Making Behavioral Science Actionable with Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business

What does it take to turn behavioral science into something businesses can actually use? Karen Lynch sits down with Melina Palmer, CEO of The Brainy Business, to explore her journey from marketing and entrepreneurship to becoming a leading voice in applied behavioral economics. Melina shares how The Brainy Business Podcast helped build her business, why storytelling works best when brands understand their role in the customer’s story, and how insights teams can embed behavioral science into everyday research rather than treat it as a last-minute tool. She also offers lessons for founders and leaders on knowing when to say yes—and when to say no. Looking ahead, Melina makes the case for keeping humans at the center as AI and technology reshape the insights industry.

Key Discussion Points

• Turning behavioral science into action: How Melina translates academic research into practical approaches businesses and insights teams can use.
• Building a business through podcasting: How The Brainy Business Podcast grew into a platform for teaching, consulting, speaking, and writing.
• Rethinking storytelling: Why customers should be the hero—and how brands can determine whether their role is the mentor, sidekick, or “sword” in the story.
• Moving beyond behavioral science as a tool: Why concepts like social proof, framing, and anchoring should inform research and strategy from the beginning rather than being added at the end.
• Leadership, focus, and entrepreneurship: Why new founders can benefit from a “year of yes,” while established leaders need to get comfortable saying no, prioritizing, and avoiding productive procrastination.

Resources & Links

• ⁠The Brainy Business
• What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You by Melina Palmer
• What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You by Melina Palmer
• The Truth About Pricing by Melina Palmer
• Melina Palmer’s TEDx Talk, There’s Nothing Magical About Monday
• The Brainy Business Podcast

You can reach out to Melina Palmer on LinkedIn.

Many thanks to Melina Palmer for being our guest. Thanks also to our production team and our editor at Big Bad Audio.

Transcript

[Karen] Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the CEO Series. I'm Karen Lynch. I'm so excited to be here with you all today and here with our guest. I am just thrilled to be talking to Melina Palmer who is no stranger to podcasting, but has not been interviewed by myself or Lenny or has been on the Greenbook Podcast before or the CEO Series. So this is a first and I can't wait. Melina Palmer, she is the CEO of the Brainy Business, podcast host of her own podcast by the same name, The Brainy Business, author of books like What Your Customer Wants and Can't Tell You, which is a fantastic read. By the way, I read it a few years ago when I first met her, The Truth About Pricing. We'll talk more about those books in a little bit, but talking to Melina is like a masterclass in behavioral economics, in leadership, in entrepreneurship. It's also great fun. And I should also mention that I joined Greenbook in March of 2022 and first met Melina when she was in the 2022 cohort of Future List Honorees. So I am just so glad to be having a public conversation with you. Welcome to the show.

[Melina] Oh, yes. Thank you so much. And thanks for the great welcome. Delighted to be here.

[Karen] It's so funny because when we first got on and I said like, have you been on this before? And you were like, I don't know.

[Melina] Must have, right?

[Karen] Must have. Your journey, even with Greenbook, you have been on stage at our events though. You've been on a lot.

[Melina] Yeah. Yeah, you know.

[Karen] Yeah, one of those things. So just tell us a little bit more about the nature of your business because I'm going to ask for the backstory, but first tell everybody more about what the Brainy business really is.

[Melina] Yeah, so my work is really in human decision-making, right? Why people, like why customers choose to buy, why employees buy in on things or don't really in either of those scenarios and being able to help people in business to better communicate with how the brain actually likes to receive information. And so some of that is through understanding of behavioral science and behavioral economics. Also things like cognitive semiotics and aspects into just neuro decision-making, all these fun brainy psychology things is really what I do. And through the podcast and books and the work that I do, I really just like to focus on helping people to take that, like I've always kind of said, it's like taking this research out of academia and into application, right? And making it where you could read those papers and be like, cool. And what am I supposed to do with any of that stuff? And so I like to make it so people can hear about the really amazing stuff happening in the greater sciences and say, oh, and I feel like I could go do something with that, right? To feel empowered to take an action.

[Karen] Yeah, so let's talk about how you got here because it's a really great business. For those of us in the audience who are largely insights analytics professionals, right? It's an adjacency that's incredibly cool. And that's one of the reasons why we've loved having you on stage. I met you in the context of our IIEX behavior event so we kind of focused in on that particular sub-genre of our industry, so to speak. But how did you get here?

