Hey guys. Welcome back to Tribe of Unicorns. I'm your host, Kendra Beavis. Are you sitting at your corporate job right now listening to this maybe on your lunch break and thinking about what your logo would look like for your own business, what kind of time you would take for yourself, how that life would just look so much different, but maybe your not sure how to navigate that? Petrified of making the wrong move. This is definitely the episode for you. Then we are talking to Melissa Sierra, who is a certified business and executive coach with Focal Point Coaching and helps women confidently transfer from corporate life to entrepreneurship. So if that's you, grab a cup of coffee, let's jump in. Hey, Alyssa, welcome to the show. So excited to have you here. I'm so excited to be here. No, you're in New York, right? I'm in New York. Mm-hmm. I'm too, I'm out on the island though. That's fun. I live in Scarsdale, New York. Nice. Did you see to get together last night? I know. Oh, and I'm a big hiker and I love going upstate to hike, so for sure to, I love have we the cats skills. I love all the areas. And the fall foliage is my jam, isn't it? Just like, I don't know what it is about this year, but they, like, the reds seem like they're on fire. It's beautiful. The, the red is my thing. The crimson or the deep burgundy, that's where it's at. Yes. Yeah. So. Before we really dive in, I wanted to ask you, we'd have this thing called the lift kit, and it's just like really simple low effort activities that you can do when, you know, you wake up in the morning and you're like, no, I just can't. Yeah, yeah. So what is one thing that you can add to this and we'll attribute it to you, um, that you do either with yourself or clients, um, or with your family? That lifts you up when you're feeling like this low vibe? Yeah, so we practice grounding, um, myself and then with my clients too. So. What were some times in your life that you've gone through similar challenges like you are right now, they don't have to look exactly the same, but how did you come through them? What were those amazing moments? What were also the low moments of them? And then how did you get through them? And I think that grounding exercise just retrains your brain to think that you can get through anything. Um, that seems impossible because at that moment in life, it seemed like you were never gonna come out on the other side, and somehow you did. The more that you can work through that process, the less you have the imposter syndrome, the less that you have that fear, because on the other side of fear is magic, and how do you embrace that exhilarating feeling. The other one would be the Headway app. So there's a ton of books out there for self-actualization, self-improvement, but sometimes it's hard to get through them. You might have kids, you might be a caregiver for your family, whatever the case may be. This will synthesize it down into a few minutes of content. Where are the quick sound bites? And you could listen slash read a ton of books in a year and really get that self-actualization that you're looking for, but just also keeping in that high vibe moment. I love that. Headways a wonderful app. It, I've used that. I've used Blinkist before too, but they both kind of do the same thing. I love that. That's a great one. Thank you. Absolutely. So let's start with what you do now. You are a business and executive coach, and you work with women, helping them transition from corporate to entrepreneurship. What is that? How did you get there? What? What is your journey like? Yeah, so I've been in corporate for over 20 years and I rose through the ranks with some trials and tribulations along the way. And one thing I always knew is that I had a vision of. What I thought success looked like, and that was being in the boardroom and having these amazing meetings and contributing to agendas and being on stage. And then after being in meetings where we're working through the fifth version of the deck. Just because, not because it's actually making an impact in any way, or because people are afraid to make a decision. It just dawned on me that I didn't feel aligned with the level of service and impact I could make. And the more meetings I got into, the more I saw people feeling the same sort of burnout or mission, purpose, misalignment, and I said, Hey, I think I have something here. Because I started to look inward and find new opportunities to speak on stage, to connect with people, to write articles for Forbes communication. And I said, well, hey, if I've been able to do this, and I also knew how to always shepherd through some difficult ceilings in my career. How could I help others really break outta that impact? And so for me, I really focus in on helping these executive women find their main character energy and really get to the point of knowing that the noise around you is just a backdrop. You are the lead character in your story. How you choose to show up, how you choose to tell your story, where it goes next, what that next chapter is, is totally on you. And you have everything that you need within you to get there, but no one's ever held you accountable. To using the tools and resources and commitment to get you there. So I look at it as. I'm a soundboard champion for them. I'm the cheerleader that wants to build them up. I'm the greatest hype girl that you can ever hire from that standpoint because I really want you to come out and see the goals on the other side. So I don't want people to think that they need to live the same life that I've led or make the same decisions that I have. It's all. Nascent to you in