702 Midori Verity:

We all know the stereotype of the entrepreneur, you know a 20-something guy in a hoodie, inventing something in a garage, having dropped out of MIT, Harvard or Stanford and surviving on Ramen. Problem is, women don’t fit that picture, in fact, research shows women are at their height of their entrepreneurial powers in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. My guest today – Midori Verity – is a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley helping female founders step into their true value and confidence, and she shares what I know from my own experience. We are unbeatable in middle age as entrepreneurs – because our wisdom and hard earned experience and skills match our unstoppable energy.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who has overcome the ups and downs of serial entrepreneurship including starting a business in a recession, and the sometimes difficult depression that can accompany entrepreneurship to become an unstoppable version of herself.

Midori Verity now uses her vast business experience to give back by helping leaders to break through mindset blocks to unlock their optimal potential as the CEO of Fuel to Fire Accountability Group for Entrepreneurs.

Midori will be here in a moment, and first,

If you’re listening right now and you think you’re too old to launch a game changing business, think again. It’s just a story you’re telling yourself in a society that seems to prize youth – and brainwashes women into thinking their worth is tied to their looks.

Not so long ago I laughed out loud at a TikTok by a woman in her 50s who was sharing that she’d given away all the ‘f’s she had to give – it resonated with me, as a serial entrepreneur in my 50s because it is empowering to just be yourself, without any artificial constraints, and live into your true purpose, wisdom and learned experience.

Like me, Midori Verity is a serial entrepreneur and CEO now in her 50s who feels the same unencumbered joy as me building yet another young business.

Midori has been an entrepreneur for three decades that has worked with every kind of business from start-ups to major Silicon Valley corporations. She started her first company right after college and it quickly grew.  She put systems in place that allowed her to move out of the day-to-day and into an advisory role so she could pursue other business ventures.  Now, she owns several businesses and knows what it takes to start, grow, and rapidly scale a business easily.

Today, Midori is the CEO of Fuel to Fire Accountability Group for Entrepreneurs, a community for driven leaders to accelerate their business growth. It incorporates a proven goal-setting framework, an accountability method, and mentorship to help members become laser-focused and overcome obstacles quicker to hit their biggest goals.

Today we talk about the entrepreneurial journey for women, how to break through mindset blocks to unlock your optimal potential, how to build your personal mission statement to build a business you love, and much more.

So let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Midori Verity, and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Midory, welcome to Wings.

Midory Verity:

Thanks for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I know that you’re one of these women who have been there and built that many times.

Midory Verity:

That’s the key phrase right there. Yes, many times.

Melinda Wittstock:

Many times. And I could only imagine all the learning and growth along the way, and now you’re helping other people with all the things that you’ve learned with Fuel to Fire. So tell me, looking back at all your accomplishments, but also all the challenges. What’s the one biggest single thing you knew when you were starting out as an entrepreneur?

Midory Verity:

Nothing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, that’s a wonderful answer because most people have a long list right there.

Midory Verity:

Oh gosh, I had just graduated from college. And at that point, we were actually in a recession and my husband had a friend who started an entertainment company and it was doing fairly well. So we decided to move back to my hometown and started just out of lack of other options. And that began my entrepreneurial journey.

Melinda Wittstock:

What was the company doing?

Midory Verity:

But we didn’t know what we were doing.

Melinda Wittstock:

What was the company?

Midory Verity:

It was called Party Jump. We did inflatable games and we started with four. You’ve seen them around, the inflatable jump houses. So it started with four inflatable jump houses that we put on our credit card and that’s how we got started. Who would’ve thought?

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s so interesting, Because opportunities are all around us at all times. And it’s the question of whether you seize them because a lot of people in that situation would’ve just gone and found a job or whatever, or just felt bad. Or even when presented with that opportunity, might have instead said, “Oh, well. Probably someone else is doing that or I don’t know if I can do that.” So what was it in you that just made you just jump in and what could go wrong here?

Midory Verity:

Oh gosh. Well I think it was the naiveness. That was the beauty of starting a company when we were young, we didn’t know what we could lose. We didn’t know the challenges and what was in front of us, quite frankly. We didn’t know how hard it was going to be.

Melinda Wittstock:

It helps not to know.

