163. The First Quarter Lessons That Changed Me as a CEO and Entrepreneur

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lewicki, and this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom, one business at a time. Hello, how are you all? Good morning. I'm so excited to be back here with you. I wanted to come on and share what, what's been going on and how Q1 was. I have done a lot of evaluating and thinking and integrating about all of it. And I wanted to share with you what I have learned and what I've been learning. And hopefully help you on your journey and help accelerate your growth and your success. And so that's what we're here for this morning. If we don't know each other, it's so nice to have you and to meet you. My name's Melissa My Marketing Coach, and I am the CEO and founder of the Avanti Business Academy for Women. And I absolutely love teaching women the inner work of marketing and the outer strategy and how they work together to really turbocharge your marketing efforts and your success, your marketing effectiveness. I've been going through a lot. I have had some really massive experiences over the course of Q1 and particularly over the last 6 weeks that I really want to share with you what I've been learning. And I took a couple of weeks off of doing these live broadcasts and because I was doing a lot of content and videos and things in the moment. And also I was preparing for the Women's Success Summit, which is the largest event that I do every year. And it was this year larger than it has ever been here in Northern Colorado. And it required a lot. It required me to really focus and constrain and do only the things that I absolutely had to do. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that, but I'm really excited to report. And if you were there, I'm so glad that you got to experience it. And if you weren't there and heard me talk about it or read anything I posted about it, our goal was to have 100 entrepreneurs in the room for this event. My stretch goal, my big hairy audacious goal or whatever they call it, was to have 111 in the room. And we hit 100. It was amazing. And It was such a magical day, such a wonderful event, great connection. We had 20 exhibit tables there and that were women-owned businesses here locally in Northern Colorado. And so getting to see all of their work and interact with them as well as we had lunch, we had some great accelerated networking. And then we had our keynote speaker, Sandra Yancy, the founder and CEO of eWomen Network, who is a global— the founder and CEO of a global multimillion-dollar business. And so it was really great to hear her talk and her share her story and her wisdom. And even though I've heard her story before, it always gets to me. It always is so inspiring and really helps me to believe that If she can do it, maybe I can do it too, right? It helps build that belief. That was the definitely by far the largest event I have ever assembled, ever been a part of putting on. I've spoken at larger events, but never brought and put one of those together. And of course I did not do it alone. I had an amazing leadership team for our eWomen Network Northern Colorado chapter. Leadership team. So shout out to the leadership team. They really stepped up huge. So yeah, it was amazing. I definitely did not do it alone and just everybody pitched in like I have never experienced before in my life as an entrepreneur, as a solopreneur for much of the time. I'm a gal who's used to going it on my own, right. And making things happen on my own. And this caliber, this level of event, I could not do on my own. And so I did have to ask for help. And as uncomfortable as it was at first, the way that our team came together and made this event happen was so beautiful. And I just absolutely love each and every one of them. And it really is so fun for those of you that are lone rangers out there. It really is fun to get to work as part of a team and to come together to make something happen and to be able to have people around you and be surrounded with a group that you can trust and rely on. And even though we all have lives and businesses outside of putting that event together, we made it happen and it was incredible and meaningful. And I think it was a great service, which is what we wanted. A real great service and a source of inspiration to the women entrepreneurs of Northern Colorado. And I think we accomplished that and we grew our membership and offered an environment for women to really connect and see how many of us women entrepreneurs are out there. Right. But as I have reflected on the event and what I've learned over the first quarter of this year, I can honestly say that, uh, that Q1 and bringing the Women's Success Summit together as the largest event that I've ever been part of putting on like that really fundamentally changed me and I didn't really understand how deeply until I finally took some time to really integrate this new version of me and really integrate the experience and the lessons I learned over the first quarter. So that's really what I wanted to share with you today is the lessons that I learned over the course of Q1, over the course of creating an incredibly successful event. And then also having my own failures and own letdowns throughout Q1 and what I've learned from all of that. And I know that there's much more to come out of this, many more lessons, but I wanted to share with you what I have been really integrating and thinking about over the past week. And I had a very busy week last week. Not only did I have my summit, but I had to do all of my follow-up and reconciliation. Of that event, as well as I attended our Denver chapters summit and then had family things going on. My son over the weekend had 2 out-of-town soccer games. My sister got married. And so we were, I was with her much of the day on Saturday and Saturday evening. And so it's just