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Feb. 14, 2024
God Wants to Entrust You With a Profound Life with Melissa Hughes ( S:3 - Ep 68)
Today on Exploring the Marketplace, Shawn Bolz and Bob Hasson interview Melissa Hughes. Melissa is a TikTok influencer, international speaker and bestselling author of “She Can Laugh” along with children’s book: “Mommy Loves You When”. Melissa has been featured on The Kelly Clarkson Show and featured on the New York Times Best Seller “Primal Scream” on NBC. Tune in as Shawn, Bob and Melissa share how she was in a place feeling stuck when God began to speak to her about posting videos online. Her first video generated 22 million views and ended up on the Kelly Clarkson Show. Melissa launched a business into entrepreneurship with NO IDEA what she was doing. This year, she hit 6 figures in her business and by God's GRACE - he has helped her every step of the way! Now Melissa helps Christian entrepreneurs use video to grow their personal brand online and speak on stage to share their story and business. Tune in!
Here is the link to the freebie! https://melissa-hughes.mykajabi.com/personalbrand
20% off coupon (coupon code: MARKETPLACE) for your listeners to The Social Media Mentorship: https://melissaleahughes.com/social-media-mentorship
She Can Share Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/7dqnleFO6VKeQOLzKArKeB?si=45706b9b07fb4594
Transcript
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Welcome to Exploring the Marketplace Show, where we're creating a conversation for what
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God's doing to Christians in the marketplace.
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I'm Sean Boles, and my co-host is Bob Hasson.
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We interview everyday influencers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs from all areas
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of industry, exposing you to powerful stories of what God's doing to people just like you.
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We're also sharing our thoughts about what God's doing in finance, business, entertainment,
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and politics.
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Come join the conversation now.
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Welcome to Exploring the Marketplace.
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I'm Bob Hasson with my friend Sean Boles.
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Sean, do we have anything exciting on the show today?
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As always we do.
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We have a TikToker, who's more than just TikToker, but I found around TikToker and also the
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NRB convention, but this is Melissa Hughes, who's a TikToker influencer, international
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speaker bestselling author.
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She's been booked twice, Bob, on Kelly Clarkson, which I think is so fun.
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Wow.
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She's featured for the New York Times bestseller Primal Scream on NBC, and she has over 257,000
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followers and over 11 million likes.
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That's a lot of people who are following her.
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She's a bestselling author of a book.
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She can laugh along with a children's book called Mommy Loves You.
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She's a missionary in the UK for several years.
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I want to ask her about because that's part of the breakdown before Breakthrough Story.
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She's a mom of two kids and a wife of a husband who's about to become a police officer.
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I'm really excited about Melissa Hughes.
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I know there's a lot of people who are trying to figure out the influencer space, whether
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it's a company trying to have influence through the social media world or whether it's somebody
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who's like, this is my space that I do business as an entrepreneur.
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She's ahead of us and actually coaching other people how to do that.
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I want to hear her God story.
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It's going to be great.
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Up next, Melissa Hughes.
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I've got a word that the next great move of God's spirit, like a Jesus people movement
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is going to happen in the workplace, in the marketplace, and we need to hear God right
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now.
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You're working your career, your place of influence, your job, and you're wanting as
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a Christian a God result.
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There has to be a God process to get to that result and we have to hear God.
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My friend Bob Hass and I wrote a book just for you to teach you how to hear God's voice
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in the season of your life to help you in your place of career and your place of business.
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So there's no disconnection between who you are at church, who you are in your family
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and who you are in your career, but it all works together beautifully.
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And I believe that this book is a key book for now to help you understand what God's
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doing.
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Someone encourage you to get this book wired here.
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And if you get it during this month, you'll get the masterclass where Bob and I taught
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on just the themes of the book and help bring it home, help give you some assignments and
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some impartation that's going to bring it right into your very life.
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So I encourage you to get wired to hear now and get our brand new masterclass free when
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you buy the book from BowlsMistries.com.
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Well, welcome back.
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We're here with Melissa Hughes.
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Melissa's so good to have you.
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So great to be here guys.
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Thank you so much for having me on the show today.
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Well, Melissa, most people see you on TikTok or in the social media influencer places and
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just you're so delightful.
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Like you're so just real authentic and share your struggles with your kids, your family,
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what's going on, you coach people all the time.
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You do all these things, which we heard in your bio, but like you have this incredible
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faith story of just things that God's done.
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I mean, you've had to overcome some real disappointments in God at times or some real or maybe in this
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process.
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And I love these stories because I think people, all of us can relate to the times where we
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didn't understand God in our lives or we didn't understand ourselves.
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And you had a time where you and your husband lived above a funeral home.
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What?
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What is this?
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Like I was like reading this line that you lived above a graveyard.
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What are you?
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What is this?
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So take us through this period of time.
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Just, I know this, that's kind of a weird place to start, but I want to go deep past
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this because I feel like when I was reading the notes, this was such a profound story.
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I want to hear it.
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I know our audience is going to want to hear it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So my husband and I, we were, I was about 25 and I can remember sitting with my husband
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on the airplane and we were just about to move to the UK to plan to church.
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Wow.
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And I don't know, yeah.
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I don't know if you guys have ever had like a dream and you feel like, like, this is it.
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This is the culmination of what this is going to be.
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And we are just so full of faith, so excited.
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And I remember a month after moving there, I'd always wanted to live in the UK since
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I was little.
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I remember a month after moving there, we were sitting in, I was sitting in bath, sipping
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on a cup of tea, eating a scone with jam and cream.
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And I got, it was the best.
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And I got a phone call and it was my husband and he had gone to work that day and he had
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called me and said, Hey, you know, I've been in a bit of an accident, but I'm okay.
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I just need you to come to the hospital.
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And so because he sounded so calm, I was calm, but when I got to the hospital, I opened the
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door and my heart just sank.
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And I saw him stretched out on a, on a bed.
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He was totally high on drugs.
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There were tubes everywhere nurses were scurrying about.
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And my heart just hit the floor.
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And within like the next 24 hours, we found out that he was going to be bedridden.
