Women Like Me Stories & Business
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Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a curious mind, or simply seeking motivation and inspiration, this podcast is a treasure trove of wisdom and guidance. Gain practical tips, innovative strategies, and actionable advice that you can apply to your own life and business endeavors.
Julie Fairhurst's passion for storytelling, combined with her extensive experience in the business world, makes "Women Like Me Stories & Business" a must-listen podcast for anyone craving insight, motivation, and a newfound sense of purpose.
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Women Like Me Stories & Business
Melody Dewsbury - Rebuilding After Divorce with Resilience and Passion
What does it take to rebuild your life after a divorce? Melody Dewsbury, a marketing manager and the latest author in the "Women Like Me" book series, shares her heartfelt journey of resilience and reinvention on this episode of "Women Like Me Stories and Business."
Melody opens up about how writing served as a lifeline during her tumultuous divorce, helping her make sense of her experiences and ultimately contributing to her becoming part of the celebrated book series. As a dog mom, avid crafter, and gardener, she reveals the multitude of ways she found healing and strength through her passions.
You'll hear deep reflections on the emotional impact of unexpected family loss, as we share personal anecdotes about coping with grief and the varied reactions from those around us.
Melody and I discuss the critical importance of leaning into relationships that emerge during times of crisis, and how support often comes from the most unexpected places. This conversation sheds light on the power of simply being present for someone in pain, even when words are insufficient, and how these moments shape our paths to healing and understanding.
Embrace the theme of personal growth and transformation with us, as we recount stories from friends and family who have navigated major life upheavals.
Melody shares poignant tales of optimism and self-discovery, including her courageous decision to leave her teaching career, a choice that eventually earned her father's pride.
This episode is a testament to the strength found in embracing change and living a fulfilling life on one's own terms. Join us for an inspiring conversation that celebrates resilience, personal growth, and the pursuit of true passions.
Melodie shares her full story in the best-selling book "WOMEN LIKE ME: TRANSFORMING PAIN INTO WISDOM AND LOVE"
Here is the link.... https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1990639232
Who is Melodie Dewsbury...
In 2017, Melodie experienced a life-altering situation that led her on a new path of self-awareness, resilience, and independence.
In the years to come, she left her career in education to follow her dreams of entrepreneurship and making a name for herself. While she has recently taken on a leadership role in marketing, she is still an entrepreneur at heart.
Outside of working hours, you can find Melodie crafting, painting, woodworking, gardening, or paddle
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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst is an accomplished author, writing coach, and the visionary founder of the Women Like Me Book Program.
With 36 published books and a proven track record of helping over 160 women become published authors, Julie is passionate about empowering women to find their voice, share their truths, and create meaningful connections through storytelling.
Julie’s writing programs, including her highly sought-after four-week course, provide women with the tools, guidance, and motivation to tell their stories confidently and leave a lasting impact.
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Well, hello everybody, and thank you so much for being here for another episode of Women Like Me Stories and Business. I am just so pleased today to have one of our newest authors with us today, Melody Dewsbury. Now, this lady has quite the story to tell and I'm going to let her tell us the story, but I'm just going to tell you the book she was in, where you can find her and what her title is. So this is the newest Women Like Me book. It came out about a month ago and it was number one in five different categories, which is amazing. And then in my favorite category, personal transformation, we got to number two. That's a really hard category to get, but I was just so pleased and I was so excited for everybody. So, where you can find Melody is in chapter 10. And her title is this finding strength through life's challenges how an unexpected journey led to resilience, empowerment and a new me. So, Melody, welcome. Thank you so much for being here, and why don't we start off by you just telling us about yourself?
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me. It was funny. I was just thinking, oh, I should grab my book and have it, but I remember I gave my copy away, so I guess I can't use that as a prop. But yeah, tell you a little bit about myself. So I am a dog mom. You can see my pup behind me here Working hard. He sits with me here every day. I work from home. I'm a marketing manager for a business consulting agency in the lower mainland and I oh gosh. But where do I start? So I am divorced. I am in a new relationship with someone who we've been together for a few years now, and I live with him and his stepson as well. So I get to be stepmom.
