Frankie Rollins Interview
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Melissa Kellogg Lueck: [00:00:00] Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Leuck, and this is the Doing Business like a woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom, one business at a time.
Frankie Rollins Interview: Okay. Hello. Hello ladies. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I'm so glad to have you here and I'm also really glad to have a guest with us today and I can't wait to introduce her. Frankie Rollins is with us today. She is a client and she is also a really amazing person, and I'm so glad I get to introduce her to all of you because she is a creative dynamo. A literary architect building a world to welcome people into their own writing practice. After teaching thousands [00:01:00] of writers of all ages for over two decades, Frankie knows what people need to get their writing done, who wants to get their writing done right? All of us as the founder of the Fifth Brain Collective, she's not just teaching writing, she's beckoning it, whether it's coaching a writer into their texts, leading vibrant membership meetings, or hosting experimental webinars. She does it with a mix of precision and creative innovation. She's the author of, Do You Feel Like Writing a Creative Guide to Artistic Confidence the grief manuscript and the sin eater and other stories. Frankie understands the transformative power of writing both for the writer and for their someday readers. So welcome, Frankie. We're so excited to have you here. So excited to be here doing business like a woman. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So Frankie and I [00:02:00] met at a, little conference here in Northern Colorado where we're located, and she came to one of my talks and I just remember you're such a light. Like you, you are always a light. Any room that you walk into, you just light it up with your spirit and your smile. And I remember that even from, speaking on stage, like you really stood out and I was so glad that we got to chat afterwards and get to know each other and eventually work together. So you could change my life forever basically, which is what happens. I do. I am like, I'm like Hermione in Harry Potter always raising my hand. I remember raising my hand in your workshop 'cause I was like, ah. I want her to know me. Aw. Yeah. Yeah, it was fun. It was good. So let's dive into learning a little bit more about you and your work. So why do you feel it's so important to help other people get their writing [00:03:00] done? I have been a reader my whole life and I am a very broad reader. I read all kinds of things by all kinds of people all over the world, and the more I read, the more my life is developed, my own personal understanding, like the great goal of reading is essentially it teaches you how you might want to live or not live your life.
Whatever the book is about, that's what someone is offering for you. Here's a choice, here's a way to think about this. And so I really feel if we don't get. The people who want to write or have an idea and want to articulate it. If we don't get their ideas, then we will, then they will leave the planet without us ever having that and it will be a loss.
So it comes from this, greedy reader person that I am, but also from a deep belief that we need all the voices, 'cause we need, there's just so many ways to live a life. Anybody who's [00:04:00] traveled at all knows, you go to a different town or a different country and you're like, oh, I didn't know that was how you could live your life.
And the same thing happens in reading and the other thing is you can read for the rest of your life and still be changing. You'll be changing forever. So we need a lot of material and a lot of ideas. Yeah, I love that. And everyone has a story, right? Everyone has a story worth telling.
Everyone has a story. Yeah, everyone has a story. And the thing is, the Fifth Brain really stands for this idea that inside of each of us, inside of our brains, all of our experiences, all of our knowledge banks, like the things that you specifically know have been curious about all of our, all the things we imagine or fantasize about or have dreamt of, all of that is always with us.
And it's so and put together in that one brain, in that one particular way. No one else can fake that, so that's a particular kind of [00:05:00] expertise that no one else in the world would have. And I'm sure we need it. Yeah. Someone needs it. Have to share it. Yeah. We have to share it. Don't be stingy.
And I love your story and I wanna ask you to share it with the audience of how you came to this work because you came and be, and how you became an entrepreneur. Because I think, I don't know if this is an exact quote for you, but you were an unintentional. Entrepreneur or an accidental entrepreneur.
So tell us that story because I think it's amazing. Yeah. i've been a, I've been a writer. I knew I was, wanted to be a writer when I was young. I actually I got an undergraduate degree that was at a college that valued creative writing. AndI then, I worked for a long time 'cause I didn't realize you could get in an MFA creative writing.
No one told me, really needed to know. What's MFA stand for? Master's in Fine Arts. Okay. So even though it's a writing, it's a [00:06:00] creative degree. And so I did that. And then the only answer was teaching. The main thing that people do is go and teach, or they might be editors, they might be agents, but for me, I'm I've been a teacher since I was a a little girl, I learned something. I turn and share it with somebody else. It's just how I've always rolled. And so then I was teaching and you have to work adjunct. You worked as an, you work as an adjunct and get these little poorly paid opportunities to teach to be in the classroom.
