We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melanie Fox a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melanie, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Last summer I completed the Building Personal Resilience course offered through HeartMath®. Originally, I had planned to use it for my own personal development. It seemed that most of the other students in my class already had a business where they could apply the skills in their existing practice. I remember reviewing some of the marketing material that is offered to those who complete the course, and I saw this flyer for “Performance Coach” among other promotional material. For some reason I opened it. I’m pretty sure I read through it, but I wasn’t actually comprehending the words (I think it was about organizational performance?). I just couldn’t get the term “performance coach” out of my head. I had never really heard of something like that before. And then I remembered a time where my mom talked me through some visualizations right before a huge music audition. It must have worked because I placed really well. Then I started thinking that maybe this could actually be a business. I had plenty of experience on the side of the musician, performer, and exam taker, so why not use what I had learned with HeartMath to support and cheerlead others who wanted to perform their best in similar arenas? I just couldn’t get the idea out of my head. The HeartMath skillset is unique in that it uses coherence techniques to balance the nervous system, so the body and mind can operate more optimally and efficiently. It might sound complex, and I’m sure that technically within our physical bodies it is, but this wasn’t rocket science. If I could utilize these tools in my daily life, I knew that I wanted to share it with those who were striving for peak performance in their own.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Melanie Fox, and my coaching practice is aptly named Melanie Fox Coaching. While my current business is relatively new, I got my start in coaching about six years ago. A friend invited me to an iPEC weekend event, and although I didn’t continue with their training, I learned invaluable tools about listening, asking great questions, and holding space for others. This actually served me well when I took my first improv class in Phoenix, as improv is very much grounded in listening and responding. While out with fellow performers one evening, I shared that I was trying to figure out what to do next in my life, and a friend recommended a session with an intuitive for which he worked. After meeting with her and learning that my life purpose is “empowering unlimited potential,” I signed up for their company’s intuition training course and started working as an intuitive consultant shortly after (she offered me the job on the spot). That was where my newfound passion for intuition and my love for helping others really blossomed. I know that it felt good to see my clients use their intuition to achieve their life’s goals, but in return I was getting to live my life purpose and connect with others on a very deep level. It was incredibly rewarding and an impactful part of my journey.

Today I offer those who are seeking to perform their best, be it on stage or in an exam room, tools and techniques that can increase the body’s coherence which in turn leads to expanded intelligence, increased intuition, clearer goals, and higher levels of resilience. One of the best tools at my client’s disposal is the Inner Balance Coherence Plus sensor from HeartMath. It’s a really small sensor that clips to your ear, and it comes with an app on your phone so that you can see your heart rate variability and coherence score in real-time. This is where the rubber meets the road, in that the theoretical concepts of coherence can be seen in a practical way with quantitative results.

I want potential clients to know that they are not alone and that help and support are available. We all struggle with anxiety, fear, doubt, and worry from time to time (or maybe all the time). It doesn’t have to be that way. You have within you everything you need to achieve whatever your goal is, from getting on stage at an open mic night, to signing up for a first-time poker tournament, to taking the exams to get into grad school. I offer the tools and techniques for you to truly shine, to share your passion with the world, and to achieve what sets your soul on fire.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Many (many) years ago my husband bought me a “Trainer for a Day” pass at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I was so excited to see all of the animals behind the scenes and to have fun with their dolphins (dolphins being my favorite animal since I was young)! It was one of the most magical days of my life. Some time later, after I couldn’t stop talking about how much fun I had and how that would be great to do every day, my husband presented me with a diagram he had created of how to go from where I was in my life at that point to being a dolphin trainer. I was floored! First off, it was an incredibly thoughtful gift, complete with the first course in the Animal Training & Enrichment certificate offered by Animal Behavior Institute, but also because I had been working in Corporate America for years. How in the world could I give up a fairly decent, steady paycheck and do a complete about-face with my career? To be fair, I was a bit disheartened with where I was headed job-wise, and although I enjoyed my work as a data analyst, it was mostly just providing me a paycheck and little else at the time. I wrestled with whether I could actually make a change of this magnitude work. We had a mortgage and had lived on our current income for a while, but if I was being honest, my heart just wasn’t in my work anymore. I yearned to get out from behind a desk, to make some kind of impact, to have a reason to be excited every day.

Fast forward two years or so, after I learned to swim as an adult, volunteered with marine mammals at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and completed my certificate in Animal Training & Enrichment. Part of my certificate requirement was an internship… At an animal facility… Likely nowhere near where I lived… And yet, I applied and was accepted at two facilities, one in Bermuda and another in Hawaii. This was where I had to decide: stay with the solid, familiar, lackluster path, or try something completely new, on an island, for five months. I am happy to tell you that while it was extremely terrifying to hand in my resignation notice, it was also incredibly empowering to admit what I truly wanted and to take a huge leap of faith (halfway across the ocean) to pursue my heart’s calling.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the major lessons that I have had to unlearn with owning my own business is that you’re never done. You see, I am a student through and through. I love the classroom. I understand the classroom. There’s a teacher, and a syllabus, and sometimes a rubric, and there are definitely grades. And the grades are very clear and specific, even if it’s just pass/fail. The class has a date that it starts and a date that it ends, along with a start and end time each day. There may be assignments and tests and group projects and lots of reading, or there might be none of this, but that’s ok, because it was all laid out in the syllabus at the start of the class. And when the class is done and you receive your grade, that’s the ballgame. It’s done and over, you’re on to the next class. This makes complete sense to my brain, after having been in school (and loving it) for a total of 17 years of my life.

And then there’s your business. Sure, there’s a website, and a phone number, and maybe some social media feeds. You might have an employee (I do not myself at this juncture), or a physical location, or even a client meeting lined up this week (hopefully more!). In terms of your daily activities, I’m guessing there’s a laundry list of site updates and phone calls and email replies and invoices and offers and approvals and confirmations and verifications and… It feels like the list just keeps going. There’s no shortage of tasks to keep you engaged in the running of your business. But the best part, the part that I got to unlearn, is that I get to decide whether I want to work on that now or not. In the beginning, I was driving myself mad trying to get everything done in a day. But that mindset was robbing me of my peace. I want my business to feel good, and that starts with me approaching it from an easier, lighter place. Does it feel like I’m in the flow right now? Great, then I’m going to do whatever my intuition nudges me toward. Is there something else in my life that needs a bit more care and attention? Not a problem, I’m going to take care of that, and my business will still be there when I’m done. Do I get a feeling that something needs to shift? Cool, I’ll do some research and maybe change direction. I feel so much better looking at it in this light. The give and take creates just the right balance to have a life and a business that I both love.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.melaniefoxcoaching.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/perform.with.heart
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/perform.with.heart

Image Credits
Headshot/main photo: Jen Haddix