Rising Into Leader Frequency w/ Melanie Ann Layer
23 Aug 2023 · 70 min
In this episode of "Rising Into Leader Frequency," host Samantha Daly interviews entrepreneur and coach Melanie Ann Layer, founder of Alpha Femme. Melanie shares her personal journey from financial hardship and bankruptcy to building a multimillion‑dollar coaching empire, emphasizing how self‑fulfilling prophecies, attachment to fear or desire, and personal power shape reality. She explains her "invisible coach" model, the energetics of wealth, and the importance of manifesting intentions rather than waiting for external magic. The conversation delves into how she handles naysayers, online backlash, and the hero‑villain narrative that often follows high‑visibility success. Melanie introduces concepts of personal vs. circumstantial power, compatibility vs. incompatibility in relationships and leadership, and the practice of valuing her own perception over others' opinions. She offers concrete advice for leaders on staying in their "leader frequency" amid criticism, encouraging listeners to re‑evaluate victimhood, let go of villain narratives, and align with their true purpose. The episode closes with Melanie’s social‑media handles and a brief promotion of upcoming retreats and training resources.
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What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. I have a quick update for you all. We are down to just one room at our most affordable rate for the Dream Life Immersion Retreat in December. So if you'd like to come on the retreat and be part of the experience for the most affordable rate that we offer in a shared room, there is just one spot left. And then we have a handful of spots in private rooms if you want to really treat yourself and go the bougie route and have a big private room with a king-size bed, maybe a view of the ocean. Some of those rooms have nice views as well. We have a handful of spots, um, in those private rooms as well. And then also, for anyone who's listening to the podcast who is a member of the BIPOC community, we also have a BIPOC scholarship that's going on right now. So please feel free to apply. It's super quick and easy. We will leave a link in the show notes for you, and you will be put in the running to win a spot on the retreat for a significantly reduced rate. So if you are a member of the BIPOC community, go ahead and click that link in the show notes and apply, and you might just get a spot on the retreat for a hugely discounted rate, which would be so much fun to have you. So for more retreat information and details, click the link in the show notes or go to samanthadaly.com and look for the tab that says retreat, and you will find all of the information there. What you might not find is the payment plans, but they do exist, they are available. So as we've been kind of telling guys, just reach out to us if you would like a payment plan. We have them set up. They are ready to go. Many people are utilizing them and you are more than welcome to do so as well. This will just help you break up the investment for the retreat into smaller monthly installments. So if you'd like to do a payment plan, simply email info@samanthadeely.com or send me a DM on Instagram and I will hook you up. If you're curious about how retreats can help you create massive internal and external shifts in your life and what the experience of this particular retreat is really like, from the lens of someone who's been on the retreat, scroll back a few episodes on the podcast for the July 12th episode that is titled How I Manifested My Dream Home, Quitting My Job, My Highest Income Months and More. And you will have so much information about not only my experience on retreats and what it's changed in my life, but you'll also get to hear from one of our retreat attendees from last year and what the whole experience was like for her. If you have any questions or concerns about coming on the retreat alone, which most people do, by the way, or traveling traveling internationally, or whatever it may be, please feel free to reach out to our team and they will give you all of the information and help you in any way that they can. Just email info@samanthadaly.com. All right, I'm excited about this week's episode because I am joined by none other than Melanie Ann Layer. If you are a fellow entrepreneur or in the coaching space, you are probably familiar with Melanie and her brand Alpha Femme. She is the founder of the Alpha Femme brand and she is known for her unique approach to feminine leadership and wealth energetics. After a bankruptcy that left her sleeping in her car, Melanie took her first life coaching call from the front seat of her Honda Civic in 2013. It was a journey of evolution and growth. But since the creation of Alpha Femme in 2017, the brand has generated over $60 million since the first million in 2018, consistent million and multimillion dollar months since November of 2020, and now celebrating million dollar weeks and days, her revolutionary teachings are taking the world by storm. With no website, no viral YouTube channel, world-renowned podcast, or bestselling book, her unconventional approach to the online world has left many puzzled and so many more excited and magnetized. In this juicy conversation, we talk about her illogical success without a higher education, how she became the invisible coach and built the Alpha Femme brand, the intersection between influencer and businesswoman, why why changing the world starts at an individual level, knowing what to charge when starting your business, the key to bringing your manifestations to life, and advice on how to navigate some of the negativity and backlash that inevitably comes when you grow something as big as the Alpha Femme brand while still staying in leader frequency. So you guys are in for a treat with this episode. I hope you enjoy. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen.
Welcome to the show, Melanie. I'm so, so excited to have you. It's funny that you're in Miami, so we're pretty close together, but we're still doing this virtually. And I just love as soon as you came on the screen and I saw your sound box and you're all set up and it's just, it is the exact energy and vibe that I would expect from you. So I'm, I'm feeling the energy already and I just love it. Welcome to the show. I'm really, really excited to have you.
Thank you for inviting me. I'm actually really happy about this and excited about it. I love what you're doing and I love the name of your podcast. It's so cool. Yes, yes.
Okay, so I'm really excited to share more of your story and this incredible journey and this brand and everything that you've built with the audience because The more that I follow your journey and your content, and you're just an incredible storyteller and you have this way with words. And I think something that you're really good at is making people feel something and being able to tap into that sense of their own potential through the proof of your life and the things that you've done that don't make any sense, but they exist anyways. Right. And so that's kind of my, my hope for this conversation and allowing you to tell your story is that I will bring some of that energy to the audience, maybe the woman who's listening to this who wants to do something really big with her life. But there's so many reasons why we might feel like, man, is it possible for me? Or, you know, is this going to— is this even going to work? Is it worth it? What is this going to look like? Or maybe she's in one of those positions in her life, many of times that you've been in, where you don't know which way is up or down and you don't really know the path. But hearing the story and really getting to see that there there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you get to create the life that you desire, I think is really going to bring a lot of hope to a lot of people. So I'm excited to have this conversation. And you, you talk about your life being like a highway, right? And that there's so many places where we could jump on and kind of intercept the story. So I think the first on-ramp that I want to take with you today is just going all the way back to Quebec when you were a little girl. I know you grew up in a family that wasn't like super well-off or highly educated in terms of university degrees and things like that. And so I'm curious to know how that— how your upbringing impacted your perception of what was possible for you in the future or what you thought maybe your career would, would or should look like, maybe your relationship with money, like how was that foundational to who you are now? Because it's such a contrast.