Speaker 2:Oh nice, yeah, and in my spare time I love to make stuff. You can see all my craft shelves. I try to hide them for work, but I cannot hide them completely. So, yeah, it's part of who I am. I love plants, as you can tell, so I'm an avid gardener and I love paddleboarding.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect. Well, you live in the right area to be able to do paddleboarding.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, we moved here just about a year ago and there are so many great little lakes around. I have not explored them all yet, but I really, really am hoping to this summer.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect. Well, thank you for that, melody. It's yeah, we, melody and I, live somewhat close to one another and we're surrounded by mountains and forests and beautiful lakes lakes everywhere. So if you're a paddleboarder, you live in the right spot, that's for sure. Definitely so, melanie, let's just jump in. I have a question for you. Um, I'm just. Can you tell our audience a little bit about what led you to write this story?
Speaker 2:It's a good question. So I the the whole story of my divorce and what happened, like, as it was happening, so many crazy things were taking place that I was. I was telling people I need to write this down because, like you're, like, people will not believe me when I'm telling these things, and I didn't share a lot of that in this chapter. But I had started writing like as soon as it happened and I think I think within a year after the separation, I had I had several chapters about what had gone on during this whole time, which I think you know I don't look back on very often, but I think it's so good to have that story there and to have that written down. And so I had wanted to write that whole story.
Speaker 2:I wasn't sure how to do it. I wasn't sure if it should be, you know, a fictional story or if it should be a self-help book or if it should just be a memoir. I wasn't. I didn't know where to go with it and I met you at the women's show in Chilliwack, at the I think it was the West coast women's show, yeah and I just happened to, you know, see your booth and I was like, oh, I, I think it was actually the um, the women who were from Africa that wrote stories. That was the book that caught my eye. I wanted to know more about that, and then you and I started talking and I was like, well, I got a story for you and that's basically how it, how it started, so it was a really great first.
Speaker 2:Like you know, dip your toe in the water into writing uh, writing a book and and I do love to write, so it was a great experience.
Speaker 1:Good. And so when you started writing, when you were going through this, which would have been a very traumatic event leading up to your divorce what? Why did you start to write it Like, what was your goal? Were you just trying to get some anger out? Were you trying to remember? Were you trying to just like what was the purpose? Why? Why write it out? What were you? What was the purpose of that?
Speaker 2:I remember. So, after the separation, I moved back to my parents' house for a couple of months and I remember going to London, drugs and picking up a few books right, this was my self-care era for like a couple months. It was summer. I was like I'm just gonna, you know, live my best life. I'm going to grab all the books and sit in the backyard and read. And I grabbed one and I think it was called a beautiful, terrible thing or something like that, and it was about a woman who found out that her husband had an affair and that he was, you know, going back and forth and telling her one thing and they were getting back together and then she got pregnant and all these things and it was such a. It was so like enthralling. And I remember reading it in like a day and a half.
Speaker 2:And that book I was like, oh my goodness, this woman is telling my story. This has been so therapeutic to read this book specifically even though it was fiction, I think a lot of it was based on true story that I found so much comfort in that. I was like I'm going to write a book. I'm going to write a book so that other people later on in life. Whenever I get it done, we'll read that and go later on in life, whenever I get it done, we'll read that and go. I'm not alone. This happens to me too. I'm not crazy and, you know, can gain some kind of like yeah, just some, some comfort, or feel like you know what. She did this to get over this and now she's here and I can do that too, and that was the entire reason for writing it.
Speaker 1:I love that melody because that's the purpose of the women like me books. Yeah, it's about helping ourselves, but also helping people who read our stories and look what happened when you read that story. So, thank you, Thank you so much for sharing that. In your story you talk a lot about women and relationships with women and how women. If it wasn't for the women in your life, you may not have gotten through it. So I want to just start with you know, when you told some trusted women in your life what was happening?
Speaker 1:Because I think a lot of times what happens to us if we go through a traumatic experience, especially what something you went through, maybe we feel shame about what's happening, we might feel guilt, we might we don't want to talk about it. We prefer just to put the blinders on, maybe just in terms of not sharing it with others. But you did the opposite. Yep, you reached out, and I think that that's brave and and because it's hard to to talk about our private lives, especially when they're not going as as well as we'd like, so can you tell me a little bit about what happened when you, when you reached out to your, to your girlfriends and I think it was a grandma and your mom. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that, how that?
