Melissa Cohen: Fashioning a Fulfilling Life

How does a fashion industry titan navigate the seismic shifts brought on by a global pandemic? What happens when she decides to reinvent herself amidst the chaos and uncertainty? Join us as we explore these pressing questions and more with our guest, Melissa Cohen. A fashion maven consultant and founding member of Chief, Melissa has journeyed from an entry-level assistant to brand vice president of iconic American fashion companies. Her journey is an inspiring testament to the power of resilience, passion, and vision, empowering women of all ages to believe they can do anything and be anything they want to be.

We love to hear from you about the challenges and changes you are navigating, or any other thoughts, insights, question or celebrations you'd like to share!

Be in touch!
kat@koppett.com
john@johnregister.com

Transcript

John Register: If you've ever wondered what it takes to achieve a remarkable success, to overcome obstacles and transform your performance in the face of big change, you're in the right place. 

Kat Koppett: Welcome to Performance Shift, the podcast that will take you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation and give you the tools to navigate your own moments of change. 

John Register: I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete and Combat Army veteran and author. 

Kat Koppett: And I'm Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser. 

John Register: Together, we're going to be sharing our expertise and insights into how we can navigate change and find success in the face of adversity. 

Kat Koppett: You are here with us live now. You can also find us on Apple, Google and most places where you catch your podcasts. Just search and download any episode you like. 

John Register: And if you've been enjoying these episodes, please select the notification bell and share it with a friend. Kat, I cannot wait to get into this conversation. Today we have a remarkable guest on, just a trailblazer fashion maven consultant, a dynamic dynamo in the world of fashion and business. Her journey is the testament to resilience, vision and passion and ignites the industry. The fashion right is a true Cinderella story. From humble beginnings as an entry level assistant, she carved her path to the prestigious role of brand vice president of iconic American fashion companies such as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica. Her career is a masterpiece, meticulously crafted. You like how I did that alliteration there. Then the seismic shift of 2020 rocked our world. In the face of the pandemic's upheaval, our guest did not falter. She reinvented herself, as a lot of us did, but this one she did remarkably enter her consultancy, where she now guides brands through product development, sourcing and credit protection. She is passionate about girls and women's empowerment and she is the founding member of chief the New York chapter, a board member for Her Move Next. She is a LinkedIn top community voice for personal branding, personal development and interpersonal communication. Her story celebrates adaptability, determination and the magic of embracing change. So join us right now for an exhilarating journey into her world. It's a world of endless possibilities. Please welcome the one, the only Melissa Cohen. 

Melissa Cohen: That is literally the best intro I've ever had in my life. Thank you, you are, you're hired. How can I have you with me always? 

John Register: We love it. We're so thankful that you are on with us again on this weekend. 

Melissa Cohen: Thank you.

Kat Koppett: I can already tell that there's going to be way more things I want to talk to you about than we're going to have time for, but I feel like I want to start by getting into the current zeitgeist conversation, which is what do you think of the Barbie movie? 

Melissa Cohen: Yeah, I actually saw the Barbie movie because everybody saw the Barbie movie and, I'm not going to lie, I went in with a little bit of trepidation of oh what is this going today? But I actually thought it was brilliant. I thought it was really well done. I thought it definitely had some nostalgia. You know, for people like me who grew up playing with Barbie dolls and that truly is one of the earliest memories I have of my love of fashion was dressing my Barbie and putting together little outfits for her and even very poorly, sewing some outfits for her, you know, with like scrap pieces of cloth that my grandmother had left around. So, yeah, totally resonated with me. I thought the movie was well done. I thought it definitely spoke to, you know, some of the challenges that women face in the world being judged by our appearance. You know, being in what is still very much a patriarchal society. But I also thought that they were fair. You know there were moments where they truly showed that. You know what Ken wasn't treated so well either. Barbie often took Ken for granted, took his you know love and feelings for her for granted, and I thought they did a really nice job of balancing you know, both of those themes. So I thought all in all it was a great movie and a lot of fun and it deserves all of the attention that it's been getting. And directed by a woman, which was exciting to say.  

