From the outside, everything looked right.
By 2013, I was leading initiatives, mentoring teams, and advocating relentlessly for my autistic daughter’s educational rights.

I was respected. Polished. Trusted.
And quietly depleted.

That December, a five-day hospital stay became a turning point—not because I was weak, but because my body had grown tired of sustaining performance without support.

In 2015, I received another honor—the Radiance Award—celebrating leadership, impact, and light.

What few people knew was this:
I was glowing in public while gasping in private.

I understood how to perform strength.
I had not yet learned how to stabilize peace.

That contrast—between visible success and invisible strain—became the blueprint for the work I do now.

Today, I help organizations and leaders recognize early strain while performance is still strong—and recalibrate roles, expectations, and rhythm before sustainability is lost.

Because true stability isn’t accidental.
It’s architected.

 

 How to Work with Tanyika One-on-One 

 

The No Matter What™ Applause Pivot Experience

Learn More About Working 1:1

 

For high-achieving women 45+ who have been praised for their strength, and are ready to stop paying for it privately.

This work isn’t about rest.
It’s about recalibration, rhythm, and longevity.

Private Strategy for Women 45+ Who Lead Hard and Refuse to Break Behind Their Excellence

 

You’ve mastered excellence.
You’ve mastered perception.
Now it’s time to master peace.

This is not a leadership course.
It’s a private recalibration partnership for high-capacity women whose image is their influence — and whose peace has become negotiable.

With Tanyika Mayhew Butler as your Think-Pivot Partner™, you will:

- protect your edge without draining your energy
-lead from clarity instead of constant pressure
-make image-safe pivots with strategy, not fear
-dismantle the chokeholds behind your exhaustion
-build a rhythm that sustains your excellence

This work is quiet.
Strategic.
Identity-safe.
Life-aligning.

Because in this season,

strategy — not stamina — sustains power.

If you feel the shift, the stretch, or the strain…
you don’t need to push harder.

You need a pivot — guided, protected, and executed with precision.

1:1 Think-Pivot Partner...Learn More

“You’re not burnt out, you’re just functionally exhausted.”

Take this FREE 5-page audit to see where your peace is leaking and how to start recovering your rhythm.