Nick McGowan (00:01.462)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Melissa Coloton. Melissa, how you doing today?

Melissa Coloton (00:11.678)
I’m good, Nick. How are you?

Nick McGowan (00:13.442)
I’m good. I’m good. I’m glad you’re here. we were just shooting the breeze talking about things podcasting and life and all of that. So I want to kind of continue the conversation, but why don’t you get us started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Melissa Coloton (00:15.767)
Me too.

Melissa Coloton (00:30.584)
Sure. So what I do for a living is I’m a certified life coach and sales expert and I combine those two things by helping people find success that really means something to them by putting purpose and profit together because one without the other will always make you kinda want more out of life. So I try to not be Pollyanna about purpose without profit and I try not to be too focused on profit because, you know, then if we get too into the weeds about that, then that’s all that matters to us and we

forget what our purpose is. So that’s what I do. And I spent about twenty years in corporate sales. So that’s my background and always wanted to be a life coach since my late twenties. So finally, finally, finally started doing the thing and combined those two very bizarre things and put them together. So actually they’re not bizarre things on their own, but putting them together is a little bit odd.

Nick McGowan (01:18.776)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (01:23.96)
And something that people would find odd about me, which I don’t know if it’s too odd, but I do think people are surprised when I say this, is I’m I’m in my blood, I’m a farm girl. So I grew up on a farm, my dad was a farmer, his dad was a farmer. So and I think people are surprised about that because, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in corporate. So being very corporate y and wearing the jackets and all the things. And so when I say like I grew up basically in the middle of a field and ate dirt for

for the most of my childhood, people are like, wow, surprising. So yep. I I I would say that I present this, you know, very polished person, but I really do enjoy, you know, a good old backwood bonfire and grew up partying in fields. So yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (02:16.556)
Nice. I I I like how you slowly kind of got into that and you were like, Yeah, we party a lot in fields. Like that was how it is. Whole lot.

Melissa Coloton (02:22.552)
And we partied a lot. Like we had to party on state land because well there was nowhere really to go, right? Like we there was nowhere to go. So we just would all get together in State Land fields. That’s what we did. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (02:31.715)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (02:37.87)
Yeah.

That’s cool. I mean, we all have I think we all have situations growing up that some people were a little bit more partiers. I’m trying to be real mindful of how I put this. Some people like partied hard in their like high school years and others didn’t. And then they partied too hard in their early 20s when it was legal to go drink or whatever, and then they got out of it. Some like just never get out of it and like belly up to the bar at 65 years old and it’s the same bar they’ve been bellying up to. but I think there are there’s some like.

Melissa Coloton (02:53.068)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (03:10.606)
Crazy moments that you can think back to, I’m sure. There definitely are for me that have to do with some of those parties that I can look back at now and go, holy shit. Like I saw how life could have changed drastically. And also I saw how I learned to kind of manage things in a sense. Like, how do you manage a whole group of 40 people around a bonfire out in the middle of nowhere? Or like the cops are coming. How do you let everybody know? Or whatever that looks like.

Melissa Coloton (03:22.56)
Mm.

Melissa Coloton (03:39.754)
Right. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (03:41.4)
But I I can appreciate coming from basically somewhere that’s not corporate at all, and then ending up in corporate. Cause I’ve seen that with people that I’ve worked with at times that were some of the best workers I’d ever worked with, and some of the almost like hard nosed people I’ve ever worked with. And I think that came from their background of being on their farm. Like you had chores that most city kids didn’t have and like tough things that you had to figure out and what do we do? So I’m sure that

Melissa Coloton (04:03.776)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (04:11.138)
Did that help you, you think, when you got into not only corporate but sales?

Melissa Coloton (04:15.306)
Yeah. Yeah. I think it did a few things. Honestly, it definitely helped my work ethic. You know, I summers off were not a thing for me. I literally would hay it is what we called it, is basically get all the hay ready for the winter. And I remember me and my cousin, she was only a year older than me. We would fight about who would get the front of the wagon and who would get the back of the wagon. Because if you’re the back,

you had to start throwing when eventually you’d had start throwing the bales of hay to the front for the person to put it on the elevator and go up and dump it into the hay mill. And we would fight about that like literally like one of us would try to like try to get to the back and or try to get to the front so they didn’t have to be the one throwing bales of hay. So I definitely feel like it helped my work ethic plus like seeing my dad work like that. You know, my dad he he had to do chores before he went to school when he was in high school.

Nick McGowan (04:54.83)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (05:08.898)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (05:08.94)
You know, he would have to do chores and then he’d have to go do sports or whatever he did and come home and do more chores. So my dad, it wasn’t like he got that like childhood most people think of when they think of childhood. My my dad was worked with his dad. That’s what he did. And they found a way to make it fun. So I think that also helped me was like you can’t take yourself too seriously in an environment like that because shit hits the fan a lot. And if you lose your mind every time the shit hits the fan on a farm, like

Nick McGowan (05:31.96)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (05:37.584)
you’ll just go nuts. So I have a lot of stories from my my my dad and his aunt about how they grew up and and my grandfather and how crazy that all was. And they just have a lot of laughs about it because I really do think like you would go nuts. So I think that really helped my my work ethic in a really big way. I also feel like it it removed a lot of entitlement. And I’m not I’m not saying I don’t have any entitlement ’cause I think we all do to some degree. But I think it removed a lot of entitlement because

Nick McGowan (06:00.814)
Mm.

