Corporate to Freelance with Melody Burdette

SEASON 7, EPISODE 8

A very overdone and true statement about freelancing is: “You’re running a business!” Businesses of all sizes have things like income targets, goals, creative direction—and even business plans! While some of those terms can sound a bit like “corporate speak,” these ways of doing things and problem solving in the corporate world can also be applied to your freelance business.

In this episode, Wudan talks to Melody Burdette. Melody is a freelance content strategist and copywriter based out of Billie, her Ford Transit. (Yes, that’s a van.) She spent the early part of her career working in editorial and e-commerce, and more recently in startups as a content strategist and copywriter. You can follow her on Instagram at @melskyburd and stay up-to-date with her course @PlayBigPlayBook.

Wudan and Melody talk more about how to check in with your business on a regular basis – the same way that any company performs quarterly or annual reviews – and how to set up your own business retreat.

Full Transcript Below:

Wudan Yan- Hi, everyone. Welcome back to this month's episode of the Writers' Co-op. We are an anti-hustle business podcast for freelance creatives everywhere. And I'm Wudan Yan, your host. A very overdone and true statement about freelancing is: You're running a business. Okay. How many times have we heard that one? If you're a sole proprietor, you're not only the person doing the creative work, but you are your own chief marketing director, social media manager, web developer, and so much more. But businesses also have, like goals. Actually not "like" goals. Businesses have goals. They have business plans, income targets, creative direction, deliverables, and goals for each quarter. This corporate speak can..well...feel corporate right? And you might wonder I work for myself, why do I need this little dose of corporate-ness in my business? What is Wudan even doing with this episode? Some of these terms and learnings and ways of doing things and problem solving in a corporate world can also be useful in running your own freelance business. This week on the show, I wanted to talk about how workflows and ideas and practices and jargon from the corporate world can be applied to your own solo creative business. I personally have no experience working in the corporate world, but my co-host this month does. To walk us through how to adapt corporate thinking for freelancers. I asked Melody Burdette to come on the show. Melody is a freelance content strategist and copywriter based out of Billie, her Ford Transit. Yep, that is a van! She's spent the early part of her career working in editorial and e-commerce and, more recently, in startups that you probably have heard of, like Gusto and Collective Health as a content strategist and copywriter. So full disclosure, Melody and I are friends, and go back...mmm...over a decade. So you'll hear me calling her Mel a lot. These are conversations, and I think our conversation shows our closeness. I knew she'd be the perfect person for this episode when I saw an Instagram video she posted last year—I will link to this in the show notes—where she does planning for the year with Post-it notes and Sharpies. It looked intuitive and creative. And like, importantly, fun—much more fun than my own business retreats. I immediately messaged her about this, and she was like, 'yeah, this is stuff I've just adapted from working in startups.' And I'm really excited to have her teach us her ways. Before we dive into my conversation with Mel, I wanted to talk about how important it is at this—or any time—to be in community with others. And not just any community, but one that is psychologically safe, which allows you to ask questions free of judgment. If you love the ethos and vibe of the Writers' Co-op, and you're self-employed, you will probably be interested to join our community. We are organized on Slack. And when you join as an All-Access patron for just $9 a month, you will be able to have access to that. All right, back to the main program. Here's Melody. All right. Hi, Mel. Welcome to the Writer's Co-op!

Melody Burdette- Hi, I'm so excited to be here.

Wudan- Amazing. I'm glad we're having this conversation. I think it will be really fun.

Melody- Yeah, we've lived so many lives together. It's fun to have a little toe into this version as well, too.

Wudan- Yes. So for everyone who does not know, tell us about your career journey. And how you got into freelancing.

