Strengthen Leadership and Relationships through Own Your Zone with Jeff Salzenstein

Melissa: The fact that I'm actually planning for moments and to make moments is a big deal. Okay, I think we need some Kleenex.

Jeff: Keep going. Come on. Can we get the Kleenex?

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Melissa: Jeff Salzenstein, welcome back to the show.

Jeff: Let's go.

Melissa: We talked about Own Your Zone, which is something you speak to audiences about, you lead seminars, you talk to leadership teams, et cetera. There's Zone 1, 2, and 3. You want to say what they are quickly?

Jeff: Sure. Zone 1, we focus on restoring the body. Zone 2, we focus on rewiring the mind, and Zone 3, we reconnect the heart. When you pull them all together, you can be the best version of yourself, you can handle stress and pressure. And then it actually impacts everybody around you, right? It impacts your relationships and how you're, if you're building a team, all that good stuff.

But it starts with self first. You know, a lot of people come in and say, Hey, we need to improve team culture. Well, that's great. But if 50% of your team is burned out, how are you going to build culture?

So we really have to work on the self first, the inner game, then we go out and we help others around us, and we get them to help themselves, and we build relationships and connections in that way. We've got to be connected to ourselves first.

Melissa: Yeah. We have talked about and I've done the work with you on my zones, and I have experienced the ripple effect of that on my relationships around me, personal, professional. And so I really wanted to do this episode to get into some of that. You know, I do think that in business we talk a lot about, and especially lately, I've been talking about, you have to know what's going on under the hood of the business. You cannot just, we talked about this a couple episodes ago, but shooting for 10x for the sake of shooting for 10x is shallow. Like, there's something really superficial about that you need the depth for sustainability and longevity.

You have to know what's under the hood of the business. You have to take care of the business. And I think that's what the zone, the Own Your Zone framework, does for the human. It takes care of what's under the hood. And the effect of that in business is being able to play the long game and get to the vision that you have in your personal life. It's the same thing. It's you're able to play the long game and you, the ripple effect of the work is such that your life improves in ways that you didn't necessarily anticipate it improving.

So, I don't know if you want to speak to some of your experience with that ripple effect or the impact of the work that you do personally, and how it shows up.

Jeff: Sure. Well, on the personal level, I have gone on again, my journey around personal growth, professional development, all of it. And it's led me down all these different paths and, you know, understanding relationships and how people connect.

You know, I grew up on a tennis court alone. I didn't play a lot of team sports. I mean, I did play soccer and basketball and baseball and loved the team sports, but I grew up basically on a tennis court, trying to solve problems on my own. And if you're familiar with attachment styles, I tend to lean more towards avoidant attachment styles. I am the type also more of an introvert. So I'm going to spend a lot of time with myself. That is where I probably oftentimes feel most comfortable, most safe.

And so when we get into the conversation around relationships and team building, it's certainly not something that I grew up maybe being a natural at, just knowing the way that I was raised and the way that I played tennis and what I did with all of that. But an interesting development through this process is that when you do start to go on a journey to know yourself, it allows you to choose who you want to spend time with. Like, their energy is really important to see where you might be falling into unhealthy patterns around codependence, and so I have an eye on healthy relationships because I've really worked on creating a healthy relationship with myself.

I think if you have a healthy relationship with yourself, if you are taking care of your body, that's like the ultimate self-care is the ultimate form of self-love, right? Like you're you're really loving yourself when you get sleep and you get massages and you eat well and you exercise, and you're sleeping well. Like that is really showing your body, your mind, your soul that you're here for it. Like you're here to take care of yourself.

And I think once if you come from that place, then you don't necessarily need validation or need to feel better by having other people around you. Like, you get more comfortable, more and more comfortable loving yourself. I think that's the starting point. That's the foundation.

And then when I work with leaders and high achievers and we've done work around this is, you know, you've come to me and you said, you know, this is not just a professional thing where I want you to help me 10x my business. I want to have the whole package. I want the 11/10 out of life. And one of the things that's important to me, and it comes up all the time working with another client right now, the number one thing we're working on right now is his connection to his wife.

