We’re Wired to Connect: The Power of Community

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

How are you?

I'm feeling really happy today.

Are you?

Yeah. Because of community.

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

Why are you feeling so happy about community today?

I just did something outside of my normal routine this morning. I had made a decision to go to a coffee and conversation thing at a local co working space, and I was just kind of shocked at how.

How it just sucked me in. I met people who are like, I totally related and connected with so easily, and it reminded me of, why don't I seek this more? Yeah, just really cool.

Tell me a little bit more about what sucked you into it, because today, as we talk about community, I think that I'd love for our listeners to be kind of thinking about the communities that they get sucked into.

And I want to, like, see if we can find any correlation between what sucks us in and what communities we spend time with, and is it taking us towards some of our, you know, maybe bigger goals or.

Yes. Well, Kurt, as you know, I love a good culture and especially a good business cult.

Yeah, the cult and culture.

I've heard that before. No, I think one of the things that's been very lacking in my life is the community of women around me.

Being in such a masculine business world and space, I have understood that I want to keep up with the guys. And also my internal driver is like, I want to listen to my intuition. I want to find my people.

But I felt scared of just maybe diving into a world of more female business owners because maybe I felt like they would be too soft, even though I'm soft, the way that, you know, it just felt like outside of my norm. And being at this space this morning, I was like, this is where I'm meant to be. This is the kind of community I want to be in.

And I need to work outside of my house because I spend way too much time at home, and working from home isn't always great.

Yeah, I think it's like the ultimate dream and also kind of the ultimate nightmare all at once, but certainly depends on the day and what's going on. But.

But that does remind me of a topic for a whole other podcast I am dying to have with you, which is I want to understand more about the minority of women in the workplace. I know it's not as minor. It's not as much as a minor demographic in the workplace as it used to be. But I do still think that a lot hangs on there.

And I think that as a man, I have a lot to learn about what it's like for a woman in the workforce in entrepreneurship, workforce, business, you know, all of that. I. I think that I have a pair of glasses that I see the world through.

And I think if I was to put your glasses on, which I think that that's probably what you experienced today as you walked in as a bunch of people wearing the same glasses.

And I think that even though today's about community, and I'm going to refrain from going too deep here, I'm having, like, all these questions blowing into my head about, well, tell me more about. I want to hear more about this.

Yeah. And that is a convers. I appreciate that you are willing to have that conversation, first of all.

And secondly, it is a good conversation to have because I don't think any woman in business wants to be like, woe is me. It's so hard, you know, but we experience it in a totally different world or different way.

I think about the times when I've, you know, I talk about having a melody manager and, you know, have you ever said, I need a wife? Every woman's hand in the audience will go up and every guy is like, why would you want a wife? I have one. You know, they're.

They're adequate, they're fine. They don't understand the gift that they have. And so there's so much stuff to discuss there.

But being in a room with other female entrepreneurs or business owner, whatever, just immediately, there's no resistance. You know, there's just understanding and there's people who want connection.

They lead with a sense of wanting to have an impact, which I think a lot of women are, are not as money motivated.

We're very driven by a sense of mission or purpose and impact, and we do that well before we have the millions of dollars when, you know, that guys sometimes get and they're like, what is the meaning of all of this that I've now got, you know.

Yeah.

So it's just interesting. And, you know, a couple weeks ago, I was at Camp Clockwork. I got to hang out again with Adrian Dornsen and Mike Michalowicz.

They worked on Clockwork together. The book and Profit First.

My favorite sounds like amazing. Amazing.

It was amazing to be in because, you know, I was just in the craft room with Mike last year. We made friendship bracelets together. And this year we Were working on other projects and just asking him questions. He is very down to earth.

But being again in another business community outside of the one that I've been in for the past decade, and we're in a space where we just are who we are. We were there to kind of embrace play and, you know, our roles as creators, as leaders.

Because a lot of times in business we forget how important play is. And being a creative human. Right.

Yeah.

And it was everything I needed. I came away from that invigorated. So it's like there's all of these times when I get to experience things like that.

And then next week I'm going to the GO High Level Summit. I worked hard to get a ticket because it's been sold out for quite a while.

Yeah, that's a big conference too.

I think it is a big networking conference. A big conference. It's a marketing conference. It's about software, but really it's beyond that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And it's really about connections with other people. That's going to be a harder space for me to connect in because.

Oh, that's interesting where you were pulled into those first two communities you just talked about.

Yeah.

This one you're gonna have to go in with like a machete and like kind of chop your way in, aren't you?

Yeah. I'm gonna have to really work to find my people. I'm still gonna be Melody, but I don't think I can be the normal, weirdest version of Mel.

I think I have. And.

And I don't think you're gonna sit down. Well, actually, let's not put too many preconceived notions on what's going to be.

I'll let you know how it goes.

But I wonder if you will have that same suction feeling or if it will feel that you had to tap into your assertive self a lot more.

I already know a lot of people there. I've already spent physical time with them. And there's a lot of online community that I've had from other places. So it'll be interesting to come.

Like, my main point is to have. Build trust and connection with people that I've already known online for a long time or spent time with at other places.

But really, because I'm building a different business community around me or I'm trying to, I have to put myself in these places and I. I'm sure it's going to be great, but I'm not going in with the same sense of like, excitement or I kind of feel anxiety, you know.

