Influential Women Highlights Michele Jones: Advancing A Global Movement To Help Women Break Abuse & Reclaim Purpose

RESTON, VA, UNITED STATES, August 21, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Founder of the Time to Fly Foundation Combines Faith, Executive Leadership, Advocacy, and Education to Help Professional and High-Net-Worth Women Move From Silent Suffering to Strength, Freedom, and Purpose

Reston, Virginia — Michele R. Jones is the Founder and President of the Time to Fly Foundation, a faith-based 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping working women heal from emotional, verbal, physical, financial, and spiritual abuse while rebuilding lives rooted in strength, purpose, and freedom. With more than 40 years of experience spanning leadership, executive coaching, advocacy, and community service, Michele has developed pioneering programs designed to address a population that is frequently overlooked in traditional domestic abuse services: professional, executive, and high-net-worth women who may suffer in silence while attempting to protect their careers, families, reputations, and public identities.

Michele’s commitment to this work is deeply personal. Her professional mission emerged from her own experience navigating a difficult marriage and an 18-month period of healing and counseling. At the same time, she was serving in a corporate executive position while volunteering at a women’s shelter. Through those experiences, she recognized a significant gap in available resources for business and executive women who needed confidential support but could not necessarily step away from their careers or enter traditional shelter environments.

That realization became the catalyst for what would become the Time to Fly Foundation. In April 2001, Michele launched the first Time to Fly class with just 12 women. What began as a small effort to provide education, encouragement, and practical support has since grown into a broader movement that has impacted more than 1,500 women and families.

Michele also recognized early on the importance of bringing conversations about domestic and dating abuse into spaces where they were rarely discussed. She hosted the first podcast in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area dedicated to exploring domestic and dating abuse dynamics, helping create opportunities for individuals and communities to discuss experiences that are often hidden behind professional success, social status, religious affiliation, or family reputation.

Today, Michele is a nationally recognized #1 best-selling author, sought-after speaker, certified executive coach, and global advocate for healthy relationships and women’s empowerment. Her leadership and advocacy have earned recognition from the White House, the Department of Justice, and state leadership. She has also served as an appointed Commissioner for Women and Children in a county of more than two million residents, bringing her experience in leadership and advocacy into public service.

Her impact extends beyond direct work with women experiencing abuse. Michele has trained thousands of faith leaders and helped women establish nonprofits and advocacy initiatives of their own. She is also the Founder and Host of the global “He Cares” Summit, which brings together women leaders from seven regions of the world to address unhealthy relationship dynamics across nations. Through this platform, she continues to emphasize that healthy relationships require education, awareness, accountability, and community engagement.

At the center of Michele’s approach is the conviction that abuse does not discriminate according to education, income, professional status, or social position. One of the biggest challenges she sees in her field is the misconception that highly educated or high-net-worth women cannot be victims of abuse.

Throughout her more than 25 years working specifically in this space, Michele has encountered women who are pastors, celebrities, attorneys, executives, and other professionals who have endured deeply challenging marriages. Because many of these women occupy high-profile positions, maintaining privacy can become especially important. The result, Michele explains, is that women may suffer in silence because they fear the professional, social, or personal consequences of revealing what is happening behind closed doors.

Michele also works to broaden public understanding of what constitutes abuse. While physical violence is often the first thing people associate with domestic abuse, she emphasizes that abuse can take many forms, including verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual, financial, and spiritual abuse. In some circumstances, spiritual beliefs or religious doctrine may also be manipulated to exert control.

This complexity is one reason Michele places such a strong emphasis on education and community awareness. Traditional domestic violence resources may not always be designed for the circumstances of high-net-worth women. A woman living in an affluent community may not view a traditional shelter as an appropriate option, while certain resources may not be structured to address the realities of her financial, professional, or social circumstances.

Michele believes the answer lies in creating greater awareness among the people and institutions most likely to encounter women in need. To date, she has trained more than 2,500 faith leaders across multiple faith traditions, including Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Baha’i, and others. Her goal is to help faith leaders recognize abuse dynamics, respond with compassion, and become better equipped to help individuals and families navigate difficult seasons.

Breaking generational cycles is another central component of Michele’s mission. She believes that education and intervention can help prevent destructive relationship patterns from being passed from one generation to the next. By helping individuals recognize unhealthy behaviors and understand their own worth, she seeks to create change that extends beyond a single individual or relationship.

Michele’s philosophy of leadership is rooted in her own personal history. She attributes her success to faith, resilience, and the courage to follow a calling that required both personal healing and professional sacrifice. Her faith was deeply rooted and modeled by her grandparents, while her resilience was shaped within a military household.

Her father rose through the ranks from infantry to become a two-star General, and Michele credits that environment with teaching her discipline, excellence, perseverance, teamwork, and sacrifice. Those lessons became especially important as she navigated professional environments in which she was consistently among the first women—and often the first African American or both—to break through “glass ceilings.”

Those experiences gave Michele a firsthand understanding of what it means to persevere in environments where there may be few examples to follow. Rather than allowing obstacles to define her path, she learned to remain focused on meaningful goals and continue moving forward. Today, she applies those same principles to her advocacy, coaching, and leadership work.

A particularly influential figure in Michele’s professional journey was her mentor, Dr. Myles Munroe, the renowned leadership author and global voice on purpose. One of the most important lessons he taught her was to “love people, don’t use people.” For Michele, that philosophy became a foundational principle of leadership. She believes genuine leadership is not about using people to achieve personal goals but about developing others, helping them recognize their potential, and creating opportunities for them to rise.