And then I got a full-time job teaching and I was teaching creative writing and honors and I was running this literary magazine. And it was so much work. And the thing is that the only parts I cared about. Was the part with the students, the meetings like, so often the meetings I would leave and be like, there's another meeting where nothing got done, doesn't feel like a good use of my time.
And then the pandemic hit and I was in Tucson and I was, teaching [00:07:00] running a literary magazine that sort of, the college wouldn't let us off the hook. I had the staff of this poor students and I trying to figure out how to do this thing and. And all. I was creative writing, I was teaching mostly creative writing and so all the pain was pouring in through my computer every day from all the students.
Like it was like they had an opportunity to write and it was just squished out, and it was just me in my house. Receiving that. Wow. And and I lived across the street from a hospital and it was helicopters day and night over my house, and I lived alone. And so it was just this experience of really like giving everything you have and then being this empty whooshing vessel where I was like, I don't actually know how I will replace all of this energy. And and I realized I, my sister lives in northern Colorado and has for 17 years with her family, and I've always loved visiting here, and I just [00:08:00] thought. I'm just going to flee. I'm just gonna flee. I'm gonna go there.
I'm gonna be near family and that is how I'm gonna fix my life. And I had no real idea how it was just I needed to be near her. You know you have sisters too. Yeah. It's a good impulse or can be if you're close. And she's a visual artist and also a professor, so we have a lot in common. And so when I moved here, the college would not let me they let me have one semester fully online.
And then even though I taught online and in person for them for 13 years, they would not let me continue. And, but it was a golden handcuff situation where I was like, okay. Then I and the other thing is, after that pandemic, weren't we all oh, nothing is guaranteed. The world we thought that was always gonna be this way is not this way. It's got other possibilities that can be horrible. And and so if that's true, I should do the thing that I was put on earth to do. [00:09:00] And so then I just studied on my own. This is why meeting you was so life changing. I was just figuring out how to be an entrepreneur all by myself because I didn't. Wow.
I just didn't know. I took a webinar with Marie Forleo. I used the SBDC, the local resources. I read books and I have like binders of notes trying to figure out how to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. And but right away. People started coming to me. Like my old students that I'd had before came to me.
Other people referred people to me. And in the work that I was doing with them, I was like, oh yes, this is what I am supposed to do. I never don't know what to say when someone needs help writing. Yeah. So I want to know about the moment or the time You have been in academia for 13 years.
And you decide, okay, I'm not going to just get a job or get [00:10:00] a teaching position with another institution. You decide I'm gonna become an entrepreneur. I can just break out on my own. Yeah. What's that decision like? I know someone will relate to that. That's such a great, that's such a great question because that is the moment, right?
That's the moment where you're like, I will risk everything. And it was like, I, I've been working with a small writing group, my friends Eric, alrich and Sandra Shatick. We had been reading each other's work and we had been talking about how to teach other people to help each other in the ways we had helped each other.
So I had already come up and a friend of mine had been doodling our logo. For a while. And so I had been thinking about this other thing and then suddenly I was like, oh no, I am actually just going to do this. And then I had a friend who is also businesswoman Beth Lake. We never do anything alone.
She had me sit [00:11:00] down. One day in 2019 and she said, how would you start a business? And so she set the dream in motion. So then in 2023, when I'm trying to figure it out, I think I already, I just had those other people's voices in my head saying. You can do this, you should do this. And I have this, my friend Kai, who's my designer, Kai Devolt, made this, you already know, it's like one of the mottos that they would remind me again and again was that you already know what you should be doing.
You already know how to do it. You already know that you're here to do it. Yeah. And so the it was so interesting 'cause I was so bottomed out and as soon as I started this work, it filled, it's all filled back in. All the energy, all the love, all the resources I needed. So I think it was like this moment of just trusting that I already knew.
What a crazy leap. I don't, I didn't know. I didn't know how to do it. I know. And it's funny to think back to [00:12:00] that past you because. The you now you have so much more confidence around entrepreneurship, but the bravery and the determination, and because you didn't know what you know now. Yeah.
But yet you still were like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Yes. So true. And the, and it was that conviction. It turns out what's so interesting, you already know I, I am built for entrepreneurship. One of the things I loved about academia was that everything changes every semester. Entrepreneurship is that.
