Melissa Agnes is the creator of the Crisis Ready® Model, which is recognized and being taught as leading industry best practice in the field of crisis management.
Recognized globally as an expert, thought leader and visionary in the field of crisis management, Melissa Agnes has worked with global players, including NATO, the Pentagon (DoD), Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, financial firms, technology companies, healthcare organizations, cities and municipalities, law enforcement agencies, aviation organizations, global non-profits, and many others. In 2020, Melissa founded Crisis Ready Institute, a public benefit corporation dedicated to creating a crisis-resilient world by elevating industry standards; providing training and certification programs to professionals that better protect people, brands, the environment, and the economy in times of crisis.
Her book, “Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World”, is taught in dozens of universities around the world, including at Harvard University; and is ranked amongst the leading crisis management books of all time by Book Authority; and was named one of the top ten business books of 2018 by Forbes.
In this episode, Melissa and Bryan discuss:
– The importance of letting ourselves feel our emotions, because burying them hurts our relationships as well as ourselves.
– How our past informs and shapes who we become.
– Why it is ultimately up to us to determine what happens in our lives.
The show is shared on the following platforms:
Transcript:
Bryan Wish:
Melissa, welcome to The One Away Show.
Melissa Agnes:
Bryan, thank you for having me. I’m excited and a little nervous, which is very rare for me to be here and I can explain why as we move in.
Bryan Wish:
Well, I know you’re going to share something with me you’ve never shared publicly or with anyone, or maybe you have with a few, but I’m honored to have you here and let’s dive in and see where we go. Melissa, what is the one away moment that you want to share with us today?
Melissa Agnes:
I like that you say that you want to share with us because there’s so many. So in anticipation of this conversation, I kept thinking what is the answer to that question, and I came up with two. We’re only going to go into one because I knew I had to decide. Both of them are a book. It’s the One Book Away. One of them is my book, and that one is a story that I’ve told over and over and is the purpose of my work and is very important for business and purpose and all those things. The other one is somebody else’s book and that’s the one I’m going with because I think it’s a more vulnerable conversation and that will challenge me and also hopefully, provide something very meaningful to at least a few listeners. That is my hope. So I guess I got to answer the question, is a book that, and actually, on just before we hit record, you mentioned Oprah.
And this book is, I came across this book in several different ways, but Oprah being a big part of that, I was watching one of her Super Soul Sundays recently and she mentioned this book as being the book that she credits with that pivotal moment in her life where she intentionally started going down the path that has been Oprah Winfrey as we know her and all of the incredible impact that she’s had on the world, and the book is the Seat of the Soul, and I think the one thing to me, Oprah talks about hers and Maya Angelou in the 25th edition, they both have a forward that they had provided to it. So the book speaks obviously, like everything, to different people in different ways. For me, the one takeaway from the book that I am still actually internalizing and processing and adopting is, and it goes to every aspect of life, is the notion that there are only two energies that exist, the energy of fear and the energy of love.
And if you want to look at anger, resentment, jealousy, all of those “negative emotions and energies,” they all can get distilled. If you dig deep into them, why am I feeling jealous right now? Why am I feeling insecure right now? Why am I feeling angry right now? In any given moment, if you go deep enough, you will be brought to fear. There’s something in it that you are fearful. I’m jealous because I’m fearful that I’m going to lose my spouse when fill in the blank. I am angry because I’m fearful because this situation triggers this fear in me, which is making me angry and that’s how it’s coming out. I am feeling insecure, which is the fear of, for example, not being good enough or imposter syndrome, all these things. So fear, and then the other one is love and everything that is joyous and that “positive energy.”
The energy of, as the book will say, the energy of the soul is love and is abundance and so for me, that has done a lot for me personally in terms of now, not needing to go, why do I… Not why. I understand why I feel things at this point in time in my life. I’m very self-aware and I’ve done that work, but I don’t need to go down that path anymore. I can just say, “I’m feeling insecure right now. That’s a fear.” How do you conquer fear? It’s not with more fear, and so you can choose the path of I’m angry right now, or I’m feeling insecure right now, or I’m feeling jealous right now so I’m going to take it out on, and that’s meeting fear with fear. That’s letting the fear win, or you can choose the path of meeting it with love. What is the part of me that feels insecure and how can I nourish that? How can I give that love?
