Mel and Mic talk: Community
We can't believe we're in full swing with Season 3 of The Kindling Project Podcast!
Let's go, G.N.O!
Mel and Mic get real about what community means for them and how it's changed over the years.
Are we prioritizing it as much as we used to in our younger years? Where do you find belonging and happiness nowadays?
Listen to the full episode:
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Melissa: [00:00:00] Hey, Nick. How are you doing today?
Monica: Hey, hey, hey. I'm doing great. Good to see you.
Melissa: It's good to see you. Second podcast in a row, just you and I kind of shooting the breeze, and I love it. I love it. Ah, me too. Me too. I think sometimes, even though I love having guests, I forget like how fun it is to just have girlfriend conversation here on the podcast.
Monica: Exactly, and even though today, I'm telling you, I'm struggling, it's a little gloomy out there,
Melissa: isn't it? I know, yeah. I feel like we didn't really get summer, and I sure hope we're going to get some of those beautiful sunny fall days, because this is like, gray and mean. So Michigan. Yeah, exactly. So you and I were having a conversation last night about community and about the community that we're building here at the Kindling Project.
And we decided let's do a pod about community. It's such a big topic. So let's jump into that today.
Monica: I love it. Yeah. We [00:01:00] talk about that and community comes in so many different forms. I know for me, it's always been very important. I think it's just something instilled in my family. I think being a Latina family is so important and there's always so many of us around that we always grew up with community.
I can't even imagine being in a situation like my husband, who's an only child. What that felt like, you know, dinners at home where our family was always so big. And then my mom, of course, opened her door for anyone who ever needed a place. One of the biggest lessons she taught me is to always make room at the table.
And so we had like a, a revolving door of people in our home all the time. So I'm so used to and accustomed to people around me. I don't know how you grew up, but that's where I first learned about.
Melissa: Unfortunately, I feel like I am more from, like, the stereotypical, like, waspy, white, [00:02:00] uncomfortable people who, I wanted to be in a big Latina family because I have the personality for, like, the hugging and the kissing and the oversharing. But, I mean, I don't know. I didn't grow up with my dad's family at all.
He was estranged from them my whole childhood. And then my mom's family, I was really super close to my grandparents. They live next door. And my grandma, God bless her, she did her best. She, she was from the South. She sort of had a Southern mentality. She definitely hosted the majority of the family functions.
But I still think that there was kind of a reserve or a wall around people in my family. And so maybe that's why so much is building. Friend communities has always been so important to me. I'm always the first one to like, let's start a mom's club. Let's start a walking club. Let's start a supper club because I think I crave community and, and I'm a joiner.
I'm a natural joiner. So like if you've got a fun club, I want to be invited,
Monica: right? [00:03:00] Yeah. By the way, thanks for setting up that supper club community. I'm so excited. We both love to eat. So that's a bonus. I'm
Melissa: looking forward to that. And there's just, Oh, Detroit. I mean, I think Detroit in every community has like its food story, but the food story here and the restaurant scene here is just, you know, grown exponentially in the five.
you know, eight years that I've been back in Michigan and I just haven't been taking advantage of it the way I want to. And I was just sitting around one night, you know, doing the usual social media scrolls and seeing all the PR for these new restaurants. And I'm like, that's it. I'm going to get some pals and start going to these new restaurants.
Oh,
Monica: I can't wait. Uh, yeah, because we get sort of very comfortable in our little, you know, Yeah, I don't know. It's like five mile radius. Our little town of Northville is so comfortable, but it's also can be very sleepy. So it's nice to get out because this Troit is so vibrant that you to your point, there's so much going on.
I think a friend mentioned yesterday that we're hitting the 10 year mark out [00:04:00] of bankruptcy. For Detroit. Oh, I love that. It's just like this revitalization of being there. It's got energy and the people and the women in there at Detroit making a difference is a whole different story that we could do an entire podcast
Melissa: on that.
Yeah. So I'm excited about that club. I'm excited about that community. I'm super excited about the community you and I are building for the Kindling Project, which is, you know, 2000 members strong and ignite right now. I really want to discuss, like, how do we engage them better and how do we get feedback and what does that look like and why are we doing it?
And you know, let's just kind of workshop that here on the pod and see if we get any response. Like, what is it that women specifically are looking for because they're joining, they're joining our community. And of course. The statistics show that they're joining online and in real life communities and organizations at very high record rates right now.