On steroids, right? Yeah. We're always offering new things, figuring out new ways to help people, bring them in so we can serve them. And but yeah, that it's just, yeah. And here's the thing. It is my own fifth brain. My fifth brain was like, Frankie, we need to be able to help people, right? Without these constructs that actually obstruct the true alchemy of a conversation.
Without this [00:13:00] one-on-one. Quality of conversation, being speaking to a class, it's a beautiful thing. But then in when we were on Zoom during the pandemic, I realized how powerful this construct could be, that it feels very private and intimate and and almost easier to concentrate because you're not distracted by your physical situation, yeah. And so yeah, so such an incredible thing that has happened to me. Yeah. I love it. That you've built, it hasn't happened to you. You've actually built this, right? I'm always like, I'm just so lucky. People are like, no, this doesn't look like luck from the outside. Yeah. It's a lot of hard work.
But tell me, tell us about what the fifth brain means. Like what, where that comes from, what that means to you. So the fifth brain, I was teaching a class years ago at the University of Arizona, and I said, all of a sudden I was like, you have to trust your fifth brain. And as I said it and explained [00:14:00] it, it's like a cow has these four stomachs for digesting the brain it has these different parts that without you telling it to, it categorizes them and stores them. The, like the first one is how I feel in this moment. The second one is, where am I? The third one is relational. Am I alone or am I talking to Melissa? And the fourth one is associative memories.
The things that it reminds me of the, all of the things I've experienced. Before that are similar to this and the fifth brain is the synthesizer. It is the one, we call it the zone. We call it the muse. We call it instinct. There's lots of names for it, but it's always there. It's the thing that wakes us up in the middle of the night sometimes and we're like, oh, I know how to fix that.
I know what to do. We, it applies all the time to our lives. But also to de definitely to writers and artists, but also to entrepreneurs, and leaders where we already know. [00:15:00] And it's almost like a quieting down where we stop listening to what everyone else is suggesting, and we like, let our brains synthesize what we know, and then the answer comes.
And everyone has a fifth brain. Everyone, and it's just a matter of learning to listen to it. And because I've taught, I've taught everybody from I was especially good at teaching fourth graders through adults and fourth graders were just so good at accessing their fifth brains.
They hadn't learned not to trust it. They, it hadn't gotten, nothing had gotten in the way of their creativity or their imagination. And so I, all the different ways that I've taught different people over the years has reinforced this idea that everybody has what we need. We have so much power inside our own skulls.
Yeah. And how do we access that? Like how do we listen in? Because I think this, the process that you do with your clients around [00:16:00] writing and bringing the stories out of people and that creative process also relates a lot to entrepreneurship. Every time I talk to you and you're talking about the work you're doing with clients, I'm always thinking that's very similar to the work I'm doing with entrepreneurs.
Yes. You teach, you'll say things like that where you're like, where does that come? Where does that belief come from or 'cause one of the things we talk a lot about my memberships is something called Tiny rules, which we each make up tiny rules for ourselves every day, where we'll be like, oh, I can't do that.
I can't send out another email because X, Y, or ZI can't write in first person because. People would be bored by that, like a made up rule. And we do it on a weekly basis. And so it's one of the ways that we gain access to our fifth brain is being aware of the ways that we limit it. And maybe even the world has taught us to limit it.
And so that we can identify that and get it out of the way so that our [00:17:00] natural ideas can come to us, our flow, it's not even that they have to come to us, it's just that we listen to them. And so that's one of the ways, is becoming aware of tiny rules. But I also, I obviously believe deeply in the power of writing.
If we know how to make little black squiggles on a page or on a screen, then we have a way to access the fifth brain that is profound, and this is for everyone. And but one of the things is making sure there's no one in the room in your mental room. Like really allowing yourself to have the idea without judging it, questioning it, having your grandmother there, disapproving or an old friend who used to shame you about something like they cannot be in the room. And then, and giving yourself, taking a prompt, an idea, something that you know, we've been talking about goals for 2026. Doing that and be having it be private what do I [00:18:00] really want to do?
And writing it down and having a timer is really helpful because then it forces you into the flow. You can't mess around, can't muck around with. But too many tiny roles or other people, you're just like, okay, I have to do this now. And so it shortcuts the extra second guessing that we do.
And then that builds, what another principle I have is writing in little bits. I was teaching five classes at a time, running a literary magazine, but I still wrote my books 'cause I do it a little bit at a time. Just really remembering that we don't change in one fell swoop anyways.