What is the part of myself and my spouse that is triggering jealousy, and therefore, fear of, for example, losing that person? How can I meet that fear with love and how can I meet my spouse with love rather than with that triggered fear and letting that win, and in the work that I do, which is Crisis Ready, crisis management, I haven’t even begun to put that into words, to articulate the profoundness of what this will bring, this realization, this awakening, this interpretation, this decision to do my best to lead my life moving forward with that understanding and doing my very… I’m human. I’m going to make a ton of mistakes. I’m going to make a ton of mistakes and fear’s going to win.
And it does, but I’m consciously making the choice, the decision to, with purpose, with intentionality moving forward in my life with trying to meet my fear and to see others fear. Others, if they’re angry, if they’re fill in that blank, to see that as fear and to meet it with love, that is my intention and with my work, that is what I do in my work. That is the whole premise and the foundational values of Crisis Ready. It’s just putting it through a different lens and in different words, which will bring new intentionality and new, I think awakenings that I’m personally very excited to explore for Crisis Ready Institute, which is my company. There you go. I don’t know how that came out.
Bryan Wish:
Let’s unpack a heavy load at 10:00 AM on the west coast, so.
Melissa Agnes:
Let’s do it.
Bryan Wish:
All right. Well, one, I just want to say it’s incredible when you read something and a page just shifts you in your tracks and just completely makes you take a step back. So in fact, I had that moment when we were talking about Oprah before, crazy stuff. What I picked up on and what I build on is you, it seems what I’m hearing is having language around your emotion is very powerful because you can name the emotion, fear, but then also, fear and love, how to give love to fear and then create a better, let’s just say reality or circumstance for you. So I mean, that’s powerful in itself. So one, very cool. The question I was thinking about as you were talking was what about that? You could have read that and to turn the next page. Why did that part really make you reconsider creating awakening and did it trigger anything personally, professionally, both for you, and that’s a loaded question back, but-
Melissa Agnes:
You’re going to get a loaded answer. You ask a loaded question, you’re going to get a very loaded answer.
Bryan Wish:
There we go.
Melissa Agnes:
So I don’t, I try… Yeah, honestly, it’s a thing. It’s a core value for me. So the answer is because I was looking for, I have been searching for answers and I’ve been on this journey. So three and a half years ago, I changed my life drastically. I did a 180. I did a 180 on my life and with that came a realization that I had. I’m 36 now so I was 32, so three and a half… Yeah. I realized through this, through that journey, through those experiences, through that hardship that I have spent my entire life not allowing myself to feel negative emotion because it was either ugly or it was weak. That’s how I associated it. So I could rationalize myself out of anger every single time by putting myself in the other person’s shoes and saying, “Sure, I’m angry, but I can understand where they’re coming from.
So therefore, I’m not going to feel anger,” which is ridiculous because that just means you suppress it. Just because you can understand somebody, it just meant that I didn’t allow the energy of anger to actually exist and flow, and same with sadness. I would not allow myself to feel sad, not for more than a day because that was weak and I had to be strong. This is the self talk and so I then, when I realized that, I set out the intention that I wanted to be able to better… I wanted to be kind enough to myself that I was allowed to feel emotion and I wanted, and there’s a whole… Sorry, there’s a whole process. There’s a whole journey, but I started with needing to reprogram my brain to see vulnerability as strength, which it is, and if anybody knows Brene Brown’s work, she’s phenomenal on articulating that and bringing research to that and making very important cases for that.
So to reprogram my brain, I did two things. I told myself that it takes great strength to be vulnerable and that allowing myself to feel anger was an act of kindness towards myself. Those were the two things. That’s how I started on the journey were those two affirm… They’re not affirmations, but mantras. That took me, it’s like you decide that you want to learn this thing or self fix this piece of yourself or heal this piece of yourself, and you have no idea how big the onion is, and it’s just layer after layer and every layer reveals the next layer and the next challenge and the next realization of like, holy shit, I’m not just screwed up there. I’m screwed up here too and how do I resolve that, or how do I heal and fix that, and then that led to me saying to myself that I want to be able to enter into a relationship, an intimate relationship, a romantic relationship eventually in my life in a way that I can be vulnerable.
