Episode 338: The Power of the Pause with Melissa Dlugolecki

Welcome back to the Fuel youl Legacy Podcast. Each week we expose the faulty foundational mindsets of the past and rebuild a newer, stronger foundation essential in creating your meaningful legacy. We've got a lot of work to do, so let's get started. As much as you like this podcast, I'm certain that you're going to love the book that I just released on Amazon, Fuel youl, the Nine Pillars to Build a Meaningful Legacy. I wrote this to share with you the experiences that I had while I was identifying my identity, how I began to create my meaningful legacy, and how you can create yours. You're going to find this book on Kindle, Amazon, and, as always, on my website, samnickerbocker.com you think there's too many adorable pets in need of homes? Well, we agree. The Animal alliance wants to reduce the overpopulation out of pure bleeding heart compassion. Check out theanimalalliance.org to help us spay and neuter those little heartbreakers. Welcome back to the Fuel youl Legacy show. And today we have an outstanding guest. I'm so grateful that I got to meet her this last weekend at the Brand X Conference. If you're listening to this, in January, February, March time, there'll be another event that you can sign up for. So if you want to go and meet incredible people like Melissa, then you should reach out to me and we'll make sure you can get in attendance to those. But I'm gonna try and say her last name and then you can go Google it, and that's gonna be the fun part. But Melissa Dlugalecki is, I'm like, speechless. Honestly. She is amazing. When I first heard her speak, I had no idea who she was other than a few zoom calls before and didn't really know what she did. And then when she got on stage and she was speaking, I was like, wow, this is somebody who has a depth to her that I didn't know before. And I want to explore that. I want to find out what made Melissa who she is. And then we got to talk a little bit after and it was just reconfirmed. Absolutely. I want her to share with all of you guys some of these incredible things that she's learned in her life. Some of that is directly related, some of it's not. But she's a business strategist now, and she's got a podcast called Scar Tissue that is just relaunching. And then her book, also called Scar Tissue, comes out next June, so that kind of gives a wink and a nod to some of her past. But what she's really, really expert at is helping people recognize the systems of their business, or maybe the lack of systems in their business, and how to expertly make those systems work to the benefit of whatever it is, your business goals, objectives, and outcomes that you're looking for. How do you systematize? So that's an actual system and, and you can count on it, rather than just hope that it works every day for you, because hoping, not a strategy. And so with that introduction, Melissa, if I miss anything, please fill in all the dots, but go ahead and introduce yourself as far as, like, where'd you come from? What was your early childhood look like? And how did you get to where you are now? What were some of those lessons that you learned that helped you become the incredible mother and woman that you are today?

