Melanie Marshall is a speaker, coach, and filmmaker who guides individuals through their personal journeys. As an internationally acclaimed journalist, she spent over 20 years with BBC News, reporting from high-risk regions like Ukraine, Afghanistan, and China. Recognized for crafting human-centric narratives, Melanie’s work has received various awards and was nominated for multiple Emmys.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [5:29] The common traits between high-performing leaders and people in crisis zones
• [10:52] How founders’ breakdowns mirror the psychological stress of global crises
• [16:50] Melanie Marshall shares a firefight escape story in Syria and how situational awareness saved her team
• [20:35] What is deliberate optimism and accidental bravery?
• [24:20] A three-part method for practicing intentional optimism during difficult times
• [33:05] The risks of rushing decisions under pressure and the importance of asking questions
• [39:42] Examples of accidental bravery and how it originates from innate purpose
• [47:07] Melanie’s struggle with imposter syndrome and how she turned it into motivation
• [58:01] What separates calculated decision-makers from overwhelmed ones?
• [1:07:51] Techniques for staying level-headed during active fight-or-flight moments
• [1:14:33] Stories from Melanie’s global travels, including rescuing a baby panda and eating insects

In this episode…

When the stakes are high and uncertainty is everywhere, how can you make clear decisions without getting paralyzed by fear? Whether you're navigating a supply chain crisis or a major acquisition, the mental weight can feel overwhelming — like you're stuck in fight-or-flight mode. What separates those who panic from those who perform well under pressure?

With decades of experience navigating conflict zones and global crises, former foreign journalist Melanie Marshall has developed mental frameworks for managing chaos. Her deliberate optimism mindset is built on purpose, presence, and service, consciously choosing to believe in a positive outcome. Accidental bravery is the unexpected courage that emerges from being committed to a greater purpose and a positive outcome, allowing you to move forward despite fear. These practices help anchor your mindset during uncertainty, retrain your brain to see options, and reframe challenges as opportunities.

Join William Harris in today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as he sits down with Melanie Marshall, a speaker, coach, and filmmaker, to discuss building mental resilience under pressure. Melanie shares insights on overcoming imposter syndrome, how to make calculated decisions with incomplete information, and real stories from her time in the field.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• William Harris on LinkedIn
• Elumynt
• Melanie Marshall: Website | LinkedIn
• Dr. Christine B. Whelan
• "Finding Purpose: Consuming 'Happiness' in a Market Economy With Dr. Christine B. Whelan" on the Up Arrow Podcast
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire by Dan Martell
• EOS Worldwide
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Quotable Moments

• “You can't get so lost in all the stuff that you don't actually know.”
• “Be of service. And this is a mindset thing, but I'll tell you, it works.”
• “Bravery is not about sort of, you know, King Kong Special Forces don't ring the bell.”
• “You have to at least think it might work out. That gives us fuel.”
• “Never go away with people who don't want to come home as badly as you do.”

Action Steps

1. Practice deliberate optimism during uncertainty: Consciously focusing on positive outcomes helps shift your mindset from fear to possibility. This mental reset can improve decision-making and restore a sense of agency in high-pressure situations.
2. Interrupt fear with a physical reset: Use breathing techniques or mindfulness to disrupt the fight-or-flight response in stressful moments. This small pause allows clearer thinking and prevents reactive decisions based on panic.
3. Take the next right step, not every step: Avoid analysis paralysis by identifying just the immediate action needed to move forward. Progress builds momentum and creates new clarity in uncertain situations.
4. Be of service to others during difficult times: Helping someone else reinforces your sense of purpose and reminds you of your own strength. Service creates connection and fosters resilience during personal or professional setbacks.
5. Reframe past experiences as training: Look back on previous challenges to find examples of growth, courage, or resourcefulness. This perspective helps rewire your brain for confidence and prepares you to face future obstacles.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:00  

Music. Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show. Hey

William Harris  0:15  

everyone. I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce and beyond to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million as you up arrow your business and your personal life, Today's guest has had a front row seat to history. Literally. She's navigated some of the most high stakes, high pressure environments on the planet, from foreign noise rooms covering world changing events to board rooms alongside some of the most powerful business minds alive. She's been a global leader of tomorrow at Davos, sharing space with Sergey Brin and Marc Benioff. She's met and learned from some of the most brilliant thinkers of our time, and yet, through it all, she's faced the same challenges we all do, doubt, uncertainty, imposter syndrome and the battle between fear and action. Melanie Marshall has built a career at the highest level, but what makes her truly fascinating isn't just her success, it's the mental framework she's developed along the way. She's coined the term deliberate optimism and accidental bravery, a mindset that allows high performers to break through fear, make better decisions under pressure and ultimately unlock the next level of growth, whether you're leading a global newsroom, a billion dollar company, or your own startup. Melanie, welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast.

Melanie Marshall  1:29  

Hey, William, thank you so much for having me. What a lovely and kind intro from you. Thank you so much.

William Harris  1:34  

Well, you wrote it with your life. I wrote it with words, but you've lived it. So

Melanie Marshall  1:38  

I'm definitely from beyond. I think I definitely fit the from beyond part of the guests you have.

William Harris  1:45  

So we talk a lot about this, about lateral thinking. I'm a big fan of lateral thinking. And I like bringing in guests that are from outside of, like our little d to c bubble, who have things that they can share that translate very well. And I'd say sometimes it can be very close related, like getting into SaaS, into e-commerce, right? And it's like, okay, there's some intertwining there. But let's just say high pressure decision making in, you know, absolute like war zones, still translates to like the War Room in business as well. And so I think there's a lot that you're gonna be able to share here, which I'm excited about, yeah,

Melanie Marshall  2:16  

well, I hope so, you know. I think one of the things that you know, for over 20 years, you know, I spent a lot of time getting on planes where I'd be like, Huh, why are we the only people on this plane? We've got our choice of seats and, you know, and people would say to me, Oh, this, you know, there's, I can't imagine what that is like. There's nothing that I could imagine that is like that. But what I would what I would always say, is that, well, actually you can, because, you know, when I go into a place like Mosul, there are people there who are business leaders, who have families, they aren't. They aren't all special forces trained. Sure, you know, you you know I go to Afghanistan. There are folks there who are trying to figure out, what is my next move? How do I protect the thing that is most important to me in a very fast changing environment, and they didn't see it coming. And so I think we have this idea, and maybe the gift that I've been given is the ability to see the similarities, and that's where I've been able to develop. The framework, I suppose, is that I know how much we all have in common.

William Harris  3:39  

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. Well, we're going to dig into that. Yeah. I've got two quick things here that I want to give a shout out. First of all, to previous guest and friend, the wonderful Dr. Christine B. Whelan, for putting us in touch for this episode. She's very smart. She has the happiness professor. So also similar idea where it's like we stretched outside of the realm of the normal DTC. It's a little bit more of a mindset thing. And Christine, thank you very much for putting us in touch. Yeah.