And I’ve been in long term relationships. I was in a 12 year relationship. We were married. It was a beautiful relationship, but for me, the way that I’m wired, I’m crisis ready. That’s my brand. That’s the way that my brain works. So I’ve always had, while both feet were in the relationship, one foot was always pointed towards the door. I was always ready to go and I was always looking for the thing, “the other shoe to drop,” the thing that would mean that we’re not meant to be together or the thing that would mean I would get hurt, and that is where my mindset goes and then where your attention goes, that’s your energy flows type thing. So you kind of create these things and so when I made the intention, when I set the intention that I want to be able to have, be in a relationship with both feet in and both feet towards the relationship and not towards the door, I had no idea the world of…
It’s like, I lived my life with this very, very protective armor on all the time, all the time. I was crisis ready. I was strong. I was powerful. Nothing penetrated me. Nothing made me angry. Nothing made me sad. Nothing stopped me in my tracks, nothing. I just kept plowing through and I built my business and I did a bunch of things, great things. So when you start to remove the armor, you realize how uncomfortable it is, how this has been your protective mechanism your entire life, and now you’re saying, “Hey, I’m going to remove the armor and do my best to be vulnerable and let somebody in and be okay with that and lean into that,” when everything about your being is screaming, “Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out. You’re not safe. You’re not safe.” So it’s been a journey. So to answer your question, at this point in my journey, I’m three and a half years into the journey. I have a boyfriend, who’s an incredible human.
I’ve been trying to work through this and trying to understand why I feel certain ways when I feel them and how to overcome that because again, it’s just about vulnerability. I’m not great yet with vulnerability and I want to be, so I kept challenging myself and I kept, even just the fact of needing to know, I felt like an infant. I really, and it was really frustrating, but needing to really understand and learn how to process the emotion of anger because it’s strong and when you actually let it surface and be present, that is a very strong energy, and I felt like an infant because I suppressed it for 32 plus years. When I now started to allow myself to feel it, I had no idea what to do with it. What do you do with this feeling? It’s not comfortable, it doesn’t feel good. How do you evacuate it without lashing out, which something I refused to do.
So how do you do that in a productive way? I had to learn those things and so then I got to the point in the journey where it was, I understand what I’m feeling now. I understand that this is what anger feels like. I understand that this is what jealousy feels like. I understand that this is what insecurity feels like. I understand that this is what vulnerability feels like and what it triggers in me, and so for me to then say at this point, none of that matters. It doesn’t matter if it’s insecurity. It doesn’t matter what triggered. It doesn’t matter. It’s all fear. It’s all fear of being exposed and fear of being not good enough or whatever it is, but it’s fear, and then the whole premise, the whole concept of how do you beat fear? How do you overcome fear? How do you disempower fear with love? To me, that’s a beautiful energy.
Bryan Wish:
Wow. So the reason that you were seeing my face, maybe one, I was getting chills, two, have been on a very similar journey in the last year. So everything you were saying made beyond sense and-
Melissa Agnes:
I think a lot of people.
Bryan Wish:
And I just want to acknowledge it’s not easy work to lean into and it’s so painful, but the fact that you’ve taken it on. So it sounds like instead of bury it further, more power to you and-
Melissa Agnes:
Takes one to know one.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. So one incredible healing journey you’ve taken on. So, and also, I really resonated with, it sounds like you, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but built this functional fortress of functional resiliency around you.
Melissa Agnes:
Absolutely. I built a whole business around it. Crisis Ready is taking the way that my brain works and all of my lived experiences as a child and saying, here’s how you apply it to protect your business in a very good way, in a very strong and very good way.
Bryan Wish:
Right. I mean, a lot of good comes out of the bad. So it’s some good gratitude or silver linings there. So I want to ask two things, and feel free to say we can’t go there, but what was the trigger moment, if you had one, that really led you into this journey, and then I want to build on that and the follow-up is I would… A lot of this, as you said, stems from childhood so if willing, would love to maybe have you share some of these experiences that made you build this functional fortress around yourself to protect yourself. So maybe if there was a specific moment in time that you couldn’t outrun the heaviness of life and you had to face it head on was, there any point in time that I need to go down this path?
Melissa Agnes:
The heaviness of life has always, I’ve always faced it head on and headstrong. I’ve always had a very strong… I’ve been gifted because this is something I think a lot of people either don’t have or have to learn. I was gifted in my personality at birth with a very, very strong sense of self. So I’ve always known what I believe to be right and what I want for myself, and I’ve always had a very strong conviction in I don’t sit back and let injustices happen in front of me. I’m very headstrong and that was very… We can go into a little bit more detail, but so I think to me, it was two things. To answer your first question, it was two things. It was one, the realization that I remember after I changed my life or I did a 180 on my life, I went and I saw my friend recommended an energy healer.
