S5E7: Taking the Leap - An Interior Designer Goes All In On Her Dream Career, with Melissa Muszynski

“If we all looked at life as ‘what are we supposed to learn and what are we supposed to achieve? What are we supposed to do here in this world, in this lifetime?’ I think we would feel more empowered.” - Melissa Muszynski

Want to achieve career transformation and follow your passion? Embrace change and find fulfillment in your work? Well, I've got the solution for you! In this captivating story, Melissa Muszynski shares her journey of turning her passion for interior design into a successful business, overcoming challenges, and following her heart. Get ready to be inspired as we dive into her story and discover the key to embracing change and achieving career transformation. Let's unlock the secrets to turning passion into a thriving business and find the fulfillment you've been seeking. Get ready to be inspired and take your career to the next level!

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Unleash the power of turning your passion into a thriving business.
• Discover effective strategies for overcoming concussions and migraines.
• Explore the intriguing world of interior design psychology and emotion.
• Embark on a transformative journey to start your own design business.
• Understand the profound impact of home environment on mental health.

My special guest is Melissa Muszynski.

Melissa is the founder and creative director of MBM Design. She offers her clients full service residential and commercial interior design coupled with strategic project management services. She has the expertise to take on projects of all sizes and complexities, ranging from single family homes to multi-story residences and offices.

Along with her commitment in providing the highest quality work for her clients, she is an active member of the CT Home Builder’s and Remodeler’s Association and serves on the Board of Directors for the Interior Design Society, Connecticut Chapter.

During her “free time” she can be seen at local art galleries, cheering at swim meets and finding design inspiration while traveling with her family.

Transcript:

00:00:03
Welcome to your next stop podcast.

00:00:08
Welcome back to your next stop. This is Juliet Hahn. I say it every single time. I'm so excited to bring you someone that has followed a passion and turned it into a business. Welcome, Melissa Muszynski.

00:00:18
How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited about this.

00:00:22
So Melissa owns MBM design company. It's an interior design studio. You can find Melissa, really, on any of the socials at MbMDesign. And it's co right for your Instagram, it's MBN design. On Instagram, it's Melissambmdesign.

00:00:40
And then our website is mbmdesignco.com dot. Yep, exactly. And then you're. I mean, I love how we also found each other, but I want to kind of preface, because before we started recording, you said, you know what? If I'm looking somewhere else, is that okay because you get migraines?

00:00:57
Can you take us through a little bit of that? Because I think there's a lot of people out there that can really relate and connect on that. Yeah. So. And I'm sure we can go into it more, but five years ago, I had a major concussion and worked for a few years in neuro rehab with that.

00:01:12
So sometimes from time to time, I have to wear, like, these glasses because I can get migraines with my eyes converging in, which, you know, unfortunately affects a lot of people. We were on a Zoom call this morning for an hour, so sometimes my brain's like, hey, we could do about one a day, but when we start doing more, so it just helps me put this on with the light that comes into your eyes definitely affects your brain. Yeah. And so if you need to do that, feel free to do that, because I think. I mean, that's real life.

00:01:42
I mean, it's better than you getting a migraine and then being like, wait, I liked that conversation, but now I have a really bad headache. That sucked. Thank you. Yeah. So please do whatever you need to do.

00:01:51
But so how. I always love to start these conversations, and we will get into the concussion because I know. I didn't ask. I'm sure there's people like, well, wait a second. Bless you.

00:02:00
I want to know about the concussion, but I want to kind of take it through a little bit about your kind of upbringing. I know that at seven years old, you had really, I mean, where the path that you followed by redoing your mom's kitchen with her. And that's kind of what sparked this journey. So can you take us through that a little bit? Sure, I'd love to.

00:02:22
I'm an only child and my parents worked full time and we lived in a city apartment until I was eleven years old. And we lived on the third floor and it was tight on space and I always enjoyed redecorating, organizing the house. I think part of it too was just boredom, right? I didn't have any siblings to play with and my parents worked a lot. My grandparents cared for me during the day.

00:02:50
And when I was bored, two things I did, I either rearranged the house, which drove my mom nuts. She would come home from work and she's like, why are my scarves on the kitchen floor? And I would say, no, like, this is a pathway around all the plants that you have. And it's crazy because you look at it when you were a kid and you say this kitchen just felt like a huge space. But then as you grow older, you're like, that was a galley kitchen.

