Meet Melissa :: My Life Adventures

Meet Melissa

How Did I Get Here?
Do you ever look at your life and wonder, how did I get here? I work with small business owners and creativepreneurs (designers, stagers, retailers) to show them how to harness marketing and social media systems for maverick success. I know inside and out how to achieve this because I have led a life of continual reinvention and adventure. It is my consistent and persistent networking and relationship building that has led to each success step. The bits here are just highlights from my unique and ongoing journey… join me on the path of a life of passion and purpose. I’d love to work with you on your journey to success and The Six Figure Lifestyle!

Drifted South
The South has been my home for the last 15 years, but I was born and raised on the West Coast and have fond memories of being a sun worshipper and an occasional surfer. I still smile at memories of the lime green bedroom with the sky blue ceiling and the white shag from my junior high school years, (where I lost my pet turtle, Simon.) It was very cool for the day! We moved often growing up, giving me a ready sense of adaptability and a head start on my philosophy of flexible furnishings and moveable money.

A Nomadic Childhood and the Legacy
By sixth grade I had moved around Los Angeles four times – Belair, Barrington, Westwood, and Brentwood - and spent fifth grade in a Manhattan brownstone while Mom graced the stage in “Applause, Applause.” Summers and holidays were divided between trips to visit Dad and his extended family in Hawaii, and Mother’s folks in Arizona. Thanksgivings were typically spent at Taliesin, the Western Home base that great-grandfather, Frank Lloyd Wright, had designed.

Culture Shock!
I relocated to the East Coast for boarding school at The Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. The culture shock and even language differences, East to West, were startling, but I survived the three years and graduated with honors. In the meantime, Mom had remarried and moved East to Connecticut. We were surrounded by monuments to great grandfather’s genius with the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, Fallingwater outside of Pittsburgh, and his private residences in Buffalo, NY.

Dressing Up with the Legacy
I initially considered pursuing a degree in costume design, following in the illustrious footsteps of my godmother Edith Head. She reveled in outrageous success as the costume designer in Hollywood, garnering 35 Oscar nominations for her work and winning 8 of those same awards. She dressed stars like Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelley, James Stewart, Jerry Lewis, in films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, The Sting, The Nutty Professor, Dead men Don’t Wear Plaid and hundreds more. She started out as a French teacher at an exclusive all girls’ school… the rest well that’s her story, not mine. (Yes, she really did win 8 Oscars, nominated for 35.)

On the Move
Instead I followed my Mom’s dream for me to earn my degree in Hotel Management from Cornell, and surviving four years in the frozen tundra of upstate New York, I started in hospitality purchasing. That means if you ate it, drank it, wrote with it, or slept on it, I bought it! For five years, I moved companies, cities, and states every eight months. Can you say career ADD?

Successful and So Miserable
I was earning great money and one of the few top women in my field, yet each day, I dreaded going into the office, and couldn’t wait to get home in the evenings. I was bored, uninspired and frustrated by the daily routine, and sought a creative solution. (Betting you might know what this feels like!?)

Reinvention
I headed to Birmingham for a degree in Interior Design. I had saved enough to attend school full time for six months. After that, I knew I needed to pick up a full-time job while still keeping a full class schedule. It didn’t matter! I was on fire and on purpose, passionate about my new career and reinvention. Birmingham proved too small for my dreams so I jumped ship to Atlanta and Ethan Allen. For 18 months, I enjoyed my work immensely, until I went head to head with my manager over vacation pay and I walked. I had been planning my own start up, but not so soon.

Passion, Purpose and Bills to Pay
I had no clients, bills to pay, and was $70k in credit card debt (I got the vacation pay check but it didn’t go far!) I contacted Emory University’s and Oglethorpe University’s adult evening education programs. Both agreed to accept me as an instructor and I began teaching 3-4 nights a week for what turned into a decade! At the same time, I got creative and found a job working nights and weekends managing a kitchen for a catering company, this lasted 18 months until design referrals kicked in and I could afford to quit.

Adventures Down Under
During the first five years of business my sales doubled every year. I added personnel and delighted in transforming clients’ interiors and their lives all by design. With a really strong second in command on board I took the adventure of a lifetime, heading to Australia and New Zealand for 5 weeks. I had the time of my life! The travel bug took me on Safari to Africa, a quest through India and Nepal, and even a trip to China. Exotic travel is still and always a passion, exploring other cultures, customs and countries.

A Retail Rendez-Vous
Travel must have set off the wild hair I had to open a retail shop. I was forever bringing clients unique and different pieces that they couldn’t find anywhere else and decided there would be a demand. I launched Interior Destinations. Our opening ironically and sadly coordinated with September 11. I hung in there for two years before I truly realized that I missed just the design. I regrouped and warehoused remaining inventory and scaled down to a home office once again.

Leading the Way
Now just eight years later, I have moved again. This time I am embracing the mountains of Highlands, NC and reveling in the quiet of the woods in my weekend cabin. I’m in Atlanta weekly for business or around the globe as it may be and have plans to invest in a condo since the market seems to have bottomed out. I jumped feet first into Social Media and have built lively networks on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Ecademy and now show other small business owners and creativepreneurs the keys to marketing and social media systems for success. I’m all about working smarter, never harder and showing how you can translate passion, talent, and drive into a winning business that supports the lifestyle you deserve and desire. After all you will succeed far better when you work on your business instead of being buried by it!