Yeah, well, you don't have to explain that to me. I'm curious what our audience would feel. I know every person's different. So I just actually got back from Sam Taggart's door to door experts.

Sales leadership training for two days and then sales training for two days. And it's a long story about how I got there. I have nothing to do with the door to door world. Nothing, zero.

Sam Taggart just happens to be a brilliant mind that I was like, I have an opportunity to sit in the same room as Sam Taggart for four days. And it was truly a great experience.

But I was very outside the community and the anxiety I had going in there was very different coming out because I actually made some friends and stuff.

But I go into a room, I say I'm quiet, keep to myself, and if nobody comes up and talks to me, I'm going to leave that conference and I'll talk to anybody. Like that's just kind of, kind of my normal MO but that all said, I will say that door to door salespeople are very gregarious.

And I don't know if I would describe it as being sucked in because I. I don't think that would be quite accurate.

But I will say that when I got there and you know, the days leading up to it that I realized I'm going to a door to door conference and I'm like not feeling great about things, but I need to learn about this community. I need to, you know, at least make a sales software. I gotta learn about all kinds of sales and there's gonna be a lot to extrapolate.

So I knew I needed to go there. And we talked about this previously in sort of like, how do I know if it's God or if it's me?

It was one of those things where it's like, I don't want to jump off the cliff. And you stand and you look at the edge of the cliff and you go.

All the pain and suffering of hitting that surface of the water is actually worth what I'm about to do.

So anyway, it might not even hurt, by the way.

And it might not even hurt.

It doesn't. Yeah.

And a lot of people have told me the water's plenty deep and I trust all those people too. So like, the risks were not like that great, but the discomfort was very great.

Yes.

So. So leading up to it and then getting in and going, this is actually really good and I'm really happy I did this.

And the community in the Door to door world is really fire. Like so cool.

Well, I would imagine they have a lot of energy. Gregarious energy, as you say.

Yes, yes. Lots of energy, Lots of power.

And I only say that because that's the only way I can describe people who get kicked in the teeth all day long every day and still feel great about themselves and what they sell.

Wow.

And they make a lot of money. Like those people. They are not just fighting a battle for nothing. Like.

Yeah.

And these are like the best of the best. So if you haven't ever looked up Kenny Brooks on YouTube, he's a door door sales guy, check him out.

He's kind of the perfect example of somebody who is of the same breed of the people I was hanging out with.

If I went to that conference, I would take things out of it for sure. Also. And before we started talking, you said like, you showed me your notebook and showed me all of the notes that you had.

And that's kind of a cool thing that I like about going to weird things that normally I wouldn't, but I feel compelled to. I feel like there's something there that I'm going to learn.

I always learn way more than I could have imagined in very different ways than I would have imagined, you know?

Yeah. So that's interesting. They gave me two different. The leadership and then the actual sales workbooks. Like, they gave me the things that they taught.

Yeah.

What I was doing was I was taking notes in my notebook about the feelings and the correlation. It was journaling. It was interesting because I wasn't. I wasn't able to one to one apply the tactics.

Yeah.

But I was able to take the strategy and sort of like put feelings next to it and sort of maybe some ideas on like popped in my head about how it might apply in different ways. So. So that was. Speaking of community, that was a very eye opening experience. Four days of that. It was pretty intense.

Yeah. We've talked about our struggles with sales and selling.

Whenever I've gone to conferences for sales specifically, I definitely go with a cynical heart, I'm not gonna lie. But I take away so much.

I take away maybe not in the way that they intended, but like you said, I realize, oh, I can use this in a different way or I needed to understand this piece and now that I understand it, I'm gonna have more confidence in this aspect from instance. So there's so much, I think if you just go in anywhere with an open mind and not the preconceived idea of what you're Going to get.

There's always a lot to take away. So that's. That's pretty cool. Also, recently, you know, we both have Filipino community. You have Filipinos who work in your company?

We work with all Filipinos as well.

Yeah.

And they have been going through it lately.

Yeah. Yeah. That's been really tough. So for those who.

Who are maybe uninitiated or just don't know, in the Philippines, today actually was a second earthquake. But they had a big, big one in Cebu. They just had another one in Mindanao for those who know the Filipino area.

But these are not, like, little boops like, oh, how inconvenient. This is like big earthquake aftershocks, deaths, destruction.

Like. Well, they have. I didn't know because I've worked with them for years.

However, they don't talk about the earthquakes as much as the typhoons, because that's a norm over there, too. But they have, I think, like, 800, because they're on a fault line. It's like 800 earthquakes a year. But they are not a big deal.

Even I don't know if you've ever talked with one of your Filipinos when they're having a typhoon. And for anybody who doesn't know, because I didn't know this, a typhoon is just the hurricane that moves in the opposite direction, essentially.

Yep, exactly.

And so you're like.

The whole time, you're like, what's a typhoon? And they're like, yes. It's like this crazy thing. And you're like, that sounds so much like a hurricane to me.

Yeah.

Like, no, no, no, no. These are typhoons.

Yeah.

Okay.

The thing is, they'll be working in the middle of one. Like, I'll be on a call and the electricity goes out or the window flies open, and they're like, oh, it's just another storm.

And if we have a hurricane, like, we are shutting it all down. We don't do a thing. Like, we're. We've got our generators. We've got, like, our bathtubs full of water, and they just live this way.

And it makes it hard to make a living, you know, when. When you're living in a place where there's constant.