That every call right now is, How are you doing in that area? Your presence and your connection to your wife and to your children is the most important thing. And that is the thing that often falls by the wayside when people are distracted and they're not present in their lives.

I hear it all the time in, the again, in the rooms, in the workshops, in the keynotes that I do is I ask these big questions, what do you really want, and who do you need to become to get more of what you want? And I hear the answers are often, I want to be more calm. I want to be more present. I want to have more peace in my life.

Yes, there's success metrics too. But I hear presence a lot, that people are having challenges with presence. Well, if you can't be present with yourself, how are you going to be present with your partner? So it starts here, and then you came to me and you're like, I want to be a better mom. I want to be a better wife. And so you designed, you know, your own anthem or mantra or way that you wanted to show up for your husband Derek. And you also said, you know what? I've got to be, prepare more, on how I'm going to have special moments with my boy.

Melissa: Yeah.

Jeff: And so I don't know if you want to piggyback off of that.

Melissa: I will say, what I know for sure that I knew you could help with was how I can show up differently. Like my capacity for certain things and being able to have conversations and, you know, saying things differently, like showing up differently in the relationship, focusing on different things in the relationship. And I did, and I remember when I brought this up, you were like, there it is.

Cause, cause nothing is was like savagely wrong with my marriage, but I had been in probably a month in coaching with you and was starting to feel some like balance, some baseline shifts. So then I felt like I had capacity to be able to say, okay, how can I open up my?

Jeff: Yeah, we started with lemon water and circadian rhythms and waking up and getting morning sunlight. And a month in, you're like, let me talk to you about my husband and me. I'm like, okay, great. Now we're, now we're here. Now we're getting into the real stuff, right?

Melissa: Yeah. You didn't ever once give me relationship advice. It was like, okay, how could you look at that differently? How could you communicate that differently? How can you… Like my perspective needed to change on some things. I knew that, but I was just it was nice to have some help getting there.

Jeff: That was gonna say, is there anything specific that you would want to share that we spoke about, or that you wanted to practice being better at in your relationship with Derek, and then also with your boy?

Melissa: With Derek, it was my level of reactiveness. Like, so I he's known for being calm.

Jeff: Yeah, he's like my doppelganger.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, maybe yeah. He's known for being calm, but I am the opposite of that.

Jeff: Okay, well, that's normal too, in like, not normal, but like female, male dynamics, typically the woman's going to be a little bit like have a lot more range, right? And the man, if he's in his masculine, he's going to hold, he's going to be able to hold your ups and downs. And it sounds like he does that pretty darn well.

Melissa: He does. He does it very well.

Jeff: So, what is it that you wanted more of to improve your relationship with him?

Melissa: It's easy in those situations, and I've been very self-aware in this in the past, but it's easy to get stuck in or loop in that if he would do something different, if he would do like… and I…

Jeff: Got it. If only he did this, everything would be better.

Melissa: Yeah. And it's easy to tell yourself that in moments, and I know that I am, it's like this is just a lie, that like there's some dependency on him doing something so that I can show up different. Like that doesn't even that doesn't even like compute in my head.

Jeff: If you're owning your zone

Melissa: I can show up different. 

Jeff: If you're owning your zone, you're taking full responsibility and accountability for your side of the street.

Melissa: Correct.

Jeff: And you're saying, how can I show up differently and maybe even communicate what I want from him in a different way. So it doesn't spin in a way that creates a dynamic that's unhealthy.

Melissa: Correct. And I think I think number one, working on myself with getting more sleep, which he's militant about sleep and sleep hygiene. So, me finally getting more sleep, waking up early, having space for myself in the mornings. My energy changed in that first month of working with you. That helped our relationship. It’s the ripple effect.

Jeff: There we go, there's the zones, right? We didn't even have to get into “relationship stuff.” Just take care of your body, and you will be in a better relationship. That's the beauty of this work, is we're not hiring a relationship coach or we're not working on the relationship; we're working on you, and we're focusing on getting better sleep.