all where you think that is, that you need to go next and really break through and find that with clarity, conviction, and intentionality. You do this through your framework. Um, the big energy transformation. What does that look like? Yeah, so for everyone it looks different. You know, I've had some of my clients tell me that they can fun, see the light through the tunnel. Which I felt was very telling. Normally we talk about the light at the end of the tunnel as if the journey is ever finite, right? And I think that was one of the most exhilarating breakthroughs at the beginning of coaching. One of my clients, who's near and dear to me. Because when we think about creating an impact, when we think about redefining our lives and actually doing it with the permission to dream again, I think knowing that we're on this next wave of a journey and that it doesn't have to stop, that's when you start to really look introspectively around all the opportunities that you have available, and it changes the narrative from victim to Victor. That in and of itself is empowering. Transformation for other people is sometimes I think you don't get that at corporate. The leaders, your boss might be telling you no, because it's just an opinion. It doesn't mean that you can actually see it through if you really wanted to, unless there's gonna be a financial impact to the company, brand liability or anything that really would be detrimental. Sometimes a no is just an opinion. So maybe you should actually go through with it. It's not your job to really understand where that no is coming from. Go see it through. And one of my clients did do that. She spoke with conviction. She wanted to tell a story to her client. Her client loved it. Finally felt confident that she could take the digital campaign results to her stakeholders and spoke volumes to her, and is now spending an additional incremental amount of money with a partner because my friend went forward and had the conviction to not just stop at the no. And so everyone's transformation journey is very different, but it's about showing up in more of a different place than you were before. When you start closing off yourself and putting these ceilings in there, that's when the danger zone happens, because no great ingenuity can come when you start imposing those self-limiting beliefs. Yeah. What does that look like for you? I mean, did you have that moment in your own life where you felt that yourself? Constantly. Yeah. Um, and at an early age too, when I first started coming up in Marketing World, I wanted to be in all different types of marketing. I just thought that I would be more well-rounded in that way early in my career. I would have a boss that would come over and he'd put two quarters on my desk, and that would mean that I was supposed to just go get water for him and I would get really upset because, you know, I could do the admin and I understand you have to pay your dues, but to be tokenized in such a way just felt like my voice was stymied. And then another way was coming up in corporate, just being overlooked for different opportunities. I never really felt like I was cool enough to sit at the table or I didn't look the same, or even when I tried to speak the same like them, it just didn't come off right. It just felt contrived. It felt massed, it felt manufactured, and I didn't like that feeling and it didn't even pay off for me. So it wasn't like what I was trying to do to keep up with the Joneses and the corporate world was actually helping in anyway. And. Uh, even when I had, uh, interviewed for a large entertainment complex here in, um, the city. They had taken all my ideas. I had done like a 50 page thesis for this interview. I really wanted to work there. They were like, stand by the phone. You're gonna get the call. It was the day before my birthday. And then they said, Hey, you know so and so that used to work here. Wants to move back from Arizona, we're gonna give them the job, but would you mind if we took your ideas? And it was just a soul crushing moment. And I have so many litanies of stories of that. In many ways, I feel like I'm a martyr sometimes because I use that as my aggression to then just double down. Mm-hmm. I will never let somebody decide what my value is just because they can't see my potential. It's not, and I tell'em this to my client, it's not our job to control the outcome. It's our job to influence them. And the more that you keep saying that to yourself. The more that you're gonna have less pressure to inwardly try to solve for everybody else's perceived connotations of you, you can't control that. If somebody doesn't like you, they don't like you. Not everybody is gonna be for me that I coach, and that's okay too. There's a million other people that do amazing coaching practices out there. I care if you find your spirit animal, but you really need to show up for you in a way that feels true to your value systems, and you can get paid for it. You just might have to look externally in terms of what that really looks like, and it might be a Frankenstein of, you know, extending yourself in different ways. But at the end of the day, I said a long time ago, I will never let somebody. Hold me back from what I think my potential is just because they don't see the value. So that kind of leans into the main character energy idea, which really speaks to exactly what you're saying. Put in such a cute, sticky way. Yeah, I mean, I think I wanna just have that relatability factor. You know, part of Melissa is being quirky and being fun, and then I can be uber serious and I'm super process oriented. You know, I'm a