[Melina] Yeah, so my undergrad is in marketing. And so closer fit, I guess, as far as the insights and things. And I had worked at an ad agency out of college, ended up starting a company in that and then worked in a financial institution and was running a marketing department at that organization for about six years. When I did my undergrad in marketing, there was like this one section of one book in one class that had this little bit about buying psychology and why people do the things they do. And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing. And I hadn't thought about further education at that point. My sister and I are first generation college for my family and saying like, I want to go get a master's in this, this is the coolest thing ever. And I spent the better part of 10 years calling schools, then they would say, that's not a thing. We don't have a program in that. You can build one if you want, but we don't have anything for you. To which it's like, well, if I know what I need to learn, I don't really need to pay you like $200,000 for that. So nah, right? So I was working in industry, but always interested in these aspects of human behavior. I ended up finding behavioral economics along that journey and realized that this was the thing I was looking for, even though I gotta tell you as a marketing background, I was like, economics, are you sure? This doesn't seem like what I'm interested in. But whether you're getting customers to buy, employees to buy in, it's all that same, how you present something to get someone to do something sort of idea. So yeah, through that process, I did go get a master's in that and timing wise was able to leave the corporate job. And at that point, I thought I was going to just do a marketing consultancy and some behavioral stuff as part of it, was sort of the idea getting started and very quickly had realized that I kind of have this superpower in talking about it in a way that people understand and want to buy in on. And someone who had a very successful podcast had recommend that I start one. And I said, cool, how to podcast? What is that? Yeah, so I started the show in 2018. And that was just as behavioral economics, behavioral science was really gaining a lot of traction. And mine was really the first show in the world that was on this topic in this way. So it started getting found everywhere in a really great way that turned into, we now have getting close to 2 million downloads in 170 plus countries. And Texas A&M found me through the podcast and had me come in. I co-created the certificate in applied behavioral economics and that's led to consulting and work and really cool stuff. So I would say, the podcast was a really key role in getting everything moving and that turning into books and more teaching, consulting, speaking and just all the stuff that's kind of happened from there.

[Karen] Which in and of itself is really amazing because we know because we started the podcast, the Greenbook podcast in 2022. And then we started The Exchange, which is a live stream and attrition in podcasts is really a big thing. So many podcasts start and then stop because people can't sustain them. So the fact that you really launched this phase of your career and a business and a highly successful one on a podcast is quite extraordinary.

[Melina] Well, thank you. I would always tell people, because over the years I've had a lot of people ask me for podcasting advice and things like that. And I would say, have enough of a plan to get you through at least those first like 10, 15 episodes, right? Make a commitment you're going to do the thing weekly for six months and have the plan for that because that pod fade, most shows don't make it past episode seven is when they fade out. It's a real term of pod fading. It's a thing. And so actually this month will be the 600th episode of the Brainy Business Podcast coming out in just a couple of weeks.

[Karen] Very cool.

[Melina] Yep. And that's been fighting the good fight every week with new episodes.

[Karen] Well, I don't know the exact number. I should know the exact number of episodes that we're on. I know for the Greenbook Podcast, we're at 140 something. The Exchange we do weekly, which is a live stream so it's a little bit different. CEO series, I don't know what number we're up to either, but I do know that it is effort to sustain it. And we knew that. We had a plan going into all of them because we knew about that fade. And when we tell people that want to join our network or that want to commit to kind of partnering with us, that's one thing that we coach them about. We're like, you need to have that plan because we know that that's real. So anyway, so congratulations. I think that's all really exciting. One thing I want to go back to, because you mentioned like when you first got your undergrad, yeah, you started your own business there. And then of course, you're like, I'm going to start my own podcast. So this entrepreneurial spirit has been there from the get-go. And yes, okay, you also worked for other people, but you also had that drive to work for yourself as well. And I want to talk about that because I saw that in myself as well. I mean, I had my own business within a few years of my own undergraduate degree as well. There are some people that just it's like, oh yeah, no, I would like to work for myself and you just do it. So what do you think you had in yourself that kind of pushed you to be like, I'm going to start my own business because not everybody has that right away, but you did.

