The Power of the Pause: Why Slowing Down Fuels Stronger Leadership | Melissa Gonzalez | 677

What happens when life forces you to stop and you suddenly discover your next big idea in the pause? Melissa Gonzales, author of The Purpose Pivot, built her first wave of thought leadership helping brands tell their stories through retail design. But then her own defining moment reshaped how she thought about success and balance. She found a new story to tell. Today we explore how Melissa transformed vulnerability into insight and purpose into a platform for thought leadership. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Melissa.

Thank you so much for having me, Bill.

So as we're recording this, you actually received the physical copy of your second book in hand yesterday, and it's soon— by the time this is published, the book will be out. And so I want to ask you a question to begin with. Your second book's on a different topic than your first book.

Mm-hmm.

What is your second book about and how does that relate to what you're doing?

Sure. Yeah. So the second book is The Purpose Pivot: How Dynamic Leaders Put Vulnerability and Intuition into Action. And really, I think, you know, if I summed it up in a sentence, it's wellbeing shouldn't be a side project in your life along your career journey or your leadership path. And the reason this is you know, really intertwined in my life is, was inspired by a medical experience I had last year. And it was one of those moments that stop you in your tracks and, you know, I recovered for it, from it physically, but it definitely took me on a different journey of evolution in how, you know, I look at my point of view of how I spend my time, my prioritization. It led me down dozens of interviews with other women that had stories to share. And really debunking the mission, the message, or the disbelief— well, it's a belief, it should not be your belief— is that taking the pause for these moments, or ahead of these moments, or being proactive and putting well-being on a higher level of importance in your life is considered a weakness, when really it shouldn't. It, you know, I think it's actually strength. And through these interviews, you know, most people, as they have those moments in their lives that have made them stop in their tracks and they've reprioritized, they're actually more successful because they're making more choices and choices out of impact versus busyness. And so that's kind of how it's intertwining in my life now.

So in many ways, you're writing from a place of lived experience, because if I move back to your first book, which was The Pop-Up Paradigm, And I'm noticing a theme that your book titles have P's. I might—

these alliterations.

I miss an alliteration with P specifically on that. Yes, but that was on Retail in Space, which was also tied to your business that you were leading as well. So the—

which was a pivot from Wall Street.

Right, right, right, right. So let's take a step back, give me the thumbnail from Wall Street to startup and writing the first book so that we have context of the pivot before we dive in.

Yeah. So the first book was about called The Pop-Up Paradigm, as you mentioned. And after I left Wall Street and I embarked on working with brands to how to tell their story in physical spaces, the format that I was working with them on was pop-up, which wasn't brand new. I mean, you've seen that with Halloween, you know, Spirit and all those stores for, for Halloween kind of pop up seasonally, but really this becoming another format in a brand's toolkit. And so somebody said to me, if you, you know, if you wanna be an expert, you have to write a book. So that's what I did. And it really was telling examples of brands have done it well, different use cases, you know, so readers can understand the opportunity for themselves as a brand or a retailer or a consultant. When it's the right time to do it, when it's not. And, and then a little bit of a look into the future of retail. I, my last chapter actually, and I wrote this book 2015, talks about, you know, AI and VR and all those things. And so at first I thought I would write a second book based on that last chapter and the evolution of those things, but such a fast moving topic that I was like, I don't know if a, the hardcover book for that versus just more digital content on those things.

Right.

Because of the rapid speed of evolution. And then it took a while for me to arrive at what I wanted my second book to be, but I always knew I wanted to write another one.

So I want to stay for a moment on the journey of thought leadership. Did you expect when you were on Wall Street that you'd be building a business in around supporting retail, let alone writing books. Give me a sense of how the, that transition happened, right? Because that's an unexpected pivot.

Yeah.

If you will. Right.