Speaker 2:happened. Yeah, and just to touch on what you just said, I don't think. I think there is a lot of stigma around trauma, around things that are just out of our control and people don't want to talk about them, and so I don't know when this started, but I did start talking about some things, like a few few years earlier. You know, I have like an invisible illness in my, in my ear. So, you know, sometimes I'm in pain and people don't know Right, and so I had to start telling people that and I've I found personally there was a lot of um, it was very therapeutic to share that with people. And then so you know you're not just like struggling alone what happened when I told people, um, not just family, but like um, so the my workplace cause I was a teacher at the time and you know I'd been there for, I think, if several years at that point, I'm not sure and we were really a close net, family, like we were all. I was friends with everybody, right, and a lot of those teachers also knew my ex-husband, and so when something big like this happens and I take a few days off work because I'm like I don't know what's going on, right, people are asking questions as soon as I started to say because I was so ashamed, I was so ashamed that someone did not find value in me enough to stay married to me. That was the whole thing and I was ashamed at that at first.
Speaker 2:And then I started to tell people, and I was ashamed at that at first. And then I started to tell people and I had teachers come into my room after school and say I'm going through the exact same thing, but I didn't tell anybody. I had three teachers come to me within a week One was male and two other females and they were like so yeah, I get you, and that just to have that immediate community was amazing. But I had mentors at the school and you know I was a younger teacher and so I really felt like those mentors and friends just like took me under their wing and you know, like I mean I remember secret, like quiet lunches where I'm just like crying in the in the book room in the back of the library, like that's. So she'd come over on a Saturday and she'd bring me a new mug, which I still have, and it was like like you're a woman, you can do it, like every successful woman, um, behind every successful woman is herself. That was the mug that she gave me.
Speaker 2:Like those kinds of messages were constantly being given to me by the women that I worked with, and especially coming from people who knew him, and you'd think there would maybe be a little bit of a oh, I don't want to get involved, right? No, you were a hundred percent. Even, even women that had known him for years and years, they were like I got you Right, like we, we are, we stand behind you. That is awful. What happened, um, and it was just so. It was like family, it was like everyone just like hugged me, big hug, and it was so healing.
Speaker 2:So that was, I think, the catalyst, because after I quit teaching, I started a business and I started this Facebook group and I started doing go lives like weekly, and I was sharing all over the place.
Speaker 2:I was telling everyone my story and I kept doing. I started because of that, because I told that in the school and that was so well-received and people found it helpful as well. So I'm like I'm gonna do this on a larger scale. So I had a few thousand people in this group and I had people messaging me every single time I mentioned this story or I said, hey, I'm going through this right now, I'm struggling right, like you think, when you're, when you're someone online and people are looking up to you, you have to have it all together. No, I'm like super vulnerable with everywhere, and every time I said, hey, this is happening, someone reached out and they said I needed to hear that I am going through this right now. That was so helpful, like you literally just spoke to me. So, yeah, that's kind of I kind of went on a tangent there, but no, no, no, that's beautiful, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that you shared all of that and and it, it, it just really, um, as you were talking, I thought you know there's so many people that you know they keep their head down and you know they're just off the radar because they're in fear of what people might think. I think our biggest problem is that we're afraid of what people are going to think and I think that it's extraordinary for you that that beautiful, you know arms around you, with all of that support, is wonderful. And I think that, you know, sometimes we don't have as much support, but there's always somebody. There's always somebody in our life you know, and we know who that somebody is, that we can reach out to when we're when we're struggling and when we have, you know, those types of things happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I mean family, because you'd ask about the women in my family. I mean they were devastated because he was a, he was a son, he was a grandson, he was a brother. Nobody saw it coming right.
Speaker 2:They were so devastated, and they grieved, for sure they grieved, and but the day that it happened, my, I think my sister took the day off work and she cause we were in, uh, fraser Valley and she works in Vancouver, so she took the train all the way out here and my mom came out here and we and they picked me up and I remember like I think we went shopping, like we went to buy new sheets for the bed, cause I was like I'm not sleeping on these sheets, like I don't remember the day, but I remember driving and seeing, like driving by Leps market and looking at the mountains and being like the world is still turning and this is happening to me, yeah, and we're going to buy sheets. Like it was such a weird day and I was so numb to everything, I don't I don't remember what we did but, I, remember that they were there and I remember that they were supportive like crazy.
Speaker 2:Everyone was supportive. Yeah, there, you know, there was not supportive.