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He had shattered his leg, broken his collarbone.
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I was going to be his full-time carer.
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At that point, we had no house, no car cause he totaled it.
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Our close family wasn't nearby.
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We had obviously just moved there, no furniture, no forks, like, and you know, very essential
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things and obviously going there to like lead this church.
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And the only place that would rent to us was a funeral home in a valley, like literally
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in the valleys.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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So we lived there.
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And I remember when that happened, kind of just like telling myself, you know, it's okay.
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You know, God called us here.
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He's with us.
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It's going to be fine.
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But then as like the weeks and the months ticked on, things didn't necessarily get better.
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They felt like they were getting worse.
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As we, my husband's health just like didn't seem to get better.
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The people that we were going to lead the church with, they left.
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And so we took it over and we were hosting meetings in our living room for a while with
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my husband on the house, like in bed.
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And I was pregnant as well.
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Of course.
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And yeah.
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So it was just like, you know, but Christians, you know, they're just the most like, you
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know, just like resilient people and they're like, God is in this, you know, and he was.
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And so I remember just like, you know, it's going to be okay.
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It's going to be fine.
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And I remember somebody called me from home and they said, Hey Melissa, how's it going?
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And I was like, you know, we've had some challenges, but it's going to be good.
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It's going to be fine.
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And there was just like this long pause on the end of the phone.
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And I remember sitting out in my bedroom looking out my window and all I could see were headstones.
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And they just said, Melissa, you know, that it's okay just to say that things are really
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hard right now.
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And I, to be honest with you, I couldn't even get those words out of my mouth because I
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was going to have to answer a question that I was really just so unprepared to answer,
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which was, but if God is good, then why would he call us into something that feels so bad
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right now?
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And I just didn't have an answer, you know?
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And so I just like had to sit in that question and really allow this like honest part, not
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this like toxic positivity, you know, or this like faith statement, but like really allow
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the pain and the disappointment to like rise and really look at that and deal with that.
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And I kind of sat in that for a while.
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And I'll never forget a couple of years later, walking around this park by my house, it was
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like the, the bliss.
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It was this beautiful park by my house, my two children, and just praying and saying,
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God, you know, how could anything really good come from this?
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And I really, truly felt like God almost like bent down and whispered into such a tender
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chamber of my heart.
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And he said, mountaintop experiences are for sights and inspiration, but the fruit grows
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in the valleys.
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And I just had this like moment where I realized I wanted this like pain free life, but I felt
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like God was entrusting to me a profound life because you can't have a triumph without a
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tragedy or love greatly or risk or with or risk without experiencing heartache or failure.
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And I really saw the cross, you know, the cross, the resurrection and the cross.
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So amazing.
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You know, when you first said you were in a valley, I just went to, you know, hey, the
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scripture in song, the valley of the shadow of death, you're, and then you lie down beside
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three pastors and the Lord had showed you like we were used to seeing on social media
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highlight reels.
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But what happens behind the scenes is real life.
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And you're on the phone call with who said to you, it's okay to say you're not okay.
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I think unlock something in you because God is good all the time, no matter what our circumstances
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are.
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And you just prove that to us through your story.
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It's such a beautiful story.
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And I'm assuming your husband recovered and he's doing well now and talk to us about that.
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And what are you doing now as you're back in the States?
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Yeah, I want to say with that too, like talk about like, how did an influencer platform
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come?
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So we want to hear about your husband, we want to hear about your family, but how did it
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influence?
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Because that's a pretty strange platform to emerge into.
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And it's usually only done by the grace of God.
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Go ahead.
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Yeah, no, 100%.
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It was the grace of God.
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My husband's doing really well.
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Hey, it was a long road to recovery.
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He finally got the rod taken out of his leg.
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He's doing great by the grace and the goodness of God.
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But how the influencer platform came was when my husband and I finished church planting
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over there, we were there for about four years, we moved home.
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The pandemic happened, like right then.
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And so we were living with my in-laws and we needed to like get a house, get forks,
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right?
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Get a crop, like get all the things.
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I like the forks name.
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This is good.
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It's forks.
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You know, we'll think about that, but it's like.
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It's a sort of a package of the forks.
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Yeah, that we didn't have.
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So I ended up taking a job working in childcare because that was, you know, that was the job
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at the time.
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But it was so painful for me because, you know, for any mom listening right now, I feel
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like you either want a thriving career or you want to be at home with your children.
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And I wanted to be at home with my kids.
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And so I got this job working childcare where I'm dropping my kids off at one end of the
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building and going and looking after somebody else's.
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And I was just like, Lord, come on.
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Like, and this is me being honest now.
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We're through the toxic positivity.
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This is me having an honest chance at the Lord being like, you know, God, like, what
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do you do it?
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Like what's this next step?
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And I'm sure a lot of people were praying that prayer during COVID.
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But because of where we come from to I really was like, where is this going?
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And so one day I was listening to Focus on the Family.
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I love Focus on the Family.
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I think they've done amazing things mobilizing the gospel and I was listening to Focus on
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the Family, driving to work.
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And at that point, I had just spent the evening on indeed looking for jobs.
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And it just every job I looked for just looked unqualified, unqualified, even though I have
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a degree in exercise science, unless you want to physical therapy, you're not.
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So it was like business degree, unqualified admin, unqualified.
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And so I'm listening to Focus on the Family, driving to work.
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And I just was like, God, what should I do?
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And he just I felt like he asked me this question.
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He said, Melissa, what do you want to do?
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And I was like, look, God, if we're going to be real honest, like real, real honest,
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the only thing that I'm genuinely really good at is talking.
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So if I could just have a job, like Focus on the Family, Jim Daly, if I could just talk
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to people all day, that would be great.
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And literally a month later, I felt God started speaking to me about posting videos online.
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Random, super random.
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I felt like a crazy person, though, because anywhere I looked, it was like, I just felt
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this excitement bubbling up in me and like this thing that I should start posting videos
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online.
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So I talked to my husband about it and said, I feel like I should post these videos.