Thank you so much. Beautiful introduction and thank you for having me. I think it really speaks to the power of events and getting in rooms of people doing, doing cool. I hope it's okay to swear on here. Is that okay? You know, and, and what can come from that? Some of the most expansive opportunities and relationships in my life have come from getting in different rooms and doing different things. It's interesting how often I hear that people discover a depth in me that they didn't anticipate. You know, there's a lot of, A lot of, you know, women in business, whether you call themselves, like boss babes or lady bosses, whatever it is. It's not really how I consider myself at all. In fact, I don't like that term for me. But many times people think I'm just another one of those faces, right? Another, you know, blonde girl from America living in Mexico, building a business online. But that's really not. It's really not. I don't fit that mold, I'll put it that way. And you know, I guess it's probably something that is common for me from a young age is I never really felt like I totally fit in. I felt a bit misunderstood or where's my place? My parents got divorced when I was, you know, very young. And then when my both parents got remarried, I was kind of going back and forth between two different houses. One house had three brothers, half brothers from my mom's new marriage, and the other had a stepsister from my dad's now wife's or then wife's previous marriage. So I was kind of flying on a plane back and forth, and it was like I was in these two different families and kind of felt like I didn't ever fully fit in somewhere. And in hindsight I think my coping mechanism was to try to be perfect, to try to, to try to do everything I was supposed to do, to feel like I fit in and belonged. So you know, I was always been very competitive. I've always loved sports, but competition, now I don't even see competition like self competitive is how I operate. I don't, I don't think we need competition. Like if someone's challenging me to be better. Thank you. But I always love sports. It was a huge part of my upbringing, huge part of my family. And you know, I was, I went to a small town high school. I'm 41 years old. So I was back before social media. I had CDs in my car like a little Discman that plugged in. Some people are like, what is that? Other people are like, oh, I see you girl. And I was, you know, four year class president, I was homecoming queen, I was captain of my teams, I did all the things you're supposed to do. And I went on to college and I was a Division 1 athlete, captain of my team, a scholarship athlete. And then I went into the corporate world and I realized, you know, at a point in my life that I had really fallen into something I think is very common, which was living a life of should. Like this is what you should do. And I made decisions based on what I thought I should do, what society said to do, and it wasn't true. To my authentic self, I've always kind of thought very deeply. I've always questioned norms, but I never outwardly question them. I only inwardly question them and then did what you're supposed to do anyways. So I think the universe has an interesting way of letting you know when you're on the wrong path. And it was like I had a million signs and a million signs and I got another sign and another sign. I kept ignoring them. And you know, I, I left the corporate world because I wanted to teach. I just wanted to help people. It's like I don't care about business. You either care about business or you care about people. So I went on and got my master's in education, specifically around language based learning and social emotional learning, which when I left education I thought that was going to be a wasted degree. But I can't even tell you how instrumental it's been in me being able to consult and coach the way that I do because I understand how people learn and I understand how they learn differently. And the truth is in a world of, you know, Millions of online coaches right now. There are a lot of them that aren't good teachers. And you could be a really good mindset coach, you could be really good at fitness. But if you don't know how to actually convey and to teach that in a way that somebody understands, they're not going to get a transformation. If they don't get a transformation, your business is not going to grow. Right? So while I'm a business strategist, like business strategy 101, get the transformation that you're promising. So for me, being a teacher was really instrumental and athletics was huge. So I was a high school educator, and I was also a high school coach. And then I moved into the role of a high school athletic director at a really large district. 300 people applied for the job. I didn't get it the year before to different district. And, you know, I shared this story, but it's a big part of explaining who I am. I was the runner up at my school that I had been working and teaching at, and they didn't have an athletic director role in place. And I filled a big part of it while they kind of band aided it together. And then they opened up the role again. I applied, thought I was a shoe in. I knew the department, I would work my butt off. I didn't get it. And what I did was I walked up to the person who did, who was from a different district, who had five years of experience already in the role, and I shook his hand and I said, congratulations. And he was nervous because he knew that I was kind of an expected winner, I suppose, from my experience there, you know, hometown favorite type of thing. And I said, congratulations. You don't know the school like I do. You don't know the politics, you don't know the keys, you don't know the custodians. You don't know who you need to know. I do. I know the athletes, I know the players, I know the coaches. I'm going to work as your assistant for free for an entire year, and I want you to let me into every single meeting and everything you possibly can. I want to learn the stuff I don't know. I want to learn the budgeting. I want to learn some of the stuff I don't know. And he was like, okay. And now this is an example of creating a win win. And that's a big philosophy that I live by. And also that there's not competition, because if I saw him as competition, I would have been in like a sore loser. But it was more or less, what's the feedback that I need to learn to get to where I want to go. And the feedback was you are missing a piece of experience that he has. So go get that and go apply. And so that following year I applied, I went up against 300 people and I won and went on to become an award winning athletic director, president of my district. And I thought that was going to be my forever job, Sam. I really did. And I thought that I would be spending Friday nights on football fields for the rest of my life, Thanksgiving day games on football fields. Like big thing where I was. And while I was in that role, my former partner and I, I got pregnant. We got pregnant. It was me though, caring. He did not care to. And it was a beautiful, unexpected surprise, but unexpected. And my daughter was, she was treated at Boston children's hospital for 99 nights of her four month life. And she had four major surgeries. And in a case that was called the catastrophe, as in she wasn't supposed to die, she did die. She took her last breath in my arm, in both of her parents arms. And that changed everything for me. I just, I went back to schools and I was doing my job, but I just didn't care. Like I'm supposed to care about the parent who's upset about playing time. I'm supposed to care when the bus is late, I'm supposed to care when the uniforms don't arrive on time. None of that mattered to me. But the reality was it was my job to care. And so over time, you know, the way things unroll, I, I had started teaching yoga. That had been a big part of my healing journey. I had studied gut health. My daughter died of a sick gut. And I didn't realize I had a sick gut. Right. I was treating all the symptoms, I was carrying around Tums, I was drinking nine Starbucks a day. I was, you know, bloated, I had acne, I, you know, was taking Tylenol and Advil and all of these things to fight symptoms of a sick gut because I didn't know I had a sick gut because this was 2014 when she died. People weren't talking about gut health back then. So naturally what I began to transition into was I became a holistic health coach and a mindset coach. And I realized it was kind of mindset coaching and yoga classes. And then people, students came up to me and they were like, can you coach me? And I was like, yeah, I guess that's a thing, sure. Like 2014, it wasn't this big of A deal. And so that's how I kind of began the transition. And that's really what I found purpose in. It felt like it honored my daughter. I felt like I was more of a mother and I felt very closely connected to her. And I began studying online business strategy. Now, my background had been in business, but I thought you either cared about business or you cared about people. And I realized as much as I wanted to be a really good coach and I really wanted to help people, I wasn't going to be able to pay my rent when I was $100,000 in debt. Burned out coaching people like running on a hamster wheel. So I became dedicated and kind of obsessed with understanding how to effectively build a business. And that business grew to seven figures organically online organically means no paid ads, no bot followers. I only had 4000 followers. Wasn't like I was this influencer who monetized and people began asking me how I did it. And so see a problem solve problem. That's entrepreneurship, like 101 as well. And so I saw a problem and I solved the problem. And I began working with clients in privately and then small group and then large group. And my offerings have evolved. I now own an outsourcing agency done for you because see a problem, solve the problem. A lot of my clients needed to hire. They were their own bottleneck, but they didn't know where to go. They didn't know who to trust. It was easier to do it on their own. And so I now do high level consulting for private clients. I have a group program for newer entrepreneurs. It's my original group program and I have a done for you outsourcing agency where we just do do the things for you. Instead of me coaching you to go do it, I just tell my team to go do it for you. And so it's really cool. So it's been quite an unexpected journey. A lot of lessons and I would say that athletics has been a huge part teaching, being a mom, carrying my daughter's light, and really forming the version of Melissa that sits here on Zoom with you today.