Hmm. That's such a good question. So I had so many lifetimes, even within my childhood, because my parents cycled through, like sometimes they would be doing well and then all of a sudden it would just change drastically and then it would go well for a moment and then it would change drastically. And the biggest flip that I remember was I was about 12 years old And they really— it was— I felt so bad for my parents. Like, that, that was always my experience of it because I knew how much they wanted to do good by us. And my dad worked so hard. There's a time my dad worked 20 hours a day. He worked 3 jobs. He slept 4 hours some nights. He only slept in his car to work for us when things were really hard. And like, I always watched them do their best, their best, their best. My mom always used to say how much they were doing their best and they, they really are good people. In their heart, like they're such good people. I always felt so bad for them every time things were not working. And I think it created within me that, that real deep, like, I could help feeling. That's where it emerged. It wasn't like, I have to be able to do something. I should be able to do something. These are, you know, these are such good people. These are my parents. They're giving us everything they can. Like, what can I do? And so I remember the first time my dad actually asked me if I had money in my piggy bank that I could give to him because he couldn't put gas in the car and he needed the gas in the car to go to his job that would pay the house. And to, you know, please not tell anybody. And oh my gosh, the feeling I felt in my body was just the first time I felt that level of terror for like my siblings, my mom. Like, I was like, we— this is, this is bad. And so I just remember, you know, all my childhood, my parents talked about how we should get a good education. Neither one of them did. And again, my whole family didn't really. And so there was no example that, that would be the, the key. But we did have a lot of examples that not having it caused struggle, and they did not want us to struggle the way they were struggling. And my dad often said to me, this is what it looks like when you don't have an education. This is what it looks like. This is what the struggle is. This is what happens. And so I so badly did not want this, but I think in the fear of it, I just manifested it somehow. And my mind just didn't really work the way my siblings' mind worked. Like, my, my brother and sister both were very studious, and they took that that fear of like, we don't want to end up like this. And they ran with it and they both became very successful at school. And I just couldn't do it. I didn't even graduate high school. It's like my mind is an emotional mind. And so any time I try to focus on something logical, the minute I get emotional, all the logic goes away. So I just remember studying for exams for hours and hours and hours and getting the page in front of me, and I could not remember a thing, getting panic attacks like it was just not I just couldn't make my brain work the way I was being told was the only way I would ever be successful, which made me feel very bad about myself. And I think one way that I felt good was whenever I could help, whenever I could support in any way. So if I could, if I could create help, then I felt like I was at least worth something. And it's where I tapped into beliefs about money. Like from a very young age, I believed I could make a difference. I started a company at my school. I used to help kids finish their homework and study for their English lessons. And, you know, made a business out of that when I was 12 years old. And then it was just babysitting or, you know, extracurricular after-school stuff that I would do to support and help my family as much as possible, babysitting my siblings and giving whatever money I made, you know, in my other jobs to my parents. And it created a lot of confidence that I could help and I could do big things and I could do things that matter. And on the flip side, this like embarrassment and shame that I couldn't do the one thing that they really wanted me to do. So there's a lot of duality in that. But I don't— when I look back in hindsight, I don't regret any of it. I'm like, of course, Of course, that all happened exactly as it happened because I just have a different makeup. Like, I don't, I don't work with the mind. I work with the, the whole emotional experience of being human. Like, my mind is a supporting part in who I am, but it's my energy field and it's my emotional intelligence that overrides everything in my case. And so I think it's just like finding people's unique intellect and really feeding that is the key.
Yeah. So you mentioned that you didn't graduate high school. I'm curious to know what— and probably at that point you were like, oh man, I'm, I'm failing in this version of what it's supposed to look like to succeed. What was that next phase of like, where did you go from there? What was the plan? I know you had a job at one point, like working for something that was almost like kind of QVC style, like selling almost like infomercial style in stores and malls and things like that. Is that what you did after school to make money? Or like, take us a little bit through that timeline of like what happened next.
So what I realized I was good at was helping people. So and things that pertain to money. So anything in like retail was going to be my, my ticket. And so what I did is I started in men's clothing stores and I would just sell very well to and help, help men develop their styles and just be very helpful. Just that I felt like that was my ticket to success in, in retail, was just being a very helpful person. I didn't need anybody to buy, I was just there to be helpful. And I felt like I really cared about the service in whatever store I was working in it. So I kept getting promoted to management positions and I thought, you know what, maybe that's what I'm supposed to do, supposed to be a manager in retail. That's not a bad thing. And my parents were so like, no, you're supposed to be so much more than this, we know it. And then I was just mad at them because I was like, look, I couldn't do the thing you wanted me to do. I did my best to help you. That didn't feel like enough. Now I'm actually doing something that I feel like I'm good at and you're embarrassed about it. And so, you know, but it's like they knew, they knew I was supposed to do something big. And the only way they would have known for me to do it was through an education. They didn't really know that I'd end up creating my own thing. And so You know, it wasn't the greatest feedback that I got at that point, but it felt very rewarding to me. And I kept getting promotions and being upgraded from store to store and getting bigger stores and more responsibility. And eventually I got into makeup and I was working for Lancôme and doing makeup. I was a makeup artist and that was fun. And it was while I was in one of those stores as a makeup artist that I heard the infomercial for the other job and I went to see what it was all about and ended up working for them. And then I did that for a few years. That allowed me to travel. It was fully commission. I realized I really loved being my own boss. Making my own hours, doing my own thing, that I felt freedom, that I really enjoyed it. It's just there was not much of a purpose. I was really selling like Slap Chops and Shamwows. Like there's, there's not a lot of purpose in that. But the biggest issue was that the relationship I was in, I had like tried to pull my partner into that to try to get him inspired and he was not inspired at all. But as I was working really hard to get him motivated, he couldn't really sell. But when a management job opened up, he got that job. So he was the manager for that company for all of Montreal, and I was the sales trainer. And we had this great thing going, except I knew he was not the right person for me. And when I broke up with him, he fired me. And then that's when my life just took a very bad turn because I couldn't actually work in the same 200-kilometer radius from him. So they made me move 200 kilometers out of my hometown in order to be allowed to work. And I had— I was staying in hotels. And then my energy just died. And so all of a sudden, the same script I'd always used, the same things I'd always sold, the same everything just stopped working. Nothing was working anymore. I'm like, what is going on? And so eventually I couldn't pay for the hotel room anymore and just everything fell apart until I was sleeping in the front seat of my car in the parking lot and going to work and going back to the car. It was a really awful time. And eventually I went bankrupt and the whole thing just kind of fell apart. But But because of that, I started being curious about the energetics of things because I was like, how can, how can I have been doing the same thing? And all of a sudden it stopped. I started doing research on like emotional intelligence, mindset, energetics, like magnetism. And I was like, oh my gosh, there was something so much bigger at play here than what I thought. It wasn't just that I'm good at sales or that I'm good at this job, or it's like there's something about me. It's who I am that was making this work and have to find myself. And so I went on the journey of personal development and continued doing that job for a little bit. And eventually I built a six-figure business from the front seat of that car with coaching. I was the invisible coach at first, um, and I built my business like that. And the rest is history. It just kind of compounded until we are where we are.