Melanie Marshall  4:04  

Thank you so much, Christine. Christine and I met in Nashville and immediately bonded, because we both know the importance of having that mindset to you know whether, if you want success, it is going to happen inside of your own head first. It really is like nothing outside you is going to matter if you can't get straight basically in your own head, yeah, in your own home,

William Harris  4:32  

sure. Yeah. Last interruption. And then we're going to get into the good stuff here. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that ipoed. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt.com which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, N, t.com that said, onto the good stuff. Again, we're talking about how your mind is in. Way of your own growth, and how you can unlock it with deliberate optimism and accidental bravery. With Melanie Marshall, so I'm thinking about this. You've met with, you've learned from, you've worked alongside some of the greatest business minds on the planet. We talked about the surgery brand, Mark Benioff and more. You were a foreign news reproducer at the highest level, covering some of the most intense world events. You've been in the room where history is made. What have you learned about the mental game of being in the top 0.1%

Melanie Marshall  5:29  

so, I mean, so first off, what I would say about the top 0.1% of business leaders and the 0.1% of human experience is there isn't that much difference. You know, if you're sitting around a dinner table and your your listeners will know this, your customers will know this. You're sitting around dinner trying to figure out what to order, you're all just people like we all put our pants on one leg at a time. And I'll challenge

William Harris  5:57  

that for a second. I actually do sometimes put mine on. Wow. Okay,

Melanie Marshall  6:05  

I interrupt. Go ahead. No, I don't mind. I don't mind. But I think that there is this, again, it's this notion of, one of the things I always, I've always found, is that when you approach people as people, wherever they are, it is the most powerful way to connect with anyone, and that is whether or not it is a one of one business leader or whether it is a one of one warlord. Now you might want different things, like an ongoing business relationship, or to escape alive from a particularly touchy area of Afghanistan, but the human connection is really at the end of the day, applicable to all of us. Nobody is that different. And if you are someone who is lying awake at night thinking, Is my acquisition going to go through, you know you have those same dark hours, right? We're still staring at the ceiling, right? It's, it's not that different, yeah, that's, it's not that different, and that's okay, right? Like there's a certain commonality. I think we have this exceptionalism that can be powerful, but it can also be really isolating. Absolutely,

William Harris  7:19  

that's exactly the word I was going to use, isolating. Yeah, we think that we're the only one going through this particular situation. You're just

Melanie Marshall  7:26  

not. You're just not. And you know, the the gift of having been at that that kind of end of things is that when you realize that we do have more in common, then you start to look for those commonalities, sure, and this Now, granted, this isn't true of everyone, but if you think about, okay, how do I want to go through my challenges, right? How do I want to get through to the other side of this, which is where probably everybody should start, sure, right? Like, what is my end goal? So, you know, for me, I would usually, often it would be like, you wake up and the because my phone is ringing and it's okay, you're leaving in 20 minutes. So have fun, sure, and this won't again, won't be that different from, by the way, there has been something really unexpected happening to your supply chain. You've got to solve it, because you still have a contract to fulfill, right, right? And then it's like, okay, what is the end result that I need by the end of this week, right? And you're entering into that. So for me, when I'm entering into those moments, I'm thinking, Okay, what? Okay, first, who? Deep breath, whether it's cup of coffee, cup of tea, whatever, glass of water, if you're really righteous, glass of water and lemon, fine and and then you you know, as you're going, you're thinking, Okay, what is my end state? And you're connecting with your team for what am I going to do? And you're reaching out to the person. And this is how I did it. I am reaching out to the person that knows it best, wherever I'm going. So I've always got those local people who know where. So you're immediately messaging, you know, the the wonderful, amazing guy who's a fancy person now, but back then, he was just a grizzled old filmmaker like myself, Sharifi. And you're messaging him saying, Okay, we're coming back to Afghanistan, you know, help, yeah, you know. And you're reaching out to those people, and those are those first steps you're taking to put yourself in a position for success. And that is not that different, right? You're reaching out, you're setting it up, but deliberate optimism, which is that kind of first piece of the framework, yeah. You have got to start by believing that this can work out.

William Harris  10:08  

So that's a good place to start, yeah, I want to go there, because before we can get to this, this can work out before we get there. Yeah, you got to deal with the problem, right? Yeah. And so, you know, as I think about this, from my, my own experience, and whatever it's like, we've all experienced these disasters. Some of them are real and some of them are just in our brains, right? Some of them are mental, like you said, founders face these disasters all the time, whether this be funding falls through or a deal collapses, a team struggling on something, like you said, a supply chain. Hey, there's tariffs. All of a sudden, now there aren't, maybe there are, I don't know, right? Like there's all of these things that can happen. What have you seen in these biggest global crises that mirrors the mental breakdowns that founders face? So

Melanie Marshall  10:52  

in terms of So, first off, I would say that it is not just a mental breakdown. That is a real that is, that is real, right? There's combination of the real and the unreal there. So the trick for a founder is to not get so lost in what might happen. You know, you can get so far ahead in what might happen that you lose track of what is happening. Yeah, my biggest focus I was thinking about going into Homs when it was so this Homs in Syria was a divided city, which, for a long time during the Syrian civil war, was a pretty spicy place to go. Let's put it that way, and we had an opportunity to go with the UN and of course, we were going to take it, and it was risky, and lots of things could have happened while we were there, if I would have let my mind go to all of like you have to. You have to have a certain amount of preparation, right? Sure, I've got my team, I've got my focus on where I want it to go, right safely, to the other side, to a certain degree. But you can't get so lost in all the stuff that you don't actually know and in a future that hasn't happened, that you aren't keeping your eyes out at what is really going on around you moment to moment, because that is how you get into trouble. And I'll give you an example of that from this trip to Home. Please do. Let me give you a little, little home spicy example. Bring it down for me. Break it down for you. So we're in homes, we have managed to, how do you say, lose our minders? Yet again, we were so good at that. Gosh, it's one of my skills, one of my best skills, losing our minders. And because it was really important to tell the story of what was going on in that city, however, because I was paying attention really clearly to what was going on around me at the time, which means you are absolutely grounded in the moment you set We were traveling across to the rebel held side, and I suddenly felt this sense that things were getting quieter and quieter and quieter, and almost subliminally, if you've ever read, you know Malcolm Gladwell is Blink. I love Malcolm Gladwell. I heard my work dad's advice flash in my head. He's given me lots of advice, so there's lots of those to flash in my head. Never go up a road if you don't know what's on the other side. Now that doesn't always apply, but in this case, I suddenly thought, Uh oh. And I was ready when all of a sudden, a fire fight poured out right in front of us. And I was ready to grab the driver and do what is my job to do, and start shouting, you know, yellow, yellow. And it was that awareness of where we were exactly then that turned us around in time to escape getting caught in the crossfire and to pull us back.

William Harris  14:39  

Now, did we know, yeah, yeah. That reminds me. I really appreciate that idea of, like, you said, like that awareness of the situation that you're in and not getting too caught up into like this, 50 different permutations of that situation that you have in your brain. I've often thought about, I really like, let's just say, physics. Like, you know, dimensions and things like that. And so I've often thought about, like, at least from like, my perspective as a business owner, that it's like I can look at something and say, Okay, I'm walking along this, let's just say, this dimension of space, and I can only move forward, and I can only see what's on my one dimension of time. I can only go in half a direction in time, right? I can't move backwards in time. I can't move up, downside, laterally in time, but I can only see what's in front of me. So I see this obstacle that's in front of me, and whatever that obstacle could be, this client is leaving, or, you know, the supply chain issue, whatever. And I can say, logically, I can come to a very good logical conclusion, if this happens, then this also happens. And I'm, you could be completely right, that is, logically, what's going to happen. If this client leaves, then I have to fire this person. Then I have to do this. If the supply chain things happens, then this deal falls through. And you might be absolutely correct, what you don't realize, though, is what happens as a result of that, because that client left, you actually had the room and the capacity to bring on a client that was even 10 times bigger or better, or whatever that might be, or because this deal fell through, something else happened. And so recognizing that there's this other thing on the other side of what you can even logically see. And I would, I would allow my logic to get in the way of things, if that makes sense. And it reminds me of, I don't know if you remember the video of these person dressed in a gorilla suit, and I forget who did this, but

Melanie Marshall  16:13  

I don't remember this, but I love working. Please keep going. They're passing

William Harris  16:17  

this back basketball back and forth, and they say, okay, count how many times the yellow team passes the basketball, right? And so you're sitting there, you're counting, and you're counting and you're counting, though, meanwhile, there's this gorilla that literally walks through the whole frame of the camera, all the way very slowly, interacts a little bit, and goes on the other side. And they're like, how many times? And you're like, 13, and you're sure you got the right answer, right? And they're like, Did you see the gorilla? And you're like, what gorilla? This gorilla walks in the and you completely miss it because you weren't situationally aware, because you were so focused on something else that you weren't able to see what was going on around into your