Melissa Coloton (06:07.146)
I didn’t really come into this world with all this Money or like I wasn’t handed anything in my life. Like everything I did, I had to work really hard for. And so when you’re in sales, that serves you very well because you can then make things out of nothing. You know, I even in my sales career, I would get these territories and I’d be like, What the fuck? Like and and I’m like, and at first I was pissed about it, right? Like, why can’t I just get a main account or something like that? But I’m glad I didn’t.

Because I learned the art of making something out of nothing, making money where there was no money ig in existence yet. Like I always say, like in sales, especially like the sales the sales professionals that are like, I want an ac I want an active account or I want to tear the territory that’s already bloomed. I’m like, you should actually not want that for especially your first couple go go rounds, because you will learn a skill set that nobody will ever take from you and nobody will ever actually teach you. You will not.

You will not learn that in a book, you will not learn that in a podcast. You you have to just do it. And so, yeah, I see I think growing up on a farm helped me with those two things in a in a really big way.

Nick McGowan (07:06.689)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (07:15.896)
My God, I could imagine that you were in a much better spot to be able to handle really tough situations or like calculations of moves, but also probably you experienced different things that other people didn’t, like trying to think from like the opposite perspective. Like I mainly grew up in a city or like right outside of a city. and I’ve always been around a lot of people. So being in a corporate environment, like all the chaos, all the people talking, like you know, those meetings where it’s like.

Melissa Coloton (07:21.368)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (07:39.608)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (07:45.77)
One person should really be running it, but they’ve lost it. It’s off the rails at this point. Like everybody’s just jabbering about whatever the fucking thing is. And how do you pull that back? How do you not? Like, what’s your level of it? When does it not matter what your level is? And go, yo, you know, that sort of thing or whatever. but I I think that there’s stuff that we as people can really try to find the easiest way through. Like we’re seeing a lot of it with AI now. Everybody’s trying to write books and they’re trying to do all these things.

Melissa Coloton (08:09.24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (08:13.25)
Because they just need to create and they need to do all this. When in all reality, what they’re really doing is saying, well, I have to make money. And I’m told that I have to do more. So I have to do more to make the money, but I don’t have enough time to do it. And I don’t really know what the fuck’s going on. And in sales without AI, we’ve experienced that stuff where you’re like, there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of moving parts and pieces. And I don’t have enough in my pipeline. And but that’s just a small piece from a salesperson. And we all experience stuff like that.

But you ended up getting to the point where you’ve done a lot, you work through, and yeah, you can look back now and go, I was really appreciative of having that. You weren’t then, because you typically aren’t, where you’re like, Are you fucking kidding me? Nobody’s here. This is nonsense. But when you learn and you work through it, you can see the silver lining of it. But that’s not always the case with getting burned out. So talk to us about not only the journey of like looking back at that and going, I can see where I’m starting to burn and where I was starting to smolder.

Melissa Coloton (08:54.22)
Yeah. Right.

Melissa Coloton (09:03.734)
Right.

Melissa Coloton (09:11.032)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (09:12.642)
But then also what that journey looked like. You shared a bit of that even before we started, of like taking it kind of category by category of our I’m gonna work through this, like the mind, body, soul, et cetera. So what did that look like for you?

Melissa Coloton (09:23.649)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know, hindsight is wildly twenty twenty, right? so honestly, when it when when I would say my burn burning out or burnt outness started showing its ugly head, I I truly blamed it on life situations, how hard I had worked, like that kind of stuff. Cause at the time I also had a a friend that was Dying of Cancer. So

it was life combined with work. And even up until I would say, even just recently, honestly, like I would say like literally probably within the last six to twelve months, this has come to me a little bit clearer. And that is it wasn’t necessarily how much I was working. Right. It it wasn’t necessarily even the work I was doing.

It was the lens in which I was seeing it all. And that was being very performative, n really afraid to fail. Like really, really afraid to fail. And I say this with a huge grain of salt because I Love my parents, but they my parents were very young when they had me. Sh my mom was 18 when she had me. She was 16 when she had my brother. And so they were like kids raising kids. And so I think my mom put on this suit of like

My children are not gonna have the life that I had. They are gonna have a different life in me, which served me very, very, very well. Also, it created a monster in me that was like, you have to succeed, period. Like no matter what, you have to succeed and you cannot fail. And I and I often had these experiences with my mom where I’d like, I remember this one time I got a C in French. Like, French, like who fucking cares?

