IAM1922 – Relationship Coach, Published Author and International Speaker Supports Married Couples in Building Happy and Healthy Marriages

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Monique Melton Teaser 00:00

I wish I could get people to look at their marriage almost like a car. You don't drive it around and then when all the gas is out, you're like, Oh man, I need to go to the gas station. That would be a huge inconvenience. There are signals and things that your car tells you that something is wrong and then you take it and go get it fixed.

You don't wait until it's not completely operable to go and repair it. It's a lot more work. It's a lot more time. It's a lot more energy. And sometimes you're just like, this is a new car.

Intro 00:30

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 Harkless 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.

Gresham Harkless 00:55

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year.We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics or as I like to call them business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners. Or what I like to call CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focused on innovation, disruption, women entrepreneurship, DEI, gig economy, remote economy, even the cannabis industry. Think about these industries and these disruptive technologies that really sometimes aren't as disruptive, but there are people that are just paying attention to what the market needs and they're providing that. So really think about the things that are quote and quote outside of the norm, but really help entrepreneurship to grow and fully develop.

I think it's an extremely exciting time when you're talking about any type of innovation or disruption, because I think that there are so many opportunities and needs that aren't felt that are starting to be filled by different groups, different organizations, or even different industries. So what I want you to do is sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Monique Melton of moniquemelton.com. Monique, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Monique Melton 02:18

Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 02:19

No problem. Thanks for being here. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Monique so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Monique is a relationship coach, published author and international speaker. The heart of her work is to support people in building happy and healthy relationships. She travels the world speaking at conferences and events on topics related to personal growth, marriage and relationships.

She's been published in magazines, featured in blogs and podcasts, and has touched the lives of people all over the world. She's a natural, big, bold dreamer and a deeply rooted woman of faith. She is proud Navy wife to her high school sweetheart, and she is a loving mother to two little ones.

Monique, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Monique Melton 02:59

Yeah.

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Gresham Harkless 03:01

Let's do it. So the first question I had was just to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Monique Melton 03:06

Great. I feel like entrepreneurship has been, some people will say this, like you're just made for this. I feel like that's what my story has been because even since I was a kid, I always had a little hustle. But I started my entrepreneurial endeavors, officially LLC, and I was actually a professional makeup artist and I did that for about a decade. After I had my daughter, she's my youngest, I wanted to do something different and did a lot of soul searching and really thought about this type of purpose that I want or the type of legacy I want to build and the impact I want to have around me and all that.

And so I started back in November, 2014 doing business and relationship coaching. So I did a lot of business development for clients and helping them with their marketing strategy. But what I found in doing that, is that most of our conversations, if not almost all of our conversations with my clients involves some type of personal development relationship component. My education background is in psychology and counseling and so I yield very easily to that subject matter. The more I'm working with clients, the more I do that work, the more I decided that I wanted to focus on relationships because I think ultimately that's what life is about.

Relationships, whether that be our relationship with God, our relationship if you're not a person of faith, that's neither there nor there, but even just the relationship that you have with yourself and with others. I think a lot of the challenges that we experienced in life can be rooted or directed right back to some type of relationship where there's unresolved pain. So we go throughout life trying to interact with people, to save ourselves, protect ourselves. So I can help people to have happy or healthy relationships.

I think we can have a greater and a bigger impact in the world around us.

Gresham Harkless 04:53

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So I know you touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you work with and serve the clients that you work with.

Monique Melton 05:00

Yeah. So now that my focus is on relationships, I work with couples, but a lot of times I'm working with the individual woman who's coming into me and who's struggling with maybe confidence, some mindset issues, anxiety, not clinical anxiety, I always recommend people to see a therapist for things like that. So just things that are affecting the way that she is going about her everyday life. And then as far as for couples, often people come when things have completely fallen apart. I wish I could get people to look at their marriage almost like a car. You don't drive it around and then when all the gas is out, you're like, Oh man, I need to go to the gas station. That would be a huge inconvenience.