Midory Verity:

Oh my gosh, does it help? Yeah. So it was that naiveness, but now what’s so interesting, Melinda is I just posted right before you and I hopped on this interview. I posted a video on Instagram and now I’m in my 50s. And what I talked about on this is that age is glorious. It’s amazing when you can pivot the way that you’re thinking or get to a stage in your mind of an empowering story, right? So all the mistakes that we went through, all the challenges, all the wisdom, all the reading, all the learning, all the classes, all of that. The decades of knowledge that you gain are so powerful and that’s what I’ve learned.

Melinda Wittstock:

I feel the same way as a woman also in my 50s where I’m at my height, my 50s have been my best.

Midory Verity:

Me too, me too. Without a doubt.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? Because you have the wisdom of being able to look back and connect all the dots. Everything makes sense in all those learnings. And there’s a confidence that comes from having overcome lots of stuff, like things in entrepreneurship that you cannot control like recessions, pandemics or just competitors or something out of left field that you can’t control. And then what can you control and who are you being to get to where you’re going. And for me, I’ve settled into this. It’s almost an acceptance. It’s maybe even a surrender that there’s things that I can’t control and everything that comes along that’s hard is just, “Oh, this is great. I’m learning more.” I don’t know. It doesn’t phase me in the way that it might have in my 20s, 30s, even 40s.

Midory Verity:

I totally agree with you. I also think it’s your mindset that you’ve developed. You’ve developed that muscle of resilience. What I hear from so many clients, I hear this probably once a week. I have a lot of clients that are mid 40s, 50s approaching their 60s. And they’ll say to me, Midory, I’m getting older.” That’s what they start with. I’m getting older. I don’t know if I can still do this. I want to change, but I’m getting older. And just like what you just said, Melinda, that you realize all the experiences that you had are empowering to you. You’re smarter, you’re more knowledgeable than you were when you were younger. However, there are a lot of women who have not embraced that part of it. Instead, they focus on a number and in their head, that number means I’m not going to be as respected, I’m not as resilient, I can’t do this. And all that chatter, that monkey chatter that I call BS quite frankly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, it is.

Midory Verity:

Right? And so you have learned how to embrace it, whereas a lot of women haven’t gotten there yet.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, Midory, it strikes me that it really depends on where you find the value in yourself. And if you’ve bought into this whole thing that society reinforces that you no longer have the figure you had in your 20s or you don’t look the same, or you buy into all this stuff about what you “should” be doing at a certain age. Then of course, it’s hard to overcome that. What’s interesting in entrepreneurship that I’m seeing is the ideal age in a way for women to really come into their own as entrepreneurs and executives is in their 50s because we still have so much energy. We’re behind all the stuff like raising children, looking for a man, a lot of those things are gone. There was this woman on TikTok at this really funny thing about how she had no Fs left to give.

Midory Verity:

It’s true, it’s true when you can get to that mindset. And there’s actually science, there’s a lot of research to support what you’re saying, Melinda, that in your 50s, that’s when we’re footloose and fancy free, we’ve already overcome all crap that comes when you’re younger. And we realize that, at least this is what I find with my clients and with myself is that we’re able to look at things and go, “The things that we used to worry about. Now we realize we should have never worried about that.” Because it’s all going to be okay, it’s a journey. It’s not a destination and it’s just a mindset. I had a client recently saying to me just along these lines. She has been very, very successful doing wine labels. So she’s a creative, she does the design for wine labels and she did that for 20 years. She never even really had to have a website. She didn’t have to do anything. It just came to her easy, which ended up being a problem for her later, when she decided that she was burnt out on that and she wanted to change.

Midory Verity:

So when she came to me, she was explaining this. I said, “Okay, well, it’s very clear that it’s time for you to move in a different direction. What do you want to do now?” And so she told me what fired her up. But of course she said that now I’m getting older and I’m competing against these younger creatives, they’re doing new things. And I just had a company that I did a presentation for and I thought I did a really good job and they chose the younger person. So in her mind, because she had one thing that didn’t go in her favor, it was because of age in her mind.

And so we worked quite a bit on restructuring how she thought about it and taking into account her 20 plus years of doing amazing work for very high end names, names that we all have heard of such as Lasseter, John Lasseter from Pixar. She did work for him for years and a number of other very prestigious wineries and helping her realize there’s a lot of value there that you don’t get when you’re 20 or 30. And so now she’s starting to see this and she’s really starting to excel, but we had to peel back the layers there and get back to embracing what she’s already done.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so important just about knowing your own value, right?

