Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Before we dive in today's episode, I want to take a moment to share something that's been on my heart, something I've been working on behind the scenes for a while now. I'm officially writing a book. This book is called let's Be A Practical Guide to Leading Through Change. And it's deeply personal to me. It's built from real experiences. The uncertainty, the challenges, the moments where I didn't have the answers but had to lead. This isn't just a leadership book filled with theory. It's about navigating uncertainty when there's no clear direction, building internal clarity when everything around us feels unclear, having courageous conversations, even when they're uncomfortable, and leading with value, especially when it's the hardest to do so. I'm also going into topics that don't get talked about enough, like what it feels like to be challenged, overlooked, and even bullied as an adult in a workplace. And how those moments shape the kind of leader you become. This book is for anyone who's ever thought, how do I lead when I don't feel ready? How do I show up when I don't have all the answers? And how do I stay true to myself in environments that challenge me? If this is you, this book is for you. I'll be sharing more about the journey behind the scenes moments, and opportunities for you to be part of it as we go. So stay tuned, because this is more than just a book. It's a movement around how we lead through change together. All right, let's get to today's episode.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Good day, wonderful people, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who've supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Our topic today is business ownership versus traditional employment. Our guest today is someone that I met recently, but I think so highly of already and so happy to have her on today. Her name is Melissa Forrest. Melissa, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Andrew. I appreciate the introduction. And yes, from the time you and I had our first conversation, I just feel like we clicked. So it's an honor to be here and I'm excited to chat about business ownership versus employment.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Awesome. What has been energizing you these days, Melissa? Give me the tea, give me the deets, give me it all. What's been Going on.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: I think it's what's been energizing me is spending decades in my corporate world. And now in this particular business, I really feel like I'm in the place where I'm supposed to be. And that alignment is so incredibly freeing. And so I wake up every day so blessed and thankful for the opportunity to be able to serve our clients and meet all the people that I get to meet on a daily and weekly basis. And I'm sure many of your listeners can attest to when they're sitting on the couch and they're just dreading the week to come and they don't want to do it. I don't experience that anymore. And I love to be able to, to share that experience with our clients so they can hopefully one day find the courage to, to follow their passion, whether it's staying in their corporate job or starting a business, whatever that may be. So I think that's what's driving me.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: I call that the Sunday blues. So it's basically sitting down there, down after supper hits and you're relaxing and you realize, my God, I got to go back to work tomorrow.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: And, and sometimes we'll say that, but it, there are certain situations where there's that even more of dread than, than normal. So I totally get.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. Yeah.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that with us and so happy to hear that things are running so smoothly for you and that you're, you've transitioned into, into what you're, what you're doing now. So that's awesome. So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that I ask all of my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: So your question is, if your life was a cartoon television show, what would it be and why?
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Gosh, I'm old, Andrew. So cartoons have, it can be old,
[00:04:16] Speaker A: it can be an older one. I used to watch.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: So when my son was young, there was a children's TV show. I don't know if it was more live action, so maybe not cartoonish, but it was called Teletubbies, and it was very bizarre. But I love it. I loved it because it was so weird and I like being a weird girl sometimes. And, and so I think it's not technically a cartoon, but it is cartoonish. So can I stick with that answer?
[00:04:51] Speaker A: You sure can. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So your, your, your show would be like Teletubbies because you, you enjoyed it.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: I did. And you know, you can tell by the, the painting behind me. What's a little bizarre? I. I just like weird things and my husband is always telling me, he's always saying, you're a strange little monkey.
So there you have to have a little bit of color. Right. And for sure.
And so I, I find that my weirdness helps give me a little bit of that. That uniqueness.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I was just going to say it makes you unique who you are as an individual. So that's. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much for having fun with me. I really appreciate that. To get us started, I'd like, who are you and what really drives you to do the work that you do?