Melanie Marshall  16:50  

and what I love about that is that is talking about not just being aware of the dangers like so there's two things, right? One is, if you are really present, you are aware of possible danger, so not getting shot, right? Sure. That was good. That was a success, right? And I will say to we went, we, then, you know, wrapped ourselves around we, we went back to the UN hotel, because we thought, well, maybe we'll just go back and rejig and try again a different way, which is what we did, and we did eventually get to our goal safely alive, right? But it can also blind you. If you're too far ahead to opportunity right to those years, you're talking about kind of the unintended good consequences. So I was working in Africa when the dictator Robert Mugabe was losing his grip finally. And I mean, that guy clung on for a long time, sure. And you know, it had been some kind of, is he falling? Isn't he? Should we go? Shouldn't we? And I had gotten on a plane. I had been asked to get on a plane, my life story, and go. And I was la, la, la, gonna fly into Zambia. And I was thinking about this and thinking about that. I was gonna fly in, I was gonna drive across all of this. But all of this is to say that I suddenly looked out the window and realized that they had stopped in Harare, which is the capital of Zimbabwe. First, I didn't realize that they hadn't advertised that on our itinerary, but because I was aware of it, and that was an opportunity, because the world's media was trying to get in. And so what did I do? I hopped up, I picked up the phone to my boss, and I said, Hey, we just landed in Harare. I think I'm going to get off the plane.

William Harris  19:00  

That's good.

Melanie Marshall  19:01  

And I did. I was like, you know, I mean, now, sure, was I thinking, this might, you know, sure, you know, this might go a bit wrong. Maybe I'll get arrested. But I came up with a story really quick for I came up with an entire TV show that I still think could be a really successful TV show, as a reason why we were there, and, you know, I'm really good at BS. Like, it is, like, a I think that's like, an ancestral language. I think it was passed down to me from, like, my grandmother, and then through my father, and

William Harris  19:32  

now to speak Spanish. No, I speak BS,

Melanie Marshall  19:34  

yeah, I do. Like, it's native, native tongue. But like that is the other gift. Right when you enter into the unknown, if you, if you get too far ahead in trying to figure it out, you're gonna miss those moments where, actually, oh, wait, like, okay, so you know tariffs on OFF, ON OFF. Yeah, right. It is terrifying. But if you're a founder, there might be a moment where you can get off the plane, sure and take advantage, yeah. And you gotta just be

William Harris  20:12  

Yeah. And to your point, all of these things, they all culminate with this idea. This is like, Okay, so here's the problems, and we can be aware of the problems and being there, but then there has to be like, this mental switch of like you said, deliberate optimism and in accidental bravery. And accidental bravery is potentially a result of the deliberate optimism, right? But like so like, explain this model to me. Like, how did you come up with it? Like, and why? What is it?

Melanie Marshall  20:35  

Well, the deliberate optimism, I suppose it came from people constantly saying to me, Well, you must just think the world is done for so it didn't start as sort of a business model. It started as a conversation about humanity. And I would have conversations I most my friends, are doing all sorts of different things, business folks and lawyers and, you know, diplomats, I have wide range. And people would say, oh, you know, you must just think we're all doomed. And I would say, Well, no, I don't, you know, my experience of having gone to all of these places is actually, I think we're going to be okay. And I don't think that because it is easy. I think that because what I have seen is people making the choice in really tough circumstances to decide, all right, the only way forward is to believe in something better, to believe in the possibility. And that inspires me, right? That I find that inspiring. And so if you want to have agency, right, and that is what we want, right? That is what we want, and that is what we need. If we are talking about business and entrepreneurship, you you're trying to create, right? You are trying to create and build. You can't do that if you aren't sure any of it matters, right? There isn't a guaranteed outcome, unfortunately, but you have to at least think it might work out. And what I have seen in literally six out of seven continents, the only one I haven't got is Antarctica, is that individuals, journalists, we're the worst but, but from journalists through to amazing business people you talk about, you work with the market sellers in, you know, in Kenya, you work with these women who are like, Okay, today I'm going to sell this, because I've worked out the market wants this, and I'm responding quickly, like they're choosing to believe in something better. You know, that's pretty amazing, when you think about it. And so it comes from that like for me, for me, I believe that it's like, so if I can see that that is what drives us forward, then that is the first step. Like that gives us fuel and the accidental bravery piece, and jump in if you want to, because we can why I

William Harris  23:29  

do want to real quick. So the deliberate optimism, because I think that, like you said, That's the starting place, right? Like the bravery doesn't happen without that deliberate optimism. But once you have that optimism, you could be brave. But the deliberate optimism, I think, to your point, you almost have to come to the recognition, logically, that things don't move forward if you don't have the optimism. I like the way that you put that. It's like if you don't believe that they're going to work out, you're very likely right, because it's not going to work out because of that mental mindset. But is this an innate trait of yours, or do you think that this is something that people can can practice and learn? It's like the lady in Kenya at the market. It's just like, is this something that she had to do because she was in these circumstances and she developed this over time? Or is this something you're like, No, listen, here's, here's how we develop this deliberate optimism. So

Melanie Marshall  24:20  

listen, I think that there are probably some of us who get a little bit more of the, you know, cheerful, a little more cheerful poured into us. Sure. I'm not even sure I'm one of them. You know, I can have my moments of of doubt and and gloom and all of that. You know, I definitely have moments of sadness, you know, where I feel a bit broken hearted. But I do think this is something we can deliberately practice, and I've seen other people deliberately practice it. So if you so, yeah, so if you are. So if so, if you, you William, are are feeling you are looking at a problem or challenge. Let's call it a challenge. You're looking at a challenge in your business, and your instinct is to feel somewhat defeated and a bit like, Okay, well, I am at the mercy of events on this. Then the practice is, well, I would say the practice is threefold. One, the practice is to focus on the outcome, right, so that you want the outcome that you want, yeah, okay, what is the outcome that you actually want? And you it doesn't necessarily, you know it can be when you said the words 800 million, this little former public service broadcasters. You know, jaw just drops open, but that's amazing, right? Like, wow, right? So you focus on the outcome you want, and you give yourself a little reminder of when you've had something similar, just close, right? So, so it gives your brain a little reminder that you have got there before. I like that, right? So that's one,

William Harris  26:31  

okay, so on the reminder part, before we get the two, that reminds me of somebody writing down miracles that they've witnessed in their life in a little in a little paper and putting it in a jar on the mantel. And it's like, for that very reason. So it's like, because you might not remember what this is, but it's like, the next time you're feeling that way, you go, there, you pull it out, and you go, that's right, yeah, that happened

Melanie Marshall  26:53  

that really, I love, I love that I used to have a miracle jar. Really cool. I know, because I love those right like, yeah, we need to remind ourselves. We need to remind ourselves. And the second thing that I would say is I would look around you right now and look for something good. And that might be that we are having a nourishing conversation. That might be that you do still have a business for me. That might have been that we were in a car that could drive away from a fire fight that happened enough times that,

William Harris  27:40  

sure,

Melanie Marshall  27:43  

again, we got out again, yeah,

William Harris  27:46  

like you said, you could be in a car that wasn't table two. So you're like, Hey, I'm just thankful we've got gas in the car we