00:03:18
How did I ever think that this was like a 30 by 30 kitchen? Something huge, right? So I enjoy doing that at a very young age. And then I didn't realize until a couple of years ago that I think I always had that entrepreneurial spirit in me, but I ignored it because I didn't think I could ever do anything with it. So when I was a little girl, again, when I was bored, I would put literally like tag sales on during the weekends in my bedroom.

00:03:46
And I would get an old tv tray, like tray table for my grandparents and I would sell stuffed animals, toys, and my parents would say to me, what the hell are you doing? Like, I don't want to buy something from you for $3, that I bought it for $20 a week ago, but they did it anyways because I like selling things and I like generating revenue of what those dollars meant to me. So those two combined things for years. I don't know why I suppressed, but I did because I didn't think I could ever do anything with it. Well, I mean, I think that that is so many, so many times people do that.

00:04:22
And I love, there's like four points that you brought up and I'm going to take it down, each one, one of the things that you said is that you always feel like you probably had an entrepreneur spirit. Now did you see like, what did your parents do, your grandparents? Or was there someone in your life that was an entrepreneur? Funny that you bring that up. So my grandfather worked probably twelve hour days in a factory in the city that they grew up in that I grew up in.

00:04:48
And on the weekends, he would sell balloons and toys for kids at the parades to be able to make more money for their family. My mom was one of five, so, and my grandmother was for many years, a stay at home mom, and she, too, also worked in a factory when the kids got a little bit older. So my mom and I will have conversations about that because my mom doesn't have it. My father doesn't. My grandmother didn't.

00:05:17
But my grandfather would sell balloons at parades. But what he would also do is he was a really good card player, so he would, people would pay him money to sell cards, you know, card competitions, whatever, pinochle or blackjack. So he would play cards for people and win money, and he would take a cut of it. So I think that's where I got it from. Right.

00:05:41
And so were you around when your grandfather was selling, you know, when he was selling at the parades and stuff like that? Or you just heard stories? I just heard stories. I think, you know, when I came into the picture, they both were retired, but I think he was still playing cards for people. Whether it was legal or legal, I don't know.

00:06:00
Or legal. But I do remember him coming home and winning money. Right. And one of the things that I always will say to people when they are talking about their story or they're an entrepreneur and they're really trying to go out and connect with audiences is to go back and, and go through kind of your, your life. And, you know, whether there's a lot of trauma, whether there's not, there's moments that you really remember.

00:06:21
And sometimes we have memory feelings or we have memory memories. And one of my favorite things is those kind of memory feelings that people will have where someone in their family maybe talked about something or they had, like, a side hustle and they brought a different energy into the space when they talked about that. And when you are raising kids and you have people around, we get to gravitate to that. Right. It's a gravitating to that, like, energy of maybe your grandfather talking about it, and you just felt like this kind of excitement in his tone that you didn't even realize.

00:06:51
So it was, that was like, wait, I want to do that. But then again, you didn't know the tools because you didn't get to see it kind of firsthand. And so that's what I think is really cool, is that when people are built, I do believe that there are people that are built for being an entrepreneur, and then there's others that are just not. And they're not good or bad, but the fact that you were kind of like, I always wanted to do it, so take us through when that kind of pivot, when you decided, okay, I'm going to do this, what were you doing in the meantime? So my background is in public relations and communications.

00:07:24
I had worked for many years either at an advertising agencies or in house communications for a few utility companies. And it was in the fall of 2018. We had just launched a major transportation program that I had worked on for years. And I had said to my boss, so what's next? What's the next big press event that we're gonna be putting on?

00:07:52
And he had said, Melissa, these are legacy projects that really only happen, like, every ten to 20 years. So I don't know when the next one's happening, but if you think you're going to start planning for it now, it's not the case. So I was obviously bummed out. I wanted to stay on that high and adrenaline rush, and I started to have this creativity pull towards creating and creating some more things that didn't exist before. And I had, you know, reflected a few months in 2018.

00:08:27
I'm trying to, like, think back of the years, because it just has gone by so fast. And I remember saying to myself, for so many years, I worked on building politicians legacies and their legacy projects and transportation. And what about me? What's my legacy like? Or what's the legacy I'm leaving for my children?