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Sure. So I love this question because it, it gives people context of where I came from to where I am today. So I spent my entire career in a corporate job and it was great. I gained so many friendships over those decades, so much skills and what I've learned, and it was, it was great when it served me. It was a responsible path. I think that most people grow up and they're told, get a job, stay in that job for as long as you possibly can. And granted, I understand that times have changed and mm.
And longevity and a career has changed as well. But I woke up one day and it just wasn't serving me anymore. I had a great job, I worked for a great employer. I loved my boss, I loved my boss's boss, my teammates. I was earning multiple six figures, my clients were fantastic. But there was just something missing on the inside of me. And at that time I was. I had gone through an incredible health journey where I'd lost a considerable amount of weight. And I woke up one day and through lots of learning and, and being self taught and then getting certifications and personal training and nutrition coaching, I realized that how I lost on my weight and how I kept it off was absolutely the wrong way to do everything. And, but my journey and the experience that I had throughout the many years that it took to, to get to where I wanted to be from a health perspective. And, and that is something that I really felt passionate about and I wanted to share with other people because what we have thought for so long in our lives of how to do things, it was the wrong way.
And so my career had changed, the goals that I had for my career had changed. And so I made the decision to leave that very comfortable job and to start my own business. And luckily I have a husband that was incredibly supportive. And when I went to him and I told him I'M leaving my job in 90 days to start my own company. He's like, okay, let's do it. And so that's really what drove me to. To make the. To take. Take that leap and put faith in myself to share that with other people. Since then, that company that I. That I left my job for, I've sunsetted it. It's no longer in business, but we transitioned into.
Into a new business where we help successful professionals and business owners understand what that looks like through franchising. So my husband and I, we. We started consulting business back in October of 2025, and I came on board full time in April.
And it's a very similar path from helping people to get healthy is helping people to understand and to realize that there are options, despite the fact that we might not have ever considered those options throughout our lifetime. And so I think that that's really what drives me to do this, because the satisfaction and the. And the joy that I feel every single day that I wake up, I. For those people that are looking for that, that are wondering what their next path is, that I want to be able to show them that there is another way. And it doesn't necessarily come with a corporate paycheck.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: I love the fact that you led yourself in your career, that you decided, this is what I want to do, and you did it. And there's so many people that are today that are struggling to figure out what they want to do, and they end up staying where they're not happy, and it just doesn't serve them anymore. So kudos to you for taking the risk, not just, well, looking at your situation and leading yourself to the fact that this is not serving me anymore. I'm not happy and I need to make a change. And you did it. So kudos to you for doing that.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Thank you. I think losing a considerable amount of weight and then keeping it off for several years, it really. I proved to myself that I could do something really, really hard. And so the benefit of that journey has served me, obviously, through other areas of my life. And our brains are designed to keep us safe. We find safety and predictability. And I think that that's why so many people end up staying in an unfulfilling situation, because it is predictable and change is scary. And so I understand it. I prove to myself that I could do something really, really hard. And. And so it's. It's a matter of having that faith in yourself that you can do something that you are not accustomed to doing.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. For sure. So what do you think people misunderstand most about the difference between owning a business and having a traditional. And having traditional employment?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Well, I think that we think of traditional employment as being secure, and that's just not the case, especially in this day and age. AI is having a considerable impact in so many industries. You see it every day in the news, companies laying off thousands of employees. And they're. Whether or not it is truly AI driven or not, that's just the way that things are these days. And we live in a time and place where things are changing incredibly rapidly. That is a huge misunderstanding. Is that the safety that we feel that we have with our employer is. Is really something that we tell ourselves to. To make it seem okay. A job can change at any point in time. The restructuring, you get a new leader in the market changes and compensation shifts, you get layoffs. And. And sure, business ownership is. It's risky, but it's risky in another way. And I think it's being able to control those risks for me is what I enjoy about being a business owner. Owner. If I've been through two layoffs in my. In my entire career. The second layoff that I went through was after I had separated from my husband and I was living on my own. And it was incredibly scary because I was the sole breadwinner in, in my household. I was paying my own rent and my own car payment, and I didn't have a nest egg to fall back on. It's so unnerving. Right. And so with my first business, I built that from the ground up. And the finances weren't necessarily what it was when I was in my corporate job.