And so I’m on his table and I won’t go into the specifics, but what came out of it was he said, “You have so much, so much suppressed anger that I don’t even know how you’re functioning,” and my response was like, “What are you talking about? I don’t have anything to be angry at or angry with. I don’t know what he’s talking about,” but it stuck. I remembered it. I remember it to this day and that led down to the journey of, is he right? I could feel what he was feeling so that was something. It wasn’t just made up. I could feel it and he’s associating it to anger and he’s the expert. So that led down the journey of realizing that I was very, very good with that self-fortress and with not feeling the emotions that I deemed ugly or weak, and then so that was the first, I think the path, the awakening that led to that path.
And then the very, very real answer was that really helped me realize the extent of how strong it is to want to self protect and the way that manifests for me is just starting a new relationship and going into it and saying, “I want to be open and I want to…” And realizing that somebody, myself, who is a great communicator, somebody who has always, who is very honest, somebody who has always been very strong and all these things and realizing that the emotions could overtake me. Not that I would lash out, but they could, in my being, could overwhelm me so much that I literally felt that I couldn’t move. Literally, physically felt that if I moved from the spot that I was standing in, that I would implode into 1,000,005 pieces. It was that strong and trying to understand what the fuck is going on. What the fuck is going… Nothing happened to trigger this, nothing.
And then realizing it down with the work that it’s because I was letting somebody in and every single, on a cellular level, it was flight or fiight. It was that defense mechanism saying this is dangerous. Leave, leave, leave, leave, and me standing going, I don’t want to leave and so there was this confliction of my being and my will, and that, to me, when I say that I’m headstrong, that doesn’t get to win. So the work is when you say the work is painful, it is painful beyond belief and it is relentless and it is, you get to a point at some point, I think, I hope, I’m working towards it where it’s healed, but going through that journey is very, very hard. It’s very painful, but also in my mind, that headstrongness is it doesn’t get to win. It doesn’t get to rule my life. I choose differently.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Wow. What perspective, what awareness, and you talked about peeling the onion, but everything you were talking about, you have one foot in, one foot out given your responses to things. Even though you want to be there with two feet, it’s like you’re being can’t, which I think is a great segue to, and again, I want to be cautious of what I’m saying and make sure I’m saying it correctly, but what I’m hearing you say is there’s where you feel this the most or where there’s the most emotional maybe trauma could be around trust per se and letting people in. Can you tell me more about maybe perhaps why this specificity around trust and letting people in and perhaps anything prior that has created this negative or positive-
Melissa Agnes:
I think that with anything, like anything, it all stems from our childhood. That’s one thing that I think is a through line for all of us humans, our formative years. I was born into… My parents love us, but you can only do the best that you can do with what you know and what you have, and I know that today and I honor that today, but my household, my dad left when I was young. He moved to the other side of the country and started a different family. My mom made some poor decisions that subjected us… I was the oldest of five kids, four kids really because my dad had one so I count him, but he wasn’t a part of my growing up, and we were in a very unstable, highly emotionally abusive environment in which, because of how I am and how I see the world, I remember being, and this goes to Crisis Ready. I was very young.
I don’t know, 12, let’s say at start because that’s when she met the husband of my brother and sister at the time, and he was off the walls. I was able to understand what I could do to soothe the situation, not just for the moment, but hopefully for tomorrow morning as well and I took on that responsibility because that’s also in my nature to be the adult to protect my siblings, especially my sister, my poor sister or my full blood sister because we were the two older ones and also the ones who got the worst of it, and I don’t know. I was the protector and I had an ability and I knew that I did so therefore, it became my responsibility to soothe a very chaotic, very irrational, a very emotionally abusive situation over and over again, and then I don’t even know how to communicate this.
But with the intention of not just for the moment, but for as long as possible, how can I make this extend as long as possible? At 18, I dropped out of school and I took custody of my sister because I believed that I fought for custody of my sister and I won because I believed that she’d either end up pregnant or in a body bag and that was not okay with me and nobody else was going to do anything so I did it. So I’ve always had this innate personally, I suppose, that takes responsibility. If nobody else is going to do it, same thing I’m doing in my industry or same thing that when I started in this industry, it’s nobody else is going to do it the right way, the way that puts people first and the way that saves lives and doesn’t create trauma, then I’m going to stand up and do it. So that was my household. That was being in my household was very turbulent, was very unstable, and was very fucked up.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Wow. Which is hard because you never get to build that self, that foundation of self when it-
Melissa Agnes:
So that, for me, isn’t true. It doesn’t ring true because, and that’s where I say that I was gifted at birth with a very strong sense of self. Even through all of that, I knew who I was. I knew what was right and what was wrong. I stood up even if it came with hell. I stood up for what was right against what was wrong and I refused to do anything else. However, I also counted down the years until I could move out, and on my 18th birthday, I had my apartment lined up. It had the rent paid. It was just waiting for my legal signature and I was gone. I was out.