Nick McGowan (11:19.835)
Melissa Coloton (11:21.184)
I’m not gonna move to Paris. Like, we’re okay. And she like just lost her shit on me. Like, just like, what the fuck are you? Like, she didn’t swear, but basically she was like, What the fuck are you doing? Like, if you can’t get better grades than this, you’re not gonna go to she always held sports over my head because I loved playing sports. So that was always one where she could really get me and to do whatever she wanted me to do. Cause I’d be like, my god, I need to go to sports. and so as I got older and I started working in these really

Nick McGowan (11:27.405)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (11:35.864)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (11:41.102)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (11:50.251)
immense pressure cookers. I mean, Nick, there were my biggest opportunity I ever had was over a hundred million dollars. And that was just in service fees. So together it was actually probably more like a $200 million deal. So I would get in these pressure situations and instead of being like, I got this, I’d be like, this has to come together. Like, and and it was more of like a lens I saw my work through than it was the actual work I was doing.

Nick McGowan (12:01.41)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (12:12.622)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (12:19.946)
So I started getting these weird bursts of anxiety at very odd times, which is why I kind of shoved it aside. Cause it wasn’t like I would be in the middle of a meeting and be like, my God, I’m about to have a panic attack. It would be more like weirder times, like specifically when I was driving. Like when I would drive, I would get really anxious. And I was just like, that’s weird. And I just kept putting it off, kept putting it off, kept putting it off, kept putting it off. And then one day I couldn’t. Yeah. It was just I was driving on the way to work and

Nick McGowan (12:31.874)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (12:43.758)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (12:47.661)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (12:49.954)
complete meltdown. Like pulled off the highway, tried to get back on, pulled off the highway, tried to get back on. I couldn’t do it. Thank God at the time I was working for my boss was my friend. So I was able to call her and say, I don’t know the fuck’s wrong with me, but I cannot come to work today. And I was supposed to like, my team was coming into town. I was supposed to be leading meetings and all this stuff. She’s like, don’t worry about it. Go home. Get some rest. And I thought it would be a blip on the radar. I was like, I’d be fine tomorrow. Right. And I figured I could probably

Nick McGowan (13:07.214)
You can

Nick McGowan (13:11.51)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (13:17.624)
Yeah. Tomorrow, yeah.

Melissa Coloton (13:19.768)
Keep keep pushing it aside. I woke up the next day and had just anxiety, like just major chronic anxiety. Couldn’t drive, I couldn’t even drive a quarter. I don’t exaggerate this. And when it’s funny when people when I’ve told people this story afterwards, like people who know me really well, they’re like, they literally think I’m lying. And I’m like, no, I don’t think you understand. Like I could not get in my car and drive a quarter mile down the road without being like, I gotta, I gotta go home. I gotta go back home. So

Nick McGowan (13:39.768)
Mm.

Melissa Coloton (13:48.077)
That led to work with a a practitioner near where I live and he’s a life coach and an acupuncturist. And so I’ve I’ve been seeing him ever since that day, which has been, I think the summer will be eight years now. And yeah, and and we really focused on reconnection to myself. And when I did get it’s like he didn’t he wasn’t like you must stop having anxiety. It wasn’t it wasn’t like that. It was like when you have anxiety, this is

Nick McGowan (14:02.478)
Nice.

Nick McGowan (14:12.76)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (14:17.356)
the connecting point you have to have with yourself because I didn’t, right? It was like, it was very much like a keep it moving. And anything I felt in my body or anything that I anything that I felt anywhere, it was like, no, I ain’t got time for this shit. And I even remember going into his office being like, the fuck, like this I I just don’t have time for this. Like I I leg legitimately remember thinking that. Like and then I remember sitting in his office for the first time, him telling me that I don’t have a relationship with myself.

Nick McGowan (14:24.685)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (14:37.375)
Mm.

Melissa Coloton (14:46.678)
And I’m like, excuse me. Like I I just thought I was one of the most authentic people and all this stuff. So it took some took some work to even understand what was really going on with myself. And so that led to a lot of connection with self, a lot of soul work, what’s really in my heart. When I do have anxiety, what does that mean? What do I need to console? How do I need to function in that experience? And actually welcoming anxiety, because I believe that like when you have these feelings.

It’s your soul being like, Hey, I need some attention here. Like, what about me? And so I was just playing the game of like, I don’t care about you. I’m gonna keep it moving. So that was a lot of our work in the beginning. And then when that got really, really solid, I was like, but actually there’s mind, body, and soul here. And so now I’m really in a big era of f fo focusing.

a lot on my mind because I can really see now because I meditate a lot more now and I can really see the thoughts that I I come up with on a fairly regular basis. And I can see the through line and I can see the thread. And then I can take that and command my mind to think a different thought. And then it becomes a belief and then I’m just at a better place, generally speaking. So yeah, and then the body is just kind of more the obvious one I would say, you know, I’m very keen on taking care of my body and

Nick McGowan (16:01.069)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (16:09.514)
not drinking like god awful amount of caffeine just to get through the day and stay focused and like you know like because that’s what I was doing for a while there. so I hope that kind of paints a picture of what I experienced. It was not pretty and there was a lot to it and there were very dark days. I remember I never thought this before and I only actually told one person this when it was happening. And not even my husband, I told my best friend I was like if in if I

Nick McGowan (16:13.43)
Ha ha ha.