Virgo at heart, so there's two balances to me. In the sense of being an old soul, that's scientific method. I wanna prove or disprove theories. But then I, you know, love a good reality show and I love binging on true crime, and I love just making people laugh in boardrooms where everybody else is just stoic and serious. So I think you can have both. And I think part of that is showing up with main character energy is unapologetically showing all sides to you with humility so that you can give other permissions to lead as well. One of the articles that I wrote for forums was, not every problem is yours to solve. And I think as women with that, we think that we always need to run through the fire. And when I was looking inwardly, I had to have the humility to say that if I'm feeling resentful because of that, everybody coming to me for the answers. I have just as much ownership in that because I've created this space for me where I am the get to person. But with that, I've also limited leadership around me. Coming up because I never gave them the permission to fail on their own. I thought, oh yeah, I was doing the right thing. Right. I thought I was doing the right thing because I didn't have mentors growing up. So I thought if I over poured into them and I overinvested in them, and I showed them the way that, wow, I was doing better than what I learned. But what I had to actually admit was, no, that's actually not even helpful either. Maybe there's a middle crown to this. Because it didn't give them any ways to seek out curiosity and clarity and conviction. So that's why now it's come full circle with my practice of leading with those three C. Yeah. Uh, can you talk more about those three C? Yeah. So I think a lot of times. We know what we don't want, but we can't really articulate what it is that we do want. And especially being women, there's a thousand other things that we spend our time on, right? Some of us, it's working out to get that clarity. Some of us, it's families that we need to double down and pour into, but we never actually take the time and space for us, and when we do, we do it in a negative light. Why am I not farther ahead or financially be independent? All the things that kind of limit us from that. So clarity is really important. First, the clients that I work with, we work really hard. To be specific around what it is that lights you up. And I think with corporate, sometimes you're trained in spreadsheets and PowerPoints. You're not trained to dream, and some organizations are like that, like an Apple and target. It's fortunate if you can get to work there, but in many cases you don't have that ability to just be curious and ask what if. So that's the initial part. With that comes the curiosity. When was the last time that you really felt like you were lit up? What excites you? When do you work best? You know, for me, I don't really get going in the morning till 10, 11 o'clock. I'm awake and I'm doing my job, but I don't actually feel like I'm pouring in of and thinking of different things or how can I really serve people until that little buffer, I need that little long warmup and I'm up at six. But you know, it's a long warmup from that sense. Other people, they do their best work. In the morning right away to get to it. There's also days a week that pour into it. You know, some people really love a good Monday, some people cannot stand Mondays, and it's that Tuesday through Thursday that gets them going. So. Really understanding what makes you tick. Do you really want to be part of group projects, but when the time comes for the work, you wanna be insular. So just really understanding, not that you've been conditioned to be in environments, but what were the environments where you really felt like. You had a voice come out or your curiosity come out, or your ingenuity or just taking in, amassing different ideas from other people. What did that look like for you? And then conviction. Okay. Now that you've been able to define it, now that you know what it actually looks like, and there's plausible areas for you to explore, now is when you declare you're gonna go get. Despite all obstacles. If time and money weren't an issue, what would you be doing? And let's go explore that. And for some people they need to do that in bite-sized little pieces before they can take on a lot. For others, they're tired of just pontificating about another world can look like they wanna get go. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, uh, interesting that, you know, you can do all of that in a corporate setting sometimes. Where do you see when it becomes like a, I think. You know, whether you're in a toxic environment or there isn't the opportunity, like what, I guess what is the breaking point of where a client is working with you and they come to the conclusion of like, okay, I actually need to leave, or I need to start my own thing. Do you help them find what that looks like? Yeah, it can show up in many different ways. Sometimes disassociation, right? We talk about the quiet burnout in that sense, where you're showing up in meetings, but you're not really present. You want to show presence because you wanna do a good job. You have a personal brand that you're trying to protect, but it's not authentic anymore. It's really forced. You know, you gotta force a smile on your face. You gotta force enthusiasm, project updates, you don't really wanna give them. You start looking at them as being micromanage. Whereas before, you know, you thought they were just par for the course. You know, there's this tension point. And everybody's tension point looks different when