How to Unblock Your Profits with Melissa Ternes

Kathi: Hi everyone, I'm back, and this is Kathi, and we are here with Melissa. And yes, let's talk about organizing and money and how it all flows together. So welcome to the show.

Melissa: Thank you, Kathi. Thanks for having me on.

Kathi: Absolutely. So I know that you are a money coach, and we'll get into the flow of things. So tell me a little bit about your backstory. How did this all begin, and why are you here now?

Melissa: Right. Don't we all have our own mess that we start with, and then we move into business in that? I have an undergraduate in accounting and a master's in business. I was managing a $50 million budget at work to the penny. And one day I woke up and I had $75,000 in what I call random things debt. That's probably like the junk drawer of debt. It wasn't a mortgage, wasn't a car payment, and I had no student loans. And what I realized very quickly was, when I was trying to get out of the debt, that there were lots of cookie-cutter approaches, but none of them actually got down to the root of what was actually going on. So it's probably very similar for you in your world, when you're like, great, you have a hoarder. We can take all the stuff out of the house, but if we don't fix that piece that's starting and generating the hoarding behavior, we're going to be right back where we were. And that's how I started. It was like, okay, but wait, there's something else going on. I know how to do this. I do this professionally with an incredibly large number, and somehow I'm not able to do it personally. So that is how I started: just getting in the trenches with myself.

Kathi: That's quite interesting. I find that happens with a lot of clients. I'm going to turn off my video now because we're having some internet issues, so you won't see me. So what I was saying is that oftentimes we're brilliant at our job, our real job, so to speak, and then we get home and what we're able to do at work doesn't really translate into personal. So what did you find out about yourself? What was your big aha moment that helped you shift out of the mess?

Melissa: So I went and tried everything. I tried all these different ways, and what I realized is that it was a cycle. Until I really got in and addressed what was going on with just basic fight-flight, brain safety, what was going on with emotions, and then practically: am I spending the kind of time that I did at work, in some sliver, with my own personal stuff? And I was not. It's like the mechanic whose windshield wipers don't work.

Kathi: Yeah. Without shoes.

Melissa: Exactly. And so it was that bringing-it-home part: okay, how do I do this? What does this look like? And then how do I go out and share this with the world? Because I'm certainly not the only one that struggles with it.

Kathi: Absolutely. So did you quit your real job, and now you're doing this full-time, or what happened with the evolution?

Melissa: The evolution of it was I moved out of the position I was in and started working in another business, and then out of that I started doing this part-time. I've been doing it for 13 years now and absolutely love it. I started out part-time, moved full-time five years ago, and just love this work, because it's the place where, like you said earlier when you were reading the bio, when you clean up your money, everything else starts to clean up. And I'm sure you see the exact same thing. When you clean up the closet or the junk drawer, life gets easier.

When you clean up your money, everything else starts to clean up.

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Kathi: Absolutely. And everything is a ripple effect. One thing will cause another thing to be better or worse. So it really depends. So if you were to do this over again, starting your career, was there anything that you would change?

Melissa: I think I would give myself more slack a whole lot faster. And then really start looking at, in my business, starting it over again, the big thing that I would get a handle on first. That was the hardest thing for me: my calendar. And once I got control of my calendar and my time, I started realizing that I could see so much. I had more time for myself. I had more time for my clients. I had more time for my business. I had more time for fun. I had more time for other people. And it was really getting clear on what that meant around my calendar, and how I organized it, that really shifted everything for me in terms of what I was enjoying in life, what I was able to do with clients. It was just the huge ripple effect of that.

Kathi: Yeah. Parceling out what you're doing when: what day, what time. So, okay, as an organizer, I have to ask: what calendaring system do you use?

Melissa: So I use Acuity as the scheduler.

Kathi: Okay.

Melissa: And in that, I have it all set up. There are different types of appointments. There are different time lengths. They have different spaces between them. They can be scheduled on different days. So Mondays are my days that I work with my business, on my business.