00:08:46
Or what am I trying to build for my children? Am I just always gonna work in a cubicle in corporate America and put on press events? Like, is this enough for me? And it wasn't. And I remember now, fast forward, march of 2019.

00:09:00
I was walking with my friend, and the girls were obviously really little at the time. You know, I'd have to think, like, three years old and seven or something like that. And I remember saying to her, I feel like I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown. And she said, what do you mean? And I said, I have this warped illusion that in order to be successful in life, you have to be near burnout.

00:09:26
Like, burnout equals success, because that means you're doing everything you can, and you're successful because you're burning out. And I'm like, this can't be right. I said I was teaching college communication classes. I was Girl scout co leader. I was working.

00:09:43
I was on PTO. And it just felt like I was filling, like, filling this bucket with things that a woman in her thirties or a young mom is supposed to do. And that's a, you know, not the case. So we ended the walk. I walked home, and my husband's like, hey, I have to go to Lowe's.

00:09:58
We need to get some things. Come with me and the kids. And I said, all right, so we're at Lowe's. We're checking out. We put everything in the trunk.

00:10:05
I'm literally in the trunk putting all the bags in. My husband's putting the kids in the car seats, and then he hits the button to close the trunk. Right? We have an suv, and I didn't hear the beeping from the trunk closing. And unfortunately, the trunk hit my head with the bracket that clamps into the back of the suv, and it hit the left side of my brain, the left cerebellum.

00:10:31
And I fell to the ground. And I was in so much pain a few days later, realized as I tried to go back to work, and I was literally driving as if I was driving a Jetson vehicle. Like, I was off that. I experienced a concussion. And I spent all of 2019 in neuro rehab multiple days a week for the first three months.

00:10:55
I couldn't drive. I couldn't write a check. I couldn't read an invoice and write a check. I remember it was during tax season, and I was like, oh, my God, this is really bad. If I can't.

00:11:07
My brain can't process to write a check. This is a problem. And my balance was affected, all of that. Right. I think people fail to realize the significant impact a concussion, which is an acute brain injury, has on someone.

00:11:23
I couldn't watch tv. No bright lights, no noise. I'd be on the phone for a minute, and then my brain would swell because it couldn't process anymore, and I'd have to shut it down. So I did a lot of reflecting in 2019 in my home, and I would sit, literally, on the couch, and I would have a pillow behind me and a blanket. And it was a neutral color blanket.

00:11:44
Right. I used to have a blanket that was a big pattern in colors. Your brain, when it gets injured or when it's fatigued out, doesn't like pattern, color movement. So I was like, okay, this is really interesting. So I would look at everything that we collected over the years.

00:12:00
I would look at the family memories and the pictures. I would look at artwork or I, you know, beautiful things that were in my home. I would also look at how we treated our home. Right. Our purse was.

00:12:10
My purse was on the floor. The kids book bag was just thrown. And I started saying to myself, I don't think we're appreciating our home environment as we should be. And I don't think I appreciate how significant our home environment plays in our mental health by the colors and texture and lighting we have in there. So I did a lot of reflecting work that year, and I said to my husband in the fall of 2019, I said, I don't want to go back to corporate America.

00:12:40
I'm feeling better. And I feel that this experience was a wake up call for me, a wake up call. And I didn't hear it for years because I promise you, in 2018, when I started feeling that creative pull, I probably ignored it for five years before that, maybe even 10, 15, 20 years. So I said to my husband, I said, I don't want to go back to corporate America, and I don't know what to do. I had been doing interior design on the side for years before that, but nothing full time.

00:13:12
And it was helping my bosses and some other people with their renovation projects, but not like this. So he said, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I'm going to do what any normal, quote, normal mid thirties woman would do. I'm going to call my medium, my psychic medium, and I'm going to pay her $150 for her to tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life and just confirm it, because I just want to hear what she has to say. So he was like, okay, fine.

00:13:45
I support you. So I called Karen on the phone, and I said to her, Karen, I don't want to go back to corporate America. I feel this experience changed my life. I'm not who I was. Not even a year ago, I was totally different.