Speaker 1:Come on, melody, we're going to buy sheets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I bought the like. I bought the most bright coral sheets, like they were so ugly, but they were so like. I mean, you get what you can get in the day, right? And I was like I don't know who's been in my bed, but I'm not sleeping on these sheets anymore.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, oh, my goodness. Oh, so you know. So, going through all of that and and, uh, you know, telling your story and sharing and, and the Facebook group I had no idea that you had done that. So that's really courageous and and and it's absolutely right. You're absolutely right, we don't have to be. A lot of times we think we have to be perfect and what people want to see is non perfect, because none of us are perfect. Yeah, you know so, and to be vulnerable, like that is just it's a blessing because it allows other people to be vulnerable. So, all of that said, you know, if somebody is going through some sort of traumatic event in their life, what kind of advice would you give them? You know, what would you suggest that they do other than get a book and start writing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one thing I will say is your tribe, the people who come out of the woodwork, are not necessarily the people you think will be there beside you. I had very, very close friends at the time who just did not want any part of it. They didn't want to hear about it, they didn't want to. They just kind of like cut cut off, and it's not like they were friends with him or anything. They just it was not. They didn't want any part of it.
Speaker 2:So I think my advice is the people who come out of the woodwork to support you, just lean into those relationships, because there's something there. Yeah, like they care about you, they are there for a reason. And you know what? Some of those people came into my life, helped me in that season and then shortly after we we like never spoke again. Yeah, and that's okay too. Right, like yes, but find the, find the people in that moment, in that phase of your life, that needs to be there for you Cause and it may be lots, it may be one person, I think what you said in the beginning about you know, you're really good girlfriends who just couldn't, just couldn't help you.
Speaker 1:You don't know what's going on in people's lives, right, you know, and, and whether that's triggering for them, what was going on with you and, um, so they just, they just don't, they just I can't mentally themselves, they can't, they can't deal with it. And I think that and I think that that, uh, I think that that needs to be said, because there's a lot of times there's things that happen and people you think are going to jump to your rescue are not the ones that are there, and sometimes we don't know what to say, and so that blocks us. I remember years ago a friend of mine. Her husband was killed at work and she had two little ones. It was very, very traumatic, very sad, and so I went over.
Speaker 1:I got the phone call, I went over and and I remember I didn't want to go. Yeah, like I knew I had to go, but I was looking for a way out. Um, I didn't know I was, but it was my uncomfortableness and I got into the house and and I didn't know what to say, so I sat beside her on the couch while she cried and I just held her hand. What can I possibly say? And that but that's everything. Right, that's everything. Yes, I know, but it's just you know so people to.
Speaker 1:It's just you know so people to. It's just hard, yeah, it's. It's hard to step up when somebody is that someone you love is in pain and going through whatever they're going through, and and when it's triggering for that person, it it can make it even worse yeah, some people are just so not good.
Speaker 2:They're like I don't, oh, you know, you know like when, if you know when a family member dies, right, yes, and yeah, you think, oh, all these people are going to come to their funeral or their service and not as many people show up and you go why? Well, cause, death is uncomfortable, like trauma and tragedy is uncomfortable for people. We don't know why and it you know. But even if you couldn't say anything, you were there and even if those friends didn't reach out all the time, I knew they supported me from afar. I knew they were rooting for me. Right, yeah, you just yeah, you never, you never know, right, life is so unexpected.
Speaker 1:So, yes, oh for sure. So when this all happened with you, what do you think you found in yourself that you didn't realize was there? Because there's always good that comes out right. In every bad situation, no matter how horrible, we can usually always find some good. So how did you come out of that? What did you find inside of yourself that you didn't know was there?
Speaker 2:I think I knew deep down that these things were there. The independence I've always been independent, but it was like to a new level, like to the extreme. Like I was in my new house, like rewiring stuff, I was like, no, no, I'll figure out how to do that, I can do that on my own. And so, like I started woodworking and I, like, was running three businesses at one time and you know, like there was just nothing that I could not do, which is that line in the book that I, that my grandma was always singing about, right, that Annie Oakley line. You know, there's nothing I can't do. And so that for sure was one. The confidence the being able to be on my own and really enjoy my own company, maybe a little bit too much, exactly, okay, yeah Right, like, um, for sure, those things, um, and the self-respect, like dating, after that, very different.