Can't handle the sad sight of homeless pets. The Animal alliance is working to spay and neuter them. So fewer are born into a life of pity. Visit theanimalalliance.org to join our mission of compassionate rejection. Awesome. Thank you so much. We're going to try and keep this to the remainder of the time we have and hopefully if we run out of time, you're willing to have another conversation about this because I have A lot of questions that I think hopefully will draw out the transformation that happens. And some of the sticking points that a lot of people. I know for me, when I. This is a regular occurrence. I. For myself, I spent. When I was. Well, at 12 years old, I already decided that I wanted to get married to a woman. And I know this is like, where is this going? Okay? But I already had decided certain things about my life. I wanted to be in the religion that I'm in. I wanted to live a certain life that I want. I wasn't doing it, you know, I wasn't prepared to do that, but I knew what I wanted at that age. And so I'd been doing a lot of research and reading books and developing myself from relationship books, personal development books, like, everything. So by the time I got married or was dating, I was already 12 years ahead through a personal development cycle where the people I was dating, many weren't on it at all or were just starting. And so there's this natural discrepancy between where somebody's mindset and belief systems are about themselves and about the universe. And then with that discrepancy, that's, like, hard to rectify in and of itself. There's a way of viewing the world of, do people see you as better than them? Do they see the gap between you and them in those circumstances as a positive or a negative gap? So, like, for me, when I see Melissa, you're better at business than I am. I have fine to admit that your ability to see systems and implement them are more advanced than mine are. So when I see that, I don't see that as, like, man, I'm worse than Melissa. I see that as well. I have a lot to learn, and I'm excited to learn that. So I see that gap as an excitement. Some people see that gap as I can't be there. And so how to fill that gap, that's one question I want to talk about. And then the other aspect of this transformation was because I'd been doing it for so long, I wasn't aware of all of the micro decisions that I had made about my life. So then when other people are asking, well, how did you get to where you are? I was unconscious of my transformation. I got to where I was, and I was happy where I was, but I was unconscious. So then I wasn't able to turn around and actually help the next person up effectively, Literally. My wife asked me when we were dating, like, well, how'd you get there? I'm like, I don't know, here's the list of, like, a thousand books I've read. I gleaned it. I don't know where I did it or I don't know which decision I made. I think this identity came from this book. I think this identity came from this book. I think this identity came from this book, but I don't really know. And so that's an interesting thing. You lived a really incredible life. You've been through a lot of different things. I hate that word. A wonderful life.

Okay?

You've lived a great life, an outstanding life, an amazing life. It is credible. It's credible what you've done. And that's what I want to talk about. But how did you. When you did decide to turn around, did you feel like there was that discrepancy, even though your family, your friends, the people who you knew the whole time, they watched you go through this transformation, so they knew you before, they knew you after. Did you feel like there was still people who saw that gap as a negative rather than a positive?

Oh, such a good question. We could jam on this for the whole rest of the time.

I know this is, like. There's too many questions.

Yeah, look, I mean, a couple of important things here. One, if we look statistically at the Olympics, for example, or like the world records, they only get broken because somebody does a certain number and another person says, if they did it, it's possible, and they go relentlessly into do it. And that's why the bar is always raising, because somebody's always showing a new possibility. And so I always like to leverage that. Like, well, if someone can do it, it's possible, so why not me? But you have to be willing to face plant. You have to be willing to not break the record. You have to be willing. But I would rather go all in. Right. I'm very much attached to the process, not the outcome. That has served me very well in my life. And so what is my process? What am I attached to? What are my core values? What am I committed to? But in terms of other people seeing kind of the evolution in the before and after, it's. It's an interesting thing. There are people who stay along the journey with you, and then there are people who take it personally when you evolve. And I see a lot of people get hung up on that, you know, and you can't take it personally when they take it personally. So there are people who remember a version of Melissa that was broken and distraught, who had a very dysregulated nervous system, who Hated business. And they'll still cling to that version of Melissa. Like, well, this can't be real. No, I put in the work. It's real. My results prove it. I've been running programs online as my only income for six, seven years now. So there are going to be people who watch your evolution and think because you started at a certain point, that is your story forever. You gotta like cut cords with all of those. They're gonna be people who want you to go further. But then if you go too far, it's like, well, go, keep going. Like in the beginning, everyone, you know, so many people were cheering me on. Like the underdog, the bereaved mom, the heartbroken woman. It was like, go, go, go. You got this. And then it was like, no, no, no, no, not that far. We don't like you when you're playing that big. And that was very interesting. And then you have people who are along the whole journey and they hold a mirror to your evolution because to your point, sometimes you can't see it because every single day, it's why people in fitness take progress photos because you kind of can't notice it. And you take the progress photos. So you look back and you're like, oh, wow. Yeah. Remember that?