Yeah. So no, definitely was not on my vision board. Um, I actually left Wall Street because I thought I, you know, I wanted to be an actress and, and so, you know, I did a TV pilot. It was really, you know, an online and, and it got some distribution and stuff. Um, but it's a hard world and you can have great auditions and then where does it go and, and all of that. And so my now husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, was kind of like, well, you have some other things that I think are getting traction, you know, maybe you should pursue that. And that was, there was a family who used to own the Writersmith Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, and the son had helped me produce the pilot of that series. It was called Homemade BFFs.. And, and I said, okay, well sure, I'll give myself 6 months. I'm getting real estate in Midtown Manhattan for free. You know, let's experiment with it. And then, you know, brands started out coming to me and, and wanting to be part of the program and see how we can help them. And so it was, it was a good way to test if there was a business opportunity out of it. It probably took me 3 or 4 years to realize why I was passionate about it because it's not what I left to do. I didn't leave REITs. Wall Street to famine and do something in retail. And although I'm called a retail expert, I really think I'm a more of a consumer experience, human-centric experience expert more so than retail. But that's what I realized what I was so passionate about is I, when I worked on Wall Street, I was in equities. So, you know, there's fixed income and there's equities and the numbers always matter, but when you're on the equity side of the business, it is the story.. And so I was more excited about that because I started in fixed income and then, but I still didn't feel like I was like scratching the creative itch enough. But when I left, it was advantageous that I had a business background and experience going on road shows and listening to management teams and, you know, pitching ideas to mutual funds and hedge funds because I understood that aspect of it. But then also got to work more creatively with these brands. Through helping them with this rotating store concept that we had created. And then over time hired designers and project managers and kind of like built a team around it.

Well, and what I love is, and this is true often, you can find the red thread back and say, oh, this ties back to understanding the leadership story in equities on Wall Street, right? And then analyzing it from the business side. And it's different aspects of being able to take a story apart, build it, refine it, polish it, whether you are the external observer or the advisor, co-creator, et cetera, right?

Yes.

And it feels like, and you tell me if this is a switch or if I'm misreading, Your second book, The Purpose Pivot, moves from focusing on brands to the storytelling of self. Is that a fair—

Yeah, and other women also. Um, but in terms of how do you—

Yeah, and not just you, but how does anyone create the story of their life, right?

Yes, yes, absolutely.

So you're doing a podcast adjacent to the book. Tell me about that. So you are using multiple channels to get stories out. Did you ever think you'd be doing podcasting?

I didn't. I mean, I started my first podcast, Retail Refined, in COVID, and I actually had a vision to do that before COVID hit. I was in talks with, um, two different groups to launch something in late 2019, and then in 2020 when the world shut down and kind of went back to market scale and said, remember that idea? Are you still interested? I feel like we can't let the dialogue stop just because we're not in person. It's more like more important than ever to have dialogue. So that's kind of how it started. And it was a lot with retail technology leaders and then evolved to be more of a blend of retail tech and then also brand leaders. And, and I just love conversation and I, and I love the opportunity to always learn. And I think You know, especially being a strategy design architecture firm, we can't be so insular that, you know, what we think's possible is just from our internal point of view because we're not on that side of the business. So it also is a great way to be actively in conversations with C-suite leaders or the next gen leaders talking about what are the challenges they're seeing, what are they seeing about the future of experience and consumer? And you know, they're, they're living and breathing it from a brand standpoint, so. I love that. And what's fun is, you know, especially when I have retail tech leaders on and I'll get an email from a brand, you know, saying, you know, I was really searching for the next clienteling tool and your podcast helps so much 'cause you really broke it down of what we should consider. So it's just another way to be part of the industry again from that thought leader perspective.

So that touches the first podcast.

Yeah.

But this book and this podcast around purpose and purpose pivot. How are you integrating that, or how do you see integrating that? Is it a side project for you? Are you integrating it with the work that you do? Where, where are there boundaries or where are there strategies?

