Spread your sunshine with Melanie S. Griffin

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone. How are you on this beautiful, beautiful day? It is what, the last week of October? We're going to get into losing some sleep so we can gain some darkness. And overall, we're going into the holiday season, you name it. We have a lot of transitioning going on right now. And as a result of that, I just want to thank so many of our new listeners who have found us throughout this last several months looking for you know, looking for some change-up, looking for something new, something different. And I appreciate you joining in and listening to one or many of our episodes. And be sure to check out all the Shedding the Bitch episodes. We cover, you know, subject matters across the board as it pertains to your work and life. So you can always go to ballifiercoaching.com Radio Podcast and find all of our episodes there, as well as on BlogTalkRadio, iTunes or Apple Podcasts, and anywhere you get your podcast streamed. So be sure to check out all of our episodes. For our ongoing loyal listeners and watchers, because a lot of times we do video record our episodes, thank you so much for your loyalty, for your likes, your subscriptions, your follows, your comments, your ratings. And please be sure to be doing that each week with our episodes. It provides us great feedback and lets us know that we are hitting the mark of what it is that you would like to hear or watch and what topics you'd like us to cover, as well as it's great for other people to be able to see and hear what, what comments, what feedback you would have so they can consider joining in on the party here in the Shedding the Bitch community.

But today you're in for a great, great great, uh, program.

I am talking to Melanie S. Griffin, and we'll get into an introduction with her. She's with Spread Your Sunshine, which right there tells you kind of what an awe-inspiring conversation this is going to be. Lastly, I just want to say that this particular episode is being brought to you by North Georgia Tax Solutions. They provide full-service financial and tax services to small to corporate-sized clients all over the country. So be sure to check out NGTaxSolutions.com and tell Debbie Snelling, who heads it all up, that I said hello and that I sent you. All right, so let's get into this conversation with Melanie, and I want to open it up with a message she actually provided for you, for the listeners and viewers, and it just is all inspiring and will get you right in on the conversation.

To the amazing trailblazer reading this message, at some point in our lives, an estimated 70% of people experience imposter syndrome, the feeling of being discovered as a fraud for not actually deserving our job and/or our accomplishments. But you, awesome summit attendee, you were made for more. We will talk about why you are fantastically qualified and uniquely talented to be fabulous you, strategies for recognizing and changing negative behavior, and best practices for channeling your best you and empowering others to do the same. I mean, come on, what a great message. I mean, aren't you like beat your chest and ready to just rock this day and actually this whole week of Mastering Your Goals to Riches? But let me formally introduce Melanie before bringing her in. Melanie S. Griffin, Esq., Esquire, is a triple graduate of Florida State University. Her entrepreneurial skills were honed for 13 years at a prominent Florida corporate law firm where she served as law clerk and then attorney from 2006 to 2019, the last 5 years of which she was an equity shareholder and the managing partner of the Tampa office and Shoemaker, Loop, and Kendricks, LLP. Melanie has been recognized as Florida's Most Productive Young Lawyer, Super Lawyers Rising Star, Business Litigation, Florida Trend Legal Elite, and so many more. Despite the foregoing achievements, like many women, for several years Melanie struggled with the fear of failure, inability to believe in herself, perfectionism, and additional issues related to what is often referred to as imposter syndrome. Thankfully, as a result of significant mentorship and the desire to learn to be her best self, Melanie proactively changed her negative behavior and became determined to help others do the same. In 2017, she created Spread Your Sunshine, her then passion project committed to empowering others with the confidence to break through the glass ceiling and achieve their dreams. Melanie's success shining— I'm sorry, Melanie's success shining others through the glass ceiling to their most audacious dreams were celebrated through her receipt of numerous awards: the TBBJ Businesswoman of the Year, Angie Joseph Excellence in Mentorship in 2016, GSWCF Women of Promise Award in 2017, FSU Inspire Award in 2017, Florida Bar YLD Outstanding Woman Lawyer of Achievement Award and Florida Bar SSFS Mentor of the Year Award in 2019. Melanie is happiest, aw, when she is building up all those around her, including her husband Mike, son Maverick, and golden lab Molly. You can go to spreadyoursunshine.com to learn more about Melanie. So Melanie, I loved your introduction and I loved your message, and I definitely needed to make sure everyone also got the benefit of, um, of hearing it, because when I first received it, I just—

it just kind of like, ah, yeah, it was awesome.

