In this episode of the AlchemistX Innovators Inside Podcast, Ian Bergman sits down with marketing powerhouse and entrepreneurial mentor Stephanie Melodia to explore what it really takes to succeed as an innovator. Through a candid conversation that spans her humble beginnings, lessons in risk-taking, and the power of a strong vision, Stephanie shares insights that will inspire you to take control of your own destiny.

Here are the five main takeaways from their conversation:

1. Own Your Journey with Accountability

Stephanie emphasizes that true empowerment begins by taking complete responsibility for your decisions. She recounts how her early career was shaped by mentors who encouraged her to step up and own every part of the journey—whether it was hustling from an entry-level position or making bold decisions in business. By embracing accountability, you not only build trust with yourself and others but also lay the foundation to pivot and adapt as challenges arise.

2. Define and Pursue Your Own Vision

One recurring theme of the conversation is the importance of crafting your own definition of success. Stephanie highlights that when you invest time in clarifying your vision, you gain clarity on which opportunities are worth pursuing and which ones to let go. This vision-driven approach becomes your roadmap, driving decisions from the smallest daily tasks to the grand, strategic moves that shape your future. When you know what success looks like to you, every step becomes more purposeful and aligned with your goals.

3. Harness the Power of Hard Work and Resilience

Stephanie’s journey—from working as an admin assistant to leading marketing initiatives—demonstrates that relentless effort often outweighs natural talent. The episode explores how consistent hard work, even when the going gets tough, can turn setbacks into steps forward. Her story is a powerful reminder that resilience isn’t just about bouncing back; it’s about learning, evolving, and using every experience as a stepping stone to greater achievements.

4. Embrace Calculated Risks for Breakthrough Opportunities

The discussion frequently returns to the notion that innovation and success demand stepping outside your comfort zone. Stephanie illustrates how taking measured risks can open doors to opportunities that may otherwise seem out of reach. From launching her own business with minimal investment to making bold career transitions, she shows that the willingness to risk—and to learn from both the wins and the losses—can propel you forward faster than playing it safe ever could.

5. Adopt a Scientific, Experimental Approach

One of the most refreshing insights from the episode is the call to treat your entrepreneurial journey as an experiment. Stephanie advocates for a mindset that embraces testing ideas, gathering data, and continuously refining your approach. This methodology not only demystifies the process of learning from failure but also accelerates innovation. By continuously asking, “Are we wrong?” you create a culture of curiosity that fuels growth and adaptation.

Final Thoughts

Stephanie Melodia’s insights are a call to action for anyone looking to disrupt the norm and drive their own innovation. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a corporate innovator, or someone simply ready to shake up your career, the principles of accountability, vision, hard work, risk-taking, and experimentation can set you on the path to true success.

Timestamps

🎙️ Introduction to Guest Stephanie Melodia (00:00:00)
🏢 The Founder Journey: Launching Bloom (00:07:13)
💡 Learning Through Mistakes: Finding the Right Market Need (00:11:02)
👟 The Two Shoe Salesman Fable: Perspective on Opportunity (00:14:16)
🍀 Introducing the “Hacking Luck” Four-Leaf Clover Framework (00:21:34)
🏊‍♂️ Analogies on Effort: Triathlons & Catching Flights (00:25:47)
📊 Deep Dive: Accountability, Vision, Proactivity, and Risk Tolerance (00:29:59)
🌟 Adding Positivity: The Fourth Leaf of the Framework (00:44:21)
🌐 Corporate Innovation vs. Entrepreneurship: Bridging the Gap (00:49:14)
📲 How to Connect with Stephanie Melodia (LinkedIn & Instagram) (00:55:43)

Full Transcript:

00;00;17;27 - 00;00;41;04

Ian Bergman

Welcome to season six of Alchemist x Innovators Inside the podcast, where we explore the world of corporate innovation and dive deep into the minds and stories of innovation, thought leaders crafting the future. I am your host, Ian Bergmann, and if you're an innovation agitator like me, then this is where you want to be. Stephanie. Good evening. How are you?

00;00;41;07 - 00;00;42;23

Stephanie Melodia

I'm great, thank you. How are you.

00;00;42;23 - 00;00;53;04

Ian Bergman

In? I'm doing very well. I want to say thank you for joining us on Innovators. Inside we're across the pond from each other, so it's late in the day, but I'm looking forward to an energetic conversation.

00;00;53;06 - 00;00;55;29

Stephanie Melodia

Likewise. And I'm so grateful for you having me on.

00;00;56;02 - 00;01;24;15

Ian Bergman

Well, it's going to be fun. So for our guests who don't know you, I'm really pleased to welcome Stephanie Millard here. And you know, Stephanie has such a fast innovating background in marketing as an entrepreneur, as an advisor. As you know, this big sister of entrepreneur ship, we're going to get into that, that title. But, Stephanie, I'm wondering if you could tell me in your own words, you know, a little bit about your journey.

00;01;24;16 - 00;01;31;24

Ian Bergman

How did you come to be sitting across from me today for a conversation about innovation and entrepreneurship?

00;01;31;26 - 00;01;40;00

Stephanie Melodia

It was a cold Wednesday afternoon. It was 3:30. I emerged from my mother's womb.

00;01;40;03 - 00;01;45;18

Ian Bergman

Oh the detail. I love this, I love this. Let's go. Minute by minute.

00;01;45;20 - 00;02;06;00

Stephanie Melodia

We don't have time for that. So I'm going to fast forward things a little bit. So academically, I specialized in illustration. I went to art school and my naivete at 16, 17 years old was I would just like sit around and draw all day and hopefully someone will pay me to do it like that. Makes sense. That checks out.

00;02;06;02 - 00;02;27;07

Stephanie Melodia

And so I went to art school and I had this naivete, as I mentioned, with kind of maybe, maybe I'll do that. And I think part of that, what I should mention is I grew up on a desert island, which if you thought my background was fascinating on LinkedIn, then strap in. And my parents basically came from a working class background.

00;02;27;14 - 00;02;35;01

Stephanie Melodia

My dad is from Sicily. My mom is from South London, so I always joke about having this like gangster background on both sides.

00;02;35;02 - 00;02;37;07

Ian Bergman

Absolutely, absolutely.

00;02;37;09 - 00;02;59;12

Stephanie Melodia

And and, you know, they have brought themselves up by the, by their bootstraps working kind of blue collar jobs. And I just mention that because I didn't really have that exposure with kind of adults around me doing these amazing careers. And so I didn't really have like too many reference points when it came to what to do in my adult life.

00;02;59;15 - 00;03;18;09

Stephanie Melodia

And I don't think that many people do know, and I think there's actually a lot of unfair pressure that's put on young people when they're making their selection. We talked before about your past as well a little bit and the potential crossroads and different directions we could have gone down. We don't know until we try and we test out these different things.

00;03;18;10 - 00;03;39;22

Stephanie Melodia

That's right. So the idea that we specialize and specialize and ultimately, at least here in the UK and Europe, ultimately to one particular subject at university level, and then you go out into the real world and you discover how it actually works and get industry experience and make contacts. And you realize nine times out of ten, this is not one for me anyway.

00;03;39;24 - 00;04;10;05

Stephanie Melodia

That's not to say I didn't love art school in illustration, but I eventually moved to London via Canada. Actually. So that's a story for another time. The move to London and set about starting my career properly. I managed to, after many, many, many months of interviews and job applications and meeting with recruiters. It took me ages to actually get my first role, which was as an admin assistant at a small creative agency on 15 K a year.