Melanie Marshall  27:52  

got, yes, yeah, it could be that small, right? One thing so, and you know, it, it could be, it could be anything that you still have and that you that you can feel good about. And the third thing, and this is huge, Be of service. Be of service. And this is a mindset thing, but I'll tell you, it works like a charm. It works like a charm in business, it works like a charm in terms of how you bring more into your life. Works for your mindset. You want to get yourself training optimism. Give a little more because you want to know why I'm so optimistic. It's because so many times, just when I have needed it, kindness has shown up, goodness has shown up. The Miracle drive has with a spare tire has shown up. Yeah, right, and some little things, yeah, big things and little things. So when you are of service to someone else in a small way, like, again, big things and little things, right? Taking that time to reply to somebody's email who's getting started, right, getting maybe making a little donation. Maybe, okay, so maybe you're struggling right now with your finances because you're mid acquisition. But can you, you know, give $20 to your food bank? What can you do that's going to remind you that you are in a position to be part of something that is how you train in optimism? I think

William Harris  29:37  

the thing that I like about this, and I'm, I'm not a psychologist. But if I were going to try to analyze why this is so powerful, there's two things that come to mind. One is, it's very hard to think about your problems when you're actively doing something else, right? Like you're actively doing something it's very different. Reminds me of Simon Sinek when he talks about like going down on skiing. Right? And it's like, if you think about the tree, you're gonna hit the tree, but if you think about see the path, see the path, you know. And I like this idea where it's like you've shifted your mind to something else, and now you just can't think about your problem. The other thing that I like about this, though, is just that idea of reminding yourself that you have agency, kind of to your point. Sometimes it's almost that feeling of powerlessness of the situation. But like you said, $20 it's not going to ruin you, but $20 can be enough to where you're like, I had that agency. I had the ability to do something, and that, in and of itself, just reminds you it's like, you are in control of a lot of the decisions that you're making. You're also in control of a lot of the situation here. There's a lot of situation can't control, but there are things that are still within your control. And focus on those.

Melanie Marshall  30:45  

And when you start to pull that in, you can build on it. Then you start to get a little momentum going, right, and then you start to get a little momentum going, and that gives you a little more clarity, right? And the trick then is don't try to then sometimes right. Then we're like, okay, and now I'm going to the moon. And it's like, Whoa, yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay,

William Harris  31:11  

that's the entrepreneur mindset, for sure. I know. I

Melanie Marshall  31:14  

know right. Like, great, but then just do the next right thing, just the next right thing. So again, you know that is because, again, you what you want to do is give yourself the maximum number of options to a certain degree. I'm talking about when you're in a real kind of whirlwind, right? Which is so we're, I'm giving you advice, kind of from the war zone, right? So you, if you speed off too fast, you know, I'm thinking about we were doing. We were watching the Peshmerga do mine clearing and just outside Mosul. And no names on this one, and I'm reminding myself, and we're, you know, and so they're going into this town to, you know, clear minds. And, I mean, they just left, and Islamic State, you know, the just watching my language. But boy, were those guys, murderous jerks, just absolute jerks, horrible, horrible, just jerks, and they booby trap everything, absolutely everything. So whenever you would go into a place that they had been, it would look like garbage, like it would look like your bad neighbors had just had a party, and it would be filled with like, IEDs and bombs, so you didn't I at least ever wanted to be too close to the guys going into clear so if you go in too quickly, because you want to get straight ahead, you get blown up. Sure, that's very like a really on the nose analogy.

William Harris  33:01  

That's not metaphorical. We're talking literal here. We're also talking metaphorically

Melanie Marshall  33:05  

on both cases, right? Yeah. And so, you know, so I was with somebody who really was like, quad, quad, quad. We want to go away. We want to get really close. We want to see everything they're doing. We want to be the first ones to do it, right? Very entrepreneur kind of mindset. Let's get there. And we were talking about it, there was lots of conversations, and it was somebody said, Well, look, it's obviously safe. They're not wearing flak jackets, and flak jackets are like our bulletproof vests. Now, first off, flak jackets don't actually prevent you from getting blown up, just in case any of your listeners ever end up being in a war zone. For real, I just want to let them know they help, but they don't really just don't do it. Sure, yeah. And then somebody came over and said to me, they were like, you know? I said, Well, you know, I'm still trying to kind of calm this down. And the person came over and said, you know, Mel, they're only not wearing them because they can't afford them. And so that's the thing about like, the next right step was, why aren't they wearing them? The next right step wasn't follow them in it was to ask a good question. So does that make sense? Like, sometimes just do the like, Don't hair off and get blown up. Ask a good question. Sometimes the next right thing, just one step.

William Harris  34:38  

I've shared this before, but this is so pertinent that I want to share it again. There's one of my favorite Bible verses says to thy word is a lamp unto my path and a light into my feet. And the reason why I like that verse is because it's exactly what you're talking about. I didn't catch it until I was older, maybe in high school, and it's like a lamp to your feet. And when I think about a lamp, I don't think of just wanting to. See my feet. I'm thinking it's like, when we think about, like, going into a war zone, or we think about going into business, we were like, can you just illuminate the entire path for me? God, I want to see everything that I'm about to encounter, not just my feet. But the reality is, that's just not how it works. And so we see our feet, and sometimes all you can see is just enough to see your feet and to see one step in front of where you're currently at. Say, yep, that's dry ground. I can step there. I don't know what else is beyond that, but I know that this is the right next step here. And to your point, sometimes that right next step is asking a good question. I like that. And

Melanie Marshall  35:31  

that can be, and that can be a very uncomfortable place for visionaries, sure, right? That can be very uncomfortable, because the whole point is wanting to see off into the far distance well,

William Harris  35:44  

and you do, and I think that's even what's a little bit challenging. And I would say, you know, I would consider myself to be a visionary when we take the test for EOS. I'm a visionary that is, like my thing, and I like looking at I just wrote an article about what I think the year 2125 is gonna look like. Because to me, seeing 100 years from now feels easier than seeing a day or two in front of me. It feels easier. It feels more intuitive. And so, so you do, you see this vision of what the that is. You can see the castle that you're going towards now. You can see your feet, but then there's darkness in between your feet and the castle, so you don't see anything else that's going to happen between there. And so I think, to your point, as the visionary, we see the cast. We're like, let's just run. I can see it. It's right there, but you don't know what's in front of you, and there's likely some bombs you're gonna get blown up. So, yeah,

Melanie Marshall  36:25  

well, a lot of my stories relate to how really don't run, really, really don't run in a war zone. It's just, you know,

William Harris  36:35  

I have a different running story. This is very tangential. Sometimes do Okay, yeah. Well, okay, I'm sure this. Well, it is so I mean, like, this is not even remotely close to the stores you have, but they just feel like very relatable. And I enjoy it. When I first started off, my first job that I graduated with was I was a nurse, and I was working in the Open Heart unit. There are two things I learned about that. One is I played basketball. And in basketball, you know, your coach says, Come over here. You run there, you run everywhere. And if you don't run, you're going to get in trouble. And so it's like, that's still the mindset that I have. I'm efficient. I get things done, right? So I go from get done with one patient, I run to go see my next patient. And I had the whole nurses like scrambling, like, you know, what's going on? Where's the Code Blue? Because in their mind, if you run there must be a code blue. And so I learned very quickly you do not run in the hospital where that is code blue. And I guess along those lines, there was another guy who used to do that. Apparently he would just sometimes grab the crash cart night shift thing and start running around with the crash cart until he's got a line of nurses following him. There's no code he's just wanted to see who would just kind of falling

Melanie Marshall  36:37  

around. Come on, nurses, have it hard enough. Man, no, but that's a great that is such a great point, right? Differentiating between true emergency, that's such a great story, right, true emergency and kind of that desire for urgency, sure, and it's not that it's not important to move quickly, especially when we're trying to innovate, especially in times of great uncertainty and chaos, right? You need to keep moving, yeah, because if you don't keep moving, you will be overtaken by events. Because there is also this thing that I think it's less common with a founder type than it is with a corporate type. And I'm sure all the founders are nodding, but yes, yes, we aren't like this. But the there is sometimes where people do this, sort of like, the sort of freeze, right? It's sort of like, okay, we're going to stop and we're going to wait for things to calm down. And if you do that, in a time of great uncertainty and chaos, what is happening around you is going to happen to you. So taking discernment, asking a good question, or being aware, is not the same thing as sort of like turtling, or, I don't know, like whatever they used to do when you know it's like, you sort of, yeah, it is turtling, right? When kids that