Melissa Coloton (16:40.17)
If I’m gonna feel like this for the rest of my life, like I actually don’t think I wanna live like this. And and it wasn’t necessarily a a true like thought of you know what, but it was the start of one for sure. Cause I was like, I don’t wanna live like this. Like, this isn’t living. That’s how terrible I felt on a regular basis. So, you know, I definitely went on anti-anxiety medication. I was told I had major depressive disorder. When they said that to me, I was like,

Nick McGowan (16:43.928)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (17:07.296)
What did you just say to me? Like it was still like, what the fuck are you talking? What what are any of you people talking about? So it really took me a while to not be in denial. And then when I wasn’t and it was finally like a okay, I will okay, yeah, I get this. Like this is where I’m at and this is what I’m gonna have as I have to deal with this. So yeah, I’m really thankful for my practitioner and all my friends and all my Family and everybody I worked with was amazing at the time, thank God.

Nick McGowan (17:08.632)
Mm.

Melissa Coloton (17:37.541)
my my boss didn’t tell anybody, you know, like people didn’t really know that I was that I was in that state of being when I was at work and I still was able to to get through, but it took a while and then I finally came off anti anxiety medicine and went back on them one time and that was at the height of my executive and and again I I kinda got to that place of I hope nobody figures out I’m an idiot or you know, I have to be perfect or

Nick McGowan (17:37.901)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (18:06.038)
You know, what if I don’t meet my target? Like there’s just a again, it was in that pressure cooker moment. And I was just like, I’m gonna like move all these things aside and pretend they’re not there. So I kind of did a solid two rounds of that. The second round wasn’t nearly as bad as the first because I had the tools, but there was definitely elements of that s that same initial experience again. It just wasn’t as bad as the first time because I think I had tools, but it eventually got me to the place where I was like.

Okay, something for real needs to give. Like this is not sustainable for me. This is not what I’m supposed to be doing. I think the second round I was a little bit more in that thought process of like, I’ve tried to make this work in corporate. I’m just forcing it at this point. So

Nick McGowan (18:39.638)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (18:52.984)
I think that’s critical. Like we, as people, can look at things that we’re told to do. Like you need to go to college, you need to go to school, you need to get married, you need to have kids, you need this, you need that, blah, blah, blah. And those things change with every generation. Like even our parents that were like, You’re gonna have a better life than I did. So I’m gonna do things. And it’s like everything you’re gonna do, you’re still gonna fuck up your kid somehow, because you’re gonna say something weird or something’s gonna happen, they’re gonna interpret it weird or whatever. They’re just different human.

Melissa Coloton (19:05.005)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (19:16.512)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (19:20.312)
But we take all these things and we think we have to be a certain way, especially from a from a corporate perspective, not even corporate, from somebody who works in larger organizations with a team of people and a lot of people counting on you from different departments, not just from sales, but production needs things from you. They need you to bring in sales, like all the different stuff that goes along with it, where we can get so stuck thinking it’s all on me, it’s all this, it’s all whatever it is. And that’s

Melissa Coloton (19:34.221)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (19:39.948)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (19:48.568)
typically never ever the actual problem. I find that there’s a lot of times where it’s a misalignment problem where we’re not aligned with what we’re doing, but we don’t want to fucking have that conversation with ourselves to be able to do that. Biggest thing that you pointed out was you did work and then you did more work and then you did more work after that. And now you’re still doing a lot of work. So big moral of the story is keep doing the work because those things will start to clear up. Like the spot you’re in

Melissa Coloton (20:01.4)
Correct. Right.

Melissa Coloton (20:10.68)
Hundred percent.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (20:17.666)
With whatever you’re at, just like the people that are listening that are like, well, I’m in a spot right now with either my company or the company I work for. And really in the back of their minds, they’re like, what the fuck? How do I change? What, what do I even where where do I start? What what happens? Like, what’s the first thing I look at? It I think about it like you know, those junk drawers or even a junky closet that everybody has. Like if you really want to clean that thing out, you have to take everything out. And then you have to audit it.

Melissa Coloton (20:44.202)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Nick McGowan (20:46.018)
And that’s such a fucking project. And no one wants to do it with their junctur, let alone themselves. But they get to the point where they’re like, I can’t not. I have to because I can’t anymore. I don’t want to be here. Wait, if I don’t want to be here, what else does that look like? And then things start to crumble a bit. I think the big thing that you’re saying with doing the work is that there’s consistent work that needs to happen, but then there’s also clarity that comes with that that opens up other doors.

Melissa Coloton (20:48.332)
Yeah.