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So we prayed, God, if this is something Melissa should do, would you just make it clear?
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And five days later, I uploaded this video onto TikTok.
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It was the very first video on my phone.
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I was trying to figure out how to even post or what TikTok was.
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And the next morning I woke up that video generated 22 million views and I ended up
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on my books and show.
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Wait, wait, what was the video about?
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I saw it on the confirmation.
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Exactly.
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I'm sorry.
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What was the video about?
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Yeah, it was a video of my kids.
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It was a mom fail.
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It was a video of my kids, which I love that I represent the mom fail community.
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That's how I feel like all moms feel at times, but it was a video of my kids sledding and
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I pushed them down the sledding hill.
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It was actually near my in-laws by their driveway because we were living there.
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And they went down and they picked up speed and the sled hit a bump and then it looked
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like they were going down the street and you can hear my daughter going, mommy.
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They were just going down the driveway, but it was just a funny, it was like a seven second
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clip, just not mega viral.
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Yeah.
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And you ended up with Kelly Clarkson.
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Yes, and the Kelly Clarkson show reached out to me and everyone's like, Melissa, that's
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so exciting.
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But to be honest, I was stressed.
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I thought that it was broken.
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I had no idea what was going on.
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That was not my world.
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I had no idea about content creation.
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Kelly Clarkson.
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So, and I didn't know what to do with that.
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So I literally just started figuring out how to post videos in my car on my lunch break
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while working a full-time job in childcare.
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I guess that's so normal though to me in the sense of the story of people who got either
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anoints or they just have a natural knack.
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If it's not a God mission, if it's just people who are on social media, they just start to
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post and they're authentic and the world relates to them.
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And for you, it feels like it's something that God wanted because your videos are very
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like, okay, here's where I, you know, my son was upset.
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And during a tantrum, and it was because I just got this idea to ask him the question,
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like what do you think you're upset about?
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And it's because he wanted to play with us, whatever characters.
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And he didn't want to clean this room where he didn't want to.
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And you're just being really real as far as like, I thought of a question to ask him.
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And I think everyone's looking for fun, funny content, help, raising family.
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That's what you're all about.
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So it doesn't surprise me at all because you're just, you know, you're very real.
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It's just like you've learned how to be real with God.
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I feel like you're being real with us as your audience.
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Talk about like, how did this become like your full-time focus then?
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Or how did this become like your focus as far as life?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Well, you know, when I was creating the content and posting in my car, I had no idea where
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this was going.
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The only thing I felt God say was post videos, but I didn't know that it could actually,
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I knew that there was an influencer industry.
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I didn't know anything about it.
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And I didn't know that it could actually turn into a career until somebody said to me, Melissa,
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why don't you teach people how to do this?
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And my very first response was nobody would pay me for that.
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And I really want to like camp on that for a minute because so many people right now
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probably have an incredible gift skill or ability that would be so valuable for someone
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that they would think nobody would pay me for that.
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But it's crazy now being in this world, what people will pay you for the knowledge that
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you think is just people should know this, but it's super valuable.
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And so, but I was so like, no one would pay me for that, that the person asked me, they
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said, well, Melissa, how much money do you need to make to be able to be an entrepreneur
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to go out on your own?
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And I said, well, working 40 hours a week, I make probably $2,000 a month.
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And then I probably need $500 for like health insurance.
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And so probably like $2,500 a month.
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And he just went to his friend who ran like a very successful business and said, hey,
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so my friend, Melissa, she does social media consulting.
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And I know you have this podcast, but she can help you like put it on TikTok.
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Do you want to hire her?
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And he goes, yeah, absolutely.
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How much does she charge?
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He goes, oh, she charges $2,500 a month.
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And he landed me, my first client, and he came to me.
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I got you first client.
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And I was like, I was petrified.
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And I took it and then I quit.
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I quit childcare and literally stumbled into entrepreneurship.
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That's so awesome.
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How did that go with that first podcast?
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And I'm sure it was a huge learning curve.
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It was a huge learning curve and it went awesome.
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It went great.
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I grew his account, but it was, I just, I didn't have the confidence and I didn't know, I didn't
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know what I was doing, which funny enough, like we said, when you are starting out, that
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is the path to success.
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You don't know what you're doing until you take action on it, just like Jesus says, like
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get out of the boat.
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And you have to just like tap in faith and then it works.
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So this whole journey has just been like taking a step and being like, oh, it works or it
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doesn't work.
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And then you just try again.
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Yeah.
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The funny thing, I realized this, I was in 2017, I was about to be 60.
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I was 58 and I wrote a book and people wanted me to start talking to them.
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And I thought, what do they want to hear from me for?
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Everybody who knows this stuff.
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And even at my age, way more advanced than you, I just learned that people do need to
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hear voices and the time that it takes to become confident in who you are, it is amazing.
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And I see a confidence in you to a point now where I'm sure like you're hearing God as
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you're going to business conferences, as you're consulting with people.
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It's like a secret weapon, isn't it?
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Yes.
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I have found business because when we were in church world for 10 years and my passion
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in my heart was evangelism, I loved and I still do now, stop people in the grocery store.
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If God speaks to me, I have no problem praying for people.
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But now I feel like business is like my open door where people come to me for how do you
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market this and how do I get on here?
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And then we get into sessions and God will speak to me for them and I can give them prophetic
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words, icons and people in business.
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That's hugely valuable and be able to get prophetic downloads for people and what they're
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called to do.
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It's just been so exciting seeing God move in business settings.
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Yeah.
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And I know at one point when you were doing a coaching, you started to get exhausted because
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there was so much demand.
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When something happened, tell us what happened when you started to just walk with God through
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this journey of like, no, I'm doing this, but now there's so many people who want it
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and I don't have enough capacity.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So I started the quickest way to start monetizing your gifts is coaching.
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And so I started coaching people, right?
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Showing up on video and that was taking up a lot of my time.
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And for me, like my goal is I want to be a better mom and a better wife, but you know,
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when you start coaching all the time, I was finding it was taking up all my time and I'm
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like, I don't want to do this.