But one thing I will say, you will never find a place that has more of a sense of community than the Philippines does. Yeah. Which makes it really easy for me to feel like a part of that community, even though I'm not.

But I know. And when you visited last to the Philippines, I went during typhoon season hoping to experience a typhoon.

Yeah.

Being in Arizona. I don't get anything. I don't. I just. No earthquakes, no hurricanes. Yeah. I don't even get tornadoes or anything.

So I went, you know, for a month during typhoon season, just praying now, did I get to see a big rainstorm fill a street up with, like, four feet of water and people just driving their cars? So, like, no big deal. Yes, I did. But it was not a typhoon. No, I didn't. I got to see just regular old, like, flooding.

But it's normal.

They hop out. The kids are out there playing in it. They're pushing cars through it, and they're just all having a ball. It's the funnest thing.

And you roll down your windows, you're, like, giving them five, and they're like, yeah, what's up? This is so fun.

And they'll also.

One of the things that I think they're just so rugged because people's first floors will constantly flood during these storms, and they just move all their stuff upstairs.

I can't imagine moving my stuff upstairs when a storm comes and then, like, just sweeping water out of your house and mud sometimes and also doing your work.

Yes. And they are. They are.

Yeah.

All of that. And meanwhile, like, if we had a flood of, like, an inch of water in our house, we call the insurance company, we'd remove all our drywall.

We would have the studs all replaced. It'd be a whole thing.

Yeah.

The Filipinos, that's like a Monday afternoon. Like, they don't even remember it.

Yeah. They're. They're very hearty, rugged people with the best attitudes about life that I've ever seen.

But as these storms have happened, they have affected people that I work with, and we've been trying to help out.

And today's earthquake, again, like, I always send a message, a video message to our clients just talking about it so that they understand, because we cannot understand here. If we lose our Internet for a minute, it. We freak out if our electricity goes. The world is about to end. Right.

Despite all the things that are happening, they still take their work seriously. And I think sometimes it's frustrating for Americans because if we almost feel like it's an excuse because we don't live that way.

Yeah.

And it's like a developing nation, so Filipinos are awesome for many reasons. Community, for me, is just the number one thing that I love about the Philippines. Yeah. But. But let's.

Let's even say. Whenever I say it's a developing nation, I always just want to point out they're a Very developed people.

Like, that's what I think is highly educated.

That's what's very important to point out is that I think that as a first world country, sometimes we. Because, like, even when I went to go visit, they're like, remember Kurt, an American belly can't eat all our food.

Remember, Kurt, American belly can't do whatever. And I remember being like, okay. And they're like, you're from a first. Don't forget you're from a first world country. We're in a third world country.

I was like, oh, I don't. I thought that would be like, we're going to say that out loud.

And the way that they understand it, they're like, look, dude, you are in an area that has infrastructure built up to be able to handle it. We know what needs to be done.

Yeah.

But amid all the stuff we got to fix every week, building out all of the new infrastructure that need to be built, it just takes more time and money than is available for us to make this quick, sweeping change to bring ourselves at the first world status. And so I always want to make sure that people understand, as we talk about. Especially talking about community today.

Yeah.

Is that people who live in a certain circumstance, I am guilty of lumping them to. They're in lower conditions. They're probably a lower, maybe capacity or mental. Whatever. Like, and I know that they're not as smart as.

They're not as smart as what people.

So call me out. Call me out, Melody.

No, I have been guilty of that for sure as well. Because we don't understand. We are culturalists in America in many regards. We have all the cultures, which makes us very culturalists.

That's an interesting point.

Well, it is because I moved to Morocco when I was young. Well, young being like 19, because of the culture. Because I felt community immediately. I felt like, wow, I want to feel this thing.

And I moved there because I needed that feeling. Philippines is the same thing, that feeling of community, that feeling of actual culture where you. Where everybody understands.

Kind of like they have social norms. Like, the way they mourn is different. The way they, you know, everything is different than it is here. Like, we don't really celebrate Good Friday.

It is one of the biggest holidays in the Philippines.

Oh, yeah. Holy Week in the Philippines.

And it's one of the holidays we actually give them off because it's so important. But, like, I think it's really easy for us here definitely to think that somebody is.

But the thing about is their education system very much exceeds ours. Most People have bachelor's or master's degrees, highly educated, super smart, they speak American, English, all of these good things.

But also their infrastructure is poor and they. They're in a location in the world where a lot of stuff happens to make it, but it's impossible to move ahead.

Yeah. Trying to construct or change.

I remember when I first got to Cebu, one of the things that I remember seeing as I drove is like this massively gorgeous concrete building that I could tell was vacant and just time had beat the living tar out of it. It was like someone just built a Taj Mahal of like office buildings. And then like it just went into apocalypse mode.

And I asked the driver, I'm like, whoa, what happened to that building?

He's like, yeah, it's just really hard for us to get stuff start like working because every time we're in the middle of building something, some sort of natural disaster comes and knocks it back.

And it's very common for them to get buildings going and they run out of the money to be able to finish it or more damage is done to it that it's like almost better just to knock it over and start up, down and start over again. So, yeah. So as we talk about some of that community inside of our business, one of the things.

Can I just say I'm just kind of shocked by how many different communities we have already.

Oh, yeah.

Discussed like, it's true. It's really all over the place so far.

Well, so I was thinking about your women's community that you talked about how it sucked you in. I was going to bring up the antithesis of that on a very personal level.