No. Right.

Right.

Nick McGowan (21:13.442)
Like I see things at times where it’s like I open one door and there’s forty more. And I open another door and there’s four thousand more. And I’m like, fuck, should I turn around? Cause there were less doors this way. Like, what what’s going on here? It’s because of that self awareness. yeah. Yeah. And you’re like, where do I pull that thing from?

Melissa Coloton (21:22.408)
Yeah.

It’s like Jenga, right? Call this one out. What’s about to happen?

Nick McGowan (21:31.534)
And that that’s a really good point. I think a lot of people live in a Django-like state and they don’t really know it. And anything could crack them. I think it’s on us to be able to be self-aware enough to see like, hey, there’s something there. But it can still like it even gets the best of all of us, no matter how much work we’ve done. It’s how quickly you can kind of snap back in a sense and go, you know, I see what I did there for future next problem. Let’s do something a little different.

So looking back at that stuff, because here we are in a podcast where this is easy to talk about. But this is also, I think about it as like a lab sort of situation where we go, cool. If we do the work now, by the time you get in that situation, even if you think back and go, those two fucking people were talking about this thing, I remember this. Here’s what they said. Like that’s the point of like, how do we do work now? So that when we’re in that spot, we go, you know what, I’ve been here before. Let me do something a little differently, or at least catch where we’re off. And what I mean by that is like mindset wise.

Melissa Coloton (22:14.496)
Yeah. Right.

Melissa Coloton (22:26.848)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (22:29.772)
I’ve been in situations where my mindset was, I’m going to not fuck this up. I’m going to do the best situation I can. I’m going to do whatever I can, like I’ve learned some things, and I think too hard about it. I’m too mindset with it because I’m so dead set on just like seeing the thing through instead of understanding context and the situation. And I had something years ago where I literally reacted to my partner at the time. She said something and I reacted and like felt my

Melissa Coloton (22:42.22)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (22:58.786)
being split where I was like, yo, dude, don’t you say another fucking word. And I could literally hear myself go, shut up and get the fuck out of the house. And I was like, and one more thing. And it was like, motherfucker. Because like it’s already out there and you can’t do anything. But even that level of self-awareness to go, shit. All right, I did that. So what do I do differently this time? The work has to keep adding up. So now that you’re able to look back at that stuff and say, look, I’ve done a lot of this work. I keep doing work for somebody who’s in

Melissa Coloton (23:00.288)
Mm.

Mm.

Melissa Coloton (23:08.93)
Yeah.

no.

Nick McGowan (23:28.128)
a a spot either in their own business or something that where they’re managing like you did where you’re like there’s this and there’s that. I don’t want people to find out that I don’t really know what the fuck’s going on. Like what what sort of things did you figure out that worked for you because your energy that would align with them and might be in a similar spot where, hey, I need to do this sort of thing from a mechanism standpoint of like breathing or standing out of my energy or whatever to then get to the point where I can actually do something about my mind. So like what did that look like for you?

Melissa Coloton (23:49.676)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (23:56.417)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, not to be too prescriptive, but the way I describe my, I guess, set of tools, if you will, is is honoring yourself. And that’s a really big perspective I have now in POV of looking at situations and life as a whole. And that just means, you know, recognizing, respecting, and responding to your emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental needs the best you can. Right. And just

Nick McGowan (24:09.324)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (24:24.888)
external circumstances or societal norms or, you know, anything that might pull you away from really truly hearing all those things about yourself and knowing what it is you really want. And too many people, especially now, because we’re getting super influenced by mega externals. Like before it was probably just our parents and maybe our school and maybe our friends. And now it’s

The whole world is influencing you in a really big way. And may and maybe T V. Like we had what, a couple of channels, right? And commercials, sure, whatever. But like I know, I think I kinda am though. I kinda am. You know, I’m I’m definitely of the age where you had to sprint to the bathroom or get some new snacks before the the commercial was over. My brother would be like, It’s pretty

Nick McGowan (24:51.181)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (24:55.916)
We’re not that old. Calm down. We had to get up and actually hit the switch and like the rabbit ears.

Nick McGowan (25:10.434)
yeah. Same, I get that. Well before TiVo. Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (25:18.22)
But but yeah, I think there’s just, you know, there’s a lot of influence. And so how do you understand what you truly want, what you truly need? How do you recognize that? How do you respect it? And I say respect because, you know, a lot of people do the mindset work where they’re like, Shut up, mind. Well, that’s not respectful to your mind, right? Like, why are you treating a major part of who you are disrespectfully? Not saying I never do it, but that’s not the way to go. Like, that’s not going to leverage.

your mind, your body, and your soul to get what you want out of life and perform at a really high level if that’s what you want and whatever you’re doing. Cause when I say perform at a high level, I don’t mean like you’re some CEO or something. I mean this can be Parenting. This can be being a friend. This can be, you know, picking up a new hobby and just enjoying it. And so that’s my POV on it all. And I really I’ve really thought a lot about this ’cause I wanted to try to containerize what I experienced so other people might use it as a tool.