00;04;10;07 - 00;04;29;01

Stephanie Melodia

I don't know how that converts into Canadian or US dollars or do the math, but not very much, basically. And you know, that was at the tail end of the last recession. And so now I'm old enough to see things to actually live through the cycles of history and the ups and downs of the economic climate and everything else.

00;04;29;07 - 00;05;01;23

Stephanie Melodia

So not only was I starting off my career and heading to the last recession, but also I didn't study in the UK. I didn't have connections. I didn't have any. I was really starting from scratch. So since I eventually got my foot in the door with this first role. I was actually super lucky because it was a small enough company where I could make impact, and I was so incredibly lucky to have a mentor in this boss who is now no longer with us, that he took me under his wing and he gave me the autonomy to to really breathe and spread my wings.

00;05;01;25 - 00;05;13;18

Stephanie Melodia

So anyway, so I kind of starts this role and I brought in my portfolio every day and I stuck it under his nose. I was like, if you get any, you know, art commissions or if anyone needs any illustrations like, this is my work we're.

00;05;13;18 - 00;05;15;14

Ian Bergman

Going to do this helped me make it happen.

00;05;15;14 - 00;05;42;06

Stephanie Melodia

Yeah. Like I'm, you know, obviously born hustler and, and he would metaphorically, you know, pat me on my head and be like, yeah, okay. Like whenever, whenever and during this same time, being exposed to this new world of brands and advertising and marketing, I was in when I say I was mind blown. I mean, the hunger, the thirst, the energy.

00;05;42;06 - 00;06;02;16

Stephanie Melodia

I couldn't get into the office any earlier. I couldn't leave any later, the cleaners would be checking me out because they want to close the building. I just could I was like a sponge. I was like, absorbing everything. So as I said, I never had sort of parents or family friends seeing them forge these career paths. It was a whole new world to me.

00;06;02;18 - 00;06;27;07

Stephanie Melodia

So I lapped that up. I got promoted quite quickly, got promoted a few more times, and eventually, at the end of my four year stint in this first role, I was responsible for a third of the business turnover, and I also expanded the business by another third again. And so that goes back to that luck. And I know we're going to dive more into the luck piece in a second, but I was really lucky I was right time, right place.

00;06;27;07 - 00;06;46;21

Stephanie Melodia

I had this opportunity to exercise this business development muscle. I didn't even realize that I had to service clients to learn, to be creative, to do all these amazing things. Anyway, time came. Big, big fish, small pond. I don't like that phrase. It sounds quite arrogant, but moved to a larger agency. Also the best part of a decade.

00;06;46;21 - 00;07;10;11

Stephanie Melodia

I then transitioned into tech. Right time, right place again. I was the first UK marketing hire to lead the expansion into these international markets. And then I'm going to accelerate because I don't want to spend to over my CV, but it was almost a mental check box with having had that in-house role. After spending so many years working agency side, I was like, right, I'm going to go off and start my own business.

00;07;10;11 - 00;07;13;17

Stephanie Melodia

Sure. So I'll pause there. We can get more into my own business.

00;07;13;19 - 00;07;33;24

Ian Bergman

I want to get to your business in a second. But I think I think there's something really interesting. Right. Because you really you mentioned, you know, you kind of had the opportunity to start your career in a, you know, small business. Yeah, a small business where you get to see large pieces of the business. Right. And you had the option to start your career with something that I really wish more of us were lucky enough to have.

00;07;33;24 - 00;07;43;00

Ian Bergman

Right. A mentor and you use those words. How did those experiences kind of shape you as you were thinking about kind of going into entrepreneurship yourself?

00;07;43;02 - 00;08;11;01

Stephanie Melodia

And I love that question so much. Genuinely. I, you know, I know you're an American. There's that phrase, you know, what would Jesus do for me? This mentor I mentioned this first boss, his name was Simon. So my version of it is what would Simon do? So the way that he's empowering, I'm holding my heart physically because it means so much to me, because I still to this day, look up to him so much.

00;08;11;01 - 00;08;36;08

Stephanie Melodia

I mean, such a tragedy that he is no longer with us. He's had such an impact on me and and through coaching. That's also helped me actually to define what exactly it was about, why he was such a great man and really, really get clarity on the specific character traits so that I can better emulate who he was to me.

00;08;36;11 - 00;09;11;24

Ian Bergman

Yeah. Well, that's I think it's obviously it's just it's a wonderful story and it's a wonderful boost, sort of, you know, kind of injection of insight, energy and legacy into your own career. But it's also, I think, such a powerful lesson about one of the ways in which we can control our own destiny. Unlock like, genuinely. I love hearing these stories of powerful and impactful mentors because it makes me remember all of the times that I was lucky enough to have people say to me, Ian, develop the mentors, develop the relationships, and it makes me regret all of the times that I didn't.

00;09;11;24 - 00;09;24;29

Ian Bergman

It took me a long time to learn the lesson of mentorship actually in my career, so it's great to hear. But you carried that forward and you carried that forward into building an organization. Are we talking about bloom here?

00;09;25;07 - 00;09;26;16

Stephanie Melodia

Yeah. That's bloom.

00;09;26;19 - 00;09;39;01

Ian Bergman

So tell us all about the founder journey. You're up, by the way, I haven't mentioned, if you're at a show host and a podcast host yourself and you get to ask people about founder journeys all the time. So let me ask you about yours. Yeah. Know.

00;09;39;03 - 00;09;39;11

Stephanie Melodia

Okay.

00;09;39;17 - 00;09;42;06

Ian Bergman

What was that like? And and what happened?

00;09;42;09 - 00;10;06;17

Stephanie Melodia

Well, I appreciate the luxury of quiet. Right. Usually it's me asking the question. So it's very nice for the the tables to be turned here it is a treat. The way that it happened. So I mentioned with my career journey that I sort of had that mental checkbox. And yeah, it was November 2017 and I just, I it just kind of felt like the natural next step.

00;10;06;17 - 00;10;36;12

Stephanie Melodia

It was just I recognize that every step in my career journey thus far had been one of exponential growth. I going from there, starting out as an admin assistant at this boutique small designer agency to leading the business development function at this much larger agency to then leading the UK marketing for this tech company. It was just kind of like the next, the next step for me.

00;10;36;17 - 00;11;02;27

Stephanie Melodia

That's not to say I didn't make a ton of mistakes, and one of them was, and this is going back now almost ten years, but one of them was I have definitely now that I've worked with literally hundreds of founders, I see this happen so often. I made the same mistake. Was entrepreneurs going into business because they want to see the same with me, like I've just said, like I it was just a natural next step for me.

00;11;02;27 - 00;11;10;04

Stephanie Melodia

I wanted to really you're serving a market needs. What's the problem solving? What's not enough?

00;11;10;04 - 00;11;15;09

Ian Bergman

I'm a classic. Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that, because that is so classic. Right? Just the.

00;11;15;09 - 00;11;40;20

Stephanie Melodia

Classic. Not a classic. And for me, my business was service based, B2B marketing agency. And of course, we evolved and pivoted throughout the years. So not completely naive, but for me, it was also I mention it because it was very low barriers to entry. And so I appreciate the risk tolerance as various levels of risk tolerance in entrepreneurship.

00;11;40;22 - 00;12;03;21

Stephanie Melodia

For me, this was actually a very, I guess, mitigating the risk as much as possible because all it took to begin with was my lap time in my investment. Let's talk money. My investment in the business was my 2,000 pound MacBook, which was also a part Christmas present because I mentioned this was November 2017. So it was a part Christmas present from kind of partner family.