But I, I do need to first ask you to kind of take us back a little bit, because I think a lot of us, um, We know what impostor syndrome looks like or sounds like or feels like. We may not experience it ourselves, or we may not be aware that we're aware.

Yeah, absolutely.

What did you feel— before we dive into other things, what did you feel like? How did it impact you emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally when you were starting to feel that nudge of impostor syndrome?

So for me, I may be like some of the high achievers in your audience, is that I don't have the typical kind of imposter syndrome. And I think at least the two misnomers that are around about the syndrome are number one is that it is associated with women. It, in fact, if you look at the research, impacts men more than women. But it just, you know, is typically associated with us because the way we think about it and talk about it. And number two, imposter syndrome manifests in at least 5 different ways. And so the most typical way you hear about is that I am not enough. That's what I hear people say, that I don't deserve my riches, I don't deserve my accomplishments, I don't deserve my job, I feel like a fraud if I'm here. Me personally, I never thought I had imposter syndrome until 2016, and the reason it manifested in 2016 is not because anything about me or my personality changed, but instead what happened was that I was at a conference where for the first time a lack of confidence or imposter syndrome was talked about as wanting to be a perfectionist. And I never equated that desire to be a perfectionist with a lack of confidence or imposter syndrome. And in fact, it can be one of the ways it manifests. So the way I always like to joke about it is this, is that if you were to say to me, you know, Mel, I think you should apply for this award, I would think, oh yeah, I'm absolutely deserving to apply for this award because of my accolades and accomplishments. What I would simultaneously think is there's no way in heck I'm going to actually win this award. There's got to be so many more fabulous people out there. I'm going to be embarrassed. I'm going to embarrass myself, my family, whatever. And so that's something I've worked very hard over the last several years to change. But to your point, I love that you brought up the fact that it's not just the feeling that you shouldn't apply for it or have it at all.

Right. Well, and so as you started recognizing that, because I'll get the— I'll get people to say, people don't change, you know, you, you know, you people don't really change. And, you know, the fact that I can go from insecure to a very confident, empowered woman, you know, that's just such a leap. And I'm like, no, it's not, it's not. So what did— what steps did you take before getting into kind of the work that you do? But what kind of steps did you personally feel that you needed to take in order to get over that and to recognize that, yes, you could earn it and you do deserve you deserve it and you just need to keep going after what it is that you want.

Sure. I think at least 2 things to get people started is one is you have to commit to doing the hard work. That there are so many people that want change or want something different in their lives and that is great, but if you don't actually put one foot in front of the other and take baby steps towards change, then you are absolutely right. You are not going to change. 2 is recognizing that this is just like trying to lose 5 pounds. And what I mean by that is I oftentimes will ask people when I am doing a keynote, I'll start by saying, you know, who in the audience has tried to lose 5 pounds? And most of us will say we've done that like, you know, multiple times in our lives. And then I'll say, how many of you have tried to lose at least 5% of your negativity about yourself or others? And almost no one raises their hand. And so there's really no difference that if you've committed to losing 5 pounds, you know what that It takes a change in diet. It takes exercise. It takes a change in mindset, maybe getting the bad food out of your house. This is the same thing, is that if you are going to change your mindset and make tangible changes, you are right. You are not just going to flip on a switch. But if you take the steps and practice, then over time, 6, 8, how many ever weeks later, you are going to start seeing those incremental changes. Finally, I would applaud you for being here this morning because you are doing it by being here with Bernadette Boas, all day and all week with your summit, is that A lot of it is education, is that you may not know what to do. And so once you recognize the issue, then figuring out who can help me, who can help mentor me, what can I learn is going to be fundamental to making those changes.

Absolutely. Oh my gosh, you hit on all the, all the great points. Spread your sunshine. It just warms your heart the minute you hear it. So here you have this, you know, this big legal career and all these awards and And let me tell you, everybody, her bio is so much longer with all the awards and recognitions that she's had. I had to cut it down a lot. But so with all of that, and recognizing that you, you yourself wanted to make some changes and some shifts in your life, tell us about how Spread Your Sunshine came about, and then how you are helping to mentor and support other people. To kind of be a leader that they're capable of being.