But joining is one thing [00:05:00] and then participating and getting value from those are the questions I have right now about what do you and I do to make that happen? So I guess
Monica: I would start with just asking ourselves or asking Let me ask you, when you join community, what is it that you're seeking? I
Melissa: think on some level, it's always to combat loneliness, right?
Like you want to reflect to other human beings, this is what I'm doing, are you doing this too? Am I doing the right thing? Like that, that sort of feedback loop. But Yeah. I also belong to some very specific communities, like one about parenting a kid at a specific university or one about weight loss or a business mastermind for my design agency.
So I think there's kind of like the first level is connection, you know, connection. And then the second level is, you know, sometimes very specific communities for specific goals in my life. I
Monica: know. Are these all online communities that you're talking about or do you actually have communities that You are [00:06:00] physically
Melissa: connecting with both both.
So I'm in quite a few online groups I'm also in quite a few like business mastermind Groups or I have been in different ones over the years like I belong to a small mastermind right now Where there's about a dozen of us who get together twice a month by zoom and then once a month in person and then we've had some events and parties and visiting of other people's businesses in there and then over the years like I've I belong to WeBank and Nabo and, uh, I did Goldman Sachs and so there's an alumni group.
So I do belong to some organizations where maybe there's a quarterly event or maybe there's an annual fundraiser or cocktail party or, so a combination.
Monica: Those are all like business driven. So do you actually feel when you define community? Do you think the networking ones are, fall under that
Melissa: category?
Some more than others, right? So I've been to some that were very, very kind of structured around a specific goal, like obviously NABO's National [00:07:00] Organization of Women Business Owners. And it's really The community collective is supporting your fellow, uh, female business owners. And then like EO that I belong to, there was a strong social component there where they definitely balanced the scaling your business and growing your business with building relationships with like minded entrepreneurs.
And in fact, it's very much shunned in that organization to. you know, pitch each other. In fact, I think you may even be able to be asked to leave if you do too much of that. So it's not networking in the sense of like, buy my services, but it's, you know, finding like minded individuals and like learning from them and sharing.
You know, having teenagers and college kids now, you kind of get in these sort of de facto groups of community, like it's the basketball moms, right? Or it's the dance moms. And so when I think of like all the communities I belong in. And I was thinking about that leading up to this conversation. It's more [00:08:00] than I thought, right?
If you count like my neighborhood happy hour moms and my basketball moms and, you know,
Monica: I guess the question really is out of all those communities, which ones do you feel the most connected? And is there something different? I guess I'm trying to answer your question and thinking it for myself as well.
It's like, what makes that identifying that special sauce? That connects you to a particular community and why, because to your point, there are so many and I too am part of different ones. And so when I think about the communities that really I'm attracted to, I, you know, of course there's volunteering and all my work in the community that to me.
That's almost a selfish, I don't really go to that for relationships. That's more like it fills my bucket internally. So then I think, okay, that's not community when I think of it. I mean, interestingly enough, playing tennis for a long time was a sense of community. And for [00:09:00] me, that aside from the game was women coming together, having this connection.
This is what brought us together was the love of tennis, but the stories and the friendships that emerged from that. Mm-hmm. is really what brought me is that how's Logan doing in college? And how's, you know, like really getting to know each other and, and knowing how's your mom doing if you know parents who are sick or those intimate personal things that come out of really, uh, friendships.
Right. And to me that what. Really drew me to tennis for a long time and for a long, and for a while it became less about the game and more about my friendship. And I have one of my best friends plays a lot of tennis too, and she still sticks to a lot of her groups, even though she's incredibly talented and.
Probably has bypassed a lot of the women she started playing tennis with only because she focuses a lot more on in it But she still goes back to those groups.
Melissa: It's the relationship more than this athleticism. Yes. [00:10:00] Yes. I've had that over the years Yeah, that's super special. I've had that over the years with different yoga studios, right or you find an instructor at a yoga studio.
And then you always take her class because it turns out that, you know, a number of you have connected in that class.
Monica: Um, and Amy, are we always talked about that? Our co founder, always a fire starter, Amy Drummond. She always talked about. her community with barre class. Remember that? She is still such an avid student of that, even though she's a yogi and she teaches yoga.