Bryan Wish:
Wow.
Melissa Agnes:
But I also had the self-awareness that again, I feel that I’m very grateful for, that it’s something that I was given or that I was born with that could look at a situation and decipher, this is not right. This is the deeper context of it. So when I say that I can rationalize myself out of anger, I could also see the pain of the adults in the household. I could see that they were hurting and that this was their way of existing in that pain. It wasn’t right so I stood up for it, but I also had compassion for it and I could also see that I want differently for myself. I’m going to choose differently for my life.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. I see. Well, thank you for clarifying and I think what you’re saying is you’re super present to everything going on around you, but how you chose to perhaps suppress the emotion at the time is what was a coping mechanism to get the [inaudible 00:26:44] figure it out.
Melissa Agnes:
There was no space for my emotion. There was no space for [inaudible 00:26:49].
Bryan Wish:
Okay. So we’re starting to put some of these pieces together here, and one-
Melissa Agnes:
It feels like a therapy session at this point. I don’t know if this is interesting to people.
Bryan Wish:
Well, I’m sure for people… I mean, it’s nice to talk about things that matter and things that will maybe inspire other people to take on a journey like you have, or maybe look at their life introspectively or in the mirror and say, oh, maybe there’s more for me I need to dive into, which is just hard to do consciously or unconsciously. So thank you for sharing maybe the last couple years and also maybe what led up to it. So before I move on or segue, is there anything else from the childhood time to then getting to where you are that you think is important to gloss over before I can shift the conversation?
Melissa Agnes:
Honestly, I think that it’s for whomever this resonates with, it’s that what you feel matters. What you do with it also matters, and that if you’re in a situation that doesn’t feel right or that is abusive or that you’re just not happy with, you’re allowed to choose differently for yourself.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Melissa Agnes:
Whatever, that’s hard.
Bryan Wish:
I heard a quote the other day and it was like, “Make your pain your superpower,” or something and I like it because you’re speaking with such conviction around your own experience and I think you really articulate and beautiful way. So thanks for sharing with us today. So this healing journey that you have been down, what have been some of the components that you have taken on? It sounds like some energy work, what have been some of the things that you have had to do for yourself to really process and start understanding the past?
Melissa Agnes:
I did a lot of it on my own up until I was about 32, until I changed my life. I was very good at, again, having critical thought. I was very good at being very self-aware. I was very good at challenging myself. I went through something else when I was 16 that made me, at 21, scared for my life for a solid year and so scared to go outside, but pushing myself to do that, knowing that if I do it today, it’ll be easier tomorrow. So I’ve been very good at that. Again, that is, I believe a blessing that I’ve been born with that I’m very, very, very grateful for and that I credit. It’s not me. It’s whatever that gift is, and then at 32, when I made these really big realizations and I realized that they’re so much bigger than me and I’ve gotten this far, which I’m not knocking it.
At 32, I was in a great place professionally. I was in a great place within myself and who I was, but I realized that this next journey was going to require more than just me and so I’m not religious. I wasn’t born with religion. I’ll credit my mom for when I asked questions about different religions, she would find the… She didn’t just send me to Sunday school at some point. She also went to church so she could answer my question so that’s super great on her that she did that, but I’ve always been more spiritual than I’ve always just felt this connection with what I call the universe. Other people call it God. I think it’s probably one in the same. It’s just different language. Maybe I’m wrong, and then this strong sense of self. So what I’ve done, I’ve tried therapy. I tried it once.
It didn’t seem to help because it didn’t seem to give me the profound answers that I needed. I understood the whys and the, where things were rooted. I needed something more homeopathy helps for me, especially considering my homeopath is an incredible being. I can’t even describe the power of this, of what she is, of who she is. Having spiritual advisors helps. A person, one person in particular who creates a space for me that’s safe, that I get to journey inward and asks my, whether you call it your heart or God or your higher self, questions and get to feel the truth that is mine because just because somebody’s… Somebody’s truth isn’t necessarily your truth, and everybody can give you great or poor advice in business, as well as in relationships or in life. They can say you’re with the wrong person or you’re making the wrong decision in your business.
