Welcome to Friday’s Featured Female!
This weekly series features inspirational stories from admirable women. IMHO, it’s always good to be reminded of how strength, determination, hard work, heart and ingenuity can impact the quality of one’s life and I’m proud that these women will allow me to share their stories here.
Today’s Melissa is Melissa Dell@MelissaDell.com and BlingDivaDesigns.com. I got the chance to meet Melissa (read: talk her ear off) at a holiday party in 2012 when she was invisibly pregnant. She’s now the mother of 2 children under 3 as well as a wife and business woman. Melissa was blogging before blogging was cool and I’m glad to have her share a bit of her wisdom today.
Tell Your Head To Shut Up
HA ha, did I get your attention? I think, as women, one of the biggest challenges we face is telling our head to shut up. How many times have we had on-going conversations (in our head) that we’re not ____________ enough? Insert any word – pretty, smart, tech-savvy, witty, funny… Anything fits. Why do let one organ control the entire body? It’s ridiculous. Would you let your left foot guide all that you do? No. That’s bizarre! You have to let all the parts contribute to the end result.
But so many times the brain gets in our way and it holds us back. It makes us worry that we’ll fail, we won’t succeed, and everyone will judge us. But everyone, I think, has those moments of self-doubt. It’s moving beyond that and listening to where and how our hearts might guide us.
For me, my heart was guiding me towards the
SoCal Lady Bloggers group. I was a member, and during a weekend was viewing the tweets being sent out by
Carolyn West, one of the co-founders. She was in a session discussing collaborations, partnerships, and what works. I had already been thinking about wanting to play a more active role in the group but wasn’t sure how or why.
After that weekend, I drafted a message to Carolyn, starting off that she doesn’t really know me or what I have as skillset, but I was feeling this need to connect with her and the group. I feel that message was the launching point. I was nervous sending it out there for the possibility of rejection. But guess what, she didn’t. And it’s been almost a year since that message was sent and we’ve done so much with each other.
So my advice? Listen to your heart every now and then. Step outside your comfort zone. You won’t know what can become of it.
Melissa Dell showing off her Bling Diva Designs.
Thank you Melissa for inviting me to be a guest blogger!! Happy Birthday Month!
If you want to catch up with Melissa, you can find her at the following outlets:
I need to do this more! I spend so much time railing against myself for not being enough. Thanks for the reminder!
So Happy and Glad you listened to your heart and followed what you really wanted. I am also happy that you emailed Carolyn.
Yes, that absolutely got my attention and yes, it’s so true! I’ve been stepping outside my comfort zone more these days and guess what? It’s not as scary as I thought and can actually be pretty rewarding!
LOVE your belt and dress in that picture!
Us Melissas know some things…
Brittany, I find you such a positive force as well. You are an inspiration to me as well.
Me too!
When I met Melissa she was as put together as she is in the picture. It almost made me want to hate her but I couldn’t….