And there’s a lot more layers to that. When I say honor yourself, there’s a lot of layers to that because there’s a lot of layers to your mind and your body and your soul and your emotions and how to deal with all of that. but that’s a that’s effectively the way I look at it. And, you know, a lot of people spend their time focusing on, you know, what’s my purpose? What’s my purpose? And within the honor you thought process, my my definition of that is fulfilling your soul’s desires. And that can mean

You want to start baking cakes because that’s fun to you. And that can mean also that maybe you ha wanna have start a family. That can also mean you wanna be in marketing, right? So so many people are focused on purpose with regard to thinking one thing and one thing only in life. And it’s like no wonder we’re driving ourselves bonkers with this, right? So I think if I were to offer anything to your listeners, I would say that.

start thinking about what does honoring yourself mean to you specifically and know that purpose is not just one thing. It’s fulfilling your soul’s desire. So your job in life is to figure out what does your soul actually want at any given point and having like giving yourself the permission to make make changes around that if that if that is appropriate for you at the time. And knowing that when you are having anxiety or Stress symptoms is what I like to call them too is when there’s when you’re experiencing things.

Melissa Coloton (27:40.065)
It’s not to be ignored. It’s actu it’s actually to be recognized, respected, and responded to in an appropriate way so that you don’t find yourself waking up one day and be like, How did I get here? And you know, I call it the ants marching syndrome or like, you know, going down the river syndrome, right? You just jump on a raft and you get told what to do to your point earlier. You get told go to college, get married, have children, stay for Retirement, retire and die. Like gross. Yeah. Like what are we even doing?

Nick McGowan (28:06.316)
No thanks.

Melissa Coloton (28:09.344)
And a lot of people are going check, check, check, check, check. And then they get to a point where they’re like, What am I actually doing right now? Like I’m not very happy. So then, of course, what ends up happening is everybody starts reaching externally and trying to figure out where the happiness is for them. And that looks better on some people than others. You know, it’s like some people get really fucked up trying to do that because they’ll reach for drugs or alcohol or a whole like plethora of things that don’t serve them. So

Nick McGowan (28:37.25)
Hmm. Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (28:38.508)
Yeah, it’s a really long-winded way, but that’s that’s my POV now because I didn’t do any of those things before. I just I I was on the river of life and it was working really well for me because I was making good money. I had you know, just kept going up in the in the ladder, right? That’s what I’m supposed to do. And then before you know it, I was not happy. I had tons of stress symptoms, and I did that twice.

The first time being a lot worse than the second time because the first time I didn’t have any of these tools. At least the second time it was like, shoot, here I am again, completely dishonoring myself, doing things that are not what I desire. And I’m just doing it for the money effectively, or to kind of show I could do it or prove a point or not fuck up. Like it wasn’t it wasn’t out of pure joy, I’ll tell you that. So

Nick McGowan (29:25.464)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (29:30.956)
Yeah. Most things that we do aren’t out of pure joy because we feel we have to do certain things, etc. I think you brought up a really good point. I’m glad you bring this up. In fact, I appreciate when anybody brings up the word purpose because we can all look at purpose differently. It’s wild to me when people think that there’s one purpose. Like this is the one thing you’re here to do. And I’ve I’ve learned that that’s not the case, that it’s more so contextual based on the time, where we’re at, like.

Melissa Coloton (29:34.837)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (29:51.808)
Worst.

Nick McGowan (29:59.458)
You and I have podcasts 40 years ago. If we were born in the 50s or 60s, we wouldn’t have had a podcast because it didn’t, it wasn’t a thing at that point, but it would have shown up differently. So us being able to take how we show up in the world, what our flavor is, and what we bring to just being authentically us is the most important component of that. But it’s hard for us to get through those layers at times.

Melissa Coloton (30:08.585)
Right.

Right.

Melissa Coloton (30:22.519)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (30:25.996)
Like everything that you’re saying, it’s like there’s a deeper foundational layer to it. Even of like, well, I’m doing this because I want to look better, or I’m doing this because I want to do that. Like there’s a level of self awareness to that. And also, what the fuck? Why? Why, why are you doing in that sort of way? And what are you trying to get out of it? I I’ve I get really worried for some people at times when they get stuck in those loops, because you’ve seen stuff like when you’re a

Melissa Coloton (30:39.423)
Ha ha ha.

Melissa Coloton (30:44.802)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (30:53.142)
And I don’t wanna say ahead or above or anything. You’re just at a different level of your own journey where you can look and go, man, I see you’re gonna drive directly into a wall. I wanna help you. But if you don’t want any help, then fucking at least put your buckle on, like, just see, please, like, please don’t die. but I do think it’s important for us to understand what our purpose looks like through the work that we do. So think about what you’ve done in sales. You’ve learned a lot from sales.

Melissa Coloton (31:03.231)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (31:07.479)
Right.