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And so I just said to God, you know, I need to figure out a way to make this scalable and
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I can't do that if I'm doing one on one calls all the time.
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And so I ended up meeting a man who we ended up, he had me on his podcast and we ended
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up talking.
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He's like, so what do you want to do now?
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And I was sharing with him.
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Yeah, this is like my challenge.
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And he goes, oh, I just sold a business with a whole like team of VAs.
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And if you want, like we could just build out an agency.
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And I was like, would you, would you build out an agency?
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He's like, yeah, I got this team.
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I was like, okay.
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And so we, so we literally just built out an agency and it's just he got every literally
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every step of the journey.
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I feel like it's been God helping me just, and I feel like too, I have to say that people
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might be listening to this being like, well, that's great for you.
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Open door after open door.
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But I'm so grateful for the Valley because I went like, if I didn't have the Valley that
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those four years I felt like when I was flexing my biggest faith muscle and nothing worked,
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then I could maybe think that this has something to do with me, but I know that it's all about
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you know what I'm saying.
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And our Valley is probably weren't engraved yards above a funeral home.
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So that's great.
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Yeah, literally, we lived in the Valley of the shadow of death.
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We've talked about, we've talked about all this, but you've written books.
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And how do people find your books?
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How do people find you if they want to be coached by you?
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How do people find you on TikTok and social media?
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Yeah.
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So I'm on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook at Melissa Lee Hughes.
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And then I also have an offer for your audience that if people want to get three steps to
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getting clarity on their brand message, because before you can put yourself out there, you
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really have to understand who you are and what it is that you offer before you post.
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Or you can do it like me where you just post and you figure out along the way.
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If you can really get clarity first, then you can really start to understand what it
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is that you have to offer.
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So I have a three step process to give to your audience.
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If that's something that would be valuable for you guys.
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Of course.
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How did you get that offer?
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Yeah.
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So it's a link.
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Yeah, I'll put the link.
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I'll give you the link.
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It's gonna be in the show notes.
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Yeah.
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People are gonna love this so much because I know a lot of people who are even, maybe
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they've had a lot of influences in their business or over their church or over whatever
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they're doing, but they don't know how to translate that into the greater world, especially
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in social media.
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So I think it's gonna be so valuable for people.
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If you're listening right now in this resume with you, make sure to get that.
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It's a free link.
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Yeah.
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And it'd be so good to be coached by Melissa as well and her team.
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But we're so glad you were on today.
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Thanks so much for sharing just from your heart.
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It was so valuable.
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Yeah.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm so excited and so grateful for the impact that you guys have made through this podcast
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and through the ministry that God's given both of you.
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Thanks again, Melissa.
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And up next, we have Final Box with Sean Bolz.
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I'm Sean Bolz and I'm gonna invite you to our Spiritual Growth Academy online where you
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can attend a four-week class or an event every month.
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Plus our back catalog is available to you as well on spiritual gifts, especially hearing
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God's voice and also a deeper connection to the Holy Spirit and how to walk with him
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in real ways in the days we're living in right now.
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Come join us at Spiritual Growth Academy by going to Bolzministries.com and clicking on
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the Academy button.
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Welcome back to Final Thoughts, Sean.
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Wow, she was so interesting to listen to and encouraging.
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Yeah, I think that whole theme that we went through of the valleys, you know, just where
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there's some people right now, I know many of you are listening or watching or going
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through your valley.
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It's like not the easy part.
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And maybe just her vulnerability of sitting in that question and going, it's okay to
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not have toxic positivity where everything's okay all the time as a Christian.
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You just actually go, this is hard and I need help and I need new language.
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I need new anchors in my faith.
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I need all those things.
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And it was so great to hear that because before she had this incredible breakthrough of opportunities,
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she had to go through that period of time.
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And I know many people, it's 2023, 2024, it's not an easy time in the world.
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I mean, there's more natural disasters in a condensed period of time than there has
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been in modern history.
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There's more war type activities happening.
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The economy has been shaken to the core.
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I was meeting with a partnership specialist the other day just for our own ministry partnership.
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And he was just, he was giving us advice for how to develop more of our donor base.
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And he said that donor bases across the border down so much so that there's a collapse of
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a lot of ministries and a lot of organizations who have required donors.
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And it was just so, it's such a sad time unless you're in faith, which can't be in
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faith in a pretend positive way.
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You have to be in faith, but actually being honest with God.
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I loved her honesty because I think it's a perfect placeholder in the conversation we
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need to have with God.
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It's a great, it's a great thing to listen to.
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And to me, you know, hearing her story, she had a phone call with somebody who said to
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her, it's okay not to be okay.
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Yeah.
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And this is what community is for.
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This is what covenant relationships are for, for us to be able to be honest with one another
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in order to get through this life that is, that is confusing.
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That's not always easy.
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That's not always a better roses.
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We came to faith.
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We, we, we, we received eternal life, but, but there was no promise that it was all going
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to be, you know, this beauty with no problems.
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And as a matter of fact, the scripture tells us over and over and over again how to deal
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with these things.
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And I think her story was so beautiful about how they did get through it.
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And the imagery of living above a funeral home, overlooking a graveyard in a valley was
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just so representative of so many of our struggles and trials.
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I, I just thought her story of overcoming it was beautiful.
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Well, Bob, and I know that you're going to get through it with faith in Jesus.
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He's going to take you places that you never thought you'd get to, but you have to walk
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with them to get there.
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And so just plug in those relationships and especially a relationship with Jesus.
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And even enjoying the show, please leave us a review on whatever podcast server you use
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00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,040
or write us at infoablesministries.com.
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A testimony of how this show or one of our guests affected your life.
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We love you guys.
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We love doing this podcast with you and season four is coming up soon.
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So make sure to keep hitting those notification buttons so you can be a part of season four.
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We have a lot of changes in store.
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I'm looking forward to it.
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I know you are too, Bob.
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Yeah, I am.
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I can't wait to see what they are.
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I know exactly.
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We'll see you guys next time.
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I'm exploring the marketplace.