you've tried to advocate different ways of where to take a career. Sometimes not financially, sometimes just in a different area, a different space. And you've tried five different ways, three different ways. Maybe it hasn't worked for you. That's another area that's showing you that you, maybe you do have value, but the people around you just don't see it. Or they may see it, but unfortunately ju to financial resources where the business state is at, where the business is going, can't happen. You know? And, and I was listening to a podcast by Cody Sanchez. And she was, you know, describing something similar. She was at odds with her leadership. And, you know, the boss turned around and said to her, listen, we're gonna row in this direction. If you wanna go in that direction, you're more than welcome to row in that one, but we're going this way. Yeah. And it was a defining moment for her. And I, I try to use that same analogy for a lot of my clients as well, because deep down you instinctively know, right? And you can read the room pretty well of is this. An organizational structural blockage. Is this a leader blockage that this person is always gonna be an obstacle to me and maybe they've had tenure in that situation? Or is this me? Maybe I don't also know how to have executive presence.'cause that's also something that has a little bit of towing the line sometimes of maybe it's the environment. Maybe it's the most and maybe a little bit of as well. So how can we look at specifically how you're showing up versus the conditions around you? Is it that we really need to sharpen your main character energy, develop your executive presence, if you still wanna stay there and see this through? Or is it that you know this is really the precipice that's gonna make you want to move forward and just try something different? When I had to, when I made that choice myself, I was, I was, it was way earlier than I thought I was gonna do it, but I was in a, and I was reckless about it. I don't recommend it, but. I was just in a place where I, I just couldn't, I couldn't take the train in one more day. I couldn't see my boss. One more day, I, I was standing out on the sidewalk just off of seventh Avenue and I looked down and there was a half smoke cigarette, and I thought to myself like. I'm gonna pick that up and smoke it. And I was like, whoa, what is happening right now? Like that's how low and awful I felt that I was gonna break my non-smoking streak and some nasty cigarette. But it was hard because I had grown up thinking, I'm gonna work in Manhattan, I'm gonna be at this great design agency. And then I got the job, which totally turned into not what it was advertised to be. Um. It was hard to walk away from that vision though, especially because I declared it for so long to the world. I'm sure you see that. How do you help your, your clients navigate that? Yeah, we sit in their feelings because it's, it's real, right? Everyone feels differently. They might feel ashamed. They might feel like even that is imposter syndrome, so not even showing up for what they want. Maybe this is imposter syndrome, where for so long they've masked who their identity is or they're just be. Become so disassociated with it. So we sit in it, but we don't, I don't let them ruminate in it. And that's where the actual accountability and the action takes place is. Your feelings are valid, your feelings are real. They're happening to you. But to move from victim to Victor, you have to decide that you were born here to. Amazing things, and this is where the grounding comes into practice. What other things have you gone through that you've gotten through the other side, whether it's health, whether it's relationships, et cetera, that prove to you that you are this woman. It's just that the story's changed and that's okay. There's chapters in a movie where the main character goes through many different disassociations with life and then comes back around to a new reality. That is what life is, and I think. We sometimes put labels on what we think life should be, or we're indoctrinated in terms of what the culture should be, but it's subjective to you and no one's here to tell you how to live your life. Everybody's obviously gonna have opinions. That's what human beings do best. But no one pays your paychecks. No one has to wake up in the morning, no one has to walk down that street and make that decision to pick up the cigarette or not, or you know, go into the office another day and just feel disassociated with. What they are and who they are. At the end of the day, you deserve to be happy. You deserve to be lit up. You deserve to make an impact. However big or small that is for you, and whatever that is, we need to go find. So if it's a good cry therapy session we need to go through, then we're gonna go through it. But then I want you to get back to business. You know, that's the tough side of the Virgo is get back to business. There's no more crying sweetheart. Like, we gotta move forward and we're gonna liven you up because. You claiming this energy right now into momentum is what other opportunities thrive off of is where people wanna connect with you and they wanna help you. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, it was so, it was scary, but you are right, like taking action made it. Um, just made it so much more real. I mean, it was real, but like, it allowed me to stop, like, thinking about it and thinking about it and, you know, actually putting in my two weeks notice. Um, and then starting to come up with my plan of like, well, what does this look like now? And what do I really, what want and how do I wanna wake up and what do I want my day to look like? And, you know, I'd already been such a heavy commuter. I knew that was. Not it. Um, but did I want work from home? And I think I also, in my head, success looked like New York City and nothing else. Me too. Um, I think you know what it was, was it big business? Do you remember that movie with Melanie Griffith? No. No. I've never seen it. Oh. I'm probably a little bit older. Maybe a lot older than you, but Oh. Probably the age. But she, she is. In corporate in Manhattan, and she's got the big shoulder pads and Sigourney weaver's her boss and eventually at the end of the movie, she ends up taking on that role and owning her, her worth. And in my head I was like, well, yeah, that's, that's success. Sounds great. Yeah. So I think that was a little bit of, you know, shaped my idea of what I wanted my life to be and what success looked like. But then when I gave myself permission to really look at like, well, you're not, you know, Melanie Griffith in the eighties. Who are you now? How do you wanna live your life? It really, I had a whole different picture. Painted for me. So the courage to make that leap really came from the action. So while I thought it was probably reckless, I had no plan, I just hit the pavement. But it also gave me a lot of fire, you know, not having, you know, a plan B or anything to, to really support myself moving forward. I had savings that I could lean on, but it also made me be quick, think outside the box. And when I started getting my first clients, I was like. Yes. Yeah, this is, it is, right? This is real audience. Yeah. I mean, similarly, like I grew up, I'm gonna date myself too. So I grew up watching who's the boss? Angela Bauer. You know, working at the advertising agency, or my grandma. Yeah. She had us watching Young and The Restless, and I saw Jill Abbott being CEO of Jabo Cosmetics, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Like all these women, like were just powerful and they were doing all these amazing things. That's what I have to do. I have to rise, you know? And my great grandmother. She marched for women's right to vote. So I feel like there's just these trailblazers that I see, that I know that were an embodiment of what I thought I should be. And in many ways I still feel that way. It's just, it's how I show up or like what now what lights me up looks a little bit different. So I still wanna rule the world. I just wanna do it with a little bit more compassion. On my own terms, and I wanna bestow that to the women that are around me just as much because they deserve it. I think as much as things have changed in terms of the dynamics of male female, I think a lot of things have not changed in many ways. And so I think how we celebrate each other coming to the table with diversity, with females, having a voice, with just culture in general. With AI now coming into the picture. How can we all make sure that everybody is given a chance to do their best, to be seen their best and actually feel like they're part of something. They may not always wanna be at the forefront contributing and owning the stage in that sense. Yeah. Well you, you know, there's a lot of fear in all of that. How do you handle, feel, fear, personally? Do you use it as a catalyst, a recognition for, you know, either something good or bad? How do you. Incorporate fear into your life and how do you make it? So I always look at, on the other side of fear as magic. There's a million things that I'm afraid of and then I go do'em anyway because what am I not gonna do? Like you don't grow if you wanna keep playing small. And I think when I started to really build my network, it's unfortunate that I didn't use that to my advantage in my twenties and thirties, but. I felt shy, but when I built my network starting like eight years ago, that's when all these different opportunities started showing up to speak at events, to write some articles and really extend myself. And that got me to fall back in love with myself and have a lot of self-awareness so you can do it and still be afraid. You can have all the success in the world and still be afraid. Think one thing is, does the fear, does the pain of staying the same, better, or worse than where you're at right now? And that's something that is. Introspective to each person individually, but you're not gonna win and make that jump, whatever that jump looks like, until the pain is really within you. Right? And it's the same thing for organizations when they're making decisions, we call it glaciers formula, right? If there's resistance, it's because there's no vision gov commitment isn't there. Um, the pain isn't realized just yet. And so all this lack of inertia is gonna cause that momentum to really catalyst the roof. So. I think fear is just par for just being alive, and that actually is what life is about, is being afraid, but doing it anyway, and building that muscle memory within your brain to see those opportunities through. I have a post-it that I keep up daily and it says, are you moving mountains? Are you settling? And I keep that in front of my mind all the time. So every rejection, every, you know, ghosting opportunity. Or everything that I'm afraid of, I keep asking myself that. So what are you gonna do? Give up, fold up, you know, and then just not leave your house. I mean, you're still gonna have to pay for your house some way. And we can go through seasons of bingeing content or you know, just, um, doom scrolling, if you will. But at some point you gotta take action. So why not Now, you know, everyone waits till January 1st to make their resolutions. Life