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Yeah, the story of how you became the Invisible Coach is really interesting and curious too, if you want to tell that part of it, because it's, it's so funny. And I also, there's, I was thinking about this today, like how you do the Invisible Offer. And I, and I kind of, I've always wondered, like, is the Invisible Offer like a sort of like offshoot kind of inspiration from having been the Invisible Coach? I don't know. But yeah, tell us like how you started to get into coaching because you didn't like learn about it and then go, I'm going to be a coach. It was kind of like you were, you were doing it on accident and you almost got sort of like pushed or guided in that direction.
Yeah. So at first everything I learned, I learned in order for me to be a better person. I hoped it would help me eventually be in a relationship that was right for me. I hoped it would either make me completely fall back in love with the job that I all of a sudden couldn't do anymore or manifest something better for me. Never in a million years did I think that the actual thing I was learning would be the gateway for me. Like, I didn't think I would end up doing something with the actual work. I just thought the work would change me. But there's a way that I anchored it in. I took it so seriously. I've watched so many people utilize personal development in the last 10 years, and most people use it the way they use their gym membership, you know? It's like, I'll go once in a while, haven't, haven't listened to anything in a while, I'll read a book, I'll, you know. And, and that it— that's not the way I use this. I use this like my whole life depended on it. Like, this the most important thing, like it was a regimen, like there was nothing more important than this. And I dove right into it and I— every single thing to contemplate, to think about, to question, to try, I did it all. And there were things that didn't land and there were things that super landed and there were breakthroughs that were occurring nonstop. And so when— what kind of happened is I got a phone call from an old friend who was going through a difficult time in her relationship, and she started telling me what she was going through and all the things I had been doing to get myself through. I shared with her how I was making— getting myself through it and what I recommend her try for herself. And like, with this conviction, you know, like, this is what I've been doing and it's working. And she went and she did it. She called me back a few weeks later. She was like, I don't know what on earth you're doing, but like, that conversation I had with you has changed the course of my life. And she said, I've been talking about you and I've got a friend that would love to hire you. How much do you charge for a session? Little does she know I'm sleeping in the front seat of a car. I'm like, uh, no, I don't charge for this. You're my friend. I just told you. And she's like, no, no, you have to do this. Like, you could be a coach. I was like, what's a coach? And she was like, you know, like the authors and the speakers that you listen to, but one-on-one with people. So I Googled it and it blew my socks off. It was like, anybody can do this. There's no rules. And people are charging between $30 and $3,000 an hour. My jaw almost hit the floor. I'm like, what is this profession? And so I was looking like, do you need a certification? Like, you've got to have— there's got to be some sort of regulation. So I read up on the coaching industry. It's not regulated. But what I really got from it that I loved was that people— the, the intention of being a coach is a person who wants to guide another person to a result. And the more in-depth I read, what I got is that the best coaches are usually the ones who've done it for themselves. I was like, okay, but this is me. And so as long as I'm only talking about how far I've come, if I'm talking about personal empowerment or relationships or like working through a breakup, or if I'm doing that, then I'm golden. And so I said, well, I would have to know what your friend wants to talk about to make sure that I can help. And so she told me what her friend was going through, and I was like, okay. But I said, you can't— she can't know anything about me. It would just be a payment directly through this. I will have her phone number. I'm going to call her from an unknown number. We'll have our session. If she wants another session, I'll tell her how she can do that. And that's it. And it was like, yes, no problem. And so these people were purchasing coaching because someone told them, I've done this and it's changed my life. And that's it. Everything else happened between us in that moment. And it started to spread like wildfire. And it was like because they had found me through referrals, they got the importance of referring me. It was like, no one's going to find you unless I tell them to. And no one's going to get to experience you unless I tell them to. So I've got to. And so it felt like it was— people were taking it so seriously to connect me with people. It happened so fast. And so the invisible offer that I do now, it comes from that same place of trust of like there's something inside of you that, you know, you've got to move with. You're not quite sure what it is, but if you plug into what I'm doing here, you just say yes, you know, because obviously you've either been following me on social media or you've seen testimonials from people who've worked with me or, you know, there's something that connects us. But if it feels like a yes, you might— you get to have this incredible transformation without having to overthink it, which is what a lot of my clients did in the beginning. So I love that kind of thing. I feel like it really— it takes us out of the box. And I've found all my success outside of the box, so I try to constantly take us out of the mainstream way of doing everything and have, have us question things a little bit and try things differently. And I feel like that's what keeps us sharp and aware.
Yeah. And it kind of gamifies this experience too. Like, I'm just thinking about how interesting it would be to be that woman who's on the receiving end of her friend just said, oh my God, you have to work with this woman. She changed my life. But like, she's just going to call you off of a random number and here's the payment link. Like, it almost builds this curiosity and this excitement of like, I don't know, there's, there's an exclusivity feeling of it too, of like, nobody knows what this is, but like, I got the in. And it's almost like this backdoor. And I wonder if that piece of the energetics of that was something that also helped build momentum in those early days of you being like the invisible coach. Was there any specific reason to why you said when you look back and you said in that moment, but she can't know who I am and all that, was there a reason why you did that? Why did you want to remain anonymous?
Yeah, like it felt that what I was clear about is I could help someone, that I was clear. But I did not feel like I was the kind of person that could offer anything more than that. Like, it couldn't be— I couldn't offer any marketing or any— I couldn't present an image that would be— I couldn't put the strength and everything it took to put an online brand or image. I couldn't have done that. I couldn't— I couldn't make it about me. I didn't have the energy to do that. But I could help people, that I knew.. And so I felt like the only way for it to be in integrity was for it to be invisible, because anything I would have tried to present to the world would have needed to be polished and I would have been a lie. And like that, I think honestly, that's another really beautiful energetic part in why this has worked for me. Every step along the way is I've always done things in a way that is like my best, my limits, my boundaries, my standards without ever going against myself. Or having to pretend that something is what it isn't. Like, this is what— this is what it is that I'm willing to do, and that's it. And anything that I don't want to do, I don't do. And I won't pretend something just to go and do— like, everything is above board. And if there's something I don't want to touch or something I don't want to do, I don't do it. And I think, like, that's what's— I'm like 10 years into this now, and I still feel like I just— I'm just getting started. But it— I never went beyond myself for anything. If it felt no, it was no. And I trusted my intuition every step of the way. So for me, for those people, it felt like they want my help. I can I absolutely offer that. But if they're looking for a guru, if they're looking for a person to admire, I'm not that person. And so that is someone I became later, and it was a reclamation of myself and of my name and of my identity. And really showing up and building Alpha Femme was one of those moments of like, I can help you for you, but I'm always invisible. Like, I never get— I never get the feeling of the work that I've done. I never actually get that. And so there was a moment where I was like, I'm ready to be seen. I'm ready to be an example. But I took that really seriously. It's been a big journey to say I'm presenting myself to not just help people, but to also represent something and to, to be an example of something. And that, that took a lot of courage because not everyone's looking for the same thing. And people love to, you know, hate what they don't love on the internet. And so there was a lot of adapting to that. And a lot of times I wished I'd stayed invisible. But based on all the good that I have done, I'm just glad that I, that I powered through and that I've gotten here where I am, because there would have been— it would not have been possible for me to make this amount of impact staying comfortable and anonymous. I could build to some extent, but in order to really make an impact, eventually I had to open, right?