I felt that I had so much more control over it, even though I wasn't earning as much money as I was when I had my corporate job. So I think it's really being honest with yourself about where that risk actually falls. And do you want that risk to lie in somebody else's hand, or do you want to take responsibility for that risk yourself?
[00:12:50] Speaker A: I've had so many conversations with people regarding employment, and a lot of them have said to me that it's easier for them to just get up in the morning, go do their job, and then go home. There's no decisions that they have to make, no responsibility other than what their tasks are, and they're okay with that.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, and I respect that. I. I do not advocate that business ownership is the right path for everybody. In fact, I think it's a very small percentage of the pop that are truly meant to be entrepreneurs. And business owners. And that is. Okay, this is, I'll say it probably a thousand times through this podcast that having a full time job and with an employer, that is great. We need people to serve in so many different capacities and business ownership is just one of those capacities. So I respect that. But it's, for me it's more understanding. Is that actually your path or do you truly need to figure out what other options are out there for you?
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Listeners often a belief that business ownership equals freedom. What does freedom actually look like when you're responsible for clients, employees, finances and like I was just talking about decisions.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that this is where a lot of people see it on YouTube videos where you've got these, these influencers that are traveling all over the world and they're, they have these lav lifestyles and they're filming it and that, that is their business. Right. And so for me anyway, freedom doesn't mean less responsibility. When you have a job, you are often managing budgets, you're managing people, you are managing clients. You've got decisions, very weighty decisions depending on what level of employment that you're in. You've got to provide direction and mentorship. And so when you're a business owner, you, you don't have less responsibility. It's just a matter of you have the power and the freedom to make your own decisions and to control your own path. When I was in my mid-30s and even in my early 40s, I, I don't think I could have ever have been a business owner. I wasn't there yet mentally and emotionally. And so, but now being able to earn the income, making sure that we are, are helping our clients and providing them with all of the knowledge and the insight that they need to make valuable decisions, smart decisions. We, we would never want one of our clients to invest in a franchise. And then a year later it realized that it was a wrong decision. We would rather you walk away from the process understanding that business ownership really isn't right for you right now than them go forward with that. And so yes, there is a huge responsibility, but there are responsibility on both sides and I think it's just a matter of realizing it. When you open a business or when you start a business, you're in it. And as you're growing your revenue, you're wearing, oftentimes you're wearing so many different hats and but the, the great thing about that is, is that years down the road, when you have that business and it's running and it's thriving and You've got a great team behind you. You do have a flexibility to do throughout your day. Today I was at the gym at 11:30. Yesterday I was at the gym at 1:30. And it's just, that was what my day provided me. But I think in all it's the freedom to be able to make those decisions and not have somebody up here deciding what your future is going to look felt like for you.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: And the decisions part is key because you, when you're working at an organization, you're giving ideas, but it's the decision of the employer to say if they'd like to go ahead with that or not. When you are your own business owner, you don't have to worry about that stuff. You can, you can do things a lot different and what you decide is what you decide. So I, I think the leadership part in both aspects is totally different, 100%.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: And that is the key. How often are, when you're in a corporate world, you're sitting in a pointless meeting. You're, you're tasked with advancing an initiative that you don't necessarily believe in. You're working on a project that seems to be going sideways once a day and, but that's what you have to do. That's your job, that's the lane that you're in. And, and granted things go sideways in business ownership all the time, but there again it's, you're deciding what to build, you're deciding how to do it, who you are going to serve, what kind of company, what kind of culture you want to, you want to bring to your company.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: How does emotional experience of entrepreneurship compare with working for someone else? Especially when it comes to security, uncertainty and control.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So entrepreneurship, I will tell you, is way more personal. You talked about it just a few minutes ago about, you've got, you've talked with so many people that they just want to go to work. They don't want to have to think about it. They just want to earn a paycheck and then come home. And so the wins are great in a corporate environment, the losses suck, but to some degree they're, they're shared. Right. And so, and so when, when you have a win or you have a loss in you're the business owner, it hits so much deeper. The wins are phenomenal. The losses cut so incredibly deep. In your careers, your identity is your job. But with a business, the viability and the profitability and how successful that business is somewhat tied to your identity too. And so that's where I think it differs wildly in that the emotion and, and how you feel about it when you're an entrepreneur is just that much more deeper and personal than with corporate job.