Midory Verity:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is at the root of everything, on this podcast, it comes up all the time. Women’s tendency to hide behind perfectionism. It slows them down in business. It’s the equivalent of cleaning the house before the housekeeper comes or not asking for help or not being able to receive help or underpricing goods and services or overdelivering on them, all these sorts of things or being afraid to really step out into the light or create a company that’s potentially a billion dollar company. We create our own glass ceilings in a way, right?

Midory Verity:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so how to bust out of all of that, and it comes down to really knowing your own value. And I imagine a lot of the work that you do in Fuel To Fire, just as you’ve discussing really comes down to the mindset around that.

Midory Verity:

It is mindset. That’s one of the foundational parts of it. And then there’s other tactical things that people can do as well to help them break through. So we know we’ve all heard about what you just talked about, the glass ceiling, which is such a real thing, but there are strategies that you can implement beyond just mindset to help you achieve it. And so one of the things that we deal in Fuel to Fire is we have something called summit goals. We have a summit goal framework. And in there, I have our clients set big stretchy goals and that’s been one of those proven things that help people push past their limits. That invisible glass ceiling is having these stretchy summit goals to help you do that. And then on top of that, having the accountability.

Midory Verity:

So what we have in Fuel to Fires is the weekly accountability groups where you’re showing up, it’s like just going to a gym, right? And you have a trainer there. Chances are when you’re feeling tired, your legs might hurt and you have a million reasons not to go, you’re going to show up because you have that trainer waiting for you. So it’s the same thing. So that’s what I mean by yes it’s all a mindset game, but when you can incorporate little tools and strategies to help you keep going when you don’t want to, or when those self-doubts come up, you start to see a lot a success. And then that builds and creates more momentum.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. One of the things that’s interesting is that I think you have to get comfortable outside your comfort zone because all the growth is happening there where things are like, “Okay, you’re coming up into one of your own subconscious self-limiting beliefs.”

Midory Verity:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you’re bumping up against that. And getting comfortable there, knowing that something good is coming as a result of that discomfort. And it’s one of those things that’s hard to know maybe until you’ve actually lived it and overcome that and seen the other side of that discomfort, if that makes sense.

Midory Verity:

100%. I think probably Melinda, you and myself, we have a lot of stories like that, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Midory Verity:

Let’s be honest.

Melinda Wittstock:

We could have an eight hour podcast or something, right?

Midory Verity:

And let me just tell you, Fuel to Fire is only a year old. I started that during the pandemic because I have a few companies. The company that was bringing in the most money for us overnight, we thought it was going to be our breakout. Not just a breakout year, but the best year ever that we ever had to overnight when the pandemic hit and they shut us down, we do events in Silicon Valley. We were giving back tens of thousands of dollars and thinking, “Oh my gosh, what are we going to do now?” And so thankfully, I have so many years of recessions that we’ve gone through and other challenges in business, just like you were talking about earlier that I’m able to look for opportunities. And this time I thought, “Okay, this is my opportunity to come up with something new. We clearly need something new and we need it fast. But this time I want it to align with the things that I love the most.”

Midory Verity:

So my core values, what my zone of genius is, and also what my passions and motivators are and that’s where Fuel to Fire came from. But that’s what I want to encourage all the listeners to think about is look for the opportunities. When something kicks you in the stomach and you get knocked out at the knee, look for opportunities because chances are, there’s something really cool waiting for you around the corner and it’s outside of your comfort zone.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So often when you have the benefit of 2020 hindsight, you see that, “Oh, thank God that didn’t work out.”

Midory Verity:

Yes, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Because there was something better, right? And this is where we get so stressed as entrepreneurs about the how we’re going to get there instead of the where, because there’s so many different paths to get there. Given that you’re in Silicon Valley, I do want to ask you about this, because we’ve talked about women coming into really their strength as entrepreneurs in their 50s. And yet the whole pattern recognition way that say venture capitalists look at who they’re going to fund.

When we’re thinking about the teams, there’s this whole guy in his 20s, dropout, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, et cetera. Eating ramen noodles in a garage and in their 20s, right? Yeah. And a group of them. And I think that probably works really well for men. That’s probably the optimum time for men to be launching into entrepreneurship, but I’ve come to believe that the optimum time for women is a little bit later and we don’t necessarily fit that pattern. Do you think that’s beginning to change in Silicon Valley? Is there a recognition of that? That women are actually really, really coming into their own at their best. That’s a great time to invest in women entrepreneurs.