Yeah. So with this, you mentioned this identity of like you're excited by, if somebody can do it, then I can do it. And then that's a value system of yours.

Yeah.

Do you feel like in the group that you grew up with, like people who've known you from birth to wherever you are? I say that hyper. Hyperbolically. Right. Like, but known you for a long time? Do you feel like that identity was a cultural identity around the groups of people that your family was raised around, or was that really an internal identity that you chose to take on?

I think it was an internal identity I chose to take on. My dad has always said to me, no one will outwork you, Melissa. No one will outwork you. And that's just kind of always. I've always been an all in person. In fact, I was actually just talking to my first business coach today, laughing about how much has changed. And I was like, remember this? You remember back when this, you know, and he was like, you've always been a do whatever it takes person. And I think that is something that probably that being a fuel source in me allows me. When I see something to say, I'm going for it. Because I think, Sam, there's also a level of you gotta bet on you. But it's a lot Easier to bet on you if you know you're gonna go all in and, you know, no one can outwork you. It's a lot easier.

Sure. The confidence ability there. So that's how it was. Sounds like it was a little bit environment, a little bit spoken into you from your father. Did your father also speak that same reality into your step siblings? And did they turn out similar? Did they choose into different identities?

Well, so they're my half brothers, but they're really my brothers. I was in the hospital when all three of them were born, so they've known nothing but me as their older sister.

That's right. Good.

Yeah. They're like my favorite humans. I love them so much. If you could. If anyone's listening to me, you can't see my face, but I'm just beaming right now. I love my brothers. Oh, no. My dad. My parents treated us all the same. Same core values. I mean, I think there's very naturally a different way that the oldest child and the youngest child are managed. I think that's nothing to do with being a half sibling or. Or not, you know, but I think there's a lot of stuff you'll see on social media about, like, you know, how uptight and intense it can be with the first child, because it's new and there's no parenting manual. And by the last one, you're like, do whatever you want. Right? So, I mean, other than that, which I think is very natural, my parents lived and breathed the same core values. I mean, they. They work hard. My parents work hard. So I witnessed it. You know, weekends were not spent watching tv. It was like a list of things to do to improve the house, you know, and they worked hard. My mom would mow the lawn. Like, she loved it. She was like, kids can't talk to me. I'm mowing the lawn. You know, my dad's always working on house projects, and we always help. We always helped out. So that was very much instilled in me. And even when I go back to visit my parents now I live in Tulum, Mexico, but they're in Boston. You know, they're in their 60s. Every single morning, Sam. Still to this day, they wake up and work out together every single morning. They're like. And I remember being, like, a little kid and, like, my mom coming to wake me up from school, and I could hear her, you know, those swishy pants back in, like, the 90s. Like, I could, like, hear them coming up the stairs. And then she'd, like, have her dumbbells and she's throwing them in the air, and she's like, right. And then she'd run back downstairs and she's with my dad, and they're doing their little workout video in front of the tv. And they still do that. So, I mean, I gotta say that environmentally, I have been shown consistency and commitment and work ethic for as long as I can remember.

Okay? So that explains. In the family unit now, outside of the family unit, the people who are watching you change, how aware were they of this internal commitment to, I'm gonna outwork everybody. Or if it's to be, it's up to me, like, this mentality of, like, I can accomplish it.

I think people are pretty aware of it. You know, my. I had a high school mentor who we joked. He was like my third dad. He was like my middle school teacher and high school teacher and confirmation sponsor and all the things. But he would joke that, you know, he would say, oh, what do you think about running for class office? You know, class officer or something? And I'm like, yeah, let's do president all four years, right? Or what do you think about, like, you know, have you thought about playing sports in college? And I'm like, yep, Division one, let's do it. Let's get a sc. Let's get a scholarship. But, like, I outworked the people. I wasn't, like, the best, the most talented, but I've always had that mirrored back to me. In college, my roommates would always laugh that I just did things differently. Like, I didn't follow the rules, and I would do weird things differently. Like, senior year of college, I trained for a marathon, and I ran a marathon to fundraise for a home that served adults and children with special needs. You know, and everyone's like, you can't do that your spring semester of your senior year. Life's over. After college, you got to get a real job. But I was just like, no, I'm going to do it now. You know, And Saturday mornings, I wasn't getting up hungover. I was running 15, 20 miles. And, you know, even in college, you weren't supposed to study abroad. And I somehow negotiated through my scholarship through Division 1 sports to be able to go study abroad in Italy. So I've just always kind of looked at things and said, like, oh, we can find a way to do that.