Kathi: Yes.

Melissa: And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I work with clients. Friday is the day that I have meetings out in person, or different things like that, the more social day. So setting those up in that way means that Monday I'm doing the things that I need to do on my business. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm in my business, and then Friday I am out in some way, networking, socializing, those types of things. And that freed up so much time, because when you put like things together… Put all like things together in a bin and it works.

Kathi: Oh girl, you're talking my talk.

Melissa: I know. And what I realized was that when I got control of my calendar, I got control of my time, which also meant time is money, time is freedom, time is enjoyment. And so it really began to shift the rest of the things, because then I wasn't rushing to get from one to another, like, why on earth did I do this to myself? We all do that in business. Why did I do this to myself? I don't know.

When I got control of my calendar, I got control of my time, which also meant time is money, time is freedom, time is enjoyment.

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Kathi: Yeah, exactly. And I always say, if you don't know what you should be doing, you don't know what you didn't do. So having some type of a strategy and overall idea of what you're doing with your week is so huge and so powerful. You can get so much more done if you just simply do that: plan in advance. Even if things don't come through, because everybody has the best-laid plans and they all fall away sometimes. But again, if you know what you should have been doing, you know what you didn't do, and then you can catch up and do that.

Melissa: I love giving a structure to it. And the structure is just a loose structure, and then the things get moved around, because that's life.

Kathi: Yeah, that's life. And a lot of entrepreneurs are nonconformist, and they don't want a blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute thing. We just want an overarching idea of what should we be doing right now. I know this because most of my clients are artistic creatives, and they struggle with the calendar thing. I absolutely love the idea that you use one day for out and make it a Friday. That's perfect, seeing all your outside appointments together. So you're on the ball, girl. So what's the best piece of advice that anybody's ever given you when it comes down to business or even personal life?

Melissa: Well, I think it is understanding the value that each of us brings to the world just by being ourselves. And by being ourselves, then we get to go and do the things that we want to do. And I think it's the value piece that I see most often in clients, where they are not understanding their value, not charging their value, not being in their value as themselves personally, and then adding the value that they bring from their work on top of that.

Kathi: I am in total agreement with that. You have to think about what is my hourly rate before you decide if you're going to do that specific type of task, or if that's something that is below your pay grade. And I find that even people who don't work, just as housewives, totally undervalue their time and what their time is really worth for themselves, which is why a lot of them are running around burned out. So, okay, you use a blend of science, behavior, emotions and understanding. So talk to me about the process when people work with you. What happens?

Melissa: So we look at it, because nothing is in and of itself individual. So when we look at things that are going on for us with money, we have all the patterns that we grew up with. We have all of the brain patterns, which is when we look at fight-flight-freeze. What's going on when we go into fight-flight-freeze? Our whole prefrontal cortex goes dark. So we have no executive function. We have no logic, which is how we get, we're like, why did I do that? I don't know why I made that choice. And what happens is all of our logic goes offline. So when we can regulate the autonomic nervous system, in that brain science side of things, then we can make better choices. So that's a big piece of this. And then we look at what are the emotions around money, and how are those influencing how we feel about things. Like if we really desire relational security, we may make bad financial choices based on trying to make someone else in our relational circle feel better. So we start looking at the emotions of it, and then we get really just into the practical: what are the numbers, what's coming in, what's going out? And I think that's the holistic approach. Whereas most times, when you come and step in to say, okay, I need to figure out my money, they're like, spend less and save more. Just spend less and save more, Kathi. It's fine. Just do that. And I say, well, we have a very equivalent to spend less and save more, and that's eat less and exercise more. And that obviously doesn't work, because we have a multibillion-dollar diet industry. And if that worked, then it would work. But it doesn't work. And so when we look at money, we need to look at it from a more comprehensive approach.