[Melina] Yeah, yeah. I worked in an ad agency just out of college and I had worked at another company before that while I was in college and ended up, this is a funny, okay. So this company, which was an electrical wholesaling distributor, like a thing that just random job. And I was going to school, I needed a paid internship. And the job was Inventory Management Specialist that they were hiring an intern for. And I know I went in and I'm like, talking about why I want this job. And the guy's like, you're studying marketing, why would you want this job? And it's like, oh, people, like it's about understand what the customers like and these, which is true. And like also kind of just needed a job. But in that process, cause it was a smaller business. And he said, you know, we don't have a marketing department, but we've really been thinking about starting one. When this internship's done, would you want to start a marketing department for us? Would you want to do that? I said, yeah, yes, please. That sounds great, I would like that. And so I became Director of Marketing there while I was still in college, getting my degree in marketing. And then, so, you know, just figuring out, starting things as you're going and, you know, making that happen. And I think then I was part of a group. We went and toured, the student group went and toured at an advertising agency that was local, you know, and then of course, you know, I have all the answers as the owner of the company is asking for different questions of different, who did this ad and why is this interesting? And then, you know, at the end, they ask what questions anybody has. And I had said, yes, are you hiring? Oh my gosh, I sort of hate my past self in these ways. But, you know, I got, he said, you know, actually I think we are. And I did an interview there. I didn't get the job at first, but they hired me a couple months later for a different role. And then, you know, as you go through that, someone I was with there, we said, eventually we should start our own thing. And then like things sort of came together. So we co-founded an organization together. And so, you know, I think there's a bit of, I don't know if we should call it overconfidence or like belief in the thing that can happen. But I think for me, even from a young age, there's a lot of like, even if I don't know how to do it, I know that I'll be able to figure the thing out, right? Whatever it is, you know, and as far as being able to say, perhaps, I have an acting background too, shocking, I'm sure. But with some of that, where they say, it's like the thing you put on your resume and say, of course I can ride a horse. And then it's like, if they actually ask you to do it, you gotta figure it out before you show up for the first day, right? And so it's kind of this, whatever it is, you know, have the confidence to know you can do it and then just jump in and kind of figure it out as you go. I still get like scared of stuff, obviously, but same thing with podcasting where this person said, I never tell anyone to start a podcast, but you need to do this thing yesterday. And I said, okay, and I rebranded my whole company and launched the show within three or four weeks. So I think it's, whether it's ambition, confidence, over confidence, some line there, just make it happen.

[Karen] Yeah, make it happen. Thinking about writing your books, did you have that same sort of fear about writing the books or did somebody say you should write a book or did you say I want to write a book?

[Melina] Yeah, it was more the, I want to write a book. And I would say at the beginning for book writing stuff was kind of a check the box idea of a thing that you're going to do is like, and a lot of people have written books and that's a thing that you do as you do thought leadership. And so I started pursuing that as an option and realizing, you know, I'm really glad that I did and helps you to formulate thoughts a lot. So that was someone who was a guest on the show, who, his name is Scott Miller. He was the EVP of thought leadership at FranklinCovey at the time. I was having a conversation with him and he had said, if I ever need support on anything, said, you know, I am actually thinking about doing a book. I asked him questions. He said he would introduce me to a publisher. He did, they signed me like, there you go, right? So I think there's a lot of asking the right question and having the whatever, gumption, something or other to say, yes, and can you help me with that? And then you follow up with it and you need that in entrepreneurship or any sort of pitching, sales, what have you. When you don't, so much gets lost for the people that don't take the time to follow up, right? And I know for anybody listening to this too, regardless of whatever industry you're in, so often it'll be something that comes up where it's like somebody I met two years before and we've been talking to and eventually they say, okay, we're ready to hire you right now for this project we're looking to do immediately, right? And we've been dragging along for two plus years. And so just keeping that going, knowing it's all going to come together in the end and be a kind human and ask the right questions, I guess. And so, yeah, that turned into the books. And I think there's a little bit of fear always of, it's more like what if people don't like it, I think, but it feels much more permanent than the podcast, right? I can just go talk for a while and it's, oh, I was just talking, there you go. But when you write it out and people go like pull a quote and say, you said that thing, it feels, I don't know, it feels different.

