8. Radiating Prosperity: How a Tiger Sequined Dress and Super Dave Inspired Project Mel

In this episode, Mel Selcho delves into the challenges and triumphs of pursuing our dreams, sharing personal stories of frustration and inspiration. From a sequined tiger dress that sparked introspection to the realization that dreams come with both delight and discomfort, Mel invites listeners to embrace the full spectrum of the journey.

Key Topics Covered:

1. The Nature of Work and Dreams: How our dreams call to us in their success form, often hiding the frustrations and hard work required to realize them. And they are the excellence our soul wants to contribute to the world.
2. Project Mel's Journey: The origin story of Project Mel, born from a dream nagging at Mel for years and the regret felt upon her cancer diagnosis. The growth Mel experienced looking to her past for clues to success and returning to her roots of delight instead of conventional wisdom.
3. Super Dave's Story: A powerful lesson from a mobile mechanic who saved the day and taught how frustration requires taking a new look.

Transcript

  You know what?   Our dreams don't call to us with the frustrations.   Our dreams call to us in their success version, because  that's the call that we answer.  When we think about how great our impact might be, we don't think about how hard it's going to be to get there. When it comes time to realizing those dreams, we get the frustration  and the work. 

today's episode started when I saw a sequined dress with a big tiger on the front of it.  I imagined myself giving a presentation then quickly shut that down.  No one will take me seriously, I thought.  It turns out I was the one not taking myself seriously.  Today, we dig deep into the discomfort of realizing a dream and what gets in our way. 

 Let's figure out how to chase those dreams.  Even when we know they are both and.

 Today, my delight is fashion.  Like I'm so grateful that there are people who find new fun things for us. I am sitting here wearing a sequin  tiger dress, and I'm going to talk more about that  whatever your fashion is. Jeans and a t shirt,  Lululemon.  It's awesome. Somebody created that for us and we get to express ourselves however we want. 

So they say, I don't really know who they is, but I know you've heard this before. They say there's no growth in the comfort zone.  But they also say, and this resonated with me too, there is no comfort in the growth zone.   Folks. 

I have been living in this quote in the growth zone of discomfort.  I've been growing a practice in the form of a business, and it feels a little like growing a human, gestating.  There's promise and worry and a lot, pregnant pauses.  This week, the progress I've discovered feels a little like .

 The fetus is now a newborn.  So welcome to the world project Mel, it's been going for a while, but I've had a lot of breakthroughs this week and I want to share them. 

Even though I wear rose colored glasses, my life is definitely not all rosy and neither has this period been.  So I'm going to dig a little deeper into the both and of work and dreams. 

  This episode is for you. If you envision potential that calls or nags at you, you want to create, I'll call that a dream.  And bringing it to reality is the work I'm hoping my story from the last several months will inspire your dreams or your work to have a new life of their own.  So here's where we're going first.

I'm going to tell you about what I mean when I say work and dreams, and it's probably not what you think. Then we're going to talk about how project Mel came to be and the frustration side of that dream.  I'll tell you the story of super Dave, whose work literally saved my family this week and also taught me why we let our dreams and good ideas die. 

And then before we get to the challenge, we'll meet project Mel as it is now in its newborn state.  When I talk about work, I'm using maybe a capital W kind of work. I don't mean a job or business necessarily, though for some of us it is the same thing. Whether we are paid or how much we are paid or not for our contribution in the world, I believe it is our work  we live, or at least I live in a free ish market with some version of capitalism that isn't perfect at determining value. 

If you want an example, look at the teachers or the people who took my garbage this morning, they are definitely not paid for the value that they bring to my life.   I'm taking off on the idea of work and dreams that comes from Richard Rudd's book, the gene keys.

And I'm going to be honest, it's a little woo. The Gene Keys is related to human design, which I'll also talk about a little because it has to do with Project Mel  the way he talks about work and dreams is this. He says, every human being has a built in genetic need to work. Do you believe that? I totally believe that, but  

the definition of work has been convoluted in our current society. And he goes on to talk about how little kids have these big dreams and ambitions of being famous or being a professional athlete. And then adults either see that dream as a phase,  or maybe we're scared they're going to be disappointed.