been nonstop and all really wonderful things and all things I wanted to say yes to, but it just kept me going. And then Yesterday I woke up and I had a lot of meetings on Monday. Normally I don't have a lot of meetings on Mondays, but I ended up in a lot of meetings, a lot of conversations. So it just comes with the continuation of go. And then yesterday I didn't have a lot of things on my schedule and I just felt like I was swimming in mud. And it really was my body, my signal that I needed to really take some time to rest, some time to integrate. I think so often— this is one of the lessons that I learned— that as high achievers, we often have the achievement, or we complete the event, complete the goal, the task, whatever. And instead of taking time to really think about it and think through it and evaluate and integrate the wins and celebrate. We just, okay, I'm done. Let's go on to the next thing. And that's how this past week has been for me until yesterday. And I just, I didn't know if I was coming down with something, but I just felt like I was swimming in mud. And so I really have been just in that habit almost of go, go, go. And yesterday what came up for me, the strongest message was you need to just come back to yourself. And so I took some time to really come back to myself, come back to my body, really dial down the go-go effort and really assess and think about what has just happened and integrate and journal, and I took a long nap, which was— I don't even remember the last time I took a nap. So that was awesome. And now I feel so much better and I'm so excited to be here with you today to really share what came out of that and what this first quarter has— what I've learned from it, because what it has meant for me is I have experienced, I think, more growth professionally and personally than ever, than I remember ever in one such short period of time. And it's just such a great lab to really share with you everything that I learned in this first quarter. I have a little list over here on my notes of lessons that I wanted to share with you. So the first lesson, and these all apply to your growth, the growth of your business and your marketing. And so I'm going to tie them back to each of those. But the first lesson that I learned, that we all know, we've all heard, but I have to constantly and consistently remind myself to come back to it, especially in times of high pressure, high expectation, high risk. I had to bring myself back and get deeply connected to my why and get so clear on why I was doing what I was doing, why I was going for bringing 100 women into this room. Because yes, it could be a vanity metric, an ego thing, a look at me, how amazing, but that doesn't float my boat. That does not get me up and out and working hard. It just makes me feel, I don't know, intimidated, or I feel like that kind of pressure is not productive for me. And, but when I got really clear on who and why I was going for it to really make this a successful event, that's when the effort, even though the action was massive, the effort was massive. It just became so purposeful, much more like being in flow, right? And not a slog, but a, like a mission, just a crusade, a movement, right? It became like a movement for me. And, and that was all really connecting back to that why came as a result of another thing that I did throughout this Q1 consistently. I'm always reading, listening to books, filling my ears and my mind with, with positive and generative and encouraging things, messages and learning. I always love learning and I'm constantly learning and growing. And one of the books that I wanted to read this quarter or first quarter, but I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and read. So I get things on audiobooks so then I can just be listening to them as I'm walking the dog, as I'm driving to and from kids events. And I'm always filling my ears with those things. And so one of the books that I read this over the last month was Ed Mylett's The Power of One More. And the part in it, which I've heard him teach before, but what really gets me is thinking about why I do what I do is because I want to help the woman that is like the woman I used to be. And early in my years in business, I did not have the kind of support that I have now and the kind of support that I want to be to my clients. And so he talks about— and it makes me emotional, so pardon me— but he talks about we think that whatever we think disqualifies us from being what we want to be. So we think what disqualifies us, and we feel shame or guilt or uh, not enoughness around those aspects of ourselves. But all of those things are actually what qualifies us to help that person that we used to be, right? And so every day I want to be the hope and the help for all the women entrepreneurs that are like I was in early on in my journey, not having the support thinking I, I knew how to do everything, which I didn't, and really feeling so much isolation, so much loneliness, so much not knowing where to go, how to grow this business the way I wanted to, and not even knowing who to ask for help. And the reason I do what I do and the reason I wanted to bring these women together was for that purpose, to give them encouragement and hope that it is possible. And also offer the resources, the people, the connections in the room that could help them get there. And so when I really zeroed in that I was doing it for her, like I talked to a lot of people, I spent 2 hours every day on the phone or reaching out to people personally. And I did that because I knew that not everyone would say yes. And I was completely fine with that. I wasn't worried about making everyone want to come to this event. What I was concerned about and what I was focused on is how can I find and make sure that every woman in Northern Colorado knows about this event and knows she's invited and knows she belongs. And