Melody- Oh, man. Okay, sooo, started out as a little baby girl in New York City, with a hope and a dream. I was doing some e-commerce work, when I was there. I was doing a little bit of online journalism. But basically, I lucked into a career in copywriting and content strategy. I got hired by DirectTV in New York. And then it was kind of off to the races from there. Ended up moving to California, working in the big tech scene, and did that until it didn't feel right anymore. And that was shockingly, around the time of the pandemic, when I think a lot of us kind of re-evaluated about exactly what we were doing with our careers and our lives. So went the freelance route. And then I now own my own creative business. I do a bunch of different things. And it has never made me more happy to do context switching for my actual job. So that's how I got where I am now.

Wudan- And what are all the multiple things that you do right now in your creative freelance business?

Melody- I have my standard kind of creative clients. So I'll do a content strategy for big companies. Like one of my clients right now is eBay. And then I have other clients where I'm doing creative directing for them. I'm working with an antique company in L.A. I'm working with an inn in Northern California. And then I also do some social media stuff on the side, and then I am creating maybe some retreats or kind of more like life design frameworks and coaching, which I'm really excited about. But yeah, I mean, once you own your own business—and you know this, Wudan, it's like you can just kind of do whatever makes you feel great, that you have the expertise to do, and that's been so, so, so fun.

Wudan- I love that diversity of clients from like eBay to an inn in California. That is incredible.

Melody- It's so— it's so much fun.

Wudan- I bet. So today, I wanted to have a conversation about translating components of that corporate work that you did when you were staff in San Francisco, and how they relate to your freelance business. So tell us a little more about, like, your work and your role in those startups. What did your job titles mean?

Melody- Yeah. So in the copywriting field, you normally start just doing exactly that: You start at writing copy. So you are working with a design team. You are writing the words that are on the page for either a website or a product. You're involved in the very, very nitty gritty, ground-level type of work. Then from there, you level up to what's called content strategy, where you're basically creating frameworks for storytelling throughout either an entire website ecosystem or a product ecosystem. And I work in product. So you're embedded within design teams as well there too, and you're doing kind of strategy with how people are meant to move through products or a website. From there, you either can go the like the principal content strategy route, or you can go the managerial route. And I—the last big nine to five job that I had was running a customer education team at a company called Gusto, which actually helps people who own their own business do kind of payroll, HR type of stuff, too. So that was kind of fun to see it from the inside and then switch to the outside. But yeah, so it translates to a bunch of different things. But all in all, it is words or systems of words or systems of education in an online platform. And that's what I have done for the last 10 years.

Wudan- Yeah, and I think we actually use Gusto for the Writers' Co-op. But leading a team too, once you get to a certain point of that career journey.

Melody- When do you get to that certain point?

Wudan- Mhm

Melody- Yeah, that would be...I mean, probably, I don't know, depends. Everyone's a little bit different. But I think that if you are going to lead a team correctly, and if you kind of have—you're able to get the right altitude, and lead a team, probably around like year, five or six, depending?

Wudan- How do you think your experiences working in companies, such as startups, help you run your own freelance business?

Melody- Oh my gosh. In so many ways. I think that it kind of took me a minute to come to the sport, to understand like what you needed to carry over. Because it is just kind of such a departure. You're used to, when you're working in a nine to five, kind of contributing to the greater whole. You're just you know, for lack of a better term, you're just a cog in a wheel, essentially. But then when you're running your own business, you need to have your own goals. You need to have, you know, an email address. You need to have a business account. You need to have, like, out-of-office stuff, and you just—little down to the like the basics of like, how you expect to be able to operate really takes a lot of stuff. So I mean, I've borrowed a lot of things. I've adapted a lot of things, and then including how I plan out my years now, especially now that I live on the road full time in my van. So it's been, that's been an interesting journey.

Wudan- Yeah, I want to talk about business retreats, because I take myself on a business retreat, probably not as frequently as I ideally would want to. But it wasn't until I saw your Instagram posts from last winter that got me excited to text you about this very niche thing—

Melody- Yeah!

Wudan- — that I didn't know many people did. But were there like, business retreats or planning sessions when you work edfull-time at these startups? Like, what was that workflow l9ike?