Kat Koppett: The amazing Greta Gerwig. I'm you know, I'm not just asking you because everybody's having a conversation, I feel like there's so many places we're going to discover this as we go that your world is at the heart, in some ways, of what this movie is about. And what I love, just from we're just meeting, but just from reading your bio, is how much your life and your work is about empowering women and girls. And you're coming from a fashion industry and I think I'd love to hear just a little bit about how those worlds, sometimes I feel like those worlds are put in conflict with each other, but in fact I think there's a lot of synergy there. 

Melissa Cohen: Yeah, I mean it's a really good question. I think on the surface you could say that the fashion industry is very image driven. For sure, it probably wasn't always the best as far as making girls and women feel good about themselves. You know, I'm a little older. I certainly remember when models were all stick, stick thin. There was the whole heroine chic kind of moment. It wasn't a good role model for girls or for women to try to emulate. We've definitely come a long way since then. I don't think we're there. I think that you know that's still thin as in is still a little bit pervasive, but there's definitely more diversity of body types Not wholly so much on the runways, although for some designers yes, but at least we're seeing a lot more of that online in print advertising. You know, I think everything moving online has really opened up a lot more options and possibilities for that, and for me personally, fashion has always been a way to express myself, to let myself show up how I want to. There is a huge difference in how I feel and how I behave and how confident I am depending on what I'm wearing. If I like what I'm wearing and I think I look good and I'm happy in it, I act differently than if I'm wearing something that's uncomfortable or I really am. Oh, why did I wear this? I hate this outfit. You know. It really does play with your mind, and so you know dress for success. It's a little bit of a stereotype, but it's the truth. You will be more successful if you like the way you look and what you're wearing. 

John Register: I find this is always fascinating because we always tend to start off going one way and we never get to what we want to talk about. I think I jacked the conversation and no different. So what's jumping off in my head right now? Because I saw the movie too. I'm going to tell you I wasn't like I did not have how to even go into the movie, but with this conversation that's happening. You know that you just shared. Right now I look at. We talked about dress for success and we have the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and we, when we went to the one of the most exciting times of the athlete's life is getting dressed, and for the opening ceremony, or their metal uniforms and of course Ralph Lauren was a part of that and they brought all their seamstress and the folks in the in the, in the, in the I don't know what you call it, but the ones that did all the made the uniforms look great, right, custom fitted the uniforms, and our Paralympic athletes really came out of that experience by saying for, like one, for the first time, the clothes were fit to their body. Whatever body it was, right? So if somebody had a shorter arm or if somebody you know, walked with a different lamp, or person that was in a wheelchair and had a shorter upper body, longer, a longer torso. So it was all the. All the seamstresses were making sure that those, those clothes fit, because we want to look good as we're walking into the ceremony or on the stage. We'd love to hear some of your comments about that and kind of in the context that we're talking about, for you know, you know, in relationship to the Barbie movie. 

Melissa Cohen: I love that story, I think that's so important and I think that that's an area of the industry that really has so much potential so much there's such a need for it and so much potential to increase that you know adaptable clothing, bespoke clothing. Obviously, there's a cost involved, right, anytime you're making something that's custom fit or has you know specific measurements, and maybe it's as simple as taking something that you love and having it tailored right. I think that that's a lost art. We're we're losing those artisans who know how to sew, who know how to drape, who can take a garment that was just made for anybody and make it made for you, and I think that's a really important concept not to lose sight of. We should support these people that have these skills, because it can make a world of difference. You know I I'm very tall and so I often have challenges with clothing to pants, shirts they're always too short for me. I'm always trying to see oh, is there a hem that I can let down? Is there a sleeve cuff that I can, you know, do something with? How can I make this fit me better? And adaptability is a huge opportunity in the market to make clothes that work better for everybody, because not everybody is the same. Everybody has different body types, different needs, different things that will make clothing work better for them. 