[Karen] Yeah, well, it's a great book by the way. Well, the first one in particular really convicted me, but there was also the way you went about it. It was one of those books, and this is the plug that I can do. If you were doing it, it would be the shameless plug, right? But it was one of those very easy to read books for somebody who is not in the field. You were able to translate the concepts to somebody who's not in behavioral economics, right? Into a way that was very easy to read and understand. And I really appreciated that about it. And anyway, so thank you. And again, we can share the link to it in the show notes because I think that we can all benefit from understanding kind of that gap in, again, what customers want but aren't able to communicate. So I think it's good that you birthed it into the world for sure, for sure. So what kind of things do you work on now then? So books were then, and podcast is ongoing, and consulting work is ongoing. I know you've done a TED Talk. What are some of the things that are exciting you now? What are some new projects, current projects?

[Melina] Yeah, funny enough, book four is actually in the works. So excited about that. We don't have a pub date yet as that's coming around, but really that is looking at how we message to other people and the way we say things and why some things absolutely resonate and get people where they just believe and they buy in and other stuff, you say the thing and it's immediate resistance, right? So what is it behind how we're communicating that like the formula there so that you can be more likely to communicate in this way that gets more buy-in from people and knowing as we think about storytelling and metaphor and how that ties in, I'm looking at political speeches and business examples, all sorts of really interesting things to be able to analyze and look at how we can better communicate in this interesting way. So I'm very excited about that.

[Karen] Yeah, that is great. That is very interesting. So you had What Your Customers Want and Can't Tell You, What Your Employees Want and Can’t Tell You, we didn't even go there. The second one, by the way, was What Your Employees Want and Can't Tell You. So for all of you managers and CEOs and business owners, that one is also convicting. That's another one that I picked up along the way and looked at. Worth the read if you want to understand what your employees are not telling you, speaking of convicting. And then The Truth About Pricing. So were there book tours or do you really just do it all kind of virtually? Like what is it like when you're also a CEO and a founder of a consultancy?

[Melina] Yeah, I think it was also a timing thing that there wasn't as much book tour-ness with it. So the first book, I signed the contract with that publisher in 2020, May of 2020 and the book came out in May of 2021. And so there wasn't a lot of travel or things at that time. So I just didn't really do that. The next book came out in the fall of 2022 and the third book came out in January of 2024. So really those books, I wrote them and they came out in very quick succession with that. And there were some, like go out and do some speaking. There's always a little bit of stuff you do. Do the podcast rounds and things like that. But for this new book, definitely looking at a bigger platform and doing the thing. So hopefully this will be a different story as far as going out and doing a tour and all the stuff. I think that'd be awesome. I get to talk to so many amazing authors on the Brainy Business and interview them about their books and it's just cool to see all of what's possible out there and we'll see how that goes. But interestingly, The Truth About Pricing original title, just going in the theming of things, I pitched it as hat your buyer values and can't tell you. So they were going to be the series kind of going that way. And so that trilogy kind of has a bow on it, even though the title on The Truth About Pricing doesn't quite fit that. And then this is a new venture and approach into everything.

[Karen] Are you able to, without spoiling it, I don't know if you're able to, or if you kind of have a, you can't really talk about it yet, when is it launching?

[Melina] Undetermined, but I would bet at this point, it's probably like maybe as late 2027, but probably first part of 2028.

[Karen] Are you able to talk about some of the kind of behavioral insights behind communication? Because I'm intrigued.

[Melina] Yeah.

[Karen] Because it's not behavioral economics per se, and I guess the other ones, it's more behavioral psychology, but are you able to talk about some of the kind of key ideas behind it? Because we talk a lot about communication from a marketing standpoint. So I haven't really thought about it from kind of just political messaging, but certainly have thought a lot about it in my career about brand messaging and things like that. So are you able to give any kind of headlines about some of the themes in the book?