I mean, I ask myself all the time what that juggle looks like. We'll see. You know, I think that there's a different resonance with the purpose pivot and the, the mission of it, you know, with the— and to your point, the podcast is more individual story, not brands and retailers. And so, and organizational leaders, I mean, some of them are for sure, but it is their story. Not everybody in the podcast is in the book, but most are. It's another opportunity to get a glimpse into these women leaders who have a lot of insights to share in their journey. And I, as I mentioned, I started with women. Because I had a pickle in, or maybe I didn't mention on this show, but I've said that, um, because when I first shared the inbound I've received of people openly sharing their experience and story were women. But interestingly enough, since I've posted it on LinkedIn, it's been more men. So that'll be an evolution and a part two because I think this topic, especially of vulnerability and wellbeing, is important for everybody. But so to date, season one is, is a lot of women in the book. Or those who have reached out or a specialist in different areas that we talk about in the book. So for example, I have the founder of Chroma Wellness. Um, she's going to be releasing soon. We already recorded, she's not in the book, but she's all about gut health. Right. Which is really relevant to what the book's about too.

So one of the things I think about is we have a podcast guest and individual, Janet Fouty, who was an executive at Deloitte. Okay. And at first, when President of Simmons College came to her and said, hey, let's write a book on women's leadership, she was like, not so sure, what do I have to say? She wrote a book called Arrive and Thrive. Okay. Which is What do women in leadership do once they get to the C-suite or to leadership, right? And with that, she had this conversation not only during the interviews, but as the book came out, it enabled conversations of the, yeah, nobody's talking about this. And so even within a professional context, there are ways for the synergy between— because we're the same humans at home and work, right? And I wonder, are you thinking of sharing copies of the book with colleagues, clients, or how do you see getting the word out there through your network?

Yeah, yeah. So I would definitely have a lot of events planned. Over the duration of, you know, my first event was yesterday. It is the pre-launch event, but from then till right before Thanksgiving, I think it's about 20 or so events. And a lot of them are in partnership with either contributors or contributors and, uh, brands and retails that have relationships with. And so, yeah, and, and it's a mix of what those formats look like. So Nordstrom's a client of the firm. We're doing an event at Nordstrom Local, which is the new format, newer format of the, of the company, and they have a that just opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My firm worked on the design and build-out, architecture and build-out of it. So it's a nice synergy to be able to sit in that backdrop of something that we worked in partnership with them to bring to life. But synergistically, like, a lot of— there's a number of women in my book that are contributors that are from Brooklyn, and the full concept that, that being a local format, you know, it kind of is very synergistic in that way too. So I'll have a short panel conversation and mingling and, and it's really me and women from, from Brooklyn that are in the book. And then another example we'll be doing with another brand down in Philadelphia and they're bringing their, their leadership and each leader is bringing a mentee, which I, which I love. So it's, it's a nice like, you know, pay it forward kind of moment as well. And that's also in collaboration with the Wharton School and they're gonna have MBA students. So you have this, really nice composition of, of different career trajectories, right? Coming together and having this conversation.

So what has you excited about Launch as well as then what are you seeing, looking for in terms of response, right? So excitement and what are you hoping to see as a response?

I mean, and we all want the bestseller. I'm not gonna say I don't, but I know how hard that is, so I'm not, You know, it doesn't mean it's not successful if it doesn't happen. So that's of course on the, you know, on the bucket list. But just that it makes a difference is really the reward. You know, in the workshop that I did yesterday at, at a summit in New York, you know, the conversation was around JOMO, the joy of missing out, which I thought everybody knows that term, but not everybody did in the room. And a lot of people were excited about embracing it. And that's what the book has different themes in it. And that was one where it's important because it, if you can really create that space for yourself, you, you underestimate, I think, how much negative pressure you and stress you put on yourself mentally and physically when you're always in that FOMO world. Like you can't miss out on all the things and you lack the ability to prioritize what really matters because you're just chasing something all the time and it's It's never gonna fully be fulfilling that way. And so we had this really nice, a conversation. It started with a number of prompts about, you know, social comparison and productivity versus impact and things like that. And just that people were really engaged and we had a delegation worksheet where people could take the evaluation in two columns, like what energizes you and what depletes you and are those things you can delegate and really open up the dialogue about why you don't delegate and You know, people being honest and vulnerable about it being their lack of trust and how do they get to the place where they can actually be comfortable with those things and understanding that's not really the healthiest practice. And so just when you can be in a room with 50 individuals and, and have an active dialogue around it and feels like you're making a difference for the audience, then others are interjecting to that conversation. Being able to do that to me is success and That's what gets me really excited about it.