If you think about when you were a kid, if you had a lemonade stand or you mowed a lawn and you got paid for it, or you went and you, you were a babysitter, earning that those dollars by yourself and for yourself is so much more rewarding than when your parents are just giving you an allowance. And so I know that's going way back for some of us, including me, you bring it forward and that's exactly how it feels.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: For sure it does. And you're absolutely right. It's just like a lemonade stand. And yeah, whatever you are doing, you are, it's personal to you because everything that you do is for you. Now I know an organization would be the same thing. However, you're giving ideas, but your ideas that you're doing, it's so personal to you because it affects everything that you're doing. So I, I definitely see, I definitely see the difference for sure.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Yep. In my corporate job I was a consultant in the employee benefit space. So I worked with large employers strategizing on their employee benefit strategies for their organizations. And when we won a new client, that was awesome and was celebrated. When our clients had huge win, it was awesome and it was celebrated. But I will tell you, nothing compares to the first, my, my first client success when I had my health and wellness business and we, when I took her from having a very serious metabolic disorder to where we pretty much put it in remission. I remember selling our, our first client on the franchise and the first franchise agreement that the, that we helped our clients through. I will bring you to tears. And so, and I don't think I ever experienced tears in my corporate job unless it was something really, really bad.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: No kidding. What changes about your identity when you go from being an employee with a defined role to being a person responsible for creating a vision and a direction.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: This was really hard for me, especially with my first company. And starting a business from the ground up. Up is so hard. It is so incredibly difficult because when you're in a, in, in a corporate environment, you are walking into structure. It is laid out for you. You're a new employee, you have your training, you know exactly what the job is and you typically know exactly what your days look like. When you're a business owner, and especially if you are building something from the ground up, that structure completely disappears. Now when you're with a franchise, it's Those processes and those systems are there for you. So it makes it a little bit easier. But I think it's going really from having a defined role within a company to being that person that, that wears all of the hats. And there again, I talked about it just a few minutes ago about. With your career, your identity is typically tied to your title, how much you're earning, the kind of clients you're serving.
As a business owner, that identity is tied to how profitable your business is.
A lot of your friends and family might think you're absolutely insane from walking away from a comfortable and secure employment.
That company is you and you are the company.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: I would think that leadership in an organization is different from leading in a business. You're definitely leading differently. Especially if you have employees with you, you're definitely leading a lot differently.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yep, it's learning how to lead yourself because it's. When you, when you have a corporate job and a corporate role, like I said, that structure is there. And that was the hardest thing for me to learn as a first time business owner is how am I going to lead myself? How am I going to show up every day when I do have the option of going and sitting on my couch and watching Netflix if I wanted to at this point. Right. And so it's having that discipline, being curious and being open to what you need to do to get through your day and to build something special.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: For sure. What are some of the sacrifices people don't see behind business ownership? And conversely, what might someone sacrifice by staying in traditional employment?
[00:23:16] Speaker B: If you have not been an entrepreneur your entire life, there is something to be said about the predictability of being in a corporate role. And to some degree, regardless of whether we're living in, in my opinion, some of the most uncertain times of our lives, there's certainty behind that. And, but that there's predictability and what we know, right? You have your job description, you know what your lane is. You're not wearing all of the hats. And, but with business ownership, you that's, you have to wear all the hats. When you're, when you're still trying to become a profitable business, you might not be able to hire a sales team or hiring a marketing, marketing person or somebody to do your social media. You're doing all of that as a business owner. That is some of the sacrifice that you make. And of course the money piece is a huge part of that. But on the flip side, traditional employment, you're giving up autonomy, you're giving up a level of your creativity. And I think the biggest piece for me is you're giving up the ability to actually build an asset.
