Episode 6 - Charting New Paths: Melody Edwards' Journey of Grit and Growth in Home Services

[00:00:00] Awesome. So welcome to fearlessness. So what is fearlessness?

[00:00:04] It's the underlying grit that empowers you to forge ahead, even when hope seems distant.

[00:00:10] It's the courage to walk through the fires of hell knowing you can come out stronger on the

[00:00:15] other side. Stay tuned to learn how to get fearlessness. I'm your host Libby and our guest today

[00:00:22] is Melody Edwards. Melody, welcome to the show.

[00:01:26] washing, I had a coffee shop for a while, and I just now sold my holiday lights company. So I've been like all in home service for all of these years and have learned everything

[00:01:33] the hard way because that's my favorite way to learn, of course.

[00:01:36] And now, a couple of years ago, I started Home while not having their family disowned them. So, Melody, let's talk about the first time we met.

[00:03:02] So, Melody, I don't know if I've ever told you this other stuff. All this stuff. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so we agreed that I could get an assistant to help me. And but I was trying to find in person. And then I did hire a remote, actually. It was a friend of my sons.

[00:04:20] And that epically we failed.

[00:04:21] And that was mainly my fault.

[00:04:22] I wasn't organized enough.

[00:04:24] And I didn't have things ready. almost like I have, I become a preacher. I'm like selling the, spreading the good news. And so I think after a few minutes of talking with you, I kind of got that thing in my head where I was like selling the vision to you and I could kind of see the shift in how you were looking at it. But then when you signed up for with us,

[00:05:40] I was like, oh crap, now I have to do a really good job.

[00:05:44] Which we always do, but you know, every time I sell I had asked Harold on our sales team if he recommended anybody at the same time. And then at the exact same time, both Marilyn and Miguel landed in my lap, like at the same time. Well, and they were perfect. I loved both of my husband. I'm like, I would hire both of them. But like at the time, Paul was still in the company. I'm like, Paul will kill me if I hire both of them.

[00:07:03] And I didn't matter because I hired both of them anyways.

[00:07:07] And then I was like, I don't know what was your experience? Like what? Yeah. Share a little bit about that. I can count on my hands, how many people, how many women that I know who are window cleaners and luckily it's gotten a lot better. But also how many actually own a window cleaning company?

[00:08:22] It is all men, that whole industry.

[00:08:24] And it also was very much of the coaching or mentorship capacity and I'd always wanted a female mentor. And I love my guy friends. I can be friends with anybody. I think you know that about me. I love all people, but just the idea, like I probably wouldn't have taken the leap towards coaching if she hadn't come on board

[00:09:41] because it just was like that threw it over the edge

[00:09:44] for me of like, wow, I could have somebody like coach me

[00:09:48] on business. And I was at a point where I could. And so I joined teams with Dean, my business partner, and been going ever since. That's awesome. Yeah. And so, but the cool thing that's happened since then is I've done gone to so many more events. I'm connected, you know, in different groups like you are. And the more I'm involved, the more women

[00:11:02] I'm meeting and connecting with. And it's just like just make sure? And that's been sitting in my head for like a year. That's how. So I'm really, I was kind of really focused on making sure women didn't have to feel that thing of like not being able to say what they really felt, which I've experienced many time with plumbers and tradespeople who didn't really want to hear what I had to say.

[00:12:23] And so I was really successful at that.

[00:13:25] an amazing training system and having really different ads

[00:13:27] that attract the kinds of people who normally would never apply for that job.

[00:13:29] So for instance, I never called it window cleaning in an ad,

[00:13:32] I called it customer service cleaner,

[00:13:34] because that's something people would open and look at

[00:13:36] because it's weird and I could do that maybe.

[00:13:39] And then suddenly I just have to convince them in the ad.

[00:13:42] So it's something I'm very proud of

[00:13:45] is that I mean, because I really am working hard on that mindset. Because I understand that in order for me to do bigger things in the world, I have to have the resources to do that. Absolutely. Absolutely. But there's that growing up core guilt and there's all the things that we struggle with.

[00:15:02] So spending 20 years not focused on that. And suddenly, I just want to give hope to people I don't beat myself up over it anymore. As we get older, we have to learn, that's part of I think the growth and the fearlessness of continuing to grow, continuing to change and just become better and better. I feel like that's something that I'm really proud of

[00:16:21] myself for, that I've been able to continue that journey.