But she, I mean, things had to really happen for her to miss a class at barre. And again, I think it was less about the workout and more about these friendships she had, she has with the women there.
Melissa: I think you're right. And then in thinking about Okay, so we're talking about some of the good things about these different communities that you belong to and you know I'm giving you like this range of everything from like a casual text that goes out in my neighborhood in the summer with some of Us moms of whose [00:11:00] patio are we drinking on right?
That kind of thing to like a really formal organization like EO where there's annual dues and there's events and there's ticketed events and there's a lot of structure and Even within that whole range of organizations and community building that I participated in, one of the reasons I felt compelled to start the Kindling Project is I think there was still a gap for me.
And then I think my intuition is that there's a gap. for a lot of women in what they're getting, because, you know, I, I was thinking about this in terms of communities I've joined, you know, I'm in an online community for weight loss, right? I'm taking a weight loss medication and we're all comparing our symptoms and tracking our progress and, you know, sharing which protein bars are edible, you know, it's very specific.
It's like goal oriented or like your kids, basketball moms or parents, you know, it's very specific, like what you're all doing there together. [00:12:00] And The Kindling Project, in a way, is also specific, and it's specific on, like, in a high level way, but also in a specific way, is that we're addressing a need for women, right?
We're talking about that internal fire, that passion, you know, that thing that makes you get up in the morning and get excited that, you know, that you need to tend to. And I feel like in a lot of the organizations that I've been in, even the, sort of, the business... Uh, coaching, business scaling type organizations, they do address some of that, of course, but not in a way that's specific to women.
And also not in a broad sense of your dreams and ambitions do not have to be revenue generating to be valuable. And I think a lot of women are, yeah, oh, it's just my little thing over here, or I'll never make any money at it, or I don't want to make any money at it, or I don't need to, or, but it's still.
You know, it's my [00:13:00] dream. It's my dream to sing in a band, or it's my, you know, dream to have a food truck, or it's my dream to have a one woman show, and so I really want the Kindling Project community to address that passion that women have that gets set aside for life, and So I want it to be broad enough that we can include somebody who just wants to write a book and somebody who wants to scale to a million dollars.
I think both of those things are the kindling, if you will, the conversations, the fuel, the connections, the resources that you need to ignite a passion. for both of those things is very similar. And not always, you know, we live in a man's world. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about it, but we do.
And there's, there's progress to be made. And you know, how do we specifically fill this need for women?
Monica: To add to that, Mel, when I think of the Kennedy Project, it's sort of this permission to coexist between this two worlds of being. Also [00:14:00] very happy with what you have and also wanting more because you can do both, right?
It's not one or the other I'm tired for women We're always having to choose what career or family this or that no, you know what we're saying actually not it's okay You're allowed to love being a mom or the career choices. You've made thus far But also wanted maybe wanting more now or wanting to pivot or maybe just wanting something different or elevating.
It's sort of like this is might not be the right analogy, but I've been thinking a lot about death lately. It's like when people pass, it's okay to. Be sad and also happy for how, because you got the chance to love them and know them how lucky us and, you know, sort of like to live in between those two things in life, a lot of it is that, and, and it's that permission, like, no, you actually don't have to choose between one or the other come with us, join our community.
We're going to clap it out for you. And also to your point, what you [00:15:00] said earlier. It doesn't have to be like go open a massive corporation, like it can be whatever little slice you want, whatever the scope, we're here for you and we want to cheer for you and celebrate
Melissa: you. Right. I think you hit the nail on the head with like the permission giving for whatever reason.
I do think. It's helpful and useful to women to be told, hey, here's a permission slip, you know, go and do it. We're standing here, you know, it's valid. I'm not saying that, you know, every woman is just walking around craving validation, but I think all humans need validation. And specifically, you can get to a certain point in your life where you've gotten so far away from listening to your own inner voice that even just listening to it is, you need permission for, or you need time, or you need to create a space for it.
And that's why I say we're creating spaces, which seems like an abstraction, but it's not an abstraction because whether you listen in your car. To [00:16:00] the podcast or in your earpiece when you're on your Peloton or whether you come to our event or you know, you're scrolling in your pajamas through our Facebook group.
Those are spaces you can visit. And in those spaces, I want there to be like permission for dreams.