is not great right now. November. What's wrong with starting now? What's wrong with choosing you today? And I think for so long we've chosen other people, other things, other institutions to tell us what that coming up looks like for us. But why don't you make that decision today? It doesn't mean that you need to now go out and indoctrinate an LLC that you need to go quit your job, that you know you need to now downsize your house. No, like, but just. What's that small leap of action that you can take for yourself today? Go explore an idea. Go take a course. Go have a discovery call with a coach. Go listen to one of your podcasts, Kendra. But there, there's all this high vibe, momentum that's out there. You choose the noise that you want, keep around you, and you choose the people that you wanna elevate around us just as much. Yeah. I often will, um, also advise to think about like, what is the worst thing that you could think of that would happen? Like what is really the, the, the big situation that you're afraid of? So, you know, for me it was like, well, I'll, I'll fall flat on my face. I won't have an income. But then when I really thought about that, of course I'm not,'cause I, if I ended up in that situation. Honestly, my plan B is always to be, um, a Starbucks barista. I don't know why you love it, but I just always thought like, I'm gonna figure it out. Like if, if my vision of what I have in my head doesn't, you know, become that actual pathway or the end of the pathway, you know, I have a plan B and a C and a D, like, I think. Sometimes the fear that holds us back is like that thing of what we don't wanna hit. But if you look at it and you think, well, I, if I do hit it, then what? You kind of, it kind of makes it smaller, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I was. Some doctor was on TikTok yesterday and I posted to my stories, but she was talking about, and I'm anxiety ridden so I don't sleep because I think of 500 different things and I still worry. But they, she was saying how that is in and of itself an addiction to control. Hmm. And I am very type A, I do wanna control everything. I feel like if I know more, I can do better. I can possibly influence outcomes, but it's just a creature of habit to want to do that. That fear, that anxiety is very real, real and no one can tell you to make it go away. And that's not something I can tell my clients either. But we all have to develop this toolkit, like you were saying in the beginning of how we cope, how we thrive, and then how we build momentum. Like those three areas are the stages to get through when we come back through the cycle of starting to slip backwards or fall downwards. I also think that especially as women, we always give everyone else credit for how we've gotten here instead of actually looking of all the fight that you had in you to get to you here. So even in your circumstance, like of course you're gonna be successful'cause you fought through many things. You know, you were smart in school, you've gone through the other side of things like there's, it's impossibly, virtually impossibly for you to fail. And that means that. All means to just stop trying expectations. Yeah, absolutely. Like Marie Forleo, I read her book. Um, everything is figureoutable. I'm obsessed with her. I love that. And I like live by that.'cause it is, even when I was going through my divorce, I mean, it was something I never thought that would ever happen to me. Sure. But you know, it was happening and it was probably my worst fear, like going into any relationship. But when I looked back and realized like, well, okay, I was the one paying the bills. I was the one figuring it out. I was the one, you know, charting the course for our life. And so of course I can do it on my own. Yeah.'cause I have been, you know, I think there's like this inner trust you have to build in yourself and, um, that you're never gonna let yourself stop. Yeah. Just never stop. That's all you gotta do. Your only job in life is to never stop. Whether you fail, whether you hit Roblox, whether that's the only thing that is your job to do, and make sure that you keep going, and there are gonna be seasons where that keep going is a little less than the other because life gets busier and things happen, unfortunately, that get in our way. But as long as the momentum is high. You can thrive, and more importantly, you deserve to. Yeah, so it's not like you're just doing this frivolously, it's because you've made a conscious choice. To bet on you. And that in of itself is exciting. Whether you make it or not, whether you wanna go be in the boardroom, whether you wanna go start your own business, it's irrelevant. Yeah. Because tomorrow maybe you don't wanna start that business anymore. Maybe you wanna start a podcast, whatever it is, go find it. Go, go find whatever. Excites. I often find like we're, we're searching, we're trying to grasp a feeling more than an outcome, you know? That's so true. Feel more joy every day. I wanna feel like I'm making a difference in this world. And you know, that can change the vehicle as you grow, as things in your life grow. So I think keeping, yes, it's so good to have clarity, but at the same time, like also keeping a little bit malleable in, I might wanna do that differently tomorrow. Yeah. It's true, and that's where people find themselves at the precipice of change, right? Because it's funny, most people that I talk to that are my clients want that space and place to grow and exercise their autonomy and ideation and creativity. But yet. They want the institution to provide them that security and tell