Melody Ann Owen, founder of Author Nation, joins Yvonne McCoy to delve into the power of celebrating small victories in personal and professional growth. They explore reframing challenges, the significance of nonfiction books for entrepreneurs, and the importance of defining purpose and audience when writing a book.

Guest Bio:

Melody Ann Owen is the founder of Author Nation, where she supports nonfiction authors in their book-writing journey. With a deep passion for storytelling and personal growth, she empowers individuals to celebrate small achievements and understand how nonfiction books can enhance their professional endeavors.

Key Points:

• The metaphor of being the captain of a ship in a storm (00:35)
• Celebrating small achievements as a catalyst for confidence and credibility (05:12)
• The significance of nonfiction books for entrepreneurs and speakers (12:18)
• The importance of defining purpose and audience when writing a book (17:40)
• Using a book as a launchpad for a podcast or events (24:07)

Main Quote:

"It's important to celebrate the small victories because they catalyze transformation." - Melody Ann Owen

Guest's Website:

For more resources and support, visit Melody Ann Owen's Author Nation at https://authornationtube.com/

Guess what? It's time for the One Small Change podcast, and

I'm thrilled to embark on this journey of exploration

transformation with you. Again, I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and

I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial experience,

the good, the bad, and the ugly, and a passion for discovering growth through

the power of seemingly small change. So I wanna thank you

of coming on this journey with us and spending some time because I know there

are lots of places where you could spend your time. This week,

we are talking with Melanie Owen, and she's

gonna share how a smaller unexpected change

sparks something remarkable, in her personal or private

life. So, Melanie, thank you for being here

today. Thank you, Stephanie.

Tell my audience what you do and, you know,

take them on your amazing journey. Sure. Absolutely.

So what I do, I do a lot of things. I love to hike, in

my personal life and in my

professional life. I am the founder of an organization called Author

Nation where we support nonfiction authors to

write and publish and integrate a nonfiction

book into their life and their business. So that's the that's the short

version. So how did you get

there? I mean, you didn't you weren't born going, I'm gonna help people write

books. No. I was not born with that. But

I think it was always in me somewhere. And,

you know, I I I think that I credit what I do

to my my deep my deep connection to storytelling.

And I actually think as humans, we all have a deep connection

to storytelling. But we're often trained or

educated out of it. Right? It's like information, facts,

information, facts. But I have this this deep connection to

storytelling that I never lost. And it's helped me a great

deal in my life, you know, when I when I need to reframe

the story. Like, things are happening and I'm feeling

lost, like I'm at sea and I'm in an ocean with with, you know, a

storm and you feel like you're just being taken away

by this storm, what I do is I sit down and I say, let's

reframe. Let's put me as the captain of the ship and I get to

decide how I can't stop the storm, but I get to

decide how I'm going to maneuver through the storm

rather than being in a lifeboat or without any boat at all being tossed

around by the big waves. I have to I I'm sorry. I have to

tell you that you're you're really speaking my language. Mhmm. Because

one of the things that I talk about is, dead

reckoning, which is a sailing term. And it was and it was

when, you know, we didn't have all the electronics from the old days, and

sailors would pick a point in the distance that there was their

destination so that they could maneuver the currents and the wind. You couldn't go

in a straight line. I mean, when I finally realized that

going in a straight line was never gonna happen, I was always gonna be, you

know, having to self correct, and that was normal and

good, it made a huge change for me. So that

that part of your language is amazing to me. I mean, that

really connects with me. The other thing that you said that is

so on target, I think, is that I

think we are all yearning for connection, and we

are past the point of just getting facts because facts

are everywhere. What we want is how to implement that and

how does it tie into our life. So I didn't mean to get you off

track, but it's like, oh my god. This is why we're talking.

Yes. Exactly. And and you're right. It it's just because

you're the captain of the ship doesn't mean that you can control everything and you're

going to have a linear line. You're still you still might be in a storm.