And they might be right, but what matters is that no matter what, you have the answer within you. We have all of the answers within us. So for me, it’s been trying to unlock those answers and it’s been incremental and it’s, again, it’s a journey, and the most recent path of this journey is finding this book and the fear versus love or meeting fear with love and that language speaks to me. I don’t know if I’m on a tangent right now, but I think it’s just resources. So a lot of self care. I know what I need. I know the different resources and different things that I need to feel connected with myself, and this is personal and professional. When I’m connected with myself, I can hear the answers within myself.
I can go deeper within those answers and I can make the best choices and alignment with my life purpose and my objectives and my business and my personal life, and I think that has been, sometimes I fall out of that. Sometimes I fall back into it. Every time I fall out of it, I go haywire inside and make probably some poor decisions. Every time I get back into it, I remember about it. So it’s become this practice and conscious practice or dedicated practice of how do I do this every day? How do I consciously tap into myself and listening to myself every day so that, one, I can heal in different areas that I’ve chosen, that I want to heal as a human, and two, I can make the best decisions for myself, my business, and my life?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Wow. Incredible. I mean, just incredible to hear you share it, talking about getting in the heart and really, like you said, listening, and I love what you said about having the right answers. You’re right. Anyone else can tell you what you think, but the higher force, you know when you’re dialed in and-
Melissa Agnes:
We have all of our answers within us. It’s just sometimes really, really hard to hear them and so what do you need to do, and this are my questions I ask myself regularly, what do you need to do to unblock whatever’s blocking those answers from being heard?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Melissa Agnes:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
I mean, incredible stuff and an incredible journey from someone who, for so long, protected emotional feelings and thoughts and-
Melissa Agnes:
This is very uncomfortable for me right now.
Bryan Wish:
Well, I think that’s good and I hope I’m making-
Melissa Agnes:
It’s not uncomfortable in a bad way. It’s uncomfortable in a really great way and the conversation helps me to better process things, and also, like I said going in, if what I’m saying can resonate in a meaningful and powerful way for anybody, any one person listening, then that is worth the uncomfortableness.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Absolutely, and thank you. I’m very grateful you’re sharing it here with me. I’m sure you could do it in a lot of other places, but I admire your journey and acknowledge it and I’m just, chills on this end. So I want to ask, you started out the conversation about reading the fear versus love and how we approach things. You talked about childhood, you’ve talked about the healing journey and creating space to go inside. Now that you’re, I’m not saying healed, but now that you have this awareness and you are where you are on your journey with, I just say probably a lot of profound insights at the core of the onion, how do you see this, maybe these shifts inside? How are you noticing yourself showing up differently with your work and your relationships? I think of the blend of life, but where are you noticing from an external point of view, you showing up in a different way than you maybe were three years ago, five years ago?
Melissa Agnes:
For the last… So the question or the answer definitely has a dot, dot, dot at the end of it because I’m not healed yet. I’m just coming into it, but I do believe I’m coming into it. The last three years, when I talk about having to peel back the blockages to hear, the work, the personal work that I’ve done over the last three years has of course affected, it’s taken a lot of energy so it’s affected, impacted a bunch of different areas. Right now, I feel like I’m coming back, I’m going to use the words I’m coming back into my power, is exciting and feels like I can breathe a little bit the way that I haven’t been able to breathe in the last three years by choice. This is everything is choice. I chose to go down this journey and excited to feel the reenergization that I’m feeling in my business, revitalize. I’m breathing new life into my business.
I’m breathing new life into the work that I do. I’m breathing new life into myself and my relationships and my personal life, and I just really do… It really is a dot, dot, dot because in hopefully in a month, I’ll be even further down and in 10 months, I’ll be even further down and if we were to have this conversation then, I’ll be like, this is where I am and I’m great, but I’m getting there, and then with regards to, like you said, the last three years or five years ago or 10 years ago, I think that feeling or that knowledge of coming back into my power, meaning coming back into the core of myself and everything that I have, what’s unique and special about me and that I can give to the world through my work and through just interactions every day.
