Latest / The One Small Change Podcast / Writing Nonfiction Books Can Boost Your Biz with Melody Ann Owen
Transcript
- 0:01Guess what? It's time for the One Small Change podcast, and
- 0:04I'm thrilled to embark on this journey of exploration
- 0:08transformation with you. Again, I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and
- 0:12I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial experience,
- 0:15the good, the bad, and the ugly, and a passion for discovering growth through
- 0:19the power of seemingly small change. So I wanna thank you
- 0:24of coming on this journey with us and spending some time because I know there
- 0:27are lots of places where you could spend your time. This week,
- 0:31we are talking with Melanie Owen, and she's
- 0:35gonna share how a smaller unexpected change
- 0:38sparks something remarkable, in her personal or private
- 0:42life. So, Melanie, thank you for being here
- 0:45today. Thank you, Stephanie.
- 0:49Tell my audience what you do and, you know,
- 0:53take them on your amazing journey. Sure. Absolutely.
- 0:57So what I do, I do a lot of things. I love to hike, in
- 1:00my personal life and in my
- 1:03professional life. I am the founder of an organization called Author
- 1:07Nation where we support nonfiction authors to
- 1:10write and publish and integrate a nonfiction
- 1:14book into their life and their business. So that's the that's the short
- 1:18version. So how did you get
- 1:22there? I mean, you didn't you weren't born going, I'm gonna help people write
- 1:25books. No. I was not born with that. But
- 1:29I think it was always in me somewhere. And,
- 1:33you know, I I I think that I credit what I do
- 1:37to my my deep my deep connection to storytelling.
- 1:41And I actually think as humans, we all have a deep connection
- 1:45to storytelling. But we're often trained or
- 1:48educated out of it. Right? It's like information, facts,
- 1:52information, facts. But I have this this deep connection to
- 1:55storytelling that I never lost. And it's helped me a great
- 1:59deal in my life, you know, when I when I need to reframe
- 2:03the story. Like, things are happening and I'm feeling
- 2:06lost, like I'm at sea and I'm in an ocean with with, you know, a
- 2:10storm and you feel like you're just being taken away
- 2:14by this storm, what I do is I sit down and I say, let's
- 2:17reframe. Let's put me as the captain of the ship and I get to
- 2:21decide how I can't stop the storm, but I get to
- 2:24decide how I'm going to maneuver through the storm
- 2:28rather than being in a lifeboat or without any boat at all being tossed
- 2:32around by the big waves. I have to I I'm sorry. I have to
- 2:36tell you that you're you're really speaking my language. Mhmm. Because
- 2:39one of the things that I talk about is, dead
- 2:43reckoning, which is a sailing term. And it was and it was
- 2:47when, you know, we didn't have all the electronics from the old days, and
- 2:50sailors would pick a point in the distance that there was their
- 2:54destination so that they could maneuver the currents and the wind. You couldn't go
- 2:58in a straight line. I mean, when I finally realized that
- 3:02going in a straight line was never gonna happen, I was always gonna be, you
- 3:06know, having to self correct, and that was normal and
- 3:09good, it made a huge change for me. So that
- 3:13that part of your language is amazing to me. I mean, that
- 3:17really connects with me. The other thing that you said that is
- 3:20so on target, I think, is that I
- 3:24think we are all yearning for connection, and we
- 3:28are past the point of just getting facts because facts
- 3:32are everywhere. What we want is how to implement that and
- 3:35how does it tie into our life. So I didn't mean to get you off
- 3:39track, but it's like, oh my god. This is why we're talking.
- 3:43Yes. Exactly. And and you're right. It it's just because
- 3:46you're the captain of the ship doesn't mean that you can control everything and you're
- 3:50going to have a linear line. You're still you still might be in a storm.
- 3:54Right? And you still might be currents as you say. So thank you for for
- 3:58extending that metaphor. I I absolutely love that.
- 4:02Yeah. So and I one small change. I'm I'm gonna just kind
- 4:05of give you give you my one small change because I think it really integrates
- 4:09into this. And it's to celebrate the small
- 4:13stuff. Right? Celebrate
- 4:17the small stuff. I can't tell you how that changed my life.