You had to allow yourself to really be seen and receive the recognition for all of the work that you were doing and the transformations that you were creating. And yeah, it's like even sitting here in this interview, like it's Amazing. And I'm grateful that you did go on that journey of like, wait, I'm going to show— I'm going to reveal myself to the world. And I think you've shared so much over the years with your communities and a lot of behind the scenes and, you know, what it's like and also traversing those challenging times where there is a lot of pushback or negativity or hate. And I kind of want to talk about that later on when we get into things about leadership and stuff like that, because there there is— you're right. When you, when you show yourself, especially at someone at a level of the caliber of the business and the brand that you've built, there's a lot that comes along with that. And I think you, you kind of knew that, whereas a lot of people, they don't, they don't have a lot of foresight for that part of the formula. That like, all we're just thinking, more views, more followers, more, more, more, more, more. I want to be seen like But there's a challenging piece of having all of that visibility that comes along with it, which I'm sure you can, you can speak to because your brand has grown so much and it's become this kind of like global luxury. You know, it's a staple in the coaching space. Like, even how does that feel? I wonder if, I wonder if growing your business the way that you did was an advantage that you weren't the way that a lot of coaches now are growing is they're following the blueprint of someone in front of them. But what it sounds like when you're like, I never did anything that was beyond myself, it was a no, it was a no. I didn't even really know what I was doing. I just did what felt right. I wonder if you look back and you're like, that was an advantage that I wasn't trying to copy and paste or follow someone else's formula. You were kind of paving your own path.
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I definitely think it was an advantage because there really are different frequencies, different ways to connect to different coaches, mentors, entrepreneurs. There's the ones that are the creators, there's the ones that are the innovators, and there's the ones that are like the less expensive version of the original. And it's the same thing in the coaching world as it is in real life. Like you've got, you've got the big brand and then you've got the one that models the big brand and tries to look the same but ready to wear, a lot less expensive where people can afford it. I think everyone is important in the mix. But for me, it gave me an opportunity to not again feel like I had to be like everybody else because I went in without looking. I wasn't online, I wasn't comparing myself to anything. I just really claimed what I was doing. It just gave me an opportunity to not have to go through that whole thing again of looking what everybody's doing and wondering, why can't I do that? Like, my— I can't sit and write a website in one straight thing, like sit and write a sales page. I just block. I can't do it. If it's like, okay, write down every single thing you're going to do in this program before I've built it, like create the program before you've run it. I'm like, I don't know how to do that. Like, my brain doesn't work that way. And so someone would have told me I needed to create an entire funnel and build $100,000, you know, 100,000 emails and this and this. I would have quit. There's just no way. I, I just wouldn't have known how to do it. And so I had to build a level of confidence knowing I could help people. I had to build a level of confidence knowing that I could get paid. Before, and before someone said to me, if you don't do it like this, you're gonna fail. And I was like, clearly not. Like, clearly there's something I know that you don't know. And that gave me an edge in this online world and still does today. Like, I know things most people don't know, and I'm really fine with them never knowing it. Like, I really don't need the whole world to know me now that I know what it costs every time a new person comes in my life It's a, you know, you take a coin and you flip it in the air and you just wonder what face you're going to fall on. I don't know if I'm going to get a good person or a bad person every time I get a viewer. And when I say good person or bad person, I mean for me, good for me or bad for me. I don't know if a new follower is an ally or not. I don't know if a good follower is a raving fan or not. I don't know. And so more people isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for more aligned buyers. And so even though, you know, when you say you're a staple in this industry, I think that's so freaking cool. And I still care so much more about the relationships I have with the clients that work with me than being known and being seen. Like, I still haven't written a book. I still haven't done the thing that gets you tons of visibility. Like, I'm still operating in a way that is a relationship with the clients. Because our first million dollar year we did with 284 clients. And it hit me— I had been told that in order to be a millionaire, I needed 100,000 people on an email list. And I'm like, 284 clients, that's very far from 100,000 people. And so what are all these odds we're defying when we care about the actual person? When I'm trying to have so many people know me, nobody knows me. When I care about one discussion at a time, the people who come into my world, they're either— they're right for us, they're right for me, I'm right for them, or not. But that, that's like an easy way to know. If not, it's just mass people watching And that's not really felt alluring to me. What I love is the connection and the people who are watching that actually care to be there. That's what I really love. And so I feel like that it's very true that a lot of people aren't considering what it takes and what the responsibility is in having to be a person for 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 100,000, a million people with opinions and feelings and, and stances and things they believe in and stand for and what they want you to believe and stand for and how they want you to express yourself or not express yourself and what they want you to say and when. It's a huge responsibility. And so sometimes it is the question, do I want to be an influencer or do I want to be a businesswoman? And sometimes you become an influencer as a businesswoman because what you do is really inspiring. But I made the decision I wanted to be a businesswoman. The fact that I have impact and influence, that's just because of who I am, but I'm not trying to create that. And so that helps me keep my standards and my boundaries really solid. Because I'm not doing this to get universal like, I'm doing this to find the correct clients for me.
Yeah, I talk about this a lot with my business clients about the difference between if you are a coach or a service provider of some kind and you really want to have that type of work and the relationship with your clients where there's deep results happening and we're building relationships and all that, what you're selling is so much different than being an influencer, right? Like, I'm not here to have I'm not getting paid essentially for likes and views. So for me and you, it's not about the masses, although you've accumulated a lot of eyes on your stuff over the years. But like you said, that's not the intention. That's not the point of it. The true point is the people that you're actually going to work with and be hands-on in their lives and in their businesses and helping them get results. And so having a ton of random people looking at your stuff is not helpful. When you are a service-based business if they are not actually aligned buyers and people who want the service that you provide and that you also want to work with, and that that's going to be like a symbiotic relationship between the two of you. 100%.