[Melina] Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, with that, and I actually have been talking a lot about, I mentioned storytelling being a piece here. And when I talk about this on the brand and customer side of things is really to note like, we've all heard, likely, the customer's the hero, right? You and your brand are not the hero. The customer's the hero. But often people just say like, so do that, right? Like it just sort of hangs out there. It doesn't really tell you what that means. And so in this case, understanding what your role would be in that and knowing that… If you look at that hero's journey arc, they have like three very distinct helpers they interact with again and again and again, right? And the way that they interact with the hero is very different from one to the next, right? So you have your mentor that's going to come in, your Dumbledores, right? They are, it's not always a wizard, but of course like Gandalf, Yoda, right? They are there every so often, but they let the leader, that hero fail from time to time. They give their bits of advice. They know the whole story, but they don't give you everything right up front, right? They're thoughtful in that way. The sidekick is that person that is there with you every single step of the way, right? They are always going to be like, they've got snacks, they have prepped the books, they got things packed, like they have knowledge you don't have, like they're filling in those gaps for you. And the final one is the sword, the thing that allows you to vanquish that final enemy at the end, whatever that happens to be. And you can see where if the sidekick’s showing up as a mentor, or a mentor is talking in sword language, it's very weird on behalf of the hero, right? It's hard to identify who you're talking to. But for a brand, if you can lean in and say, we are a sidekick, we want to be a sidekick. And then we talk about partnering with you and how we're here with you every step of the way. Maybe we're signing contracts that are multi-year to help show that we're here in this with you all along the way. And we're investing back and all of this versus a mentor product and services you would create are different. Or if you are showing up and saying, we have the best technology and it'll do all these things for you. A lot of AI early on, especially like when ChatGPT first really hit the market, absolute sword, because it lets people do something they absolutely couldn't do on their own and vanquish those projects that they're dealing with. And so you can see how understanding where someone is in the story, what your role is, and then communicating with them. And as you think about it as a leader or communicating with anybody, it's not like saying, so often we say like, I have the new thing. It's so exciting. And I can't wait to talk to you about it. It's like a brand new book on a shelf. We're starting page one, chapter one of new initiative X, right? Like that's what it is. But everybody on your team is like in the middle of the dark forest of an existing book, right? This is not a new thing. So when you can understand that and then line up metaphors and messaging based on where they actually are and what it is that you want them to do in this longer term, then it's more likely to resonate with that momentum you're trying to build and understanding their own motivation of where they're wanting to go as you consider them as the hero in this larger story arc.

[Karen] So cool. Very cool to think about. I really like it. We, when I say we, I'm thinking on behalf of the insights analytics industry, market researchers per se. So, and again, we talked about how you are in our industry, you're adjacent to our industry, you work with others, you're kind of a consultant in our space and there are others like you, but for context for everybody else before the next question I ask you, like how do you work with researchers? Because I think that's important because there are behavioral research companies, companies that put a behavioral lens over the research that they do that really focus on consumer behavior. But just talk about what an expert like yourself does in the research space, just for my question.

[Melina] Totally, yeah. So specifically the way that I like to work with teams and what I’ve found is the best use of everything going these days is I'm really working on teaching others to do the thing themselves, right? And so often vendors or experts, whatever that is, they keep all their insights and how they do it in a black box somewhere that no one is ever able to unlock. And it's like, you tell us what you want and we're going to go do some magic and we give it to you, but I'm trying to keep you having to be reliant on me in that process. And I try to do the exact opposite of that. So what I will do is often, so it's like I'll have an insights team and sometimes it's marketing and insights and sometimes it's like the foresight and design thinking type space, but it might be in any of those consumer facing elements. Those teams would come forward and say, we really want to have more behavioral science in the work that we're doing, but we don't really know where to start. We don't want to send like one person to go get a PhD or something and like hope they're going to help us with this. And also I don't want to hire a full-time person because we don't know exactly what we need. And so say we'd have like a six month engagements kind of typically what we'll do. I will identify some key goals to help give say five or six concepts that are most important for your team to learn through the process. And we have actual projects that you're working on. And it's almost like I'm a professor in residence with that team. So we do some trainings. They will be working on how they start to apply this and asking more behavioral questions in research they're already planning to do or something maybe they're going to be adding in. I can work with the partners that they already have in place because I'm not doing the research specifically. So I'm not a competitor for those, but able to help people to just start to ask these better questions and be trained so that that will hopefully ripple out across more of the organization and other things versus just what we're working on. But they also get that like shared language. So people can say, hey, have we considered the frame on this thing? Or are we anchoring appropriately? They can start to use that in the work and have kind of that safety net before they just jump out. I can say, oh, wait, wait, there's something you didn't think about. Yeah, so anyway, that's kind of how I-