John Register: Oh, this is. This is great. I love this conversation already. I think my mind goes now to Edna mode, you know from the Incredibles Milan, darling Milan. So I want to jump to get some of the questions that I want to ask you around your life, and one of the things that we have been talking about is this contextual model that we've built out in previous episodes of this reckoning moment, the revision moment and renewal, and in the reckoning moment, there are some indicators that made you realize in your life that some significant change had happened. Well, I wanted you to explain what it is that you were doing. We talked about the fashion industry, but what was it that was drawing you to it? And then what was the big shift that happened in your life? 

Melissa Cohen: So I always wanted to work in the fashion industry. For really for as long as I can remember. I was joking about playing with Barbie dolls and dressing them and all that, but it's true, that's exactly what I was doing and I couldn't wait for my fashion magazines to come. You remember magazines that used to exist? There are these things that you could look at in turn. So, yeah, I subscribed to everything 17, glamour, vogue, bizarre, like you name it. I was so excited and, oh my god, the September issues were just a dream, couldn't wait, couldn't wait for those fall fashion issues. So I always knew that's kind of what I wanted to do and I remember being in high school and I grew up on Long Island and there was a representative that came to our high school from a fashion school in New York City and I was like, oh, I actually could, this actually is a career, I actually could do something with this. And so I started out in a very entry level role, like most people do. I was it was called a finished goods assistant and what that basically means is I did a lot of data entry, yep, a lot of typing stuff into the field on a computer, not really working so much with the actual product, but I had some exposure to different cross functional people and I just worked my way up through the industry. I loved what I did, I worked hard at it and I went up the ranks. I went to manager, director, senior director and I was the vice president of product development and production at Ralph Lauren, which, as you were talking about with the Olympic uniforms, is just one of the most iconic brands in the US and in the world. I think he does it better than anyone else. It is just a real lifestyle brand from start to finish, and I probably would have retired there. Honestly, I loved the product, love the people, felt very passionately about what I was doing. And then 2020 happened. So, listen, every industry was hit really hard by the pandemic. I don't think there was any industry that was left untouched, but for sure the apparel industry was hit super hard. No one was buying clothes because nobody needed any, because nobody was leaving their house. Me pants. 

Kat Koppett: I'm sorry, especially pants. 

Melissa Cohen: Especially pants, Maybe yoga pants. If you made yoga pants, you still had some sales, but anything else you were completely out of luck. It was a really hard time and it impacted everybody. There were all these stories about brands trying to cancel orders and vendors being left with inventory, and it was a really tough time for everybody and so for a while I laid low because there were certainly no other jobs to look for. Everybody was in the same situation. Everybody was laying people off and furloughing people and the industry was just really in turmoil. And then eventually, thankfully, things started to open up a little bit. Things started to settle a little bit, but when I started to look again for what would be my next role, I just very, very truthfully had some bad experiences with the whole interview process, which we could do a whole podcast about how broken the interview process is for job seekers In all industries of all ages. You hear the same stories over and over again and I just something kind of clicked in me and I said I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to go through the multiple rounds of interviews and all of the work and preparation that goes into them researching the companies, going to the stores in the pandemic, still a little scared, still with my mask on, looking at the product, evaluating where things were being made. What could I do differently? What would I do better? What did I think of the assortment to get ghosted. And that happened more than once. After multiple rounds of interviews, I just said I don't want to do this anymore and coincidentally, a friend of mine who I had worked with previously had reached out and said that there was a consulting opportunity for me. And I was a little confused. I wasn't really sure it was what I wanted to do or what that even meant. And I remember she said to me oh my god, Melissa, I never want a full-time corporate job again. And I was like what Says that? What a creep. Well, are you feeling OK? What are you telling me? But I said you know what? I'm not doing anything right now, so why not? And so I filled out all the paperwork to open an LLC, which thankfully is not as daunting as it sounds, because at first I was like, oh my goodness, I can't open an LLC, I can't do that. That's crazy, it's not that hard. And I started my consulting business and it's honestly really been phenomenal. It has let me work with a variety of different people on a variety of different products. I had a very strong background in children's apparel, because children's apparel is very highly regulated. There's a lot of safety and compliance that you would never dream when you go into a store and buy a piece of children's clothing, how much goes into making that to make sure that it's safe and it meets all the regulations to keep children safe, and so I'm still doing that and still love that. But I also got to go back a little bit into men's and women's wear too, so I have the whole family, which is really fun, and I learned a lot of lessons along the way. I definitely made a couple of mistakes, things that I would not do again, but that's great, right. Learning from your mistakes is wonderful, and so I'm really happy with the decision. It definitely was not something that I would have thought. If you told me five years ago oh, you're going to open your own consulting business and work for a whole bunch of different people, I was like what? You don't know me, what are you talking about? It's been really great and you could say I was forced to do it, but I'm really happy that I did. 