00:13:58
I had dreams. I had aspirations. I wanted to take risks, because when you don't have your health and you don't know the outcome of what your health's going to be like, you can't take risks. You live in fear mode because you're trying to survive and get function and get through day by day. So I felt like superwoman, like I could do anything right, within reason.

00:14:20
So I said, karen, what am I supposed to do with my life? I am not going back to work. Give me some insight. And she said to me, I see you in homes. I see you pushing walls down, moving your hands, renovating, talking to contractors.

00:14:38
Does any of that ring a bell to you? I said, maybe a little bit. And she said, I see you starting a design business, and I see you successful at what your definition of success is right. And she said, you have to. You got to do this.

00:14:54
And I said, okay. So I got off the phone, and my husband says, what'd she say? I said, well, she told me to start this design business, that I was going to be successful. Can you believe at this idea I have? And he's like, well, what are you going to do next?

00:15:05
And I said, well, I have one life to live. I'm going to pay $200. And whenever I'm uncertain with my first medium, which I hope she never listens to this because she doesn't know I have backup, or the backup doesn't know I have a primary, I said, I'm going to call my backup medium because people get second opinions on their health. Why can't people get second opinions on their future? So he's like, you totally have lost it.

00:15:30
You're $500. And I'm like, I'm $500 in for a whole new life. Like, to me, that seems like a bargain. So I called Ginny up on the phone. She lives in Maine.

00:15:43
And I said, can you give me some insight at what I should be doing with my life? I need guidance. And she said to me, I don't know why you're wasting your time and your money. I know you've called another person and the universe is telling you, Melissa, you need to quit your job and you need to start a design business. You're going to be a designer.

00:16:04
And again, you're going to be successful at what makes you happy within those words, right? But they both told me, you're going to start the business. You need to be careful what the definition of success is for you. And you're going to be successful because you're going to do what your life purpose is. You just had to go through all those years of learning and evolving to be able to get where you are today.

00:16:28
And you had to go through a really hard time. And that was your sacrifice. That was your turning point, because you didn't hear the signs for all those years. And we're so happy you listened to it then, because it would have gotten stronger and stronger, and in your lifetime if you didn't listen to it, you might have missed it. And now you get to achieve what you're supposed to do.

00:16:51
Here is Melissa in this world. So I was like, Mike, I talked to her and he said, what'd she say? And I said, I'm starting the business the next day. I don't even care. I'm not calling anyone else.

00:17:02
Game on. And I started it the next day, like, a few days before Christmas, and a few months after that, Covid happened. Not even six weeks after Covid happened and the girls were home from school. I was all this time now I was on full disability from a brain injury. And then the phone rings, and my company's like, hey, do you think you can come back to work for a few hours a week?

00:17:29
And I said, just a few hours, because I have to homeschool my children. And everyone's home. It's Covid. And, you know, all of that. And they understood that.

00:17:39
Now, that was maybe 5% of the truth. But the rest of it, what was reality is my husband was working 40 hours. He was on three calls a day with state agencies in the governor's office because he worked on all the emergency preparedness for Covid in Connecticut with his team, and he was homeschooling the kids. And I was out building this business. I was meeting with anyone that would meet with me.

00:18:07
Contractors, stone vendors, plumbing, showrooms. And I was building up the brand because I said to myself, wow, I'm starting to get calls. Designers aren't working. Home stagers aren't working. They're too scared to go into homes.

00:18:21
I'm going to go in with a mask. I'm going to literally take my clothes off when I get in, in the garage, at the end of the day, hose me down, and I'm going to risk it, because why not? And I did that all of 2020. And my husband and I had this agreement. He had said to me, listen, you can go ahead and quit your job, but you really got to have one year salary in the bank.

00:18:44
I support you in everything, but definitely, you're not the same person you used to be, because the old Melissa was not a risk taker. But you're different now. I hit my salary in seven months, and I quit in September 2020 from a sign I'm assigned, girl. And I couldn't just quit when I had the money in my account. I had to quit when I felt in my heart the time was right.

00:19:10
So I had said to the universe, give me a sign. Let me know, because I'm not going to make a move until you give me some guidance. I'm not feeling it's right yet. So one night, it was September 11, 2020. I was sitting at my desk in my basement, and I watched the videos from 911, and they were obviously all over the news.