00;12;03;21 - 00;12;17;22

Stephanie Melodia

So even that, you know, it was kind of co-funded and then the and then the few hundred pounds to my accountant for him for his fees and incorporating the company with companies House here in the UK that was it. That was it.

00;12;17;23 - 00;12;19;18

Ian Bergman

This is as bootstrapped as it gets.

00;12;19;18 - 00;12;37;07

Stephanie Melodia

This is what I mean. So that that's what I mean with like bootstrapped. You know, I'm not an engineer. I don't come from a tech background. So I didn't have that skill set to build out a product. And again, for good thing, because I probably would have fallen into that trap builder and they will come, but because I didn't, I could mitigate that risk of starting my my business by setting up a website.

00;12;37;07 - 00;12;45;17

Stephanie Melodia

And I did the website myself. All I need is kind of me, me, my laptop, my website, and my hustling to get this off the ground. So.

00;12;45;19 - 00;13;10;08

Ian Bergman

And you know what I love about this though? And this might be a little controversial, especially I think a lot of our audience is a very tech centric form of entrepreneurship and innovation. But yeah, you know, your story is a very pure form of entrepreneurship. It is hustle. It is ambition is what I'm hearing. Right. And it is also a series of lessons where you probably had to navigate your way to truly understanding that market need.

00;13;10;08 - 00;13;15;00

Ian Bergman

Yeah. And like, I don't know I don't know how to distill entrepreneurship any more purely than that.

00;13;15;02 - 00;13;18;24

Stephanie Melodia

I appreciate that you and that makes it makes me feel very nice about myself.

00;13;18;24 - 00;13;26;02

Ian Bergman

Well, I don't know. I mean, fearful that like, hiding behind those, you know, perceived compliments is probably a lot of pain.

00;13;26;04 - 00;13;54;27

Stephanie Melodia

Oh, yeah. Are we going to get into the therapy session? We'll leave that for another episode. You know, I appreciate that. You're right. And, and yeah, you know, somebody else asked me like, how did you get your first client? Which I thought was another great question starting out. And that was, again, it was pure hustle. I think my particular journey having come from employment into entrepreneurship, I no longer had the safety net of the monthly paycheck coming in.

00;13;54;28 - 00;14;16;28

Stephanie Melodia

And so that first month without your paycheck is like, where's the money coming from? Like you're going to you've got to find that somewhere. And something I feel really passionately about is the difference between being a victim and assuming victimhood. And what I mean by that is each and every single one of us on this planet have headwinds and tailwinds.

00;14;16;28 - 00;14;37;11

Stephanie Melodia

And again, we sort of keep teasing this hacking lock concept, which we'll talk about in a minute. But that's an element of it, is the most powerful thing that we all have as humans is the stories that we tell ourselves. It's the most the single, most powerful, mean. You studied like sociology. So maybe you are you fully aware of all this?

00;14;37;11 - 00;15;05;20

Stephanie Melodia

But the most the single, most powerful motivator for any individual is the identity that we assume I'm part and linked to. That identity is, again, the story we tell ourselves. And so the classic two shoe shoe salesman fable comes to mind. The tale of these two shoe salesman who were sent out to Africa to explore the potential of the market opportunity.

00;15;05;22 - 00;15;28;13

Stephanie Melodia

And this was like back in the early 1900s, shoe salesman number one sent back a telegraph saying, research complete stop, no go, no opportunity. Nobody wears shoes here. And then the second salesman sends back a telegraph, says research complete. Stop. Great opportunity. No one wears shoes here.

00;15;28;16 - 00;15;30;02

Ian Bergman

I love that. Yeah, totally.

00;15;30;08 - 00;15;38;12

Stephanie Melodia

And there's so many of these great anecdotes as well. The, the but all convey that same point, which is your perspective and how you view things.

00;15;38;14 - 00;15;47;03

Ian Bergman

Well, when, when did you realize what problem you actually had a right to solve in the world, or at least in the market with bloom.

00;15;47;06 - 00;16;22;01

Stephanie Melodia

I oh, if I'm really baring my soul with you here in, I don't think that we ever really solved a deeper, painful enough problem in the first place. And that's why that's what led to my ultimate decision of shutting down the company 18 months ago and having the humility to recognize that the bravery to say that out loud on this podcast with you and being honest enough with myself to recognize that.

00;16;22;03 - 00;16;49;05

Stephanie Melodia

And if I'm really honest, I very much hustled a job hard enough that I turned it into a small company. And that's not the same as finding product market fit and scaling a huge tech company. And I know the difference. I recognize the difference. And a lot of those lessons that I've learned, the hard way, my own lived experience, as well as through all this and many, many entrepreneurs that we've worked with as well.

00;16;49;07 - 00;16;53;24

Stephanie Melodia

I bring that with all the mentorship and consulting that I now do today.

00;16;53;26 - 00;17;28;27

Ian Bergman

Well, and and thank you for sharing that. You know, one of the things that I observe a lot and it's interestingly, it's interesting to me because I think, well, we'll get into sort of, you know, global differences and international trends and things later, but there are different markets where I think it is much harder to let go. But one of the things that really matters for entrepreneurs, but it matters for entrepreneurs, it matters for anybody trying to drive change in the world is like when, when it's when and if it's not working.

00;17;28;29 - 00;17;55;01

Ian Bergman

Which, by the way, most of the time it doesn't over the long term, right? Like the vast majority, letting go is probably very hard. But what better way do you have to preserve your own energy and future potential? Like I have seen so many entrepreneurs continue with the grind and the hustle and if it's rewarding, wonderful. If it if it feeds your energy, if you're, you know, supporting your family, whatever you want to do, that's wonderful.

00;17;55;02 - 00;18;08;22

Ian Bergman

But the the tragedy is, you know, when you're constantly grinding and it's draining your energy and it's not working and you can't let go, like and that is a tragedy. I've seen so many entrepreneurs kind of fall into.

00;18;08;24 - 00;18;20;16

Stephanie Melodia

I completely agree in. And if I can go deeper with your listeners here, I'm going to bring up the I cast finite time on this planet into the conversation. And because that is the lens.

00;18;20;19 - 00;18;21;03

Ian Bergman

Let's do it.

00;18;21;07 - 00;18;48;00

Stephanie Melodia

We have two resources in this world our time and our money. Our time is the one resource we're never going to get back. And so that's the deeper underlying reason for the tragedy that you describe. It's that we don't have all the time in the world. Now, I think we need to sort of take that, you know, take that with a pinch of salt, depending on where you're at in your life stage and what's going on, because some of us do have more time than others.

00;18;48;02 - 00;19;14;12

Stephanie Melodia

But if you are continuing to float that dead horse when you could have taken all these other routes, I think you know the way that Eric Reese described the purpose of a startup in his bestselling book, The Lean Startup is the. The purpose of the existence of any startup is is a vehicle for learning and acquiring as much data as possible through rapid experimentation.

00;19;14;12 - 00;19;42;27

Stephanie Melodia

And and so again, this is something that I didn't have when I started out doing it for myself and navigating on my own. But embracing that playfulness, embracing the curiosity and reframing your role as an entrepreneur to something more akin to a detective or a scientist. And, you know, I was actually at dinner with this amazing founder the other night, and I was so blown away by how refreshing statement which was.

00;19;43;03 - 00;20;06;17

Stephanie Melodia

And she's a super successful founder now. But she said, you know, when I first started my business, I actually set out to disprove everything I thought that was really fascinating. You know, she went out there to disprove, to get the nose to disprove. I was like, the only time I've actually met someone in real life in person that saying, no, I want to prove like, prove me wrong.