- 4:21We are told that we don't celebrate unless we won the
- 4:24race. We're told we don't celebrate until until we get to
- 4:28the destination. And I 100% disagree
- 4:32with that. I think we celebrate those little
- 4:35steps we take. And especially when you're writing a book. Can you imagine not
- 4:39celebrating until you've actually published and sold a 1000000 copies?
- 4:43Right? No no one would write a book. So when I'm working with my clients,
- 4:48we have a practice of celebrating the small stuff. You know, what
- 4:51did you get done? You got you got that section of that chapter done today.
- 4:55That's awesome. You finished a chapter this week. That's awesome.
- 4:59Awesome. You you set up your author page on Facebook.
- 5:03Wonderful. It doesn't matter if you have followers or not. Right? And I I'll give
- 5:07you a little story. I had I was working with one client who was setting
- 5:10up her email list. So she set it up, and she sent it out to
- 5:13a few friends. And and she had, you know, 20 followers in her
- 5:17you know, 20 email subscribers. And I said, well,
- 5:21start sending out emails. She said, well, I don't really have enough subscribers yet. And
- 5:24I said, no. No. No. No. No. You've won. You have an email list. You
- 5:28have 20 subscribers. You send it out. And at the end of it,
- 5:31you say, if this you if you know someone who might be interested in
- 5:35this, pass it on. And then she did that, and she said, well, I
- 5:39have 25 subscribers. And, of course, you do. Because instead of saying it's
- 5:42not good enough yet and I shouldn't celebrate and I shouldn't move forward, we
- 5:46celebrated. We picked the next step. We didn't worry about the number of
- 5:50email subscribers on your list. And that is how she's building
- 5:53her email list. 5, 1, 10,
- 5:573 subscribers at a time. And instead of waiting to
- 6:01arrive at this grand destination, she's celebrating
- 6:05each step along the way. And it just feels so much better, and it gives
- 6:09you this motivation. It helps cut down procrastination,
- 6:13and it and it just it yeah. Celebrate the small stuff,
- 6:16Yvonne. Again, I absolutely agree with
- 6:20you. And, you know, a lot of the lessons that I
- 6:24got that have helped me on my entrepreneurial journey are
- 6:27the same lessons that I got when I lost a £150.
- 6:31And, you know, you look at it and you go, I need to lose a
- 6:34£100, and you just, you know, you quit before you even start. I mean,
- 6:37it's just so daunting. And so, you know,
- 6:41what I would what I what I when I was coaching that and what I
- 6:45would say to myself is, what's the amount of weight that I
- 6:48have lost over and over and over again? And it was
- 6:52like £25. It's like, okay. I'm gonna divide this into
- 6:564 £25 segments because I know I can do
- 7:00this. I've done it before. And I what I say to
- 7:03people is celebrate your progress. Celebrate the
- 7:07doing. Right? Yes. So, you know, it it and this
- 7:11came up again the other day because,
- 7:15when I was teaching money management, I would say to people,
- 7:19it doesn't matter how much you save. It's the act of
- 7:22saving. If you can save 10¢, then you can say I'm
- 7:26a saver. Right? And that builds confidence till you can
- 7:30save $10, then you can save a $100.
- 7:33And so the act of doing it, the
- 7:37progress, celebrating the progress builds confidence.
- 7:41And and not only that, I think one of the the things that people
- 7:44neglect is as you celebrate your progress,
- 7:49it gives you credibility and it says to other people you can do it
- 7:52too. Absolutely. You know, I'm not I'm not
- 7:56finished, but I'm getting closer to my goal. And I
- 7:59think that's so important because I think,
- 8:03particularly in entrepreneurship, there's this sense of
- 8:07I have to be an expert, and I'm not an expert yet, and I'm not
- 8:10ready. And one of the small changes that happened for me was
- 8:14somebody said, there's always gonna be somebody who's better than you,
- 8:17and there's also always gonna be somebody who wants to be as good as
- 8:21you. You know? So you're there. You're the expert
- 8:25for the person who wants to be as good as you. And by celebrating
- 8:29that journey, you show people how it's possible.