And so we kind of quash it and decide that we're going to give them a dose of reality that the dream cannot be achieved.  Rudd says this kind of early dreaming aspiration actually burns at a very high frequency.

And if it can be maintained, harnessed and given direction, it will eventually lead these children.  without adults here  in the direction of their excellence.  I love this so much. That potential that nags at us is our excellence.  And I'm all about contributing to the world. If you've listened to a single minute of this podcast, you know that mostly for a selfish reason, I benefit so much from other people's contributions to the world. 

What no one tells us  is that our dreams are both, and they are dreamy and they are nightmarish to realize. At least no one told me that I thought all these people that were like, I have always wanted to be a, whatever it is, had kind of smooth sailing towards their dreams. Like they had to work hard, but that was just a matter of effort level.

 So these dreams kind of are sneaky. They call to us in their realized form and it's like, it's going to be so great.  And they don't tell us about. The feelings of being stuck and the rejection and the failed attempts that we're going to have along the way. 

So where did  project Mel come from? The short answer is years of this dream sort of nagging at me  that I wanted to see what I could do with a business of my own.

But I had this insecurity that came along with it because I didn't know what that business would be. And everyone I know that has done something wonderful in the world is like, I knew from the moment I was born, I was meant to design dresses  and I didn't have that. So I kind of felt like maybe I shouldn't have my own business. 

Fast forward to July of 2022, the suddenness  of my diagnosis made me believe I would be dead by Christmas.  And I was like, if there's anything you want to do in this life, now is the time. This is go time. We are not screwing around anymore.  As I was thinking about it, of course there were things that I wanted to do, but most of them I hadn't had an opportunity presented to me yet.

Like I want to see who my kids are going to become as adults. I want to see who I'm going to become without them. I wanted to meet my grandkids.  None of those had presented themselves as opportunities yet.  And then of course I had other regrets in life, but they were momentary regrets like, Oh, I wish I wouldn't have lost my patience, that sort of thing. 

But there was one really, really big regret  where I could have taken an opportunity and I just hadn't yet because I'd been too comfortable. And that was this dream of starting or running my own business. To tell you the truth, I don't honestly know which it is.  It's just moving me in the direction of where I think my next work is. 

But when I had that regret, I was facing cancer treatment. And I knew that was not a really great time to start a business.  I would have been leaving a company that really needed me and I wouldn't have been able to do it in a way that set them up for success.  And  I wanted to keep working during treatment because work gave me that sense of contribution and normalcy.

And it was a very volatile time in my life.  Later, as that treatment was almost finished, life handed me a perfect opportunity in the summer of 2023 and I took it.  And you can hear more about that in the episode flying or falling.  I took the chance because I knew so well what regret feels like. And I was like  we're not going to feel that again.

So I left that job. I took a sabbatical,  to see what I wanted to do. And on December 1st of 2023, I hired myself as the CEO of project mill. I even wrote an offer letter.  I still didn't know what the product was. In fact, that was in  offer letter. You as a CEO are  tasked with determining our product and getting it to market. 

And I felt like, okay, I'm a great marketer. So if anyone can get it to market, like determining the product is going to be the hardest part.  That's how dreams are sneaky.  They make us believe something is going to be the hardest part and that the easiest part is going to be this thing that we already know how to do. 

So I thought, I just need to figure out what the product is. And I went about working on that. I knew what my superpower is.  I am so creative with big ideas and I have the capacity for actionable steps.

So I marry those two things, and so I decided that the product would be, I would become a strategist and I wanted to work primarily with businesses, but I didn't know which types of businesses 

and this is where I got extra frustrated.  And I started forcing myself to have a specialty or a niche because in the conventional wisdom of marketing, that is what you're supposed to do.  I felt so stuck and I felt so scattered. Every time I forced myself to target something, I would judge myself because it didn't feel right.

And I would hear all this conventional wisdom. I would think I was a failure because I couldn't just pick one and run with it.  So I've been spending the last few months  picking a niche, trying to take it to market, not liking it, feeling worse. 

 It's been this vicious cycle.  It all came to a head a few weeks ago when my friend introduced me to Kate Huko fashion.  At first I was so jealous of Kate Hugo's marketing go look it up. Her last name is H E W K O.  I fell in love with the sequin dress that had a tiger on it that now I'm wearing.