Right? And you still might be currents as you say. So thank you for for

extending that metaphor. I I absolutely love that.

Yeah. So and I one small change. I'm I'm gonna just kind

of give you give you my one small change because I think it really integrates

into this. And it's to celebrate the small

stuff. Right? Celebrate

the small stuff. I can't tell you how that changed my life.

We are told that we don't celebrate unless we won the

race. We're told we don't celebrate until until we get to

the destination. And I 100% disagree

with that. I think we celebrate those little

steps we take. And especially when you're writing a book. Can you imagine not

celebrating until you've actually published and sold a 1000000 copies?

Right? No no one would write a book. So when I'm working with my clients,

we have a practice of celebrating the small stuff. You know, what

did you get done? You got you got that section of that chapter done today.

That's awesome. You finished a chapter this week. That's awesome.

Awesome. You you set up your author page on Facebook.

Wonderful. It doesn't matter if you have followers or not. Right? And I I'll give

you a little story. I had I was working with one client who was setting

up her email list. So she set it up, and she sent it out to

a few friends. And and she had, you know, 20 followers in her

you know, 20 email subscribers. And I said, well,

start sending out emails. She said, well, I don't really have enough subscribers yet. And

I said, no. No. No. No. No. You've won. You have an email list. You

have 20 subscribers. You send it out. And at the end of it,

you say, if this you if you know someone who might be interested in

this, pass it on. And then she did that, and she said, well, I

have 25 subscribers. And, of course, you do. Because instead of saying it's

not good enough yet and I shouldn't celebrate and I shouldn't move forward, we

celebrated. We picked the next step. We didn't worry about the number of

email subscribers on your list. And that is how she's building

her email list. 5, 1, 10,

3 subscribers at a time. And instead of waiting to

arrive at this grand destination, she's celebrating

each step along the way. And it just feels so much better, and it gives

you this motivation. It helps cut down procrastination,

and it and it just it yeah. Celebrate the small stuff,

Yvonne. Again, I absolutely agree with

you. And, you know, a lot of the lessons that I

got that have helped me on my entrepreneurial journey are

the same lessons that I got when I lost a £150.

And, you know, you look at it and you go, I need to lose a

£100, and you just, you know, you quit before you even start. I mean,

it's just so daunting. And so, you know,

what I would what I what I when I was coaching that and what I

would say to myself is, what's the amount of weight that I

have lost over and over and over again? And it was

like £25. It's like, okay. I'm gonna divide this into

4 £25 segments because I know I can do

this. I've done it before. And I what I say to

people is celebrate your progress. Celebrate the

doing. Right? Yes. So, you know, it it and this

came up again the other day because,

when I was teaching money management, I would say to people,

it doesn't matter how much you save. It's the act of

saving. If you can save 10¢, then you can say I'm

a saver. Right? And that builds confidence till you can

save $10, then you can save a $100.

And so the act of doing it, the

progress, celebrating the progress builds confidence.

And and not only that, I think one of the the things that people

neglect is as you celebrate your progress,

it gives you credibility and it says to other people you can do it

too. Absolutely. You know, I'm not I'm not

finished, but I'm getting closer to my goal. And I

think that's so important because I think,

particularly in entrepreneurship, there's this sense of

I have to be an expert, and I'm not an expert yet, and I'm not

ready. And one of the small changes that happened for me was

somebody said, there's always gonna be somebody who's better than you,

and there's also always gonna be somebody who wants to be as good as

you. You know? So you're there. You're the expert

for the person who wants to be as good as you. And by celebrating

that journey, you show people how it's possible.

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And I'll give you a a a personal story around

around the small stuff. Please do. Please do. I was talking to my one of

my daughters, yesterday, and she was at work and she was

in a meeting and somebody said something. And have you ever been in a meeting

and somebody said something and all of a sudden you're like right? And

you don't even know what to see back and and you just, like, you felt,

you know, attacked or unheard or or something.