Melissa: Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I do think too, I'm, you know, I've mentioned this with telling my story, but we needed some reconnection because we'd been coming off of a very stressful year. And so it I knew deep down that what I have control over, owning my zone, was going to be essential for us to be able to reconnect. He can do what he does. I can't control him. I can control me. And so, how do I want to show up?

Jeff: And so you wanted to show up better in order, the way you showing up differently, you would be able to connect with him better? Or like how would that how what would that look like?

Melissa: Yeah. You know, I think just like before when you said people generally want to feel more calm, feel more present. That was no different for me. And so when I start to feel more calm and start to feel more present, then it allows me to be more present in that relationship. To give space for things.

Jeff: You can respond differently to things that happen.

Melissa: You can respond differently. Yeah. So that by default was happening, but I knew I knew I had opportunity to look at it, like to shine a light on it, so that I'm looking at it. I've been shining a light on myself, changing a lot of things. It was having an impact. Now I have an opportunity to shine a light on the relationship and how I'm showing up in the relationship specifically, and just giving attention to it was helpful.

Jeff: So, more attention, more awareness to connecting with him in a deeper, different way.

Melissa: Also, I didn't have the capacity to connect with him very well when we were going through all the stuff.

Jeff: Right.

Melissa: Survival mode, a bit, you know.

Jeff: Except what I would say is when you're going through all those stuff, if you have the little breathing in and you have the and you're sleeping well and you're not drinking, even when you're going through the muck, you could sit there with him and be like, we're totally present with each other right now, even through the muck, instead of distracting and going the other way.

Melissa: So, yeah, but yeah, I didn't, I didn't have those tools.

Jeff: Correct.

Melissa: Yeah. So, anyway, through work, we I ended up creating an anthem specifically about that relationship, and that was really helpful.

Jeff: Were there any words or phrases in there that you or things that you that jump out at you?

Melissa: Focusing on him. Like there was there was really specific stuff in there about focusing on him, being curious about what is going on in his mind, what he's experiencing. Like that curiosity was flat beforehand. And so that was very helpful. I sent that anthem to him after I, I like worked on it, worked on it.

Jeff: How did he, how did he respond to that?

Melissa: He loved it. I mean, he told me two different times. He responded, and he was like, This is amazing.

Jeff: Was this before your anniversary?

Melissa: Anniversary of what?

Jeff: Or birthday? I don't know, there was… 

Melissa: Oh, birthday. Birthday.

Jeff: I don't know, there was… it was a birthday, before your birthday.

Melissa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before.

Jeff: He did that unbelievable post for you, honoring you. So I'm sure it didn't hurt that you are like totally loving on him with the anthem and what you're doing that, like again, like when you feel seen and heard and understood, then you're going to feel like you want to give more to the relationship. So it's a reciprocal thing that takes place.

Melissa: Yeah. It made a big difference. It made a big difference for me. And not that there's not more work I could do. We're not done.

Jeff: We're never done.

Melissa: By any stretch.

Jeff: It's all a process.

Melissa: I'm not Buddha at home yet, or probably will never be, but I am, I am a lot further along than what I was in terms of just presence.

And with Lachlan, my son, that is, I really cared about, I feel like building this business, I'm it's easy to miss moments that I'm going to wish I didn't miss. He's at an age where, for me, personally, this is my favorite age. The baby stage was the baby stage, and it's all a bit of a fog for me. And I see videos of myself back then, and I am smiling. So I know that I was there was happiness there, but when I think about that time, it feels like survival, I guess.

And as he's gotten older, the connection we've always had a connection. Lachlan and I are super close, like heart-connected, but as he's gotten older, the conversations we have are insane. I mean, I know everybody who has a five-year-old probably thinks this about their own kids, but it's like, oh my god, this person is developing, and my job is to help them develop in the ways that light them up, you know? There's more to it than that, but.