Kathi: Yeah, I'm in total agreement with that. Definitely. And I love the idea of, let's talk about your system: what state are you in when you're making these decisions is so very important. Are you tapping into your inner voice or your outer voice? Are you trying to please people? What's it all about?

Melissa: All of that, then, is how your brain is keeping you safe. And when we step back and say, okay, I made these choices, they're not the choices I would make again right now. But when we can see that when we were making that choice, we were in fight-flight, and our brain was simply trying to keep us safe, then we can take that layer of shame and guilt off of the choice. And when we can take the shame and the guilt off of the choice, or where we are right now, or what's happened, then we start from a much higher place of, okay, look, that was my brain trying to keep me safe. Now I know that. Let me figure out how to make better choices.

When we can take the shame and the guilt off of the choice, then we start from a much higher place.

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Kathi: Absolutely.

Melissa: I mean, it's like, I'm sure when you're working with someone, helping them organize, and they have like six staplers, there can be a lot of guilt and shame that comes with that. And if you're like, okay, great, you just weren't organized. Now you're organized. You only need one of these six staplers. Then you allow them to make different choices after the fact, and you don't have to carry the guilt with it.

Kathi: No, there's no judgment. I mean, life happens, and we all flow into different types of situations in our life. And that's what this podcast is all about. We all have something that we've overcome, and it's just what it is. And the big question is, what do you do with it, and how do you transform beyond the muck that you get stuck in, so to speak?

Melissa: Yeah, I agree.

Kathi: So you're talking about schedule. So what do you do for your morning routine? What gets you up and going in the mornings and focused?

Melissa: So I love it. So my morning routine is waking up to not an alarm clock. That was one of the things that was like, okay, if I lived a life that was absolutely perfect, I would not wake up with an alarm clock, and I would just start my day in a very meandering kind of way, rather than like, get up, got to go, have to do all these things. And so my morning routine just starts by waking up when I wake up. And that may be early, that may be eight o'clock, that may be nine o'clock. And it's funny, because when I started waking up without an alarm clock, now if I have to set an alarm, I usually wake up like a minute or two before the alarm goes off. It's really a comical kind of thing. But in the mornings I get up, I wander around, do some writing sometimes, do some reading sometimes. I'm a big Audible person, so I may turn on an Audible book while I have breakfast. It is a very leisurely morning. So I am not super structured in, I get up and I do this and this and this. I am that entrepreneur that's like, you're not going to tell me what to do. You're not going to tell me that I have to do 12 things before I go do this. And it's funny, because it's when I realized that, the less I tried to force myself to do those things, and the more I just allowed whatever to happen to happen as I started my day, I did the things that I wanted to do, when I took the force piece out of it: you have to do this.

Kathi: Yes. Yes.

Melissa: I mean, it's like, they told me I couldn't, that's why I did. And the reverse of that is also true for me. They told me I had to, so I didn't.

Kathi: Yes. Exactly.

Melissa: And that freedom means everything.

Kathi: Absolutely. And I haven't used an alarm clock forever. I set my head, is what I say. And it's just like you: when you set the alarm clock, when I set my head, I always wake up five minutes before my head tells me it's the alarm. What's up with that? You don't really need an alarm clock. You can absolutely just set your intention when you go to sleep, and when you're going to wake up.

Melissa: Exactly.

Kathi: If I could wake up on the hour, it'd be great, but five till is always a little bit, why did I do that? But that's just the way my head works. Maybe I should start saying, okay, I'm going to get up at 8:05, and see if I actually wake up at 8. I might have to do that experiment.

Melissa: Try it out tomorrow morning.

Kathi: That's right. That's right. Okay, so do you have a favorite life hack that you use?

Melissa: I do. It is my calendar, and I color-code everything. So I have a whole stack of colored pens.

Kathi: Love it.

Melissa: Everything gets color-coded. So that would be the thing. It's color-coded in my Acuity calendar. It's color-coded where all the calendars come together. They are all color-coded. And that way I know, when I just glance at it, what each color means, and that gives me the breakdown of my day.