Absolutely. When I first started working on Spread Your Sunshine, I would say that I had two initial goals. One was to really brand, and what I have found is that was absolutely effective. I would say almost from day one is that I love loving on people and showing appreciation and gratitude. And whenever I was doing that prior to Spread Your Sunshine, I was using someone else's tchotchke of the day. And so what I What I mean by that is maybe one year I love toffee, and maybe one year I love, you know, Goals to Riches or whatever it was. And so I'm sending out their stuff. And so I thought to myself, I'm certainly not doing this to bring about notoriety myself. But if I could just streamline what it is in the way that I am showing gratitude, so that when someone sees this memento, they know Mel's really cheering me on today. I thought I would have accomplished something. And I absolutely did. I mean, I love not only getting that message out into the world, and people know what I mean when I say, you know, keep shining brightly, Spread Your Sunshine, but then reciprocally, I get so many momentos of people cheering me up with yellow and orange and sunshine, and there's just something about it that just brings that, you know, happiness into your life. So that was certainly my first goal. My second goal was that I love mentoring and it had become basically a second full-time job. And so my goal was to try to streamline my message so that I could impact more people and basically scale it. So not continue to work one-on-one, which I absolutely loved and will continue to do, but I knew that I could not do that for everybody. And so if I was going to, at the end of the day, provide basic information for people who have the same or similar questions, and then once we got past that initial information for people who wanted more, then get to the one-on-one specific questions, that Spudger Sunshine could do that. And as I like to tell people, for at least 22 months, I did not accomplish that second goal. Um, that when you went to the Spread Your Sunshine website, it literally said website coming soon. I kind of regret my choice of words coming soon. I guess that's very much, you know, up to the author. But what I loved about that too, and it goes hand in hand with giving up perfection, is that if you had told me that it would take me over 2 years to, or approximately 2 years to launch my project, I would not have put it out into the world. I would have kept it to myself and I probably would not be sitting here with you you today, Bernadette. But because I put something imperfect out in the world, no one else knew it was imperfect other than me. They couldn't see what was in my head. And it took off like wildfire. It became just something that grew and people were willing to grow with me, even if none of us, including me, knew what it was at first. And then beyond that, it eventually did become that. So now if you go to the Spread Your Sunshine website, you will see consistent communications and blog articles on imposter syndrome and failure and success and mindset. And that's okay, because I don't think that would have ever happened if I hadn't just put my little baby out there in the world a couple of years ago.

It's so true. And I think, you know, career professionals as well as business owners need to hear that. You know, there's all these statistics about the fact that women wait until they're like 70 or 80% ready before they ask for an opportunity, you know, or an advancement or a raise, whereas men only like 30 to 40%, they feel that they have to be ready for something before they ask for it. So I think that's a great lesson for as we kick off this awesome day, because of the fact that, you know, imperfect perfection is what you want to go after, people. You know, and do what, do what Melanie's doing and just do it and put your baby out there. Because no one else knows that it's not, you know, the way that you want it to be. Only you know that.

Yes.

Love that. I love that. Now you talk about how failure is one's superpower, and I love this. So help us understand how failure is someone's superpower.

I think that you have to be willing to put yourself out there and try. And so for me, talking about the fact that Spread Your Sunshine was quote unquote a failure, depending upon how you analyzed it for the first several months, it was in the world. It was, you know, imperfect to other people. But again, I would not have been on this journey and gotten to the place that I am if I had not been willing to try. And so a couple of things I like to keep in mind is that, again, you will not move forward if you don't know. An example that I like to give is that part of— and this one always makes me laugh, and you're going to definitely think I'm a blonde on a Monday morning, and that's okay. There's a statistic that, you know, I think it's something like 95% of small businesses fail within the first year. And if those don't fail, I think it's 50% of those make it in the second year. And one of the things that honestly gave me a lot of solace was that the reason a lot of those businesses fail initially is that they're overfunded, which I know a lot of us are thinking, man, I wish I had that problem, but maybe you don't. And here's why. Because, because they're overfunded, they don't take their product or service to market soon enough to get feedback. And therefore, by the time they do, they've been blown through that capital that they were sitting on and now they've released something to the world that doesn't work. And so the example I would give is that one of my favorite things about Spread Your Sunshine is that we make the stationery called Shine It Forward. And so you might be able to see there's a smaller card on top of a larger card and that you fill out the larger card. And let's say I say, hey Bernadette, you know, thanks for bringing you on the show. It really made my morning. And by the way, it has, this has been awesome way to start the week. And then I enclosed a small— the smaller card, and it says, who in your life shines brightly? Well, in order to enclose a smaller card in a larger card, it has to be smaller. That did not initially occur to me. And so I initially printed all the stationery the same size, and it wasn't until I tried to start using it that I realized, like, hey, wait a minute, I need to actually have one that is smaller than the other one. And so I had to essentially double my order from day one. And thankfully, I had ordered in a small quantity. I hadn't, you know, mass-produced overseas because I was overly confident in my idea. But imagine if I had, imagine if I had spent all of my money on that initial run and then found out the product didn't even work. So I think just the little things of putting yourself out there, and I won't go on, I want to give you a chance to comment here too, Bernadette Boas, but I also think that failure makes you more empathetic and understand others' journeys, which makes you a better leader. And conversely, people connect better with you because although everybody loves a winner, the people I feel like most times with whom we most connect are the people people that had to be helped carried over the finish line. So I'll kind of put a pin in that and see what your thoughts are too.