Melody- Yeah, I think the thing that I pulled the most from is, it would be kind of more like quarterly design off-sites. And so within those, we would have the whole team together. We'd have our design directors, you know, whoever they may be. And you just go through what is working—I mean, you go from basically like team structure wise, all the way up to what you're actually doing for the work for the quarter. And I really, really enjoyed the precursors to all those, where we're just sitting with the people that you work with every day, and you're just evaluating, hey, what's working, what's not working about how we are doing work. And I think that that was something that I really wanted to apply to my own business and just like life in general. I mean, it all started out as—really what I do is life planning session, and then businesses baked into it. Because for me, I very much do, like life leads whatever I want to do creatively or for money, and I'm really lucky that way, or have been. So yeah, I think it's really about starting at the very beginning and the nuts and bolts. I really—I took away the collaborative nature. I took away the kind of blue sky thinking of those sessions. I took away the actual function of the sessions, which is like literally using Post-it notes, to write down all your ideas, freeform, and then you organize them later just so you can get everything out when you're in the zone. Those are kind of the big things I took away from those design team off-sites where we started to kind of organize the year.

Wudan- And when you do your own retreats, they're also kind of like a "off-site" too, right?

Melody- Yeah, I got that idea actually from a life coach I've been working with for two years. I live in a van fulltime. So I eat in here, I sleep in here, I work in here, I traveling here. I do everything in here, and she's like you need to get the hell out of the van. You need to get your brain in a different space. You need to like kind of like, you know—you need to you need to have a sacred little germinating space. And so I was like, heck yeah, that sounds amazing. So I dedicated 10 days in an Airbnb to just having a straight up business and life retreat. And I'm like, honestly, it's a life retreat first and a business retreat second. It just kind of comes with it. But dedicating space and time that's not in your natural like sphere, I think is so important to actually getting your brain just out of your day-to-day. And you can be a little bit fresher. You can think a little bit bigger. And it's just, it honestly makes a difference, for me at least.

Wudan- And are they quarterly in the same way that they were when you were working fulltime? What does that schedule or cadence look like?

Melody- Yeah, right now it looks like as needed. So I did an annual retreat two years in a row, so it was December and then December, where I kind of planned out the year ahead. But then honestly, I just kind of did like a little redesign session only two weeks ago. So I like kind of got through Q1. And—if we're talking in business terms, you know, I got through January, February, March—and I was like, 'you know what, like, something's just like not sitting, right. Like, I think I'm still on the right track. And I think all the things that I planned out for myself, and the big goals I had are still the same goals, but like something—I just need to readjust. And so I just, you know, you go back to what you practice. So I got a little Airbnb. I had a little wine one night, had all my Post -it notes. And I was like, alright, let's like, let's just take stock of what's going on right now. Let's take stock of where we're going. Are the things the same that I planned since December? Are my goals still the same? Decided that they were. And then just kind of blossomed out from there. So to answer your question, I've tried the annual and I think it works. But to be honest, at this point, I think it's the most effective when I just feel it, and it's more as needed. So if you could structure it however you want to. For me, I think that like I get pretty good, solid ideas, and I'll just roll with them. So yes, it's however, you need to feel like you're on the right path.

Wudan- I mean, you spend so much time driving,

Melody- So much time!

Wudan- I get so many good ideas when I'm on the road. And so I kind of—yeah, that intuitive approach makes sense to me. Especially when somehow you already have like thinking time built in, in a strange way.

Melody- Oh, my God. One bazillion percent. I get all of my best ideas on the road.

Wudan- Yes. What kind of mindset do you like to have going into a retreat? I find that sometimes people who need to have shorter retreats because of life circumstances feel really pressured to get answers immediately. But I just want to hear from you. Yeah. How do you you approach that?