And you can get super distracted by the likes. You can post something. Yeah, it wasn't good because someone didn't like, or, you know, you didn't get as many likes as usual, when in fact that's the post that was needed for people to buy. And so people get so distracted by being liked in life in general. Now you add that problem to social media Victoria Ward, MD, MPH, FACP: It's a big issue. People are giving their time away to be liked instead of investing their time in order to do their work and then go out in the real world and live. And I, you know, I know I bug people sometimes with my opinions about this stuff, because it's just— I say things that are not what most will say. But I just have really learned on in my journey that if I don't do it exactly my way, I end up presenting the part that I thought I had to do eventually anyway. So I love to question. I love to learn from other people what they're doing, and then really try it on and test it with a really open mind. Like, let me see if I love this, or I know right away I don't love this, which helps me figure out what I do want to do. Our unique way of bringing forward whatever it is that we're doing is what makes us successful in that area because everyone, like all those other ways, they exist already. So if I'm learning from this one person and their way is really helpful and I try it on, it'll become my way eventually and it'll be tweaked and changed and then I'll have something unique to bring to the world. If I just take this person's way and talk about about it. Well, wouldn't it be better if people went and learned that way from the person who created that way? And I feel like that's where competition gets created in this work, is like, I want to be a thought leader and I want to be unique, but I don't have my own thoughts. I'm just going to take someone else's thoughts and hope that nobody realizes that they're not mine, that I don't have the same confidence, I don't have the same conviction, I don't stand as strong in my energy, I don't have the same magnetism. All the things that I learned about myself when I felt like an imposter standing there pretending I was happy when I was miserable. We're not, we're not magnetic. People aren't drawn to us. Nothing is working. We feel jealous and upset at the person who's actually continuing to succeed with the same things that we're saying. Why does it work for them and not for us? It's like it's a vicious cycle. Whereas if you go on a path not traveled, then the only thing is you're going to trip up on things you didn't see. You're going to learn from things you didn't know, but That's the beauty of it. Like, you're, you're paving a new path. Of course you're going to trip on things. Of course there's gonna be things you didn't see, but it'll be yours and you'll be so proud of that. And so, you know, when I work with my clients and everyone that I'm teaching, I'm trying to teach principles that leave a lot of space for uniqueness. I'm trying not to do one-size-fits-all anything, no matter what we're working on, whether it's social media, relationships, business. I'm trying to really open up discussion questions so people can tap into like, what's my truth about that? What, what do I think of it? Do I hate that? Do I love that? Does that make sense for me? Does this explain why I've never loved this and why I love this? And let me try this on and let me adapt what I'm doing. And it creates uniqueness and diversity because if not, it just creates big trends where everybody's doing the exact same thing and they're all fighting for the same exact network. It creates the pettiness which we're trying to go completely away from in this industry and we're falling right back into it. So I think the uniqueness is the key.
Yeah, for sure. It reminds me of the quote that like you can copy the recipe, but the sauce will never taste the same. Just the energetic of kind of what you were describing, which is if we're just regurgitating or, you know, taking the way of that was somebody else's way and we're pretending that it's our way, like if we've not really embodied it, I think the difference there that you're speaking about is like once it's embodied and you've actually lived it and there's new lessons that have poured into it through you actually utilizing it and adapting it to your life and tweaking it and changing it, now that— now it can be your way. But when it's just like copy and paste, there's an energetic there. And it kind of reminds me of, you know, what you were saying about when you worked at that sort of like infomercial sales type job. Once your energy changed and you were trying to pretend to be happy when you were in a really challenging moment. You just broken up with your boyfriend, you were sleeping in your car, you're trying to pretend to be happy. That it's like the energy of it is what wasn't working. It's why there was no sales. And there's that same kind of pretending energy that we see in the industry a lot now where it's like, I'm just, you know, taking this information and slapping on top of myself and pretending that it's mine or pretending to have the energy of excitement or magnetism when really I'm stressed and I'm in back, or I'm copying, or I'm forcing, or whatever.
And I feel like the key to this is that we've got to take this work like the goal of it is to change our life. I think too many people are taking the work in hopes that they can help other people change their lives. And I was thinking of this the other day, I was talking about this with Kevin. I said, you realize if everybody on the planet wanted to change the world, if every single person on the planet said, I am going to change the world, but no one changed themselves, the world would not change. But if everybody on the planet stopped trying to change the world, no one ever spoke those words again, but everyone changed themselves, the world would just change.
Yeah.
And so what happens is it is helpful when the people who have changed extend an arm. When you've transformed through a certain modality or a certain way of thinking, behaving, if there's a technique that's worked for you, if there's multiple you've done to transform your life. When you've done that and you continue to do that and you lead with that, when you reach out an arm and you say, look, this is what I've done for me, I'd love to show you, I'd love to teach you, I'd love to talk to you about all the books I've read and the teachers that I've learned from and the ways that I've expanded and changed my life, people will take your hand. But when you're still drowning and you're like, okay, let me just teach other people to swim so that I don't— I can get distracted by the fact that I'm drowning, it's not shocking that people aren't coming to buy the, the swimming lessons. Essence. It's like, it's very clear that something isn't working. And so what I think is the key here is we've got to choose this for ourselves before we ever want to share it. You've got to create the program that's going to change your life. Then you— then once it's changed yours, you change another person. But the first person that has to be changed by this work is you. And if you really make it and you change your life It'll never be hard to sell. It'll never be hard to find clients if you have really changed your life. But if you find yourself being very similar than before, just better well-spoken, you can explain, you can explain with fancy words what's happening, but it's not— it doesn't change your gut reactions. Your friends, your family, they would roll their eyes a little bit that you're now doing this because they're like, you You are doing this. If you still have that, that's the imposter syndrome. It's the energy of like fake it till you make it. That in this particular industry is very hard to do because anything fake will attract and feel. Yeah. And the only people who are okay with a fake is someone who's going to be fake with you, which means you're not going to manage to help them transform. And if you don't manage to help them transform, the referrals don't come. And if the referrals don't come and the testimonials don't come, it's going to be harder to sustain the business long term. But if you change your own life and you care about the people— one person, every time one person comes into your world, it's about them and their transformation— that person's going to talk about you so happily because you will have actually made a difference in their lives. And their— the relationship that you build with them creates more relationships, and that word-of-mouth effect starts to spread like wildfire. And now you've you've got real connected people who are wanting to work with you. And then if you want to really talk about your story of how you went from changing your life to helping people change their lives, that's a story people want to hear about. And then when you've got a method to your madness and you realize, wow, there's, there's a pattern when I'm working with a person, a lot of the times the things they're asking me and the things I'm saying, I can see that these, they're repetitive on the first few sessions. Could I create a program based on this and support 5 times more people, 10 times more people, 20 times more people at once with the same conversation? Yes, I could. Okay, let's, let's create that. But it's organically being built from truth and, and real transformation. And I think that's really what made my business last, is every single thing that was built was built on real relationships and true transformations.
That's exactly what I was going to say when you talk about referrals, like the fact that you've built built, or you built like a 6-figure business from the front seat of your Honda Civic. Like, and there was no Instagram at the time, and you weren't, you know, someone who had this big like following or whatever.
No Facebook Live even. Yeah, Facebook Live. There was no Instagram, nothing.