Monica: Love it. Yes, yes. And yes. So going back to your question, like how do we create or how? Are we not doing a good enough job communicating that? And two, looking at the women that are in our group now, do you think they're seeking the same thing?
And even though that's, we've always, I feel like we've always, uh, been very clear with our messaging. When you think in general terms of people, why people, I mean, why is it that Taylor Swift? Okay. Let's just call it what it is. She's incredibly talented. She's a beautiful, young, talented woman. Wonderful.
Her songs resonate with millions women line up. Now her movie is sold out already. Pre sold out. And all [00:17:00] that is, is I think the movies of her concert. So basically if you went to her concert, you get to go sit on a movie theater and watch her concert. It's like a
Melissa: documentary of the different performances.
I'm not tracking
Monica: this. Okay. So incredible though, right? What is the special sauce? Is that she. She makes people feel seen, she acknowledges, she loves all people, all women, all men, all anything. She just loves humans. And she creates this sort of place where everyone belongs. And so you talk about belonging in a sense of that.
And you mentioned loneliness earlier. There is. A giant hole in people's hearts where people are lonely. And if you think about how social media got started in the beginning was actually to connect people, right? Because I mean, we've now weaponized it and now what was meant to be a connector of people is now often used as a, a tool to make people feel left out.
Make people like get [00:18:00] in a comparison lane, make people feel like less than because, Oh my God, look what they're doing. Look what they're posting. But the intention of social media was to connect people. And so there's always, we have been seeking as a, as just as a people, as a human race, that sense of Okay, how do we connect and how do we belong and how do we actually feel like people see us for who we are and what we are?
Melissa: Well, going back to your Taylor Swift analogy, I had heard this piece on NPR recently about The huge success of, I believe it was Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Pink all had huge summer blockbuster shows this summer and, you know, just sold out in the millions and made millions and millions of dollars and just, they were successful beyond anybody's imagination, those, those three tours.
And the person that was referencing them, and I, I don't remember his name, he's a screenwriter, he [00:19:00] was talking about It's shared experience, right? It's going there, whether it's the getting dressed up and going with your nieces or your daughters or your girlfriends, and being all in the same place at the same time experiencing the same thing and looking around and being like, oh, we're part of this.
That seems to be one of the secret. Ingredients to the success of those shows is that people are seeking connection through a shared experience. So
Monica: perhaps that's the answer, Mel. I mean, perhaps we have to somehow get people to start sharing their experiences. And I know you and I are trying to do that, but how do we get women to open up and share?
I think
Melissa: that there's definitely a hesitation. We've seen some women come forward in the Ignite group and tell a little bit of their own biography, whether this is my business or this is an event I'm putting on or here's some pictures of baked good items that I'm making or [00:20:00] here's, uh, pictures of artwork or photography that I've done.
And. How do we get, first of all, that kind of bravery of putting yourself out there? I really want it to be rewarded and responded to more. And I think people are either hesitant to do that of, Oh, I don't know her, or I don't know the right thing to say. So how do, how do you get that engagement of one? You get rewarded for showing up and sharing your experience.
And I think maybe it's something about shared experiences. It has to somehow resonate of like, Oh, I get that. you know, I'm also an artist, or I'm also a baker, or I'm also an author, and I really don't want the Kindling Project to be siloed into, okay, we got our artists and our writers and our chefs, but how do we get to, like, what's the commonality that we all have here?
How do we get to, hey, This woman's risk taking or passion pursuing through baking is similar to me taking over my dad's business and trying to grow it. There is [00:21:00] a similarity there, like a commonality that we have to tap into or get people to understand, Hey, we can clap it out for each other. And it's so healthy.
It is healthy.
Monica: I think that. It's healthy. As much as I give younger people a tough time because they're, they're very good at icing people out as well, but they're also very good at community building. Uh, young people do it very well. Think women our age, Gen X women, who is primarily in our group. I have a really difficult time actually clapping it out for women.
Now we have a lot of women. I should, I mean, I should say we have a lot of women that show up for us and are amazing and I could name them all right now. They're all in my head, but I'm always surprised how many women in our community or women in general. I don't know if it's a insecurity thing. I don't know if they're just trying to be polite or they disagree or they like, Oh, if I clap it out for them, then I'm taken away from me.