Melody- Yeah, you bring up a kind of a tough point of that, which as I think about how to, like, you know, tell people about what I do—and I'm sure you do, too—I think like, I have a very unique situation. You know, it's just me. I don't have a partner. I don't have children. I don't have like—and my work is very flexible. So I think that the number one thing I can say is just like, you need to give yourself at least one or two burn days. I don't know how you feel, Wu, but for me, it's like some days are really creative and some things are just not. And I have to just be able to give myself enough time for those burn days to happen so I don't feel pressured or freaked out by it. I think 10 days is like my standard. And that's, you know, almost a bit too long. But I kind of feel when the insanity starts to creep in around day five or day six, that's when the good stuff starts happening. So I would say, like, at a minimum, you got to give yourself four days. And at an optimal time, I would say at least a week. Purely because you just need to have time to not feel pressured. I tried to go in with just like this very blue sky mindset. Like anything is possible. Anything that I love that lights me up is going to be able to lead to something. And I just—I work under the assumption that that is true. And it's worked out so far.

Wudan- Yeah. I did a silent meditation retreat when I was like nine years younger, I think? And it's 10 days, silent meditation. And what you're saying about these burn days, which to me just means like, some days may not be as productive or you need time to ease into things. And I had a very similar experience of the best stuff not coming until like day seven, after I kind of thought I got dengue somehow. And that was...fun

Melody- Oh my god. Yeah, hallucinations will really help with your—your enlightenment.

Wudan- Yeah, right? I was just like, 'wow, I don't think I can go anywhere. I'm really stuck. I'm really stuck in my own body, in my head, like, what is going to happen? I don't know.' And then that's like when all the good stuff came. But like, yeah, there has to be time to marinate.

Melody- Yeah, gotta be time to marinate. You have to have time to like, have a day where you think, 'ugh, I've thought of every idea I could possibly have.' And then the next day you wake up and you're like, oh, wait, there's a ton more. So yeah, you got to push past that creative block a bit.

Wudan- So on the more productive days, what does that daily schedule look like? What are questions you'd like to ask yourself? How do you structure the retreat?

Melody- Yeah, that's a great question. I think that that's kind of the magic sauce right there. For me, when I'm doing this annually, and then if I'm doing it on more of a quick quarterly or like, I just want to reflect on the last four weeks or something like that basis, I'll do this a bit differently. But I start out by meditating, which is funny because for me, I'm just a very fast moving, fast talkin' kinda gal. And so getting still, it's been the thing that's actually changed my entire life the last couple years, is just allowing myself to listen to what's going on inside my body before checking in with the world. It's made all of the difference for me. So I'll do like a little meditation. I'll have a coffee. And then with my retreats at the very beginning, I will reflect on my entire year first. So I'll put up a big white poster board, and I'll put a bunch of sticky notes. And I'll go January through December. And I remember, you know, where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. And then most importantly, just like finding those little nuggets of how I was feeling in my body doing those things. And I try to tease out those like core values that were lighting me up throughout the year. So I kind of have this indication of where I'm leaning, in my, like, life, in what I want to focus on with work, with relationships. With, like, all those things. And so I use kind of like my own memory and my own reflection to be my guide. And that's really interesting. Like some really interesting stuff will pop up if you start to ask yourself those introspective questions about a full year. Because those themes come to the surface pretty quickly. So I'll do my kind of annual reflection. And then I'll move into themes and pillars is kind of what I call it, personally. I'll decide on a theme for my next year. And so, like, for this year, it's called 'play big,' is my theme. And I have it like everywhere in my van. It's like written on whiteboards. It's on Post-it notes. It's everywhere. And so 'play big.' And within that play big theme, I've got four big pillars of things I want to work on, or goal towards, for the year. And they're not tactile things like buy a car. They're like, 'creatively expand,' and like 'create community,'—like 'create intentional, creative community' or something like that. So more big rocks, that you can then support with little actionable things. So I'll create my kind of big theme and my pillars. And then I'll go in, and I'll—and this is what I actually love. I think this is the fun part—is doing those little supporting actions, kind of brainstorming ways you can make those pillars happen. Or spread them out throughout the year, so you're constantly thinking about how you're—how you're living, are you happy, are you aligned, etc. I'll do that. And then I'll literally just map it out on a year. And I'll say, okay, great. If what I want to do this year is become a badass pilot, I'm going to fly this many hours. So I'll try to—I'll find ways to support that. If I want to create and expand creatively, like how am I going to do that? Oh, I'll take this class. I'll go talk to this person. And I'll do informational interviews with this type of creative. And then I'll just make it happen. I"ll plot it out throughout the year so it actually gets done. And that's how I just generate, I don't know, the type of momentum that I think that people really crave, especially when they're running their own business, which can kind of become hard. And you know? I'm sure you have all of the experience in that.