Right? Something has happened. You've had this strong reaction, and you

don't say anything in the meaning. And you walk out and you're upset with

yourself and you think, you

know, terrible me. But when I was younger,

in my family, conflict didn't happen. My father is

king and you never spoke back. Conflict did

not happen. So I grew up not understanding how to

engage in constructive conversations, not being able to

speak up for myself. I had a lot of obstacles.

And at some point, I thought, well, you can stay as you are or you

can just try. And so I you know,

the first time I spoke up for myself, I blurted something out that I

didn't even know what came out of my mouth. I felt horrible. I walked away.

And I said, okay. But you spoke up.

It went terribly, but you spoke up. So

celebrate that. And then I would celebrate speaking up. I

didn't get anything because I was still so I was just a bundle of

nerves, and I couldn't I could barely get the words out, but I did it.

And very slowly, I learned not

only how to speak up, but what to say, how to respond,

you know. And then so yesterday when I was talking to my youngest daughter and

she said I had this experience, I said, yeah. I relate to that.

I've had that experience. And and each

time, you're gonna take a small step because you you've come

she's still in university. You're, you know, you're still in this place where, like, all

these authority figures. Right? So it's always your boss telling you something

that that is hard. But slowly, you are going to

learn. So just next time it happens, just breathe. Don't even say

anything. Just, like, recognize it and deal with the emotion. That's

it. And then the time after that, maybe you'll be able to speak up. And

it's a step by step process in life. Right? You're not all of a sudden

a leader and an amazing communicator. This is

something we built. Right? So small it's I celebrated

the small successes, and and my daughter came to me because she sees

me as a really good communicator. And I said, yeah. But I used to be

where you were. Right. Right. Right. And and you know what? For

me, you know, conflict again was not

I mean, I don't think we are we we are

raised in you know, our limiting

beliefs partially come from, you know, our parents wanna protect us.

Like, don't say anything that's gonna get you in trouble. You know, be seen

but not heard. You know, that that kind of whole thing.

Right? And for me to speak up for myself,

you know, we were like the one black family in in a in a white

community, so we were told to be better than everybody else but not to

be, you know, to keep your head down kind of. And so for

me to speak up for myself was really, really hard,

and it started with first making

this decision that I was gonna tell people when I was

uncomfortable. And typically, it didn't happen at the moment.

Sometimes, I would come back 2 weeks later and say, I have to

tell you this, and it's really for me to let

you know that this made me uncomfortable, or I'm

sorry that I was angry with you. I mean, and and I I'll never

forget, but I said to my supervisor once, I am really

sorry that I spoke to you so, you know, in such an angry

way. And she goes, that was angry?

But for me, it was like, oh, that, you know. Yes. So it got

to it didn't take me 2 weeks. It only took me a week, and then

it only took me a day. And then it was like, wait, I don't

feel right. I need to say something about this. Or even

to say, I don't know what it is that I'm feeling, but something's not

right. Yeah. You know? And so yes. And you celebrate

the fact that you've gotten better

at what you're doing. And I think the thing that makes it hard

is that as you this is a really

weird phenomena, but as you grow in in the

entrepreneurial world and probably in personal life too, as you grow

and you take on new challenges, right, there's kind of that

feeling of of uncomfortableness because you're taking on something

new. And, you know, as you're, like, excited

that it's happening, something that you think you have totally

under control falls through the crack.

Yes. Because you kinda don't know how they're connected. So you look at

something and go, I've done this I've done this three times, and this has never

happened. What is going on? Yes. Do you

know what I mean? So being able to reframe it

as, you know okay. So here's, like, a really

personal story. I think I was on the

verge of a a nervous breakdown at one point and, you know, I was working

with my therapist and, you know, really hit hit a really

important point. And I think I cried for 24

hours straight. I mean, I just really I went to

bed. I, you know, I cried all day. I went to bed crying. I woke

up crying. And I when I when I talked to I called her

up and I go, I'm a mess. And she

said, your pain is normal. And I was like,

what? She said, your pain is normal. And I

was like, if this is normal, what does crazy look like? I mean, you

know? But what she was saying is this is the normal part

of the process. And so

making mistakes and, you know, having things fall apart

is a normal part of the process of growth. I

mean, we are not meant to be perfect. We're meant

to keep moving forward and make progress. So can we

talk a little bit more about books, which is your specialty?