And I thought this would be the perfect thing to buy myself as my re birthday present. And if you want to hear about my re birthday, you go to episode three.  It lit me up to look at it and I imagined myself wearing it in a room where I was giving some kind of a company presentation  and I was like, that can't be true because I would never wear that at work.

 I told myself, nobody will take you seriously if you show up wearing a tiger dress.  So I shut that part of myself down and I went back to the worksheets and I went back to judging myself for being so scattered and being so stuck and telling myself, why couldn't I get my stuff together and I'm a good marketer and what is wrong with me?

And you know what happens when you ask the question, what is wrong with you? Your brain answers it and tells you all the things wrong with you.  Thankfully,  I had a coach who helped me through it.  As soon as I got back into alignment with delight, I was able to look at my past success  and  the clues that it had given me  and where I might be able to go forward in the future. 

You know what? I've owned a business before.  My sister and I, when we were stay at home moms as a creative outlet  created a purse sewing company called two sis and the S I S stood for sisters in stitches. And we were like, this is so clever because we mean stitch like, so, and we also mean stitches like  you're in stitches, laughing.   We're going to laugh together and we are going to have fun. We would go to the fabric store and  choose whatever was inspiring us.  And we would combine these fabrics together with a luxurious Hardy corduroy for the bottom of the bags. 

And we ended up creating different designs of bags that we would name after the women in our lives. And we sold them at art shows.  The clue that two sisters and stitches left me was partly from its name stitches.

We were all about having fun  and for sure it wasn't fun that time I sewed through my finger and it wasn't fun when we would stay up all night getting ready for a show or when it would rain at the show or when people would tell us our bags were too expensive.  Those parts weren't fun.  But two sisters and stitches was all about fun.

 I also looked back at  my time with the home inspection company. You can hear more about that in episode two, which is the fun scale.  Because I was determined to make home inspection fun.

 I gave the most interesting talks at what we call dog and pony shows,  and I ended up creating 15 hours worth of continuing education classes for them about neighborhood history in Atlanta.

And that had nothing to do with home inspection, but it definitely helped me grow the business.   Because I thought about what would delight the people I was serving and what would delight me. And I found a win win between those things.  It was a great example of where I went against conventional wisdom.

 When I looked back at my past, all of these clues became maybe what we'll call the DNA of success for Project Mel.  I decided I need to get into alignment with delight. 

One of the things that had delighted me during this this uncomfortable, Gestation stage was my exposure to human design.   I'm not going to do justice to what human design is in this podcast.

Definitely go look it up. I highly suggest the work of C H R I S T I E, I N G E,   when I looked back at mine, it felt like reading the owner's manual of being me. It just resonated so much like this is how you were designed to work in this world. And the successes that you have are related. To showing up, embracing and embodying that design. 

So for instance, in my profile lines, the way my mind works is through wisdom. But the way that I discover the wisdom is by experimenting. Oh, interesting. That's what I've been doing during this gestation period.  My sun gate, get this. Is radiating prosperity.  It talks about like enthusiasm and being able to be flexible, which I can so do, , I'm a really great associative thinker, and I can take examples from one industry or one area of life and apply them to another.

This is what Christie says about  your conscious sun  it is like a magic wand that the divine is inviting you to harness through your entire life.  

 Project Mel is all about that.  radiating prosperity

I know that I love that people put work in the world.  So it makes sense that my own work in the world would be related to that.  I naturally champion the ideas that people have, the work that they do, the impact that it has.

And I often see it when other people can't see it. And I want there to be more delight in it. Like if we're going to live in this capitalist society, which I don't know that we necessarily have a choice of what form of economics our society is. I want to love paying the people we pay and I don't want to resent it.

And I want for the people that we pay to love us right back. So it's fascinating. This is all culminating this week and coming to a head.  And I'm looking at being scattered as something wrong. And my coach reminds me that some things are meant to be scattered like fairy dust. 

And then I think of other things meant to be scattered like salt and sunshine, all things that I love.  If I were to describe Project Mel,  I would return to what Richard Rudd said.  I would say that Project Mel harnesses, maintains, and directs  dreamy aspirations of people moving towards their excellence. 