Yeah, it's a little bit at a time, so letting yourself know you can do it. That's so interesting because I I've always said I'll never write a book because it's just would take too much time and too much energy and I would rather do more short form stuff. I love, that's a great point though, that you could write it in little bits.
Yeah. A sentence a day. [00:19:00] I've once. I was I was teaching at a community college. I was working in a I was a barista and I had to, oh, and I was cleaning addicts as my grandmother always said to me, as a writer, I guess you have to know every part of life, my model. But I only had time every day for 15 minutes, and I would write a paragraph.
Or a couple of lines and within 50 days I had a novella length piece that I'd written that then I could shape because, but that was the only way I could ever do it. And and then that taught me that I can bend time that way just by using it a little bit at a time.
I remember when I was a, a young writer, an emerging writer, and I would be like, I, unless I can spend three weeks alone now, I'm like, no, that is too much time. I would go crazy. Do not need to be alone. Not much writing. I prefer me, it's like living. [00:20:00] Helps me know what to write.
The interaction is what I need, but I, you really can do it in little bits at a time. And there's something about it that's so empowering, Melissa, like where you are every morning, let's say you're writing before you begin your day. It's you and your brain and nobody else. It's so private, it's so powerful.
And then you've put those ideas in your fifth brain, so the next day you already have an idea. 'cause it's been working on it, and so it actually begins to grow in purpose and volume without you even trying that hard. You just show up every day for a little bit, or not every day. I don't even, I don't live anyway in that every day is the thing that I do.
But I just show up again and again. Yeah. I love that. I love that. And I think it takes a certain confidence or, let's see, what would the word be? Like belief in the importance of your voice. Yeah. All these little things that I'm putting together could actually [00:21:00] be a book. Yeah. Yes. And I, the word I used is love.
It is just love. It's like love of yourself and love of the people who might need to know what you have to say. And and I have people all the time, tell me that they don't have permission to write. They feel like they can't, like you can't be a writer unless someone tells you're writer.
And I'm like, there are thousands and billions of people who don't wanna write. Those people are not writers. If you wanna write and you spend a little time in the morning. Of some of your days of the week that's being a writer. That's what it looks like. I'm always showing people like, this is what it looks like for everyone.
There's no other way. I guess there's, there is another way you can have, you can speak into a thing, yeah. But but it's so important. Like one of my examples is David Bowie, who's, he did so many radical things. He did. He was such an inventive mind.
Do you think he asked [00:22:00] someone like, do you think it would be okay for me to write a song about red shoes? I don't know. I'm worried. Do you think I have permission to write about dancing? I need to get a certification in writing songs, right? Yeah. About red shoes. We don't, not for writing. It's like a, it's like a human right, because we have invented this way of articulating ourselves to each other. The Sumerians, they weren't like, would it be okay if I invented a language on this tablet to communicate to other people? It's become commodified I think in some ways, in this belief system that you have to have a degree or certification and an editor and an agent and I, that is the heart of what I do is let's just get back to the very beginning. We're the secret space where our brains get to speak to us. Yeah. And I think that whole model of academia and that we need to have some blessing from the outside Yeah. Is what has created the wedge between us and our [00:23:00] fifth brain, right? Yes. 'cause we think unless someone from outside blesses me, gives me a piece of paper, I can hang on the wall, then I'm not good enough yet to, think of myself as that, or to listen to the call. To write. Yeah. And it mistakes. It misrepresents the true value of writing for the writer. The way that you can learn from yourself and learn what you know and see the power of your own instincts and your own brain and your own experiences.
It's really undercuts. The deep part of writing, of the power of writing. We're humans. Like you never, you never see a wolf out there writing down their thoughts. It's a human thing. And so that's what I really want people to. Be moved back into the claim of that, that they can do that.
And that it is powerful. And my life has been changed by books. I am a I'm almost feel like I've made by books. Because I would, even when I was a little [00:24:00] girl, just reading them and being like, huh, that is scary. What would I do when the dragon comes, or whatever, yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I love that's really the revolution that you are leading. Yeah. To bring writers back to themselves. Yes. And it is such a revolution. It's really interesting. There's a lot of pushback where people want it to be, they want it to hurt. They want a writing like a critique group.