- 8:32Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And I'll give you a a a personal story around
- 8:36around the small stuff. Please do. Please do. I was talking to my one of
- 8:40my daughters, yesterday, and she was at work and she was
- 8:44in a meeting and somebody said something. And have you ever been in a meeting
- 8:47and somebody said something and all of a sudden you're like right? And
- 8:51you don't even know what to see back and and you just, like, you felt,
- 8:55you know, attacked or unheard or or something.
- 8:58Right? Something has happened. You've had this strong reaction, and you
- 9:02don't say anything in the meaning. And you walk out and you're upset with
- 9:06yourself and you think, you
- 9:10know, terrible me. But when I was younger,
- 9:14in my family, conflict didn't happen. My father is
- 9:18king and you never spoke back. Conflict did
- 9:21not happen. So I grew up not understanding how to
- 9:25engage in constructive conversations, not being able to
- 9:29speak up for myself. I had a lot of obstacles.
- 9:33And at some point, I thought, well, you can stay as you are or you
- 9:36can just try. And so I you know,
- 9:40the first time I spoke up for myself, I blurted something out that I
- 9:43didn't even know what came out of my mouth. I felt horrible. I walked away.
- 9:47And I said, okay. But you spoke up.
- 9:51It went terribly, but you spoke up. So
- 9:54celebrate that. And then I would celebrate speaking up. I
- 9:58didn't get anything because I was still so I was just a bundle of
- 10:02nerves, and I couldn't I could barely get the words out, but I did it.
- 10:06And very slowly, I learned not
- 10:09only how to speak up, but what to say, how to respond,
- 10:13you know. And then so yesterday when I was talking to my youngest daughter and
- 10:16she said I had this experience, I said, yeah. I relate to that.
- 10:20I've had that experience. And and each
- 10:24time, you're gonna take a small step because you you've come
- 10:28she's still in university. You're, you know, you're still in this place where, like, all
- 10:31these authority figures. Right? So it's always your boss telling you something
- 10:35that that is hard. But slowly, you are going to
- 10:39learn. So just next time it happens, just breathe. Don't even say
- 10:42anything. Just, like, recognize it and deal with the emotion. That's
- 10:46it. And then the time after that, maybe you'll be able to speak up. And
- 10:50it's a step by step process in life. Right? You're not all of a sudden
- 10:54a leader and an amazing communicator. This is
- 10:57something we built. Right? So small it's I celebrated
- 11:01the small successes, and and my daughter came to me because she sees
- 11:05me as a really good communicator. And I said, yeah. But I used to be
- 11:08where you were. Right. Right. Right. And and you know what? For
- 11:12me, you know, conflict again was not
- 11:16I mean, I don't think we are we we are
- 11:20raised in you know, our limiting
- 11:24beliefs partially come from, you know, our parents wanna protect us.
- 11:27Like, don't say anything that's gonna get you in trouble. You know, be seen
- 11:31but not heard. You know, that that kind of whole thing.
- 11:34Right? And for me to speak up for myself,
- 11:39you know, we were like the one black family in in a in a white
- 11:43community, so we were told to be better than everybody else but not to
- 11:46be, you know, to keep your head down kind of. And so for
- 11:50me to speak up for myself was really, really hard,
- 11:54and it started with first making
- 11:57this decision that I was gonna tell people when I was
- 12:00uncomfortable. And typically, it didn't happen at the moment.
- 12:05Sometimes, I would come back 2 weeks later and say, I have to
- 12:08tell you this, and it's really for me to let
- 12:12you know that this made me uncomfortable, or I'm
- 12:16sorry that I was angry with you. I mean, and and I I'll never
- 12:19forget, but I said to my supervisor once, I am really
- 12:23sorry that I spoke to you so, you know, in such an angry
- 12:27way. And she goes, that was angry?