So I'm seeing the spark in your eye on that as you talk. So I can see sort of the energy from yesterday still reflected in many ways. And obviously the listeners hopefully can hear it in the voice, even though can't see it. So that engagement is a little bit different through a book, right? You don't know if someone picks up that idea and, and runs with it. So what signals are you listening for as you put the book out into the world?

Yeah, so right. I, as I publish, I'm like, why didn't we put our Instagram and all that? 'Cause we could say tag us as you go through the journey. But hoping people will, um, be able to find and inter, you know, kind of post and we can reshare because we wanna hear everybody's learnings. Simon G Fine Jewelry has come on as a major partner for the book tour and the, the The spirit behind that is because they have a mission of, you know, messaging around defining moments and defining moments, not just being weddings and graduations. And the reason they were super passionate to partner was because when they read the mini book, Brooke, who, you know, leads many things there, but you know, that the vision and the marketing of it, she was like, your whole book is about defining moments and we need to celebrate that. And we need to celebrate the messaging around that. Because what you went through was a defining moment. And, and so we're working on something that we're gonna put out in the, and you know, we have to figure out the right channels, but very soon where we're gonna encourage people like share your defining moment, whether it's from reading the book, makes you realize what it was, tell us what you learned from that, and they'll gift jewelry as a thank you for participating in that conversation. So looking for little, um, opportunities like that where we can inspire people to share what they've learned because it's not just. To elevate the book, the more they put it out there, the more they'll open up the doors for somebody else to also step into that conversation.

Well, and there's several threads I could go down right now. One, you're describing not only on book tour, but also then sort of on book promotion, co-branding opportunities, and, you know, interactive experiences, which very much resonates with your professional side, but also there's a human component of why do we have ceremony? Why do we have defining moments and these things that we celebrate as big milestones? But not all of them fit into traditional milestones, right? And not everybody prioritizes the same way. Individually, culturally, we could talk about the differences, but if we went to 10 different people and said, what's a defining moment of your life? Everybody would have one.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's also then taking a step further in that conversation too. What did you learn and what was the opportunity in the defining moment?

And have you even stopped to think about what you've learned, right? Sometimes we're in the middle of it and we know it's defining us, but we don't know what we'll look like on the other side.

Absolutely. We don't know. And we also talk about in the book, giving yourself pause through those moments too, because there's so many people I interviewed. My moment was medical, right? I, I listened to my doctor. I embraced the pause. He was like, this is not— you're gonna be better in 3 weeks, like you're in 3 months, you know? And if you do it right, you'll be further along. And if you don't— so like, this is gonna be hard for you, but you have to think, you have to trust that you need to do that for yourself. And I think a lot of people rush to like, just get on with it. And so in these moments, right, you do get an opportunity, you get a gift of If I pause, I can have the opportunity to see things a little different, maybe a little bit better. But not everybody does that. I think a lot of people like, I can't miss the next thing. Like, I just have to get on with this. I have to just be better and keep going. So it could, to your point though, it could be a defining moment if you allow it to be.

Absolutely. And so FOMO almost pulls you away from that sitting and thinking. Now, health issues sometimes force you to confront or sit in the quiet in a certain way, just because, I don't know, if you've got a broken leg, you've got a broken leg, you know.

Yeah.

Or in my case, you get diagnosed with heart failure, you know, you go, okay, gotta pay attention to this. Yeah. I can't be the road warrior just hopping between planes with a garment bag because that's not working right now. And if I don't stop and listen, I'm not going to be around to listen. Right?

Right. Right.

And so there are some things that force us to reflect, some that force us to look inward and find meaning, others, you know, that they're only defining in retrospect in some ways where you're like, yeah, that was bigger than I thought it was at the time.

Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts, and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So let me circle back and I want to ask you, you said after the first book you always knew you wanted to write a second.

Yeah.

Now you're sitting book beside you in this conversation. For your second book.