Because truly, if you look at it, business ownership is more than running a company. It's building an asset for yourself and for your family, for your future. And, and you, that's just, you cannot do that if you are working for somebody else. You spend so much time working towards that next promotion, waiting for the, the next pay increase, waiting on that new client to come in so you can do something a little bit different.
I think a sacrifice of, of, of being in a, in traditional employment that always have to give up some of that freedom and autonomy and control.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: And when you talked about predictability when you're owning a business, you're not sure where it's going to go. Where if you're, if you are working for a company, it's predictable because you know what your tasks are, what you need to do during the day. There's maybe some things here and there or a project that might come up that a leader might decide they want to get you to do, but other than that, it's pretty, it's, it's pretty predictable and self explanatory your day.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: Right. And even the chaos, right, the chaos in traditional employment can oftentimes be predictable. You know, in my corporate role, we had seasons where the workload was just crazy because of what we did. You think of a cpa and from January to April, April in The states, their CPAs and accountants are, they're working 70, 80 hours a week. And to some degree that was my job too. And so even the chaos is predictable and there's safety and predictability and our brains want that safety.
And so even though there's a lot of unpredictability in business ownership, for those of us who are stuck in that mindset of employment, it's hard to, it's hard to rationalize that and it's hard to compare the two because you really have no frame of reference for what that, for what that looks like.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty in both.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. But I think that there's a risk in not exploring what the other side looks like.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Oh, for sure, for sure. So you got to do what you got to do sometimes, right?
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: Melissa, before we wrap up here, what is one key takeaway that you'd like our listeners to remember from this episode?
[00:26:55] Speaker B: I love this question because it really boils down to what I do every day and what I try to convey to our clients is that people typically have a lot more options than what they think that they have, they just have to be courageous enough to go explore what those options are. I said earlier that I could have never have envisioned myself being a business owner in my 30s and 40s and I quite, I candidly wasn't ready for it, like I said. But I am really proud of myself for recognizing that my corporate role was no longer going to serve me and, and the future that I wanted to build for myself. And so I just got curious of what a different path would look like. And there are so many different paths. You can go out and start a business from the ground up, you can buy an existing business that's already there and you can invest in a franchise. But, and like I said, business ownership is absolutely not the, it's not the right path for everyone and maybe not right now, but it's, it's being curious, asking those questions and giving yourself permission to do so. And I think a lot of us think about what, what will people think, what will people say? We, we were so afraid of what our friends and our family, how they're going to view us.
And, and sometimes you just gotta say, I don't care and, and, and do it anyway. My mom, my mom worked for the same company for almost her entire career now. It was acquired many, many times through the many decades that she worked there. And my dad, same thing. The only time that he, he changed his job was when we moved. And I was petrified to tell my mom that I was, was leaving my corporate job because I thought that she was going to be so disappointed in me. But luckily that wasn't the case. Of course she was concerned because she's my mom, but she supported me. You've got to take a chance on yourself and you got to give faith that the skills that you have built throughout your, your, your time in your employment, you are managing budget, you are managing people and you're managing projects. And those skills are transferable. You can do it. You just have to be curious enough and have faith, be able to go see what those options are.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: My call to action would be to like, share and follow this episode.
Melissa, I want to take the time to thank you for, for coming on today. What I admire about you is your energy, your vision, your patience, your passion, your strength, and just your overall genuine nature. It has been an absolute pleasure not only to connect with you, meet you, but also to have you join me for this conversation today. So thank you so much for that.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: No, thank you, Andrew. I was petrified to do this, so you made it so easy. And I loved our conversation today and the the ones that we had prior to today. So thank you for making this an easy conversation for me and it was absolutely my pleasure.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: You're very welcome. On behalf of myself and my guest Melissa, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe, safe. And remember everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: You have been listening to. Let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