This is not at all business related, but I've been coaching my boys mountain bike team and a lot of the coaches wanted to do a men's experience. And so I'm like, hey, I'm up. I'm up for. I've been training really hard. I'm in good shape. Let's like, what. What are you going to throw at me?

And they said, well, you have to remember, Kurt, if it's not hard enough that you're not sure you can do it, then it's not something that's worth doing. Like, that's an interesting preface. So what we're going to do is we're going to hike to the top of the highest peak in Arizona.

It's called Humphreys Peak up in Flagstaff. We're going to hike to the top of that, hike back down, hop on our bikes, ride to the Grand Canyon on a mountain bike.

Trail, it's about, it's just under 100 miles long. And then we're going to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out. And I'm like, in one day, like, no, it'll be, it'll be three days.

But they're like, the whole thing with this is that it's about the compounding fatigue. And I'm like, ah, that sounds really miserable. Okay, you know what? I already said I would do it. I'm just going to do it.

Turns out I was stronger than I thought I was. I pushed through a lot of boundaries that I thought would be really hard for me. But there's two things I learned in it.

Number one is that if you just take it a pedal stroke or a step at a time, it's actually just not that hard. Like you know where you're going. And so it's not like you get to the end of each step and have to redecide something. You just keep taking steps.

You keep taking pedal strokes. Some of the hills really steep. Some of the terrain was really crazy. But every bite wasn't that bad. That was kind of the first thing.

The second thing is what one of the coaches said as we were doing it. He says shared suffering really brings people together. Like shared suffering. And you know what's funny?

It did like, I'm not one to like go out and try to like add people to my friends list. Like, I'm kind of like topped out. But these guys like weasel their way in and they did it by shared suffering.

And so I thought that was an interesting piece of that little community is. It's that little three day trip. I learned a lot about myself and sad to say that I made some really good friends too.

You forgot to mention that you won. Well, I mean, you are a winner. Let's just put that. And by the way, everything you just talked about is insane. And normal people don't do that.

So I just wanted to put that out there. I think I might have died on that trip.

Like, you wouldn't have died if you're with me. Because I worked a plan and I did a good job of keeping normally.

I'm very bad at like just this morning, I went out this morning and I'm like, I'm gonna keep my heart rate below 145. Okay. That's just a zone two. Very good ride. I found a new max heart rate today.

At 46 years old, my heart should not be beating at 195 beats per minute. Today for the first time in forever. I got over 194. So I hit 195. But what happens? I'm going up a hill and I'm like, ah, I could go faster.

I'm like, ah, I feel so powerful. And then, like, you know, you just.

Described entrepreneurship, by the way.

But on the trip. On the trip, I didn't do that. On the trip. I said, keep my heart rate below 145. And every time I crept over 145, I backed back off.

And it changes everything when you work the plan. So anyway, that was a form of community that it's maybe different. And I think some people will relate.

Some people will be like, oh, yeah, we have different things like that. But. But, yeah, that was pretty big.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm going to my son's football game tonight, and there is a community at the football game that I'm not as much a part of as I think I could be. But my husband is, and he is all in. Like, he is favorite football dad, because he doesn't.

But it's like, I think when I started talk, when we were talking about this topic, I wasn't thinking about all of the little levels in our lives.

Micro communities.

Yeah.

Like, the one I was in is only. There's only like five of us, right?

Yeah.

And then, you know, when you go to GHL conference, that's going to be like. Like thousands of you.

Yes. And there are people. I have a Facebook group called the Misfits Group, but it's my collection of humans. Lady human women, we'll call them.

Not lady humans. They are my collection. I don't do anything in that group. I just put people there so that I remember that these are my people.

I immediately connected with them. I got them. They got me. Because I have a bad memory when you go to event after event after event.

But I can always go back to that group and remember, like, these are my people. I found 160 people who I. Out of my thousands that I am. Like, those are my people. And it's kind of cool.

Well, I'm gonna bring up something a little bit heavy because I just. I can't have this discussion without bringing up one thing that's been really on my mind.

So if you haven't listened to the podcast about my interview, it talks about my religious upbringing, background I grew up in, and I'm still an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known as the Mormons. A lot of people know us as the Mormons, and it's been kind of a really rocky month for us. So I'll start actually at the Charlie Kirk shooting.

So I did not know who Charlie Kirk was ahead of time. So those of you like that are writing me off right now, I just don't pay attention to the talking heads. And I know he's more than a talking head.

I understand that now, but I don't pay attention to any of this stuff. Right. Like, I just got other stuff I gotta do.

I have since watched a bunch of videos, and that's helped me sort of understand more about who he was and what he stood for and all that. But he was at a predominantly Mormon. Right. Venue. It was a college.

Oh.

And yeah, he was at a college. It was not a. It was not an LDS college.

Yeah.

But it was a. In Utah.

Yeah.

And actually, I guess previous to being shot, he had been talking about how he likes. You know, he's not a Mormon himself and he's, I think, evangelical.

Yeah.

But the guy who was apparently, I think it's proven at this point. I don't know. I. I've heard other people say there's a conspiracy theory. There's always a conspiracy theory.

But the guy who shot him, I believe was either a Mormon or had been a Mormon or something, came from that background. And I also understand that he probably had some mental. I don't think you shoot people without having some sort of a mental health issue.

Yeah.