They, I've had people come to me and say, the other people, aren't they don't like my work or they're not helping me 'cause nobody's been mean to me. And I'm like. That's just that mindset Yeah. Is so cruel and wrongheaded and I have so many people who are wounded who come to me.
They've been wounded by sixth grade teachers, they've been wounded by professors, they've been wounded by their high school teachers who, people who say, you are no good at this. You will never be good at this. And that [00:25:00] is, it's just such a falsehood. It's actually, A refusal on that teacher's behalf to teach them anymore or to figure out what they need or to be like, I am not, I'm obviously not the person who can teach you let me get you help from someone else, but to instead shut a door on a mind like this, that is my revolution, is to open the doors on the mines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And that's similar to what we run into in entrepreneurship too. Yes. Ofnot believing that we can figure it out, that we can do it, that we can ever start a business and make money at it and make money at something we really love doing, right? Yes. Yes. You've taught me so much about that and it is love. It's again, service. We're, especially, in coaching we love to serve and help, but you can't imagine telling someone, telling a woman who comes to you with a business [00:26:00] idea that's never gonna work.
I know. And instead you'll help, I'll have ideas 'cause of course I'm such still new and I'll have ideas and maybe it's too big or too crazy, and you'll just be like let's look at this. Let's look at the, let's look at how you came to that. And how we could shape it so it feels more doable for you. All the time. And it's that, it's the tiny rules and it is that belief that that you have what it takes and then you can learn. I have loved being an entrepreneur because I really do believe now, you taught me this, that there's no ceiling.
We can make, we can help make money when we need to. We can help our businesses by adding an offering or doing a push for something. And we can keep growing it. We can figure out a way to help more people. There's just so many possibilities. And it's the deep, it's like it's little bits.
It's little bits at a time. Same. Yeah. So tell me [00:27:00] about how your, some of your biggest challenges in becoming an entrepreneur because I see so many parallels every time I hear you talk about this, like between writing and becoming an entrepreneur, right? Yes. Yeah. And the creativity that it takes to do both.
And yeah. Talk about some of your challenges and how you've overcome them in entrepreneurship. I think my number one challenge was mindset, which we talk about a lot. That and that's what I guess what we're talking about all of this. But where I was a kid, I was a joint custody kid, and then I've been an artist my whole life.
And so something, my, my friend calls poverty paradigm. That's a mindset, you're like. I was always so proud of myself for living on a shoestring budget. I've always been so proud of myself for figuring it out no matter what, but I was always living within this belief system that there was only so much money that could ever be made or that I could ever make, and, it has taken, I feel [00:28:00] like especially the work I've been doing with you, it's like we're always chiseling away at this giant and I know it's Michelangelo, there's shapes in there that are gonna surprise me, but I I really have to be on it. And another new revelation that I had from Dr. Kathy Sure. That this. Webinar that you and I attend, or this workshop we attended recently where that you have to change 80% of yourself in terms of how you think about money to become a new kind of money person, a new kind of a person who can bring in abundance. And that idea has blown my mind.
And it's also true in, I think, in writing. It's like not letting all those editors in your brain. It's true in entrepreneurship, not letting the naysayers or the people who are jealous of your freedom or fearful for you oh God, are you gonna, are you gonna bottom out? What's gonna happen?
Yeah. And you just you develop a part in yourself where you just, you don't listen to those [00:29:00] things, you listen to the possibilities instead. Constantly turn yourself from the doubting, dark, scary, fearful ways of thinking about failure to what if I spent all my time thinking about the love and helping people and the abundance I could bring to their lives and to my own life?
And it is divine. Yeah, but my life is happier. It's so much happier. Yeah, because and it takes practice. It's very hard work, but you can feel yourself, especially as you're moving into your CEO self, I feel like I keep imagining the next version of me. The next Frankie is she's bigger and then I have to step in her and it's kinda uncomfortable, but you just keep doing it.
And and it's it's the same thing with the writing all the time in little bits is every time you work at it, you grow. And [00:30:00] one of my goals in life is to have wisdom before I die. And this seems like what, entrepreneurship and writing, they are ways to gather wisdom about our human condition, about people, about what people need, about how we can help them.
Yeah, I love that. And I think that as you're talking, I'm thinking about how as entrepreneurs, as creatives, as coaches, we are just asking for experiences like, yes, we only become better at those things. After having lots of experiences in our lives, right? Yes. And we know life is 50 50, so half of those experiences are gonna be great, and half of them are gonna be awful.