[Karen] Yeah, so I wanted you to, because this I knew about you and I wanted our listeners to hear it too from your mouth so that they understood the context because there are the behavioral researchers, right? People who have that, and I loved the kind of professor in residence descriptor because I think that really brings to life what we're talking about. So now let me get back to my question was when you talk about storytelling, you know, it's been a big buzzword in our industry. It's almost jargon at this point, right? The importance of storytelling. And I've seen at IIEX events, presentation after presentation about storytelling. And in this brief conversation where you talk, and I've heard people talk about the hero's journey before, and I have not heard it come to life in that way before, right, where you mentioned those three roles very specifically and how a brand can be just one of those three roles. And I appreciate that so much because it's just a very different way of looking at that exact thing. And I think that's what's been missing from how the industry talks about something as basic as storytelling. And so thank you, first of all, thank you. And I'm wondering if there's, you know, and this is really putting you on the spot because again, we don't really have a brief for these types of conversations, people listening. We don't really have a brief, so I'm putting her on the spot. Are there other examples of things you have seen at events or whatever that the insights industry is sort of missing the memo on that your experience can say, oh, I wish more people understood that if they put this lens in front of it could bring a big aha.

[Melina] Yeah, where to start?

[Karen] I know. Where to start? Exactly. Like just one, one is fine.

[Melina] The first thing that comes to mind for me here is whatever tool you're thinking about implementing, like there are so many things that are really important to use. And it's really easy to get excited about the thing on the front end. So one of the things I do with my own clients and then just all the things we tend to see when we look at these is people have that motivation. They're excited. We signed the contract like, yay, I have this new shiny, amazing tool and I can't wait to implement it. And then, you know, rubber meets the road, things get hard. We’re triple booked in meetings and it's much easier to just like do the thing the way we always have done. Our brains are wired for this sort of thing. And we maybe do a little bit but we think we're going to do it later. And then you just go find the next shiny thing and like keep jumping without really investing in whatever it is that you're going to do. So any of these can be really useful concepts, whether you are looking to do more with behavioral economics and behavioral science, if you're looking to do more with the so many amazing vendors and partners and things, you will see at IIEX events. I've met so many cool people doing really amazing things with the aspects of eye tracking and now they're using AI and how we're able to get the voice of the customer. So cool, really, really great stuff. And choosing one, and in the same way we were talking about with podcasting, and dedicating and saying, I'm going to do six months or a year that we are investing in this. Our team is going to be working on it. We have someone internally that's holding us accountable. When we're going back and presenting about something, there is someone who is saying, well, how did you use, where's the voice of the customer data? Show me that thing. Where's the behavioral science element? What's the question you asked? That you get into it more and build those habits, even when it starts to feel easier to be in the status quo, I think is something in all of the world is really important to do as we think about changing behavior with that. And knowing that many of these things, even if they're presented as a tool, it feels like often when it comes to behavioral science, people think like, well, this is the little wrench I use to tighten up my stuff at the very end. No, that is not true. We talk in the industry more of like, this can be a lens of how you look at everything. And I talk to my clients a lot about social proof. It's one of my go-to aspects. And people say, well, that's just when we get to the advertising, like at the end, and I say like, no, you should be thinking about social proof when you're considering even building out the product. Like who is this for? Who are they? Who's influencing them? What do they care about? How are they talking about it? Why is that interesting? And being able to understand what that real motivation is that people have so that we can build that into the product and how it's displayed, like there's so much more that can happen. And then there's a different layer of social proof and questions you ask when you do a focus group or if you're looking at something. And then when you do ads down the line, there are iterations of it. But if you don't allow the time to sit with any of these things, you will never be more than surface level and you're really doing a disservice to what you could do if you really focus on something.

[Karen] Well, I just saw myself walking through, as a research practitioner, saw myself walking through the vendor space and learning a little bit about everything. A lot of people come to events learning a little bit about every vendor and wanting to try everything. And having that, I'm sure there's a term for it in your world, that sort of paralysis that now I'm back and I don't know what to do first because I've met so many vendors and I have so many wishes to try everything. What is the behavioral science term for that?