I don't know. I'm not [00:22:00] sure because you and I are always like, Oh no, the stage is so big. I mean, we couldn't be more generous with trying to light it up for others. But I don't always find it is the same.
Melissa: It's not a, it's not, it's not a natural impulse for a lot of women. And I think, I think I've brought this up several times, so I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I told you I joined a big national business networking group that was based in Texas and I flew to Dallas for a couple of their meetings and it was really, really heavily male.
oriented, like 80 or 90 percent men. And it wasn't a good fit for me in a lot of ways. But like one of the key takeaways I have is how much more those dudes show up for each other than some of the female organizations I'm in. And You know, like I'm a girl's girl, like through and through, like I'm here for the women.
I think Amy said this on a podcast one time, but I'm a hundred percent with her on this. It's like, I'm not one of those girls that says, Oh, all my friends [00:23:00] are dudes. You know, it's like, I got a son and a husband and I'm good. Like all my friends are girls. I think that it's, it's societal factors of, you know, We are so keenly aware of there's very few spaces for us.
There's very, there's only one or two seats at the boardroom table, right? There's, there's only one or two seats at the top of the organization in the C suite. Or, it kind of even goes back to like, the prettiest girl or the prom queen or like there has to be one ideal and there's only room for her and if you don't look like that, you know, if you, if you weren't, if you weren't born like tall and thin, like when Kate Moss was big, then you're not the beauty standard.
And then like now that Kim Kardashian is big, if you don't have big boobs and you know, big ass, you're not the beauty standard. But wait, both of those women are. Exceptionally gorgeous and couldn't be more different than each other. And so like getting to that place where we accept that there's room, [00:24:00] there's plenty of room.
Monica: What really, the only thing that separates us, obviously, physically, we're very, we're all different. Thank God. Cause I'm glad we're not all looking around, like look the same, but honestly, like most of us as women, like, I don't know, what do you think the percentage of what we're like? We still feel, we still love, we still care, we empathetic, we so care like generally speaking, we are a lot alike as women.
Generally speaking, right? I mean, Kim Kardashian worries about the same things about her kids than I do. No doubt about it. Probably even more so because she's got some psychos looking at her that don't even bother looking at me or my kids. Right. So, we all have the same what we call night sweats and anxieties and we still toss and turn about the same fears and the same, we still, we all have the same hopes and goals and dreams for our children.
I don't know. I feel like I want
Melissa: to work on, I want to lean on that. There is probably more similarities than differences. I would agree with [00:25:00] that. A hundred percent.
Monica: It may be, you know, it starts breaking off with religious, like wish God or a political opinion. But those are really, at the central core of who we are as humans, people really are the same.
And I don't understand why then it's so difficult to lean on each other and why is it so difficult to clap it out for each other and be there for each other. And so maybe that's our community. Maybe we should just feel grateful that the people that are showing up there.
Melissa: I think that we are attracting that kind of energy and I think when you get down to an actual relationship between any two women that But, you know, once we're meeting more and more of these online women in person and growing this community, I mean, we're the empathetic gender. I mean, you know, we do have empathy for each other, even if, even if we are really different.
So that sort of [00:26:00] bridges that even the differences is I do feel like in general, I find women to be more empathetic when they have the opportunity. And they're comfortable, right? And they can trust and they can let their guard down. I love that
Monica: we are building an online community because we want to make it international.
But one of the things, one of our initiatives in the next six months is to do more in person events. to connect with women to sort of really figure out, Hey, what is it that everyone's looking for? Because we want to create that space. And how, how can we tweak it? And do we need to be customized it a bit more?
Ultimately, I feel like what you and I are doing is such a positive driven mission driven. a way of life that it's still very exciting. And I'm really getting really excited about seeing all these women in person, like our fire kindle her fire event on October 19th. Mel, I'm so excited. The feedback has been so
Melissa: positive.
I know it's something I'm afraid to say because I don't want to jinx it, but [00:27:00] I have, I have had nothing but encouragement. from everyone that I've shared it with. So in a way, because it's the first big event for us, even though we've done a handful of smaller community events, but you know, it's 125 people and it's a ticketed event and it's a big chunk of a whole day.
It's a beta test for us. I mean, I think, you know, we're going to learn a lot about what works, what doesn't work, what people are looking for. If you're listening, we certainly welcome. I mean, any way you can reach out to us through our website, you can email us, you can join our Ignite group. We're open to the feedback of what are you looking for?