Wudan- Yeah, I'm just wondering if you can feel comfortable giving a example of what like a work pillar is, and how you come up with figuring out the more tactical goals to support that idea?

Melody- So a work pillar this year was to just expand my business creatively, and more tactically to expand different like areas of revenue. And I didn't give myself any specifics as to what I was going to do with that. I just said, you know, broad strokes, I want to be really creative with how I make money. And I want to give back as well too. I feel like I'm kind of at the point in my career, as well as like life track, where I want to just look backwards and pull people up the ladder behind me. So with that in mind, I was thinking like, you know, could I create courses? Could I create retreats? Could I create groups of women who I take outside and teach, you know, like outdoor emergency medicine? Because that's something that I'm really like, into and passionate about. I got my pilot's license last year. Can I, like, help people explore becoming a pilot, especially women? So like, you know, I just kind of sat down with what does it mean to expand creatively in revenue stream? And how do I still make it fun and exciting and generative for myself as well, too? Does that answer your question?

Wudan- It does. And I think it sounds like this process is also, like, very creative of like, coming up with ideas. Like how many of those ideas, of the very specific things you could do, actually get used? versus how much do you throw out?

Melody- Oh, that's a great question. So I go through, like, you know, kind of the creative explosive, and then coal phase.

Wudan- Yeah

Melody- So I'll do like—oh, it's gotta get messy before it gets clean. So I don't really have like a ratio for you. But I think that once you start rolling, I try to just be really free flow with it, pretty blue sky. And then after, I would say, like, I don't know, maybe three or four kind of crazier ideas, I start to cotton onto a theme and I'll start to just be like, oh, yeah, no, this is right. Or like, oh, yeah, this is really good. Or, oh, that gave me an idea about this. And so then, I don't know, maybe like, for every four crazy ideas at the beginning, you keep two, and then you push that a little further. And then you take one out and yeah, so I try not to go too nuts with it. But it mainly just ends up generating excitement, because you get the momentum rolling, and it starts to be really fun.

Wudan- Yeah. And how do you audit your business specifically?

Melody- Ooo, how do I audit my business? When I started doing that, for real, I'll tell you. I mean, I guess if I had to do kind of like an on-the-spot thought process, it'd be like: Are the things that I'm generating income from still bringing me joy? Are they bringing the money in the right ways? How much time versus how much income am I making? Are there any just like, passion projects that are sitting around that I maybe should like put down on the shelf? You know, it's just kind of based on what you need in that season of business. That's kind of how I think I would approach it if I were to sit down with it.

Wudan- Yeah, that sounds about right. We've been doing business audits for the Writers' Co-op for a very long time. And that's actually the framework that I use, and it's very— spreadsheet, pen and paper, so on and so forth. I am a nerd, as you know, as many of these listeners know, so having those numbers, for me, it's really big. And I think sometimes doing the math surprises me too, of what the biggest revenue earners are, versus what I perceive them to be, like, through the course of just me going about my normal day-to-day and working.

Melody- Yeah, no, that's really—I'm sure that that would be really, really eye opening. You gotta, you gotta look to the data sometimes, you know?

Wudan- I know. For sure. So what other—you have this, like, identifying the pillar and creating the supporting goals, more specific goals? How many days do you give yourself for that process? Or like how many days per pillar or brainstorming session? What does that look like?