There are signals and things that your car tells you that something is wrong and then you take it and go get it fixed. You don't wait until it's completely, not even operable to go and repair it. It's a lot more work. It's a lot more time. It's a lot more energy. And sometimes you're just like, this is a good new car. I just wish people would say, I want to put my marriage in as a priority and make it more fun. Let's maintain our relationship. Let's address issues that come up when they're small, because if we don't address it when it's small, it's just going to stay. It's not going to go away. It's going to become a bigger issue.

So I do that for my one on one clients. I do either couples or women. And then I also still have some business clients, but that's just because I'm currently rebranding. I do a lot of public speaking. I talk about personal growth, talk about relationships, talk about diversity. I'm working on my second book right now. I also have some resources that like workbooks and guides and things on business and relationships on my website as well. So I have different ways to support people depend on where you're coming from and what you need. That's pretty much what I have right now.

Gresham Harkless 06:50

That's awesome. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be like what you feel distinguishes you or your organization, but what do you feel could be your secret sauce?

Monique Melton 07:00

Okay. So I love cupcake and I love anything sweet honestly. So I like to use the acronym sweet a lot. And so I used that even with my business clients and it's the stuff for creating like your brand story, client experience, exceptional marketing and team. So I've created a new approach to use, like taking a spin off of that to working with couples and working with relationship coaching. I would definitely say like my secret sauce is that I like to keep things very simple. I think sometimes we overcomplicate things and like to throw in all these different steps and tools and I gotta have this in order for the relationship to be healthy. But it really doesn't have to be that complicated.

You can have some key components in your relationship and you can build from there, so definitely in my opinion, you want to have some level of spirituality. Just recognizing that there's something that's bigger than you, it's not just people out here or just walking around. So that's a big thing. But I also think having a working commitment towards your own personal growth and understanding that I am responsible for myself. I can't make my husband be responsible for my own happiness because that's a heavy responsibility and also impossible. You could certainly contribute to how someone feels and all those kinds of things, but ultimately I'm the one who is responsible for my emotions, for my decisions and all that.

So that's working towards your own personal growth. Effective communication is hands down probably one of the most important things for a relationship. If I'm saying things in a way that you don't understand, but you're taking them one way, I'm taking it another, that's going to cause so much friction and chaos. And so instead of, letting that marinate and just turn it to something else, let's communicate effectively and there are all different ways to go about effective communication. That's one of the big things that I do when I am working with couples. But even just working with my one on one clients, because the way they're communicating with themselves, how are you talking to yourself? Are you engaging in the negative self talk? Or are you saying things to yourself that are more positive in a line with who you really are and what you want to accomplish?

So that's the first effect of the communication. Then enjoying each other, having fun, doing things outside of just the day to day hustle and bustle. I have two kids, we have so many things going on all the time. And so we have to create that time to make sure that we are investing in us as a unit, not just, what you have going on, what I have, but us together. So enjoying each other, laughing, growing together. And then the T, the last letter for sweet, is team. Remembering that you're on the same team. So I kept the team from the original acronym where I did it originally because a lot of times in a relationship, if you feel like the person is against you, everything that they do, you're going to see it through that.  But if we're working on the same team, that means that if you make a mistake or, if you think about a football team and, you bump into your teammate, if I know we're on the same team, I'm not going to take that as if you're the opponent trying to knock me down.

It was an accident, it was a mistake. And so when you think about, okay, we're on the same team, that means that I need to give you grace. I need to communicate with you. I need to make sure that I support you. I encourage you. I'm rooting for you. I want you to win. You win. I win. So I would say those all together is like my secret sauce to helping people remember some of the components and there's more to, having a healthy relationship, but those are some of the main components when it comes to marriage, but even just friendships, if you have a friend. You know that to be on the same team, that means that you're rooting for each other. You want each other to succeed. So that was a long answer, but that's pretty much what it.