then she gets to decide if this is where she wants to be. Right. And so that's why I was so dogged in my making phone calls and reaching out to people personally. And because I thought about that one woman that I used to be, that I didn't have a community of people around me, and then I didn't know how to grow the business like I wanted to. And once I got really connected to that, then it was interesting because it was like all the perfectionism that I struggle with, all of the worry and about what other people might think of me, all of that just left me because when I really got connected to my heart and my why, none of that other stuff mattered. It didn't even matter to me that some of the people that I admire the most and would most love to impress were going to be in the room. And I didn't even worry about how I was going to perform for them, right? I was only thinking about the woman sitting in the audience that desperately needs a community that wants to be part of a group of women that are growing businesses and doing big things and making sure she knew that she was in the right place. So that was a huge lesson to really stay connected to the why, the real why. The second lesson I learned is I took my energy creation. I really feel like, I really believe that that energy is our responsibility to create. It's not like we just wake up every day and they're like, oh, I have it, or oh, I don't have it. We are responsible as entrepreneurs, as CEOs, for creating that energy on a daily basis and then going out and serving in the world with that energy. And so I took that energy creation and filling myself up very seriously. And not that I was always perfect at it, but I knew that if I was going to survive this marathon of filling this room, that I had to support my energy and create that energy emotionally, physically, spiritually, every single day. And so every morning I started out, uh, as I always do, with journaling and praying and doing the emotional and spiritual energy creation. And then I moved my body as much as I could most days, either taking a walk and lifting weights or both, or playing hockey. In fact, the night before the summit, the summit was on a Tuesday and our women's summer hockey league began on Monday, that Monday before. And we had the late game. Our hockey game wasn't till 9:15 at night. And I knew that it was going to be really important for me to be getting sleep. However, I really wanted to be there for my team. And also my sister plays. I wanted to be there with her. And I also, I knew that moving my body in that way and just going— when I play hockey, it's like the whole world just disappears, right? It's like I have extreme focus in the moment of playing and such joy and enjoyment. Of that sport that I knew it was going to be the break that my body and my brain needed in that moment, even if I was probably going to get a little less sleep. And I hadn't been sleeping really well before anyway. So my brain was always thinking in the middle of the night. And so I was like, all right, if I stay out a little later, maybe I'll get a good dose of sleep before I have to get up and get to the summit. And so I did, and it all worked out. It was just what I needed and I'm so glad that I did it. So yeah, I was really serious about creating the energy that I wanted to show up with each day and taking responsibility for me to do that. And then something else that I learned that has really changed me is for the first time in this way, I shared publicly numerous times my goal to have 100 people in the room. And I think I had been resistant to doing that in the past and fearful of doing that in the past. Because when you don't know how it's going to turn out, I didn't want to publicly humiliate myself in the past and fall down and be a failure in front of Everybody. That's what our minds say. Everybody. Right. And so I hadn't really ever shared publicly a goal like that in the past and sharing that, even though I didn't know how it was going to turn out, it felt really risky to me. But what came out of that was magical. I had so many people cheering me on, offering support. Offering connections, offering ideas that— it just makes me emotional to think about just that support. I had people call me after the event and be like, 'How did it turn out?' People that weren't even there that are out of state. And it just really warmed my heart that when we do show up and open ourselves up to own what we most want, that it's amazing how we hear about the universe conspires in our favor. And yeah, maybe it's the universe, but also everyone around us conspires in our favor. And yes, we may have some people that don't believe, that are detractors or whatever, but I just chose to focus on the people that came along with me and believed also and helped and offered connections and invited their friends, and friends invited friends, and before we knew it, 100 people showed up in the room. It was magical. So that was a huge lesson that for me, I could share this goal, risk the humiliation, and also I knew I was safe with myself. Yes, even if I was completely humiliated and fell on my face, it's okay, right? I knew I was going to be okay with myself, no matter what anyone else thought of me or my business or my eWomen Network chapter, that I was going to be safe with me. And so that was super, super powerful and scary as hell. But I really learned how magical it was that when you speak something and share it, that the universe conspires in your favor. It was crazy. And then another lesson that I learned is that I am capable of holding on to belief, or holding the belief in the vision that I have for this event, all the way through. And I say that because— and maybe you can relate to this— In the past, I have been a person that has set a goal and gone for it kind of half-assed, right? I haven't really gone all in on a goal of this caliber and this