So regardless, that was sort of a heavy thing that I was sort of, like, just learning about and taking in and just. It just sucks, you know? Like, it really sucks. And I. And I know people who really like Charlie. Like, people, like, love that guy.

People I'm close to, and it was like their son had died. Like, it was, like, really heavy for people. And so that. That's actually what instigated me.

Like.

Like, if people care about him, maybe I should know who he is. Then there was this other really horrible thing that happened in Chicago, or not Chicago, but in Illinois. Little.

I guess it's a small town in Illinois where a guy drove his truck into a Mormon church and set it on fire and started shooting. Just little kids, grown old, elderly people. Like, really, really, like, just like the worst you can think of.

And I've been following that story, and there's. There's also some pretty. Pretty heavy details around that, around mental health and some other stuff too. But by the way, this is about community.

So I just want to make sure that everyone understands where I'm steering this thing. So, you know, that Was heavy for me, my brothers and sisters of like six years old.

Yeah. Right.

To 76 years old.

It wouldn't. Honestly, it wouldn't matter what church or community it is. Yeah, that.

It does. It's terrible regardless. But it just. It's like, it's worse. It's your. I see the. I see the building. I'm like, that looks like my building.

Like, those look like my people, you know, And. And I will say, literally someone I was just talking to last week said, what do I care? I'm not one of those people. And I was like, whoa.

So I don't want to take on that sort of Persona of where, like, I only care because it's my people.

Oh, no, I get that.

But it does hit really close to home. Then the prophet of our church, the president of our church, passed away. And natural, like, he. He was like 102 or something. He was really old.

But that happened a couple days before our general conference, which now we got all this heavy stuff. And our president church that's been president church for years and years and years that I love, now he's passed away.

I'm sort of mourning his passing. And they haven't had a chance as the 12 apostles, to like, re. Sort of organize, reorganize after his past.

His funeral hadn't even happened yet, so they just couldn't and wouldn't. Anyway, so I went to conference thinking, this is just the worst. This is the worst. My heart is so heavy. I just feel so bad right now.

And ironically, it was like the best conference ever. Like, I went. And. But for people who don't know what conferences.

Yeah, I was going to ask.

Yeah.

It's a broadcast of the leaders of the church, the apostles, and some of the other, like, auxiliary leaders, like people who lead the young men or the young women's or the child organization.

I ask, is a prophet like the same as a deacon would be in a normal. In like an event? I said normal. Normal church. Sorry. In an evangelical or a Protestant or different kind of church. Like. Or is it.

It's the top banana.

Yeah.

Okay. So in our church, we would say the prophet and the apostles, they make decisions together.

Apostles, that would be the deacons.

Yeah, I think that that's. I think that's probably the, like the.

Equivalent of the Pope.

I think that, I mean, in all honesty, Catholics believe that the Pope does receive direct revelation from God and as do we about our prophet slash president of the church. Right. So, yes, I think that that's a very, very good so and then collectively the apostleship also can carry on without the president of the church.

But there will be a new president and stated, you know, really soon.

But I say all this to say that the diversity within our community and at conference and be able to hear the perspective of maybe the woman who is in charge of all the child, you know, we call it primary but like the child organization of the church with the learning and the singing and all this that kids do, like Sunday school stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then there's the adult Sunday school and those leaders speak as well.

And hearing from all the different apostles, hearing all the different backgrounds and just the different thoughts that they all had, very healing, it was truly what, exactly what I needed. I say that because I went into things on my own feeling really heavy and the community was able to provide for me a ton of strength.

If another person drives into another church building and sets fire to it and kills people, it's not going to make it less heavy. Like it will still be really, really heavy. And I don't think we sidestep that part.

Yeah, but healing, it works like unity can really bring people together.

And I don't care if we're talking about Filipinos with earthquakes or if we're talking about women as entrepreneurs or if we're talking about a church organization having people who are like minded enough and diverse enough. Yeah, it's so powerful.

And we haven't even talked about our own employees throughout our specific businesses or the community of us with our customers. Like, yeah, we're all the same and we're all very different.

I think as humans we are meant to connect. We are meant to have community. And we have been lacking that since the online world, that virtual world.

I think many of us have lacked the feeling of community the way that we used to. And that's another reason why I choose to spend money and invest going to events because I'm looking for that sense of community.

When, when I was in Conquer, that was my business cult, it was my community.

I felt like, well, these people know how to do business and they've created a system of, you know, and structure where I feel like I'm a part of it in a way. I always felt a little bit not a part of it because I'm still me.

But I felt like finally, after decades of feeling alone in my business journey, I finally had a community and a space for that. And that was like my step one into community world. But I've always felt that need to have people, to have those deep connections.

We don't even have to know people deeply sometimes in our communities to just deeply connect with them. It makes it easier.

Let me ask you a question, Melody, because. And I'm bending this question. I'll tell you where I'm bending it to. I'm bending this to ultimately the community you're creating with your business.

But before we get there, I'm just curious when you're looking for a community and I don't want you to like, answer the question about the community you're building right now, because I think it's a little different when you're personally. When. Yeah, when Mel is like, man, I really need something in my life.

What are some of the common threads that you feel sort of tie all your communities together in a Mel style?

Well, it's so easy. It's like I look for people who are fellow givers. The people who really feel like we're here for a purpose and they want to have an impact.

They want to build something in this world or do something even on the smallest level. They want to be supportive of other humans.