John Register: Love it. Yeah, go ahead Kat. 

Kat Koppett: I think that you're obviously happy, you're obviously fulfilled, this worked out, I guess I'm curious about. Well, maybe I'll just ask the simple question, which is what kind of consulting are you doing? How are you helping people, and what's different about showing up as a consultant versus showing up as an internal person? What was the actual shift that you had to make there? 

Melissa Cohen: Yeah. So I'm still doing a lot of the same work that I did before. So I'm still helping brands with product development, with production, with sourcing, with the same skill set that I always had. It's different showing up as a consultant because you're not a full-time employee of the brand, and that actually gives you a little bit of freedom. I feel like it allows you not to be so invested in what people think of you. It's hard sometimes when you are a full-time employee to navigate those relationships and that sort of the politics and the culture and not to say it doesn't still play a role. Of course it does. You can't come in there like a steamroller and just rip everything apart. But it gives you a little bit of flexibility because you have an outside perspective. You haven't been ingrained in that culture for five, 10, 15, 20 years, so sometimes what you don't know is actually a benefit because you don't have that baggage or that background. You're just coming in with a fresh perspective and seeing things with a different lens and how you would do things, as opposed to, maybe, how things have always been done. And I think that's really important for every brand, for every company to look at something with fresh eyes and not do things. Oh well, that's the way we've always done it. Yeah, ok, but here's a better way. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, no, what I love about that, and how I feel like it connects to just this whole idea of navigating change, is we can get stuck in stories or habits of doing things, and there's something that I hear you talking about in terms of being an external person, that you can help people get unstuck. John, I think you do this when you go in and do your keynotes and consulting as well. I also have a consulting business that, just because we have beginner's mind or we don't know right, we don't have the same assumptions or the same sort of ambient narratives, we can be abused just because of that.  

Melissa Cohen: 100%. I think it's always good to have a fresh perspective on things. Right, we do. We get so stuck in. Well, this is the way we always did it. Well, we always made product A with F actory B, but we always had this calendar and we always had these meetings, and this is how we always did things. Okay, but let's try something different. Just because you always did it that way, it doesn't mean it's the best way. It's just the way that you're used to and you can really have an impact by trying something different. 

John Register: And I think the pandemic really forced us out of those comfort zones, the way that we used to do things. I remember feeling stuck in a previous job. I mean I was doing the same thing over and over again. I could tell what my whole year was going to be like and it was like, oh my gosh, I'm in a rut. I got to get out of this rut and so I had to do something that was different. I did it actually one year before the pandemic and that was going full time as a professional speaker in my business, and so we kind of split the company and myself. But no hard feelings or anything, I just had to do something that was outside and the freedom that I felt was incredible because I was no longer in this echo chamber, so to speak, and that was really kind of very liberating in that. We have Hugh Hornsby on this on says like great conversation, great job and using your creativity and imagination to find your dream. So I kind of go on with Hugh and saying there's always an emotional process that happens. I mean a lot of folks during the pandemic really hit and everything went away. Speakers, my profession as well, went away. It was an emotional drain trying to figure out what was next. How did you manage through that? 