No, no, no, I love that. And this is all about you and, and what you, you know, your experiences and your story, uh, you know, can, can, you know, shine a light for other people. Because I know a number of, of our attendees are sitting there going, oh, I can relate to that, I can relate to what you just said, you know, I could relate to what you just said as far as actually a number of things.. But, you know, that last one, you know, throwing, throwing things out there, really not paying attention and not expecting that things will change, you know, in how you're going about things. So you just want to be careful along the way, but you want to put yourself out there. You want, you want to, you want to do it. So no, no, no. Now I want you to continue on the, on the idea of failure gives you empathy, which makes you a better leader. So, you know, can you kind of expand on that as far as attributes of a leader are things that people aren't really comfortable with, but yet that's what makes a great leader, such as failure?

Right. I think a big part of being a leader is being able to empower the team around you. And one of the ways I was lacking in that earlier in my career is that I just turned 40, just celebrated the big 4-0. And so depending upon when you have had your first quote unquote quote, failure, or really hardship in life. And for some people, fortunately or unfortunately, that comes early. You lose a parent or you have things unexpected maybe happen with your health. But for many people, I think a typical fact pattern is you are successful when you're growing up and you go to college. And then if you're successful there, you either enter the workforce and continue on a successful trajectory, or maybe you go to grad school. And point being is it's much later in life. When you ever actually experience any type of failure. And so for me, around the time that I started Spread Your Sunshine, I had a series of completely unrelated incidents that no one could have anticipated, myself included, because they weren't connected. It was like my grandfather, who was like my dad my whole life, was diagnosed with cancer, entered into hospice, and died. And then I found one of my best friends dead, and I was having significant IT shuttles at work. I mean, none of those things are connected, right? But they kept coming. And because of that, for the first time in my life, I was unable to perform professionally as I was used to performing. And I had to use up a lot of that bank account that I had built up for so many years and cash in those chips because I, again, just wasn't able to meet commitments and fulfill them in the way that I was used to doing. And also had no game plan for that because I was always used to making deadlines, operating at full cylinders. And so not only that gave me a piece of humble pie, which is great. And it's not that I didn't experience any failure. I don't want to leave you to believe that. But in terms of this magnitude and what it did, I read a book by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg called Option B, and it really helped me because it talked about what happens when your Plan A is no longer an option or no longer working for you and you are left with Option B. And it came about as a result of a death. Of Cheryl's husband's unexpected passing away. And now she has option B. She's raising 2 kids, no husband, not the plan, but she has to make it work. And one of the things that that book highlighted is that at least 50%, if not higher, of people who experience some form of PTSD, whatever that may mean, after a car crash or again, after a significant loss, it doesn't have to be, you know, death or, you know, service in the military or whatever it may be, but whatever's really significant in your life that happened, there was a tragedy, that at least 6 months afterwards, over 50% of people see a silver lining and enjoy life more. And so for me, that's 100% what happened. And not only do I enjoy life more and want to give back, but then going back to being a leader and tying this together, I was much more empathetic to the needs of my team and better able to hold people accountable and also give myself and others grace and know when to do so. And I don't think that I could have ever had that ability to connect with people as authentically and to empower others and hold them accountable and give grace if I hadn't been through all of those trying experiences myself.