They, I think, are fellow community builders or they're, I think, just people who care about other people and want to make other people's lives better. Is my kind of community. And not where you're like in business community.

It feels like sometimes there's shame if you're not focused on numbers and you're focused on people instead. Focusing on people is like, well, if you want to grow, you have to focus on the leadership and the people.

It's almost like that's how you get more money. Right. For me, it was never like that. It was always like, I want to build people up and if I can do that through my business, that's way better.

If I can start a community fund in my business, that's amazing. Like, and so it's like weaving all of those kinds of qualities that I look for because that's what makes me feel comfortable.

But we're not all the same. Like, I have so many friends who are so different than I am and they are still a lot like me and what they value.

And I said, humans, they can care about animals too, or whatever, you know. What about you?

Well, it's funny, I was like, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Oh, here we go again. Always agreeing.

It made me think about when I was part of the anxiety of going to the door to door sales is that I went in with a misconception. I went in. Whether I would have told you this beforehand or not, I'm Going to just get vulnerable for a sec.

I went in believing that this group of people who get kicked in the teeth all day, every day are egomaniacs that have no feelings and that they just are hunting for cash all day and that cash is their God and that they aren't givers and that they don't care and that you can't hurt their feelings because they don't have them. Yeah, exactly. And I learned I was dead wrong. Dead wrong.

And there is a lot of art and a lot of craft, and I learned about some really deep, deep feelings and honing and tuning and the ability to, like, have selective amnesia about what the last guy said to you at the last door. And there was a lot of cool stuff like that. Part of the experience was that we had to go sell door to door. And, like, I got put in a group.

That's my nightmare.

It gets worse. We're selling. What do you think we're selling?

Is it a lollipop or something? Candy.

No soliciting sign.

Oh, no, no.

Yes. Yes. So our group is given six no soliciting signs, and our goal is to go sell them for as much as we possibly can. Because the competition is this.

If you are the highest company, you get everybody's money to divide amongst your team. If you sell the least amount, you have to go sing all out karaoke at the auto mechanic shop across the street.

That would be winning for me. Right there.

For me. That's nightmare fuel for me.

FYI, Kurt, can I say I thought you were saying that you had to go only to places that had no soliciting signs.

No, no, no, no, no. We had six no soliciting signs, and we had to sell those.

That feels like an easy sale to me. Like, do you ever not. Do you want to see me never at your door again? Buy this sign.

That was part of the pitch. And everyone built pitches.

Yeah.

But let me just tell you, my group one, not because of me.

Yeah.

I did videotaping. We made off of six signs. And I'm gonna tell you, we figured out how to. The entrepreneur in the group figured out how to tweak. Tweak things.

But we made $3,457 on six signs. Now, everyone else, the next group down was $1,000. And the groups below were 200 and. 250. The group that had us in karaoke was $200.

That's insane.

How did we get $3,000? Yeah, well, the first thing we did was the rule was this. You have to sell to Someone who's not you.

Yeah.

And you can't sell to the guy running the conference, Sam Taggart, because he didn't want to have any bias. So I walked out there and we said, okay, guys, the first six signs were selling over the phone. Call somebody, sell them.

Then we're going to go to Home Depot and we're going to buy every no soliciting sign in Home Depot.

Genius.

And then we could knock till 9. That was the limitation. So 9pm yeah. So this is about 6:30pm that we got the task.

So they put together a pitch and they're like practicing it and making phone calls. And we're selling signs over the phone for a hundred bucks a piece.

You know, hey, this is not about the signs, about you believing in us, blah, blah, blah. But then we just carry that onto the doors. Like, we're like, hey, listen, this is a competition. Yes. This sign is not.

You could go buy the sign for way less than a hundred dollars. But it's what it means. And everyone's. We got people giving us 200. We had someone give us $500.

We're like, look, just donate what you can to this cause, but just know we're door to door salespeople and we knock on people's doors with no soliciting signs because we always pretend we think it says no smoking. But if you have two no soliciting signs, that's when we don't knock. It was very funny to listen to them. They're hilarious.

I say all that because it was a weird peek into the way that they dealt with rejection, the way they pumped each other up, the way that they would craft their thing.

One of the things that was most interesting that I learned is that the reason they're pushing your door is because you're saying you're not interested before you know what they're actually selling. And they said, our objective is to make sure that we do not leave until they know what they're not interested in. And I'm like, whoa, that's fair.

I had never supposed such a thing. And so when someone says, I'm not interested, you just have, there's like 17 strategies or whatever.

Like, and they went through all of them and I learned them all.

Wow.

And it was interesting. But. And it could be. It's the craziest stuff too, that they do. But anyway, that's what they're doing.

They're trying to get to the part where, like, they've got an irresistible offer, but you have to hear it. And. Yeah.

Did you feel like. Because these were people that you didn't know. Like, were you put into groups with people? And so did you feel that sense of community?

I'm sure you did. Because anytime I've been put in a group and we're competing on something, immediately, like, I want that thing with the people.

Melody. Melody. It was even more than that. At 6 o', clock, we started.

By 7 o', clock, we had already made all our sales of ours and had already bought Home Depot completely out of no soliciting signs. And we were going door to door. We got to a guy's house. I was recording one of the guys that I was with.

He wears pink overalls with a pink shirt and a cowboy hat and boots. He's from Oklahoma and he sells pest control. And this guy Justin, he is.