00;20;06;25 - 00;20;27;07

Stephanie Melodia

People are like, I want you to say no. Like, tell me no. Like I don't want this to work out. I was like, wow, that was such. If you're able to adopt that mentality, then you just then it's easier to adopt that more detective scientific method of just like rapid experimentation. Are we wrong? Are we wrong?

00;20;27;07 - 00;20;45;08

Ian Bergman

Well, it really is. And like, this is going to sound a little cynical. It's not meant to be, but maybe it is meant to be. Like what? The other thing I love about that approach, she's kind of making everyone else do her work for her, but in such a smart way, like tell me why I'm wrong. And the second you can't, the second you can't disprove something to me.

00;20;45;11 - 00;20;48;14

Ian Bergman

Oh, I'm going to pounce, right? Like a smart entrepreneur.

00;20;48;19 - 00;20;49;19

Stephanie Melodia

So smart.

00;20;49;20 - 00;21;14;02

Ian Bergman

Yeah. So, okay, so let's let's talk about, you know, you have a collection of lessons from a fascinating career, but you also have a collection of lessons from these amazing conversations. You get to have in private and in public. Yeah. You know, let's talk about how they kind of come together. Right. You've been giving talks and we've kind of hinted at this, but you're talking about hacking luck, right?

00;21;14;02 - 00;21;18;28

Ian Bergman

You're talking about making well, actually you you tell me, what does hacking work mean?

00;21;18;28 - 00;21;20;00

Stephanie Melodia

Because it's.

00;21;20;02 - 00;21;28;07

Ian Bergman

For me. I hear the opportunity to bring some lessons and principles into how we do innovation in whatever role we're in. But but what what do you mean by that?

00;21;28;08 - 00;21;31;25

Stephanie Melodia

And the the. Okay, I'm going to let rip. I'm so excited to talk about this.

00;21;31;25 - 00;21;34;11

Ian Bergman

Oh, let's do so.

00;21;34;14 - 00;21;58;19

Stephanie Melodia

You're quite right. So first of all, thank you for acknowledging the amount of conversations I have by publicly and privately and the public ones that people get to hear about through my show has always been treated as a massive research project because I've now interviewed about 100 entrepreneurs. I've sat across the room, had that quality time to go deep with with a lot of them and what it opened my eyes to.

00;21;58;21 - 00;22;24;10

Stephanie Melodia

It's kind of made and combine that with these talks and having a point of difference and sharing these lessons, it really gets me into this very philosophical mindset. And I love just, you know, I've got I've definitely got this strong academic streak to me, i.e. a geek out, we can know about these things. And so really played into this deep desire for curiosity and learning that I have anyway.

00;22;24;10 - 00;22;50;28

Stephanie Melodia

Anyway, so this main concept came up, which was breaking down at its core, the ingredients for success. And so this can apply to entrepreneurs, people in their careers, people in corporate entrepreneurship like this kind of this is versatile. This can apply to whoever's listening right now. The core ingredients for success, whatever success means to you, there are three things talent, effort and luck.

00;22;51;00 - 00;22;57;29

Stephanie Melodia

Yeah. And I'm going to put it over to you. Which of those three do you think is the most contributing factor to success?

00;22;58;01 - 00;23;16;26

Ian Bergman

Oh, I mean, I feel like you're setting me up to say great luck, but like, I mean, I actually would say that it is luck, but I also would argue, and maybe we're going to go in the same direction. I also would argue that there's a lot of things that you can do to control the luck that you're exposed to.

00;23;16;26 - 00;23;36;16

Ian Bergman

Like we talked about taking advantage of a mentor instead of, you know, dismissing the relationship or whatever. And so I think it gets really, really fuzzy because people do have control of their own destinies to an extent. Well, I think we all have to acknowledge that we all, you know, maybe we all start from very different places.

00;23;36;19 - 00;23;57;21

Stephanie Melodia

You are very right. The US is a perfect segue, hence hacking lock. So number one, it's just such an interesting question that I love to ask people as well. It's a real kind of break. It gets people thinking everyone's like, oh, what could it be? And and research has actually shown that the number one contributing factor to success is indeed luck.

00;23;57;21 - 00;24;16;29

Stephanie Melodia

You were spot on the money with that. So it's bad news for anyone like us who feels like we're most of our own destiny. We've got free will. We can create our own reality. We can do what we want to do. We're hustlers. We're missing savers. But the good news is that the very close second and it's very, very close.

00;24;16;29 - 00;24;35;11

Stephanie Melodia

It's only a difference of a percent or two is indeed the effort factor. So whatever you want to call that like hard work effort, what do you put into it? Talent is way at the bottom of the list. So if anyone thinks that they're blessed with these innate natural talents and you think that that's going to be enough, I'm sorry.

00;24;35;11 - 00;24;36;27

Stephanie Melodia

It's break it to you. But aim.

00;24;37;04 - 00;24;50;21

Ian Bergman

Well. Not for outlier. Like like, let me ask you a question. Is this like day to day or is this, you know, that are these the attributes that feed into more of an outlier success, extreme career, extreme personal success?

00;24;50;23 - 00;24;52;13

Stephanie Melodia

This is across the board.

00;24;52;15 - 00;24;53;15

Ian Bergman

Like love it. Okay.

00;24;53;15 - 00;25;05;01

Stephanie Melodia

If if you are crazy talented, but you're sat in your room and no one sees it and you put in no effort and you don't play into luck like nothing's going to happen.

00;25;05;01 - 00;25;32;05

Ian Bergman

I don't know, as as someone as someone who's gone through periods of my life, luckily short ones, but periods of my life kind of being smart but lazy. You can fall into a trap like you can. You can fall back, I think. I think this is actually one of the biggest traps for people who do have, you know, resource intelligence, whatever it might be, you can fall into the trap of thinking, oh, like, I don't have to prepare.

00;25;32;07 - 00;25;47;11

Stephanie Melodia

Yeah. So I think what would be helpful is to get more clarity on the definitions here. So success, first of all, is like whatever that success means to you. Right? So if you've got a particular goal, if there's something you're working towards like you've got your own definition. So whatever that is, talent alone is not going to get you there.

00;25;47;13 - 00;26;12;11

Stephanie Melodia

The other part of the equation that we have to clarify is the definition of luck itself. Now, luck and no, this research and where my headspace has been for the past year or so, is essentially anything classified as anything that is outside of your control. And that does include where you were born, to whom you were born, with which genitalia, which income level with your family.

00;26;12;11 - 00;26;23;20

Stephanie Melodia

So you get your point on kind of being smart but lazy, or kind of maybe being born with a silver spoon, but that's where the luck element can still come into it anyway.

00;26;23;22 - 00;26;24;16

Ian Bergman

So fair enough.

00;26;24;20 - 00;26;25;01

Stephanie Melodia

I love.

00;26;25;05 - 00;26;26;20

Ian Bergman

Your point. Yeah.

00;26;26;23 - 00;26;50;02

Stephanie Melodia

So to unpack the hacking luck piece. So with that in mind, so armed with that knowledge, the research, the luck is the key driver. That is the biggest contributing factor to success. The second piece being effort the last one being talent. First of all, like in this presentation that I give, I play this clip, this hilarious clip of Ed Sheeran, who hopefully your listeners will be aware I appreciate.

00;26;50;03 - 00;26;50;19

Stephanie Melodia

He's a Brit.

00;26;50;19 - 00;26;52;04

Ian Bergman

Everyone's going to be aware of that.