Mm-hmm.

Is there a third in your future? Is this something that will continue? Where does your thought leadership journey take you?

I mean, so far part two to this will be interviewing men as well. I'm kind of having that conversation, so we'll see. I see. I would probably do that with a partner if I did, but I'm not sure. You know, before I wrote this, what I thought was gonna be the next book, and I literally talked about it a week before, I ended up in the hospital, or maybe just days before, was this, the founder dilemma, just having been a founder whose company was acquired and then had gone to just through another acquisition. And, you know, I see that there's a lot of challenges with that, but I've also grown a lot through that and, you know, what you need to let go in order to grow. And then also all this, the things that I think the acquirers couldn't do better. And so I was like, oh, that's gonna be my next research initiative. Like, I'm gonna have all those conversations. So I don't know. I don't know which path it'll be for that. I think I'm a constantly curious person and it's a good way for me to channel my energy. So I, I think there'll be something, but I'm not really sure yet what it'll be.

So on the purpose pivot, is it something you see yourself talking about in terms of purpose for just a couple years? Do you see this something tied to No, I'll be banging this drum as long as I'm around on the earth or somewhere in between, you know?

Yeah. I mean, you never know. You know, when I wrote my first book, The Purpose Pivot, I got asked like, oh, is this just a moment in time, a trend? You know, is this— it didn't go away. You know, it's still here. We still have pop-ups. We still have pop-ups and all those things. So, so I don't, I don't know, you know, from a personal level where this will take me in the dialogue, but I hope it just, it just creates change and that, that change just continues to evolve in a positive way. Um, so for me, I, I think I will always want a message that embracing you need to pause is, is not a weakness. Prioritizing your, you know, healthy choices along the way is a must, that it should not inhibit the point of view that you can be successful. If anything, I think it makes you more successful. So, you know, and I, and I don't see that backing down because I've actually, I don't think I've ever had so many conversations where I've been passionate about something and the way it's been received, you know, and people saying yes and let's talk more about this and here's my story. It's like if I have 10 people in the room and I told this to 8 people, have a story back. So I think we're just scratching the surface. And I think, you know, there's been a lot more public conversation for sure from women about this, especially with champions around menopause and perimenopause and all this other stuff. So, so, so you're seeing it, but it's still just starting. And I think there's so much more that we can go. And I think the younger generation. You know, we talk about brands and actually have a podcast coming out about this because I just interviewed the CEO, Pak Sun, who just put out a youth report and they did a deep study around Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Well-being's the top of their mind.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm curious about what that evolution's going to be. And you know, there's so much more conversation in my town. A whole pledge is going around that people aren't gonna give their kids phones till 8th grade, you know? So I do think that we kind of went to this tipping point, you know? Right.

Right.

And if we can re-normalize back to a healthier place, like I, I think I have, I have a lot more to say for a few years about that.

So I've worked with a number of people who are connected and have a good client list either through the firm or personal direct clients. I want to call out something that you've alluded to significantly, is that you've got a number of partnerships around this project. And it seems that even though this is not necessarily positioned directly as a project for the firm or a project for you, you were able to recruit connections and clients and colleagues to say, hey, want in. How did you do that? Because I think there are a number of people in the writing space or who have an idea in practicing thought leadership are looking to get some help and add velocity to the ideas quite literally.

Yeah.

How did you accomplish this? How did you frame the ask?

Yeah. So I think number one was distilling through lines and themes from this, from the book, make it digestible, have a, a number of different variations because different people you pitch different things are gonna resonate. And then I, and then I created a mini book, which I have to give credit to my dear friend Kelly Hoey, who's also an author. Um, How to, How to Build Your Dream Network is, is her first book. She's, she's close to releasing her second, but she's also in my book. Uh, okay. Good friend of mine.

That's totally, we had a mini book because many authors just released like the first chapter and call it done.

Yes. I didn't do that because, and the mini book idea came from her, which was really successful for her and speaking engagements. So she said, you should, here's what I did. And so I have to give her credit for that. But I, cuz you need hooks and people, there is short attention span and there's a lot of, your idea might feel like the most important in the world, but a lot of ideas are coming at them. So I always, yeah, right.