- 12:32But for me, it was like, oh, that, you know. Yes. So it got
- 12:35to it didn't take me 2 weeks. It only took me a week, and then
- 12:38it only took me a day. And then it was like, wait, I don't
- 12:42feel right. I need to say something about this. Or even
- 12:46to say, I don't know what it is that I'm feeling, but something's not
- 12:49right. Yeah. You know? And so yes. And you celebrate
- 12:53the fact that you've gotten better
- 12:57at what you're doing. And I think the thing that makes it hard
- 13:01is that as you this is a really
- 13:04weird phenomena, but as you grow in in the
- 13:08entrepreneurial world and probably in personal life too, as you grow
- 13:12and you take on new challenges, right, there's kind of that
- 13:15feeling of of uncomfortableness because you're taking on something
- 13:19new. And, you know, as you're, like, excited
- 13:22that it's happening, something that you think you have totally
- 13:26under control falls through the crack.
- 13:30Yes. Because you kinda don't know how they're connected. So you look at
- 13:33something and go, I've done this I've done this three times, and this has never
- 13:37happened. What is going on? Yes. Do you
- 13:41know what I mean? So being able to reframe it
- 13:44as, you know okay. So here's, like, a really
- 13:48personal story. I think I was on the
- 13:52verge of a a nervous breakdown at one point and, you know, I was working
- 13:56with my therapist and, you know, really hit hit a really
- 13:59important point. And I think I cried for 24
- 14:03hours straight. I mean, I just really I went to
- 14:07bed. I, you know, I cried all day. I went to bed crying. I woke
- 14:10up crying. And I when I when I talked to I called her
- 14:14up and I go, I'm a mess. And she
- 14:18said, your pain is normal. And I was like,
- 14:21what? She said, your pain is normal. And I
- 14:25was like, if this is normal, what does crazy look like? I mean, you
- 14:29know? But what she was saying is this is the normal part
- 14:33of the process. And so
- 14:36making mistakes and, you know, having things fall apart
- 14:40is a normal part of the process of growth. I
- 14:44mean, we are not meant to be perfect. We're meant
- 14:48to keep moving forward and make progress. So can we
- 14:51talk a little bit more about books, which is your specialty?
- 14:55And, you know, who who
- 14:59like I say, I'm a speaker not a writer, and I talk to people
- 15:02about using their strengths. And so my
- 15:06question partially is, you know, the higher level is, as an entrepreneur,
- 15:10why do I wanna have a nonfiction book? And then for those who us who
- 15:13feel we're speakers, you know, how does that fit into
- 15:17or possibly fit into our overall, you know, what we could be
- 15:21doing? Yes. Absolutely. So first of
- 15:24all, I'm never gonna convince anyone they need a book. That's
- 15:28not what I do. I want to help people who who they
- 15:32know they want a book. Right? And so if someone came to me and
- 15:35said I think I need a book, I would, you know, but I don't know
- 15:38why. I'm I would like, okay. Let's let's figure out whether you really want one
- 15:42or not. So this whole you must have a book
- 15:46isn't, you know maybe that's not your thing. Right? So
- 15:50so maybe you have another plan and that works well for
- 15:53you. So first off, you know, don't listen to the hype. Right?
- 15:57So when you decide you want a book, then then that's great. So some
- 16:01reasons why people might want a book. So if you have a
- 16:04speaking career, for example, going into a
- 16:08speaking gig and being able to say, you know, hey. Come up
- 16:11afterwards, and I'll, you know, I'll give you a first chapter of my book.
- 16:15And then getting them on your email list. And now you have the
- 16:19talk that you gave that you can write emails about and this
- 16:23book. And the book has more than one chapter. So, like, have you read the
- 16:27first chapter? Would you like to know more about it? You know, you can so
- 16:31so it's a conversation builder. Right? And they may
- 16:34you may sell the book or you may give away the book. It doesn't
- 16:38matter. What matters is that you have this longer
- 16:41term, this is how the book fits into my business.
- 16:45So if you have a speak if, you know, if you have a
- 16:49speaking career that's linked to, group
- 16:52coaching or course, you know, getting
- 16:56on stage and saying, okay. So now I have this course. Go buy it. That
- 17:00may not work. But a book may link those two things.