Sure. Well, and when you say 6 or 8 weeks later, you know, you're starting to feel, you know, a little bit of sunshine in your life again. Wouldn't you say that there's also a degree of how open someone is that when they do face, you know, in your case tragedy, but sudden, sudden shifts, a whole change from plan A to plan B, how open they are to wanting to kind of get out of the minutia, you know, to get out of the hurt, to get out of the pain and the disappointment in order to move forward. So some people take a long period of time and others kind of say, nope, I got to get back to, you know, I got to get back on the horse. Is there something in there that makes you, you know, kind of you unique? Or are you one of those people that said, no, I need to, just like Cheryl, nope, I gotta just put a new plan in place?

Well, and you know what I loved about the book is that it highlighted that usually, like, so you Some people, like you said, are rock stars and, you know, 6, 8 weeks out the gate. I think for most people it would take at least 6 months. And one of the things that she charted in her journey is that at first she was giving herself a really bad time because like I was talking about, you can't perform like you're used to performing or you can't do the things that you think you can do. And so she actually started a journal where she would celebrate her wins for the day. And at first her win for the day was literally making a cup cup of tea. And she thought that paled in comparison to the Sheryl Sandberg that we all may know as the Facebook giant. But when she compared what she had done the day before, it truly was a win. And she forced herself to celebrate that. And that is how she healed. She took those little wins and just continued to build on them and build on them. And Bernadette, I think that's what you're saying is that, you know, are you going to get out of bed and feel like, you know, empowering everyone around you the next day? Absolutely not. You're probably gonna feel like staying there, depending upon what your symptoms are and how you process things. But over time, if you continue to put one foot in front of the other, I love this saying, if you continue to put one foot in front of the other, at some point it feels like walking. And that's so true. If you just keep going, at some point you feel like you're walking again.

Right.

Oh, I love that. Yes, I love that as well. And we all need to walk and sooner or later you might be running.

You might be, yeah, you might be running a marathon.

You know, you might be sprinting, or you might be like me and you're just kind of logging along.

Either way, you're, you're getting to the finish line, but at least you're moving and getting to the finish line.

Exactly. So speaking of, you know, kind of being in a, in a headspace to where, you know, a lot of things are happening and a lot of things are pulling you down, and yet you're working your way to kind of lift yourself up, how can we kind of quiet, quiet the negative self-talk that we often have going on between our ears? What strategies would you have in regards to that?

I think at least one is tell it to stop it. And I know that that sounds so simple, but sometimes people ask me, you know, how did you reduce stress in your life? How did you overcome, you know, perfectionism? And one of the things is that for me, I had that auto loop on in my head, you know, that always was, you know, you didn't do this or you didn't do that or, you know, think about this. Finally, one day I just said, stop it. And it's certainly not that easy, but I do think you have to kind of take control and just decide, I am not going to engage in this behavior any longer. Two is that I would recommend listening to podcasts, audiobooks, attending conferences like this, because going back to that idea of failure and the fact that it is an awesome thing. To tell a quick story, one of the things that I loved was that I heard this story one time about Nastia Liukin, who was this famous gymnast. Gymnast, and she wanted to become the first woman to be the first all-around champion 2 times in a row at the Olympics. And so she achieves that in her first Olympics. She gets the gold all-around medal, goes to the second trials in the US, and on her first event, she falls flat on her face. Not the colloquial use of the phrase, literally the girl falls flat on her face, right? And I think about that for a couple of reasons. So number 1 is that I often think about athletes whenever I'm having a bad day and think, think about how they are willing to quote unquote fail, lose a game in front of thousands, if not millions of people, and to be heckled. And does that stop them from getting up and going out there again? It does not, not the good ones. And so back to Nastia, she decides to get up and finish the routine. And in that moment, she knew that not only was the Olympic trial over, she wasn't going to succeed in terms of her dream, but she also was at the end of her gymnastics career. Classic's career. Her body was now too old. That was her last opportunity to have participated in the Olympics and in the sport. And so she gets up though, she finishes routine anyway, and it was the first and only standing ovation she received. And so for me, whenever I start to hear that negative self-talk about, you know, you're not good enough or whatever, I think to myself, yes, this may be a challenging time, but girl, you are in good company, right? If all of those other people and If black teens that are less than half my age have the gumption to get up and keep going, then certainly you can too. And then that's when I rely on the stories that I've heard about the Nastias and think, okay, how did they do it? What did they do to put the next step forward? And so for me, whenever I start to shift back into negativeville, then I will turn on my podcast. I will turn on my audiobook, my favorite quotes, whatever. And so keeping your favorite mantras around, keeping your favorite quotes around. And my last tip is that if you physically maybe even think about getting a gremlin. So like for instance, for me, I have this little guy sitting here, Mr. Sunshine. You know, he looks really, really happy, right? But if you have something physical and you want to make that like, you know what, Mr. Sunshine, I'm going on a podcast with Bernadette. You negativity, you're going to stay here. You're going to stay back. I'm going to go rock my podcast. Physically even saying goodbye to something I think can be really helpful and it may or may not feel silly, but just even having that mental debate with yourself of, I'm leaving the negativity behind, I'm going on with my day, admitting that you experience it, we all do, but you've got to find ways to leave it behind you.

