Latest / Daily Influence / 531. Service Over Self: Melissa Ford’s Path to Purposeful Leadership

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531. Service Over Self: Melissa Ford’s Path to Purposeful Leadership · Daily Influence

0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the daily influence where our mission is to deliver a daily dose of positive influence that can uplift you personally or be shared within your sphere of influence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: While not every episode may directly apply to your unique circumstances, we strive to provide insights and inspiration relevant to most people's daily, weekly, and monthly lives.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you are tuning in during the morning, noon or night, the daily influence is here for you.
0:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, share, and embrace the power of influence in your life.
0:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
0:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Greg Clino.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Melissa Ford.
0:47
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a master, business, and life coach, author of Living Service, and a powerful voice-inservant leadership.
0:55
[SPEAKER_01]: With over two decades of experience, Melissa has transformed away leaders show up by helping them embrace the power of service, love, and relationship in business and life.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: She's worked with everyone from entrepreneurs to executives, helping them grow not only their impact and income, but their joy.
1:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Melissa also serves an advisory board of rebels for peace here in Chicago, proving that her influence goes far beyond coaching.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's truly a way of life.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Get ready for a deeply honest and heart-opening conversation and leadership service and creating real meaningful change.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Melissa, welcome to Daily Influence.
1:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi.
1:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Greg.
1:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.
1:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And you make me sound really good.
1:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So thanks for that.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're amazing.
1:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Melissa, so I'm looking for our conversation today.
1:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today with our listeners?
1:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
1:51
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's been a nice long and winding journey.
1:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I about thirty years ago got on my own personal development path.
2:00
[SPEAKER_03]: and what precipitated that was that I really saw a lot of people in my life.
2:06
[SPEAKER_03]: People close to me is making my life hard.
2:09
[SPEAKER_03]: If only they would be this way.
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: If only they would change this.
2:12
[SPEAKER_03]: If only they would do that, then I could have a good life.
2:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So unbeknownst to me, it was the classic victim mentality.
2:21
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's where I was.
2:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And I came across a place that taught that it isn't people and circumstances and events outside of me that was creating my experience.
2:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It was my own thinking, it was my beliefs.
2:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And that really blew my mind because up until that point, I had never come across that.
2:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a common thing now, but back thirty some years ago, it wasn't.
2:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And I remember being so thrilled by it intrigued by it blown away by it that I spent probably the next dozen years studying at this place, learning their method of inquiry.
3:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And I became friends with a woman who lives in the south side of Chicago, who was on her own journey.
3:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And together, we coached each other, we explored, we did all these things.
3:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we thought, this would be cool.
3:15
[SPEAKER_03]: What we're going to do is we're going to share with everybody, because everybody wants to know about how to be happier.
3:20
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to do this.
3:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Lines will go out the door around the corner.
3:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be incredible.
3:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And we struggled with filling groups.
3:30
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't know how to get clients.
3:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And this went on for a long time longer, like here to a bit, but close to fourteen years.
3:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm somebody who's pretty tenacious, so I just have to hang in there and hang in there.
3:45
[SPEAKER_03]: But what was really keeping me out of action was that I was afraid.
3:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was looking for my friend and to save me, maybe she could understand how to get a client and sales and all that.
3:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So at some point, I finally decided, okay, I gotta do this myself, and I ended up hiring a coach.
4:07
[SPEAKER_03]: because I wanted to coach, and even back then, coaching wasn't mainstream.
4:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So I wanted to coach, but I didn't have any dang clients.
4:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So how do you do this thing?
4:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And I ended up hiring a guy named Steve Chandler.
4:22
[SPEAKER_03]: He's retired now.
4:24
[SPEAKER_03]: He's still a prolific writer.
4:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got into this transactional relationship, or so I thought, with Steve.
4:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we were going to do is he was going to share with me his tips and tricks to get clients and then that would be it.
4:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I would just go make my millions.
4:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was fifteen years ago.
4:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So I ended up having a relationship, a beautiful coaching relationship, friendship, a mentorship with Steve, and he dramatically impacted my life.
4:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And the first thing that he did was he told me, Melissa, coaching is a relationship business.
5:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, how do you get money?
5:05
[SPEAKER_03]: How to get these people coaching as a relationship business.
5:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to serve people first.
5:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And the word service wasn't a word of my lexicon.
5:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I had no idea what that meant.
5:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And he kept saying to me, help somebody before they pay you, which to me sounded like a bad business idea, helping
5:25
[SPEAKER_03]: somebody before they paid me.
5:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And he kept saying, I don't you branding yourself.
5:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want you self promoting.
5:32
[SPEAKER_03]: This isn't about pitching or selling.
5:35
[SPEAKER_03]: This is you offer somebody a conversation.
5:38
[SPEAKER_03]: You listen to them.
5:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You coach them.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You offer them another conversation.
5:42
[SPEAKER_03]: You start to make a difference.
5:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was service.
5:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, by this time, I was now into having hired Steve for a year.
5:50
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was in.
5:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, okay.
5:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And I started to learn about service and I stayed on that path for a very long time until I clicked.
6:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And I grew tremendously from it.
6:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And having Steve is my coach not only had me learn how to serve, but he was also a role model for me because he lived
6:20
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you said?
6:21
[SPEAKER_03]: He walked his own talk.
6:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was on the receiving end of service from Steve.
6:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So I had a masterful coach coaching me.
6:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And my life started changing.
6:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it changed how I coached.
6:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I wrote a book called Living Service, The Journey of a Prosperous Coach, which came from my first ten years of the struggle I was with Steve.
6:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And it just
6:47
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, continue to grow and learn and I'm forever grateful to this guy.
6:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's how I got to where I got to.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a wonderful story.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing it.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: When you say it clicked, can you tell us about that moment for you?
7:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it wasn't a moment.
7:04
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you're talking about service like when it started to click, it was, it was an ongoing series of insights
7:15
[SPEAKER_03]: screw ups like I used to say epic failures wins and it was really starting to understand that it wasn't so much a strategy to get a client it started out that way like do this get that but it then turned into a way of being.
7:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I really learned was, yeah, I was running this business and it needed to be profitable in order for me to continue it.
7:41
[SPEAKER_03]: But I started to get that service was completely getting the focus off me to the point where the ego Melissa, the focus on me just kind of faded into the background.
7:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, all it was was about the person who had a project they wanted to work on, a problem that they wanted to solve, somebody to listen to them.
8:03
[SPEAKER_03]: and that for me was a major shift.
8:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was on that individual.
8:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you do that enough and you truly deeply care without a concern about what you're going to get.
8:15
[SPEAKER_03]: You start to fall in love with people because you get there you too.
8:21
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's, that was it.
8:23
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a series of learnings and then just a willingness for me to keep staying in the game.
8:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Not sitting back and
8:33
[SPEAKER_03]: thinking about it and creating philosophy, but being in action, which is what opened up for me.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
8:42
[SPEAKER_01]: In living service, you talk about how service became more than a strategy.
8:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It became who you are.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you walk us through that transformation?
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: What ship did you internally?
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And how does that impact the way you coach and lead today?
8:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
8:58
[SPEAKER_03]: So the shift really, the biggest one was getting the focus off me.
9:03
[SPEAKER_03]: which allowed me to be in that other person's world really.
9:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was the biggest shift.
9:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And then what really started to happen, my description of what changed inside of me, it was almost like the story of the Grinch who stole Christmas, you know, the people in Houvelle, and then it's hard grew three times at size.
9:29
[SPEAKER_03]: That's really what happened for me over time.
9:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So I really saw that service was about love.
9:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And not love like how we tend to think about love.
9:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, oh, I should be this or I should sacrifice or that kind of thing.
9:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a way of being that really deeply cared for somebody else.