- 17:03So if you're interested in in, you know, what I'm saying, I have
- 17:07a book. I have a table at the back. Come talk to me. I'm happy
- 17:11to give you the book. I'm happy to give you the ebook. I'm happy to
- 17:13give you the first chapter. I'm up to whatever, you know, whatever is you know,
- 17:17I I'm not I can't tell you what the plan should be. It's
- 17:20something I work out with each client on, you know, what they have to
- 17:24put together. So that might be a reason you want a book.
- 17:28Another reason you might want a book. Some people can use
- 17:32a book as a launchpad to a podcast or a series
- 17:36of events. So I have, someone recently launched a
- 17:39book. And now she's doing monthly events based
- 17:43on each chapter of the book. So each chapter has a theme. And now she
- 17:46does monthly events so people can come and talk to her about
- 17:50that particular thing. And if they're in they if they like that, they can move
- 17:53into her coaching program. Another reason you might want to write
- 17:57a book. You might say, you know, Amazon is this huge
- 18:01search engine. And of course, if I don't have anything on there,
- 18:05no one can find me there. So I'm actually going to write
- 18:09a book that is good for
- 18:12Amazon search engine. So and I'm not saying you can't write one book that
- 18:16can't do a variety of things. I'm what I'm saying is if you're
- 18:19thinking about, oh, maybe I should write a book, the question is, you
- 18:23know, why? How is this gonna fit into my life? That's the
- 18:27very first question you need to answer before you answer anything
- 18:30else. And if you say, oh, I'm a speaker, and I wanna link
- 18:34this book with the people I'm speaking to at conferences with my
- 18:38courses and coaching, now we're like, okay. So in that case, who's my
- 18:42audience? Well, it's the people who like to go to conferences. Right? It's not the
- 18:45people who want to search on YouTube or Amazon. It's people who go to
- 18:49conferences. Okay, so now I know who my reader is. I can get
- 18:53really targeted in the content. And maybe it's a really
- 18:56short 100 page book. Maybe that's all it needs to be and I give away
- 19:00the whole book. And that leads me to a
- 19:04conversation with them through email, which eventually leads to them joining my
- 19:07program if that's a match. Does that make sense, Yvonne? It absolutely does.
- 19:11I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that I say is
- 19:16you need to know your why. I mean and, again, I go back to weight
- 19:19loss. I mean, I knew how to lose weight and what to
- 19:22do, but it wasn't until I had a big enough
- 19:26why that I was willing to do it. It wasn't until I found out I
- 19:29was gonna be a grandmother for the first time that I said,
- 19:33wait. What kind of grandmother do I wanna be? I wanna be an
- 19:37active grandmother. I wanna do things with my grandchild, you know, and
- 19:40I could barely walk up and down the stairs. So I had a big enough
- 19:44why to say, I wanna be able to go to the beach. I
- 19:48wanna be able to do these things. I mean, I knew all the things
- 19:52that I actually had to do. You know, you get I mean, the the the
- 19:56equation is incredibly simple. You actually eat less than you know, you
- 19:59burn more than you eat. Right? And so,
- 20:03you know, you're saying, you know, I think starting with purpose. I mean, I
- 20:07just did this with with kind of my 3 p's, which is
- 20:10purpose, procedure, personal, and proactive. So if
- 20:14you don't know what your purpose is, you don't know your why, then you don't
- 20:18know in in the case of writing the book what needs to be in the
- 20:21book and who you're writing it for. Right? And then, you know, you take
- 20:25a look at your audience and what what they need and what they tend to
- 20:29go towards and then proactively kind of what they need next.
- 20:33You know, what they'll need what they need before and what they need after your
- 20:36book so that you can tie it all into how you how you place
- 20:39it. So Yeah. You and I are like I mean, this is probably
- 20:43the deepest conversation we've had, but we have so much in common.