Melissa Cohen: That's a really big question for me personally, right? I identified so much with my job and that was really hard for me to overcome when it wasn't there anymore. When you tell people, oh, I work at Ralph Lauren, you just see this kind of change in their facial expression, right, it's such an admired brand. I remember my daughter coming home from school and being like mom, mom don't ever leave Ralph Lauren. And I was like, okay, why? And she's like, oh my God, everyone at school like they're so excited that you work there. Don't ever leave. Yeah, so cute, right, but really we all get, so. Our identities are so tied up in what we do and who we do them for, and when that was gone I'm not, I'm not kidding I felt very lost. I realized that I hadn't necessarily found who I was and what mattered to me outside of work. That was such a big piece of my identity and it was really hard during the pandemic, right, there was so much uncertainty, so much stress, and I live in New York City and I lived in New York City during the pandemic and I never left. A lot of people were smart and they got out and they went, you know, somewhere else, and I didn't, and it was a very challenging time. It was very emotional, it was very isolating. You know my daughter was home school. You know, remote school. My husband was working from home. You know we were in a small New York City apartment, afraid to go outside, Everything that we read about and we remember, you know, wiping down the groceries, going to stores with gloves and masks on. It was a very challenging time and it's actually funny. One of the things that really helped me and this is going to sound crazy, but was LinkedIn, and LinkedIn really gave me a sense of identity. I had been on the platform since I don't know 2008, maybe 2007, but I never did anything with it. I had a profile with no picture and if somebody sent me a connection request, I was like okay, and I connected and that was it. And obviously, having, you know, lost my job and, knowing that I had to find my next chapter, I said, okay, I better get on LinkedIn and start doing something, right? And it became this outlet for me, this way to connect with people, during a time that I had no connection. We weren't seeing people, we weren't being social, we were all petrified of, you know, catching this horrible virus, and so it really was a way for me to not just build a network but to build a community and to really find a voice and to realize that people did care about what I had to say. You know, I remember the first time I posted something and it wasn't a very good post and in due form, you know, maybe it got like you know 20 reactions or something, but I was petrified. I was like, oh my God, what am I doing? Nobody cares what I have to say, or people might hate this, or they're going to laugh at me and say it's dumb. And that's not what happened at all. Right, I started to realize that I have a voice and I have a point of view and I can teach people things. The same way that I'm learning from them, they can learn from me, and so that was a really eye-opening experience. And honestly, John, I forgot what your original question was. That's my answer.  

John Register: No, that  was it. That's, you know how do you emotionally get through the challenge. And you know because, as you say, you get into LinkedIn, you find this other community, this alternative, this parallel path, so to speak, and now you have another community and you build out not only just a community like a really powerful community with inside of Chief, and I want you to explain that a little bit more. I didn't do that in the beginning because I wanted you to share what that is, because I wouldn't do it justice and some of the things that you have done now, because that's how we met through some of the from what you started. You have two women that I connect with through one through a speech that I gave, and then she connects me to another person and both of them are in Chief that you had started in New York, so I'm like, oh, who's Melissa? 

Melissa Cohen: Who is this person? 

John Register: So we're connected through what you started in going through this pandemic and I'm always intrigued by that. So I want you to kind of talk about how that kind of came about. 

Melissa Cohen: Yeah, so Chief is another organization to which I owe a great deal, and I joined as a founding New York City member in 2019. And it was quite small then, it was quite intimate, it was New York City-based, but the premise is to support, connect, and empower women. Get women into the roles, the professional roles that they want to be in, and keep them there. Get more women into the C-suite, get more women to be founders, get more women into whatever their aspirations are. Provide connection, provide support, provide motivation. Another thing that we're really active in is getting women board roles, getting them seats on boards. So it was started, like I said, in 2019. The two founders are Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers and they're phenomenal women who have extensive experience in the business world. And, if I remember the story correctly, they met at a networking event and it was not a good networking event and they were both kind of like, oh God, we could do this so much better, and that's kind of how Chief started, and so it started quite small. It is huge now. It's unicorn status. It is global now because there's a chapter in the UK. I believe there's five clubhouses in the US, but membership is nationwide, and it is another area where I really found connection and I really found support, like-minded women who want to empower each other, who want to support one another, lift each other up, support each other's projects, help each other find jobs, help each other get board roles and it's really just been a lovely experience. We hear so much about women being caddy or women being backstabbers, and I always go back to there's a quote that's pretty famous from Madeline Albright, which is there's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women, and that has always been how I felt, and Chief has just been this absolute light in my life. I've met some wonderful people there, both online and in person, and I can't say enough good things about it. I think we need spaces like that. We need spaces that are positive and that are supportive and that really want to let women shine, and joining was a really good decision, obviously, since I'm still there and it's 2023. 