Melody- Yeah, so I think that the—I mean, the reflection and the pillars, depending on how like, crazy the year was, or how much I kind of dig into and find, will usually take about a day, a day and a half. And then the rest of the retreat is just getting myself in that creative space to come up with those supporting activities. And those things that really light the whole year up. I essentially try to plan out an entire calendar year. That could very much vary, I think, depending on your lifestyle, what you're doing. For me, the retreat doubles as like a kind of map for the year. Like locationally, where am I going to be to accomplish these things? And I mean, that's actually something that we should get into a little bit too, that I started doing this so that I would be led by things that I wanted to do, instead of just by events that were places, because I could be anywhere. So it's kind of this thing where I was designing my year now more around like the things that were going to add up for me versus just like, I don't know, I guess I could be there on the 30th. So I guess I'll drive there on the 30th. You know? So I just wanted a little bit more plan that was adding up in my life. And so that's how I started to do this in earnest.

Wudan- I don't know anything about other van lifers, but I feel like that is a lot of forward thinking for somebody who gets to live like very intuitively and actually be anywhere.

Melody- Yeah, that—it is interesting, because you do have...it's this magical curse, where you're like, oh, my God, I can do anything and be anywhere. And that sounds amazing. And then you start to think about it, and you're like, 'oh, no! I can do anything and be anywhere!' And I think there's a lot of people that find so much freedom in it. I mean, like God knows, for the first year that I was on the road, I was just like blissed out on the utter choice I had in my life, it was so much fun. And then after I did that, for about seven or eight months—I was in my SUV at the time, and I bought the van and made the permanent life decision to stay on the road. That's when I started to crave a little bit more structured a little bit more like, just positive momentum. But also—you also know me, and I also am a huge nerd, and I like to live intentionally. So the kind of fly by the seat of your pants lifestyle wasn't gonna last long for me. I think about it.

Wudan- Yeah, one really big thing we talked about on the show is this concept of not work-life balance, but work-life integration, which I'm hearing you talk about a lot, but not using—

Melody- oh yeah

Wudan- —the direct term of like, thinking about the things you want to do in your life, like maybe somebody wants to start a family in nine months or whatever, like, what does that look like in terms of integrating work, or time off, or like working less, or changing service areas, or taking a big trip before that? Or, you know, there's so many things that play into integrating the events in life that are very unique and personal to us with everything else, such as work, which supports the life that we want to have.

Melody- Yeah, absolutely. I love that phrase. I mean, literally, there is no there's no separation for me. Work is life and life is—well, no, it's not even work is life. It's like my life is my life. And work is just like a part of it, thank God, you know? And so I think I've always been kind of hardwired that way. And I think that's just really cool that you guys preach that, because it's in what I have found is it is the only way that you stay happy. I mean, like capitalism is a curse, you know. And so like if we could all be lying on a rock in the sun somewhere, I'm sure we would all choose that. But you got to make sure that what you're doing for your job, especially as a creative, like as a freelancer, is you just have to make sure that you're, you're balancing it out appropriately. I definitely agree.

Wudan- So what advice would you have for somebody who wants to plan their own business retreat, but they're not quite sure where to start?

Melody- Ooo okay. First I would just say, like, get still. Get still and think about what you might need out of your business retreat. And just kind of go in clear headed like that. From there, if you can afford to, or if it's something that's available to you, I would say choose a location you really freaking love. Or maybe a place that's close by, and just find a space that's not your space, and go choose that, because I feel like getting away from where you are, like we talked about earlier, so much, it's such a big part of it.. But if you have kids and a family and all that type of stuff, just maybe create like a little sanctuary space in your house, you know. Find a room that no one uses or a corner that where you say, hey, kids, you don't come bother me for two hours today, here. Just start with the internal questions. What do I really need out of this? What am I hoping to feel at the end of it? And don't just go based on tactical, but go based on emotion-based too. Like, I'm huge on letting my gut instincts guide me. And I think that if you can get still and listen to what you really need. I mean, that's the key to everything, you know?

Wudan- Yeah, definitely. One other thing I've recommended to people is doing a house swap as a way to sort of save costs.

