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

00:00 - 00:21

Monique Melton: But a lot of times I'm working with the individual, the woman who's coming in with to me, 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. But, you know, just things that are affecting the way that she is going about her everyday life.

00:24 - 00:48

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 Harker 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.

00:49 - 00:58

Gresham Harkless: Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Monique Melton of MoniqueMelton.com. Monique it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:58 - 00:59

Monique Melton: Thank you for having me.

00:59 - 01:27

Gresham Harkless: No problem. Thanks for being here. And 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

01:27 - 01:47

Gresham Harkless: 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 2 little ones. Monique, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community? Yeah. Awesome. 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?

01:47 - 02:16

Monique Melton: Great. I feel like entrepreneurship has been, you know, some people 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 like a little hustle. But I started my entrepreneurial endeavors officially like, you know, LLC and all that kind of stuff. Right out of college I was actually a professional makeup artist and I did that for about a decade and after I had my daughter, she's my youngest, I just knew I wanted to do something different and do a lot of

02:16 - 02:48

Monique Melton: soul-searching and really thought about this type of purpose that I want to, 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 helped 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, involve some type of personal development relationship component. And my education background is in

02:48 - 03:16

Monique Melton: psychology and counseling. And so I yield very easily to that subject matter. And the more I've worked 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, well, if you're not a person of faith, you know, that's neither there nor there, neither here nor there, but even just a relationship that you have with yourself and with others. And I think a lot of the challenges that we experience in life

03:16 - 03:34

Monique Melton: can be rooted or directed right back to some type of relationship where there's unresolved pain. And so we go throughout life trying to interact with people, to save ourselves, protect ourselves so I can help people to have happier or healthy relationships. I think we can have a greater and a bigger impact in the world around us.

03:34 - 03:58

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that's awesome that you've devoted your work towards that. Because I think a lot of times when you're talking about business or you're talking about marriage or friendships or whatever, you kind of forget that it's kind of people and the people's interactions and relationships with 1 another. But the fact that, like you said, like you felt that was continuing to come up in the work that you were doing. So you decided to kind of devote your time to that and your business to it. So I know you touched on it a

03:58 - 04:02

Gresham Harkless: little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you work with and serve the clients that you work with?

04:02 - 04:39

Monique Melton: Yeah, so now that my focus is on relationships, I either have clients who are, like I work with couples, but a lot of times I'm working with the individual, the woman, who's coming in with to me, 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. But 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

04:39 - 05:06

Monique Melton: 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. Like, 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 just write, this is a

05:06 - 05:33

Monique Melton: new car. And I just wish people would say, you know, I want to put my marriage in as a priority and make it more, 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

05:33 - 05:54

Monique Melton: speaking. I talk about personal growth, I talk about relationships, I also talk about diversity. I'm working on my second book right now and 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 depending on where you're coming from and what you need. That's pretty much what I have right now.

05:54 - 06:20

Gresham Harkless: And that's awesome and I love the metaphor you know of the car you know making sure that okay this the engine has failed or something for whatever reason, it means that that's probably has built up over time. So you make sure that you take care of the things before it manifests itself into what could be a bigger issue. So I love that you kind of focus on that and remind us of that, which is definitely important. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this

06:20 - 06:25

Gresham Harkless: could be like what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization, but what do you feel could be your secret sauce?

06:25 - 07:04

Monique Melton: Okay, so I love cupcakes. And well, I love anything sweet, honestly. So I like to use the acronym suite a lot. And so I use that even with my business clients and it's the, you know, stuff for creating like your brand story, wealth, client experience, exceptional marketing and team. And so I've kind of 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

07:04 - 07:36

Monique Melton: and like to throw in all these different steps and tools and I gotta have this, I gotta have that, I gotta have this in order for a relationship to be healthy. But it really doesn't have to be that complicated. You can have some key components in your relationship, then 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 just walking around out of willy-nilly. So that's, you know, that's a big thing. But I also

07:36 - 08:15

Monique Melton: think having a working commitment towards your own personal growth and understanding that I am responsible for myself. You know, I can't make my husband be responsible for my own happiness because that's a heavy responsibility and it's also impossible. You could certainly contribute to have someone feels and all those kind of things, but ultimately I'm the 1 who is responsible for my emotions, for my decisions, and all of that. And so that's, you know, the W. So it's, you know, working, working towards your own personal growth. Effective communication is hands down, probably 1 of the most important