John Register: So go ahead. Kat, I know you got a question. 

Kat Koppett: Well, I want to ask about your other organization that we mentioned in your bio, which is sort of it feels like it's at the other end of the spectrum. So, Chief, my understanding is are senior level women who have already had a lot of success and are looking for connection and the next things. Your other organization is called Her Move Next and you're working with young people, right? 

Melissa Cohen: Yes, not quite as well known as Chief, not quite as well funded. So Her Move Next is a very small kind of grassroots charity that started here in New York City and our mission is to empower girls and young women through chess, community, and competition. And I got involved in a very interesting way. My daughter was a scholastic chess player. She competed in tournaments around the country. I had a great time with her traveling to Chicago for girls nationals and Nashville for nationals, but then she got to a point where she didn't really enjoy playing anymore. She found it a little stressful. There's a lot of boys it's kind of like best case scenario, 75/25 boys to girls and it's probably usually a lot worse even and so she really was kind of losing interest and it made me sad because I think it's a wonderful game and I think it teaches so many lessons from patients and strategy and focus and sportsmanship. And so, like any good mom, I saw that Susan Polgar, who is a very well known women's chess grandmaster, was doing a puzzle competition in New York City. There was a tournament and a puzzle competition and so, like any good mom, I did what anyone would do and I bribed my daughter to go. 

Kat Koppett: Excellent strategy.

Melissa Cohen: Ok, here, I will pay you, I want you to do this. And she said, ugh. And she said, fine, I'll do the puzzles, but I'm not doing the tournament. I said, ok, fine, I'll take what I can get. So we went. She came in second place in the puzzle competition, thank you very much.

Kat Koppett: Wow!

Melissa Cohen: Nice picture with Susan. And as we were leaving, people were coming in to do the tournament, which she still said I'm not doing and I ran into a dad that I knew from the chess tournament circuit and he said oh hey, I'm involved in this thing. Her Move Next we're having a tournament, I don't know whatever, next week, two weeks from now. Chloe, who's my daughter, Chloe, would you be interested in coaching? And you could see this facial change in her demeanor, because when he first said we're having a tournament, you could see she was like and he was like would you like to coach? And she was like, oh, and so she went. And that really re-sparked a love of the game for her and she really enjoyed coaching. Now these events were in person. And then, of course, came the pandemic and we said, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? We can't do these in person anymore, and so we pivoted to a completely online format, which we still do today because we have members all across the country. We also have a really large contingent of girls who play from Africa in Kenya and in Nigeria and in Ghana and these events end, because of the time difference, at like 2 o'clock in the morning for them, and they still come because it's something really special. We have community time where the girls chit chat, they play puzzles online. Then we have a motivational female guest speaker, so we have women that come from all different industries. Some of them are in the chess world, but we've had lawyers, doctors, bankers, teachers. We want to show our girls that they can be anything and we want to show them that they're women that do everything. We had a young woman who is in NASA's space program. She's going to be an astronaut, and it's really so gratifying to see the girls talking with these women, asking them questions, getting advice, and then after that there's a tournament. There's a short online tournament, three rounds, and it's probably one of the things I'm proud of, proudest of in my life. It's small but we're growing and I think it really is making an impact for these girls to see they can be anything and they can do anything, and there's no better message for me than that. 

Kat Koppett: I love it. I love it. 