That's awesome. Yeah. And that's a. That's a. That's a belief system that I don't think many people have. And I also think that people who have it, others witness it, but they don't know what it is. They don't know how to catch the fire. They like see somebody with a fire, they see somebody who's ignited in on flames and they don't know how to safely participate in it. Especially if other households either aren't promoting it or in many cases actively demote it. Like they say, don't be that person, don't go too far like you mentioned. And so for those listening to this podcast, like what advice would you give somebody that who maybe didn't come in that come up that way, identify that. But you've seen this with your clients. People who've got reached the top levels of success in certain areas but still feel embarrassed to talk about other areas of their life. How do you help them transfer that success and choose into igniting that fire in the other areas of their life?

Sure. Well, number one, don't take it personally. Many times people will tell you not to do something or not to go further because you're triggering in them. They're. They're looking in a mirror of what's possible that you're holding up and maybe they don't want to go that hard. Maybe they don't want to compare themselves to you. Maybe they are afraid and so don't take anything personally. It's my number one piece of advice because it isn't personal. We are such self interested human beings. Even, even if I look back at versions of myself when like it would feel very personal or even if I was putting something on someone else that I was making personal about them, it was never about that other person. It was always about what was happening in Melissa's world, Melissa's growth. So that would be my number one thing. Don't argue, it's not worth it. Just show them with your words and find environments that people are doing and thinking like you are. It isn't. That is a non negotiable get in. And there's no excuse this day and age because you can be on, you can be on a interwebs community right from the comfort of your home and you don't have to actually go to like drive in a car to go to some meetings and find places like you can do it through zoom as we are right now. Be a ninja with who you give a vote to. Like I always look like, am I giving that person a vote? Does that person have the results I want in my life and if not they don't get a vote in mind. Good person love to all but they don't get a vote in my life. So I think, yeah, it's just this level. I think it's a level of self love when we are that discerning and have that high of standards with who gets access to us and when and how.

I know there's so many here and it's fascinating in some personal family things going on right now, trying to help somebody through this transformation of choosing to not let somebody else, as you say, have a vote in their life and also take full accountability for the other thing that you said of like, you have to be willing to put in the work. Right? Am I putting in the work to do what I want or am I not? And that's a side of personal accountability that is also important there. And that kind of goes to this next. We're going to skip over so much. I think I only have two, maybe probably two more questions out of this whole interview because we're going to have expend all the time there. But after you lose, I say lose after this other gentleman gets that position, a position that you kind of were fulfilling for a little bit. This is another thing that's really difficult for people to grapple with and separate inside of themselves in general. Okay, you have it where it's like, oh, it's just a way to be, but it's like, okay, is it the way. I agree it's the way to be. When you say it, it sounds great, but the practicality of it, a lot of people don't live this way. The difference between confidence and pride and not having competition, not seeing the fact that you just got beat out, that you've been slaving away, performing these duties, everything, seeing that gap as okay, there's something I have to learn. Rather than being offended, annoyed, rejected. And I'm curious when that happened, was there any level of an initial rejection and then an overcoming with like, okay, I know that's not right. Right, I'm going to choose to be a better person. Or at that stage in your life, had you already gotten past even the initial part of the rejection to where it was like, the natural response at that point was to not see the competition was to not be prideful and to go in confidence, or was there a stinging rebuke of like, dang it, I really wish I wanted that. Now I'm going to adjust because I know that I can get whatever I want. Was the rejection felt or at that point in their life, had you already experienced enough rejection that you just didn't even think that Way anymore.

Oh, no, it was felt.

Okay. What did that feel like?

So we have a learned skill is the power of the pause so much. So many people end up doing damage control because they don't take a second to pause. And until I get to neutral, I will not have a conversation or I will not make a decision. Now, right now, it's very hard to take me out of neutral. Like, honestly, I've done so much work, it's very hard to trigger me at this point. Back then, I was more easily triggered, and I took it personally. And I went on this, you know, little crusade of victim and poor me and how could this happen? But something that I realized, I mean, Kobe, I mean, athletics, definitely supported me because it's like watching film. You look back at your losses and you can learn the most from them. Right. You want. You don't necessarily want to watch the film or you destroy the team. You want to watch the film where you struggled. And so really, I think it was like, almost like looking back and watching film to be like, okay, well, what's my goal? And this is something that kind of relates to my core value. You said, I think, some level of accountability. I call it radical responsibility. And when you're in radical responsibility, it's do you want to change the action or do you want to change the goal? But if the action is not getting you to the goal, you either need to change the goal or the action. There's no right or wrong. Right. So if I have people who want to create something in results and, like, this is what you have to do to get it, and they're like, I don't want to do that. Okay, well, then do you want to change the goal? One or the other, or you're in a state of suffering. And so I looked at this and it was my goal still to have that job. Yeah, my goal was to have that job. So then what actions can you take to get to that goal? And so the power of the pause and then the zooming out of where do I want to go and what's going to get me there? Because being in victim isn't going to get me there. Feeling sorry for myself isn't going to get me there. Gossiping about how this person shouldn't have gotten and I was screwed is not going to get me there. What is. And that's what I chose.