So it's like, how, how did that happen? It happened because you had a really great service. Alex Hormozi talks about this a lot. He's like, if sales are hard for you, it's because your product isn't that good yet. And it's hard for practitioners or business owners or people to sit with that and go, oh, how can my product not be that good? But to your point, it's like when the product— in this case, the service— is amazing, it's easy to tell your friend about it. It's easy to talk about it. And that's how you built that whole foundation, was just people naturally wanting to talk and share about this thing that had changed their lives. There was, there was the organic organic proof of like there is something here, you know? And I think that's the beauty of so many of us that kind of started the coaching industry before it is what it is now. It was just kind of like we found a way to change our lives and then we were like, oh my gosh, people should know about this. Like, I guess I should talk about this in some way. But when the intention is to go right to, you know, 500K months or whatever like that. We skip that, that really foundational piece of like the whole way that all of this was constructed and built. And so even if we go, if we go back, because I feel like we skipped, we skipped a lot of that like middle piece. I want to go back a little bit in the journey from, okay, you had that conversation with your friend and you got referred and it started to kind of like spread like wildfire that you're this invisible coach, you're coaching from your car, you're— you have more freedom, you're bringing in more money, you're kind of traveling around. But how did you— like, how did you decide what you were going to charge? Or like those early, early decisions about the business, where did that kind of come from? Because you had no real context. Your friend was just like, you have to do this because you helped me. It's called life coaching. Go.
Yeah. So I had had this really sad thing that happened when I was sleeping in my car one night that really traumatized me. And there was a first responder on site that spoke to me and said that she just had this intuition to connect me with this woman that was like a— for lack of a better word, like a seer or a prophet or something like that. And so it was $100 a session. This person didn't know I was sleeping in my car. She gives me this card for this person. It's going to cost me $100 an hour. I, I don't have $100. Like, I don't have— I'm sleeping in the front seat of my car. I've— I'm using the money that I have for food and gas, and that's it. But I just could not get this person out of my head, and I kept having nightmares because of what happened. Then I was like, you know what, I've got to figure out a way to do this. And so I put money aside until I could afford this $100 session. And I remember going to the session, and honestly, I I was not equipped to take what she said, the person who did this session for me. It all felt like a load of baloney in the moment. It felt like a horoscope reading in the newspaper. It was so out there. She was like, you are going to change the world. You're meant to help people transition from where they are to where they're meant to be, or from life to death. You have to choose. And I was like, I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want I'm not going to help people transition from life to death. That's not what I want. And she was like, well, you're going to change. I can see, like, you change the world where the mountain meets the ocean and all this. And I was like, this is so out there. Like, I was hoping for you and your boyfriend get back together, or there's a man on the horizon. You know, like, I'm hoping for something tangible. And she gave me such intangibles. And I left there so upset. I threw her card away. I was so mad. And I just remember when it was like a few weeks later, you you've got to, you've got to charge. I was like, if I can pay $100 when I'm sleeping in my car for a session like that, then anybody can pay me $100. And that's how I chose my price. Plus, when I had Googled what a life coach was, they said it was anywhere between $30 to $3,000 an hour. And so I said, okay, well, $100, that'll be it. And so that was the number $200 per session, whatever. And I kept that for a very long time until I started branching out a little bit and going to events. And then when people asked me my price and I told them, they were like, whoa, I expected it to be way more. Started raising my prices where the feedback I would be getting is like, oh, I expected it to be way more, I'll think about it. And I realized people were not hiring me because my prices were too low. And so when I raised it to about $250 per session, so $1,000 a month, month, then I started getting yeses again. And so it was like I had moved into a different range of energy where for people it felt like I must not be advanced enough if my prices were where they were. Yeah, but really that I was lacking courage. I was lacking courage and I was lacking belief in myself, which are things that are required to be magnetic. And so when I did the work around that price point and I was like, I can, I can do this, then all of a sudden people start coming in at that $1,000 price point very easily. And again, I did that for a few years as well. So when things started to change was when people started to ask me how I built a life coaching business. And so when I started really helping people build a life coaching business, I was charging more, about $2,500 a month at that point for private coaching. But I was helping my clients build businesses, 6-figure businesses. So then it was like, you pay me $2,500, you build a 6-figure a year business. That's— that sounds like a pretty sweet deal. So then I had referrals like crazy doing that until I had 31 private clients and I was like okay no no no no no no! I have no more time— this is insane and then I transitioned into creating group experiences and the group experiences were extraordinary and they got referrals like crazy and I created The Alpha Femme Experience™ and that took on wildfire and everything kind of grew from there but at first everything was one-on-one and I didn't know how I could scale the information when I learned to scale it And that's when things really started to open up for me.
Yeah, I know. I just love the story of the $100 and how that kind of like came to be. And I want to close the loop on that story because the way that that session kind of like the point in your life when you finally realized what was meant by what that clairvoyant had said to you in that session is another one of those kind of like incredible moments because it felt like, oh, that was nothing. It was a throwaway session. Like it was a waste of my money. I got ripped off. But even if nothing else happened, you at least learned that you could charge $100 and you started there with your business. So I think it would have even been a win if it was just that, right? Yeah.
Even the thought you're going to help people transition from where they are to where they're meant to be, I felt gave me a lot lot of purpose once I realized that coaching was a thing for me. It felt like that's what I was doing. I was helping people transition from where they were in their marriages to where they wanted to be, from where they were in their careers to where they wanted to be, from where they were in their self-identity to where they wanted to be. Like, I, I took that on as an energetic that really helped me through leading my business as well. So that would have been another big takeaway from that session.
But then there was the moment, right, where it comes all full circle, which is such a fun story. So let's, let's wrap it up and tie the bow on it for everyone listening, because I love that part.
