IAM1437 – Coach Empowers Women Who Run Businesses and Changes the World

Nell Merlino is an iconic leader whose life work is making women and girls more visible, valued, and heard. Nell mobilized more than 25 million people in support of girls' ambition with Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

As the founder of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, Nell helped galvanize global companies including American Express, Walmart, and Cartier along with leases including Hillary Clinton, Corey Booker, and Suze Orman to help women business owners across the country gain access to $billion in the financing, grants, contracts, and customers. A constant presence with the press for decades, Nell has generated millions of media mentions about women and girls.

In her new business, as an artist, Nell is capturing ever-evolving female power and beauty in dynamic collage portraits of women who are running businesses and changing our world.

• CEO Story: Nell couldn't seem to find a good fit for a job for her in 1988. And so she created one, a consulting firm. She was amazed at how being a CEO can help families and not only that but went to make thousands of Women become CEOs in their own right.
• Business Service: Coaching – empowering women around the globe. Coaching ways on how women to show up visually.
• Secret Sauce: Being with other CEOs, small and large groups. Who am I calling to do the work with me or for me?
• CEO Hack: Physical exercise. You have to show up for yourself and for everybody else with some level of energy. Setting priorities.
• CEO Nugget: Giving importance to our gut instincts. When in doubt, talk to other CEOs.
• CEO Defined: Chief excitement officer. Liberation – get the enjoyment and excitement, with it, you can do more of what you dream of.

Website: www.nellmerlino.com

Instagram: Nell.Merlino

Facebook: nellmerlino

LinkedIn: Nell Merlino

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Transcription

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00:26 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:53 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Nell Merlino of nellmerlino.com Nell, super excited to have you on the show.

01:04 – Nell Merlino

I'm so happy to be here.

01:06. – Gresham Harkless

Yes. I'm excited about all the awesome things that you're doing and excited to kind of unpack some of those words of wisdom and knowledge that you have. And of course, before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Nell so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Nell is an iconic leader whose life work is making women and girls more visible, valued, and heard, Nell mobilized more than 25 million people in support of girls' ambition with Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

As the founder of Count Me in for Women's, Nell helped galvanize global companies including American Express, Walmart, and Cartier, along with leases including Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker, and Susie Orman to help women business owners across the country gain access to billions into financing, grants, contracts and customers.

A constant presence with the press for a decade, Nell has generated millions of media mentions about women and girls. In her new business as an artist, Nell is capturing every evolving female power and beauty and dynamic collage portraits of women who are running changing our world. Nell, love everything that you're doing. Super excited to have you here today. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:14 – Nell Merlino

I am so ready because being a CEO has been the most extraordinary thing in my life.

02:20 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely.

02:21 – Nell Merlino

I love talking to other CEOs.

02:23 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. I love that, you know, you had so much, you know, perspective and experience. So I guess before we jump into hearing more about that, take us a little bit more through how you got started. When I call your CEO story. What led kickstarted with all the awesome work you're doing?

02:36 – Nell Merlino

I found myself way back in 1988. I had finished working on a presidential campaign. Mike Dukakis ran. He lost. I had no job. I'm not looking for a job. And after a couple of months, realized that there was no job that really fit me. So I, at that point, decided to start my own. It was a consulting firm, I think how a lot of people start. But I started that way and so quickly realized how liberating it was because I had nobody telling me what to do. Any money I made was mine. And it started me on a journey that not only did I build an extraordinary communications company, but went on to build an organization that helped thousands and thousands of women become CEOs in their own right.

So it is something for me that being the CEO of a company, but more importantly on some levels, being the CEO in your own life where you are not, I notice now, and particularly during the pandemic, people who were sort of at loose ends because they weren't reporting to their boss in the same way and those kinds of things. And I didn't skip a beat, you know, for reasons, because I'd always been, you know, my own boss and often, you know, the employer of other people. And I think one of the greatest things CEOs do is provide other people with livelihoods. That has been great. It's difficult. It's a challenge.