Yeah, this is a personal experience for myself, but it's fascinating, this idea of zooming out and not going out, not not acting until you're in neutral again. I Feel that for myself. Very similar to you, or what it sounds like you're saying it. It's hard to get me out of neutral. And it's like that. That in and of itself is like a pause, a topic of. Between my wife and I, like. Of separation, because she's highly reactive still, sometimes to certain situations rather than being in neutral. And it's like, well, I'm in neutral. I'm gonna play that. I'm going to argue against you. You know, you're like, well, you're my husband. You should be on my side. Well, I am on your side. I'm, like, trying to show you the other perspective. I'm trying to neutralize the situation. And neutralizing doesn't mean doubling down on your emotions. It actually means positive and equal force on the other side of this to bring to humility and. And confidence, but humility at the same time. So there was a. There was a time in our relationship, my wife and I, where I was feeling like I was putting in a lot of sacrifice and effort and energy to help her mental state or be happy. And then I made what I believed was like, this really big gesture of, hey, you're going to have some alone time. Came back, and it was just like, not even recognized, let alone appreciate it. It was just like, not even aware that it happened or that's how I felt. I was like, this is nuts. Like, what? I can't. This cannot be this way. And so then I called my friends and I was like, hey, friends. Like, is this normal? Like, this is the first time I've experienced this. Is this, like a normal thing? And they're like, oh, yeah, it's always that way. You bend over backwards and then you hope they're happy at the end of it. And I was like, nah, I'm not in for that type of relationship.

I didn't sign up for that.

Yeah, like, sorry, that's like, that's not gonna support my identity. And so. But I. My. Once I realized what was going on, I knew inside myself that if I'm ever feeling unloved or unappreciated, it's not anybody else's deal. It's my deal if I feel unloved. And one of the ways that I feel more love is if I choose to love and give back to others. And so it was around Christmas time, and for the rest of the two days after I got home, I was like, okay, well, this is what I'm gonna do. I made Christmas cards. I went and bought a bunch of gifts. For my whole neighborhood. And I walked around with a wagon and knocked on every door in my neighborhood and said merry Christmas and gave him a thing. Because I knew that's what I needed to fill my soul was to give, to give and to love regardless. And had nothing to do with my wife, but it actually helped me transform. So I think that that's a huge element there. And then watching your replays of what's the goal and how do you assess that goal when you went through this process? How much of this conversation did you ever let him be a part of your feelings in between feeling rejected? And I say him, the guy who got the job. Because when you tell the story the first time, it's like, oh, yeah, I just walked up and this is what I said and we were good. And that's how.

Well, that was the first time I met him. That was his first impression of me.

Okay, so you'd already worked through everything by the time you meet him.

Correct.

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I mean, I don't think it was ever a big thing. I'm sure just very organically it would come up, you know, as we formed a relationship and got to know each other because we ended up working very closely together. Right. I actually became his go to person. So I'm sure it came up in natural conversation, but there was no like, clearing because it had nothing to do with him. He didn't need to know. Right. And so I think all that really mattered was how I showed up and like how our relationship was. And like, it was great. It was really great. I learned a lot from him and I know I helped him a ton. So it was, you know, it all worked out. But I think, I think sometimes we can almost. There's like probably versions of me that would have needed to because I needed to be heard. Right. Like sometimes I think meetings, like, I have some clients who just want to have meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. And like, I love Tim Ferriss's four hour work week where he's like, meetings are self indulgent. You Know, and I think if I had, it would have been really just to indulge myself in, like, my experience and look what I overcame. And so I probably didn't for that reason. And there was really no need. Anyways, long story long. There was really no need to. You know, it's just, I think actions speak more anyways, like, can I just show up? And I think there was also a part where we can imagine the human experience and what somebody might have felt. And I always felt from him. He told me how much he respected me for the way that I showed up after what happened. So to me, that was almost the acknowledgment of him saying, like, I know this couldn't have been easy for you.

Okay, cool. I like it. So now I want to go again. We're just. We have to jump because we don't have so much time. So you have this unexpected pregnancy. Yep. Then you have nine months to deal. I'm going to use the word deal with the. The fact you had an unexpected pregnancy, which many people choose different outcomes than having a baby after they have an unexpected pregnancy. So you. Was there any thought of or feeling that that may disrupt some of your future goals if you had a baby or as soon as you found out you're pregnant? Like, what was the emotion? Because what I'm driving at, and this is going to go into the next question, is, how do you heal? And, like, what have you learned about grief through this time period of your life? That's. That's what I want to talk about. I don't. I don't know if we can get through it all.

But, like, it's such a fascinating docu series.

I know.