And we all scroll through our phones and if it is not interesting in a line or two, we never click see more.

Right, exactly. So how do I make it have that resonance very quickly? So I did have, you know, the synopsis of the book. I had a picture of the Post-it note that I wrote to, you know, before I went into surgery. I had a page just like really distills the, the, the key themes so they could say like, oh, this, This could make sense for my talk. This could make sense for my talk. They read it, made it really easy. I have some powerful quotes from the people I interviewed. Some of them are, you know, more well-known names than others. And I had endorsements, so I included those too so people can see how others were talking about what the book, the opportunity of the book. So it was just about 8 or 9 pages, but very visual too. So that was a big way. That was the, you know, I knew Brooke already from Simon G, but it was through the mini book that she went right to her team and she's like, I think we have something That makes so much sense for what our organization is messaging, and this gives it an authenticity. Brookfield Properties, that group's another partner, and I know Erin just from years of working together. And so, you know, we had done, we've done some business development dinners and things like that together, and she was like, you know, this is a nice organic way for us to build relationships. And they also have a big belief around the importance of wellbeing as an organization. So, you know, that's kind of like some of the more natural organic stuff. My firm's been super supportive and sometimes that's an area where it could, you know, get a little tricky.

Mm-hmm.

Where, you know, you have a full-time job and like, how are you spending your time? And so I was very honest, especially through the acquisition that I had, I'd signed a book deal and I'm gonna write this and, you know, it's gonna mean that I'm gonna have different pulls on my time and Immediately, that's great, that's great. What do you need? You know, and I think the right firms understand that too. I mean, my bio is that that's where I work, and if they believe in the messaging around it, then people under, you know, people see the firm in a positive way too because it's like, well, you're supporting this great messaging that's being put out there. Um, I have my launch with Crate and Barrel. They were so great to host in New York and Now talking about hosting in Chicago and, you know, it's such a great setting, you know, home and wellbeing just kind of goes, so you have to like also, that was a location that also makes sense because of the environment and the messaging around home and wellbeing and comfort and candles and right. And so that would make a lot more sense than me to do it, you know, I don't know, at a fast fashion retailer, for example, nothing wrong with that, but what's the synergy then? Right. And so, um, and so you have to be thoughtful about it and strategic about it as well. So that it's whoever you're pitching, it's that one plus one equals three saying, you know, so you have to do the legwork. And I created a spreadsheet and also I'm, you know, I'm not a big team right now. I, I have an amazing part-time team helping me, but I also chose, I did a lot of calls in the beginning and then when I had a couple that hooked in that I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna hook in and make these great than trying to be all over the place and everything's just gonna be average. That's a trap too that I think you have to be careful about. So my thought is this is the first leg. It's gonna, you know, but I gotta play the long game. So I'm gonna do as what I can as best as I can for this first release few months. And then from there I'll see what next year looks like and maybe I can broaden the partnerships or do other things, but I have to do this part really well in order for it to grow, I think, into the next level.

Absolutely on that. And so the books that are successful these days are selling more in year 2 than they do in year 1, which is an absolute change from 20 years ago, right?

Yeah.

And so it's about building momentum and word of mouth and relationship rather than Hey, I'm gonna be on the classic bestseller list, and that's where the unicorns and rainbows happen. It's not how it happens anymore, right?

No. Maybe if you're a celebrity, but it's really hard otherwise.

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're a former president, secretary of state, or Oprah, you're golden. Beyond that, you gotta do the legwork, which is exactly what you were talking about, right? And so having the confidence and the clarity around the ask in terms of logical partnerships and every story that you told not only aligned with the brand of the book, but also the brand of the organization, right? And being able to show them how an affiliation with your work strengthens their positioning becomes critical.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And so actually it's, it's a, it's good to talk about it 'cause you have to remind yourself it's so easy to psych yourself out. And if I'm not gonna get to that first 5,000, 10,000, you know, in pre-orders, like I'm not, I'm gonna fail and it's gonna not go anywhere. And that's not really reality.