I mean, I found myself at one point with a huge payroll and sort of gasping for air, but also knowing that I was putting food on the table. Of dozens of families. So I think there is a real wonderful both responsibility and freedom being a CEO. So I recommend it highly. I mean, not everybody is cut out to be one, but I think more of us than not. It's something worth doing even for a little while in your life. It changes how you see everything, I think.

04:47 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so empowering to hear your story and everything you've been able to kind of do and accomplish, because I think so many times, and you know, there's a lot of people that may have this experience, you know, as we speak today, where they feel like there's not the position or the job. They just feel like they're a square peg in a round hole, so to speak, and they don't know exactly how to, you know, figure out exactly how to take that next step or what to do, or they feel like they're inadequate or they're we?

I don't have this or I need this. Just so many of those different things. So that's why I love Obviously you've been able to, you know, have a lot of success in building organizations and businesses, but I think it really gets down to that thing that you talked about where sometimes it's being a CEO of your own life and taking ownership of your life and the steps that you take. So I love that, you know, you've been able to do that in your life and of course, it creates that trickle, triple trickle effect in allowing others to be able to do that as well.

06:41 – Nell Merlino

Say it, it is, you know, we're all confronted with things that we know aren't right for us and we have the opportunity to create situations that are right for us. And that is the most liberating thing to stop thinking that we don't measure up to someone else's standard. We set standards in our own businesses. Obviously, there are standards that exist and there are laws and all those things we have to comply with. But beyond that, it's how you want to live how you want to work how you want to treat people, and how you want to treat and engage with your customers. That is, it's highly doable. So as you know and I know, so to anyone out there that's doing it, it's the best. It's the best.

07:33 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more about your new venture. It sounds like it's a manifestation of all the different experiences that you have. And then take your daughter to work day, then count me in for women's economic independence. Sounds like the work that you're doing now is kind of built up on that. But I wanted to hear a little bit more about that and what you're doing.

07:56 – Nell Merlino

You know, what struck me a couple of years ago is particularly for women, but I think it's true for a lot of people, is how do we see ourselves? Women particularly, have been bombarded for centuries with how we're supposed to look, what's fashionable, or in the case of when I started my first business, how are we supposed to act less feminine and more masculine? Because that was the business model. I mean, this is not a criticism of men. It's just. It was the reality.

I mean, you know, it's when women showed up in blue suits with those pussycat bows, sort of looking like ties and all that stuff, that's what I started. So it's, how do we now show up as ourselves and what does that look like? And I started to play around with that myself and ended up making a collage of myself as the Pope. And I was raised a good Catholic girl. And I was told in second grade that you can't be the Pope.

08:52 – Gresham Harkless

You.

08:52 – Nell Merlino

You particularly, you girls, cannot ever have this job. And that has always stuck with me as like, how is that possible in 2022? And there's a whole other discussion about that today. But anyway, I made this image of myself to look at what is forbidden. And it gave me a sense of my own authority that I have not had before. It got me thinking about how many of us get to points of success and transition in our lives and need to step back for a minute. It's sort of like the opposite of a vision board, you know, where we're looking about what we want to achieve. We need to take a moment and understand what we have achieved.

What we have achieved. What does that look like? What does that look like? Because for women, what it looks like is still. It's like some fashion model shoot. And, you know, some of us will do well in that. Some of us. That's not where we shine. And so how do we show up visually, particularly given the medium that you and I are talking through now?

We need ways to show up visually that are not just all based on youth and beauty, but are based on beauty and power and accomplishment. And how do you show that in a picture? How do you show that in a picture? So that is what I have been working on, and I have been working with extraordinary women who wanted to do sort of coaching with me. And I said to them, I said, I would love to do that, but I want to produce a portrait of you at the end.

10:23 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself, the businesses or organizations you build, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

10:34 – Nell Merlino

The thing that has fueled me all through this is being with others, with other CEOs, small groups, and large groups. From the time I started, we ran a competition for years called Make Mine A Million Dollar Business. And reporters were constantly saying what turned because Susie Orman was involved, Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker. I mean, there were so many cool people. And what drove me was the women being around. And I still periodically talked to a business coach who was a CEO of a highly successful company.