John Register: I love that so much. And it's a parallel, right, because it seems like she was in the box and I don't want to do this chess thing anymore. And then there's a shift. Oh my gosh, a consulting role happened. 

Melissa Cohen: Exactly just like mom.  

John Register: Just like mom. I love that. Oh, that's wonderful. What a great story. Hey Kat, thanks for asking that, and do you have a game for us, I think now? 

Kat Koppett: I do have a game for us and I'll just say, John, it also reminds me of your framework, right that you go through? Whatever you go through, you have your experiences, and then there's the pay it forward part that both you and your daughter are doing. So I love that. There's something in your story. You're talking about LinkedIn and connections and reframing our stories and not getting stuck. So that's what reminded me of this game. It's very simple, it's a story sharing game. So someone, we're going to give someone a place or an object and that person will tell a story. I can start, if you want, and then the next person will say, oh, that other thing in your story, an object, for example, reminds me of this story. So it's like a little story chain. They don't have to be long stories 30 seconds, a minute long. So if someone tells a story about a picnic, maybe in the picnic is an aunt, and the next person might say, oh, ants. Take me to this story where I was trying to, my kitchen was infested with ants and I don't know. Ok, so that's the example. So do one of you want to give me an object or a place and I'll see if I can start us off with a story. 

John Register: Let's see an object or a place. How about boarding an aircraft? 

Kat Koppett: Boarding an aircraft. Oh so I guess this was pre-pandemic. I was traveling a lot and this was a holiday trip. Actually, my daughter and I were going back to California and there was a woman. We were getting off the plane and there was a woman and her husband and they had two children One was a baby, one was maybe a toddler. And we were all standing up in the aisle and we could just all see, we were watching. This woman was near tears, trying to get all of her stuff and the baby was crying and the toddler was running all over the place and finally we were just all watching. And then finally a woman behind her said can I help you? And as soon as the woman was like, oh, you could just see her, just like she's, tears sprung into her eyes and she relaxed. But she was like, oh, thank you, could you just? I just have to get this stroller down, could you just help me with this? And the entire plane mobilized. It turned out these folks were moving to a new place and they had all their stuff with them and they needed to get somewhere else and I don't know, a dozen people just sort of mobilized to help them get their stuff, help them get off the plane flag, down a car to drive them to their connection, and it was this wonderful experience for all of us, just because one person took the risk to speak out loud, can I help? When everybody else was thinking it and ready but weren't quite mobilized yet. Oh, so that was actually off boarding a plane, not boarding a plane Close enough. So, is there an object or something in that story that reminds one of you of a story? 

Melissa Cohen: It reminds me a little of one of the first time I flew to India and I was by myself, which I wasn't wild about. I wasn't supposed to be by myself, but it ended up being by myself and definitely a little bit overwhelming. It's a long flight, crowded Airport was crazy. And this was a long time ago, and I know the airport has been upgraded since. I don't remember if this was. I think this must have been the Delhi Airport. I went to baggage claim and there's no carousel, there's no conveyor belt, it is just a pile of luggage. Oh, my goodness, how am I ever going to find my suitcase and how am I getting it out of here? And it's chaos. All these people are trying to get their bag and I'm a little intimidated. And I finally see my suitcase and I'm thinking, ok, how am I going to get this? And just same thing. I turned to the man next to me and I said do you think you can help me? And he was like, yeah, which one is yours? And because I wasn't strong enough to lift this thing up and out and over all these suitcases, and he was like no problem, and he hopped over a couple of suitcases and grabbed mine and gave it to me, and I think it's exactly your point. Sometimes we're afraid to ask for help, but people want to help generally speaking. They just need to know what you need. Yeah, beautiful. 