Speaker 1:Ah, yes, of course, of course, yeah, I think it's. It's. I love how you said, for sure, about this being alone, because I think there's so many people jump from one relationship to another because they're afraid to be alone. And also, I remember, years ago I think I took a course or something, I don't remember but but you look at your life like a pie right, and you need to have, like your relationships, your, your marriage, your, your career, your friends, your crafts, your, you know, your paddle boarding, like all of those things lined up. So if one of those things gets pulled out like a relationship, you have those other things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that when we I think a lot of people live for a person in relationships, and so if you're living for a person, yeah, when that person is gone, that's like a big, massive empty hole and that's really hard to fill. So, self care, making sure that we have things in our lives that are important to us and we stay with those things. You know, I it just so, it's just so important. I was a single mom for many, many years and when you said about, about, you know, being alone and being comfortable with yourself, and I love being alone, I mean, and I love being alone. I mean I I've been remarried now 13 years and I love my husband. I mean I adore him, but I also love it when he's not here.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love him and I love being alone. Exactly, exactly. They're not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and he loves his time, and I think that that's so important because, because, if we have, if we are filled, full of things that we love and and all of those things, then that's what we're giving to everybody, right, we're giving that full life, but but so I think that's really important for women, if they're, if they're in relationships or or they've, they've gone out of a relationship, to look, or even you know, in your life, like what, what else do you have that you enjoy Other than that relationship? Or some people, it's all about their jobs, yeah, and what if that job goes away? Then what happens, right? So I just think I loved how you said that just finding those those things to keep your life full.
Speaker 2:I know someone that just recently broke up with a long time partner and she's having a lot of anxiety about like, oh, this next step, this next phase, and I'm like so freaking excited for her because I'm like you get to discover who you are again and you're like, in your mid thirties, like you get to be who you are again and you're like in your mid thirties, like you get to be a completely different person, if you want, like I, I am not the same person. I well, I'm not even the same person I was two years ago, but like I'm not the same person I was seven years ago.
Speaker 2:Yes, Very very different person. I'm so excited for her. I'm like just don't rush in anything, like just take your time, like enjoy, enjoy your time.
Speaker 1:Right, I want to tell you about my brother. So my brother, a couple of years ago, phoned me up. We don't talk often. I'm the oldest child in my family, so I tend to get the phone calls, not when there's oh my God, my life's falling apart. So my brother calls and he says my girlfriend of 10 years just left me, I just got fired from my job of 24 years and this is very sad, but and my and my dog died all within a week. And I said to him a week. And I said to him congratulations, you hated that job, you were not happy in that relationship and I'm sorry, and I'm sorry about you, sorry about your dog.
Speaker 1:That's the worst part. That's really sad. But on the other two avenues, congratulations. Yeah, your life is you're. You got a new campus buddy, and so he's got a different job now that he absolutely he's always wanted to do this and anyway, now he's doing it and you know he's taking his time. He's not, you know, in a full-time relationship or anything, but that's what else can we say. You know, congratulations, your life is about to get better.
Speaker 2:It's going to get. Yeah, there's. There's two things that I like to. I'm always, um, an optimist. It drives my boyfriend crazy because he's like a realist. He's like, no, but this is going to happen. I'm like, but this could happen. He's like, but no, it's not.
Speaker 2:And I'm like but it could, and so I'm I'm just a forever optimist, um, but I'm also like and this is hard to do when you're in the thick of it, when trauma is like hitting you right in the, in the thick of it is to say, what am I learning from this? What is the good coming out of this and how can I like turn this into something positive? And you can't always do that, and not always, because some trauma is just you're, it's just right. There's no good that comes out of it, right, but for something like this, for me, right, like the affair, oh, I learned so much. He did me a favor.
Speaker 2:I. I became a completely different person. I created a life that I loved. I, I jumped out of the airplane and built my parachute. On the way down, I had no idea what I was doing with my life, and I'm I still don't know what I'm doing with my life, but I was figuring it out on the way, and that was a blessing and it was hard to see in the first six months but I really I dived deep into professional, into personal development and I was like, oh, actually there's a whole other world out here Like this is not the end of my life.
Speaker 2:This is like just a blip in my story, um, and I really get to do what I want and that is a blessing.
Speaker 2:So, like even in the craziest of times, when you know some things I don't want to say, but some things were happening and I was like it would make you crazy. I was like, okay, what am I learning? Oh, I'm learning that I don't want this in the future. I'm learning that I will not stand for this. I'm learning that, oh, I can actually stand up for myself here. Or I'm learning that you know what? I can just ignore this and move on, like there were so many things, that just so many lessons, and I love that yours, that you said congratulations, because what else do you do? I mean, you have no other choice. There's no, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:You have no other choice. Years ago I was fired If you can believe that I really was. I was fired from a job and I went home and I cried all weekend long and I was furious and ashamed and sad and all that kind of stuff Absolutely best thing that ever happened to me. Best thing that ever happened to me. Like I can't even tell you about all the good things that came because I was no longer doing something that I really wasn't happy doing. But you don't realize it when you're in it, because we're just in it.