00:19:30
And I watched a video of a fire truck go over the Brooklyn bridge into the city. And I paused, and I looked, and it really, you know, I cried from watching it. And I looked at it, and it was the feeling of, you don't know what tomorrow brings. But they were doing what their passion was, and they were saving lives, and they didn't even know if they were going to save their own, and many of them didn't. And I looked and I'm like, they had no fear.

00:19:59
And the fear that I have of maybe not getting a design project or a builder, not feeling a good vibe with me, that's not fear, right? Because there's always more opportunity. So when I looked and I felt that moment, I knew that was my time. And I quit the next day. Amazing.

00:20:16
And that's my story. And I got chills. I love that so much. And I'm a signed person, too. I think it's so important.

00:20:24
And I always say, whether you believe in God, the universe, both, you have to listen, and especially when you're in a spinning kind of world, like when you're spinning, or as you said in survival mode, which I talk about often, you have to stop and you have to really think. And so I always talk about daydreaming. Some people call it meditation, but I call it daydreaming. And I do it when I walk my dogs. And that's where I was in 2017.

00:20:51
It was like I was in my. I'm terrible with math, but I'm 50 now, so you can do the math. Just pick a good number you want. Yeah, I think it was like early forties, mid forties, whatever. And I was feeling that creative kind of block that I didn't realize I was looking for.

00:21:11
And I think a lot of women go through it when our kids get a little older, whether you're in corporate, whether you're not, but it's almost like you're not needed in the same way. And if you're not being fulfilled somewhere else, it's a really uncomfortable feeling. So if you're in corporate or you're working for someone else and you don't love it, and then all of a sudden, maybe you do love being with the kids and loving that part of your life, and then all of a sudden, they don't need you as much. It's this, like, smack in the head, smack in the face. Like, oh, I'm feeling shit, why do I feel like shit?

00:21:41
And I think so many women go through it but don't allow themselves. And I think men do as well. We don't allow ourselves to kind of do that daydreaming because of the fear of what if I don't succeed? And so I always. I mean, yours is, you know, I love how you painted that because you had a moment, right?

00:21:59
I mean, you got smacked in the head. It was like the universe. God was like, okay, you're not listening. I gotta make you listen. I gotta really.

00:22:06
This is what you're meant to do, and you're not listening. And so the way, literally, how you express that. And I know when we met before I had you on the podcast, we talked, and we talked longer than we normally. You know, I said 15 minutes, and I think we were on for a long time because we connected on so many different parts. And I said to you, I don't want to hear your story.

00:22:25
But then we started just talking about life, and you could just feel our energy together. Like, we were like, boom. We have so much that we really think about. And so it is those things where I want, if someone's listening and they're in that kind of stuck part. I mean, that's why I started this podcast.

00:22:41
I really started it as a passion project, because I was having that block, that creative block where I was like, what do I do next? My kids are older. We had just moved. I was losing a friend to frontal lobe dementia, and she was my age, and so it was, like, really weird. And I used to see her every week, but then we moved.

00:22:58
I saw her in the home that she was in, and I knew I wasn't gonna be able to see her as much. She was far along by this time, but the kids were older and didn't need me as much. And I was like. And I was doing a fitness thing, but I didn't go back to corporate America. I had stayed home with the kids, and it was like, ugh, I don't like this feeling.

00:23:17
And so that's what I want someone to like. If you're in that moment where, like, you're waking up more days than nothing and you're going through your day and you're going to bed feeling, like, unfulfilled and frustrated, you have to stop, and you need to ask for signs. Whether you do a medium, whether you pray, whether you just go out there and let your mind wander. And what I always say to people is, what would your ideal life look like? And so many people don't let themselves do that because they don't want to let themselves down if they don't achieve that.

00:23:47
And that's where the block starts, because we all have a path, and that path, as you said, it can be missed by some, if you don't do that, like, super self awareness of where you are in the moment and what you're feeling, and it's not comfortable. It's not. And we go through it multiple times. I mean, I think we go through it, you know, multiple times in our lifetime and you have to be aware of it. Yes, I agree with you.

00:24:12
I think if we all could look at it as this were, Melissa, were, Sarah, were in this lifetime, and what are we supposed to learn and what are we supposed to achieve? And if we can look at the day, what am I supposed to learn? What am I supposed to achieve? What am I supposed to do here in this world, in this lifetime? I think people would feel more empowered than thinking.