He is a piece of work, but he is just going hard on this guy, going hard at the door. And I'm, like, recording it. And I'm laughing because most of what they do is just funny stuff.

Yeah.

But, like, it wasn't going. And I'm like, he's rejected you, like, 20 times. Can you just say, like, he's not gonna buy. Can we go?

Well, the car that had other people that came by, they just get out of the car and, like, start mobbing the door. I'm like, guys, well, another guy from North Carolina comes over. His name is Josh. Josh is very deep, but very, like, he looks like you're.

You're average. No, not average. You're above average. High school football coach. Just strong personality. Strong. Everything's strong about him, but deep, too.

And he walks up to that door and he goes, look, I don't know how long they've been here. Are you going to buy? We got to go. We got ton of these signs we got to sell. We don't have a lot of time. And we'd been there way too long already.

Yeah.

And the guy's like, look, dude, I don't have any money. And he just all of a sudden opened up in a way he hadn't in that whole half hour. My wife just had a heart attack. I just got her out of the hospital.

I've run out, maxed out every credit card I have, and I have taken out a full home equity line of Credit. I got $180,000 on my home equity line of credit. I got no more money there. I have $8 in my wallet right now, and all my credit cards are maxed out.

My life is pretty jacked up. Pink cowboy hat, you know not cowboy, pink overalls. Move over, Kurt, move over.

Josh walks up and he goes, you got enough money for your bills this month? He's like, I can make it work because I want you to come out of the car with me. Whoa. Took him out to the car. I don't know what happened at the car.

I really don't. And Josh wouldn't tell me. But they talked for about 10 minutes. And when he left, Josh said that he was going to an AA meeting with that guy at 9 o'.

Clock.

He was like, I gotta be out of here by nine. Going to an AA meeting with him. And the heart was huge. I was like, wow. And then he went out and sold a bunch more. And then we sold a ton more.

And he was selling them for like. And I went with Josh, and Josh selling them for like $200 to this guy who used to sell for Vivint. They meet everybody, they learn everything.

My point is, is that these are like really big hearts and these guys, it's nothing for them to go out and make a hundred thousand. Well, nothing. But $100,000 a month is not unheard of.

Yeah.

These guys. That guy could have covered all of his bills. I don't know if he covered. I don't know what he did. I have no idea. But I can tell you this.

The guy doesn't care about money the way he cared about that guy. And so that was so eye opening for me to see into a world that I had made so many judgments about.

And then I went out there and found out that I was dead wrong.

Yeah, well, I could say that about so many of the communities that I've found myself. You know, I've done what you. You did. Gone to events where I was like, I don't think I really belong or should be going to this thing.

And yet I'm still going to do it. Because I deserve to know, like what they're learning or whatever it may be. I don't know. I have that thing where I want to learn. Yeah.

And I always am shocked kind of at what I learn about people. A lot of times sometimes I'm not shocked what I learn about people. But it's. It's really interesting how yes, different communities are.

We can have assumptions about them. A lot of people still have. They have a sense of purpose.

The best ones, they definitely have a reason for what they do, that they are able to convince themselves that that's the difference between them and me. I can't hold that belief in my conviction. The way that they can. Like, I'm not blind to everything. I can't. Even my optimism with a bad memory.

I still have the doubts. I feel like they are able to preach to themselves in a way that I could preach at you, but I can't do it to myself.

It's interesting that I learned a little bit about that, too. And you know what? I don't want to turn this podcast into something it's not. But I'll just say this. It was interesting to hear them flip that around.

Yeah.

And say if you're worried about how it's going to make you feel. Yeah. You're just an egomaniac.

What?

What? Excuse me.

That's one of those Josh Latimer things right there. Those little.

Yeah, yeah. Like, so you're worried about your feelings and what they say to you.

You care what they think about you so much that you're going to hold back on sharing this amazing offer.

Yeah, but they're also can. I mean, it's a little sitting sign, but yes, that's true.

Oh, oh, but.

But you meant in the general sense.

They sell roofs and pest control and solar and alarms. Like, I. I met the whole gamut.

Can I ask you a question? In the end, what was the most that any group of people has sold? Did they tell you?

Yeah, we were number one. And the group behind us was a thousand dollars.

But I mean, like, have they done this exercise before?

Oh, oh, yeah. I don't know. I have no idea.

Were there a lot of men at this conference? Because as a woman, I would have been asking all those details.

Yeah, there were. There were several female. Like. Yeah, actually surprisingly.

And I found out that women in sales, even though it's a minority, they called the golden door.

Yeah.

When they win the golden door award. Golden door award is if you're in the top 1% of all sales of door. Door sales. The proportion of women who get golden door is way higher.

Yeah. I'm not shocked at all because, well, women are very smartly. There's a very smart people.

One of the guys, he's this big. He's a big guy, booming voice, real big guy. Said. He said.

The fact is, I walk up to your door and I start trying to sell you, there's intimidation is automatically friction.

Yes.

When you have your. When you have your woman who has not a threatening bone in her body, they'll hear you out. And what did I tell you?

Their whole goal is I just want you to hear the offer. Once you hear the offer and you know what you're not interested in.

Then tell me. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I totally get that. This was such a fun conversation. I could listen to you talk about that.

Once you started talking about what you had to do. That is so fascinating. And I don't know, I would probably have had a blast. Probably not selling. Well, actually, no, I can do it.

I can sell door to door if it's for a competition. And it will be funny. It will not be serious. But sometimes I bet you I would have been able to get some money.