And, you know, who who

like I say, I'm a speaker not a writer, and I talk to people

about using their strengths. And so my

question partially is, you know, the higher level is, as an entrepreneur,

why do I wanna have a nonfiction book? And then for those who us who

feel we're speakers, you know, how does that fit into

or possibly fit into our overall, you know, what we could be

doing? Yes. Absolutely. So first of

all, I'm never gonna convince anyone they need a book. That's

not what I do. I want to help people who who they

know they want a book. Right? And so if someone came to me and

said I think I need a book, I would, you know, but I don't know

why. I'm I would like, okay. Let's let's figure out whether you really want one

or not. So this whole you must have a book

isn't, you know maybe that's not your thing. Right? So

so maybe you have another plan and that works well for

you. So first off, you know, don't listen to the hype. Right?

So when you decide you want a book, then then that's great. So some

reasons why people might want a book. So if you have a

speaking career, for example, going into a

speaking gig and being able to say, you know, hey. Come up

afterwards, and I'll, you know, I'll give you a first chapter of my book.

And then getting them on your email list. And now you have the

talk that you gave that you can write emails about and this

book. And the book has more than one chapter. So, like, have you read the

first chapter? Would you like to know more about it? You know, you can so

so it's a conversation builder. Right? And they may

you may sell the book or you may give away the book. It doesn't

matter. What matters is that you have this longer

term, this is how the book fits into my business.

So if you have a speak if, you know, if you have a

speaking career that's linked to, group

coaching or course, you know, getting

on stage and saying, okay. So now I have this course. Go buy it. That

may not work. But a book may link those two things.

So if you're interested in in, you know, what I'm saying, I have

a book. I have a table at the back. Come talk to me. I'm happy

to give you the book. I'm happy to give you the ebook. I'm happy to

give you the first chapter. I'm up to whatever, you know, whatever is you know,

I I'm not I can't tell you what the plan should be. It's

something I work out with each client on, you know, what they have to

put together. So that might be a reason you want a book.

Another reason you might want a book. Some people can use

a book as a launchpad to a podcast or a series

of events. So I have, someone recently launched a

book. And now she's doing monthly events based

on each chapter of the book. So each chapter has a theme. And now she

does monthly events so people can come and talk to her about

that particular thing. And if they're in they if they like that, they can move

into her coaching program. Another reason you might want to write

a book. You might say, you know, Amazon is this huge

search engine. And of course, if I don't have anything on there,

no one can find me there. So I'm actually going to write

a book that is good for

Amazon search engine. So and I'm not saying you can't write one book that

can't do a variety of things. I'm what I'm saying is if you're

thinking about, oh, maybe I should write a book, the question is, you

know, why? How is this gonna fit into my life? That's the

very first question you need to answer before you answer anything

else. And if you say, oh, I'm a speaker, and I wanna link

this book with the people I'm speaking to at conferences with my

courses and coaching, now we're like, okay. So in that case, who's my

audience? Well, it's the people who like to go to conferences. Right? It's not the

people who want to search on YouTube or Amazon. It's people who go to

conferences. Okay, so now I know who my reader is. I can get

really targeted in the content. And maybe it's a really

short 100 page book. Maybe that's all it needs to be and I give away

the whole book. And that leads me to a

conversation with them through email, which eventually leads to them joining my

program if that's a match. Does that make sense, Yvonne? It absolutely does.