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00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:46,280
Thanks for exploring what God is doing in the marketplace with us.
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00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:50,920
And we have amazing resources for you at our website with free videos, taking online classes
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00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,880
that are online school, spiritual growth Academy, or get one of our books, including the one
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00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,640
Bob and I authored together wired to here.
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We have lots of ways to connect with you.
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Come visit us on social media.
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Just look for at Sean Bowles or at Bob Hasson or visit Bowlesministries.com.
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00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,280
This show is made possible by listeners just like you.
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00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:13,320
Become a partner or donate now to become part of our team.
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00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,560
If you enjoyed today's episode, share it on your socials or help us review it on the
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00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:18,320
podcast server you found us on.
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00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:43,320
See you next time.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,680
Welcome to Exploring the Marketplace Show, where we're creating a conversation for what
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God's doing to Christians in the marketplace.
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I'm Sean Boles, and my co-host is Bob Hasson.
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We interview everyday influencers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs from all areas
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of industry, exposing you to powerful stories of what God's doing to people just like you.
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We're also sharing our thoughts about what God's doing in finance, business, entertainment,
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and politics.
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Come join the conversation now.
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Welcome to Exploring the Marketplace.
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I'm Bob Hasson with my friend Sean Boles.
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Sean, do we have anything exciting on the show today?
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As always we do.
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We have a TikToker, who's more than just TikToker, but I found around TikToker and also the
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NRB convention, but this is Melissa Hughes, who's a TikToker influencer, international
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speaker bestselling author.
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She's been booked twice, Bob, on Kelly Clarkson, which I think is so fun.
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Wow.
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She's featured for the New York Times bestseller Primal Scream on NBC, and she has over 257,000
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followers and over 11 million likes.
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That's a lot of people who are following her.
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She's a bestselling author of a book.
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She can laugh along with a children's book called Mommy Loves You.
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She's a missionary in the UK for several years.
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I want to ask her about because that's part of the breakdown before Breakthrough Story.
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She's a mom of two kids and a wife of a husband who's about to become a police officer.
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I'm really excited about Melissa Hughes.
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I know there's a lot of people who are trying to figure out the influencer space, whether
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it's a company trying to have influence through the social media world or whether it's somebody
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who's like, this is my space that I do business as an entrepreneur.
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She's ahead of us and actually coaching other people how to do that.
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I want to hear her God story.
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It's going to be great.
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Up next, Melissa Hughes.
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I've got a word that the next great move of God's spirit, like a Jesus people movement
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is going to happen in the workplace, in the marketplace, and we need to hear God right
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now.
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You're working your career, your place of influence, your job, and you're wanting as
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a Christian a God result.
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There has to be a God process to get to that result and we have to hear God.
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My friend Bob Hass and I wrote a book just for you to teach you how to hear God's voice
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in the season of your life to help you in your place of career and your place of business.
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So there's no disconnection between who you are at church, who you are in your family
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and who you are in your career, but it all works together beautifully.
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And I believe that this book is a key book for now to help you understand what God's
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doing.
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Someone encourage you to get this book wired here.
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And if you get it during this month, you'll get the masterclass where Bob and I taught
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on just the themes of the book and help bring it home, help give you some assignments and
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some impartation that's going to bring it right into your very life.
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So I encourage you to get wired to hear now and get our brand new masterclass free when
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you buy the book from BowlsMistries.com.
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Well, welcome back.
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We're here with Melissa Hughes.
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Melissa's so good to have you.
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So great to be here guys.
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Thank you so much for having me on the show today.
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Well, Melissa, most people see you on TikTok or in the social media influencer places and
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just you're so delightful.
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Like you're so just real authentic and share your struggles with your kids, your family,
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what's going on, you coach people all the time.
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You do all these things, which we heard in your bio, but like you have this incredible
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faith story of just things that God's done.
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I mean, you've had to overcome some real disappointments in God at times or some real or maybe in this
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process.
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And I love these stories because I think people, all of us can relate to the times where we
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didn't understand God in our lives or we didn't understand ourselves.
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And you had a time where you and your husband lived above a funeral home.
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What?
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What is this?
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Like I was like reading this line that you lived above a graveyard.
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What are you?
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What is this?
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So take us through this period of time.
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Just, I know this, that's kind of a weird place to start, but I want to go deep past
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this because I feel like when I was reading the notes, this was such a profound story.
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I want to hear it.
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I know our audience is going to want to hear it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So my husband and I, we were, I was about 25 and I can remember sitting with my husband
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on the airplane and we were just about to move to the UK to plan to church.
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Wow.
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And I don't know, yeah.
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I don't know if you guys have ever had like a dream and you feel like, like, this is it.
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This is the culmination of what this is going to be.
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And we are just so full of faith, so excited.
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And I remember a month after moving there, I'd always wanted to live in the UK since
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I was little.
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I remember a month after moving there, we were sitting in, I was sitting in bath, sipping
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on a cup of tea, eating a scone with jam and cream.
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And I got, it was the best.
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And I got a phone call and it was my husband and he had gone to work that day and he had
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called me and said, Hey, you know, I've been in a bit of an accident, but I'm okay.
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I just need you to come to the hospital.
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And so because he sounded so calm, I was calm, but when I got to the hospital, I opened the
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door and my heart just sank.
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And I saw him stretched out on a, on a bed.
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He was totally high on drugs.
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There were tubes everywhere nurses were scurrying about.
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And my heart just hit the floor.
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And within like the next 24 hours, we found out that he was going to be bedridden.
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He had shattered his leg, broken his collarbone.
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I was going to be his full-time carer.
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At that point, we had no house, no car cause he totaled it.
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Our close family wasn't nearby.
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We had obviously just moved there, no furniture, no forks, like, and you know, very essential
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things and obviously going there to like lead this church.
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And the only place that would rent to us was a funeral home in a valley, like literally
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in the valleys.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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So we lived there.
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And I remember when that happened, kind of just like telling myself, you know, it's okay.
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You know, God called us here.
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He's with us.
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It's going to be fine.