So this would have been— so in 2013, I had that session in like March or February or March of 2013. I had the session where she said, you're going to change the world where the mountain meets the ocean. At this point, I'm sleeping in a parking lot in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. There is no ocean. There is no ocean. So I'm like, where? And I remember I had asked the person, which ocean is it? She was like, I can't. I can't tell you that. And I was like, but how do I get there? And she said, you'll be there when it happens. Like, can you be more cryptic? Like, what did I get from this? This is like, la la la la la la la, poof, that was the session. But, and I told my family about this later on, and I was like, about the session and all the things, because there were so many things that were just out there about the session. But in 2020, I took— so in my team right now, I have Emmanuel, I have Vanessa. They, they were just starting in, in my team, and I, I took them. We went to Hawaii, and so they all came at different times. And my sister came. My sister had started working for Alpha Femme. She was wrapping all the gifts for my clients at that point. And we were in Hawaii, and we rented this house, this like perfect house, and it's— it was like the milestone celebration because we had hit, um, $2.5 million in 2019. We wanted to do something really epic, and so we were going to create content in this house. We rented it for 4 nights. Now, while we were in this house, the pandemic reached a height in Hawaii, and they shut all of the Big Island down. No flights out, no Airbnbs, no hotels. We were not allowed to walk on the beaches. We were not allowed to do anything. Nothing. Like, we had to stay wherever we were, and we were in this Airbnb that was literally a castle. The four— like, the three of us. I don't know who the fourth person is. God. And so the three of us and this house, and I had to negotiate because we couldn't leave, and we— but the price was out. It was impossible to stay there. Anyway, it ended up having to— it ended up costing us almost six figures Canadian just to live in this place, and I had to commit in advance, and it was the scariest thing ever. And I was— I still remember, we were sitting in this, at the swim-up bar, because there was this little tiki thing with a swim-up bar. My sister was sitting on the bar, Kevin was behind the bar pouring us drinks, and I was in the pool. And I was saying, look, we really have got to brainstorm what we're going to do while we're out here and how to really focus, because this is— this was a big commitment. And my sister just kind of looked away. And I felt she just had this like huge breakthrough, and it kind of panicked me, like, what, what? And she went, look where we are. And I, I didn't get it at first. I'm just looking and I'm like, what? I don't get it. She goes, we're where the mountain meets the ocean. We were literally on a cliff where the— right where the mountain meets the ocean, just us, nobody else, just right there. And I was like, oh my God. And I— so we all got chills. Kevin's eyes filled with water, my eyes filled with water. You're gonna be there when it happens. You change the world when the mountain meets the ocean. You're going to be there when it happens. I said, what if we make it true? What if we take the freaking prophecy and we make it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Can you imagine if for the rest of my life. That was not some terrible waste of $100, but in fact a seed that was planted, and this would be the greatest story ever told. And then the motivation, the inspiration, the tears, the like, this matters and we're going to do this, it's going to be the greatest story in the middle of a pandemic where everything was falling apart. My brother was about to have his daughter and we were maybe going to miss the birth. My parents lost their jobs. Like, there was so much chaos all around us, but we were focusing this prophecy where the mountain meets the ocean. We'll change the world where the mountain meets the ocean. And we worked morning to night. All we thought, all we did was work and take care of clients and help them build their visions and help solidify mindset and hearts and help people believe that we were going to get through this. And we, we went all in. And within a couple of months, we made our first million-dollar month, and the business just took on a whole other trajectory. It was like like life-altering what happened. But the, the connection to that decision changed my life.
I love that story so much. I got goosebumps, full-body goosebumps, where the mountain meets the ocean. And such a, such a monumental thing that like, okay, so your, your company had just hit $2.5 million. You're there to celebrate. The world shuts down. We're like, you're, you're screwed. You've got to pay all this money to stay in this ridiculous house that you thought you were only going to be in for 4 days. You're like, it's going to be bougie, it's going to be amazing. 4 days? No, you have to be there for months. And it's like, what do we do with this? What do we create now? And whatever you did, the magic that the 3 of you created, whatever offers you put out there, the coaching, all of it, it created such momentum in the business that you probably did something that you didn't even know was possible yet. Yet, which was the million-dollar months. And I think like there's, there's a moment where it's almost like the 4-minute mile where Melanie Anne Laird has done the million-dollar month. And now there are a lot of people who have done the million-dollar month. And so for so many, and a lot of those people, their work is work that's also changing people's lives and helping them build their visions and all of that. And so to kind of look at it in that way of like, yeah, like, wow, we really changed the world in some way where the mountain met the ocean.
Yeah. And it's like I'm excited to see how many iterations of that there will be in my life because I realized that that was, that was one piece of evidence that when I set my mind to something, I can do something great. And we're at like 35 or 37, 37, I think, consecutive million or multimillion dollar months. Like we've had, we've, we haven't gone down, we haven't gone back since. And like, it's been such an incredible journey to say that was the beginning of something so big. But the energy it took to build it was everything we had, you know? And so there's going to be another wave at a point where there's a big reason and there's a big move to make. And I might fly myself out to a different, a different ocean and a different mountain and to make another big decision like that. And this is why, like, I love to, to give these stories and share these stories because as much as some people could listen to this and be like, this is a load of— like, this, this can't be, this is not real, like, of course, blah blah blah, mountain— it would be so easy to go there. But the fact is, it's true because I made it true. Like, we, we— it didn't just happen that we were like, oh my gosh, and then a little fairy godmother came and sprinkled stardust on it, on our life, and then we became wealthy and it was because we needed to get to that exact place. It's like we realized where we were and we said, what if we make this true? And it's like, so often in our lives we're afraid of the things that are going to come true. I was terrified when I was young that I would go bankrupt the way my parents did, and I was so afraid I would make that true that I did. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I had so much attachment to the fear of bankruptcy that I created it. I, I'm born on the 25th of November. In Quebec, there's a holiday called Sainte-Catherine. It's the holiday for old girls, women who turn 25 that are not married, don't have kids. I remember when I was 7 years old, my grandmother said to me, "Oh, it's so interesting. You are born on the holiday of all old girls. I hope that doesn't happen to you. That would be a shame." And the fear of turning 25 and not being married and not having kids, my attachment to that fear manifested that exact fear for me. And so my attachment to things, I realize, is the biggest thing. Whether I'm afraid they're going to come true or whether I want them to come true, it's my attachment to their truth that creates it because truth is the stronger strongest frequency on Earth, whether I stand for it to be true or I fear for it to be true. One of it is personal power, one of it is circumstantial power. When I fear, it's circumstantial power. When I strive and I stand for something, it's personal power. And so anything in your life that you're afraid will come true, you're entangling with. Anything in your life that you stand to make true, you're entangling with. And so there comes a moment where you've got to let go of the things you fear decide what you stand for, and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy because you said so. No one's gonna make this happen for you. No one has a secret sauce recipe that's gonna change your life, but people have done things that have changed their lives. And if you model the thought processes, the behaviors, if you question yourself the way they're questioning themselves, if you said to yourself, have I ever had something like this happen? Or have I ever had an intuition like that? Or did I ever feel I would do something big and What's my thing? And if you start thinking differently and you surround yourself with people who think differently and who do things differently, different things are going to happen for you. And so what could you declare after this podcast episode is going to be the thing that you make manifest in your lifetime? You know, it may not be where the mountain meets the ocean, but is there something you dreamed of when you were a little kid? Is there a star you used to wish upon? Is there something that you always used to wish you would do or see? Is there a way you what you used to see being a grown-up would be, and you thought, when I'm a grown-up, I'll do this, I'll have this, when I'm allowed to do whatever I want, I'll do this. Are there things you remember living for, waiting for, wishing for, which you now have the power to create, and you're just not? And entangle with those dreams again. And when they come true and you get to say that you made them come true, there will be all the naysayers who say that you're making it all up or doesn't make sense, and there'll be the people who get it, that you made it true, not by magic, but because you said that you would make it come true and then you did. And that for me is even more amazing than magic because it means that you can do it over and over and over again because you said so.