[00:16:26] Even when it's been real. And just being the kinder I am to myself, the more I let myself off the hook, almost the better I get, which is weird because I always thought, you know,

[00:17:40] when you're like, come on, Melody, you're so dumb.

[00:17:42] Why aren't you getting this?

[00:17:43] Or you made that mistake last year.

[00:17:44] Why'd you do that again?

[00:17:46] If I talk to myself like that, it go and it doesn't devalue my, like me as a mom. Yes. But oh my gosh, so hard to do. I mean, who, you know, like window cleaning every time we went in a woman's house, they swear to God, they would say, excuse the mess. Yeah. It was always spotless almost, you know, like, no man ever says,

[00:19:03] excuse the mess unless it's a disaster, a pit of despair, you

[00:19:06] know, like we, again, but I don't want to because that experience is always painful. Like I've never had a great experience and it's always like I'm not sure how it's going

[00:20:21] to go.

[00:20:22] Yeah.

[00:20:23] So there's lots of things I fight myself on and my trick is to hand it to somebody else

[00:20:27] as much as possible. So I'm half Mexican and half Native American. And so my dad is, you know, Mexican from Monterey, Mexico. And we grew up with like, you work hard and that's how you work, you work hard, but you also work fast, right? Fast. Yes, hard and fast, yep. And yeah, and so I grew up, you know,

[00:21:40] that way with that mentality that,

[00:21:43] and so for the longest time I worked with my hands,

[00:21:45] a physical, you know, I've paid for it

[00:21:47] because I have arthritis in my hands. Yeah, clean up your mess. Yeah. So it was hard to let go, but also a very freeing moment that also now gives me the space I need for the creative. Right. Like you couldn't have had a podcast when you were hustling so hard before.

[00:23:02] Like there's no time to be able to think like that. I had to go off work for basically a month and a half. And to let it go was actually somewhat easy, but to, it was almost impossible for me to do nothing. And that was the whole thing I had to do was do nothing. And I couldn't do it. Like I think I could have healed a lot faster

[00:24:21] if I had been able to just like release everything.

[00:24:25] But I'm feeling much better now,

[00:24:27] but it took me going to a woman's camp common also on when I used to organize. So organize it started as a professional organizing. Now we offer organizing and cleaning. But this was a real struggle with going into people's homes and helping them control certain aspects of the house because they couldn't me. And I started reading and learning and it helped me create the company I have because most homes, a lot of home service business owners,

[00:27:02] maybe they didn't do well in school,

[00:27:04] maybe there's a lot of people who struggled in school

[00:27:07] who are great with their hands, is weird for some people but it's not weird for me. I leave a toothbrush in my shower because routines are really difficult. So even taking a medication, brushing my teeth, whatever it is, I need to make it as easy as possible to do that. Or else I will either drag my feet. It takes emotional energy for me to do basic things. And so every time I think of energy as being like, you only have so

[00:28:23] much, especially as I get older. And every babysit me almost during that. That's the only way it gets done sometimes. Not all the time. Marley's probably laughing in the background right now because we kind of almost do the same thing. I'm like, we need to have a meeting. No, only I just need to make you make me do it.

[00:30:45] that it takes me? No. You know, same with emails. Is it worth it for me to sit in an inbox being stuck? Absolutely not. I don't look at my emails. I know a lot of people can't even begin

[00:30:51] to imagine me including. Like, I could not have imagined before giving my email over to somebody.

[00:30:59] And it's the only way that I it's so freeing. And it's easy to do too. It's not as hard as people make it.

[00:32:03] We don't have to manipulate the system. That was in college.

[00:32:05] That was in college.

[00:32:06] We didn't work in school because we couldn't sit there and conform, right?

[00:32:09] Because school is following.

[00:32:11] Don't talk back.

[00:32:13] Don't think for yourself.

[00:32:14] It's a memorization.

[00:32:15] So I learned how to manipulate the system.

[00:32:19] I did really well in school.

[00:32:21] But you can ask my husband, I can't spell to save my life,

[00:32:26] but I don't need to like say them and I get frustrated when other people aren't getting there as fast as me, but it's the way my brain works. It's just, even like, I think so much faster than I can say the words or especially write the words.