Yeah, yeah. I love that, say goodbye.

Say goodbye. Yeah.

Say goodbye to what might be, you know, holding you down. Have your mantras. I actually have a little, I guess it's a piece of scripture, that anytime like, you know, I'm having a bad day or maybe I have to get pumped up for a sales meeting or something I don't want to be doing, I just say to myself, if God, God is for me, who could be against me? If God is for me, who could be against me? And it kind of shifts. And I think that's your point with the say goodbye, you know, and, and just kind of push through. But one thing that I love what you said earlier on that touches on this is you said to, you said that we often will focus on losing 5 pounds, but we don't necessarily focus on losing 5% of our negativity. And if, so correct me, you're saying that each and every day we should be focusing on losing, you know, a percentage of our negativity and really kind of taking care of our mindset, not just what we're good at from a skillset perspective. Is that a fair assessment?

100%. And to give you an example, I like to say it's a practice, not a perfection. And so for me, My husband jokes that he says, you know, every once in a while, you sure may spread sunshine everywhere else, but you sure as heck don't spread it at home sometimes. And he's not wrong in saying that. And by the way, we've been married almost 12 years. We have a great relationship. And he's giving me a little bit of tough love, which is what I often give the people with whom I work. And so similarly, whenever I feel myself going towards a negative state of mind, a couple of things I like to think about are One is, who do I want to emulate and who do I not want to emulate? So I, I have very clear pictures of both people in my minds. And when I start to act like the person that I don't want people to think of, then I'll take a step back and I'll take a deep breath and I will think about the other person and think, how can I create that customer experience for everyone who comes into contact with me? And for me, I consider the customer to be everybody in the world. That whether it's a dog, whether it is my son, another child, or whether it truly is a customer, that I want everybody that comes into contact. So I really will, like you said, Bernadette, I'll think about that and visualize what do I want these people to have their experience with me be like? How do I want them to think of me? And then it helps me channel and act accordingly and get back to where I want to be. And that is where I'll leave you with on this tip is it's never too late to start over. Or to say that you are sorry. So, you know, this morning, I know my husband, he was super helpful. I actually am the one that usually sleeps later and he is the one that is up early. So, I said, whatever you do, do not let me sleep past 6:45 AM. I have got to get up and start getting ready to be on Bernadette's show. So, sure enough, you know, he is jiggling me this morning, you know, get up. I am like, no, I need 12 more minutes. He is like, get up. I was kind of grumpy and so I made it a point once I woke up and had my bearings, right? I am like a little bit of caffeine. I texted him. I said, "Hey babe, thanks. I was so appreciative of you getting me up this morning." And when I saw him before I came on your show, Bernadette, he said to me, "I really appreciated your text because I was worried you're going to be mad at me." And think about that. He was going to— I was going to— he was worried I'd be mad at him for doing what I asked him to do and helping to ensure I was prepared. And so recognizing that you weren't the person that you wanted to be in that moment, that's okay. That is going to happen to all of us. No one's perfect. But then recognizing your own behavior behavior and taking corrective action, not only does it put you down the right path for the rest of the day, hopefully I'm in good shape for the rest of Monday, but beyond that, then think about how much better my relationship is with Mike because I acknowledge what he did for me and I acknowledge my own behavior and said thank you and showed him appreciation and gratitude.

Absolutely. Well, and gratitude because you started this conversation with mentioning gratitude and, you know, and how gratitude is what also helped you even establish you know, spread your sunshine, but establish spread your sunshine within yourself, recognizing when you were dealing with imposter syndrome. Love it. Now, being an ex-corporate executive myself, working my way to break the glass ceiling, you, you talk about how to empower, you know, and/or shine others, which I love, you know, through breaking the glass ceiling. So So share more about that with us. And is it an analogy for any aspect of life, not just like the stereotypical corporate glass ceiling?