You know, grief is, like, one of my greatest teachers, I think, in terms of, was this going to get in the way of getting to my goals? Well, I didn't necessarily have that. It was like, oh, this is going to shift my path. I wonder what it's going to look like. But being a mom was. I'm so maternal. I've always wanted to help people. Being a mom is, like, so exciting for me. Losing motherhood was devastating. Now there's what's called primary loss and secondary loss. So the primary loss was the loss of my daughter. But what's considered a secondary loss would be the experience of being a mother. So that's like a whole other thing to grieve your secondary losses. I think grief is one of the most humbling teachers. Grief and business both, really. But grief is so humbling. And for me, it Was this level of radical responsibility in a whole other way. Because I looked around like, who's going to heal me? Who's going to fix me? Right? And I had to realize that I was fully responsible for my own healing. In fact, I had to pay for my grief counselor. I remember being like, bitter about that and said, well, what's the alternative, Melissa? You know, And I. I can't even explain how many lessons I've learned from grief. It is my greatest teacher. But there was a moment when I was walking around and you and I briefly talked about this, but where I was, you know, my daughter's case was termed a catastrophe, you know, and so it was like this. How could this happen to me? How could this happen to me? How is this taken from me? How could you do this? God. And I had this moment of like. It was like divine intervention of Melissa, you're walking around like you were entitled to a healthy child. You're worthy of one. You can want one, you can grieve not having one, but you weren't entitled to anything. And I just remember that moment so clearly 10 years later where it was like, damn, how much of my life have I been living as though I'm entitled to something going the way that it should, Right? Going back to that word should that I grew up in for me and actually not owning my worthiness, wanting validation from other people, wanting to be homecoming queen, wanting to be the four year class president, because my worthiness wasn't within me. My worthiness was within what other people saw. And so there was this massive shift that just completely, like a tectonic plate, like completely cracking, began this transition for me of understanding what it means to be in radical responsibility, to be in. To know my worthiness and not give my power away to anyone. Also not need anyone else to heal me. I think worthiness and responsibility go hand in hand. And then to realize I'm not entitled to anything. So if I want my business, I got to go earn it. I got to go do it. And that changed my life. And of course, I say secondary to that a lot around being present a lot around letting go of the word should because she shouldn't have died. So it forced me to look at my life and what am I doing from a place of should. I think also a willingness to risk in a way I never had before, because I'd already gotten through, like, the worst thing I could ever imagine. So, all right, business doesn't work. Whatever. My daughter died. I'm gonna survive, you know, and so I Think willingness to risk, not taking things so seriously, being present. Yeah. And really entitlement and worthiness.

I think that's beautiful when you're coaching with others because now you're helping people build businesses, and many of the people that you're helping, they've been successful in other areas. And how many of those individuals that were successful in other areas and are now becoming your clients now in an attempt to build a personal brand or build something new for themselves? How many of them do you feel like achieve their levels of success off of shoulds and then realize that should is ultimately empty if you don't believe that you are worthy of it? Like, yeah, you could have everything, but if you don't believe yourself is worthy of it, then everybody else just says you're worthy of it, says you should do it, and you do stuff for them. How many of your clients battle that transformation in their business?

Oh, that's so hard to say. I mean, remember, I work with all different levels of clients, Right. Newbies to multi seven figures. So that's a wide range. But I would say that I always find it interesting how some people can have it really together in one area of their life and not the other. I find that fascinating because I love the quote, how you do anything is how you do everything. But then I'm like, well, that's not.

Always true, you know, very rarely true. I feel like, yeah, right.

I mean, I think there's a truth that patterns will emerge. But, like, I mean, I see some big compartmentalization. I would say that a lot of people go through a transition in their career where they realize they're doing something that feels meaningless or purposeless. That's a huge theme. And then when they are fueled by purpose, that actually gets them to feel more innately worthy than maybe previous achievements or accolades. A lot of people are just unhappy in their career and realize they don't have to do that. And I think that your business, if you want to build especially personal brand. This was a slide I didn't get to in the slideshow, but I said don't take personal brand personal. And you have got to know your worthiness. If you are actually building a personal brand, you have got to be unshakable by the critics, unshakable by the questions, unshakable by the trolls in the comments, in the DMs, unshakable. And you can only be unshakable if you, deep down, inherently believe in what you stand for, how you show up in the world and your worthiness to live your own authentic way and truth. And so I guess what I'll say is I think the most successful people sustainably because a lot of people can be like one and done or short term success. Right. But you know, coming from Patriots Nation, where we had a dynasty for a little while, not anymore, but when we had a dynasty, that was not a one and done. Right. That was a system, that was a process. And I think if you can put systems and processes around what you're doing, even your personal branding and how you're showing up, you will take off, but you will not last in the industry if you don't truly believe in your value and your worth.