00;26;52;04 - 00;27;12;22

Stephanie Melodia

But I think he knows, like me, what I hear Ed Sheeran is this is hilarious clip that I play where he goes on about people saying, oh, you're so talented and he's a great example, right? Musician, songwriter, guitarist. And he plays this clip from his early days and is absolutely awful. And so anyway, that's just basically to make the point of like even talent, you still need to nurture.

00;27;12;22 - 00;27;34;00

Stephanie Melodia

You so need to work on it. So effort and talent, that kind of goes hand in hand in that sense. Pure effort. I then use another great example, which is an interview with Mark Randolph, the co-founder and at one point CEO of Netflix. And he uses this great analogy to help discern when effort matters and when it doesn't.

00;27;34;02 - 00;28;02;01

Stephanie Melodia

Because, yes, whilst it matters a lot, you need to discern when to kind of lean in and when to pull back. The analogy that he uses is the first one he used to compete as an athlete. He used to do a lot of triathlons, and he described at the beginning of a triathlon, when you've got swimming as the first, but you're physically, literally starting in the same place, the gun fires and it's a mad scramble in the water.

00;28;02;01 - 00;28;29;27

Stephanie Melodia

You've got elbows in your face, you've got a knee coming in from behind. You need to get space. You need to create that space. You need to get out of the masses. You need to swim. Response in you ever thought was possible to just kind of get ahead of the crowd. So that's I think hopefully fairly obvious to people is maybe when you're starting out in your career or new job or that certain points in your life getting a new business off the ground and corporate innovation, you know, deciding what to do, get ahead of the rest.

00;28;29;27 - 00;28;53;00

Stephanie Melodia

Like that's when it matters. When it does. He then uses another great analogy, which is when he used to do a lot of international travel during his days. Netflix. He described he'd be flitting between, say, Paris to Barcelona, to Berlin, all in the space of one week, and invariably he'd be running late to catch his flights. And what he described is he would be legging it through the terminal.

00;28;53;01 - 00;29;14;19

Stephanie Melodia

See, he's already a fit man anyway. Subscribe. He does triathlons, so sprinting through the terminal like, you know, shirt on done button wrong, just in this like mad scramble. And what he realized was if the flight was leaving on time as scheduled, he'd miss it all the time. It didn't matter how fast he ran through the terminal, he's going to miss the flight.

00;29;14;21 - 00;29;33;25

Stephanie Melodia

If the flight was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, he would more than have more than enough time. And what happened is if you make the flight, it'd be something to see. But you'd be sat there, marinating in his own sweat. Oh, panting. Everything's running through. So that was another great analogy. And again, these kind of metaphors.

00;29;33;25 - 00;29;36;23

Ian Bergman

I see where this is going though. It's really fast. Yeah.

00;29;36;25 - 00;29;59;02

Stephanie Melodia

At the crux, when it matters and when it doesn't. And so what he uses to translate to, say, the entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial example is, say, for example, when you're pulling an all nighter, the night before pitch presentation and you're and and I've heard this story of lots of founders I mentor as well, where they've stayed up later, they finessed the pitch deck, and they care about where the logo is positioned.

00;29;59;07 - 00;30;22;20

Stephanie Melodia

When actually have they even really solved a big enough problem? Have they found and they run enough experiments to get to product market fit? Yeah. From the months, months before that moment, finessing the pitch deck. So that's the effort. Things kind of summarize. Yes effort matters. But when it does when it doesn't is a skill in itself. Finally we come on to the luck piece.

00;30;22;20 - 00;30;49;24

Stephanie Melodia

And what I've developed is very poetically a four leaf clover Venn diagram of how to have luck, how to then with. Armed with this knowledge, how do we stack the odds in our favor? Is it possible to make ourselves luckier? Is it actually possible to have luck? And I do believe that it is. And the Venn diagram, which maybe we can show this on screen.

00;30;49;24 - 00;30;53;01

Stephanie Melodia

If people are watching the video, it is hearing me talk about it and.

00;30;53;04 - 00;30;58;17

Ian Bergman

Will link in the show notes. I actually, you know, I like I've got it on your Instagram like it's great, but why don't you.

00;30;58;17 - 00;31;00;02

Stephanie Melodia

Oh you can see you amazing.

00;31;00;02 - 00;31;06;11

Ian Bergman

Why don't you visually describe it. Because there's three of my favorite words there. And then there's a surprise.

00;31;06;11 - 00;31;07;21

Stephanie Melodia

Amaze. Oh, okay.

00;31;07;21 - 00;31;10;08

Ian Bergman

Sorry I'm not going to tell you which ones which.

00;31;10;10 - 00;31;34;07

Stephanie Melodia

Lucky dip in your favorites okay. Absolutely. I'd love to. So if we start with the top left hand side, it doesn't really matter. But just for the visual right. The first circle we've got accountability. Now this very nicely links back to what I was saying before with the difference between being an actual victim and legitimizing if you if something has happened to you versus assuming victims.

00;31;34;09 - 00;31;59;06

Stephanie Melodia

So this is part of like take accountability because, you know, empowerment is such a trendy buzzword at the moment. And I cannot stand when these buzzwords just lose their meaning. And these words, it's just got thrown about and empowering is one of them. When you're accountable. I genuinely believe that that is an empowering act because you are taking back the power by being accountable.

00;31;59;08 - 00;32;18;06

Stephanie Melodia

So that's the first you got accountability. I'll go clockwise. I'll save the best for last. So we've got accountability. The next big clapping circle is vision. It's having that clarity of vision. So I talked a lot before about success defining success on your terms. What does it mean to you. So part of that is having that clear vision.

00;32;18;06 - 00;32;39;20

Stephanie Melodia

And what even is it. Well, how do we know that we've achieved success or that we've been lucky when we didn't even define that in the first place? The overlap between the vision and the accountability is the proactivity. Because when you've got that clarity of vision and you're accountable, you're empowered. That generates that kind of proactive attitude that you need to go out there, make it happen.

00;32;39;21 - 00;32;43;14

Ian Bergman

Pushes you, pushes others. But like, the point is you're moving.

00;32;43;14 - 00;33;08;11

Stephanie Melodia

Yeah, you are, you're moving. And one of the classic quotes that's thrown around as it relates to luck is, I'm sure you've heard this before in many, many times, but is when hard work plus opportunity meet. That's what that equals. Luck. Yep. No. We're going a step further here so that proactivity is going out there and seeking out those opportunities.

00;33;08;14 - 00;33;40;16

Stephanie Melodia

You have to be better opportunities all around you. Proactively going out there and getting them is a key element to that. What that links to is kind of an abundance mindset and positivity. And so there has to be this deep belief that these opportunities even exist in the first place. I'm sure we all know people who have a bit of the victim mentality, who are maybe a bit more pessimistic and there's this great visual that made the rounds of two people sat on a bus.

00;33;40;23 - 00;34;03;25

Stephanie Melodia

On one side, they're looking out the window and it's all sunny, and they're on the other side, they're looking at the dog facing against the cliff. It's the same bus that you're on, but it's which direction you're looking. So knowing that there's opportunities around you to be able to be proactive with that, the gratitude as part of that as well, to be to energize yourself and be grateful and that perspective.

00;34;03;27 - 00;34;09;20

Stephanie Melodia

And then the final big circle that I'm leaving to last. And I really want to know which ones are your favorite and your surprise.

00;34;09;21 - 00;34;19;05

Ian Bergman

Well, I'll tell you this one. This one's actually not going to surprise people, except for maybe how it intersects with things. So so go ahead okay okay.