9:54
[SPEAKER_03]: and was in service to them.
9:56
[SPEAKER_03]: So as a leader and a coach for people who are inside organizations, whether it's for profit or not profit, for entrepreneurs or you know, just growing their own business.
10:08
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really about I am not there to be their friend.
10:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not there to get approval or to be liked or to get the pad on the back.
10:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm there in service to them because I deeply am committed to what they are committed to and I truly do love them and I want for them what they say they want and from that place it's really a relationship
10:40
[SPEAKER_03]: like you don't have with anybody else.
10:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a willingness to say things that might be challenging for somebody to hear.
10:48
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't mean I hit them over the head with it, but it means, you know, I do ask permission, but we're going to go to those places.
10:56
[SPEAKER_03]: So it changes how I interact with people.
10:59
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a social exchange.
11:01
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really deeply loving exchange.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So that's how it shifted for me.
11:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, it wasn't like one moment where we're talking fifteen years plus and then everything prior to that.
11:15
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing, Melissa.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: At the IN Team Series, we talk a lot about responsible influence.
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you define responsible influence and how does that show up in the way you serve your clients in your community?
11:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was really curious about that idea of responsible influence that hasn't been something I really thought about.
11:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I was thinking, oh, you know, but I want to I want to change it and I want to call it radical influence.
11:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And the reason is because for me, thinking about being responsible and my influence is that I want to be a hundred percent responsible for my internal experience.
12:01
[SPEAKER_03]: and how I see the world, the people, situations, my community, what's going on, my family, my friends.
12:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's really easy to look at somebody and have an opinion about how they should be and what they should be doing.
12:22
[SPEAKER_03]: and what they need to change.
12:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I was saying earlier, it's super easy to do that.
12:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I'm missing when I do that is I'm losing sight of the fact that I need to do my own work.
12:37
[SPEAKER_03]: So whatever I'm seeing is somebody else, it's happening over here.
12:42
[SPEAKER_03]: So when I think about how does it, how does being a responsible influence impact how I coach?
12:51
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think about my clients.
12:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And if I've got somebody who's challenged to wear their business, say they're feeling really stuck, maybe frustrated.
13:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm listening to them and we're having this coaching conversation.
13:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I get off and I discover I'm feeling frustrated with them that they're stuck.
13:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And where are they stuck again?
13:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to slow that down and I want to look at what is my equivalent?
13:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to do the work for me, forget the person over here.
13:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Whatever's going on over here is literally creating an individual in that moment.
13:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So I want to start looking at, where am I stuck in my business or in my life?
13:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Or in this situation, where am I stuck with this client?
13:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Where am I frustrated?
13:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I can do is, and I can really start to see, well, I'm stuck in my business.
13:48
[SPEAKER_03]: There's two people I would love to invite to a conversation, but I'm like, gosh, it's too scary.
13:52
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, what I used to call the past pedestal people.
13:56
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm stuck.
13:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not taking action.
14:01
[SPEAKER_03]: with this client because I don't know what to do for her because he's so, she's so stuck.
14:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I really slow down and look at where it's happening for me, it's what I said earlier, I am that individual.
14:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And now instead of meeting frustration with frustration or what can I do to get them unstuck, I now have a deep compassion for this person, because I'm doing the same thing.
14:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So to me, that's responsible influence.
14:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So now when I come back to the conversation, Jen, it's going to be really different.
14:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be, tell me about your frustration.
14:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it still happening?
14:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell me what you think you need to shift.
14:42
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you need from me?
14:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to look very different.
14:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And now I'm going to be relating to them.
14:48
[SPEAKER_03]: rather than attempting to impart my wisdom or my sage advice or try to control an outcome.
14:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And that changes the game tremendously with clients.
14:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's what happens with clients.
15:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And then a hundred percent responsible or responsible influence in my community has really come about on the last two years.
15:13
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm now sitting on the advisory board for this organization called Rebels for Peace.
15:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's a nonprofit in Chicago.
15:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's mission is to get ahead of the violence.
15:26
[SPEAKER_03]: that occurs in our communities.
15:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So it provides a social emotional learning program for kids in under the resource areas on the South Side of Chicago.
15:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And what makes it so unique is that the mentors, the teachers for these kids are young adults from the same communities who are under own healing journeys.
15:50
[SPEAKER_03]: So these are beautiful, eighteen to twenty-five-year-old leaders from the same communities.
15:55
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're helping these four through eighth graders.
15:59
[SPEAKER_03]: They're teaching them.
16:01
[SPEAKER_03]: They have a twenty five week program.
16:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not just a two hour after school one time hit.
16:07
[SPEAKER_03]: They're literally in it and living in it.
16:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's make peace cool.
16:14
[SPEAKER_03]: It's have mentors who these kids see are as relatable.
16:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you're me, you know.
16:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it's being in this program with them and helping them learn how to have emotions, even if they feel like they're not in control, how to navigate their thinking, how to make their mind and ally.
16:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And that responsible influence for me came when I really noticed all I was doing was mental hand-wringing and worry about the state of our world and the violence in our world, and yet I wasn't taking any action.
16:55
[SPEAKER_03]: So the very thing that I was consumed with mentally and doing nothing about
17:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I finally looked at that and thought, why when I want to support this program, they're doing for these kids, our kids, the next leaders, they're doing what I'm doing with my clients and in my own life.
17:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's a great example.
17:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm thrilled to be a part of that.
17:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And I do want to say if anybody's listening to this and they want to know more contact me.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like a wonderful organization that is having a positive or responsible influence on the youth of Chicago.
17:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience where you felt you made a positive impact on someone's life?
17:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
17:43
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I.
17:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to say, I can't necessarily take responsibility for the positive impact, but what I can tell you is that over time I realize my job as a coach is to create a context for someone where they'll step up and take more responsibility for their lives and whatever impact they get to create in their life.
18:11
[SPEAKER_03]: This particular client was, and still is, the high achieving senior executive, C-suite.
18:23
[SPEAKER_03]: She came into the coaching because she had three buckets.
18:28
[SPEAKER_03]: She wanted to work on three goals.
18:30
[SPEAKER_03]: She was very specific, very strategic, super clear, here they are, communication team building, whatever it was.
18:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're sitting there and because I know the power of coaching and I know that if we limit what we're gonna work on, we're gonna miss something good stuff.
18:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And in the beginning, I had simply said to her, because we haven't here together, would you be open to adding a fourth goal or a fourth bucket?
19:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Her response was, yeah, sure, what is it?
19:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And I said, I don't know.
19:07
[SPEAKER_03]: It's all the stuff we would miss if you when I just stayed laser focused on these three areas.
19:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to give her credit.
19:15
[SPEAKER_03]: She went along with it.
19:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there's this level of openness and honesty and willingness that happens when you get into a really great coaching relationship.
19:26
[SPEAKER_03]: we coached and in came the penalty that we're impacting her in terms of her own life and how she showed up at work.
19:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And we just really had a deep dive in so many areas.
19:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And if our time together, I do a close-out session.
19:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And I asked people to bring in what did you see shifted?
19:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Was there anything that surprised you those kinds of questions?
19:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And she came in and she said, I want to let you know what I really got from this coating.
19:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I go, okay, well, like, well, is that film yet?
19:57
[SPEAKER_03]: She told me I was sitting in a board meeting and a bunch of us are talking and we're going over some of the agenda items.
20:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And she said, I'm sitting there and I hear this laugh and I think to myself, who is that?
20:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And she said, Melissa, it was me.
20:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I got my laugh back.
20:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, wow, she goes, no, I'm serious.
20:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't heard myself like that in ages.
20:29
[SPEAKER_03]: She has the sweetest laugh.
20:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought, wow, that ended up in the fourth bucket.
20:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was the transformative outcome of a year of coaching together.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: What a beautiful story.
20:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Melissa, you've said that your coach has told you the truth and helped you see that your beliefs weren't facts.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That takes courage on both sides.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you build that kind of trust that allows you to serve someone honestly and lovingly?
21:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
21:07
[SPEAKER_03]: It does take a lot of courage in the beginning and it hurt a lot.
21:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, I stayed with it.
21:19
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have a coach who does her own work, you've got it made.
21:27
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have somebody who's sitting there and telling you what you should do.
21:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And here's a strategy.
21:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not in my world.
21:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not goal line coaching.
21:35
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so line coaching.
21:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So you build trusted relationships as a coach by doing your own work and seeing how you're just like the other individual that you're coaching.
21:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And then also having a willingness to continue to get coached yourself, not just self coaching but getting coached.
21:58
[SPEAKER_03]: The other thing that creates a trusted relationship is a willingness to reveal yourself to the client
22:08
[SPEAKER_03]: to say, what's happening from me over here, what was that?
22:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And our last conversation, I felt like I totally missed the mark.
22:18
[SPEAKER_03]: What didn't we get?
22:19
[SPEAKER_03]: What happened?
22:21
[SPEAKER_03]: To be able to reveal not to turn it into my therapy session or throw myself under the bus, but to relate to the other individual.
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you do that, and you become more human as the coach, the trust goes up.
22:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And just to listen to somebody, not always have to have the answer.
22:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if I don't have the answer, it's like, I don't have the answer.
22:42
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think we should go?
22:44
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what creates it.
22:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And then a willingness to share with somebody what you see that you think will create some level of insider breakthrough for them.
22:57
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's how you do it.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That's such a great advice.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so what message are words of encouragement?
23:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to share with our listeners, especially those who want to make a difference in their lives, their careers?
23:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything worth doing is going to require you to transform yourself, anything.
23:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything worth worth doing.
23:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't throw the word transform or transformation around lightly.
23:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I truly mean
23:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you willing to head in the direction of the things that are uncomfortable?
23:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I even say are you willing to follow your fear?
23:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Not avoid it, not think that, oh, that's information that I should go over this way.
23:42
[SPEAKER_03]: No to really face it and move into it, because it's a portal to greater freedom.
23:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I think of, love this quote, it's Eric Fram, have you heard of him?
23:53
[SPEAKER_03]: years and years ago, he wrote, man's main purpose in life is to give birth to himself to become what he potentially is, which is super cool.
24:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what you want to do if you want to make an influence.
24:07
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to start here.
24:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'd say that go ahead of the direction of your own fear and be willing to explore because there's so much beyond that.
24:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And the other thing I would say, and this took me a long time, asked for help.
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Get a coach, get a mentor, find somebody to take the journey with you, find a bunch of people to take the journey with you.
24:32
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have to go at a loan.
24:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you have somebody helping you, the journey is more dual, you're less likely to bail on yourself.
24:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're just gonna learn a lot about yourself as you go along.
24:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So those would be the two things that I would say for anybody who's wanting to grow their leadership and make a difference.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That is great advice.
24:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Melissa, thank you for reminding us that service is a strategy and it's truly a way of being.
25:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Your journey is a powerful example of what happens when we lead from love and show up in truth and focus on real human connections.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do so?
25:17
[SPEAKER_03]: They can email me and my website is MelissaFordCoaching.com or reach me at MelissaFordCoaching.com.
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We will add that information in the show notes.
25:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today.
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful for you.
25:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Greg.
25:36
[SPEAKER_03]: It's great being here.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And to our listeners, thank you for spending a few moments of your day with us on daily influence.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, you don't have to wait for a title or a stage to be a leader, your influence starts and how you treat people, how you show up and how you serve.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, thank you for having a positive influence.
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've heard something today that moved you, share it with someone who needs to hear it too.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.