Dr. Munroe also encouraged Michele to write her first book, Your Call to Freedom. He challenged her by asking why she was holding back her voice when the world needed to hear it. That encouragement ultimately helped launch another dimension of her advocacy, and the message of the book has now reached readers in more than 17 countries.

Dr. Munroe’s influence remained significant even after his passing in a tragic private aircraft accident. Michele acknowledges that it took time to grieve and process the loss of a mentor who had played such an important role in her development. Yet his teachings continue to influence her leadership. His emphasis on purpose, service, personal development, and helping others rise remains deeply embedded in the way Michele approaches her work.

For young women entering her industry, Michele’s advice begins with discovering their own voices. She encourages women to identify what she calls their “secret sauce” or “secret power”—the qualities, perspectives, experiences, and gifts that make them uniquely valuable.

Michele believes that understanding one’s uniqueness changes the way a person approaches competition. When women know what makes them distinct, she says, they have less reason to focus on what others are doing. Instead, they can devote their energy to developing their own strengths, serving their specific audiences, and creating meaningful value.

She also encourages women to identify their unique niche rather than attempting to be everything to everyone. She believes that creativity, income, influence, and impact can grow from understanding what a person does exceptionally well.

Equally important to Michele is enjoying the journey. She believes careers and lives are built through continual learning, and that practical experiences—including setbacks and difficult seasons—can become lessons that prepare people for future opportunities.

Michele encourages the young women she mentors to journal and write down their dreams, ideas, and aspirations. She views those written goals as a personal GPS that can reveal patterns over time. Looking back on her own childhood, she can see connections between the adventurous, curious girl she once was and the woman she eventually became.

She recalls exploring the woods as a child, discovering a new creek, skipping rocks, listening to the water, and dreaming about traveling and becoming a businesswoman. Although she once received a strong talking-to for coming home late, she now recognizes that the curiosity and adventurous spirit behind those childhood experiences were early expressions of the person she would become.

Michele also stresses the importance of surrounding oneself with genuine friends and supporters. She encourages women to cultivate relationships with people who will say, “You can do it, I’m in your corner,” rather than people who discourage their ambitions. She values people who are not intimidated by another woman’s success but are inspired by it.

Her message to women facing difficult seasons is equally rooted in perseverance and faith. Michele acknowledges that there will be days when life feels confusing, overwhelming, or simply too difficult. But she encourages women to keep going. She believes a difficult chapter does not mean the story is over.

Her faith allows her to trust that God is still writing the story, even during periods that feel like a “pregnant pause.” She encourages women not to close the book simply because progress appears to have stopped.

Faith is also one of the most important values in Michele’s own life. She credits her faith in God and Jesus Christ with helping her endure the emotional trauma associated with leaving her marriage. She does not describe that decision as an unwanted choice, but as a healthy choice that ultimately enabled her to move toward healing and freedom.

Another foundational value for Michele is self-worth. She believes people must understand their value because a lack of self-worth can leave individuals vulnerable to being undervalued, overused, or placed in situations where they consistently sacrifice themselves without appropriate boundaries.

For Michele, knowing one’s self-worth is closely connected to understanding one’s worth in God and in Jesus Christ. That belief informs both her personal life and the message she shares with women through the Time to Fly Foundation.

She also considers work-life balance essential. Although she genuinely loves her work, Michele recognizes that leaders and advocates need opportunities to step away from constant problem-solving and allow themselves to enjoy life. She describes herself as highly creative and naturally inclined to think about new programs, ways to help people, and opportunities for improvement. Yet she understands that creativity also requires rest.

For Michele, the ocean and water provide that reset. She enjoys being near the water, traveling, and taking cruises, and tries to make time for these experiences approximately once a quarter. She finds that stepping away helps her recalibrate and return with renewed energy, fresh ideas, and greater inspiration.

That renewed energy supports the many roles she continues to fulfill—as a speaker, coach, trainer, author, advocate, and mentor. Whether she is helping a woman understand her options, training faith leaders to recognize abuse, speaking to an audience about healthy relationships, or encouraging another woman to reclaim her voice, Michele remains focused on one central objective: helping people transform pain into purpose-driven impact.

Through the Time to Fly Foundation, her books, leadership programs, coaching, and international speaking engagements, Michele continues to build a legacy centered on healing, empowerment, education, and freedom. Her work challenges communities to look beyond stereotypes about abuse and recognize that women from every professional, financial, educational, and cultural background can need support.

More importantly, Michele’s leadership emphasizes that healing does not have to be the end of the story. With education, community, faith, appropriate support, and a renewed understanding of self-worth, women can rebuild. They can reclaim their voices, rediscover their purpose, and create healthier futures for themselves and the generations that follow.

After more than four decades of leadership and more than two decades of focused advocacy, Michele continues to live by the principle that helping others rise is one of the highest expressions of success. Her journey—from corporate leadership and personal healing to national advocacy and global impact—serves as an example of how painful experiences can be transformed into meaningful service.

Through her continued work, Michele R. Jones is helping ensure that women do not have to suffer in silence simply because their success, status, or circumstances make their experiences difficult for others to recognize. Her mission is to create pathways where women can find support without sacrificing their dignity, identity, or future—and ultimately move forward with strength, freedom, faith, and purpose.

Learn More about Michele Jones:

Through her Influential Women profile, https://influentialwomen.com/connect/michelle-jones-6 or through her website, https://www.miningforgems.com/

Influential Women

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