We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melanie Paez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Melanie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.
Nine years into training and coaching coaches on top of being a coach for executives and other entrepreneurs, I’ve been able to see that most people in my industry are able to work remotely. We all have our own spin on it, and I have been fortunate to find my lane. I have lived nomadically on and off for over a decade. I meet my clients on the phone or on Zoom, and I am able to travel for in-person workshops and retreats. I work with my whole team- coaches, mentors, colleagues, assistants, and my financial team- all online! I’d say the only pitfalls have been wishing to spend more time in person with these amazing collaborators, but we are able to meet somewhere in the world on occasion, and those times are some of the sweetest parts of my work. Beyond the obvious benefit of being able to work anywhere that has wifi, I have been able to expand to a global network. I have clients as far as the Philippines and as close as just down the street. It has also afforded me the flexibility to be there for friends and family over the years in ways I know many others dream to be, supporting in medical recovery and lending a hand that can really only be done in person. I’m most grateful for that.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As I swung in another hammock overlooking another jungle on my travels in 2016, I felt that I was really living the life of my dreams. I was traveling full time and finding a new adventure around every corner, but that day, I was very clear that my dream was not sustainable. I was finding random work here and there that wasn’t exactly fulfilling, and I would use that income to fund the next adventure until I ran out and needed to work again. Without a consistent income, noticing I wasn’t making any lasting impact, and also realizing that there was a lack of intimacy in that kind of solo-travel, I sought out a way to close those gaps.
When I heard about coaching for the first time, I realized that it was a career powered by being passionate about people’s passions. With a background in social work, I already had the eye (and the heart) for being all up in people’s lives, but this was an opportunity to work with people who wanted partnership as opposed to my previous clients who were court-ordered to work with me.
I got in my car and drove from Florida to California for coach training. Through that process, I lived in with a family working as their nanny while I gained some important coaching skills to go with my previous experiences, and I worked with that training company for years mentoring other coaches and learning from mentors for my own business.
I had never really fancied myself a business woman, and it took a lot of trial and error to find my authentic voice in the sea of coaches in the industry. I tried on all kinds of niches including relationship coaching and corporate coaching, and now the people who seek me out really have one essential thing in common; they are driven by created a career that aligns with their values and fulfillment, and they know that their relationship with themselves is the fuel for the rest of it!
My clients and I meet for an hour each week and develop projects around the main areas of their lives with strong commitments and clear measures so that we have a map that makes sense to them. We use those measures as our goal posts, and our coaching sessions range from untangling limiting beliefs to gathering relevant resources and celebrating milestones reached.
I also have a subsect of my business that I dedicate to supporting people in integration work after major life events, whether it be a plant medicine ceremony, a retreat, or a change in family dynamics that a client needs support in weaving into their lives to move forward intentionally and powerfully.
With every aspect of this, I am most proud of the relationships I’ve built along the way. The high majority of my clients come as personal referrals by other coaches in my network or by previous and current clients. The people who have been closest to the work I do at Chief Executive Angel really understand who I am in and out of my business and who would best benefit from my work.
I am also extremely proud of my clients’ successes. Beyond the many people who have deeper relationships with themselves, I am in the acknowledgements of six books, have seen people into promotions, new businesses, and have even supported a woman in stepping into motherhood in a way that she never imagined possible before. Clients have moved to new countries, made a name for themselves in dream industries, and have increased their revenue beyond their stated goals. The fulfillment in that is unmatched.
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
I love this question, because I know that a big fear for emerging entrepreneurs is how to afford all of the costs associated with being your own boss. I appreciate that there are people who have some kind of money put away that they can pull from, and there are others at ground zero. I hope that my story supports those who don’t have the capital in their account, but they have the fire in their hearts. I did not have much to put toward my coach training, not to mention the costs for coaches, opening business accounts, and paying taxes. I got a job as a nanny where my expenses were covered and my pay was just enough to pay for my training and maybe buy myself a few smoothies and teas when I went out to network and build a community.
Where I lacked in funds, I excelled in creativity and grit. I asked a lot of questions of the mentors around me and gathered as much intel as I could to piece together a plan that worked for me. I didn’t let my mistakes or unwise investments from the experimental phase stop me. There were times I was in the red and survived on the audacity to believe I would make it, and so I did. Year over year, I account for the ebbs and flows that being an entrepreneur brings. I learn as I go. I celebrate my high earning years by investing back into my business, and I get through the lower ones by being clear about the resources I have that don’t break the bank. Developing authentic relationships with people who have the skills and resources I don’t and giving freely when I have resources they don’t, has helped me immensely.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
Alright, this one was a doozy! I was working with a bookkeeper to help me really get on top of my finances and learn more of the backend of my business. I am a coach through and through, but as a business owner, I also have to magically become a marketer, networker, financial whiz, and business leader. I don’t have a background in any of this, so it was really trial by fire for me.
My confidence soared having someone on my team who was helping me organize all of this. I leaned a little too hard on her expertise, and I missed that she had been calculating my income incorrectly for over a year. She overstated my income by almost half. Based on this, I overpaid taxes, gave contractors end-of-year bonuses, and invested in my business more heavily than I really had the income to withstand without knowing.
In finding the error, I had a lot of personal upset to overcome. How did I let this slip? How did I not notice this discrepancy for so long? And how will I recover?
Again, that creativity and grit proved useful. I moved to a more cost-effective place, lowered as many expenses as I could and worked incredibly closely with my financial advisor and accountant to right as many wrongs as possible. I learned the hard way how to really read and account for every dollar coming in and every one going out. I found a new bookkeeper who spent a lot of time reversing the mishap and teaching me along the way how to reconcile my books myself.
Although this setback was scary, and although it knocked me off my center for some time, it really rooted me in the reality of my business and helped me recover in a way that taught me such important lessons about responsibility and teamwork that were right on time. I know now that the integrity of my business is sound, and I have a team I trust to support me through any unforeseen circumstances.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.chiefexecutiveangel.com
- Instagram: @chiefexecutiveangel
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiefexecutiveangel/