What would make you come to an event? And what events have you been to that haven't, haven't worked and why, you know, we're here for that. Yeah.
Monica: And, uh, I was talking to a friend just yesterday about communities. It's been on my mind too, since you and I approached this is for us, it's about cheerleading.
Right. Including the big, [00:28:00] so our event on October 9th thing is a larger stage. We have some pretty impressive women going on stage who are doing some incredible work. But for example, Mel, tomorrow night, you and I are showing up at a local, our very good friend Keisha at Warehouse Pilates, and she's so graciously opened up her studio.
So one of our community members who's always wanted to teach belly dancing can have a small class. And we're just showing up. To light it up for this woman to say, Hey, we're, we're here for you. That's the point of it. That's what we want to build. It's that feeling of no matter what kindling project, they've got my back.
They want to Kindle my fire. They want to fuel and fan my, whatever that little fire is.
Melissa: Yeah. And I think it's going to be some balance of that for us as we move forward. Small groups, large groups, you know, topic specific things like belly dancing versus the big general. You know, sort of Kindle her fire event, which is about overcoming barriers and taking [00:29:00] action.
Yeah. We'll
Monica: talk about this more on our next episodes or upcoming episodes, but it was fascinating. The data we got back from our survey with some of the women, the percentage of women out there who the biggest barrier is self. And I think 57 percent out of the women that we were surveying reported that that's the number one.
Barrier, either self worth, self love, self confidence. I call it the selfie issue. It actually goes through line in line and why we still struggle as women to even take a selfie. Like there's nothing about ourselves that we can just accept for being incredibly. Unique and magical and different and have a gift and we're trying to expose that.
You know, Senator Truemill, like think about even another conversation I was having with women is about mirrors. Like we have these mirrors that we go and look for imperfections. Oh for sure. They're not there. We, you know, we don't go to a mirror and be like, Oh, look how amazing I look. Even this stupid camera that we, you and I hate [00:30:00] filming for podcasts.
It's like, Oh my God, our eyes are doing this or this or doing that. You know, my wrinkles or my this, it's like. We've even made mirrors our worst enemy. Instead of saying, Oh, look, I look great. Or I'm whatever it's, we're always, we're seeking what's wrong with us. That is fucked up,
Melissa: totally fucked up. And I am so guilty of it.
And you know what? I'm not the only one. And you're not the only one because I had a two hour kickoff today for a huge, huge project through the design agency. And it was. All women and really cool, badass women running organizations and working to end racism and working to end poverty and like a Harvard educated writer.
I mean, like I should be so lucky to be in this group. You know, the first 90 seconds of every Zoom is like, Oh, God, I look terrible today, or don't mind me, or I'm going to turn my camera off, or, you know, and, and I just think to myself, when I hear it from other [00:31:00] women, I'm like, Oh, that makes me so sad. And then I'm like, Oh, but I say that shit all the time.
And I think it all the time. I mean, just a couple minutes ago, when you were reminding me that we're doing this belly dancing class, it dawned on me for the first time. Wait, does this mean I have to have my belly exposed? Can I wear a shirt? Or
Monica: you can wear whatever you want.
But you're right. We do this. We
Melissa: do this automatically. Like, these are my thoughts. I mean, like my own thoughts are my own worst enemy. Right. And
Monica: that's how, okay. So think about that for a moment. So if this is true, if self is getting in the way self, think about that self love, self confidence. That means we, I'm the only person in the way of my dreams or what I want to accomplish because I stopped myself.
Self
Melissa: stops that to me. It's like mind blowing, right? Right. I mean, [00:32:00] if that's the biggest obstacle, and of course I want to acknowledge that there are a whole host of other obstacles, right? But if that's the biggest obstacle for a lot of women, We can get control of that beast, I think. I mean, I have no personal evidence of it, but I'm working towards it, right?
Monica: Oh, and we're, we're going to work together collectively, because collectively we can call each other out and when we break it down, we can say like, yeah, that's pretty. Fuckin ridiculous. Yeah. Like, you know, we can do certain things if we choose to and we can start self loving should probably be the easiest.