That is apparently my current niche.  It was really my awakening   it coincided with a very special experience I had of someone else's business this week. So I'm going to tell you about super Dave, and I hope it inspires you in the way that it inspired me. 

It tells us why we don't realize the potential of our dreams.  So my boys were planning to go to Arizona state on Tuesday and they had bought this new to them, but very, very old F one 50 truck that they loved so much. And it seems like everything was great with this truck. We got a few repairs made to it, but before we could get it registered the check engine light came on.

And so it had spent at least a week in the shop and the boys had told the mechanic who we love and trust that they were going to leave on Tuesday. So when they go pick it up on Tuesday, the mechanic says. I'm so sorry, but I am stumped. I have tried all these things and he gives a giant list of things that he's tried  I can't find out what's wrong with it.

So I can't fix it.  And I was like, if he can't fix it, there is no way this truck is ever going to Phoenix. And  I start in panic mode. We're going to have to buy a new car. I'm going to have to fly the boys out to college. I'm calling moving companies. I'm booking airline tickets.

 I remembered this person on my networking team that I go to every Thursday  who  goes by super Dave and he is a mobile mechanic.   He had said in one of his presentations that he was a Ford expert  so , I send him the list of things and he says, you know, I think I'll probably be able to fix it.  Check engine lights are my bread and butter.  He came, he had it fixed and diagnosed in an hour and a half.

It was a 150 problem. The fuel filter.  And probably when the other mechanic finds out what it was, he'll be kicking himself because it seems kind of obvious.  So I was talking to Dave about that  feeling bad for the other mechanic. Also, this is an endorsement of second opinions.  Dave told me the greatest story.

He said, I totally get it. You know what? I'm a Ford expert and I was rebuilding this Ford truck. I rebuilt the engine, I rebuilt the transmission  and I couldn't get the transmission right. And it was so frustrating. The more I worked on it, the worse it got.  And he was like, I finally got so mad at that truck.

I sold it for 300. And the person I sold it to put one quart of transmission fluid in,  and the truck has been running perfectly ever since. And he said, I was just too mad at the truck.  And two things came to me first, Oh my goodness, I have been too mad at project Mel because it wasn't rolling out in the way that I thought a calling should.

 I'd been.  Sucking at things that I'm supposed to be good at. And I had been experiencing all kinds of  inability to like grit my way through things .  Oh, I'm so sorry, project Mel.  And the second thing that came to me was,  Oh my gosh, I needed super Dave this week what if when he was deciding to become a mechanic, he thought to himself, you know what? There's already a lot of mechanics in the world. And there's already people who know more about Ford's than me.  Everybody already has their mechanic 

so they're never going to call me. And so maybe I shouldn't do this.  I am so grateful that he did not do that because you want to know what,  as his client, he's I needed him way more than he needed me this Tuesday.  This all came together. It feels like the birth of Project Mel.  So here is what I know about this iteration of Project Mel. 

I'm weaving together the scattering of things I've been doing into one mission, just like I did at Two Sis and just like I did at Home Probe.  I am here to take whoever has a dream of something they want to contribute to the world toward that excellence.  That means I'm equally thrilled when I'm helping a woman find time in her schedule to write her book of her medical miracle, as I am when I'm helping a business scale to 4 million in revenue. 

I do both.  What I'm committed to is scattering delight and sunshine and salt and fairy dust the way of the world to whoever needs to hear it and see it,  whether that's in this podcast or in workshops or in strategy sessions, if you want to know what that is. Please think. If a coach and a consultant had a love child, that is a strategy session. 

 I'm here for all of it.   Now I'm here for your challenge and I'm going to go back to super Dave  and thinking about him being so mad at his truck and thinking about me being so mad at project Mel.  And I want to know, what are you mad at? 

How is that frustration or anger calling you to expand?    How might you be someone else's super Dave?  How can you harness your dream of your own excellence? 

Know this, I want to help.  I am literally all dressed up in that tiger sequined dress. Only I have some place to go and I hope it sounds fun to come with me in whatever way you want to. I'll see ya.