00:24:40
They just have to do the normal grind or they can't change things up. We're supposed to experience life in this lifetime here on this planet before you know that, what's the next time? The next lifetime is like, and I say to myself, and I say to the team that works with me every day is I don't want to go back. I don't want my next lifetime to repeat these lessons. If I didn't take that risk, if I didn't start the business, I don't want to have to do it in the next lifetime.

00:25:13
Right? We evolve and we try and reach our higher self and throughout our life, and every lifetime that we have, that's the goal as us. I feel my belief in people here, so I want to achieve as much as I can in this lifetime so that I can achieve more in the next. And I don't have to keep relearning these lessons or experiencing them until we can, you know, understand them. I wanna really look at it head on the first time, right.

00:25:40
And then another thing and just kind of to build on what you said and also who we can impact in a positive way. And I think that there's so many people that also don't think of that because they're so in their own shit that they don't think. And that's where, like, sharing stories, it can be very simple, but sharing your story is going to change someone's life, or at least gonna start someone thinking of a process. And that can change whether they. It's just your story, or they're like, you know what?

00:26:08
I want to hire Melissa. Cause I loved what she said about the home, that I'm not treating my home like I should, and I want to have that feeling. And so there's so many things there. So can you take us through a little bit of that. Cause I loved how you said you were looking around and thinking, I want this to be better.

00:26:23
So when you have a client that approaches you, how do you tackle that project? Sure. So it's a great question to bring up in a conversation to have. I bring psychology into the design projects that we're working on. So clients will call me and they'll say, we're just really frustrated with our dining room.

00:26:45
We're really frustrated with our living room. There's no seating, the kids can't sit or I worked all day and we have this small sectional and it's so tight. I don't have any physical space and I want to be with the kids, but I just need like 2ft of space and I don't even have that. So we work with clients to achieve what they want, you know, physically, emotionally, spiritually in their home and colors. And some of our clients, a lot of them work long hours or doctors work at law firms or financial, you know, financial institutions.

00:27:22
And they're in their head all day long, right? They're saving people all day long. And when they come home, they just want a really comfortable space to relax in. They don't want a living room that has vibrant colors, that might be their second home, that they go to where they want a big pick me up and they're on vacation. But there's a lot of questions and a lot of conversations that we have with our clients in those intimate rooms, especially a master bedroom.

00:27:51
How do they want to feel when they put their head down on the pillow? What does the pillow feel like? What is the wall color? What does the ceiling look like? Is there lighting there?

00:27:59
Is there wallpaper? So we're creating an environment for people to have an emotion from. And I think that's what stands us apart from others as we bring that emotional component to the design work. I love that. I love that.

00:28:15
And it just paints a picture for someone, you know, to think about it. So you are, you're based in Connecticut. Do you work with people just in that area, or do you travel? If you can share that, if someone's listening and they're in a different state and like, wait, I want to talk to Melissa. Oh, yeah.

00:28:32
So we travel nationwide. We have clients in Florida, New Hampshire, Chicago. We have a project in California. So we travel everywhere for good clients and good projects. I love that.

00:28:46
So again, tell people where they can find you. And if there's anything you know that you have upcoming that you're excited about, if you can share that as well, sure. So they can visit us on our [email protected]. on Instagram. Melissa or it's alyssambmdesign.

00:29:03
And all of our contact information is on our website. And we are residential and commercial design studio, so we also work on small commercial projects. We've worked on a bitcoin, cryptocurrency office, financial firms, doctor offices. We've even renovated a funeral home. So we did that a few years ago.

00:29:26
And that was probably the most rewarding project, one of, like, the top three I've ever worked on. To be able to help people find comfort and peace in their environment when they're paying their respects to their loved ones is truly an honor and a gift to be able to do so. That was a really unique project. I love that. I love that because that was going to be my next question.

00:29:54
If there's a project other than that, what are some of your favorite things? Like when you think of if a client says x, y, and z, and you're like, oh, I'm lit up. Not that you're not lit up with every client, but if there's a very specific thing that you find that just really lights you up. We like projects where we can come in and do a full service design. So either a living room, a dining room, just really being able to transform it from start to finish.