- 20:47We do. Yeah. And you're can I can I add
- 20:51just add a little something to it just before we move on? And
- 20:55so and so if you think about it, it's a really good analogy for the
- 20:58book. Because in in the book, you need meaning for yourself, but you need meaning
- 21:02for your readers. For your weight loss, just like
- 21:06writing a book, just losing weight, that's not enough. There has to be, as you
- 21:09say, purpose or meaning behind it. And for you, there was meaning for
- 21:13you being the best grandmother you could be. But
- 21:16there's also meaning for your audience, your your grandchildren.
- 21:20Right? They're they they gained meaning. They gained something
- 21:24out of it as well. And so same when you're writing a book. There's meaning
- 21:28for you, the author, but there's meaning for the reader as well. And once you
- 21:32had once you had your purpose, your meaning, it was a lot easier
- 21:35to do. So people are like, I wanna lose weight. They often don't lose weight.
- 21:39There's no meaning or or, you know, purpose behind it. Same with people who wanna
- 21:42write a book. I wanna write a book. There's no meaning or purpose behind it.
- 21:46So when I start with the authors, we start with that, and there's a
- 21:49lot more motivation. It's so much easier to get it done. Right?
- 21:53So I I wanna take that kind of into entrepreneurship.
- 21:57So I I did a chapter in, one
- 22:01of those collaboration books, and it was so funny
- 22:05because I just wanted this to be, like you you know, it was gonna be
- 22:08probably the and in my brain I said, this is gonna be the only thing
- 22:12I write. I want this to go down in the ages. It was, like,
- 22:15you know, a really heavy thing. And somebody
- 22:19said to me and I and I work you know, it's like from the
- 22:23a year from the time I said I would do it, I think I had
- 22:263 sentences. And I kept going back and changing them.
- 22:30And somebody a very good coach said to me,
- 22:34you know, how do you like to communicate? And I said I like to speak.
- 22:37He goes and record it. Yes. Which I did, and it
- 22:41took me a day and a half. But the but the real the real
- 22:44switch was not only how I did it, but why
- 22:48I did it. I you know, he goes, what is it that you wanna accomplish?
- 22:52I said, I want it to be for managers
- 22:56so that they can have a simple way that they can remember
- 23:00how to get out of chaos and focus.
- 23:04And so out of that came a system that I call
- 23:08steps. So it's stop, think
- 23:11about, you know, what you've accomplished. Right?
- 23:15T is what do you wanna get done. E
- 23:19is evaluate the difference between where you are, where you
- 23:22wanna go. P is have a plan, but know that you
- 23:26need to have a plan b as well. And the s is
- 23:30success, celebrate your progress.
- 23:33Yes. So that came out of my my book, you know, that
- 23:37do doing that chapter, and it only took a day
- 23:41and a half to record it where I could not write it at
- 23:45all. Just so we don't run out of time, and
- 23:49I I feel like we could chat for
- 23:53give me a couple of action steps that that Yes.
- 23:57Our listeners can, you know, can do. Yes. So
- 24:01I'll I'll do that in 2 pieces. So And your freebie. And also your freebie.
- 24:04Don't forget that. Absolutely. So if you're not
- 24:08used to celebrating the small stuff, at the end of every day,
- 24:12sit down and say, what did I do today? What actions did I
- 24:16take, and how can I celebrate taking those actions? Very simple.
- 24:19At the end, I have I have a to I have a done list.
- 24:23Instead of a to do list, I have a done list. And so, you know,
- 24:27that's one action you can take is just write down all your accomplishments that
- 24:30day, pat yourself on your back every day for what you did get
- 24:34done. And and and that's it. That's a very simple
- 24:37step. If you want to write a book, your very first step is to
- 24:41sit down and say, why do I want to write this book? How is this
- 24:45book going to change my life, my business? What, you
- 24:49know, what do I want out of this? That's your very
- 24:53first step. So ask yourself, why do I want to write a book?
- 24:57How is this going to change my life? And when you figure that out, you
- 25:00can start thinking about, well, if that's the case, who's the
- 25:04audience? And then when you figure that out, you
- 25:08can say, okay, now why would they read this book? What's in
- 25:12it for them? Those are the first three questions you're gonna ask
- 25:15yourself if you're thinking about writing a book. And if you'd like resources for that,
- 25:19you can go to author nation dot online. And
- 25:22that is where I keep my resource library, and you can check out all the
- 25:26resources I have for you there. Fabulous. Fabulous.