Melissa Coloton (31:10.838)
Right. Mm.

Melissa Coloton (31:16.29)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (31:22.798)
You learned a lot from the farms, learned a lot from what your parents did, what they didn’t do, all these things. And that all ties into work that you do now. But you needed to go through and experience all those things so you can go, hold on, time out. I need to look at this differently. What do I do? How do I get past this, et cetera? And how do I actually do this work? If you were just to tell somebody, hey, you need to do these 400 things that I did, your list was probably 40 times that. But like that, even that list, they’d be like, no, hell no.

I don’t want any parts of that. Do you think I can just throw it into Claude and Claude will fix it for me? Or you think I can have AI do a thing for me or whatever? Because there’s a deeper foundational layer to that of us all trying to do more instead of understanding there’s systems at play that are telling us we’re not enough instead of going, well, what am I here for? What do I actually need to do on this planet? So for the people that are on their own path towards self-mastery, what advice do you give them to show up and be them on this planet?

Melissa Coloton (32:10.53)
Right. Right.

Melissa Coloton (32:19.498)
Yeah. I I would say don’t outsource. I know you really triggered me when you just said that. Cause so many Yeah, really like it really is like people and but you know, and I would say that anyway, probably because we we even if right before AI, even before AI, we’re outsourcing to the external. We’re really outsourcing to what are people gonna think and

Nick McGowan (32:26.798)
I didn’t mean to set you up for that one.

Melissa Coloton (32:47.998)
what if I do this or what if I don’t do that? And some of some people external, you know, look for the external to fix their emotions instead of just feeling them, right? Or trying to cover them up. So there’s it’s the you know, it’s the tale of of time, right? It’s just like something we’ve always done and we probably will always continue to do. And it’s just getting in a different context now. So I would say like, you know, don’t don’t outsource your

Nick McGowan (32:55.501)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (33:15.818)
life and don’t outsource help having something external help you figure out what it is that you love and what it is that you enjoy. And I always say emotions, your excuse me, your soul speaks in emotions. And if we can really not just intellectualize that, but truly understand that, then we’ll start paying attention a lot more. Like, boy, that made me feel real shitty when that person talked to me that way. Okay, what’s that about?

Nick McGowan (33:40.034)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (33:43.051)
Is it really cause the person that talked to me that shitty or is it because like I’m grew up with my mom talking to like that and it just triggers the fuck out of me because it might trigger me, but not you, right? Or like there’s been times where I’ve come home and told my husband, like, Can you believe blah blah blah? And he’s like, not really seeing and like

Nick McGowan (34:00.82)
Yeah, I can’t no. Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (34:02.942)
You better agree with me. So I I really think that an ability to not outsource things in your life that are so important, which are the things that matter, which are your purpose essentially. Like not to be cliche or too esoteric about it, but pay attention to where you’re at, you know, pay attention to your thoughts. I mean meditate. I like

Nick McGowan (34:18.284)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (34:30.752)
On my podcast not long ago, I like literally yelled at people. I was just like, If if you’re too busy to meditate, like the fuck are you even talking about? Like if you sit in a line to pick your kids up for twenty, thirty minutes, like close your eyes for a second and just like focus and see what see what you’re like, watch your thoughts, see what happens. You know, like people are just so busy. There’s like, I can’t have I can’t find time for that. No, you actually can’t sit with yourself for more than 10 minutes without picking up your phone or like watching a TV. Like

Nick McGowan (34:56.034)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (34:58.232)
Pay attention to that. Like that means something. So yeah, I mean I I just think we’re widely outsourcing and w it’s getting probably worse before it’s getting better, unfortunately. but I just think it’s a different version of it now than it probably was however many hundreds of years ago. So, yeah, I would say don’t outsource and you know, on the tail end of that I would say like don’t sit in your shit and then complain about it being stinky either. Right? There’s a time and a place to to

to mourn things or to be upset about things or to f really feel things and and experience them one hundred percent from an emotional standpoint. But it’s gotta go through the cycle. We can’t get stuck in part of the cycle, right? I always I always talk about like things are very cyclical as as it relates to nature. And if you get stuck in winter, you get stuck in spring. You like you just can’t do that. You have to keep it moving and let it go through this whole cycle. And yeah, don’t complain if

You’re sitting in your shit constantly and and you’re c you’re like saying, why does it stink all the time? It’s like, Well, because you just sit there and you’re shit

Nick McGowan (36:01.198)
Look at it. Yeah. I think it’s a good point too to point out that it you shouldn’t outsource everything. We actually need to do more of our own work on our own to figure out what parts of it and all. And also that doesn’t take away from reaching out to other people or specifically having practitioners or different modalities that you go through to be able to help you with those things because we can’t just mindset our way through it.

Melissa Coloton (36:12.917)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (36:25.217)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (36:27.65)
We can’t just think about those things and we can’t say like it’s going to be okay. There are different times you have to do work. As you know, you do that work. But being able to take from that to say that those things that we keep coming up against that keep rubbing us a weird way or making us feel some sort of way, that’s the crux moment where I think it can be easiest to just go, well, that sucks. I don’t like the thing. And then the run away instead of being like, this keeps coming back. So what do I do with it?