I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that I say is

you need to know your why. I mean and, again, I go back to weight

loss. I mean, I knew how to lose weight and what to

do, but it wasn't until I had a big enough

why that I was willing to do it. It wasn't until I found out I

was gonna be a grandmother for the first time that I said,

wait. What kind of grandmother do I wanna be? I wanna be an

active grandmother. I wanna do things with my grandchild, you know, and

I could barely walk up and down the stairs. So I had a big enough

why to say, I wanna be able to go to the beach. I

wanna be able to do these things. I mean, I knew all the things

that I actually had to do. You know, you get I mean, the the the

equation is incredibly simple. You actually eat less than you know, you

burn more than you eat. Right? And so,

you know, you're saying, you know, I think starting with purpose. I mean, I

just did this with with kind of my 3 p's, which is

purpose, procedure, personal, and proactive. So if

you don't know what your purpose is, you don't know your why, then you don't

know in in the case of writing the book what needs to be in the

book and who you're writing it for. Right? And then, you know, you take

a look at your audience and what what they need and what they tend to

go towards and then proactively kind of what they need next.

You know, what they'll need what they need before and what they need after your

book so that you can tie it all into how you how you place

it. So Yeah. You and I are like I mean, this is probably

the deepest conversation we've had, but we have so much in common.

We do. Yeah. And you're can I can I add

just add a little something to it just before we move on? And

so and so if you think about it, it's a really good analogy for the

book. Because in in the book, you need meaning for yourself, but you need meaning

for your readers. For your weight loss, just like

writing a book, just losing weight, that's not enough. There has to be, as you

say, purpose or meaning behind it. And for you, there was meaning for

you being the best grandmother you could be. But

there's also meaning for your audience, your your grandchildren.

Right? They're they they gained meaning. They gained something

out of it as well. And so same when you're writing a book. There's meaning

for you, the author, but there's meaning for the reader as well. And once you

had once you had your purpose, your meaning, it was a lot easier

to do. So people are like, I wanna lose weight. They often don't lose weight.

There's no meaning or or, you know, purpose behind it. Same with people who wanna

write a book. I wanna write a book. There's no meaning or purpose behind it.

So when I start with the authors, we start with that, and there's a

lot more motivation. It's so much easier to get it done. Right?

So I I wanna take that kind of into entrepreneurship.

So I I did a chapter in, one

of those collaboration books, and it was so funny

because I just wanted this to be, like you you know, it was gonna be

probably the and in my brain I said, this is gonna be the only thing

I write. I want this to go down in the ages. It was, like,

you know, a really heavy thing. And somebody

said to me and I and I work you know, it's like from the

a year from the time I said I would do it, I think I had

3 sentences. And I kept going back and changing them.

And somebody a very good coach said to me,

you know, how do you like to communicate? And I said I like to speak.

He goes and record it. Yes. Which I did, and it

took me a day and a half. But the but the real the real

switch was not only how I did it, but why

I did it. I you know, he goes, what is it that you wanna accomplish?

I said, I want it to be for managers

so that they can have a simple way that they can remember

how to get out of chaos and focus.

And so out of that came a system that I call

steps. So it's stop, think

about, you know, what you've accomplished. Right?

T is what do you wanna get done. E

is evaluate the difference between where you are, where you

wanna go. P is have a plan, but know that you

need to have a plan b as well. And the s is

success, celebrate your progress.

Yes. So that came out of my my book, you know, that

do doing that chapter, and it only took a day

and a half to record it where I could not write it at

all. Just so we don't run out of time, and

I I feel like we could chat for

give me a couple of action steps that that Yes.

Our listeners can, you know, can do. Yes. So

I'll I'll do that in 2 pieces. So And your freebie. And also your freebie.

Don't forget that. Absolutely. So if you're not

used to celebrating the small stuff, at the end of every day,

sit down and say, what did I do today? What actions did I

take, and how can I celebrate taking those actions? Very simple.

At the end, I have I have a to I have a done list.