Kathi: I love it. And then you use paper somewhat as well, since you have the markers there.

Melissa: I do. I do. I wrote a book, The Aligned Money Life Activator. It's part calendar, it's part work through your money stuff, being attentive to the things that you want in a day. And so that's where the paper comes in for me. So my calendar is fully digital, and then each week I go in, and in the book, lay out what my week looks like, because I am such a paper person. The hardest thing for me was to go digital and do the Acuity calendar. And then it was like, okay, but I still need that paper piece, because I'm very tactile in that. And again, there's brain science behind that: what you write down physically on pen and paper just goes into your brain in a different way. So I do both in a modified way, so it only gets to the paper the week of.

Kathi: Right. And that way it's not confusing. You have all these extra miscellaneous duplications of things.

Melissa: Yeah. When an appointment changes and everything, it's just changed. And then during the week, it's like, okay, this is what I'm working on. This is what's important to me. These are the pieces that matter today.

Kathi: Got it. That's great. Okay, so speaking of things like that, do you have something that you're going to offer the guests here? I'm going to try to turn on my video. See if it will actually work. We'll see. Here I am. What are you going to offer the guests or the listener?

Melissa: I have a Profitable Calendar Checklist that gives you a layout of what to think about in using a calendar like Acuity, or laying out your calendar, so that you have a way to think through the things that most people are not thinking through when it's time to go from paper, or go from just individual there on your phone, to sharing your calendar out in the world. And it's just a super easy checklist to go down. It's things like, are you blocking out holidays on your calendar? Because as soon as you share your calendar with the world, that gives people the ability to put time slots in. And how far out do you want to do those? And can they schedule this afternoon? No, that's not a wise choice. Because when you start doing it, you don't know what you don't know.

Kathi: Yeah.

Melissa: And then it's like, oh, well, if I block this day as my day, and this day is a day out, and this day is… oh, well, this is much easier. It begins to lay out just how you walk through deciding those things. Are you better in the morning? Are you better in the afternoon? If you're sharpest first thing in the morning and that's when you want to meet with clients, great, then do all the other stuff in the afternoon, or vice versa. It's just a nice, easy checklist to walk through the steps of what do you need to think about when you're setting up that calendar to make it profitable for your business.

Kathi: Yeah, that's wonderful, because everybody should use an online calendaring program. I use Calendly, whatever it is. And you're right, if you don't really think about it, then, oh, someone pops in for 15 minutes in the middle of a big project that you're doing. Or, most importantly for me, I want to make sure that I can get to my Pilates when I'm supposed to get to my Pilates. So I've got to cut off appointments at a specific time, or then health just goes away. So I think the checklist is super valuable, and I would recommend everybody download it, even if you're using something like that, because I think it's going to kick something in your brain, maybe something that you might have forgotten about, what to do to protect yourself on your calendar. Because a calendar is a huge tool when used properly.

Melissa: Well, I mean, it's either a tool, or it's a way that you are abusing yourself, because you don't realize, oh, well, I blocked this here and this here, and so now I'm driving 30 minutes that way and I'm driving 45 minutes that way. It's one of those: once you figure out, okay, here's the great things to think about, then the calendar actually becomes part of your profitability instead of a liability.

Then the calendar actually becomes part of your profitability instead of a liability.

Kathi: That's a good quote right there. There you go.

Melissa: Let your calendar be profitable. Because, I mean, that's the thing: left unmanaged, it becomes a liability rather than an asset.

Kathi: Yes. Absolutely. As do most things.

Melissa: Yeah. Very, very true.

Kathi: Well, make sure to download this checklist. I think it's going to help you a lot. And I really appreciate your time, Melissa. You've been very generous, and I love some of the quotes. We'll put them down below. We'll also put a link to the website, to the download, so you can get to know Melissa a little bit more. So thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Melissa: Thank you. It's great to be here with you.

Kathi: Absolutely.