100%. So I love this meme on Facebook. I think it says something like, "You became a CEO. Did you really want that?" And it's much funnier than I am articulating it here this morning. But point being is that there are so many people who reach, quote unquote, they thought was the pinnacle of their career, only to find out that is not what makes them happy or brings them joy. And so when I talk about shining others through the glass ceiling, what I want you to feel comfortable with, and what I think so many people struggle with, is not owning who you are and being happy with what you have created. And what I mean by that is that let's say that you're the stay-at-home mom, you're always regretting that you're the stay-at-home mom instead of just being present with your kids and recognize the fact that you are rocking mom life. Or conversely, if you have decided to be this corporate, you know, exec, that you're not just celebrating the fact that you're this awesome corporate exec, instead of, you know, more of a parent in the hands-on role. And at some point, I think you have to be happy with your choices, and recognize that you won't always get an A in everything in life at one time. There are seasons, and you might be able to be a more hands-on parent one day, and an exec— and certainly, those are just two aspects of life that we're talking about, right? There are so many others, whether it's civic involvement, church involvement, whatever it may be. But you can only do so many things at once. So appreciating and being happy with what you have, I think, is just such a key appreciation. And then I talk about showing gratitude and shining others through the glass ceiling to achieve whatever it is that hopefully they have set their mind to and are doing and happy with and being present at. Is that I, when I started Spread Your Sunshine, and speaking of, you know, like, I have another one that says, you know, with love and sunshine, your number one fan. This is my favorite. But I love sending out cards, right? So I sent out these handwritten notes. And point being is that all of the messages that Spread Your Sunshine has are celebratory. And so while I certainly think there's a time and place to send a sabitdi card, a thinking of you card, Spread Your Sunshine's niche is celebrating, empowering, and, you know, thinking of others in this other awesome way. And so I would send out these cards, and over 50% of the time what I would get back is a message that said, I am so grateful for your message because I was really doubting myself that day. I didn't think I could make it. I was having the worst week. At first, it was so puzzling to me because I thought to myself, I didn't send the card because I thought you were having a bad time. I sent the card because I thought you were at the top of your game, that you were an absolute rock star. So, to get that message back was just such a good lesson to me that we don't know what others are walking through and we are not in their shoes. A lot of times, although I do think it is very helpful to talk about your journey, journey and makes you a better person in terms of, not just being a better person, like a better person, by being a better person, like you feel better, you're more fulfilled, you can accomplish more because you've expressed those thoughts and work through them. But there are a lot of very good reasons that people feel uncomfortable doing so. And so point being is that we don't know what they're going through, then we haven't celebrated them. And a lot of times it's that note of encouragement that is the catalyst to them believing in themselves and taking the next step. And you don't even know that you did that for them. So I do think we have that power to shine others through the glass ceiling.

Absolutely. I love, love, love that. Absolutely love that. And, you know, just touching on gratitude and that, and that kind of surprise, you know, it's a nice surprise when all of a sudden, you know, out of the blue— I received an email just last week out of the blue that just simply said, I am just glad you are who you are. And I'm like, at first, imposter syndrome, right? At first I was like, what are they talking about? Like, are they talking about me?

Yeah, my email address when I type this. Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.

Now what I— you know, your, um, Spread Your Sunshine is all— is a mentoring type of, of work that you do. Um, what kind of made you really want to focus on, you know, mentoring through these various things that people struggle with?

For me, it was a niche that I realized it was something that I personally had struggled with and that I could connect with people on. And also because the message, a lot of people feel comfortable asking me about things. I feel so honored, but they know that their confidence will not be broken. And that, you know, they'll come to me and say, if they're telling people that they're gay for the first time, or if they're going through a really hard time in their marriage, or if they're looking to adopt and having fertility struggles, whatever it may be, I think things they often wouldn't feel comfortable sharing with other people, then I'm able to create a safe space and a unique bond and help them through those instances. And so for me, that was a real wake-up call when I realized, I guess, at least two things is that one, you know, I enjoyed corporate life and still serve of counsel to a law firm, but I've made space so that that is no longer my full-time job and that I can also then participate in this other realm because while I am a great lawyer, there are thousands of great lawyers. I truly believe that in the space that I work in, in terms of mentoring and helping people build confidence, there are few people who can help do it well, or at least within the community in which I serve. I think that there are a lot of communities that are in need of this. And so I realized that for me, once I saw that that was a way that I could help better the world, that I was called to do it and I had to put time and energy into it.