Melody- Oh, I love that!

Wudan- Like, oh, I have a friend who lives in Moab, conveniently. Yeah, maybe they want to be in Seattle during some seasons. And we can work something out that way. But there are, I think, too, like not everything has to be a big production. Usually I just drive somewhere in Washington State, because there's so many beautiful places and go somewhere for like three to four days. So yeah, lots of options. But mostly getting out of the space where you live or work or whatever.

Melody- Yeah, I love the idea of a house swap. I think that's a super—that's super cost effective. Really nice. I mean, there's so many options these days, too. There's like coworking spaces. You can like book out a conference room at your local library. There's, you know, there's so many places you could go to just get your get your mind right. But I think that's a great idea.

Wudan- What happens when like the plan, the year long plan that you set out to do, doesn't seem to work? Whether it's a business thing, or a life thing. How do you navigate that?

Melody- Yeah, so I just had this experience. Last year, my plan worked to like almost a concerning tee. It was one of the absolute best years of my life. Like everything I designed just happened, and it was so frickin cool. And it was so much fun. And I had so much, like, respect for the process going into this past year's retreat. And I made the mistake of treating this coming up here, like last year. So I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna go to Argentina for January and February and March. And then I'm gonna go— you know, I was just like, going off. But my pillars, hilariously, were so counter-opposite of that. They were like, sit still and grow your business or, like, explore other ways of, you know, explore ways of making money. Which when you're constantly moving, and this is a lesson that I learned over and over and over again, like you need to sit still to be able to create and generate. Sometimes you get good ideas through movement, but you can't execute them unless you're being still. At least I can't. So, you know, I was feeling like, ugh man, I really haven't done the things I said I was gonna do January, February, and March. And I really pride myself on being a person where like, if I say, I'm gonna pull this off, I'm gonna frickin pull it off. So I was sitting in this discomfort, and I was realizing that my goals were just unaligned with how I was moving. And so I think some—for my particular situation, it's like, normally, it just comes down to: Okay, you need to just sit still, in some place. I don't necessarily have to get an Airbnb for a month. But maybe I pick one town to be in for four weeks. And I get a little routine going, and I—you know, I find a good gym, and I do all my stuff. And I have my cafe. And it's just the change of pace, I think really helps me kind of realign. So I don't hold on to 'oh, no, I didn't do it.' I just think you know what, it's cool. It's time for a redesign. Something is not quite working. And so I just kind of let it be really. I don't know. Just give it some grace. You got to give yourself grace. And it's not like I haven't been doing anything. In fact, it's funny. Like, when I actually sat down to reflect on why I was feeling this way. It turns out, I'd been doing a lot of the stuff I wanted to do. It was just the illusion of nothing really adding up. I just had to sit down and take time to reflect on it to realize 'oh, no, it's actually, we're doing okay.' So yeah, you just gotta be a little bit light handed with it and just be gracious to yourself.

Wudan- Definitely. Yeah, that intuition can also be very instructive, is what I'm hearing you say.

Melody- Oh, yeah, for sure. Just give yourself space and just do a redesign. That's okay if things aren't working out. It's okay if what the plans, you said you were going to do were made with different information. Sometimes you just do what you can with what you have.

Wudan- Yeah.

Melody- And you got to re-figure it out when you have new information, that's all.

Wudan- Yes. So you've been using this word design a lot. And I know where that comes from, and this concept of design thinking has come up in an episode earlier in this season. Tell me where you learned about design and how how you use that term in your own life and business planning.