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But then as like the weeks and the months ticked on, things didn't necessarily get better.
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They felt like they were getting worse.
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As we, my husband's health just like didn't seem to get better.
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The people that we were going to lead the church with, they left.
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And so we took it over and we were hosting meetings in our living room for a while with
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my husband on the house, like in bed.
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And I was pregnant as well.
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Of course.
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And yeah.
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So it was just like, you know, but Christians, you know, they're just the most like, you
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know, just like resilient people and they're like, God is in this, you know, and he was.
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And so I remember just like, you know, it's going to be okay.
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It's going to be fine.
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And I remember somebody called me from home and they said, Hey Melissa, how's it going?
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And I was like, you know, we've had some challenges, but it's going to be good.
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It's going to be fine.
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And there was just like this long pause on the end of the phone.
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And I remember sitting out in my bedroom looking out my window and all I could see were headstones.
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And they just said, Melissa, you know, that it's okay just to say that things are really
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hard right now.
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And I, to be honest with you, I couldn't even get those words out of my mouth because I
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was going to have to answer a question that I was really just so unprepared to answer,
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which was, but if God is good, then why would he call us into something that feels so bad
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right now?
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And I just didn't have an answer, you know?
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And so I just like had to sit in that question and really allow this like honest part, not
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this like toxic positivity, you know, or this like faith statement, but like really allow
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the pain and the disappointment to like rise and really look at that and deal with that.
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And I kind of sat in that for a while.
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And I'll never forget a couple of years later, walking around this park by my house, it was
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like the, the bliss.
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It was this beautiful park by my house, my two children, and just praying and saying,
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God, you know, how could anything really good come from this?
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And I really, truly felt like God almost like bent down and whispered into such a tender
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chamber of my heart.
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And he said, mountaintop experiences are for sights and inspiration, but the fruit grows
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in the valleys.
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And I just had this like moment where I realized I wanted this like pain free life, but I felt
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like God was entrusting to me a profound life because you can't have a triumph without a
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tragedy or love greatly or risk or with or risk without experiencing heartache or failure.
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And I really saw the cross, you know, the cross, the resurrection and the cross.
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So amazing.
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You know, when you first said you were in a valley, I just went to, you know, hey, the
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scripture in song, the valley of the shadow of death, you're, and then you lie down beside
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three pastors and the Lord had showed you like we were used to seeing on social media
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highlight reels.
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But what happens behind the scenes is real life.
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And you're on the phone call with who said to you, it's okay to say you're not okay.
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I think unlock something in you because God is good all the time, no matter what our circumstances
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are.
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And you just prove that to us through your story.
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It's such a beautiful story.
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And I'm assuming your husband recovered and he's doing well now and talk to us about that.
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And what are you doing now as you're back in the States?
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Yeah, I want to say with that too, like talk about like, how did an influencer platform
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come?
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So we want to hear about your husband, we want to hear about your family, but how did it
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influence?
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Because that's a pretty strange platform to emerge into.
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And it's usually only done by the grace of God.
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Go ahead.
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Yeah, no, 100%.
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It was the grace of God.
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My husband's doing really well.
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Hey, it was a long road to recovery.
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He finally got the rod taken out of his leg.
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He's doing great by the grace and the goodness of God.
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But how the influencer platform came was when my husband and I finished church planting
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over there, we were there for about four years, we moved home.
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The pandemic happened, like right then.
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And so we were living with my in-laws and we needed to like get a house, get forks,
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right?
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Get a crop, like get all the things.
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I like the forks name.
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This is good.
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It's forks.
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You know, we'll think about that, but it's like.
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It's a sort of a package of the forks.
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Yeah, that we didn't have.
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So I ended up taking a job working in childcare because that was, you know, that was the job
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at the time.
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But it was so painful for me because, you know, for any mom listening right now, I feel
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like you either want a thriving career or you want to be at home with your children.
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And I wanted to be at home with my kids.
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And so I got this job working childcare where I'm dropping my kids off at one end of the
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building and going and looking after somebody else's.
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And I was just like, Lord, come on.
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Like, and this is me being honest now.
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We're through the toxic positivity.
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This is me having an honest chance at the Lord being like, you know, God, like, what
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do you do it?
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Like what's this next step?
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And I'm sure a lot of people were praying that prayer during COVID.
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But because of where we come from to I really was like, where is this going?
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And so one day I was listening to Focus on the Family.
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I love Focus on the Family.
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I think they've done amazing things mobilizing the gospel and I was listening to Focus on
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the Family, driving to work.
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And at that point, I had just spent the evening on indeed looking for jobs.
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And it just every job I looked for just looked unqualified, unqualified, even though I have
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a degree in exercise science, unless you want to physical therapy, you're not.
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So it was like business degree, unqualified admin, unqualified.
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And so I'm listening to Focus on the Family, driving to work.
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And I just was like, God, what should I do?
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And he just I felt like he asked me this question.
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He said, Melissa, what do you want to do?
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And I was like, look, God, if we're going to be real honest, like real, real honest,
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the only thing that I'm genuinely really good at is talking.
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So if I could just have a job, like Focus on the Family, Jim Daly, if I could just talk
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to people all day, that would be great.
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And literally a month later, I felt God started speaking to me about posting videos online.
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Random, super random.
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I felt like a crazy person, though, because anywhere I looked, it was like, I just felt
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this excitement bubbling up in me and like this thing that I should start posting videos
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online.
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So I talked to my husband about it and said, I feel like I should post these videos.
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So we prayed, God, if this is something Melissa should do, would you just make it clear?
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And five days later, I uploaded this video onto TikTok.
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It was the very first video on my phone.
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I was trying to figure out how to even post or what TikTok was.
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And the next morning I woke up that video generated 22 million views and I ended up
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on my books and show.
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Wait, wait, what was the video about?
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I saw it on the confirmation.
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Exactly.
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I'm sorry.
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What was the video about?
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Yeah, it was a video of my kids.
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It was a mom fail.
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It was a video of my kids, which I love that I represent the mom fail community.