Speaker 1:And I love what you said is that you know, for people to understand, there's a whole other life out there. And and I believe it's so funny because one time somebody said to me well, you're not the same you, you've changed. And I'm like, well, thank goodness, because we're not meant to be the same, we're not meant to be the same person, we're meant to change and evolve and grow and and all of those kinds of things. And if you look back over your life and you go, I'm exactly the same as I was when I was you know, and I'm talking mentally and and that kind of thing with personal growth and yeah, that's good, it's good to be in the same place. We're meant to grow and evolve and, uh, and I love, I love um, I love knowing that I don't know everything. Yes, like, there's so many things I don't know. I can't you know. Yeah, yeah, it's just, the world is just full and I, I um.
Speaker 2:There's so much and that's a. That's a, that's like the biggest compliment to say that you're not the same person. Yeah, thank you. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, the world is. There's so much out there that we can you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's hard when you're in it to see that. You know it takes some time and so, and so it's important for people to realize that you know I didn't, I didn't get over it right away. It took me quite a while and and you know you didn't get over it right away. But but to but to allow yourself to go through that and allow yourself with it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you have to. You really do need to feel those emotions If you push them away. Speaking from experience, if you keep pushing them, they're not going anywhere. They're just going to bubble back up. They're trying to get back up and you keep pushing them down and then they're going to explode.
Speaker 1:Like just take the time to sit and cry for a weekend, cry for them, cry for two months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1:Get it all out, yeah, yeah. And then once you start to get over the immediate shock and everything of whatever's happened, then your brain starts to clear and it's like, oh, and you start to see these little things. So I hope that anybody who was listening today learns from your story. I think it's just so important and I love how you learned from somebody else's story. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I still have that book on my shelf.
Speaker 1:I just think it's beautiful. It's um, that's what it's all about is you know, we're in the world with other people that are. You know, some are doing better than us, some are doing worse and, and you know, hopefully we can be that shining light to help people to to proceed in their lives as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've always said like if putting my story on the line, putting myself out there, if it helps just one person, then it was worth it. So yeah, it was For sure.
Speaker 1:So, in closing, melody, what would you like to say to our audience? What's a few words of wisdom you'd like to pass along while you got the chance?
Speaker 2:Gosh, I feel like I've given a lot in the last half hour. I feel like there's never like one thing. I think just know your worth and always remember that, like, at the end of the day, like you are I don't want to say this like if everything in the world was gone and it's just you. You're left with you. So create a life and create the person that you want to be. Be that person. Just start being that person now and do the things that light you up, and don't take crap from anyone. That's a hard one for me to do. Yes, but don't, you know, like don't. Oh, absolutely Just let yeah, do what makes you happy and be be who you want to be, and if something in your life is not making you happy right now, then it's okay to go change it, that's, I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's no. You're going to listen back and you're going to go wow, where did that come from? You better write that down. That's beautiful, it's beautiful, and I think that that's the. If you can, or I, if we can give one lesson to anybody who has listened or watched this, that would be the one to to learn to care for yourself and and fill up your life so that that you can care for you.
Speaker 1:I had a dream once. I'm not going to go into the whole dream, but I said in my dream I don't know my purpose, and I was told you were your purpose. Yes, that's what I was told, and so I believe it. We are planted here for us. Yes, we also are here to you know, help others, care for our children. Our spouses are, you know, and and and share you know the world, but we are here for us. We are our own purpose. Everything else is a passion, and so I love what you said, because it just that's the way it goes. We, if you do everything that that Melody just said, you're fulfilling your purpose. Yeah, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, go ahead. No, I was just going to say my, my dad, um, you know, when I quit teaching, I was worried he was going to be like what are you doing? Because my whole life he had said go get a job. You know, get a good job, be a teacher. You got summer's off, you know, retire, blah, blah, blah, blah, the whole, the whole thing. And so I was like the whole thing. And so I was like I'm quitting teaching and, um, I think it. I think it took my family a few months to kind of sit with it and go okay, yeah, but I think the next year it was, he said to someone you know what Melody didn't like her life and she went and changed it and I'm proud of her for that and so, and that's kind of like my my yeah, one of one of the things I'm like nope, I, I don't like that, I'm going to go do something different.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness. Okay, all right, we're going to end no crying. Julie, that's beautiful. What a beautiful thing for your father to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great, beautiful, Beautiful no-transcript.