We all have a responsibility to do our best to make the world a better place every day, and even if it’s just in a smile to somebody, that’s my belief. It’s exciting because I know that while some of it feels, I don’t know if this is going to make any sense to anybody, but while some of it feels like coming back into home, this piece, this core piece of who you are and what you’re capable of and your love and all these things, that is… What’s the word? It’s a feeling that I know. It feels like coming back into, not experiencing for the first time, I think is what I’m trying to say. It’s coming back into. However, what’s exciting is that it’s stronger and bigger and has more capacity than it ever did before.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Melissa Agnes:
I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Bryan Wish:
Well, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, what I feel like you’re saying is I’ve let go of all this baggage and weight around me, and now my true essence can bloom and you’re seeing it bloom in front of you, and now it’s like, well, dot, dot, dot. Well, what if that’s magnified? Well, how big can my power be? Not in a I’m going to go attain power in that way, but power of-
Melissa Agnes:
Not external power. It’s that inner power. It’s that inner… Yeah. It’s the essence of who you are and why you’re here and how I can serve and everything that I do, I do the work that I do because I want the world to be a better place and I don’t accept where we’re at, and I know that I have a gift or a talent or a skill set that can lend to that, that can contribute to that, and it’s the thing that keeps me waking up every morning and it’s the thing that drives me and it’s the thing that frustrates me and it’s the thing that excites me, and so even just knowing that coming back into myself in this stronger way, to your point, I’m really excited to see what does that mean for the work that I do? What does that mean for the impact that I can have in a positive way to contribute to alleviating a little bit of suffering for others?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. I mean, it’s an exciting dot, dot, dot, dot.
Melissa Agnes:
It’s an exciting. It’s also very scary because the universe tests and you’re always presented. So tests come up, you fail them. Go ahead.
Bryan Wish:
Question, I don’t want [inaudible 00:39:52], and again, I’m sorry if in advance, if I’m making connections that I shouldn’t, but-
Melissa Agnes:
No, you’re good. I’ll let you know.
Bryan Wish:
Is it scary because in a prior life that you are creating a lot of protection mechanisms, let’s just say for yourself, functionalizing the business in a way was a safety net for you to exist and control because you can numb elsewhere, whereas now, you talked about serving and you’re in this kind of blended area where it’s your essence and you’re not… Maybe I’m hearing you say it too, but you’re not controlling everything and you’re letting yourself come forth. The business is part of it and it’s kind of like a vehicle. There’s more unknowns because you’re letting yourself become more fully expressed. Is that fair to say, a feeling of like control prior versus now, walking into the abyss of life? I’m just curious.
Melissa Agnes:
And also, so when I founded Crisis Ready Institute, I experienced a lot of imposter syndrome unlike I’d ever experienced before. All of a sudden, I wasn’t just a solopreneur and a keynote speaker. I was creating something much bigger than myself that is founded to in a hundred years after I’m dead to still be a force for good in the world. That is a big undertaking. That’s a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. It’s great in theory, great in concept, great in conversation. When you get down to how am I going to do this and am I good enough to do this, that’s weighty. So the whole, bringing back to answer your question and to contribute to what you’re saying.
Bringing back to the start of this conversation where we say meet fear with love, that to me, all of a sudden, I’m like this imposter syndrome. I’m like, well, that’s just fear and if I meet it with love and I give it my all and I have the best intentions behind it, I know what I’m capable of. I know the impact that I’ve had and can continue to have if I just don’t let fear win. So coming back full circle to that fear and love, it’s not just in the personal sense. It’s in the profession. It’s in all of the dynamics of our being and being human.
Bryan Wish:
Well. Yeah, absolutely. And when you take this journey and these learnings and just this new sense of self, and let’s just say, bring it into your business to help others in these crisis situations, how are you looking at maybe perhaps with this fear and love concept in mind, but how are you looking at perhaps serving as a mission level differently within your business with this personal development under your belt?
Melissa Agnes:
It’s a question as we’re talking, and it’s the second or third time that I felt this in the last couple weeks. Everybody wanted me to write a book or everybody kept asking me, when are you going to write a book? My book was published in 2018. So I started in 2017 and the answer was when I have a book to write, when I feel like it’s not just when I have something to contribute that is going to be meaningful, that isn’t just going to add to the noise. I’m not just going to add. Today, just in this moment, a few minutes ago, few moments ago, I think it’s the second or the third time that I’m starting to feel a book brewing and I have no idea. So the answer to your question is, I don’t know. I have no idea. I’m still on the journey. I haven’t reached…
I’m not on the next journey yet and going like, this is what I learned because, and this is what came out of it because this is what I went through. I’m going, this is what I’m going through. Here’s where I’m at in it and I’m excited at this point for where it’s going to take me and where it’s going to take the work and where it’s going to have impact that’s positive, and even just the concept of there’s a book brewing. I have no idea what that book is. I have no idea what that book is. It might be a personal crisis or anything. It might be, I have no idea, but even just that is really exciting.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Oh, it’s exciting. Absolutely. You can just see it in the way you’re talking, just your energy and your voice. Yeah. You get to peel back and walk into something new and the whole-
Melissa Agnes:
Without fear. That’s the goal, without fear.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Another quote I heard too, it’s like when you do the work on yourself, so when you go in and rewire and do all the things, your relationship now with the world is completely different and how you show up for it. So it’s like that discomfort to every… I mean, I’m validating everything you’re saying in a very simple way.