08:15 - 08:45

Monique Melton: things for a relationship. If I'm saying things in a way that you don't understand but you're taking them 1 way and I'm taking in another, that's going to cause so much friction and chaos and so instead of you know letting that marinate and just turn into something else, let's communicate effectively And there's all different ways to go about effective communication. And that's 1 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, you know, How are you talking to

08:45 - 09:14

Monique Melton: yourself? Are you engaging in the negative self-talk? Or are you saying things to yourself that are more positive and aligned with who you really are and what you want to accomplish? And so that's the first E, effective communication. And then join each other. You know, having fun, doing things outside of just the day to day to day, you know, hustling bus. I have 2 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, you

09:14 - 09:43

Monique Melton: know, what you have going on, what I have going on, 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 gonna see it through that lens. But if we're working on the same team, that means that if you make a mistake, or if you think

09:43 - 10:08

Monique Melton: about like 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, because you win, I win. So I would say those

10:08 - 10:32

Monique Melton: all together is kind of 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. You know, if you have a friend and you know that the 2 of you are 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 is.

10:32 - 10:48

Gresham Harkless: No, I appreciate you for sharing that. And I too have a sweet tooth. So that definitely resonated with me. So I appreciate you. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an Apple Book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

10:48 - 11:19

Monique Melton: Definitely planning. You know, my schedule, my husband and I share our schedules with 1 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 outside of what we do as a family. So I'm usually the 1 who has a meeting here, an event here, all that. So I definitely think planning ahead. We have certain days where we designate to, you know, go over our budget and go over our appointments and things that we have going on. But with so many moving

11:19 - 11:49

Monique Melton: pieces, so many things to do and accomplish, sitting down and having a plan, including it in our calendar, is probably the best thing for sure. What I would add to that is we share a note on our iPhones that, and this is just such a simple, very practical thing, but it just helps us stay organized, that's our grocery list. And it's categorized by store and by section in the store. So if my husband, 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

11:49 - 12:01

Monique Melton: don't have to take a picture of the list that I wrote down because I used to do that. It's already on the phone. So it's just a way for us to be efficient and for us to keep the communication between 1 another really smooth and effective.

12:02 - 12:17

Gresham Harkless: It makes perfect sense. You definitely leverage all this technology that we have out there. So it's good to hear that you guys are doing that to be effective and efficient. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And 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?

12:17 - 12:47

Monique Melton: My younger business self... I would tell my younger business 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 kind of anticipated that, like becoming a mom, you know that you're gonna have to change diapers. Like you know that it's a part of the process, you're not shocked that you have to do that. It still stinks, like there's nothing pleasant about it, but at least you know that that's a part of it.

12:47 - 13:15

Monique Melton: 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, you know, there's the, I hate to say it like this, but there was definitely people who just want to sabotage. You don't want to see you in, you know, 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

13:15 - 13:24

Monique Melton: up. Don't be discouraged. You know, Go to your people who love you and let them encourage you and help you feel better, but keep going when it's all said and done.

13:24 - 13:44

Gresham Harkless: Makes perfect sense, yeah, especially when you're getting out of your comfort zone, you have to be able to kind of understand that that'll make you uncomfortable. And then in order to grow, you have to kind of have a little bit of pain to do that. So I think that was a great CEO nugget. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of being a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:44 - 14:21

Monique Melton: 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 1 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, you know, 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

14:21 - 14:48

Monique Melton: 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 is what's important. So ultimately it's just being a person who's committed to being a leader and leading and serving the community that they are assigned to.

14:48 - 15:01

Gresham Harkless: 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 wanted to do was 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?

15:01 - 15:29

Monique Melton: Well, the easiest way to get a hold of me, I'm on Instagram all the time. So you can find me at Moe, motivated, that's M-O-E, motivate. And 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 would hope or maybe even you're thinking about starting a business but you're afraid of some of the ups and downs that come along with it. I was just encouraging once just remember that you know life is so precious and we don't know what tomorrow is gonna

15:29 - 15:57

Monique Melton: 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 what, that's like our service to eat ourselves into 1 another. And so that means For me, I'm being intentional with my time and 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 pay fear, I see you, but I'm going to do this anyway because I know

15:57 - 16:02

Monique Melton: it's what's best for me and what I'm working towards and the people that I'm serving. That's where I would

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Gresham Harkless: add.

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Intro: I love it.

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Gresham Harkless: I love it. Yeah, that's an awesome reminder and parting word of wisdom, but Monique, thank you so much and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of

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Monique Melton: the day. Thank you so much.

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Intro: Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our IMCEO Facebook group. This has been the IMCEO Podcast with Gresham Harkness Jr. Thank you for listening.