John Register: What reminded me of that amazing story of going to India by yourself was going by yourself. And the first time I went in on an international trip was to a foreign exchange student who came to live with us and he was from France. And so to kind of repay the kindness that our parents did for them, they sent me, after my eighth grade graduation, to France to live with them for three weeks. So I was, you know, learning, trying to learn French. But you know, as you know, in France no one learns French because you can't speak it the way that everybody can speak French. And I remember my mother dropping me off to the airport. I had this baseball glove and this kind of wash. And look on my face, I'm about to board this 747 to Paris by myself and landing it, I think, orly Airport. I just I was. I just stayed in the lobby area when you got off the plane because I thought someone would come pick me up there. Not realizing how to, I had to go someplace else to go pick up my luggage and get through the customs and everything to get to the other side. So, without any technology or phone or something, I had to kind of figure this whole thing out and there was no one there that I could understand, that could help me maneuver through this, because I don't know if they even knew I was from the United States or maybe I was coming in from a different country. And here's this kid, just kind of. So I stayed there for about at least an hour. Oh my gosh, before I I remember following okay, I said, okay, there's another plane just came in. I'm going to follow the people that are on this plane and I finally wind up seeing, you know, following signs that said sortie, exit, and I knew that word. And then I said this word over here looks like baggage, so I'm going to follow that. And I wound up getting down there and they were freaking out the people that were trying to get to me because they didn't know if I was on the plane or hadn't got on the plane, and all these things that they knew would come and so that was kind of my first experience getting you know my traveling by myself. And so the question I had was around how, when you can't ask for help in a different language, how do you, how do you find it it's easier now because we have you know these things and we can do Google and just put in translate and go up to the the gate agents and say, hey, could you help me with this? And this is my question. So, yeah, so that's my. That's what reminded me of Melissa, thank you, oh that must have been so scary. Yeah, I think you know it was. It was definitely scary because I thought I was gonna have to sleep in the airport and be like Tom Hanks, because you and that's the way I think about things now you know, I'm not going to sleep in an airport, right? So, whatever things, something comes up and I can't figure it out. I'm not going to sleep in the airport. That's kind of the way I think about. I'll be in a bit tonight, so something will work out, and it always does. And so you know, whoever's around us or surrounds us or helps us, and in those moments of our, of our challenges, or we just kind of figure it out and we get to where we need to be, and so that gives hope all the time. There's always an expected hope that's coming. And so, yeah, that's what I, that's what I love about travel and life and change and challenges that there's always an expected hope on the other side. 

Melissa Cohen: I love what you just said about we always end up where we need to be, because I think that's very true and sometimes we don't see it at first, right, we don't realize the path we're on or why we're on it, but we always do end up where we're supposed to be. 

John Register: We end up where we're supposed to be. Yeah, I have many stories around that, so what a beautiful button on this lovely episode. 

Kat Koppett: I think that's the moral of your story. Certainly, Melissa. 

Melissa Cohen: Button fashion term Good job. 

John Register: Well, thank you so much for being on. I'd give you some resources. You know how can people find you, Melissa, on social. I know on LinkedIn because you're doing so much on LinkedIn for sure, but are there any other places that we can share on our show notes where people find you? 

Melissa Cohen: Oh, thank you so much. LinkedIn is absolutely the place to find me and I would say, if anybody wants to check out her move next, we are always so grateful for any support, any interest. If anybody's interested in being a female motivational guest speaker, hit me up. We need one every month and so just you know our website. 

John Register: Awesome. I got some amazing folks for you for that, for sure. 

Melissa Cohen: Amazing. 

John Register: That'd be great and Kat, how do people find you? 

Kat Koppett: The easiest way is LinkedIn or Koppett.com. 

John Register: And you can find me also on LinkedIn and my website, JohnRegister.com. What an amazing show we've had. Thank you so much, Melissa, for really gracing us with your presence, and thank you all for being on with us for another episode of performance shift. We are going to have a whole new format of coming up, because Kat and I just were able to get another producer for the show, so it's not us doing it. 

Kat Koppett: The production values have been bugging you. Stay tuned, stay tuned. 

John Register: Because it's really going to be wonderful. So, as we say here, go forth and spy your world. Have a fantastic week, everybody, and we will see you next week on another episode of Performance Shift. Bye for now. 

Kat Koppett: Bye-bye.