them what to do next and how to progress. And it's this push pull dynamic of a little bit of his hypocrisy and we're all guilty of it, right? We wanna show up for ourselves in a way that gives us freedom, but at the same time, we want that safety net. But. Right. At the end of the day, you are your only safety net. And I think this current climate that we're in with all the layoffs are proof of that. So if you wanna be lit up, if you wanna be around energy, this is where creating your network, um, is super important to you. Getting outside your head. Stop doing scrolling on all the negativity.'cause nothing is gonna come from that. You can't be in a space to actually get excited about anything if all you think about is doom and balloon. Right? Yeah. You know, you're a guide, a teacher, a coach. I struggle with this myself, and I'm curious what you think. So, because, you know, we're, we're teaching people. How do you navigate that very thin line of confidence and imposter syndrome? Because we are always a student too. Like, we're always learning. We're always, that's, I feel like as a human being, that's our job to keep growing, keep learning. So, but it also puts you in a position of you don't know everything. So, how am I teaching at you? How you know this methodology when I'm still learning myself? How do you, where do you stand on that? Yeah, much of, I think most of our successes. I've really leaned into this and I'm curious about just spending more time on myself understanding it, but I think a lot of the success that we have is through pattern recognition, right? So even as we've gone into different companies or now, you know, as you start to explore different things, and me too, a lot of what we learn along the way is how best do we learn? How best do we bring systems together? How best do we do a presentation? Okay, now. I'm doing it for advertising. Now, how do we switch that to actual consumers that are gonna buy this product? Right? But I think leaning into that is how you lead with confidence, because you may not know all the outside tactical pieces to getting there, but strategically, your pattern recognition is your kryptonite to actually making you that success story. This is where men do it really flawlessly, right? Because they never second guess themselves of whether they're gonna know how to do all of it or not, or it doesn't even come up in the conversation. Lila Herme, hormo said it best, you know, imposter syndrome most of the time. It's just your brain hasn't done this before, so it's trying to protect you and the circumstances of failing or feeling certain things. And that's great for your brain, thank you very much. But I still gotta go do this and I gotta do, go do this because it's an itch I need to scratch or it's a, a financial obligation I need to make, or I've said yes to somebody already, so I gotta go do it anyway. But I think understanding that a lot of what we've been through before was on the job training. It's just in this new light, maybe it's a lot of different things that were on the job training at once and as long as we can rely back upon. Strategic principles of that pattern, recognition of advocating for ourselves. Just like you said before, you'll figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I feel like I look back a lot and like I never think we experience things and it's wasted like. Even if you decide tomorrow to, you know, make a left instead of a right. Everything that you've gathered over your time, you can take all of that with you. So you're never really starting over and it just gives you more information for your next steps. I think you're right. I mean, even as a business owner, right? I'm trying to learn, you know, I think I'm a fast learner. I'm trying to learn all these different AI creative platforms between Canva and Typeform and all these different ones, and typeset and I, I remember I spent, I think, like a few hours on typeset to be able to, you know, design all these different ads. It took me forever to learn it. And I'm like, you know, the, the ego in me was like really burnt out on this. Like, how could this take me so long? Like, I'm really good at knowing everything. And, and again, I think part of that main character energy is having the humility to say, I don't know everything, but it's okay. Right? Like, it's only one day. I'm not, I'm not like an expert in all this stuff, but I'm gonna be able to figure it out and Wow. Like. The accomplishment is I turned out a bunch of great creative ads that I feel good about. So having a little bit more graciousness with yourself, giving yourself a little bit more space to, while you may wanna take on everything, I too have to make sure that I'm doing things in terms of bite-sized chunks. And I think we never really talk about the soft KPIs. You know, going back to corporate of more of the tangible stuff, the feeling stuff of getting those outcomes. So maybe the win today was you had three great meetings. Maybe the win today was you learn something new. Maybe it was just signing up for the platform and being able to add payment to them. You know, like whatever those things are. I think we, we undersell ourselves though, because we don't give ourselves credit for things that we've never done. Maybe you've never actually even set up a business checking account. Sometimes that's a little bit different than, you know, doing a personal account. Yeah, no, that's true. I loved, um, at the end of the night putting together a list of wins and like, it's those types of things. Even there's been days where I will just write sleep because yeah, I just need a win. And I