Jeff: One of the things that stands out from our work together, and I've seen this with other clients, is you came to me and you said, I want more moments, I want more experiences. And it was literally the simple exercise of like, okay, what do you want to do? And you're like, well, I want to take him here. I want to take him to the aquarium or the zoo, or like whatever. And I said, Okay, is it in the calendar? And you're like, no. I'm like, okay, like get it in the calendar.

So it's as simple as being intentional. We talked about being intentional and preparing. Like we've talked about preparing, preparation. That's what the best athletes do. So, intentional preparation, and that's different than perfection. We've talked about that too. Like you don't have to be perfect with all these stuff, all these things, but you can be more intentional. And you can be more prepared. 

And I think, you know, when I work with other clients, if I want to if it happens to be a male, and he wants to improve his relationship with his wife, I'm like, okay, when was the last time you wrote her a card? You know, your version of a champion's poem of like how great you are. When was the last time, like, how's date night going, or like whatever, but like being intentional about these little things and these moments is key.

And I think, yeah, that's the things that people always remark on of how they want to have that semblance of balance with their work life, is that they're feeling connected to their partner and they're feeling connected to their children. And there's different ways you can do that, but you've got to be more intentional about it.

And you can't be intentional if you're stressed out. You can't be intentional if maybe you're drinking a little bit too much and you're disconnected from yourself. Like you really have to work on being connected to yourself, then to go truly be present with your son or daughter and your husband or wife. Like, there's really not a way around it.

Melissa: Right.

Jeff: So, yeah, it's really important work. And it's important work to do in business as well.

Melissa: I um, this weekend I'm taking him to an orchard. Like that's one of the things I wanted to do for fall. That was one of the moments that came out of thinking through the conversation I had with you, but like there's that's never before, I have a lot of judgment. I'm trying like it's not gone yet. Never before was I the one to plan any of this. It makes me want to cry.

Jeff: Up until now.

Melissa: Up until now.

Jeff: I'll give you permission to cry if you want.

Melissa: I mean, so, um, I've always just gone. Derek plans, and I come. I'm always the one, you know, building the business. And so he makes the plans, and I just go, my mind is maybe somewhere else, and so anyway, the fact that I'm actually planning for moments and to make moments is a big deal. Okay, I think we need some Kleenex.

Jeff: Keep going. Come on. Get the Kleenex. I'll go from here. So what's really beautiful, obviously, I can feel the emotion and what's coming up right now, and a couple of things, it's important. You know, we've had many moments like this, right? Like behind the scenes, right?

Melissa: Oh God. I have, I have cried to you more times than I…

Jeff: Right. So maybe people need to start calling me a therapist, too. But what's interesting is I and, you know, so much respect for the therapists out there who do work that, you know, I've never, I've never studied or never applied, but I think, you know, we've shared so many, uh, intimate moments around coaching where you've opened up and you've shared your heart and your emotion and even that moment right there is like really beautiful that when you have a client and a coach and there's space that's held for you to let that happen, which just happened, which was completely organic.

Every time we emote like that, every time we cry, there is we talked about healing before, there's healing happening. Like that was just like you, just there was like some release that happened there that's been built up that maybe you didn't know was there, maybe you knew was there, but you allowed it to go, and I created a safe space. Happens to be cameras on right now, and people are going to see this. But like I like to think that there was some healing.

Actually, when we cry, cortisol is released from the body. So, like stress is released, and I imagine those tears, maybe there's some sadness in there, but there's probably also some appreciation and joy in that you're now taking the reins and being intentional about what you want to create for your son, more so than ever.

And that's instead of living in regret that you weren't the parent that did that, you now are changing a two degree shift is changing the trajectory of your relationship and how you view it and you can look back in 10 years and go, you know what, there was a moment in time when I wasn't doing the planning because that's what our roles were and I judged myself for it, but now I am. And that is probably one of the most beautiful things you can do to see, like, your own growth, to be intentional, and then to see how it impacts your beloved family.