Melissa Agnes:
And the way that you get to show up for people who you love.
Bryan Wish:
Tell me more.
Melissa Agnes:
Well, in the sense of if the showing… So even just looking at my relationship, showing up… I don’t even know how to say it and I don’t want to go into intimates, but being a better version of myself or the next best, the next evolution of myself to be able to have a stronger capacity to receive and give love in my relationships that are the most meaningful to me, and putting and giving that, sharing that with the people who fill my heart, who deserve it, whom I love, even that is an exciting thought for me.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. So cool. I have one more question, if you don’t mind me-
Melissa Agnes:
Yeah. Go ahead We’re here. Let’s do it.
Bryan Wish:
You talked about, and maybe we could bring this back to everything we’ve talked about. You talked about the way you grew up and it’s made you protect yourself from relationships, and now you’ve done the work and you said I’m ready to show up in a relationship and be vulnerable, so that’s great. That’s great work in progress and that’s beautiful that you are saying, I want to go do that and to give that as a gift to someone else. I’m curious, if you mind me asking, your partner, I think it probably takes a special someone on the other side as well maybe perhaps to create a space for you to show up in that way and feel trusted and safe. So you said he was amazing. I’m curious, what is it about your partner that has made it so special and beautiful in a way that maybe you haven’t been able to experience or experience in a way for the first time, it feels so lively or I don’t know? I’m just curious.
Melissa Agnes:
There’s a lot. He has shown me patience and understanding and emotional intelligence and wisdom in a way that I could have never asked for because I didn’t know what to ask for, and it clearly, when somebody’s working on themself and going through it and being challenged by the universe and failing a lot of times, it’s hard on both. It’s painful for both, but to have somebody that sits there and will sit in it with you and hold your hand and let you talk or not talk and not want to fix it for you, but just be there with you.
And hold that space with you and for you, I think that has been, that is a gift and a blessing and something that I am beyond words, profoundly grateful for and something that I didn’t even know was a thing, nevermind the thing that I needed and to have somebody to just intuitively because of the nature of who they are, to show up in that capacity makes me want to give back all of the love, that all of this new capacity and just do right for and by that person.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Wow. That’s incredible that this person has sat with you in the mud and held the hand and listened and spoken back when you needed and perhaps got it in ways that you never imagined. So I’m so happy that you’ve had a partner in the work and you get to experience love on that level. So this has been, it’s fun because I don’t prep really. I mean, I prep to a degree.
Melissa Agnes:
You ask a question and you see where it goes.
Bryan Wish:
Nice to see you’re open. So I’m so thankful for you sharing this. So we can end there and then I would love to, and you feel to share any final thoughts and then we would love… Where can people find you on, what makes you sustain your life and where you have impact, I’d love for you to share your impact.
Melissa Agnes:
Yeah, absolutely. Melissa Agnes. So you can, I mean, Crisis Ready Institutes at crisisreadyinstitute.com is the business. It’s my work, but Melissa Agnes, you can just Google me and I think a couple things to end, one, The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav. I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that properly, but that is the book that I mentioned for anybody who was wondering and maybe didn’t catch it, and two, this is a new journey for me obviously, but most importantly, I think this is a new thing that I’m sharing with people, that I’m articulating out loud.
And so that said, I always kind of, when I do this stuff, it’s always usually business or it’s always personally business development or different things so I say reach out if you have questions. If anybody has anything that resonated with them, I’d love to hear about that or sharing whatever you want to share because it’s new for me. So to hear what lands and what resonates and what has meaning, and then I can use my platforms to grow that or to nourish or nurture that, and… What’s the word? I’m losing my words today. To finesse that so that I can do that again for others, that would be meaningful to me.
Bryan Wish:
Amazing. Wow. Well, I’m sure. I hope many take you up on that. Sounds like a journey you perhaps could be embarking on a deeper way in the future.
Melissa Agnes:
Who knows? Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
And people can find you where?
Melissa Agnes:
At Melissa Agnes. So on Instagram, on LinkedIn, melissaagnes.com is my speaker website, crisisreadyinstitute.com. You can also just email melissa@ melissaagnes.com.
Bryan Wish:
Awesome. Well, what a treat today. Thank you for doing this with us and excited to see where your journey takes you.
Melissa Agnes:
Awesome. Thanks, Bryan.