did that for myself. So like, check that box, that's a win. Yeah, and it gets, it's gets really hard sometimes to see through the trees and know that there is that light, like my client said. Being able to say like, Hey, I'm actually showing up for myself and I like who I'm becoming, because sometimes we can't really understand who we're becoming as we're going through it.'cause we're not objective enough to say if this is successful or not, because again, we're be, we've been conditioned of what success looks like for us. So I think having that recognition, being present, meeting with intentionality, writing it down, like you said, the crowning, the headway, all the toolkit stuff that you have is really gonna help you have that fortitude to hush that imposter syndrome. Yeah. I absolutely have loved this conversation. I have a, um, couple rapid fire questions for you. Okay. Perfect. What is your, let's do, what is your big Yes. What is your big energy song? Big energy song. Okay. I have quite a few. So let me narrow it down. I would say, let's get Loud by Jennifer Lopez. That was, that's a good dance song. Yeah, exactly. Just fire up. And even the words to it. I mean, I know she's not the best singer, but just the words to it in and of itself is just thriving in that moment. Yeah, yeah. Loud in like every area. What is one quote that you live by right now? I've been obsessed with philosophers lately, so I'm always somewhere in like, no, I love it in Seneca. I don't know that anyone shook me lately. I think with AI there's a lot of like, um, regurgitation, but you know, I think the one that I keep in front of me that. Are you moving mountains? Are you settling? One is just one that just stays with me right now. You know, trying to launch your business, trying to work with different people, especially in this climate, it's hard sometimes, even with the best intentions to get excited and stay in that high vibe. So I just keep asking myself like, don't worry about what the feedback is. Don't worry about no feedback. Yeah. So when no one's applauding for you, are you settling? Are you moving mountains? And what is one book that you would recommend for someone who is in that in-between a little bit unclear stage? Yeah, I would have to say, um, it goes back to the one that I read recently, which I know a lot of people have read. But, um, for me, Mel Robbins let them, because as soon as you let them, you let yourself, and I think a lot of that does into the main character energy, um, situation. Stop spending so much time obsessing over why people are doing what they're doing. And that's coming from me marketer who wanted to get into why consumers do what they do. It's, it's fine. It's not fine when you start to spiral and when it holds you back from who you could potentially be. So I know it's made its rounds, but I would still say that, um, it's a good one to reverberate. Go back to, um, and actually spend some time with and actually put some of the lessons into play. What does reinvention mean to you? I know it's a hefty one. Solace. Finally, having comfort and peace and what your day-to-day looks like. Connection with your relationships. Again, you know, I think sometimes, whether it's your partner or whether it's your family, we're present, but we're not really present. If we were, to be honest, we're half tuned out, we're thinking about 500 things. A lot of stress. I think for that, it's definitely the solace and comfort of just being at peace. Not everything's perfect, so peace doesn't equal perfect, but peace equals. Progress and momentum to something that's gonna be amazing. I love that. So we're gonna have all your links in the show notes, but I wanna talk about your program, how people can work with you, what you have coming up. And I think you, um, also have a, I dunno if it's a code or um, a discount for. For one of your programs, right? Yeah. So like I said, I don't want you to wait for until January 1st to decide. That's when you wanna get going, get going now, it's never too early to start. So for listeners of your show, you know, end of year 15% discount if you mention Kendra for our Level Up 2026 program. Excellent. And what does that look like? What's that program look like? So what you'll get is a weekly coaching with me, you'll get a 90 day transformation plan all within that framework of. Curiosity, clarity, and conviction. We'll also work through a workbook personally for you to figure out how you're gonna put your action plan into play. We're gonna get some quick wins right out of the gate before the end of the year so that you have the confidence in terms of hitting ground one on day 1st of January first. So if you wanna wait for your weight loss and fitness goals, by all means wait for those. You can indulge. But uh, in terms of your mind, body, soul connection, that's what I'm here for. I love it. Thank you so, so much. Guys, check out the show notes, your website. Is I just, it's a long one for you, but it's Melissa Sierra, focal point coaching.com. Got it. Yeah. So show notes is your best bet. And we can find you on Instagram too, right? That's right. Melissa Sierra, coach. Cool. All right. Excellent. Well, thank everybody. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, it was great speaking with you, Kendra and everyone, go back and binge one, binge listen to, excuse me, um, Kendra's podcast episodes because they've also been helping me just figure out where I'm taking other people's, um, to our practice and how we're gonna do. So everyone needs help along the way, whether you're a coach or not. So Kendra's got some great episodes. Thank you so much.