00:30:23
I love kitchen and bath projects, especially a master bathroom. And just having this, like, beautiful, intimate setting, peaceful in a bathroom and in a kitchen, to me, like, the tile and the lighting just feels like jewelry to me, and it's beautiful. So I love bringing in the natural stone elements into those spaces. I love that. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for joining your next stop.

00:30:49
I'm so glad that we connected. I mean, I think it's fun. And I always, like, let people know because they're always like, how do you get your guest? Your assistant reached out to me, and I believe it was Sarah. Sarah reached out to me and she found me.

00:31:02
I don't know how. I don't know if she was doing a research on podcast, because your story is literally perfect for your next stop. I mean, it's exactly what, you know why I started it? Because I was in that kind of phase of my life where I was starting, which I didn't even realize, as I said, I was starting this as a passion project, which turned into me then creating a business, which was, I was following a passion. And so it was, I was like, wait, this is so crazy.

00:31:26
But it's those signs that you get that? You're like, aha, okay. That's what I keep needing to do. One thing that I do want to end with that you said that I think is really important is how your husband gave you kind of a. And then you worked it through, too, gave you kind of like a deadline.

00:31:43
And that's what I did with my. My podcast as well. I said to myself, I don't care how hard it gets, how much I don't like it or what, like, where things are. I'm going to give myself a year. I need a whole year to be able to see if this is what I'm supposed to do.

00:31:57
Because there's times that in every career, right, anything that you do, there's going to be parts that you don't like as much, and there's going to be parts that you love, and there's a book that refers to it as, there's always a shit sandwich in something, and it's how much of that shit sandwich are you willing to eat to then be like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. So I think that was awesome that your husband said that, because it gave you, like, a goal. So that is one thing that I love to talk about a little bit, and we can kind of end with that because I would love your thoughts on that. But, you know, what's people like when they're going out on their own? Like, how do they gauge, like, yes, this is continuing.

00:32:33
I should keep continuing this, or wait, I need to kind of turn left instead of right. And to me, it's like, you have to give yourself that deadline and then reassessed. I agree. And to back it up on the sandwiches, I think Sarah and I probably ate two of those sandwiches already this morning, and it's just the price you pay to do what you love. I think timing wise, right, we are a society.

00:32:57
We are people that want to feel that instant satisfaction of an achievement, of a result. And I'm definitely like that. I think what was helpful for me is I said, okay, can I say to myself, every month I'm growing? And the growing doesn't necessarily have to mean projects and revenue coming in, but am I establishing connections? Am I building partnerships?

00:33:23
Like, that takes a long time. You can't just say, I'm going to go make a car, and the car is going to be made in a day, a week, a month. It takes time. You have to get all the parts and put it together. When you start the car, does it run right?

00:33:37
Does it not? I think people, if you're going to start your own business. You got to give yourself a minimum of a year of seeing slow growth or seeing growth in whatever aspect that is, rather than revenue or building connections and relationships. I think if you say, oh, it's six months, it has to happen in six months, it's not going to happen. It takes time to build it.

00:34:01
And what I think was a awakening call for me is with my background in PR, I'm like, okay, I'm just going to get out there as much as I can, and I'm going to put all this stuff on Instagram. And as a result, it's going to grow. Well, it doesn't because it takes time. Interior design, that industry and other industries, it's a slow drip. You have to build it over time.

00:34:26
You have to have those relationships. So it, you got to learn patience and be willing to be patient with it. But definitely, I would say a year. Yep. I love that.

00:34:36
And we're going to leave it at that because I think that's perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining your next stop. You guys know what to do, like rate, review and share. You don't know who needs to hear this story. You might be listening to be like, oh, that's so great.

00:34:48
But you don't know who needs that little kick or who actually needs to also hire Melissa and her team to redo a space. Just as Melissa says, she brings in that psychology. So, like, why? What are the feelings in that space? And that is, you know, such a beautiful thought when you're really thinking about when you come home what you want your space to look like.

00:35:05
So don't forget to look up Melissa and at MBM design co.com. and then you can also find her on her instagram. And thank you again, guys, for joining your next stop, and we will see you again for another episode. Thanks again, Melissa. Thank you.