William Harris  39:17  

sounds like a good enough word for it sure, like hide

Melanie Marshall  39:19  

and hope it's like not, you know, and I think that is the you do need to keep moving with deliberation. I think that's where the bravery and the accidental bravery makes sense. Yeah, I like to stop, because otherwise you train, how do

William Harris  39:37  

you train that part? Then how do you train the accident of bravery and not the turtling,

Melanie Marshall  39:42  

accidental bravery. I don't know if you have to train, okay, you just have to focus. So I I'm you do not need to be like, what is? What's that show they've got, like, America's Special Forces, or America's toughest Do you? Of this one where they've got to go off and they, I don't know, it's like, they get, like, these kind of B and C list celebrities, and they're supposed to, like, try and train to be Marines and, you know, hang some until they ring the bell or whatever. And, like, most of us, aren't like that. I am not like that. I have a really, really good friend who is tough as nails. You know, naval captain. He's done multiple tours of duty in other places. Like, he's like that, you know, he's tough as nails. I'm not, and I've still been to all of these places, and come back fairly smiley and sunny. So this is why I'm saying like, you can do it, folks, you can do it. You can be brave. So what I and what I would say, is that bravery is not about sort of, you know, King Kong Special Forces don't ring the bell. I have huge admiration for people who are able to do some of those things, but you don't need that to keep moving through uncertainty. What accidental bravery is is when you look up and you think, how the heck did I manage to kind of crawl so I using these an example. I'm not brave. I'm really not. I am a Canadian gal who loves to tell stories and thinks it matters, really thinks it matters that people around the world get to share what is happening to them and connect their humanity with our humanity. And I believe it matters so much that it turns out I can be pretty accidentally brave, where I suddenly find myself lying in the dirt in Libya with snipers bullets going over my head. Jeez, right? But this is an example, right? Like I remember standing in Tripoli after Gaddafi had just fled, and we thought most of his guys had gone with him, and it turns out not all of them. And I was chatting away to one of our great camera men, and he and I were chatting, and all of a sudden, in between us, there was this. And he and I looked at each other and immediately just dropped like if you ever saw me exercising or running or working out in like a normal setting, you would be like, Wow, that lady is not very fit. If you ever saw me, like drop or like run or anything in a more active environment, you'd be like, Wow, look at her. Go, yeah. So in this case, like, I dropped and I literally, like, dug myself like a little foxhole with my with my Flak Jacket, like, within seconds. And that's not bravery. That's just not wanting to get shot, right? They're different. But the accidental bravery was that I had a purpose, right? The Accidental bravery was that I had a reason for being there that felt really important to me and kept me moving through that, yeah, kept me from turtling.

William Harris  43:39  

I think you're right about the purpose. The purpose was greater than the fear, right? And I think that that's a really good call out. So I like that the purpose is greater than the fear. Then you have the deliberate optimism, and that optimism says that this matters, right, like the purpose matters. And I can see the cast, I could see the result, I could see where we're going. And then I like this idea of almost like for those who are maybe logic minded, because that's this is where, when I, when I struggle with things, it's because I have to allow my logic to get to there. So I would say, for if you're listening in your logic minded person who says, I need the logic to be there, I think about it very much like doctors. Oftentimes you come in and you might have these certain symptoms, and they are going to say, Great. In their mind, they don't say this to you. In their mind, they say, 80% of the time, you have these symptoms, it's this thing. Take this medicine if you get better. I'm right. If you don't, I was wrong. Come back in. It was the other 20% right. But the reality is, more often than not, the action is it is diagnostic, and the treatment is diagnostic, the movement and so to your point, it's like standing there doing nothing is not diagnostic. You don't know if you're getting better or not. You're just getting shot at, but you can find out quickly. Hey, if you start, if you start moving, you get shot at more or less. If you're getting shot at more, that's the wrong decision. Stop doing that if you get shot at less. Exactly the right direction, right? Exactly. That's diagnostic, right? Sometimes that action is diagnostic. And it reminds me of the the wise sage Wilson from home improvement. If you ever saw the saw the show, which is on Netflix again, by the way, and I watched a couple of reruns. Yeah, exactly Wilson. I should, I should tell it like this, but he talks about like a deer getting caught in the headlights. And it and he talks about how it's like Tim, all the deer had to do was go left or right and it wouldn't get hit by the car, but because it stood there and froze, it gets hit by the car. And a lot of times, I think, to your point, that accident bravery comes from, let's just say, logically, do something, because if by doing something, you're going to find out if that's the right thing or the wrong thing, and you can always make a change course, but if you do nothing, you're not going to know if you're making the right decision or not.

Melanie Marshall  45:46  

And logically and logically, when things fall apart, they are much harder to put back together. You know this? And this is, you know, I tend to talk from a human point of view. But if you look at from a geopolitical if you look at it from a business, if you look at it from any of these points, right, once something crumbles and reaches a point of no return, then it is almost impossible to get back. Yeah, right. So you need your corrective action. Is easier to adapt than trying to rebuild once you have gotten to a to that, that really awful state, yeah. And so for the logicians out there, that's one thing I would say as well. I like that. You know,

William Harris  46:43  

something else that founders can struggle with would be imposter syndrome. And I think that we all battle imposter syndrome a little bit again. We talked about this before you were a global leader at Davos, you were surrounded by Sergey Brin, Marc Benioff, these brilliant minds, but imposter syndrome was still there for you. What was going through your mind?

Melanie Marshall  47:07  

Well, I had been chosen because I'd had a business idea and I'd won seed funding, and partly, I think, because I was a lovely little show pony who was good at talking to the media about my business idea and but the funding fell through. I never actually got the money. And instead of thinking, I'm going to go and use this as an opportunity to get the money, which some of the people there certainly did. I went to Davos and thought, What am I doing here? Look at all these people. They're so smart, they're so advanced. I don't know how to code. I don't know how to I let all of those demons. I let all of my regrets about things I had said, like for the record, never say to a business TV program I've written a pretty big check with my mouth. Let's see if my ass can cash it. Never say that they're gonna use it, yeah, they're gonna use it. They're gonna use it because it turned out it couldn't, I couldn't it, couldn't cash it. And I done it just to be a people pleaser, right? I done it because I wanted to please them. And so I had all of these things in my head. And instead of being present to all of these opportunities and to these dinners that I was at where those guys thought I was funny, right? They thought I was a hoot. They thought I had great ideas about the future of media, I turtled. I let what had happened to me that my funding had fallen through. I let it happen to me, yeah, and I'm sure that has happened to other folks, where you that kind of shame of whatever failure, right? You feel like it is your personal failing, right? And it is just a thing. It is a thing that has happened, and when you own it and move on from it. Okay, like, it took me, like, a really long time, but when you do you can, you know, the faster you do it, the faster you could move on. So I, you know, so that's the, you know, the imposter syndrome. Man, oh. We can be so mean to ourselves.

William Harris  50:02  

It bikes everybody and like, I've literally never talked to a founder, whether they're, you know, a million dollars or 100 million dollars or beyond, they all go through this. At some point in time, there's something that they get there and they go, I'm in over my head. What am I doing? I'm not that guy, right? I'm not the girl. I don't know how to do this. And so I would say, how do you turn that imposter syndrome into fuel instead of fear?