So whoever told you that you weren't worthy or you weren't lovable, those people need to just go away. Exit. Bye bye. Like, no more rent free in your head. You know, bye byes. Oh,
Melissa: I mean, I'm just letting a little. a little bit of information out here, but that's really the specialty of one of our speakers at the event.
So one of our guests, Erin Wiley, she's going to be on the podcast for her [00:33:00] whole own episode coming up soon, but she really helps us look at, you know, where did that start in your childhood? What kind of, what kind of, what were the experiences in early? Memories and like pivotal events where that negative self talk or that fear or it's inner childhood work, like, you know, kind of really, because it's a lot harder to expel the thing if you don't even really know what, where it started, what the thing is, you know, how it grew into this.
A whole beast that's living inside of you constantly telling you, no, no, no, don't cross the street, you're gonna get hit by a car, right? Well, you know, you're 35, you're 45, you're 55, you haven't gotten hit by a car yet. You might, you might be able to cross the street, right? True, true. Tho those things get imprinted on us in ways that we're not even aware of unless we do a little work on it.
Monica: I'm so excited. That's she, you know, she's right up. She's my jam. Yeah. Women like that who [00:34:00] just get right to it and be like, okay, let's call bullshit here right now. Yeah. So I'm really excited for, for, well, I'm excited for all of the women, but very excited to meet Anne. Yeah.
Melissa: Uh, so I feel like we've sort of workshopped what's working, what's not working.
Let's keep having this conversation and, and keep asking for feedback and, and, and really hone in on what works because I know another dream that you and I have, I, I think I'm letting all the secrets out of the bag today, is a play space community, you know, buying a building. Oh, I just dream of like, you know, I, for some reason I have like an old schoolhouse, old barn kind of setting in my mind.
I, I don't know what it could be, but. I would love to eventually have a place based community as well.
Monica: We often say it's like, we want this massive sorority without any other bullshit or like no initiation. Everyone's welcome. Right. You know, just join us and let's, let's just be the best together collectively.
We say it all the time, collectively [00:35:00] together, we're so much better and stronger. Yeah. So let's do it, ladies. Let's just join forces, join our community, invite your friends. Let's do this together. All of us.
Melissa: And let's be a community for each other, online and in.
Monica: person. Well, Mel, listen. I've got to go. It's like Friday night.
We've been working our tails off. All
Melissa: week. Oh, are you going to have a little relaxation this weekend? I'm going on a date
Monica: night with my husband. He deserves to, you know, have his wife show up presently, phone away, not talking about all the exciting things that are happening in TKP. Yeah. Uh, so we're going to go
Melissa: have a little fun.
Oh, I hope you have an awesome date night. Yeah. What about you? You know, I think we're going on a date night, too. We talked about going to, um, Dixborough Project. That's one of our favorite restaurants. Yeah. So good. So good. So good. Yeah. So I think we're going to go out to dinner. Miles is, um, he's, he's off at the gym doing his guy thing.
That's what boys do. Yeah. So, without Elise [00:36:00] here, it's like, I think there's going to be a lot more date nights because just, you know, by elimination, if Miles is gone and Elise is gone, it's Matt and I trying to figure out what to do next.
Monica: Yeah, we'll get used to it. This is really the fun part, one of the fun, well, it's never fun.
When your kids leave, you do get more time to sort of focus on your partner 14.
You're never going to see him as much as you see him now. It's only going to decline because he is like, Mr. I got this, I got this, and then I'm driving and I've got my own wheels. And
Melissa: it's like, Oh, he gets his permit next week. Like his yeah. Is that the permit before the license? Yep. He gets that next week.
So I really liked that time with Elise though, because. She needed to get those hours so I could trap her in the car with me.
Monica: The best. I know.
Melissa: We're going to be fighting over who gets to take him driving.
Monica: Yep. And who's the better, by the way, really quick, are you a better, uh, [00:37:00] like sidekick driver or? Oh, it's Nat
Melissa: for sure.
It's Matt for sure. Oh, are you one of those like, yeah, I think I'm, I think, um, in general, I'm not a good driver myself. Like I just, yeah, I think it's Matt, but anyway, I'm taking him driving just because it's just because I can get him captive. Yeah,
Monica: it works.
Melissa: All right. Well, all right, my dear. Love you. Have a good weekend.
I'll talk to you soon. You too. Bye.