Melissa: I, I just, I just did not have, I can see it now. I didn't have the capacity to do the things that we're talking about, like planning things, me buying the tickets, not my husband. Like, I mean, I'm just doing it.

Jeff: And how does that make you feel to do that?

Melissa: Really good. I think, I mean there's it there's there's a dichotomy for me.

Jeff: What's the, yeah, what's the feeling?

Melissa: Judgment of like…

Jeff: Okay, there's judgment.

Melissa: Yeah.

Jeff: Okay, that's fine. That's a shadow side. Okay.

Melissa: Also a little bit of judgment, like you're the mom and your husband's doing all these things. Like, there's a little bit of that, which is, I know not to give too much weight to, but it's there. But I, I'm, I didn't have a year ago, well, we were starting the IVF and all of that, but.

Jeff: What's the renewing emotion that comes with knowing that you're doing that now? So the depleting emotion might be frustration, and there's anger, maybe guilt. That's, you know, the hard emotion, like that's heavy, but then what's the lighter emotion that you're doing this now?

Melissa: Joy.

Jeff: You feel more joy.

Melissa: Yeah.

Jeff: You experience joy.

Melissa: Yeah. Joy, joy is driving a lot of the decisions I'm making now. Like that's, I know that I'm going to, I'm going to deeply enjoy doing those things with him. So it's driving my motivation to be able to do that. You know, just in the combination, I'm telling you the zones, like owning my zone. So getting the sleep, sleep has been something that I have not done well my entire adult life.

Jeff: Up until now.

Melissa: Up until now. And now that I'm doing it.

Jeff: And we should get to up until now. We should get to that. But no, keep going. The zones.

Melissa: The zones, I think, finally, finally holistically taking care of myself, not just, oh, I'm eating clean, but I'm sleeping like shit. And also I'm super active right now, but I'm also drinking. It's like I never gave myself the chance to reset.

Jeff: I remember you told me you used to do running all the time and races, and then you party on the weekends like crazy.

Melissa: I would well I wouldn't party before a race, but I used to run a lot. I would we would before training runs, we'd go out the night before. This is when we lived downtown San Francisco. We'd go out the night before. We had no kid, no, we were not adulting. And then get, we'd party, wake up, go for a long training run.

Jeff: Yeah.

Melissa: That was just what we did.

Jeff: Right. That’s just how, yeah.

Melissa: I, you know, it's like that is insane. So I think I just never gave myself the chance that I've given myself now. And so, because I'm giving myself the chance now, I have capacity for things I've never had capacity for. We're talking about relationships personally, but also in business, my relationships.

Jeff: Yeah.

Melissa: There's a little bit of like things have improved where they're going to improve and things have, um, played out that are going to play out. Like, there is sort of a realness that gets to happen when I do have capacity for things that and I'm very clear about where I'm going and what I'm doing, and, you know, and so I don't know, I think the relationships personally and professionally have improved.

Jeff: What I loved about what you did with the personal success anthem is you wrote one for yourself. And what I love about you as a human and as a leader, and you're gonna have to receive this compliment right now. So get ready. One, you're amazing. But two, you took this success anthem, and you had a retreat, and you had everyone on your team write their own success anthem.

Why don't you talk about again, the ripple effect and that experience that you had of writing that, or having them write them?

Melissa: That is the single coolest thing I've ever done as an owner with a team. As a leader. I had, Natalie's behind the camera right now, she was a part of it at a team retreat. They, I did I recorded a video. I read them mine as an example. I told them, I gave them some context, and then I had them do it. We actually created a ChatGPT thread that would help assist them with the flow. And so they used that, and they each created their own. And so at the retreat, they brought them. And so each person read theirs, and there wasn't a dry eye during this exercise. I mean, I'm pretty sure everybody, everybody had tears when we were, it was really beautiful.