[00:33:42] So I think of all, oh my gosh, now I don't feel so weird. So yeah, I think it's a great topic. And I don't think it's talked about enough,

[00:35:00] the ADHD topic in business and then men have it, right? But like there's so many things like that, that if I could struggle with it,

[00:36:21] but once I understood that

[00:36:23] or like was more self-aware about it,

[00:36:25] I was able to make changes feel better, but it's a story. And so we're still living in it every day, all the time. And so just having systems is really important. And not that I will follow systems necessarily. I fight systems. That's I think a classic ADHD system, but I am great at building simple systems

[00:37:42] for the people around me to use

[00:37:44] that help me help them also.

[00:38:43] the way my husband might have let's say or like somebody else

[00:38:50] That's why people don't take risks if we actually thought it through like I'm gonna start another business I don't think through what that go ahead. Yeah, you know what I say Libby

[00:38:53] I say I'm an optimist with a bad memory that describes entrepreneurship

[00:38:58] I don't remember the pain of all my other businesses and how I had to learn the hard way every time

[00:39:03] I only remember the good things about it and that's like having three only spoiled brats. Yeah, because they grew up with all your attention till they were. Yeah. You know, by the time you had another one, they were 10. So they were like, yeah, but are in jelly sandwich and brush your teeth. Totally. Like a room. Yep. And it's funny because my older one thinks, oh, you care about

[00:40:20] the first, the little one more. Yeah. And I'm like, no, I

[00:40:25] called you and I took extra care of you for the VA assistants or the melody managers, you're going to struggle with

[00:41:41] delegation. They're not comfortable handing it off, a task off, you know, especially

[00:42:51] that up front. But what I have learned is, um, and also I was the worst micromanager and non-delegator when I, for my first 10 years in business, I didn't know how to hand it over because it

[00:42:56] felt like so important to me. It was like my baby or something. And I didn't want anybody to ruin

[00:43:02] it. But it was also just because it's scary, that's going to give you back the most time immediately. And so for me, I think I got back 15 to 20 hours that I was spending just back and forth on emails. But what I teach people now with delegating is you start by giving them access to your inbox

[00:44:21] and let them research how you write, how you feel like they've made you good templates. Now they're ready to start drafting your emails and you're going to trust them. They're not sending anything. They're just going to draft using the things that they created for you. And once they're creating, you know, drafts that are good 80% of the time are thereabouts. And the other

[00:45:40] times they're asking you like, Hey, how do you want me to respond to this? Or, you know, I'm, you know, Why don't we just have that person go above us to learn as much as they can about the software on their own? There's so much software training out there available for free. And then they can be the problem solver. They can be the troubleshooter for you instead of the other way around. We often think because we learned things the hard way and our mind is stuck in that that there isn't an easier way that we have to guide people.

[00:47:05] And we're usually the roadblock.

[00:47:07] And we're typically doing to do it right. They, you know, um, horror stories. I had an employee once, but they were horrible. When really we were probably when we were the problem, you know, most. It's always us because we either hired that person or we created the training for that person, um, or we didn't hold them accountable.

[00:48:22] There's all the things.

[00:48:23] Yeah.

[00:48:24] And so, you know, I get this all the time with coaching.

[00:48:27] Um, I coach a lot of cleaning companies. growth and are learning, you know, shifting our mindset. And somebody has to be willing to do that to take on a virtual assistant or an office assistant. If you want it to be successful and you want it to be successful quickly. So that's like really what it takes is you have to shift the mindset.

[00:49:41] Oh, it's hard.

[00:49:42] It was for me in a Piphany moment, um, like I can remember the day.

[00:50:47] horrible if you don't learn to let it be messy because it just will be. But yeah, I think it's really important like that people understand just because you haven't made this shift yet doesn't

[00:50:51] mean you can't absolutely it can happen at any time. I always say like one of the things I learned

[00:50:58] about myself once I started traveling more was that when says something to you and you've heard it before, but they said it either at the right time, the right place and or the right way because people deliver content in different ways.

[00:52:20] Yeah.

[00:52:21] So, and we've heard it before.

[00:52:22] It's just you're going to hit that wall and it's just kind of it's just going to change

[00:52:27] your life.

[00:52:28] Yes. use them for our software root recruit and have had great success and very happy with the training part as well. Yeah. So I just want to thank all of our listeners for tuning into the podcast. And if you want a free mini training masterclass at libid.com or the fearlessness.com.

[00:53:42] So if you want to listen to more episodes, you can also find them on those websites,

[00:53:46] but we also have a free mini masterclass on leadership.