Melanie Marshall  50:29  

So I would say that, how I did it then and what I would advise now. Say, I would say in two parts, yeah. So one i i turned it into a question of, what do I really love? Like, where does this, you know, where do a did I really want to be bark, Benioff, sure, right? Which is a good question, because sometimes you don't really want that. You just think you should. You just want some of the things

William Harris  51:07  

that he has, yeah, which is cool, right? Absolutely. And, or you want to be him. You

Melanie Marshall  51:11  

don't want to be him, right? And, and, so sometimes it's a good question to be like, Okay, why am I so like? So, how do you turn the fuel? It's like to say, Okay, what is this like? What am I really after here? And that starts to turn it and so for me, it was like, I wanted to have a company that saw a world, because I found the business plan the other day as a world as cool as we are, right? Because it was after I traveled, started traveling the world with the BBC, and I wanted to travel the world and have adventures. And I went back, and I became one of the world's top foreign film makers, at the forefront of, you know, some of the world's conflict and natural disaster zones, meeting some of the top thought leaders in the world, and I had an absolute blast, and I still ended up coming around to being my own person again, like it, it's come around in different ways. So what would I say now, with all the wisdom of my years, is a, who do you really want to be? Who do you really want to be like if you are going to wiggle forwards or wiggle backwards, right? Yeah. What is it for? What is it towards? Is it towards your family? Is it towards a company that you can just see having an amazing impact, and that starts to shut up some of Those voices. It really does and and maybe sometimes, how are you I think sometimes we are, and I think this is true for for people at the top of their game, we're afraid to get bigger, right? Sure. So we come up with this stuff because we might already know what we want to wiggle towards and we're afraid of it, right? So it's like, what are you what are you scared of? You gotta be able to like, are you scared you're gonna be a jerk? Are you like, Are you like, you know, like, are you scared that you aren't gonna have time for your family? I'm using that example because I do know that one comes up for people, right? For founders. You think, like, if I have a is that going to be the thing, right? I'm no longer going to have that. Am I? I'm not going to be the creative anymore. If I've got the big company, I'm not really going to be in touch with what we do, right? And like, maybe that's true, and maybe it's not, but like, sometimes that imposter is fear. There's

William Harris  54:33  

a good book that I'm reading right now called buy back your time by Dan Martell, and that's one of the things he talks about, is he talks about these different ninjas, and I don't remember don't remember the name of this ninja. I wish I had the book. It's downstairs, but I wish I had that right here next to me. But one of the ninjas that he talks about is essentially that where it's like, the thing that's holding you back from hiring that person that you need to or into getting your business where you want to be, is because you're actually afraid of your business getting there because you're afraid of. Whatever that might be. You're afraid that if we bring on this other client, or this many clients or these customers, that you're going to be busier, that you're going to be doing more of the parts of the job that you hate, because you actually haven't delegated the parts of the job that you hate. You're afraid of whatever this might be, but there's something that's holding you back, and it's a fear. And to your point, it's like, okay, recognize that what's holding you back is fear. Then start to figure out what fear is it. Then let's supply some some deliberate optimism and some accidents a brain so you can move through that fear. But you can then what it

Melanie Marshall  55:33  

And then you can put some planks in place, like, then you can actually say, Okay, well, what do I need? Like, who do I need to put around me? Right? What do I need to do to move through it? If I'm really serious, if I'm really serious about moving through this, what do I need to do, right? Or, you know, go back to the cantina and wait for the war to be over, right? Like, you know, but for for a lot of the time, like you do really want to move through it, right? But you are afraid of getting bigger. I look back at my, you know, going back to the Davos example, and I think I was afraid of getting big. I was afraid I didn't deserve it. I was afraid that I would become a bad person, right? I was afraid that I would be a bad, like, you know, a bad, careless person, and I'm not afraid of that anymore. And weirdly, things are growing, right? So it's like, you put those fears aside, you work through them. But I also still need help from people from time to time to address other fears that come up, because you always need the team, right? You always like, we're not in this alone. We're not your founder, your whatever, you're not alone.

William Harris  56:52  

Yeah, feels like it sometimes, yes, absolutely.

Melanie Marshall  56:55  

But you're if you're going to grow, you're not alone, sure, and even when you are, you're not alone, like even you know if, if, when, when we feel the most alone is usually when we're not looking. And sometimes it can, sometimes it can be really surprising, when, where the help comes from, right? It's not always the the mentors or the, you know, the C suite people, or even the family members we think are going to be the ones who have those best bits of advice. It's another reason to be really, keep our heads on the swivel. No, that's good.

William Harris  57:38  

You've had to make a lot of really, let's just say, difficult decisions in very, incredibly high stakes environments. What do you think separates great decision makers from overwhelmed decision makers?

Melanie Marshall  58:01  

I think that if you cannot, if you can't determine what is a real emergency from what is, you know, a minor fire, if you don't know what is a long term risk to your organization from what is a little fire burning. The Great decision makers can look at a problem and figure out where it sits in terms of, do I need to deal with this right now. And you know, and is this something that is going to have a longer term impact? And great decision makers are not afraid of hard decisions. They are not looking for somebody else to come along and make that decision for them? Yeah,

William Harris  59:09  

I think along those lines, one of the things that can get in the way for a lot of founders is they reach a level of success, whatever that is, right, this 10 million, they reach this mark, and then that's when fears can become creeping in more, because there's the fear of losing something is greater than the fear of the unknown oftentimes, right? And so it's like they'll reach this point, and they say, well, now I'm afraid to make a decision, because I can make the wrong decision, whereas that didn't matter as much before. How in one of the reasons why I think that they end up being afraid to make this wrong decision is because they maybe feel like they have incomplete information. And in my space, this might be, well, I don't know if meta is really driving as much of the sales as meta says that it's driving. How do I know for sure? And so they'll get one. One attribution tool and then another attribution tool and then another one, and they all say something different too, and say, Go, I still don't know now, and so they've got this analysis paralysis. They're unable to really correctly identify so they have, let's just say, missing or incomplete or incorrect information, but they have to make a decision, because if they don't make a decision, they're the deer in the headlights, and that's more detrimental. But how, how do you make quick decisions with incomplete information? In an example was, you're getting shot at, your decision was, fall to the ground, right? Like, yeah, you don't know if it was a you don't know if it was gunshot yet or not. Right? Like, it could have been a right. It could have been other things. Right? Like, you're pretty sure that that's what it is, but you don't have the information to say, logically, I'm 100% sure that this is what it is. How do you make decisions, quick decisions, with incomplete or even inaccurate information?

Melanie Marshall  1:00:49  

So it's a great question, and I knew it was a gunshot, okay? But I would also say, You know what, if it might be a gunshot, just assume it's a gunshot. That's fair. So if you are going this is absolutely germane to right now, right things are going so fast, you're going to have to make decisions and they might be wrong. So to a certain degree, that is the first thing you've got to keep in mind, right, that you've got to let go of the fact that you might not get it totally right. That sounds easy, right? But yeah, because I think that the assumption is in the question, right? Well, how do you make it so that it'll be right 100% of the time and it won't, and it won't, yeah, you know you're gonna, and hopefully it's not going to be something where you're going to lose the company and you're not going to, you know, somebody isn't going to lose their life. They're not, you know, you're gonna, you're going to hold on to what is most important. So that is part of it. Is like, Okay, what is the thing I absolutely must protect? Know that going in, right? So in, it to a certain degree, you and again, if you are someone who is trying to grow, you know you don't want to lose your business, but you also know you've got to be willing to put a certain amount at risk to Grow fair. Yeah, absolutely. So you've got a certain amount you got to put at risk. You're going to hold on to a certain bit, right? Because I'm a horrible gambler. I don't like any of that kind of stuff because it I know this all everything time. I say things like this. People give me looks like that, like really? Because you used to like the war zones,

William Harris  1:02:57  

yeah, you get with your life, just not with money, sure,

Melanie Marshall  1:02:59  

but don't put me near those slot machines, because I don't because I don't like them. Yeah, exactly. So how do you make a decision quickly with inaccurate information? Know you bite might be wrong. Know what you're willing to play with and what you're not do the next right thing. Just do what is right in front of you with what you can I would also say, as much as is possible, work with people you trust. Sure. I mean, that sounds maybe like a pretty basic one, but I honestly think in really uncertain times it is true. You know my work, Dad used to say to me, never go away with people who don't want to come home as badly as you do. And there's something to be said for that in terms of how you make decisions, that if you are in a decision making matrix where you are dealing with suppliers, mentors, people who work for you, and you know that these are people who share your value system. It makes it easier.