- 25:29Okay. Here's the zinger. When was the last time you did
- 25:33something for the first time? Oh, wow. Okay.
- 25:37I haven't done a lot of new stuff lately because
- 25:41last August, I did something very new. I went hiking in the
- 25:44Yukon in in Canada in the Yukon. It was so much
- 25:48fun, except I fell and I snapped my leg in 3 pieces and I
- 25:52had to be rescued by a helicopter. So that's the first time I was ever
- 25:55rescued by a helicopter. They turned me into bionic woman. I now
- 25:59I'm a I now have to tiny him in my in my leg. So that
- 26:02was the first time I did that. And, I had to learn to
- 26:05walk again. That was the second time I did that. And so I've been doing
- 26:09a lot of, physio and healing. So I have not you know,
- 26:13besides my business and doing a lot of physio and healing to get
- 26:16back healthy again, I haven't done a lot of other new stuff this year, unfortunately.
- 26:20But breaking my leg and getting a helicopter right out of the Yukon, that was
- 26:24definitely a new thing for me as was the surgery and
- 26:27learning to walk you down. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? I
- 26:31celebrated every little step. I remember a friend said, you know, you're kinda
- 26:35crazy. Right? You just celebrated being able to stand. I'm like, yeah.
- 26:40That's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. It is.
- 26:43I celebrated the small steps every, like, every along
- 26:47the way. Yeah. And I I think, you know,
- 26:52in this crazy world, and
- 26:55and this is in terms of managing and stuff too, we tend to focus
- 26:59on what's wrong. You know, we're like you know, one of the things that I
- 27:03say all the time to entrepreneurs is that you bring on staff,
- 27:07make sure you tell them the good things that they do too. Not
- 27:11not not with the but. You did this well, but you need you know, just
- 27:14like, you did good. Thanks. Yes. And so
- 27:18that celebration just gives you a totally different level of joy in your
- 27:22life. Alright. So I need to I need to wind this up. So there
- 27:26are a couple of things that I need to say to everybody.
- 27:30You have given us so much to think about, and so, you
- 27:34know, change is not always easy, but it can be simple. But it
- 27:37still takes a certain amount of courage and, you know,
- 27:41resilience and and, especially, a willingness to step out of your
- 27:45comfort zone. So I hope that all of you that are listening
- 27:48today walk away with something and that you'll join me again
- 27:52so that you can find out, you know, what kind of shifts you
- 27:56can make that are gonna have a transformation in your life and in your, you
- 28:00know, in your business and in your personal life. And so
- 28:05we all have a bold vision, and we all have innovative
- 28:09possibilities that are in us. We just have to mind them and unleash
- 28:13them and let them out and go against, you know, common common
- 28:17wisdom sometimes because common wisdom tells us to
- 28:20play it safe. And I want you to be bold.
- 28:25Melanie, what last words have you got for us? I love
- 28:29what you just said. Be bold, and it's okay to take
- 28:32tiptoey steps. You know, as long as you're walking forward, you're you're moving
- 28:36forward. Right? And do it in do it in a bold fashion step by step.
- 28:39I love that. When I mountain climb when I mountain hike, I don't look at
- 28:43the top of the mountain. I know where I wanna go, but I don't look
- 28:46there. I look where I'm going, and I take one step at a time. Because
- 28:49if I looked at the mountain, I never get there. Okay.
- 28:53So the one thing, the last thing that I wanna say is
- 28:56make sure that you subscribe and share, and
- 29:00that you engage on, social media. That was my dog giving me the
- 29:04earthquake shake. And you don't
- 29:08wanna, you know, make connections that you can share with other people.
- 29:11So until next time. Right? There are places that you
- 29:15could spend your time, but I'm so glad you spent your time here. And check
- 29:19out all the other podcasts that are here as well. So, Melanie, thank
- 29:23you again so much. I enjoyed this so much and got so much out of
- 29:26it. I hope everybody else did as well. Thank you, Yvonne.