[Melina] Funny enough, so my TEDx talk, which we mentioned is called There's Nothing Magical About Monday. And it's about you think on Monday, you're going to go do all the things you learned at the event or that you heard on the podcast or read in the book and like, yeah, I'm so excited. And then you get sucked into all the meetings and all the stuff that you've always done and you just don't end up doing it. And so one, you can check that out for more insights and two, the real advice here is to pick one thing and hold yourself accountable to that. So I would say, as you're getting prepared to go to an event like this, if you were to sit down and say, I'm really looking for something that will help us to what, right? Really know what you're going for. A friend of mine, she actually talks about a strive five that she does, which I think is helpful to have a little catchy thing. And that might be like five people you really want to talk to while you're there and you go seek them out and why and what are you interested in? And that might be more on the vendor side if you're looking for clients or something. But in this case, if you say, we really need something that's going to help us to understand our customer better or get this other detail or I need something that's going to help with the eye tracking or we're looking for a behavioral scientist or whatever. If you know what you really, really want there and a couple of the criteria that you're looking for and how that would be able to be applied, you can use that filter as you go have those conversations to find the one or two that you're going to then set up a circle back call and interview with. I would also recommend, while I definitely say for the vendors, schedule circle back calls before people leave your booth. Don't think they're just going to like remember you because they won't because they get that overwhelmed. But yeah, if you get those scheduled for the week or two when you're back to be able to have that demo and have the conversation. You can let them know what you're interested in, get that momentum going when you're still excited about what it is and target it. But yeah, pick one thing and go all in on that thing that's really helping you to overcome that kind of stagnation that can happen.

[Karen] So that TED Talk’s online too so we can link to it in the show notes?

[Melina] Sure is, yeah.

[Karen] That's amazing. Alright, so before we wrap, put that CEO hat back on and let's share with our listeners some of the lessons you've learned in your career. What are some of the things, and I'm talking about kind of beyond the academics, right? Beyond this wonderful teaching that you have given us just in even our short time together. But from a founder standpoint, from a business owner standpoint, for other people that are maybe about to embark on their journey towards CEO or founder, what are some of the lessons you've learned in your career?

[Melina] Yeah, some of the key advice that I give to people is to, especially when you're in that beautiful moment of like, I think I'm going to leave or I'm going to take the package that exists to create my own thing, whatever that is. If you're looking to embark on it, would say maybe you're going to take on a lot of stuff. So I did what I called my “year of yes” when I started the company.

[Karen] Oh, it's like Shonda Rhimes. Didn’t she do a year of yes?

[Melina] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so in that, it was like scraps of stuff from people I knew from other networking, whatever. And that might be at a ridiculous rate that I wouldn't be charging ongoing, but like, or something I didn't know that I would want to do, like book editing. I did a lot of book editing actually early on in my work. But you just try a little bit of everything, get some of those connections going, get some work under your belt so you get comfortable charging. And you can also then very clearly say, hate that, never doing that again. And like, ooh, this was actually pretty cool. That lit me up. I think other people liked it, what have you. So I think something like that is good. And if you just say, I'm going to just say yes to things and make it all work for a year. And then I get to evaluate and see what I want to keep and build on. In that process too, is to say, if it's like three years from now or five years from now, and like, I've made it. And I've done the thing. I am rocking the world. What does that look like? What are your days like? Are you able to work remotely? Do you have a team of people? Or are you not having to be worried about managing a lot of other people? Are you working with a ton of clients or just a few? Are you doing big contracts or one to many? That when you think about your time, you think about the work that you want to be doing. If you identify that early on, you can make sure that you're building to the thing you actually want instead of getting to the end and going, I own this thing and I hate it. Even if success should be defined by the thing that you really want to do and not just something that's generating like a lot of revenue and stress, in my opinion.

[Karen] Have you changed your own definition of success?

[Melina] Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's constantly evolving with this. And I think really, I just want to have a lot of impact on the world. And so for me is more people knowing about this amazing stuff is I think the most important thing and being able to use the terms or feel like they're doing something and taking an action that's so cool for me, which is why I think leaning in on the teaching and so much that I end up just giving away to people through the podcast and helping them to learn. So I would just like for more and more people to be able to start doing stuff and having that impact, I think is really a big aspect of success in my opinion.

[Karen] So for those people who are listening, who are intrigued, maybe not ready to start this journey, maybe they're not about to embark on it, but they're currently CEOs and they're kind of in the throes of it, right? So they're already living it, but maybe they need a little bit of a behavioral nudge. What advice for them, right? What's the wisdom you would give to them, either a mindset shift or again, some sort of a nudge for the behavior you would like current CEOs that have been at it for a while to take on.