00;34;19;08 - 00;34;20;29

Stephanie Melodia

So it's the risk tolerance.

00;34;20;29 - 00;34;21;11

Ian Bergman

Yeah.

00;34;21;15 - 00;34;44;24

Stephanie Melodia

And so overlaps here with a few of these others. You know the proactivity the vision the going out. That part of that is the risk taking. And another one of these famous quotes related to luck is the harder I work, you got the element, the harder I work, the luckier I get. That's not true necessarily. Not wholly. It's yes, you do need to put in the hard work, but also how much risk are you taking?

00;34;44;26 - 00;35;12;27

Stephanie Melodia

Because those risk takers are precisely the individuals who get pulled lucky when they turn around. You're not going to be called lucky if you haven't even taken those risks in the first place. The lastly, the final, the overlap with that, I'm linked to the risk is the resilience that you need to keep going. So we're not talking about the the windows of time that we're applying to these certain things.

00;35;12;27 - 00;35;36;03

Stephanie Melodia

Right. And this is where I can fall into that trap of toxic positivity around like New Year's goals and how far we through the year and goal setting because we don't get a say on those external forces. I mean, that is the reality I'm looking for movieland, and part of that is, yes, we can be accountable, have a clear vision, be proactive, be grateful, blah blah blah blah.

00;35;36;04 - 00;36;00;03

Stephanie Melodia

Everything I've run through. But the reality is, is we have zero control of those external forces, those external decision makers. And so the resilience required to keep going for long enough to then get called lucky is a non-negotiable prerequisite. As part of this hacking luck, four leaf clover and diagram.

00;36;00;05 - 00;36;24;23

Ian Bergman

This is such a cool framework and looks so many of our audience listens in audio only. I'm glad you took the time to describe it, but folks like look at the show notes, go online, look at this diagram. Because it is actually really cool and like and Stephanie genuinely I love this right. Like, you know, accountability, vision positivity and risk as ingredient attributes that let you hack luck.

00;36;24;23 - 00;37;01;13

Ian Bergman

But but what I love about this is that what you've identified in the intersections, right. You called this out. But I'm going to do it again. Like positivity or optimism. Plus risk taking gives you resilience. And you have to have resilience to learn to to control your own destiny. And I love that. Like I reflect on this and I'm like, you know, what are some of the things that I love about some of the big startup and tech startup centers of the world, whether it's the Bay area, whether it's London, whether it's Singapore, there's something I refer to as techno optimism, but it's it's generally there's a positive view, right?

00;37;01;15 - 00;37;20;25

Ian Bergman

We're all on the same train, whether we're talking or boss or whatever, whether we're talking about AI, whether we're talking about sociology, etc. and if you have this view that you're willing to take risks and but you believe that you're going to learn your way to a better outcome, you can do anything. So I love that.

00;37;20;28 - 00;37;24;11

Stephanie Melodia

And I'm dying to know. What was your surprise one?

00;37;24;17 - 00;37;29;20

Ian Bergman

Well, the surprise one for me, and it's really interesting. The surprise was accountability.

00;37;29;23 - 00;37;31;08

Stephanie Melodia

Where I started. Okay.

00;37;31;08 - 00;37;41;02

Ian Bergman

And I absolutely love this, like, vision, like, okay, this is going to sound dismissive. I don't mean it to be like, of course, like you got to have some.

00;37;41;05 - 00;37;41;24

Stephanie Melodia

Know everything and.

00;37;41;24 - 00;38;00;15

Ian Bergman

Some vision of what the world could be, right. I think a lot of people under appreciate the positivity. Yeah, I think everybody who has even thought about entrepreneurship, whether they practice it or not, is going to be like, well, of course you take risks, right? And I want to come back to that, by the way, because that's a really hard one to practice.

00;38;00;17 - 00;38;19;10

Ian Bergman

But accountability gets overlooked. And it actually reminds me of a moment in my, in my career some some time ago, a decade ago, I was a little more junior in my career, but, you know, like long story very, very short, I failed to take accountability for a big mistake. When I showed up, I was working at a large company.

00;38;19;10 - 00;38;30;28

Ian Bergman

My my boss rightly chewed me out. She was quite pissed. And then I went and I read a book called Extreme Ownership, which is actually a wonderful book. Have you read this note?

00;38;30;28 - 00;38;35;09

Stephanie Melodia

I've recently had it recommended, so it's funny hearing it and yeah, it's great.

00;38;35;09 - 00;38;57;26

Ian Bergman

I mean, it's from the Navy Seals in Iraq. It's a very kind of military centric series of stories, but it really does actually just boil down to one lesson that you articulated also so well, by taking accountability, you take control of your own destiny. Yeah, in so many ways. You give people confidence in you, you give your self confidence, you learn the lessons, etc. you talked about.

00;38;57;26 - 00;39;28;15

Ian Bergman

It helps you take back the power. I've never thought about that in the concept of entrepreneurship here, and with the idea that if you're taking accountability and you're taking risk, you're able to demonstrate a commitment that brings people along. So so, you know, I, I don't know, I'm I'm not going to kind of drown the podcast with more exposition on this, but I, I love this I would encourage people to look at this as a framework.

00;39;28;17 - 00;39;46;01

Ian Bergman

But but hang on now let's talk about applying this because let's be honest, so many people who are trying to drive change, innovation, positive outcomes exist in a context of a large organization. They're not entrepreneurs. They're professional life is they have a job. They have a boss, they have incentives.

00;39;46;01 - 00;39;47;05

Stephanie Melodia

So yeah.

00;39;47;07 - 00;40;06;19

Ian Bergman

You can try and take all the accountability you want, but you can't really take accountability for things way outside of your control. You'll actually my mind, you'll actually go insane if you try and do that. Yeah, I've seen people do it. Risk. You can take risk. But like sometimes if you take a risk and it doesn't pan out, you get fired.

00;40;06;22 - 00;40;12;28

Ian Bergman

So how do you action this. Like how do you how do you take this Venn diagram and apply it to your own life.

00;40;13;01 - 00;40;46;20

Stephanie Melodia

Yeah. Great. Great question I love that. So what I would posit is maybe use this framework as a self-assessment, like go through this and score out of 10%, whatever your style is and score yourself and kind of what what's the clearest to you? What resonates the most with you? What's the most meaningful? And I think if we take that example of, okay, somebody in a corporate environment, as always, wherever you were, they're all things outside of your control.

00;40;46;22 - 00;41;13;13

Stephanie Melodia

With the vision piece. I think depending on what that vision is, I think the higher the higher some of those pots are, the more they should lift the others. So very much so. I think if we take a vision one for example, that's the yellow circle, then the risk it kind of risk versus reward. If that vision is so meaningful to you, then you kind of give yourself that permission.

00;41;13;13 - 00;41;41;00

Stephanie Melodia

You kind of owe it to yourself almost to dial up that risk tolerance. Now, if we take your extreme example of like, okay, I've got a project, I'm in the corporate environment and I'm just like not getting through to anyone. No one's seeing like the opportunity here. I mean, I would posit if it's a good enough opportunity and you've got the vision for maybe getting fired isn't the worst thing in the world.

00;41;41;02 - 00;41;55;09

Ian Bergman

And talk about, well, actually talk about hacking, luck, right? Because I think it often isn't, even if maybe in the moment that might not feel good. And by the way, most people don't get fired for taking risks, like just for this little side whisper for the audience.