Jeff: I mean, that's one way if you want to build a team, you want to bring people closer together, you do something like what you did, right? And then you find out like who's on, like who's on and who's who's on the bus and who's maybe not, but like what a gift to take the time instead of driving revenue and metrics and spreadsheets and whose roles that you actually took some space and time to let them think about what they want to create in them in their lives personally and professionally, where they fit into this whole thing that you want to create and to bring some emotion into the room and some feeling.

You know, I think men could be doing this more. Women could obviously be doing it more, but like the other day, I was doing the workshop, and at when it was done was down in Louisiana, I came out, and the guys shook two guys shook my hand. They were car dealers, and they said, Thank you for talking about emotions and feelings. Like we don't in car dealership and sales, we don't talk about that stuff.

I go, I know, we also don't talk about that stuff as a pro tennis player when you got to win the next point. But when the match is over and the week is over, what do you do with those emotions? What do you do with those feelings? And you know, that's of course part of zone 3, but like opening up the room, opening up your team to be able to share what they really want, what they want to create, you're giving them space to be seen and to be heard. But it's only possible if you did that first for yourself.

Melissa: Yes. Yes.

Jeff: Self first. And then you went and you did it and it was just this really like juicy, powerful, impactful experience. And more of that, right? More of that to create connection, and you did that.

So I noticed that when I go in and do workshops or keynotes or mostly the workshops, when a CEO, like yourself, a leader, says, you know what, everyone, team, I'm bringing Jeff in to share the own your zone, where he's going to ask you these questions, what do you really want? Who do you need to become? He's going to give you a framework.

This is a gift. I'm giving you a gift. When I see the shares and what people are sharing and the looks on their faces when their CEO said, I want to give you a gift of this so you can be better. It's a game-changer. Like to see how the team actually shifts after three hours. They're like, Oh my gosh, like I feel more connected to the group. I feel more connected and clear on what I can do. And so that's what this move that's what we're doing. This movement has nothing to do with me. It has to do with this movement of like, let's get people believing in themselves more. Let's get people thinking like into their future, creating a better future for themselves. And then let's do it as a collective. And we can do that in our personal and our professional relationships.

Melissa: Yeah. I think with them, once I, that anthem really helped me reconnect to myself, having to read that every single day. It was a part of the puzzle, a piece of the puzzle. And I, we work really hard at Velocity Work. We work really hard behind the scenes. I mean, it's no joke. And I wanted them to feel connected to themselves, no matter how busy it gets, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how grindy that week was, you know, I wanted them to be able to feel like they could stay connected to themselves through those times.

And I just, it was beautiful what came out of it, like what they want for themselves. It was so clear the themes for themselves that might have been brushed to the side or forgotten for a while. It let everything surface that mattered. And I want people bringing their whole selves to work, not feeling like they have to shut off part of themselves for work. And that's that's that's not easy to create that environment, especially when, you know, we're fast paced. There's a lot of moving parts.

Jeff: You're you're virtual, hybrid, like people are spread out in different places, right? 

Melissa: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. That's hard to create connection when you're not in the same place all the time.

Melissa: Yeah. So I, I, I highly recommend it to anyone who would consider it. But I do think first you got to you have to do it for yourself. You have to see the impact of what that is and what that does. And if, if you can see, and here's the other thing with that anthem, I felt every single sentence. Like I didn't stop rewriting that anthem until every sentence I wrote, I could feel like feel. Like feel. 

Jeff: Words have power.

Melissa: Words have power. And if it just felt like a sentence that was like nice to say, it got removed, or it got reworked. And so if you're going to do an anthem or a champion's poem, it has to hit. And if it doesn't hit, keep working on it.

Jeff: Right.

Melissa: And then once you have that for a bit, maybe you can have other people around you create that for themselves.

Jeff: You just explained the keynote process that I've been developing the Own Your Zone keynote for three years. And I'm still changing little lines here and there when I read it out loud and it sounds, it sounds like it's not, okay, I can say it this way. And so it's coming, it's coming. I'm channeling it. It's coming from here and like all of this lends itself to like we want to be in alignment in our lives.