Yeah, but it's in those experiences that we do grow in that wisdom and so we're just asking, we're just asking for it. Bring it on, bring on all the experiences. We are [00:31:00] just asking for it. We really are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's this fullness. There's a there's a fullness of life. I remember being in those meetings and maybe you, and that in your, money life in the big city, the meetings that you're having where it's about drama and it's about interpersonal, like people not liking each other, like it gets bogged down instead of what are, what is of essence here.
What is, what here matters. In this scenario. And I think being an entrepreneur allows you more space and time to be working on that. 'cause you're always helping other people figuring out how to serve other people or share or, uplift them. Yeah. It forces you to keep getting creative about it.
Yeah, I love that. And so on the subject of creativity, how would you say, and I know you have a new project that you're working on for 2026 around creativity and leadership, and [00:32:00] I think it's so perfect for entrepreneurs, and tell me a little bit more about that. I've been developing, I've been, now I'm I spend so much time with entrepreneurs and I spend, as much time as I do with writers, essentially, because I do.
Another thing about entrepreneurship is that it's such a constant learning and you need other people. And so I was, I've been thinking about how to apply the fifth brain. To leadership because it's like whether you're leading yourself through a text, you're writing or you're leading your people or leading your business, you have to be connected to your own brain and know it.
So I've been working on offering this workshop called Lead From Your Fifth Brain, A Workshop on Identity and Inner Story, and so that we can. What I do is I lead people through some prompts so that they see the through lines in their personality that have been there since they were young. That's part of it. [00:33:00] And how, of course we use these things in different ways and we change a lot in a lifetime, but there are essential qualities and so it helps you find those through lines. It also shows you obstacles you've already gotten over that you've already come through and that reinforces the re the remembrance that you can, that surviving is something you've already done.
And then also clarifying your ideas. Who, so you're looking back and you're looking at the blockages, and then you're also looking at, and what do I have to offer? What do I want to offer? Who do I want to be like, one of the things that I really love, in my business is, I have a couple of people I work with who help me with fifth brain things, and I'm like, it is a rule of good intention in my realm as the leader I am we operate under a rule of good intention. Like I wouldn't hire you. If you didn't have good intentions, but it's also I was [00:34:00] one person said to me, I it's such a relief because then if I make a mistake, I'm just being human. It's never personal. I'm never gonna be, it's smacked for it.
We will just figure out how to fix it. Yeah. And it's that is who I've been my whole life. I understand that. That's maybe to a fault, maybe to a fault, but but looking back at my through lines, it's what I always want is clean, clear communication with people, and transparency.
I'm never trying to hide anything. I make mistakes all the time. I'm as human as they come, and so I'm never posturing. And so knowing that and knowing that about myself helps guide me in what kind of a leader. I am and will be probably forever. I love that. So you're basically crafting like your leadership story?
Yes. Your leadership narrative. Yeah. Yeah. From your experiences. Yeah. From the who you've always been. Because you're becoming, but there, the first [00:35:00] time I did it, it was such a funny experience because I realized I have always been a person who wanted revolution, wanted to change things for the better for the humans.
And I would always, when I would be involved in some bureaucratic something, I always had one foot out the door. I was always. I always knew what my real goal was. And to really, to look at some, you just choose a few points in your life and examine them. And I have these ways of helping us examine them.
And then and then you just see, I wasn't expecting, I feel like I know myself so well. Yeah. But to have that revelation, I was like, oh, this is what we need. Yeah. This is what leaders need. I love that. Yeah. So good. So good. So tell me a little bit about what you are celebrating from 2025 and what have been some of the [00:36:00] transformations that you've experienced and especially during our work together, like how you have changed a lot this year, and so I'd love to hear what you're seeing in terms of Right.
One celebration really is our evaluation work. You've taught me how to evaluate what I've been doing because, one of my, being a risk taker, that big leap I took, I was like, okay, we'll just do it. We'll just figure it out. Here's some money in, here's some money out. Fine, it's okay. But because now you've taught me how to look at the different things and there's two things you look at, literally what, which of your offerings are working and successful, but there's also this idea of which, which of your offerings are helping, which part of your business grow? So those are different kinds of mindsets that I've had to live, and I can feel them like I'm being defined. Definitions of my leadership and CEOness and the [00:37:00] business that I did not have, I didn't even know how to think about them.