Yeah, I agree with that completely. Trying to determine. I'm going to ask it. Well, hopefully we don't go too far over. But with. I don't want you to be quick. I honestly like wish we had another three hours, but I literally chose three questions out of all of my notes. Mikey, we're gonna just talk about this. So the other aspect, again, like we so often we tell stories from our perspective, our, our experience. And although that's a safe way of doing it and probably the most respectful way of doing it, because we can always speak for our own experience and we don't want to speak for somebody else's experience, oftentimes in life, some of our experiences are shared experiences. And in the case of losing a child, that is often a shared experience because somebody else helped make that child. Right. It wasn't just Melissa's experience of loss. It wasn't just her experience of where that went. And so how did that factor into this, the whole experience, like managing. Are you leaning on the. The father of this child? What did that look like and what did that look like now, 10 years later or how many years it has been that fall out of that, you know, because that's a whole nother level of grief. You had a relationship and then, yeah, you lost the connecting tie. It was an unexpected relationship because it was an unexpected pregnancy. So like how does that all filter into this?

Well, honestly that could be a whole episode. I'm not kidding. Like an entire one. It's a big part of my.

We can record again so many experiences that I'm deeply interested in.

Yeah.

And I want to share because I see so much value in this level of. Most people don't see this type of business owners lives and successful people's lives. They see what people want them to see and they don't understand the intricacies of what made these people who they are. And that's what I want to share because I see so much there for you.

Well, I think the easy, the quickest way I can explain it, maybe this little teaser is I went stomping into my grief counselor's office to talk about what a terrible partner I had that he wasn't around to take care of me. Now he was around. We were in a relationship. We were both there when she died. But he had a daughter from his previous marriage. He was between jobs, job hunting and navigating kind of stuff in a lot of different places of his life. And so I'll never forget she, like, had me draw a ladder and had to put the biggest things I was dealing with, the biggest things he was dealing with, top to bottom, like, most important thing. And mine was like, losing Layden. My daughter's name is Laden. Losing Layden. Losing Layden. My own healing, I guess, my job, Right? For him, it's like his daughter finding a new job. Losing Layden. Right. So it's like. And then maybe Melissa. Right? And so it was this huge mirror of I'm taking it personally, what he's navigating. And it really allowed me to understand what it means to be in a con, to be in contribution in relationship, and for me to be in contribution in relationship meant for me to support him and his needs and his healing and also make sure my needs and my healing were taken care of, but not expect him to abandon his needs and his healing to take care of mine. I think it is a very rare mindset that I don't see frequently. And even people in my own life wanted him to abandon his needs to take care of mine because they're worried about me. And that's what the man's supposed to do. But when I learned that, it was so freeing. And that's when I understood kind of what love was like. Oh, love isn't demanding that he takes care of me because he loves me. Love is actually seeing and witnessing this human being in front of me and honoring his needs and also loving myself enough to make sure mine were met. And so we were together for quite some time after my daughter passed. We no longer are, but I actually learned so much about love through the challenges of that. And before, I thought love was save me, take care of me, put a picture of buying me flowers on Valentine's Day on Facebook for everyone to see. That's love. I'm loved. It's not love. Right? And, like, loving someone so much for their truth and their needs and their greatness and seeing the masterpiece of the human being in front of you, even when they're messy and imperfect. And ultimately what happened is when I, I changed drastically. I completely changed careers and all these things. After my daughter died, I'm the one who really changed. And the life that I wanted, you know, used to be watching football on Sundays and going grocery shopping and going to Target and like meal prepping for the week and like that and, and going to schools. And now it's like I want to every day be like, what's my soul's purpose? And how many lives can I impact and where can I travel and where can I do that? So what was really loving was giving us both the space to be living the life that we wanted to live, but recognizing that we had outgrown those overlapping together and we could have tried to force it. And in fact, I probably did for a little while because of how it looked or because that was another grief, another loss. If now I left the place where people would see us together and see what was missing. My daughter was missing, so it was like she was almost more remembered when we were together. So anyways, I know we're up, we're up on time, but I learned so much about love through that and what it truly is. And for me, it was very loving to honor myself and the way I want to live my life and honor him and his worthiness of being in a partnership that aligned with what he wanted and just recognizing like our chat, our shared chapters, as sad as it was, they're done.

Yeah, I'm just going to leave it there because honestly, I think the last like five minutes are the most beautiful part of this whole podcast. I love it. I love hearing your growth. And there's so much more that we didn't get to. We'll have to schedule another one. But in between now and when that other one comes out, where would. If somebody wanted to follow you or wants you to help them with their. Their business, wants to connect with just a beautiful person as you are, where would they connect with you?

Thank you for asking. I'm not sure when this episode will be out, but definitely Instagram is a great spot. Melissa Dugalecki. And my last name is dlu and typically I just pop right up for people. My website is speaking of melissa.com because my last name is so hard. That's an easier URL. But I am hosting a free four day branding messaging marketing challenge September 23rd, so if for some reason you're catching this beforehand, come join. You can sign up through Instagram. And if you hear it after, hit me up for the replays. We'll send it your way.

Awesome. And with that, we're gonna catch you guys next time on the Fuel youl Legacy Show. Go follow her. She's amazing. You will be hearing more from her, so have a great day.

Thank you.

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