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's, it's challenging, like, being the person who deviates from the standard path and kind of doing these things that are unconventional. And what are the naysayers, what are people online going to say, what is my family going to say, what are my friends going to say? And I just wonder if you like one last sort of piece of advice, as you know, this person who continuously does things over and over again that people have said are not possible. So as you continue to make the impossible possible and you defy the odds in a lot of ways and how you live your life and build your business and your clients' results and all of this without the fancy funnels, without the bestselling books, without the website or any of that stuff. How do you navigate as a leader that there are always going to be those people that say, as you said, this is, this is a load of, of bullshit? I, I know that because you've built such, um, an online presence and an empire that there are a lot of people that want to tear you down. There's a lot of negative talk about you. There's, there's entire Reddit threads about you saying that you are a liar. Like, how do you navigate and stay in that leader frequency when these— there's these other like intensities that come with it? Because you mentioned people fear what they want. And I think in a lot of ways we do fear becoming so big. We fear becoming so powerful because there's this responsibility and accountability and all those things attached to it. What is your experience of that been like? And maybe a last piece of advice for how to navigate the leadership ownership of that.
I think one big part of this is that if you're trying to avoid people not believing you when you build it, you, you will tend to attract it later on again to face. And I know that there was a big part when I was building this that had a prove it energy tangled inside. Like, it wasn't just like once I started realizing that I was doing something that was working it wasn't all just, ah, perfect. Like, I've just grown and I'm mature and all this. There was still a part of me like, I'm going to get to show my parents that there was something good in me. I'm going to get to show people. Because when I first started as a coach, people were very worried about me. They were like, this is not a real profession like this. You can't do this. It's not— you can't— like, this won't work. Or why don't you do this? Or why don't you do that? Like, there was a lot of fear for me. And there was a part of me that just wanted just once, just for once, to do something where people said congratulations. And that, that energy, it, it was good in the sense where it, it set a fire under my butt. But on another hand, it still had a lot of unprocessed wounding that was laced in a lot of what I was doing. And so that stuff had to come, come back later for me to process with a higher level of maturity and to say, look, who am I really doing this for? Because it's not possible to get everyone everyone to like you. I mean, even chocolate doesn't have 100% success rate. So if we can't get 100% on chocolate, what chance do I have? There's going to be people who listen to my stuff and say, "I didn't get it. I didn't like it." There's going to be people who are going to look at me and say, "I don't like her face. I don't like her style. I don't like what she does. I don't like what she says." And it's like, if I try to make everybody like me, I'm going to lose the uniqueness of what it is that I do and what it is that I am and what I stand for. And the fact is, and this has been a difficult thing for me to get behind, but I eventually got it throughout this journey, is like, when it comes to your own life, it matters a lot more what you think of people than what they think about you. And I very rarely have met a person that I admired not like me back. The people that I don't— that don't like me, when I really look at who they are and how they operate, I don't, I don't feel like we're a good fit anyway. And so we don't tend to think about that in the wound. We tend to just want people to like us, but It— in my life, it matters way more what I think about you than what you think about me. And in my life, I don't need you in it. So then why would I be so worried if you don't need me in yours? It's really only painful or something to look at if it's the people that you most admire or care for and that you're like, whoa, this is a really great person, you know, and I love everything they stand for, and they're like, no. That's when I would start asking questions. But usually there is an inco— in incompatibility. Incompatibility. I don't, I don't even know how to say that in English, but it's not compatible. Incompatibility, that's how you say it. And then incompatibility, where it's just like we don't say things the same way, we don't see things the same way. You don't like what I'm doing or saying, but I also wouldn't want to be a part of anything you're doing. Like, we really are not the same, and that's, that's okay. And I think the world is struggling with that right now a lot because it feels like if we're not compatible, you're wrong instead of we're just not compatible and we can both coexist and do great things without having to intertwine. But there is obviously when, when Alpha Femme skyrocketed, it overtook a lot and it started shining extremely bright. And for a very long time there was no one coming even close to what we were doing. It took a long time before the next 4-minute mile of the Million Dollar Month was, was done. And even when it was, it wasn't necessarily sustainable. It was one, one month, one month, and people are watching me doing it over and over and over again. When, when a person does something that you deeply want to do, it's human behavior. It's normal to look at that person and decide whether or not you think they're worthy of that. Is she even good enough? How come she gets that? Is she pretty enough? Is she, is she educated enough? Why does she have that and I don't? She must be doing something wrong. You know, there must be something wrong. And I feel like the more, the more my, my success was weird, like stand out, no one else is doing this, what the heck is she doing, the more questions kind of started coming up. And instead of people wanting a hero, they wanted a villain. And I find that this is a very regular thing that most people do in their lives, is they find a really good villain so they can fight against it, and then they have this hero story and the crowd goes wild. But I think that when you're going to be a leader in some field, you've got to let go of that. And I feel like one of the big things that has helped me along my journey is this constant reevaluating of, have I really been victimized by this? Is there really a villain here, or is it just two people who are incompatible? And I feel like that's where I've sourced a lot of my powers. I don't need a villain to push away from, and I don't need hero to put on a pedestal. I believe in equal power but different. I believe in compatibility and incompatibility. There's like a realism that I bring to the table in my own life where there's no one that's just better than me in all areas, and there's no one that's just out to get me. Like, we're all doing what we've got to do, and some people end up being allies and some people aren't. But I don't need a villain anymore, and because of that, my life works so much better. My relationships work. I don't— I'm I'm not always looking for someone to push against to write a better story. Like, I'm willing to take everyone that wants to come with me, and I think that's really made a big difference in my career.
Thank you so much, Melanie, for sharing your story and all of your wisdom. Thank you for your time. It's been so amazing to connect with you. I'm so excited for the audience to hear everything that we've talked about today. I've loved this conversation. I know they're going to be really inspired your wisdom and your journey and all that you have to offer. Where can everyone find you and get to know more about your work and just follow along with the incredible journey of Alpha Femme?
Well, social media for me is where I stay connected. So my Facebook, my personal account on Facebook, and then Instagram, Melanie Anne Layer or Alpha Femme. That's where everything is— my life, my thoughts, my offers. Everything that's going on in my world ends up on my social media. And then Whenever there's a masterclass or an invisible offer, you know, your name goes into my database and then you might get emails from time to time. But I don't send a lot of emails. It's mostly the social media game.
Yeah. And I love when you do your lives. So if you guys get a chance to watch her live, either on Facebook or on Instagram, her lives are very fun. She's like you've heard today, she's a great storyteller. There's always wisdom that pours through. So that's one of my favorite ways to consume your content is just watch you live and kind of do your thing and have those conversations that always bring— they bring me something. There's always something in there to take away. Thank you. All right. Yeah, thank you so much. If you guys enjoyed this episode, please take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories, tag both me and Melanie. Let us know what you loved about this. Go connect with her. We will leave all the links in the show notes for you to find her free Facebook group and her Instagram community. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we will talk to you next week. Bye!
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