Instead of a to do list, I have a done list. And so, you know,

that's one action you can take is just write down all your accomplishments that

day, pat yourself on your back every day for what you did get

done. And and and that's it. That's a very simple

step. If you want to write a book, your very first step is to

sit down and say, why do I want to write this book? How is this

book going to change my life, my business? What, you

know, what do I want out of this? That's your very

first step. So ask yourself, why do I want to write a book?

How is this going to change my life? And when you figure that out, you

can start thinking about, well, if that's the case, who's the

audience? And then when you figure that out, you

can say, okay, now why would they read this book? What's in

it for them? Those are the first three questions you're gonna ask

yourself if you're thinking about writing a book. And if you'd like resources for that,

you can go to author nation dot online. And

that is where I keep my resource library, and you can check out all the

resources I have for you there. Fabulous. Fabulous.

Okay. Here's the zinger. When was the last time you did

something for the first time? Oh, wow. Okay.

I haven't done a lot of new stuff lately because

last August, I did something very new. I went hiking in the

Yukon in in Canada in the Yukon. It was so much

fun, except I fell and I snapped my leg in 3 pieces and I

had to be rescued by a helicopter. So that's the first time I was ever

rescued by a helicopter. They turned me into bionic woman. I now

I'm a I now have to tiny him in my in my leg. So that

was the first time I did that. And, I had to learn to

walk again. That was the second time I did that. And so I've been doing

a lot of, physio and healing. So I have not you know,

besides my business and doing a lot of physio and healing to get

back healthy again, I haven't done a lot of other new stuff this year, unfortunately.

But breaking my leg and getting a helicopter right out of the Yukon, that was

definitely a new thing for me as was the surgery and

learning to walk you down. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? I

celebrated every little step. I remember a friend said, you know, you're kinda

crazy. Right? You just celebrated being able to stand. I'm like, yeah.

That's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. It is.

I celebrated the small steps every, like, every along

the way. Yeah. And I I think, you know,

in this crazy world, and

and this is in terms of managing and stuff too, we tend to focus

on what's wrong. You know, we're like you know, one of the things that I

say all the time to entrepreneurs is that you bring on staff,

make sure you tell them the good things that they do too. Not

not not with the but. You did this well, but you need you know, just

like, you did good. Thanks. Yes. And so

that celebration just gives you a totally different level of joy in your

life. Alright. So I need to I need to wind this up. So there

are a couple of things that I need to say to everybody.

You have given us so much to think about, and so, you

know, change is not always easy, but it can be simple. But it

still takes a certain amount of courage and, you know,

resilience and and, especially, a willingness to step out of your

comfort zone. So I hope that all of you that are listening

today walk away with something and that you'll join me again

so that you can find out, you know, what kind of shifts you

can make that are gonna have a transformation in your life and in your, you

know, in your business and in your personal life. And so

we all have a bold vision, and we all have innovative

possibilities that are in us. We just have to mind them and unleash

them and let them out and go against, you know, common common

wisdom sometimes because common wisdom tells us to

play it safe. And I want you to be bold.

Melanie, what last words have you got for us? I love

what you just said. Be bold, and it's okay to take

tiptoey steps. You know, as long as you're walking forward, you're you're moving

forward. Right? And do it in do it in a bold fashion step by step.

I love that. When I mountain climb when I mountain hike, I don't look at

the top of the mountain. I know where I wanna go, but I don't look

there. I look where I'm going, and I take one step at a time. Because

if I looked at the mountain, I never get there. Okay.

So the one thing, the last thing that I wanna say is

make sure that you subscribe and share, and

that you engage on, social media. That was my dog giving me the

earthquake shake. And you don't

wanna, you know, make connections that you can share with other people.

So until next time. Right? There are places that you

could spend your time, but I'm so glad you spent your time here. And check

out all the other podcasts that are here as well. So, Melanie, thank

you again so much. I enjoyed this so much and got so much out of

it. I hope everybody else did as well. Thank you, Yvonne.