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

MELINDA, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I think risk taking is a skillset that needs to be practiced in all aspects of life. In my life as an entrepreneur over the past 9 years, I have had to continually take risks both small and large. My lifelong passion of rock climbing in the outdoors has really set the stage for the ability to think and solve problems in the moment, and make moves (on the rock and in life) weighing options and calculating risk. I have experienced the failure and rejection and the “no” the entire time. But what’s amazing is that at the end of a long path of “no” there exists the “yes” that we strive for, but there was always the loss and sacrifice that goes along with it. Big risk to me, is also big sacrifice, and deep commitment to the outcome, no matter the result. Climbing has given me a opportunity to fail at something very hard, over and over and over. The beauty of that is that I get used to doing hard things, I look forward to doing hard things, I become passionate about doing hard things, and I expect the failure to come because it is the path to growth and becoming a stronger woman and leader. When those hard things start to feel easy, yeah, that is when you realize what you are capable of — so much more. Without the risk taking in my life, I really do not know who I would be, and while I used these mindset skills to build a longstanding business, I also instill this leadership trait into my parenting style. So it is applicable in every stage of life.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Melinda is the founder of Hoopologie, based in Boulder, Colorado which specializes in custom manufactured polypropylene tubing in colors (custom plastic extrusion) and custom manufactured decorative tapes (custom decorative films) for the purpose of making handcrafted hula hoops in all varieties. She has created over 250 different polypropylene tubing colors/sizes and hundreds of custom designed tape patterns over the last 9 years. She has innovated products and colorants that were first to be introduced to the world and changed her industry by intruding “color-changing” plastic tubing and unique color-changing decorative films to the world in 2015. Melinda has grown her business exponentially over the years, while raising a family, and Hoopologie is the only business of its kind in the world. She exports to countries worldwide, and has opened and expanded markets globally, growing the community through innovation, contribution, and social impact initiatives.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

We had to pivot in March of 2020. Not only had I just had baby #3 in February 2020, the pandemic hit. We were faced with very uncertain times and my family time off was no longer an option. We had to think critically about how we could maintain ourselves as a global supplier with the mess that was happening with businesses being shut down all around us. But a miraculous thing happened, when In April, people started ordering custom handcrafted hula hoops from us, because it was an activity you could do at home while in isolation. THe trend hit our world very hard after that, and soon we were overwhelmed by demand and we could hardly keep it going. During that time I worked almost 40 days in a row. Thankfully my husband took over as the primary caregiving to our son, so that we could pivot to a hoop production shop, which we were not previously. We reorganized our entire warehouse, made our workflow more streamlined, we even moved to a larger space in 2021. We survived the pandemic with our small team of 5 and it was a very proud year for all of us!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I was 2 years old, I was diagnosed with Chronic Asthma. Most people think of asthma as a shortness of break that happens when you exercise. For me, it was a life threatening condition that I had to contend with my entire life. To describe the first 10 years of my childhood as happy would not be accurate. I had to be hospitalized for asthma spells all throughout my childhood, some in extremely traumatic situations where I believed I was going to die, or I would have to receive very painful blood gas procedures, or have an IV attempt in my arm more than 8 times. I was hospitalized over 14 times by age 12, sometimes for up to three weeks, sometimes in the intensive care unit, it was during the ’80s, so there was not all the modern medicine available to kids that are on the market today. I had was on a heavy dosage of prescriptions for most of my life, with rescue inhalers and had to have a breathing treatment machine at my school and next to my bedside for a decade. I was a very sick girl. Around age 13/14 I had decided that I could not take this anymore, that I did not want to be a prisoner to my asthma. One day I was so angry, so incredibly angry, that I took my inhaler and ran out the front door and down the block as fast as I could. I had an asthma attack, but I did not care, I did not care if I dropped dead right there. I was not going to let this condition rule my life. I took my inhaler and rested, but ended up walking home after a short while as it was clear that the asthma attack would not subside. I remember feeling so defeated. It’s hard to remember now, but I believe it was literally the very next day, I got angry again, it seemed like would be a suicide mission to go do that again after the previous day’s experience, but yeah, I ran out the door, crying with rage, and that time I made it just a little bit farther than the first day. I had the asthma attack, but I knew what to expect, so I just slowed my pace, took my inhaler, and tried my hardest to keep walking. I just needed to make it around the block!!! I did not make it that day, nor the day after that, or the day after that. But then one day, I tried yet again, to run around the block. And I made it, running, the whole way. By that time I had learned that I could take my inhaler and keep running, that I would be okay, at least I learned I would maybe not collapse. My parents really had no idea that I was doing this, but once I started feeling stronger, I started to run 2x around the block, then 3x, then 4x. My parents were amazed and shocked. Given all that we had been through, I can’t imagine they could wrap their mind around what I had been doing. When I became a freshman in High School, I wanted to try out for track. I knew my running was totally dependant on my asthma, but I wanted to try out anyways. I went to the practices, prepared for embarrassment and knowing I would have to sit out if I was not well enough to run. But I persevered and made it through a week of practice, then two. I seemed to be decent enough to go to a track meet, where the coach asked me to run in a relay race for the 2 mile. I accepted and nervously joined the varsity girls as the youngest girl on the team. I had never run a race before, but I ran to the best of my ability. Once I was finished to coach said to me “I know you can run faster than that, I want to see how fast you can actually run” The next weekend we had our second meet, and I was in the same race, the 2 mile relay. I ran that race like there was nothing holding me back, and my time was just a few seconds off one of the varsity runners. The coach was so impressed, and told me, “now you know you can run!” The story does go on, but long story short, I had an amazing high school career in competitive running, both track and cross country. In 1995 I won the state championship in Oklahoma in the half mile. I am an athlete today due to all the health struggles I had growing up. I became a champion despite all the challenges and setbacks. And I would never know the value of resilience if I had not run out the front door that day, trying to be brave when everything I knew was to fear asthma, I had to get past the fear, and fight for my life back.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hoopologie.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoopologie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hoopologie
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinda-rider-9582a72a/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkaCQgHqSKy8_D9ihfE8AEA

Image Credits
Melinda Rider