Yeah. Okay, so that, that last piece that you just said is just like, woo! Because there's people that are listening and watching and they're sitting there saying, you know, they're maybe in a career, they may be working for somebody else, they may be even in their own business and/or even at home, and they do have this like banging in their, in their heart and their, in their stomach going you know, but there's, there's something, I know that there's something that I'm, you know, called to do. So, and taking that leap though is scary for people, you know, is all of a sudden you leaving this big corporate, you know, lawyer legal job, and all of a sudden devoting yourself to what really brings you sunshine. Right. You know, what would you, what would you recommend to those, you know, watching to even do just like, you know, a first step or a second step when they do recognize that they have this, this tug of war with themselves.

Dip a toe in the water. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. And in fact, you're going to think I'm an Adam Grant junkie, and that's okay because he is awesome. He wrote another book separate from Sheryl called Originals that came out in 2016. And I will tell you that I felt guilty every day that I was a lawyer and a spreader of sunshine. I felt guilty that I wasn't quote unquote going all in, as they say, on one or the other, because there is all of that out there that says you really have to be, you know, all in on whatever it is you're doing. And so I thought I'm not doing myself a service or my community by trying to do more than one thing at once. Well, au contraire, I read Originals by Adam Grant. And what he said is that oftentimes, although entrepreneurs are thought of as being risk takers, sometimes they are the most risk-averse people that you will meet. Meet and they more so build a portfolio. And he gave some wonderful examples, including Steven Spielberg, of people who stayed in their quote unquote full-time job for at least 3 to 5 years while pursuing their passion project until they were confident that their passion project truly was a stock that they had invested in correctly, right? That could, you know, build a portfolio. And then that's when they went all in on that. And for some people, maybe that happened sooner. For others, maybe it never happened. Maybe they always stayed in their quote unquote day job, at least, you know, part-time and pursued the passion project as just that, a passion project. But point being is that you can start dipping your toe in the water and building without making such a drastic decision of it's all or nothing. And so I think just getting started is going to give you some ideas of where this journey could take you and whether it's a good fit for you.

That's awesome. And it's— yes. So I, and I hope all of you listening, I hope that if there is a little bit of you know, a pinging going on, butterflies, whatever the case might be. I love that. Just little, little, little baby steps. Dip your toe. Dip your toe. Do you have one last tip that you would want to share with, with our audience?

My last tip would be that going off of the last thing I said regarding you don't necessarily have to go all in on one particular thing, what I would say to that though is for me, when I made the decision to go go dip my toe in the Spread Your Sunshine water and serve as a lawyer, I did say no to a lot of extracurricular things. And the way I thought about it was that no matter how wonderful the opportunity— and it's not that I couldn't support them in a small other way, such as giving a donation or maybe sharing something on social media for them— but if I actually put my time and energy into their project, that I would then be taking away from what I had determined I was great to do.. So don't be afraid once you do make that decision to be discerning about what it is that you say yes to and what you say no to. Because when you say no, I know it can be hard for a lot of us, but remember, no is not a bad word. And I promise you that whenever you look back on what it is that you said no to, I've never had an instance where I regretted it. I was always thankful for the time I had to work on my projects. So no is not a bad word. Use it and help free up your time for what you you are awesome at.

That— yeah, and that is awesome in itself. That is awesome in itself. Thank you so much, Melanie.

It's great to be with you this morning. Yeah, have a great rest of the day, everyone.

Thank you so much. I so appreciate it. Wow, that was awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Melanie. And for all of you, thank you so much for listening. Now, reminder, next week is the first Tuesday of the month, which means it's Ask Me Anything. Post your questions, tell me your story or the challenge that you're having. You can put it on our Facebook page or Twitter, the Shed the Bitch Facebook page or Twitter, and I will definitely get a response to you immediately. But at the same time, we'll bring them right here onto Shedding the Bitch Radio next Tuesday at noon Eastern time. All right, and be sure again, download our episode anywhere you stream your podcast. You can also go to our YouTube channel and be sure that you like, follow, subscribe, give us a rating, give it— leave us some comments about, you know, the show, potential topics, guests, or— and even more. So until next Tuesday at noon Eastern time, have a rich and prosperous week, everybody.

Talk to you soon.

Bye. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.