Well, and I think looking at BookScan, results can also be the high performer's curse in a number of ways for authors, because you could always sell more copies. You can always, you know, compare yourself against other bestsellers. But at the end of the day, it's okay. What am I doing to build momentum and velocity that doesn't require me to be in the room, the Zoom, the Teams meeting, doing the speak— speaking, because that work to create velocity outside of your personal effort is huge and pays off for the long term, right?

Right. Yes, yes. And it's good, a good gut check reminder.

Oh, absolutely. And so you can be putting energy into the system that's not producing sales today but will produce sales year, year 1, second, second quarter after release, year 2, year 5. And those are the things you have to be thinking about. So Melissa, as we begin to wrap up, I want to ask you a question about thought leadership, in terms of what you see as the skill that has helped you the most in this space? Because thought leadership is something none of us go to school for. What have— what skills or what knowledge have you taken, or sort of point of view, that has helped you as you've moved into the world of ideas and sharing ideas. What's your superpower in this?

Oh, I think my superpower is like being okay being the rookie. I, I think, and that took me a while, I think, to, uh, unders— not understand that, but you know, it's that saying that goes around, you know, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. And I think it's become, I might not always agree as it's being said, but I pause now and I say, okay, well, what's, what are they saying? What's the opportunity in what they're saying? Like, is there something that could be done differently that can make this better? And I think being able to be humble around that is so helpful. And I think we forget that, you know, we think that our value is if we are the smartest. Um, and sometimes you might be the domain expert in the room on that topic.

Right.

Yes. Right. But other times you're not. And I think there's also a woman in the book that I, that I wrote about. Her name is Mindy Grossman and she's super successful. I mean, she was co-CEO of Weight Watchers and HSNI, and she was a senior executive at Nike. And so very accomplished. But I always watch her when we are at events together and she's, she's probably always one of the most attentive people I see in the audience. Because she's always listening. And I write about her, her strength and presence. And I, and I would watch and I would think like, I, I think this is also why she's so successful because she's attentively listening about what others are saying, you know, and kind of brings that into, I think, how she thinks about opportunity. So for me, I think that's one of the things.

And that ability to know what you know, what you're working on, and then categorize the things of, I have no idea about this and how this works, right? So often we've seen plenty of people who say, yeah, I know my topic, I'm going to write a book. You don't know what's involved and you don't know that journey until you start it. Right? Or how do I organize a book launch campaign, right? That's a different thing than sort of launching a pop-up brand or launching— yeah, a space, right? And you have to try and figure out what skills do I have that I can transfer, as well as where do I need to backfill because I know I don't know this.

Right, right, right, right. Not everybody does that. I think they try to— that it's a strength and a weakness to always try to do everything through heroics. Like, you can yes your way through things a little bit, but it's only gonna take you so far, and at the cost of what, right? And so instead of heroics, I— which I think as an entrepreneur, you know, I would do all the time, like, we can make— we can make anything happen because I'm an optimist also.

Well, in the early days, you have to do everything, right?

To do it, you have to do it. But also, you always have an opportunity to say Who else do I need in the room to do this?

Who could do this better than me? And this goes back to the JOMO versus FOMO and delegation that you were talking about. The, if I let this go, is there someone who would shine with this better than me? And that, to your point, requires humility. And I think that's something that smart, successful people drawn to thought leadership don't pause and ask that question often enough. They assume, hey, if I have expertise in my idea, that means I understand thought leadership. No, there's a totally different skill set than, you know, knowing— being a world-class expert on X, Y, or Z, right?

Exactly, exactly.

And but you can do a lot through collaboration, as you've evidenced in this conversation, not only highlighting some of the women and their journeys in their purpose and pivot, but also talking about your own. So Melissa, I want to thank you for joining me today. This has been a delightful conversation.

Oh, thank you so much, Bill. I really enjoyed it too. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on.

Okay, you've made it to the end of the episode. And that means you're probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are 3 recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game in thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you're looking for strategy, or maybe you want to polish up your ideas, or even create new products and offerings. I'd love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.