Yeah, well, these guys were blitzing parking. Like when we're in Home Depot, they're blitzing all the parking lots, trying to get all the people. Like, these guys. Have no fear. Like, no fear.

Yeah, you. I think you still would have done really well. It was just shocking.

They were.

They were getting kids on the neighborhood block. Hey, go to your house right now. Go ask your parents how much they'd be willing to give for a no soliciting sign. Go.

And I'll stand out here in the middle of the street. They would hit like eight homes by just talking to the kids in the middle of the street.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's very smart. I think that. I don't know, maybe I'll do that someday because now I'm very interested.

Well, okay, so let's wrap this into community. One. One final.

I asked you what you look for in community, and I guess my whole point is, is that I think you and I are looking kind of the same things. The givers, the people who have big hearts, the people are trying to do. You know, the sum is greater than the parts I'm looking for all those things.

But I think that one of the things that I hope people will learn here as they sort of look at community is that whatever you think a community is, before you get there, maybe you owe it to yourself to hear what it is that they actually offer before you decide exactly whether you judge them. Now, am I looking to join a D to D, door to door community? I'm actually not. It's not something that I. I don't need that aspect in my life.

So that all said, it's very common to understand a community differently. Like, so if you're, you know, we can talk about the Israel Hamas conflict.

And I think people get really stoked on one side, you know, free Palestine, Israel's oppressed, you know, give them their land back, you know, and when you understand the conflict, it seems like our first reaction is to figure out which community you are and then hate the other one.

Yeah.

But until you've actually really tried to understand the community, you might not understand them that well.

Yeah.

And you might be dead wrong. You could, right?

Well, I can tell you I went to an event. I think I said it. I went to an event for this women's group before, and I didn't feel like I fit in.

I didn't feel the connection that I felt today because it was a bigger event, and I just felt like I was weird and out of place and there were too many people. I went into this small group, and it was like instant connection. I think it's.

That's one thing I've learned, and probably you've learned, that we can tell the audience is we've put ourselves into a lot of communities in business, in business, or in life without being sure that we would fit in. And I think I've been surprised more often than not how I was able to make myself fit in. What.

However, that looks some easier than others, but the feeling I get from being a part of those communities is just the most important thing to me, and it fills my soul. It makes me want to continue on. And, you know, you can't do life alone.

Well, Melody, I know we need to wrap up, but I want to make sure we finish with maybe just some sort of, like, final maybe commentary on those who are entrepreneurs here, who are community builders. I think there's been a lot of really cool, interesting.

If this was a buffet and you're walking through with your plate, I think there's a lot of things that you could probably go through this podcast and sort of decide or define about what you want your community that you're building to look like internally with your employees or externally with your customers, or both. Maybe just. Could you just sort of share as we kind of part here, what's your take on the community that you're building?

And do you intentionally do certain things? And I know it's a big question, but maybe, yeah.

I know that one of the things I've put off for the past couple of years is I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

I have a strong instinct at what I should have been doing in terms of building my community, but I was also scared about leaving the one I was in and feeling like. I mean, because there's a loss we make, we go through changes in our lives, in our.

The people that we're around, and sometimes I wait until the loss happens to me rather than making a decision. But I've become very clear more and more that being in the Right place with the right people is. It gives you energy, it gives you confidence.

It does a lot for you that you may not be able to get from the communities that we find ourselves in, maybe sometimes on accident. But the other thing is, if we can't find our community, then we have to build it.

You know, if there's not something that pre exists, there's always room for more areas of community. And, you know, that's kind of like why I have my collection of humans. I'm building my own community, you know. What about you?

Such a complicated, nuanced thing, but I think you really just hit the nail on the head for me is that, like, when I'm building a community for others, it needs to be a community that I'm passionate about too. And I think that that's number one. I want my people to have the values already like that.

They already hold something high in regard from a value perspective and then embrace those values at the company level. I'm not looking for people to bend their will to my company values. I'm trying to match their values to my company values.

And interviewing has become something like that. And then those company values, they're what our conversation runs around.

So, hey, when we did this thing, were we in alignment with our values or, hey, hey, guys, we need to decide what we're going to do next.

Well, our values dictate that maybe this is the next thing, you know, and so being a values first organization, I think really helps to build that community.

Yes.

Around something more than just a product or a service.

Well, it's what people want. People want to work for something that is meaningful, I think, especially younger people. God, that's a whole different conversation, Kurt.

And as you know, I'm supposed to be in a meeting in, like, 10.

But we need to have this conversation in another iteration of an episode because I love talking about this, and there are so many different ways that we can talk about community and connection.

What I say is at the end of every podcast, everybody, we need to just do this topic again. There's so much more to say.

Yeah.

I would be interested in hearing from our listeners. Like, what do you look for in community? What communities are you a part of? That maybe surprised you?

I think these are really cool things to just run through and make sure that you're intentionally part of. You might be part of a community you actually don't want to be a part of. And that could be an interesting insight as well.

Yeah.

But if you are an entrepreneur, your community will not build itself without you putting some intentionality into it. Otherwise, it's free to blow around in the wind. So that would be my. My advice.

The energy drain. I've definitely had that. So, Kurt, thank you for this conversation on a day when I'm feeling very excited about community.

Yeah, I love that it matched up like this, this. So, yeah, thank you. Melody.

No, thank you. No, thank you.

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