00;41;55;11 - 00;42;18;05

Stephanie Melodia

Right, right, right. And, yeah, I love that. And as much as I come from the world of entrepreneurship, I am through my work, starting to do more and more on that corporate innovation piece and seeing what can we extrapolate all that great stuff from entrepreneurship and these huge successes where these tech startups have gone on to become these unicorns and overtake these other enterprises?

00;42;18;05 - 00;42;41;03

Stephanie Melodia

Like how what can we learn from from this community? And I think the risk taking, if I, if I were to boil it down to just a handful of things for the for the corporates, the innovation side of things, it is the risk taking is definitely one of those two points, you know, seek forgiveness, not permission like you're ready to get fired.

00;42;41;05 - 00;42;49;18

Stephanie Melodia

But that moving fast as well, like moving fast. Test things like try. You can apply those lean startup principles even to a larger organization.

00;42;49;21 - 00;43;14;27

Ian Bergman

You know, look like I am utterly convinced that the problems that face entrepreneurs building a startup are identical to the problems that face corporate employees and executives thinking about innovation and change. And in fact, the work is almost the same. Right? That discovery you have to do the rapid learning, the risk taking their work. It is all the same.

00;43;14;27 - 00;43;35;21

Ian Bergman

The only thing that's different is that the stakeholders you have to bring along are a little bit different, but they're still stakeholders. They have to bring along and the incentive structure around you is different and you have to think about it. But it's there. And, you know, like I love this. Like in a corporate environment, if you have vision and you have accountability, you're going to be able to be proactive and you're going to be able to move really quickly.

00;43;35;22 - 00;43;55;28

Stephanie Melodia

Right? Exactly, I love that. I love how you taken my four leaf clover and apply that to to more of your space. What I just want to add before we move on with this four leaf clover, I added in, I felt so compelled to actually add in afterwards the fourth leaf of positive, because I did some research of my own, interviewing some other people.

00;43;55;28 - 00;44;21;18

Stephanie Melodia

I put out some polls on social media, and the loudest theme that was coming across in so many respondents answers was, yeah, was the positivity. And whatever you've got, you, you scored. Optimism, positivity, gratitude. The perspective was such a key element to that as well. And then what's funny is I didn't want to shoot myself in the foot here too much.

00;44;21;18 - 00;44;46;29

Stephanie Melodia

But when you take that idea of the perspective and the positive attitude, what then ends up happening is we completely unlock ourselves from the whole idea of hacking luck. Because if it's how we view things, yeah, it's kind of up to us. And it's that again, another like fable is the fable of the Chinese farmer whose horses, one of his horses.

00;44;46;29 - 00;45;07;04

Stephanie Melodia

While he's telling the land, runs away and escapes and all of the villagers say to him, oh, what a shame. And we got to say, sorry if you both knew what bad luck. And he goes, well, we'll see. The next day the escaped horse comes back with ten more wild horses. The villagers again, they say, oh my God.

00;45;07;04 - 00;45;25;18

Stephanie Melodia

Well, great luck that such an amazing turnout. And again he says, well, we'll see his son the next day he rides one of these wild, untamed horses and he falls off the back and breaks his leg. And the villagers, you can see where I'm going with this. The villagers like, well, bad luck. We'll see. The son is in, is at home, is resting up.

00;45;25;18 - 00;45;52;22

Stephanie Melodia

He's injured his legs in a cast. The next day, the army come in to recruit new members to go off and fight. And of course, the son is at home. And and it just continues. It just continues like that as well. So that's, you know, stories are such great Trojan horses for ideas. And I recount that story in this element of the positive mindset, because it really does come down to how we choose to perceive things.

00;45;52;25 - 00;46;13;18

Ian Bergman

Yeah. Well, and and look, I want to move on because a couple more things before we, we wrap. But you have got me thinking and I could talk to you for actually hours about this Venn diagram. But, you know, I will say as somebody who generally, I believe has a pretty positive, optimistic outlook sometimes to a fault and beyond.

00;46;13;21 - 00;46;41;02

Ian Bergman

You know, I see some of the power here and let's just take a very simple example, right. The world's changing rapidly. A lot of it is tech driven. And we can look around. I can walk through the streets of San Francisco or LA or I think Phoenix and there's self-driving Waymo cabs, right? I can get in my car and it does a pretty good job of driving me on its own from my house to the airport, an hour away through complex city streets.

00;46;41;04 - 00;46;45;05

Ian Bergman

When I was growing up. This was magic, right? This was.

00;46;45;08 - 00;46;46;11

Stephanie Melodia

Right. Right.

00;46;46;12 - 00;47;02;26

Ian Bergman

And it is unbelievable to me how quickly the human brain can make the magical, mundane and how quickly we can go and look at the magic and say, oh, but but it stopped at that stop sign a little bit too long.

00;47;02;28 - 00;47;03;06

Stephanie Melodia

Yes.

00;47;03;06 - 00;47;29;00

Ian Bergman

Or, you know, it's not ready. And and actually, what I love about one of the things you've identified here is that that vision of the way the world should be. Oh, yes, of course, you know, sci fi vehicles flying around, whatever. And a positive attitude gives you gratitude. And it lets me lets us look and say, I have an AI in my pocket that compresses the entire world's knowledge, and I am thankful for that.

00;47;29;02 - 00;47;39;13

Ian Bergman

And I am hopeful for what it enables, which lets me then go build something with it. Because if I didn't have that outlook, like I'm going to be scared of it, I'm going to avoid it, I'm going to be left out.

00;47;39;15 - 00;47;39;26

Stephanie Melodia

Right.

00;47;39;27 - 00;47;49;23

Ian Bergman

And so I feel like this is, it's also almost a call to action is a word I'm looking for here. But it's like, it's almost like the fight song of entrepreneurship here.

00;47;49;25 - 00;47;52;11

Stephanie Melodia

The fight song of entrepreneurship.

00;47;52;13 - 00;47;56;11

Ian Bergman

Like, it's a it's a it's a twisted metaphor for a visual thing, but I.

00;47;56;12 - 00;48;12;02

Stephanie Melodia

Know I love it, and you are absolutely preaching to the choir, and so much so that I gave the opening address for the AI Expo in Amsterdam a few months ago. And this is kind of what I talked about. This is what I talked about. I said, you know, we are we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

00;48;12;02 - 00;48;31;20

Stephanie Melodia

We're taking that for granted. And there's a little clip some people might recognize it if you if you watch my show room, but I talk about how there was something topical in the news at the time of the conference with Harry Potter, and I use that as a relevant example. I was like, we've gone from this to your point on making the magic mundane big fan of alliteration as an ex marketer.

00;48;31;20 - 00;49;01;07

Stephanie Melodia

So that thought wasn't lost on me. But we've gone from this like when God oblivious, to hello ChatGPT. And you're totally right. And it is astonishing. It's both. It is impressive. It's impressive how quickly humans adapt. And the negative element to that is your point on. We have this magic at our fingertips, and we have this choice on which way we want to look, what we want to see.

00;49;01;07 - 00;49;03;24

Stephanie Melodia

We absolutely do. So take it with you on that.

00;49;03;26 - 00;49;13;07

Ian Bergman

An amazing. Well, I want to ask you just kind of one more thing before we kind of move into, into our wrap up here. So kept you. Oh, it's been so much fun. I could keep you for hours.

00;49;13;13 - 00;49;14;21

Stephanie Melodia

Same, same.

00;49;14;24 - 00;49;42;03

Ian Bergman

But I actually want to talk a little bit about how you can call it talent, but the broader context, right? We do all start in different places. We do all start with different backgrounds economics, racial and gender backgrounds, etc. and I think there's, yeah, like in my mind, I think it's fair to say that that does have an impact on the access and the opportunities that you have.