[Melina] Yep, so my own battle constantly is that like saying no to things, right? And I am wired to want to say yes and do all the stuff and find the way to make it work. And I would say, know what you're best at and be willing to say no to the things that aren't the fit, even if it feels terrible sometimes, to be able to be respectful of your own time and give the best to the people around you. So being good at that. If there's stuff in that same way, just because I have 600 episodes of a podcast and I don't have plans for it to not continue at this point, but someday that will probably end and that's okay. So you do have to let some things go so you have space for the cool new thing that you're supposed to be doing or whatever that really is. And I say too, with meetings and things like that, you definitely get into a lot of that productive procrastination, which is one of the things I talk about in that TED Talk. The concept for it is called bike shedding, but it's easy to get stuck doing things that feel like they're helping you to move forward, but are actually a distraction that is keeping you from the really big thing that you want to do if you aren't just focused on goals and prioritization. And so in the same way I was saying pick one thing from that event, let's say when you can look and say, in this next year for my business to be just like amazing and the thing that it should be, if we were only going to do one really big, amazing thing, it would be this. And then you can set up quarterly goals to help you to get that and things that are not helping you for that, you can say not yet to those things and put them on the back burner so that… It's better to have one thing that you did really, really well than to have 10 things that you've done a little bit of stuff on that can't launch.

[Karen] Yeah. It is not lost on me that you told or you would tell up-and-coming CEOs to say yes to things and existing CEOs to say no to things.

[Melina] Totally. Yeah, it's a balance.

[Karen] It's a balance, it's a balance. All right, so my last question before I then say to you, is there anything I didn't ask you that you wished I had? My last question is, what about for everybody else? Up-and-coming leaders, people who are kind of in the middle, who are trying to maybe nudge their CEOs to do things maybe a little differently. Maybe they wish for some change internally or maybe they're trying to climb and they can't climb or something. Any wisdom for them from what you've seen in some of the workplaces you've been in?

[Melina] Yeah, I would say that this is a really good opportunity again to recognize that while it is your own journey and your career path, you would not be the hero of the story that you're trying to tell for the company as to why you should be moving up or why they should do whatever it is that you're suggesting, right? It's so easy to get bogged down in your own like, and then I'm going to do this and then I'm going to be the CMO and then I'm going to do that and like, this is why that matters. Like, cool, that's great for you. What do they actually care about and what's interesting to them? And in some place it might be it's helping the customer and these things which are very important. So those matter. Sometimes it's some bottom line numbers stuff, right? And being able to show how it's going to increase ROI or you're going to be able to get the budget that is going to help you to do the thing that's lined up with the company's goals. And when you can showcase that boss, if you're talking to the CFO is different than what the CEO cares about or what have you, like you can go in, understand what they're most interested in as that hero, right? And be able to frame the message in a way that's helping to get the thing that you want but in a way that they are really excited about and can see that you are that team player that thinks about the bigger picture. That's who people want to promote. People that aren't just stuck in their own silos, whether that's your own like siloed round of departments or that's you just caring about you when you can be going in and saying, hey, I know how this matters for sales and for insights and for finance and taking all that into account, I would recommend this thing. And just being visible too. Like if you're able to be showing up at things, you are supporting people, you want to be the person that people can't imagine you not being in the room.

[Karen] You are the sidekick or the sword, they are the hero.

[Melina] Yeah, yep. You can pick what that is as you're looking forward.

[Karen] Good paradigm shift there. I like that. I like it. I like it. This is why I enjoy talking to you.

[Melina] Thank you.

[Karen] So before we wrap, what's the one question that you wish I had asked you that I didn't get to?

[Melina] I feel like we had so many great things. I don't know that there's anything super top of mind that I wish we would have talked about. So you did the thing. Good job.

[Karen] I did the thing. Well, you did the thing, really. You did the thing.

[Melina] We did it.

[Karen] We did it together. We did it together. So the future, let's do it. We can do it in one word or phrase. What do you think the future of the industry is going to bring us?

[Melina] Hopefully, I would like to see more focus on humans in the space, which I know there's a lot about AI and tech and we need to build those human elements into it and be thinking about the people, whether that's customers, team members, how we build out these agents so that they are thinking about all of these things and are not biased monsters. So let's be more human, please. That's the goal, I think.

[Karen] Yeah, yeah. I'm with you. I’m with you. So from one human being to another, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. I mean, I could talk to you for hours. It was such a pleasure.

[Melina] Thank you. Thanks so much.

[Karen] Thank you to Emma for producing this show along with all of our others. I'm so grateful for you. Yes, yes, yes. Hats off to Emma. And thank you to Big Bad Audio for cleaning us up. And thank you to our listeners, really, for showing up week after week after week. We really appreciate you and we will see you on another episode of the CEO Series. Bye-bye, everyone. Take care.