Gresham Harkless 10:54

No, I appreciate you for sharing that. Now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Monique Melton 11:05

Definitely planning my schedule. My husband and  I share our schedules with one another and so that way he knows what I have going on, I know what he has going on, although he doesn't have much going on off out of what we do as a family. So I'm usually the one who has a meeting here and event here all that. So I definitely think planning ahead. We have certain days where we designate to go over our budget and go over our appointments and things that we have going on. But with so many moving pieces, so many things to do and accomplish sitting down and having a plan and putting it in a calendar is probably the best thing for sure.

What I would add to that is we share a note on our iPhones, and this is just such a simple, very practical thing, but it helps us stay organized. That's our grocery list. It's categorized by store and by like section in the store. So if I'm like, Hey, can you go to the grocery store today? He doesn't have to come home and get the list, or I don't have to take a picture of the list that I wrote down. So I used to do that, it's already on the phone. So it's a way for us to be efficient and for us to keep the communication between one another really smooth and effective.

Gresham Harkless 12:17

It makes perfect sense. You definitely leverage all this technology that we have out there.

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. You might've already touched on this, But what would you tell your younger business self.

Monique Melton 12:29

I would tell my younger self that growth hurts. It's uncomfortable and it's a part of the process. I think initially when I started my business, I was really surprised by some of the growing pains and had I just anticipated that, like becoming a mom. You know that you're going to have to change diapers, that it's a part of the process. You're not shocked that you have to do that. It still stings, there's nothing pleasant about it, but at least, that's a part of it. Whereas for me, I didn't really anticipate that.

I didn't anticipate some of the growing pains from building a team or dealing with, unfortunately, I hate to say it like this, but there was definitely people who just want to sabotage.

You don't want to see you went, dealing with that. So I would definitely tell my younger self that it's okay to be uncomfortable with the growing pains because they're not supposed to feel good. But the growth that comes after that is what is rewarding. And so just push through it. Don't give up, don't be discouraged, go to your people who love you and let them encourage you and help you feel better but you keep going when all it's said and done.

Gresham Harkless 13:34

Makes perfect sense. Yeah. Especially when you're getting out of your comfort zone, you have to be able to understand that'll make you uncomfortable. And then, in order to grow, you have to have a little bit of pain to do that. So I think that was a great CEO nugget.

Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of being a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show. So what does being a CEO mean to you?

Monique Melton 13:53

I believe being a CEO to me is someone who is a leader and is willing to also be led, someone who is constantly committed to their own learning, their own development journey. I think CEO sometimes gives the idea that, oh, I'm the one in charge. But with that comes a lot of responsibility to maintain good relationships, to have harmony in your life. So I think being a CEO comes with a responsibility towards my business and what I'm doing. I need to make sure that I'm taking care of myself so that I can show up in the world and give my best.

I think also being a CEO means that I need to be very aware of the needs of the people in my community so that I can innovate and pivot when necessary. So, keeping that communication open, it's important. So, ultimately, it's just being a person who's committed to being a leader in the leading and serving the community that they are assigned to.

Gresham Harkless 14:56

That makes perfect sense and I think that's an incredible definition. So, Monique, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best they can get a hold of you.

Monique Melton 15:09

The easiest way to get a hold of me, I'm on Instagram all the time. So you can find me at moemotivate. I would just also like to add for anyone who's listening and maybe they're in a place where business isn't going the way that you hope, or maybe even you're thinking about starting the business, but you're afraid of some of the ups and downs that come along with it. I was just encouraging you, just remember that, life is so precious and we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.

So if we can just be intentional with the time that we do have and live it in a way that you can look back and be proud of the decisions that you are making, then I think that's like our service to eat ourselves into one another. And so that means for me being intentional with my time, what I'm doing is that I don't allow fear to dictate my choices, but that I instead say, you know what? I'll create fear. I see you, but I'm going to do this anyway because I know it's what's best for me and what I'm working towards and the people that are serving.

That's what I would add.

Gresham Harkless 16:09

I love it. I love it. Yeah, that's an awesome reminder and pardon word of wisdom. But Monique, thank you so much and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Monique Melton 16:16

Thank you so much.

Outro 16:18

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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