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That's how I feel like all moms feel at times, but it was a video of my kids sledding and
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I pushed them down the sledding hill.
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It was actually near my in-laws by their driveway because we were living there.
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And they went down and they picked up speed and the sled hit a bump and then it looked
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like they were going down the street and you can hear my daughter going, mommy.
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They were just going down the driveway, but it was just a funny, it was like a seven second
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clip, just not mega viral.
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Yeah.
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And you ended up with Kelly Clarkson.
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Yes, and the Kelly Clarkson show reached out to me and everyone's like, Melissa, that's
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so exciting.
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But to be honest, I was stressed.
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I thought that it was broken.
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I had no idea what was going on.
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That was not my world.
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I had no idea about content creation.
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Kelly Clarkson.
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So, and I didn't know what to do with that.
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So I literally just started figuring out how to post videos in my car on my lunch break
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while working a full-time job in childcare.
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I guess that's so normal though to me in the sense of the story of people who got either
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anoints or they just have a natural knack.
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If it's not a God mission, if it's just people who are on social media, they just start to
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post and they're authentic and the world relates to them.
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And for you, it feels like it's something that God wanted because your videos are very
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like, okay, here's where I, you know, my son was upset.
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And during a tantrum, and it was because I just got this idea to ask him the question,
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like what do you think you're upset about?
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And it's because he wanted to play with us, whatever characters.
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And he didn't want to clean this room where he didn't want to.
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And you're just being really real as far as like, I thought of a question to ask him.
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And I think everyone's looking for fun, funny content, help, raising family.
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That's what you're all about.
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So it doesn't surprise me at all because you're just, you know, you're very real.
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It's just like you've learned how to be real with God.
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I feel like you're being real with us as your audience.
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Talk about like, how did this become like your full-time focus then?
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Or how did this become like your focus as far as life?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Well, you know, when I was creating the content and posting in my car, I had no idea where
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this was going.
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The only thing I felt God say was post videos, but I didn't know that it could actually,
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I knew that there was an influencer industry.
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I didn't know anything about it.
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And I didn't know that it could actually turn into a career until somebody said to me, Melissa,
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why don't you teach people how to do this?
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And my very first response was nobody would pay me for that.
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And I really want to like camp on that for a minute because so many people right now
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probably have an incredible gift skill or ability that would be so valuable for someone
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that they would think nobody would pay me for that.
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But it's crazy now being in this world, what people will pay you for the knowledge that
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you think is just people should know this, but it's super valuable.
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And so, but I was so like, no one would pay me for that, that the person asked me, they
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said, well, Melissa, how much money do you need to make to be able to be an entrepreneur
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to go out on your own?
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And I said, well, working 40 hours a week, I make probably $2,000 a month.
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And then I probably need $500 for like health insurance.
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And so probably like $2,500 a month.
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And he just went to his friend who ran like a very successful business and said, hey,
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so my friend, Melissa, she does social media consulting.
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And I know you have this podcast, but she can help you like put it on TikTok.
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Do you want to hire her?
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And he goes, yeah, absolutely.
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How much does she charge?
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He goes, oh, she charges $2,500 a month.
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And he landed me, my first client, and he came to me.
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I got you first client.
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And I was like, I was petrified.
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And I took it and then I quit.
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I quit childcare and literally stumbled into entrepreneurship.
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That's so awesome.
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How did that go with that first podcast?
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And I'm sure it was a huge learning curve.
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It was a huge learning curve and it went awesome.
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It went great.
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I grew his account, but it was, I just, I didn't have the confidence and I didn't know, I didn't
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know what I was doing, which funny enough, like we said, when you are starting out, that
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is the path to success.
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You don't know what you're doing until you take action on it, just like Jesus says, like
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get out of the boat.
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And you have to just like tap in faith and then it works.
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So this whole journey has just been like taking a step and being like, oh, it works or it
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doesn't work.
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And then you just try again.
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Yeah.
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The funny thing, I realized this, I was in 2017, I was about to be 60.
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I was 58 and I wrote a book and people wanted me to start talking to them.
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And I thought, what do they want to hear from me for?
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Everybody who knows this stuff.
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And even at my age, way more advanced than you, I just learned that people do need to
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hear voices and the time that it takes to become confident in who you are, it is amazing.
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And I see a confidence in you to a point now where I'm sure like you're hearing God as
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you're going to business conferences, as you're consulting with people.
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It's like a secret weapon, isn't it?
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Yes.
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I have found business because when we were in church world for 10 years and my passion
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in my heart was evangelism, I loved and I still do now, stop people in the grocery store.
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If God speaks to me, I have no problem praying for people.
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But now I feel like business is like my open door where people come to me for how do you
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market this and how do I get on here?
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And then we get into sessions and God will speak to me for them and I can give them prophetic
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words, icons and people in business.
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That's hugely valuable and be able to get prophetic downloads for people and what they're
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called to do.
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It's just been so exciting seeing God move in business settings.
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Yeah.
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And I know at one point when you were doing a coaching, you started to get exhausted because
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there was so much demand.
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When something happened, tell us what happened when you started to just walk with God through
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this journey of like, no, I'm doing this, but now there's so many people who want it
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and I don't have enough capacity.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So I started the quickest way to start monetizing your gifts is coaching.
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And so I started coaching people, right?
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Showing up on video and that was taking up a lot of my time.
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And for me, like my goal is I want to be a better mom and a better wife, but you know,
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when you start coaching all the time, I was finding it was taking up all my time and I'm
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like, I don't want to do this.
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And so I just said to God, you know, I need to figure out a way to make this scalable and
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I can't do that if I'm doing one on one calls all the time.
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And so I ended up meeting a man who we ended up, he had me on his podcast and we ended
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up talking.
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He's like, so what do you want to do now?
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And I was sharing with him.
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Yeah, this is like my challenge.
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And he goes, oh, I just sold a business with a whole like team of VAs.
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And if you want, like we could just build out an agency.
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And I was like, would you, would you build out an agency?
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He's like, yeah, I got this team.
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I was like, okay.