00;49;42;03 - 00;50;00;24

Ian Bergman

So how do you think about hacking lock in the context of, I mean, we can call it kind of Dei moments. We can call it closing gender or racial hour opportunity gaps, whatever. Like how do you square that circle? Because I feel like there is a bit of a tension there.

00;50;00;27 - 00;50;09;07

Stephanie Melodia

And what a perfect question to ask me. Literally, I don't think you could unless you somehow managed to get chocolate into that question as well. I don't think you can.

00;50;09;07 - 00;50;10;09

Ian Bergman

Yeah, I'm working on it.

00;50;10;15 - 00;50;15;26

Stephanie Melodia

One of my favorite, favorite things into one question. So while.

00;50;15;26 - 00;50;18;13

Ian Bergman

I, I turn here off chocolate.

00;50;18;15 - 00;50;44;05

Stephanie Melodia

I thank you for that. What a treat to get to try to answer this fantastic question. I would first of all acknowledge and agree 100% with what you've just said. We don't all start from the same starting point. We have headwinds and tailwinds. What I would say to that is it's been up to you. Reclaim your power and decide.

00;50;44;06 - 00;51;14;17

Stephanie Melodia

Actively decide what serves you, what serves you, what doesn't. I was at an event as an attendee in this case a while ago, sat in the audience, and it was a great panel event and it was on the topic of entrepreneurship and investment. And the audience Q&A section came and somebody at the back had raise their hand, stood up, was a woman, and opening the question, they started saying, I'm a woman.

00;51;14;17 - 00;51;37;18

Stephanie Melodia

I'm usually the only woman in the rooms. This is where it does it. You know, this is the problems I have, blah blah blah, blah. Come on. The exact question. But it was exactly that two shoe salesman example I gave before. Yeah. Where I'm also another woman in the room. If I'm the only woman in the room in.

00;51;37;20 - 00;51;59;23

Stephanie Melodia

That's my USP right there. Yeah, I'm standing out of this crowd of all these other guys. You're like, oh, I remember the one woman who was at this event, so I'm not saying it's that easy. It definitely is not that easy. But the point underlying all of this is do not. You've got the choice whether or not you want to assume victimhood.

00;51;59;25 - 00;52;18;12

Stephanie Melodia

What are the headwinds? We all have some headwinds and some tailwinds. So what can you use to leverage to your advantage? It's also not lost on me. I'm not sure when this is going to air exactly, but we're currently recording this during the week of International Women's Day. Yep. And so my calendar is packed out with all these Women's Day events.

00;52;18;12 - 00;52;40;19

Stephanie Melodia

And that's all very topical as well. And as much as we're all rehashing and resharing the same depressing statistics, the truth is, is that we are all coming together and there's more of these communities and events, and women only focus funds and angel networks and for granted, things are not progressing at the pace that they need to be, but there is still some opportunity out there.

00;52;40;19 - 00;53;06;22

Stephanie Melodia

And when I have the privilege of interviewing these outlier, whether it's women, whether it's ethnic minorities, whether it's ability, whatever, I try to prioritize diversity as much as possible with my show and this is what comes out when I ask these incredible individuals how they got to where they are. They they leveraged, maybe not knowingly with this hacking lock framework, but they didn't take no for an answer.

00;53;06;22 - 00;53;26;02

Stephanie Melodia

They had the grit, the persistence, the resilience. That's why they're outliers. And, you know, to quite one of them in particular, Maxine Ling space. She's approaching 60. She's got an incredible entrepreneur story. She's like, you be the change. Be the change that you want to see. If you can't, if you can't get a seat at the table, then build your own.

00;53;26;04 - 00;53;41;26

Ian Bergman

It's such, such a good quote. And speaking of mentors, one of the one of the best managers I ever had in my life, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to go and get some mentorship from her, and she said to me, I was complaining about a decision that we made, and she asked me, where are you?

00;53;41;26 - 00;53;59;26

Ian Bergman

At the table. And she said, why not? And I kind of sat back and like, and if I was having that moment of realization, right, coming from where I am, like, how many other people are from or how many backgrounds like it's.

00;53;59;27 - 00;54;00;18

Stephanie Melodia

It's.

00;54;00;20 - 00;54;05;13

Ian Bergman

It's a it's a great quote and a great lesson underpinning, I think the message you're trying to get across, and.

00;54;05;13 - 00;54;45;10

Stephanie Melodia

It is so great to hear that from you as a white man as well, Ian, because I think it's very easy to categorize and label people based on certain demographics. But, you know, if not to play too much into my old day job as a marketer, I've always had to be in my bonnet with demographics anyways. Like, how much does it tell you about someone if they're an 1818 year old woman in Phoenix versus a third, you know, so what you have just shared that in, I'm sure so many other men feel the same way, but because of what I've just shared in the context of women and minorities and overlooked is like, no, there

00;54;45;10 - 00;55;02;02

Stephanie Melodia

were so many incredible guys out there who were also suffering from imposter syndrome or don't have the confidence or anxiety of, can we all go through this? So I think those same principles apply, which is to take back that control and and be accountable.

00;55;02;04 - 00;55;34;15

Ian Bergman

Well, I absolutely love it. Stephanie, thank you for coming on. Innovators inside this has been a fun conversation. A previous guest of mine from 8 or 9 months ago, a woman named Robyn Bolton, left the message that, you know, innovation is, if nothing else, it's a leadership problem. It's not a technology problem, it's a leadership problem. And I think one of the things that I've enjoyed is you are showing leadership in the community of innovation through being an advocate, through being a big sister, and through aggregating and synthesizing ideas like this hacking lock framework.

00;55;34;15 - 00;55;43;03

Ian Bergman

So I want to thank you for that. Thank you. I want to thank you for coming on Innovators Inside. And I want to ask you just one final simple question.

00;55;43;05 - 00;55;46;03

Stephanie Melodia

You know, breaking my heart. You know, the time is blown.

00;55;46;04 - 00;55;58;23

Ian Bergman

Good. That what that means that you'll say yes to my question? No. I'm kidding. For for those of our audience who want to stay connected to you, where should they look? LinkedIn. Should they should they head to your website, which we'll linked in the show?

00;55;58;23 - 00;56;17;13

Stephanie Melodia

Notes LinkedIn, Instagram. Perfect. Those are my top two main channels. Luckily, there is only one Stephanie Melody in the world, so hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to find me at Steph. You can just see Steph with the pH and then Melody. Just think of it like the word melody with an IRA at the end. LinkedIn and Instagram.

00;56;17;13 - 00;56;27;21

Stephanie Melodia

I would love to hear from you if you've made it this far in the interview as well, then all the more reason I. I would really love love to hear from you so please do not hesitate to reach out.

00;56;27;23 - 00;56;34;03

Ian Bergman

Amazing. Well, Stephanie Melody, it's been an absolute pleasure and honor. Thank you for your time and have a wonderful evening.

00;56;34;05 - 00;56;39;26

Stephanie Melodia

Thank you so much and right back at you. This has been an absolute blast. Thank you so much for having me on.

00;56;39;28 - 00;57;03;07

Ian Bergman

Cheers. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Alchemist x Innovators Inside. Thanks for listening. If you found value in today's discussion, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and check out our segments on YouTube. Links and follow ups are in the show notes, and if you have questions you want us to feature in future episodes, email innovators at Alchemist accelerator.com.

00;57;03;09 - 00;57;07;29

Ian Bergman

Stay tuned for more insider stories and practical insights from leaders crafting our future.