William Harris  1:04:11  

They're making decisions from the same frame of work. We work off of a entrepreneur operating system called EOS traction in our business. And one of the things that I like about it, once we implemented it, is it gives a framework for the rest of the team to know that they can make a decision, because it aligns with what is our mission, what are our values? Does it align with the mission? Does it align with the values go to make the decision, right? Versus everything becoming a bottleneck? Up to you. And so to your point, if you work with people that you trust, they they adhere to that mission, that those those values, they are intrinsic to who they are, right? And I don't, I would say like to a point, this is where I've realized hiring so important, because if you have those core values, if they don't align to those core values, now they're not going to in a month or three months, so you have to hire the people that already intrinsically have those values in place. Case as well, if they do trust that they're going to make the same sort of decisions that you would, and they will also make the wrong decisions the same way that you will make the wrong the wrong decisions, but that it's, it's course corrective, and that the the worst decision is just not at making a decision at all. Yeah,

Melanie Marshall  1:05:15  

and if you are going to be Yeah, and I love that you are doing that, because at the end of the day, that is also how you sort of keep the team together. And if you if the I look at where I have seen people come through really tough times as a team, and I think about things that I've been through where we have lost people, and how hard that was, but what got us through that was shared values and being together. Yeah, and I think about, I think about what I have seen in terms of communities that lost everything that natural disasters and in terms of conflict and where they came through, it is about those shared values, and that's not perfection, right? That doesn't mean there isn't a bad apple, or that doesn't mean that there are mistakes made along the way, but it is in you know things beyond con, beyond their control happening. You know an uncertainty of where help is going to come from, where finance is going to come from. But a lot of this does come down to, are you with the right people? And again, if we're turning it back to founder run enterprises. Are you giving them the space to be grown ups alongside you?

William Harris  1:06:52  

When we talk about this, it's very easy to talk about these concepts in a relaxed environment with nice mood lighting in the background and things like that, right? But in order to apply, let's just say, you know, deliberate optimism and accidental bravery when everything around you is absolutely chaotic. You're being fired at a or you're in the car, you have to turn around. How do you stay level headed when you are actively in fight or flight? Because the reality is right or wrong. Founders who are going through these fear moments feel potentially the same fight or flight response biologically. So how do you how do you pause that, turn that off to so that way you can say, I've still got a split second to make a decision, but I can do this to get me into the framework. So that way I can go ahead and have this deliberate optimism and accidental bravery.

Melanie Marshall  1:07:51  

I love that you highlighted that it is the same, is the same fear response, no matter what type of fear someone is experiencing, because it is, it is the same physiology, if you're in a war zone, if you are walking into a VC round, or if you are about to ask somebody to the dance like it is this, it is it's the same response. So that is something that you can practice. So number one, know thyself. Are you someone who experiences fear before the fact, during or after? Right? I would say there are three ways that people experience fear. And as a founder, you might be someone who, if you experience it before, you will be prone to rumination, right? The sort of, I wonder if they're going to like, and you'll think you are planning, but you're not right. You're just scared.

William Harris  1:08:47  

I fall into this one, by the way, like if there's, if there's actually something really, seriously urgent or wrong, I'm as calm headed as could possibly. There's nothing going on, right? But if you've given me enough time to think about what's going on? That's when I'll derail.

Melanie Marshall  1:09:01  

Yeah, okay, so we know yours now, right? So that's good, right? Some people get scared during and that is more like the kind of antelope, right? This is the kind of Gazelle that wants to stampede away. And then there are people who get scared afterwards, when you're suddenly thinking, I can't believe that happened. Now, I tend to fall into that latter category that I would, sort of, you know, I would have things that happened after the fact. I remember going to Paris during the terror attacks there, and a few things happened, and I remember having a really bad effect afterwards, where I just, I suddenly didn't want to be on transport, I didn't want to have anything, because I suddenly was like, oh gosh, that could go really bad. So no, know your fear. Basically, know which one you are and and then you can practice the interrupt, right? Then you can. So not everyone's a meditator. I get it, especially you talk about some of your logicians. You might guys, there's. Research. I'm telling you, it works, right? It's science. There is science for this. You know, I learned to meditate because a former SAS operative told me to try it. Because they said, Listen, this is going to change your game. Yeah. And I thought, I don't think I can, and I learned to. And it just gives you, if you are a before person, it might give you that moment where you think, Oh, I'm not actually planning. I'm just worrying. And you'll stop. And if you are in that moment you're having, say you're having a gazelle moment, and actually you just need to bring it down a notch so you can be really present for whatever meeting you're about to have. I'm telling you, meditation is going to give you five seconds, and all you actually need is five seconds, because I'm not going to say I've never experienced fear during because I have, of course, of course, like, that's what gives you the drop and wriggle. You know? That's the bend and snap, if you've ever seen Legally Blonde, right? Yes, good call back to that. Yeah, right. So you only need, I've got to look up the actual science on this, but you only need an interrupt of somewhere between like five to 20 seconds of that sort of lizard brain to give yourself calmness. So I've had moments where I could feel the right but I'm responsible for a team, and I'm responsible for making good calls to keep them safe. And so you just need to have a practice where you're like, one deep breath. And that is, I promise you, that's not hippie dippie. It's actual science that will give you like it'll interrupt that circuitry so that suddenly those frontal lobes are like, Whoa, no, I'm in charge again. And then you can be a afraid afterwards. Person. How's that? That's,

William Harris  1:12:14  

that's, it's wonderful. Like you said, some type of pattern interrupt. And to your point, the breathing is not just hippie dippie. There is science behind that. I'm, I'm not going to say that. I'm, you know, the right person to give all of the science behind it, but there is, there's a lot of stuff there. You've got your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system. There are actually different things that will trigger one nervous system over another, and breathing is a really good one to help trigger the opposite. So

Melanie Marshall  1:12:40  

they make fun of me because they now teach on the hostile environments courses at the BBC. They talk about, you know, the importance of meditation, but they use this example of me learning to meditate. But then I had gone back to them after there was an offensive in Iraq, and I'd been up at this Peshmerga Forward Operating Base, and there were US forces up there. So there was all these, like, lots of action. Let's just say there was lots of action anyway, so, but there's also lots of not, stuff not going on, right? You spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing. So I was practicing meditating anyway. So I went back and I told this person who taught me to meditate. I said, Oh, it was amazing. I learned to meditate. I said, I did so well. I said, the US were sending out going missiles, and I still kept meditating, and they were like, you really shouldn't have been doing that. Like, I please don't do that again. So now that when they teach the courses, they're like, Okay, So meditation is a really good tool. Just don't do it during, like, active combat.

William Harris  1:13:50  

Come back into

Melanie Marshall  1:13:51  

your body. Here you actually, like, maybe go hide, yeah. But it was fine. It was outgoing. It was outgoing. Oh,

William Harris  1:13:58  

that's good. Um, I feel like I've gotten a lot of chance to get to know you personally here, but I like having a little bit of a moment to get to know like, who is Melanie Marshall, the human being? And I'd say, if there's one thing that stands out from the conversations that we've had before, it is that you are an absolute animal lover, like you love animals more than I would say, a lot of people would like you, you, you've got a lot of rescues that you've done and that I understand, there's a really fun story about pandas, and so I'm going to ask you to tell about pandas.