Melody- Yeah, the classic design thinking that I know and that I've been trained in just comes from my work. I mean, I've been working on design teams for 10 years, had some incredible design directors and content creators, and just—I mean tons of people who have just learned from. And it's just honestly baked into how I do life now. You know, there's an exploration phase. There's a planning phase. There's an execution phase. There's all those things. I think the way that the word design has kind of adapted for myself, at least over the last couple years has been from the life coaching that I've been doing. My life coach, Allison, who's just incredible, uses the word design a lot, because one, I think she knows that resonates with me. And two, there's just an element of ownership to it as well, too. So you're not living your life, you're designing your life. You're creating the parameters with what you live by. You're creating your business plan. You're creating what you want to do for money. And I think that that is something that—and I don't want to just gender this—but I think women get swept up in a lot of things. And they think they don't have a lot of ownership over what they're doing. And so I say that only because I think that some women tried to be selfless. And being full of yourself—this is a Glennon Doyle quote, she's like: "What we need is a world full of women who are full of themselves in the fullest sense." And I think that that's amazing. So yeah, the word design is just about intentionality. It's about understanding what you need. And it's about the conscious creation of it, I think. For me.

Wudan- And iterating. And iterating too, right? When like—

Melody- Yeah!

Wudan- —maybe something isn't working quite as much. And also being flexible to change. I think, for me, it really is a mindset thing. I also have a history of knowing lots of people who've worked at design consultancies. And I think just being in that environment, kind of like learn by diffusion, that mindset.

Melody- Yeah, no, and like, get messy. Get creative. Burn the blueprints. Do whatever you gotta do. You know, it's that kind of like, it's truly the—it's the idea that anything goes, I think is just so cool about that stuff. And like if you've got data, cool, use it. And if not, come like make it up.

Wudan- Yeah!

Melody- It's yeah, ultimate creation, which makes life way more fun.

Wudan- Speaking of burning the blueprints, I wanted to ask you: Is there anything from the corporate world that you've chosen to leave behind in your business or your life?

Melody- Oh, man. The immediate thing coming up for me is, do it fast with a gun to your head, essentially.

Wudan- Oh, my god.

Melody- Don't. Just don't do it. Like, you know, I think that sometimes the solution gets created out of a problem instead of like research or exploration leading the solution. I don't work that way anymore. It's on design teams, in particular—and I'm talking just about the tech work that I used to do—there's a method to the madness. There is a research phase, and there's an exploration phase, and it's very much go slow to go fast. And I think that that is counterintuitive to making money at a large corporation. So there's a dance that always has to happen there. And I think that what I enjoy the most about being able to create my own business and to do the things is that I'm able to do it at the pace that I want to do. And I'm able to do it, I think, in the proper order. So like, I'm not letting numbers and like corporate values dictate how I like solve a problem. I'm like, starting with the right data points.

Wudan- Right. And working in a way that supports your values.

Melody- 100%. Yes, yeah. So we're leaving behind works fast break things, fix it later. We're doing it right the first time. And that's how I'm doing my business.

Wudan- Yeah, I love that. Well, it's awesome to hear about how you plan and set things up and think about how you work when, you know, you're creating your own structure, in a way. And I think business retreats or personal retreats are useful for that. But they can also just be useful for a business retreat. Like anything to hit pause, really.

Melody- Exactly. Yeah, I think that the overlap is just give yourself some space to think. Just like, sink into your body. Understand what you need to know. Sink into your business. It's just—you should be doing things that are at the intersection of what your expertise is, and what excites you, right? So making sure that you're always kind of doing that and just readjusting when you don't.

Wudan- That's the perfect note to end on. Mel, thanks so much.

Melody- No problem. Nice to talk to you.

Wudan- Thanks so much, Melody, for coming on the show. You can follow her on Instagram at @melskyburd. Patreon All-Access members will get a worksheet on planning out your business retreat. It's a good one. I'm probably going to use it myself. With that, I will talk to you all next time. See you soon! Thanks so much for listening to the Writers' Co-op. If you've enjoyed our episodes, please rate, review, and subscribe on listening platform of your choice. These reviews help more listeners discover us. You can join us on Patreon at an All-Access member level at patreon.com/TWCpod. This gets you access to discount codes for events, for other objects online, and our safe and inclusive online Slack community. The show is hosted by me Wudan Yan. Our producer is Margaret Osborne and our editor is Susan Valot.