Melissa Coloton (36:28.064)
Right.

Melissa Coloton (36:35.362)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (36:47.436)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (36:51.778)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Nick McGowan (36:55.96)
Because then that’s really the start. Like you may have to talk to somebody. You may just have to sit by yourself for a few minutes to go, well, what the fuck? What is the thing? But you’re still going to need to go through that process to do it. and it helps us uncover what our purpose is through that to go, I don’t want to do this. I want to do more of that. And really when I wake up, I really want to do these things. But I’m in this spot now. So how the fuck do I get there?

Melissa Coloton (37:02.636)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (37:18.744)
Great, that’s the next part of your journey instead of being like, well, that shit sucks and stinks. And everybody, welcome. I’m Linus. You know, like it doesn’t make sense.

Melissa Coloton (37:27.158)
Yeah. And I mean, I’m certified life coach, so one hundred percent I I think people need to get the support. And I would say even in that scenario, right, you can’t get addicted to getting everything you need. You know, if that if you are talking to someone and they’re not giving you tools to slowly but surely like, you know, when I first started seeing my life coach and acupunctures, it was every week.

Nick McGowan (37:41.88)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (37:53.933)
Then it went down to every two weeks and then it went down to every month. And now it’s mostly monthly, but I ca you know, I can definitely skip months now. Whereas before it was like, God, right? So one hundred percent and that’s kind of what I mean by like sitting in your own shit too. Like if if you’re stuck somewhere and you just can’t find your way out of that, I mean, there was literally no way I was gonna get out of my situation with anxiety by myself. I mean, right, like I even I

Nick McGowan (38:20.216)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (38:22.38)
Went to a doctor, had medication, tried to see a counselor. She was awful, no offense, but she was. So I finally landed where I landed with my life coach and acupuncturist. I wouldn’t have been able to do that solely by myself. And he didn’t tell me what to do every second of every day. He taught me how to live with myself and connect with myself. And I took that very seriously. And for a while I intellectualized it because I think we all do that, right? I’m a very like, I get it. I get it.

Nick McGowan (38:49.698)
You have to.

Melissa Coloton (38:52.332)
But then there’s gotta be, there’s gotta be a component of embodying it and actually really truly doing that that work and not just being like, I get it. Cause what ends up happening is like you’ll be okay, I get it, I get it. And then the slightest little change in the breeze will knock you over. And now you’re just right back to where you were, right? So that’s where I was for a good while. I’m like, I get it, I get it, I got this. Like I can do this, ’cause that’s how I’ve been my whole life, right? Like, tell me I’ll do something, I’ll fucking do it. You only gotta tell me once.

Nick McGowan (38:56.962)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (39:11.544)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (39:22.096)
And and and but then when with that situation I did that and then like the slightest little thing would happen and I’d be kind of right back to square one, you know, it’s like monopolies like or whatever one of those board games where you have to go all the way back to the beginning all the time. So so after a while it was like, wait, this is what I’ve been doing my whole life is intellectualizing it and not actually truly connecting with my soul. So one hundred percent agree with you. There

Nick McGowan (39:37.208)
Yeah.

Melissa Coloton (39:49.931)
that’s why people exist is to help each other in my mind, you know, in some way, shape or form. And so find that good practitioner that you can trust and won’t just let you, you know, wallow in your own shit and just have you keep coming back every week with no changes. You know, if that’s the case, then there’s probably a different practitioner for you.

Nick McGowan (40:10.529)
That’s yeah, that’s a friend at that point. Like you should stop paying them and just hang out with them if that’s what you want to do. but you’re you’re right, it’s it’s all on us. and being open to those resources, I think is really the driver of what I think about. Like going, all right, well, I’m aware of this thing. What the fuck’s near me, what’s around me? And then actually going through the layers of how do I talk to that person or what do I do? Blah, blah, blah. But being able to ask those from the initial question of what’s going on inside is going to help you. so I appreciate you getting into that, especially getting into purpose work. That’s

Melissa Coloton (40:13.432)
Right.

Melissa Coloton (40:22.555)
yeah.

Melissa Coloton (40:36.76)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (40:40.172)
Always important on the show. So thank you so much for being with us today. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect?

Melissa Coloton (40:41.496)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Coloton (40:48.128)
Yeah, the best the best place is my website, which is just melissacoloton.com. I also host a podcast myself called the Honor You Podcast. I love it when people go check that out, of course. Those are probably two the two of the best places, and that’ll direct you to all the socials and all that fun stuff. Yeah. Awesome.

Nick McGowan (41:05.23)
Cool. And I’ll have all that stuff in the show notes. Again, thank you so much for being on the call today.

Melissa Coloton (41:10.018)
Thanks for having me, Nick. It was a great conversation.