Melanie Marshall  1:14:33  

Well, yeah, I love animals so much that, again, they used to joke that they were going to get my then rescue cat a little kitty sized flak jacket so that they could travel with me, so I wouldn't be like, Oh yeah, sure. And yeah exactly, because I just really love animals, and I think they're, you know, they need us to take care of them. And anything that needs taken care of, I always just sort of want to do it. But any animal I can visit on my trips around the world, I want to, and I spend a lot of time in China. And what has China got? It's got pandas, yeah. How, how fortuitous for a gal who loves an animal. We were there. We were actually making a film about China's middle class, and we wanted to go out and do some stuff. And, yeah, but China could be a little tricky to film in there. You know, not totally, not totally open about everything. And so something had fallen through with our permissions, and we needed to wait an extra day. And I said, Well, maybe we could go and see the pandas at the breeding center. So off we went, and we made a film about panda nomics, basically how China is using giant pandas as a tool for diplomacy and economic growth around the world. So I want you to know there was a serious point to this. Well, they are, yeah, they use it as so it's serious, right, yeah, okay, so all so serious. We got to hold baby pandas.

William Harris  1:16:34  

That's awesome. Yeah,

Melanie Marshall  1:16:36  

I got to hold a baby panda that was licking a bamboo stick covered in honey. Oh, man. And if you actually see the raw footage, is this amazing camera man that I worked with a lot of over the years, named Joe. You could hear him laughing at me, saying, Are you crying? You're crying.

William Harris  1:16:56  

I mean, that's pretty cool,

Melanie Marshall  1:16:58  

yeah. And we put it out. We put it out on TV. And I didn't put out the video of me. I put but you can see me sitting beside the correspondent, and I was there because health and safety, right? Like, what if one of these pandas goes crazy and, like, attach your correspondent, right? You know they're, they're vicious.

William Harris  1:17:16  

Yeah, I've never seen a vicious video of a panda ever is that actually,

Melanie Marshall  1:17:21  

no, that's it's not true. They're not vicious, they're like, but they're

William Harris  1:17:25  

like, probably the most docile bears that exist, aren't they?

Melanie Marshall  1:17:28  

They're so cuddly and sweet and perfect. It's just the happiest moment of my life. And

William Harris  1:17:33  

then, did you sneak one with you? Did you sneak one on and try and take Well, I

Melanie Marshall  1:17:38  

didn't, but my then boss, the WHO features it a number of these tales, sent an email to me, saying, that is the most shameless thing that he'd ever seen a producer do. And I think it was meant to be a reprimand. And I wrote him back and said, thank you. And that was my email. Wow.

William Harris  1:17:59  

Why Why would this be shameless? Like, how is this? I

Melanie Marshall  1:18:03  

know what? Who wouldn't No,

William Harris  1:18:06  

we went. So I went to China. My brother was living there, and we went to Shanghai, and we did not see a panda. And I will tell you right now, my family is convinced that we did not go to China. They're like, No, we have to go back to China, because you have not gone to China if you don't see a panda. So I'm like, I'm right there with you. You go to China, you have to see a pan. I would like to hold a baby panda licking a bamboo stick. That sounds even better.

Melanie Marshall  1:18:30  

Honestly, heaven. Yeah, I've seen, I've been so lucky. So, I mean, honestly, I've, I have yet seen giant gorillas and the Ugandan, you know, kind of cloud forest I once stroked a Vietnamese billionaires pet dolphin. I finished

William Harris  1:18:50  

with the pet dolphin. I just wait a minute. I

Melanie Marshall  1:18:53  

was like, I really need to finish this story. Please don't edit that.

William Harris  1:18:58  

So, yeah, pet dolphin, though that's you could have those as pets.

Melanie Marshall  1:19:02  

I didn't either, and I'm not convinced that everyone is allowed to there, but yeah, we that was and I also learned about Asian hospitality because I, I don't drink at all now, and I'm not a drinker. I wasn't a drink much of a drinker then, and I didn't know that it was like, I was sort of like, oh, okay, I'll have one. And my cameraman had been sort of like, don't do it. And I couldn't figure out why. And he was trying to basically say, like, you are entering into a game for which you are unprepared and will not, like, you're not going to come out well from this, like, because it's, uh, all right, so no, no, now have some more, and we'll have some more. And then, and basically, I entered into a hospitality game for which my I was not ready. I was your liver wasn't ready. My liver wasn't ready. My whole body wasn't ready. And then, but it was, you know, it was. And then all of a sudden, he was like, Hey, do you guys want to come and see my dolphin? And we. Were like, Well, yeah, sure. I mean, you don't get that offer every day, right? Like, I don't have any friends like that back in Canada, you know? I'm like, Hey, nobody, yeah,

William Harris  1:20:17  

so, so, okay, so not a drinker. But what is the most interesting food that you have experienced somewhere? Oh,

Melanie Marshall  1:20:31  

most exterior interesting food I've swerved swerved was probably the Choose Your Own Toad restaurant, really, which was also, that was also China. Although China's had I've eaten some of my best meals in China, and I've swerved some there, sure like and the probably the most interesting food I've ever eaten was, we were making a film with the lovely Angelina Jolie in Cambodia, and she loves Cambodia. She's super, like, cool and into the local cuisine. And so I was like, Let's cook with insects. And why not? I meant it more as a Why don't you and my friend the correspondent, cook with insects, but then I couldn't really not eat it. So what did you eat? What was the ins? Oh, yeah, so I ate an ant and I ate a cricket. I did not eat the tarantula, because I just couldn't. I just couldn't, just couldn't

William Harris  1:21:48  

do it. I don't think that I could eat a tarantula either. I do think that entomophagy is a very interesting thing. Like, there's a lot of stuff there, but I you know, ants, crickets, things like that. Tarantulas probably that would push it for me a little bit,

Melanie Marshall  1:22:04  

yeah. But it was one of those ones where it's like, you know, it was another one where I'd written a pretty big check with my mouth. So in that case, I did have to cash it with my butt. So yeah, so it's like, in that case, I was like, yeah, I gotta do this one. And it wasn't, you know, it's more the sort of like, it's such a mental thing of it, like it is actually, it's just a mental thing, right? Like, it's fine and it was fun. So that's very healthy. Yeah, it's probably the most exotic, right? I've eaten so many amazing meals, like, all over the world, and sometimes you just have to I've also eaten a lot of chicken and rice. Like chicken and rice is the universal language. It really is.

William Harris  1:22:51  

I love it. I mean, from body builders to everybody everywhere else, chicken and rice,

Melanie Marshall  1:22:56  

right? Do you know who's super popular everywhere in the world? Speaking of bodybuilders, what's that Arnold Schwarzenegger could honestly be king of the world, really, he really could. I have been to, like, I've been to gyms in Kandahar. I've been to gyms in in places in southern Africa. I've been to places all over the world. And, like, they love Arnold. They love him so much.

William Harris  1:23:17  

Yeah. I mean, who doesn't, though, right? Like, the accent and the muscles, I mean, like he's he's an icon. Yeah, he's an icon. Well, this is good. Melanie, I have learned so much from you. I have learned just a lot of really good frameworks for hopefully putting things together. I think that hopefully other other people who are listening have been able to get the same information that I have. I appreciate you sharing your time, if people wanted to follow you, or if somebody listening is like, I want to work with Melanie in some capacity. Like, what's the best way for them to follow you or get in touch? Stay in touch?

Melanie Marshall  1:23:52  

Well, best way to get in touch with me, good old LinkedIn. I'm there. I accept follows, connects. I love it. And or you can go to my website. Melaniemarshall.com, I'm sure it'll be in the show notes, and yep, I'm always there. I do a lot of public speaking. That's my current passion, and consulting.

William Harris  1:24:11  

I love it. Well. Melanie, again, thank you for sharing your time and sharing your wisdom with us. Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening. Hope you have a great rest of your day.

Outro  1:24:22  

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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