She sold the company and is still living off the revenue from selling the company. Her name is Marjorie Miller. She's in Dallas, Texas. She's got a company called Peoplebiz. She's incredible. She has helped thousands. But. So I say this to CEOs, I have a coach. My secret sauce is I don't ever think about, how am I going to get all this work done. I think about, who am I calling, who am I calling? It's not how you're going to do it, it's who are you calling or texting or whatever to do the work with you or for you. I think that is key.

11:55 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO hack? So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. What's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient?

12:07 – Nell Merlino

Exercise.

12:08 – Gresham Harkless

Exercise.

12:08 – Nell Merlino

Physical exercise. I have worked out for years, and I would say, given the pressure of the job and the. And for someone who was constantly traveling, you have to be able to physically show up, and you have to show up for yourself, but you have to show up for everybody else with some level of energy ability, and health. I mean, literally health. So I would say that. And I don't think that's an uncommon one, but it is, I think, vital. You know, health, exercise.

And I think setting priorities has been a real power of mine to just know that in the course of the day, I mean, I know my friend Nellie Golan says only set three. Marjorie says seven. They're different. They're different. But, you know, I don't think you can do more than seven and that you really you know, anytime you start to get tight or like, feeling like crazy or you can't do something, just get it down, get it down. And, like, see that 20 of these things that are in your head need to go on somebody else's plate. And there are three things or seven things that you need to take care of.

13:20 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. So I want to ask you now, you might have already touched on this for a sea of nuggets. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

13:34 – Nell Merlino

I made a very bad business decision about five, or six years ago, and I've thought about it a lot because failure teaches us everything. Everything. And I did not trust my gut instinct. My gut instinct was to not do this. And I overrode it. I overrode it. And I've written about this process of overriding my best judgment. Whenever you doubt those strong signals that come to you, if you doubt them, you really have to sit yourself down.

This is when you talk to your other CEOs and say, here are the facts. Here's how it makes me feel. I would say the other thing is you have got to check in with how you feel because how we feel is how we got to where we are. And when we deny it, we're like shutting off our secret sauce. So it's a long answer, but it is how important our gut instincts are, how much we have to respect them, and if we don't, to understand why we don't.

14:47 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I appreciate you having that transparency and sharing that with us. And so you might have already touched on this as well. And I was going to ask you for the definition of what it means to be a CEO. Our goal is to have different, quote, unquote CEOs on this show. But now, what does being a CO mean to you?

15:02 – Nell Merlino

Wow. I tell you. Chief Enjoyment Officer. I mean, Chief Excitement Officer, Chief Energy Officer. I have a lot of energy. I enjoy my work and my life. I think what I know, and what I do excites people. And it is, and I think the other word I use, liberation, is, I am sitting in a beautiful home office at an extraordinary address because of relationships, because of all kinds of things, and we get to choose more than we know.

And so CEO could also stand for choice and choosing, because there are things that happen to us that we have no control over, but there are things that we have more control over than we know. And so I would say that if you are doing this if you are a CEO, get the energy and the enjoyment and the excitement going in it, because with that you can do more. You can make more of what you dream about come true.

16:20 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that, you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get hold of you, find about all the awesome things that you're working on.

16:33 – Nell Merlino

Okay, well, first of all, I mean, you can reach me at nellmerlino.com There are opportunities to sign up for an exploratory call with me, to do art with me, to do coaching with me, because the art and the coaching sort of go together, but we can do one or the other, depending on what you want. And count me in. We now have a website called Count Me in Revival where we also offer coaching. So you can go either route. Count meinrevival.com or nellmerlino.com because I would love to. I love talking to CEOs.

17:04 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you so much, Nell. We will of course have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

17:12 – Nell Merlino

Thank you. Thank you so much. This was so much fun.

17:15 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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