And if we're doing the Own Your Zone and then we're doing it ourselves, and then we're sharing it with everybody else in the world, like I want leaders with their team when they're thinking about culture, to be asking the questions like, How's your sleep? How's your rest and recovery? How's your self-talk? Are you connected to your heart? What if you just put your hand on your heart a couple times a day and took a couple deep breaths, and just felt your heartbeat? You're going to regulate your nervous system.

Imagine if every CEO and leader actually had those basics down, not much more, but they just asked those questions. Imagine the type of conversations and the shifts and the change that would happen within an organization when an owner was so connected to that concept, how it would impact the growth of the business, the revenue, the retention rate, the well-being, like all of it would happen if these leaders were tapped into those types of questions and that type of leadership.

Melissa: Absolutely. I mean, who is interested in getting to some number with your business if you don't have what you just described?

Jeff: A lot of people are interested in that, but it's not the type of people right now that we're going to attract, right? It's like, but that's, it's okay if they're not there yet, but eventually maybe they'll get there. We there's a timing aspect. Like I'm doing my thing and I got a hundred people in a room, maybe 20 are like, I'm all in, and 40 are like, I'm halfway in, and the other 50 are like, I don't even know what this guy's talking about. But at some moment in time, more of those people are going to jump on the bandwagon because this, this is, this is it. This is the foundation for us to be the best leaders, the best humans, the best version of ourselves at a really deep level.

Melissa: Yeah. Well, man, thank you for, thank you for the episodes that you've done with us for this. This has been such a treat to have you in person. I love that, I love this summer, like right now we're in September, and I've spent four months, almost, really working closely with you, and my life looks very different than when I started working with you. A lot of different aspects look very different. And my whole world is much richer. My eyes are brighter. There are sunbeams coming out of my face. Can you see them? 

Jeff: I do. Yeah, I literally… yes.

Melissa: Like that is everything is better. I'm proud of the work I've done, but I'm really grateful for having a partner in that work because everything's gotten better.

Jeff: Having a thought partner is huge. And I'm proud of you for, I told you before, like you're awesome. You're so courageous. You're not just a top one-percenter, you're a top point-one-percenter and whoever's listening to this podcast, if you're in the law firm world or whatever, like you want to have someone like Melissa on your team that's doing this type of work because you're really going to be looking out for the whole being and the whole organization and like, and it's not an accident that we're vibing and attracted to each other in this way because we're on we're on a, you've helped me so much. You know, I've said it before, like when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

And if anything, you have been my teacher as much as I've been your teacher. It's a reciprocal relationship. And yeah, we're just gonna keep, we're just gonna keep going. Like spiraling up and staying aligned, and when we fall out of our zone, we're just going to come back again, and it gets a little bit easier and a little bit easier the more that we build this foundation.

So thank you for giving me the space to share and to open up an opportunity for just me to share more of myself and what I believe in and what I think can really help the world and how I think I can best help the world these days.

Melissa: Yeah. Well, you certainly do. Okay, again, I haven't asked you this every episode, and of course, I'll put links, but if people want to reach out to you, you answer your DMs.

Jeff: Sure. Jeffsalzenstein.com, Instagram, LinkedIn. I'm available. I'm really attracted to people that like you that want that want it, that want to do the work, that are serious about it. I'm not for everybody.

Melissa: They're desperate enough. I was desperate.

Jeff: I'm not every, I'm not for everybody. But yeah, desperation, I do attract some desperation.

Melissa: The level of pain I was in was the reason that it was just a no-brainer for me. I was going for it.

Jeff: Well, you kind of hid that well because I didn't really pick up that it was that intense of your pain. I didn't know your background. I just knew you were hungry and you wanted to change, and that's how I can change the world is like pulling more people in like you, that really want to do the work and I'm like, I'm like, I'm here. Let's go. Like, like, let's go. I'm ready. Let's do this. So thank you again.

Melissa: Thank you.

Hey, want to watch the video of this episode? Head over to Velocity Work’s YouTube channel. You’ll find the link in the show notes.

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