size and actually followed through with it. I think sometimes what I've done in the past is I'll launch something and things won't be going my way. I'll be like, ah, oh no. And then I. Call everything off, cancel everything, and go back and hide in my cave. And I didn't want to be that person any longer. One of my mentors said that it's easier to go all in and to give it your all than it is to half-ass it, to not go all in. And I have been thinking a lot about that, and I decided at the beginning of this year, specifically with this with this summit, as well as with my 90 Day Marketing Accelerator, that I was going to go all in and risk everything. And I'm not talking about my family or anything like that. As far as risk, all the hard feelings of humiliation, of disappointment, of failure, of whatever all the tough feelings are that we might experience. That I was capable of feeling all of those things and still deciding that I was going to go all in and risk maybe feeling those things. Right. And I can honestly say that this summit was really the first time that I believed as hard as I did. And I held onto that belief all the way through. And that I'm capable. I learned that I'm capable of that because I had a story about myself that I'm just not capable of believing that hard or capable of believing all the way through or following things through, but I actually am. And so that's one way that my identity has really changed. And so I did that and I do that daily on a consistent basis around holding onto that vision. So I had this dream. I had been in the ballroom that we had this event in, right? We visited the venue and I knew the room. And so I would visualize or dream even in the night when I would wake up with all of these death and destruction type thoughts, like all the things that were going to go wrong, I would redirect my brain. And make myself start dreaming and visualizing what it was going to look like when I stood in front of that room with all 12 tables packed with entrepreneurs and standing in front of that room, just looking at all the faces and seeing all the people. I had to redirect my brain and that's what helped me to maintain and hold on to that belief all the way through. And so that was magical. I also learned something about myself that I had this message that would constantly be playing in my mind that I was completely unaware of. And maybe you've heard the saying, expect the worst, hope for the best. Have you heard that? Yeah. That was a constantly running message in the back of my mind. It was so automatic. I didn't even realize it until I heard Sandra Yancy. She was talking somewhere in one of the rooms I was in with her. She was talking about her, the company goal of 10xing. They're in the process of 10xing in 1,000 days. And so she was talking about that and how challenging it is and how even though it seems impossible and it just seems like such a big goal, that she always has the belief and the thought that I expect to win. So her quote was, I expect to win. And in that moment, I asked myself, do I ever— do I expect to win? Is that a thought that I even entertain? And the answer was no, because I'm entertaining expect the worst and hope for the best. And so that was a huge shift for me. And so I shifted that midstream of filling this summit. I shifted out of expect the worst, hope for the best, and I shifted into I expect to win. And not in an entitlement, not in a spirit of entitlement, like I'm entitled to winning, because we're never entitled to winning. But I expect to win with determination and focus energy. And so that really changed a lot for me because when I expect to win, for me, when that was my belief, my thought, that changed the behaviors, the ideas, the creativity And so that was a huge shift for me throughout this process. And so I would challenge you to really tune into what are those messages that are often coming up for you that maybe you don't even realize, because I know I've said that. I don't know. It's been with me. I feel like most of my life and having awareness around that really shifted a lot for me. And then I learned how to constrain. So March, the month of March was the most packed month I think I have ever had that I remember. And I, I'm just looking at my calendar. It was insane. So I spoke and attended a 3-day conference. I went on spring break on a spring break road trip with my family for 10 days. And I was filling this summit. It was the final 30 days before the summit. And I also was launching my and selling my 5-Day Visibility Challenge and conducting it. As well as launching my 90-Day Marketing Accelerator. And so now thinking back on it, I planned way too much for that month. And so in going back through and evaluating, what I really learned is that I need to constrain, right? I learned that I can only focus on launching one thing at a time. So that all of my creativity, my energy, my communication is all going in that one direction. And so I learned that kind of midstream, midway through March, and I was like, all right, I'm shifting my focus 100% to filling the summit. And so because of that, I did not bring as many people into the Visibility Challenge as I wanted. And did not bring as many people into the 90-Day Marketing Accelerator as I wanted. So I had to pivot and the Visibility Challenge, the 5-Day Visibility Challenge was amazing. The content was off the charts. It was so good. And the students in there got such amazing breakthroughs and clarity. And I definitely am going to do that one again. And I want to have more people in there. But when I did that, I noticed how it just opened up and created so much spaciousness for me when I focused on only selling the summit, only talking about the summit, only bringing people into that. That was a big lesson for me. And so I'll never make that mistake again. We can hope, right? And the other thing that I've been studying