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And so we, so we literally just built out an agency and it's just he got every literally
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every step of the journey.
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I feel like it's been God helping me just, and I feel like too, I have to say that people
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might be listening to this being like, well, that's great for you.
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Open door after open door.
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But I'm so grateful for the Valley because I went like, if I didn't have the Valley that
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those four years I felt like when I was flexing my biggest faith muscle and nothing worked,
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then I could maybe think that this has something to do with me, but I know that it's all about
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you know what I'm saying.
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And our Valley is probably weren't engraved yards above a funeral home.
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So that's great.
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Yeah, literally, we lived in the Valley of the shadow of death.
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We've talked about, we've talked about all this, but you've written books.
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And how do people find your books?
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How do people find you if they want to be coached by you?
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How do people find you on TikTok and social media?
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Yeah.
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So I'm on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook at Melissa Lee Hughes.
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And then I also have an offer for your audience that if people want to get three steps to
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getting clarity on their brand message, because before you can put yourself out there, you
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really have to understand who you are and what it is that you offer before you post.
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Or you can do it like me where you just post and you figure out along the way.
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If you can really get clarity first, then you can really start to understand what it
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is that you have to offer.
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So I have a three step process to give to your audience.
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If that's something that would be valuable for you guys.
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Of course.
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How did you get that offer?
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Yeah.
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So it's a link.
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Yeah, I'll put the link.
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I'll give you the link.
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It's gonna be in the show notes.
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Yeah.
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People are gonna love this so much because I know a lot of people who are even, maybe
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they've had a lot of influences in their business or over their church or over whatever
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they're doing, but they don't know how to translate that into the greater world, especially
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in social media.
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So I think it's gonna be so valuable for people.
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If you're listening right now in this resume with you, make sure to get that.
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It's a free link.
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Yeah.
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And it'd be so good to be coached by Melissa as well and her team.
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But we're so glad you were on today.
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Thanks so much for sharing just from your heart.
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It was so valuable.
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Yeah.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm so excited and so grateful for the impact that you guys have made through this podcast
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and through the ministry that God's given both of you.
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Thanks again, Melissa.
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And up next, we have Final Box with Sean Bolz.
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I'm Sean Bolz and I'm gonna invite you to our Spiritual Growth Academy online where you
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can attend a four-week class or an event every month.
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Plus our back catalog is available to you as well on spiritual gifts, especially hearing
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God's voice and also a deeper connection to the Holy Spirit and how to walk with him
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in real ways in the days we're living in right now.
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Come join us at Spiritual Growth Academy by going to Bolzministries.com and clicking on
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the Academy button.
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Welcome back to Final Thoughts, Sean.
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Wow, she was so interesting to listen to and encouraging.
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Yeah, I think that whole theme that we went through of the valleys, you know, just where
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there's some people right now, I know many of you are listening or watching or going
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through your valley.
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It's like not the easy part.
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And maybe just her vulnerability of sitting in that question and going, it's okay to
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not have toxic positivity where everything's okay all the time as a Christian.
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You just actually go, this is hard and I need help and I need new language.
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I need new anchors in my faith.
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I need all those things.
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And it was so great to hear that because before she had this incredible breakthrough of opportunities,
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she had to go through that period of time.
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And I know many people, it's 2023, 2024, it's not an easy time in the world.
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I mean, there's more natural disasters in a condensed period of time than there has
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been in modern history.
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There's more war type activities happening.
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The economy has been shaken to the core.
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I was meeting with a partnership specialist the other day just for our own ministry partnership.
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And he was just, he was giving us advice for how to develop more of our donor base.
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And he said that donor bases across the border down so much so that there's a collapse of
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a lot of ministries and a lot of organizations who have required donors.
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And it was just so, it's such a sad time unless you're in faith, which can't be in
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faith in a pretend positive way.
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You have to be in faith, but actually being honest with God.
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I loved her honesty because I think it's a perfect placeholder in the conversation we
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need to have with God.
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It's a great, it's a great thing to listen to.
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And to me, you know, hearing her story, she had a phone call with somebody who said to
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her, it's okay not to be okay.
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Yeah.
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And this is what community is for.
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This is what covenant relationships are for, for us to be able to be honest with one another
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in order to get through this life that is, that is confusing.
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That's not always easy.
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That's not always a better roses.
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We came to faith.
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We, we, we, we received eternal life, but, but there was no promise that it was all going
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to be, you know, this beauty with no problems.
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And as a matter of fact, the scripture tells us over and over and over again how to deal
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with these things.
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And I think her story was so beautiful about how they did get through it.
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And the imagery of living above a funeral home, overlooking a graveyard in a valley was
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just so representative of so many of our struggles and trials.
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I, I just thought her story of overcoming it was beautiful.
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Well, Bob, and I know that you're going to get through it with faith in Jesus.
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He's going to take you places that you never thought you'd get to, but you have to walk
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with them to get there.
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And so just plug in those relationships and especially a relationship with Jesus.
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And even enjoying the show, please leave us a review on whatever podcast server you use
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or write us at infoablesministries.com.
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A testimony of how this show or one of our guests affected your life.
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We love you guys.
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We love doing this podcast with you and season four is coming up soon.
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So make sure to keep hitting those notification buttons so you can be a part of season four.
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We have a lot of changes in store.
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I'm looking forward to it.
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I know you are too, Bob.
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Yeah, I am.
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I can't wait to see what they are.
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I know exactly.
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We'll see you guys next time.
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I'm exploring the marketplace.
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Thanks for exploring what God is doing in the marketplace with us.
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And we have amazing resources for you at our website with free videos, taking online classes
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00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,880
that are online school, spiritual growth Academy, or get one of our books, including the one
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Bob and I authored together wired to here.
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We have lots of ways to connect with you.
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Come visit us on social media.
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Just look for at Sean Bowles or at Bob Hasson or visit Bowlesministries.com.
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This show is made possible by listeners just like you.
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Become a partner or donate now to become part of our team.
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If you enjoyed today's episode, share it on your socials or help us review it on the
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podcast server you found us on.
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See you next time.
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