I have four clocks on my wall for the different time zones because it's so hard for me to organize things in my mind in a certain, in certain elements. But I didn't think I could do this. I didn't think I could ever dream forward, but I am. Doing it. I have a five-year plan.
I have goals for 2026. I've been measuring things. The new offerings that I have are purposeful and choices to fill in the gaps that I can now see in my business. That is. That is a huge development of working with you and eWomen network. I have to say, being an eWomen network and I've taken a lot of other people up on their offers and hired them as coaches and made connections with them, and they have taught me so much and I have friends who also have become entrepreneurs and I can see sometimes where they struggle because they don't have [00:38:00] a network of other people teaching them. 'Cause you really, you, there's just so many ways to do it. There's so many ways to live a life. There's so many ways to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. So feeling like I'm finding my way is one of my huge celebrations. And also, in my actual business, there are so many people writing books and they are writing different books, and they help each other.
Sometimes I'm not there. We have a free offering that's run by collective members and they report back to me and they still do the work. They do the beautiful work. I've set the model and then they are doing it, and so the revolution has begun. It is in full swing, my friend. It's in full swing and I'm no longer pushing the whole train by myself.
I love that there's a lot of us doing it together and it's it's profound. To see people writing the things and then getting to, I'm at the crux of civilization in a way or [00:39:00] of development, human development. 'cause I get to see their big ideas start shaping into the books. And there's different, like I've poets and nonfiction writers and fiction writers and because I've read my whole life, I can help them all.
and, people writing their books about their businesses and it's just, helping them find the shape that fits them. I'm never putting my grid or my ideas onto it. I'm always pulling from what they say. It's it's just really powerful to know that I know how to do that, that is not something that my business suffers from or anything. We got that. That was so good. Oh my gosh. It's like taking on a life of its own, this revolution. It is. It's, yeah. That's how revolutions work. Yeah. Okay. I have to do is empower the people. Yeah. Yeah. So what you looking forward to in 2026? Tell us what's happening. I've had two memberships going [00:40:00] for, a year and one membership going for the two and a half years and I'm opening a third membership in the morning. Those have been evening ones, so I'm super interested to see what kind of writers do that. 'cause there's different people at different, different kinds of people who write at different times a day.
And we're offering a new webinar series where other people are gonna come in and teach their expertise once a month. And, I'm excited to travel and do this work with leaders because whether it's leaders or writers, it's like taking people off this hook that they've hung themselves on so that they can move freely and use their full capacity. So I'm really excited about going out and offering these workshops and spreading the word even further. Bring more people. Everyone has a fifth brain. You can trust it. Believe in it. Yeah. Bring the people. So exciting.
So exciting. Where are the best places to connect with you so [00:41:00] my listeners can keep up with what's going on in the fifth brain. We have the fifth Brain collective. Dot com is our website and I always have a free consult on there. It's under coaching, but it is always available if somebody has an idea and they wanna talk about it with me.
Those are some of my favorite conversations in the world. we have memberships. oh, the other thing I'm looking forward to is we're doing a writing, our first writing retreat.
This, Spring in April in Arizona. That one's gonna be on energy. Oh. Which is always something I'm thinking about. If you go to the website, there's a whole layer of different ways, different kinds of writing interactions that you could get involved with. Also I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram and Substack.
We also have a substack of course. Where we can read your writing. Yeah. We are very busy. Yes. The fifth, the collective is busy. The collective is busy. That's maybe that is the tagline for the 2026.
I love [00:42:00] it. And we will link up to all that in the show notes. And I just wanna thank you so much for being here today. It's been an honor to get to work with you this year and get to know you and just see you blossom as a CEO. You've always been an incredibly talented coach and writer and leader, and so it's been really an honor to get to be part of your business journey and see that flourish.
So thank you. Thank you. Such a big handprint on my business journey that belongs to you and I would say of a pushing of a nudging kind. Thank you so much. It's such a joy to be on your podcast with all the other women doing business that you've talked to. And your coaching is invaluable.
Been invaluable to me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks everybody for listening. Yeah, thank you honey. Yeah. Okay. [00:43:00] Bye.
Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Hey, if you like this podcast, I wanna invite you to become part of my community by signing up for my Friday Celly The link is in the show notes. Each Friday, I'm gonna deliver to your inbox my weekly celebration, as well as my thoughts on the latest and business and marketing. I wanna keep you in the know about my upcoming events.
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