and that I really experienced through the first quarter of 2026 is the power of using extreme deadlines and time as a tool. So Dr. Benjamin Hardy has a free audiobook called Time Is a Tool, and I listened to that and it has really changed a lot of things for me because time has always, for me, been a real source of pain and inadequacy and not enoughness. And listening to his book really helped me. So here's another thing that I constantly say to myself is, I don't have enough time, I don't have time for that, I don't have time for this, there's not enough time. And so if that's you, I highly recommend you go to his website, and it's a free audiobook download, or it's actually, if you're on Apple Podcast, you can pull it up as a podcast and just listen to it. It's amazing. And that really has helped me. And so now I'm really understanding the power of setting extreme deadlines, big goals, and using time as a tool. And it's not to torture yourself and create more pressure and burnout and all of that. Really what it is when you have extreme deadlines, and you use time as a tool and set big goals, it forces you to constrain and to focus, and it allows for greater clarity of purpose than ever before. So I'd probably be teaching a lot more about that, and I'm going to be teaching a lot more about that in my 90-Day Marketing Accelerator, which I'll tell you about in a bit. But I really think having a 90-day container and having big goals to achieve within that period of time really helps you learn how to focus and get clear on really what's most important. And so that's what the month of March and the first quarter was for me, especially the month of March, because I had so much going on. I had to focus in on what are the few things that I can do that offer the greatest impact. And now how I'm thinking about time is not there to ruin my plans. I'm thinking about it more as a sandbox of, oh, I thought it was going to take me X amount of time to do this. What if I could do it in this very small amount of time? What would change? And so it's really like getting in there and playing in a sandbox, because I think when we are able to constrain and focus at a high level, that we can achieve so much more in such a shorter period of time that often we're wasting time on things that really don't matter. And so that is a huge lesson for me out of the first quarter. And then pressure. I learned a lot about pressure and that pressure is okay. And I know this sounds maybe counterintuitive, especially if you have experienced burnout or if you're a chronic overworker, workaholic, or whatever. But I learned that pressure is okay. That not chronic all the time pressure, but for short periods of time. In this instance, I was putting on the biggest event I have ever put on. Of course there's going to be pressure, but I had to realize that pressure is a feeling, it's an emotion, and the pressure itself wasn't going to harm me, but it was what I was making the pressure mean that could harm me, right? So it's almost like my thoughts about the feeling, right? And so I had to make peace with pressure, that I have put myself in a challenging situation. There is pressure, there is fear, and I am capable of experiencing those emotions and continuing to move forward. Just because I feel pressure or fear in this instance, when I know I'm safe, it doesn't mean I have to run the other way. And so when I took the negative connotations off of pressure and allowed myself to just feel it and let it be there, and still be determined and motivated by my goal, then I was able to allow all of this pressure of this event, of all the people depending on me, all the sponsors depending on me to fill the room, my keynote speaker depending on me to fill the room, all the money that was on the line all of the risk that was on the line, to accept all of that pressure and be okay. And I want to just challenge you to think about how is it possible to be okay with pressure when you are going for a big goal that you really want, that you love, and the purpose, and you're deeply connected to the why. It's part of your purpose. We don't have to be deterred by pressure. And all it takes really is growing your emotional capacity, your capacity to feel hard emotions and know that you're still safe, and you're safe with yourself and feeling those emotions and continuing on anyway, continuing on through the challenge. I also learned yesterday, in fact, Over the last week that rest and integration, especially after times of huge upleveling changes, massive growth, that rest and integration is absolutely necessary. It's mandatory to take the time to allow yourself to integrate. And I don't know, it's almost sit down and have a conversation with this new identity. I really added some confidence and some new levels of my CEO identity and really sitting in those and getting to know that new version of myself is really important. That's what I did yesterday and it really helped. And now I'm back. I'm ready to go. So those are the lessons that I wanted to share with you that I've learned over Q1. And speaking of identity and speaking of using time as a tool and having massive growth in a short amount of time. And if you want to have a consultation and chat with me, of course, you're always welcome to ask any questions or message me directly. And that's what I have for you today, my friends. And I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week. All right, talk to you soon. Bye. Hey, if you like this podcast, I want to invite you to become part of my community. Each Friday, I'm going to deliver to your inbox my weekly celebration, as well as my thoughts on the latest in business and marketing. I want to keep you in the know about my upcoming events, free trainings, book clubs, all the fun things, even some free gifts. And of course, I'm going to let you know about these new podcast episodes. I'll see you there.