Midory Verity:

Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of trends right now. One is that many women are choosing not to have children or to have children a lot later in life. So that’s been a trend that’s been going on. The other thing is I think the playing field, and I know that there’s going to be a lot of people that don’t agree with me, but I do feel like the playing field is starting to even out a bit. Women are coming in with more education as far as not more education necessarily, but in areas that before they weren’t necessarily getting educated in such as engineering and math and science. And there’s also a lot of studies that prove women owned businesses tend to do better.

Melinda Wittstock:

They do.

Midory Verity:

Yeah. And so-

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, if you look at the Dow or NASDAQ, just in terms of women on the executive team or on the board outperform. If you look at startup stats, women who have a founding team member that’s a woman or a CEO, that’s a woman far less likely to fail. More efficient use of capital, a zillion things.

Midory Verity:

Board boards are learning that they need to have that diversity and have those women in there because they’re helping their bottom line. So it’s really interesting to see what’s happening in the world. And I think also, you talked about women getting funding, that’s still a big issue.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, don’t I know it.

Midory Verity:

Yeah. Right, right? But I think as women, we need to look at it too. And instead of playing and I know I’m probably rubbing a lot of people wrong, but instead of coming from the victim mentality, possibly looking at it from, “Okay, what can I do to position myself better?” Let’s do research, let’s see what’s going on. Is it the type of business I have? Is it the type of the way that I’m walking into a room? Is it who I’m connecting with? Just really seeing it from a different angle. And what I empower women to think of is when you walk into that room to get funding, own the damn room.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh, yes. I remember way, way back. I was part of something called Springboard and it started in around 2000 to really help women get funded. Amy Millman and Kay Koplovitz started it. Kay was the founder of USA Networks or whatever. So founded this and I remember we did a bootcamp, it was way back. God, it was more than a decade ago. And we had to do these two minute elevator pitches about ourselves and about our business. And it was fascinating because in the elevator pitch about ourselves, most women forgot to say what their accomplishments were. There had been a woman who had a $500 million exit who forgot to mention it. There was a woman who had been an astronaut and she forgot to mention it. Wow, right? And then in the two-minute business pitch where you’re asked in terms of investment, I noticed that the vast majority of the women asked for the money with a question mark in the intonation at the end of their voice like, “I’m raising $10 million?” And it doesn’t sound very convincing.

Midory Verity:

Right, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

So I understand what you’re saying. The interesting thing about raising money and something that I’ve learned along the way, it is about the relationships and because we’re a little bit later to the party and we haven’t necessarily formed those relationships with all the people, who you know, all that stuff, it’s a little bit harder. It’s a lot harder actually, to break in, in that case. And especially if you’re outside the valley and that kind of thing. This is all presupposing you have a business that’s a highly scalable, technology based business that could become a unicorn. That’s the qualifier for VC. So assuming that it’s an investible business, but yeah. How best to position in a way that’s really heard and resonates.

Midory Verity:

Exactly. Yeah. And then also, I think as women, this is one thing I’ve been working on with my clients quite a bit is we need to think, do we really want an investor? Is that really the right angle? And so one thing that I talk about in Fuel to Fire, we have a Monday morning meeting every week. And one of the things that I presented recently is when you think about your goals, right? We all many times, we’ll put in a dollar figure. But when you really think about it, see yourself at that goal, you accomplished that goal and maybe you have to have 25 employees. But when you really think about that, is that really what you want? Do you really want to be supervising 25 employees? And maybe you do. It just depends on who you are. So it’s important to understand your values, what’s really important to you in your gut.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. What kind of business you want and also why you’re building it. I know so many women who’ve created these great cash flow businesses that’s very much tied to their own personal brand. However, and it makes them lots of money, it’s awesome. When they get bored of it though, there’s nothing to sell because there’s no asset value. Right?

Midory Verity:

True.

Melinda Wittstock:

Just understanding what the tradeoffs are, knowing what you want. Do you want a lifestyle business? Do you want something where you’re in total control and it’s just a cash. That’s awesome. Or are you building some other big or in my case, all mine have been technology. So it’s a little bit different, but yeah.

Midory Verity:

Yep. Getting clear on what your goal is, what the end thing is. And maybe it’s you want something really quick and you want to sell it in two years or in a year, just you talked about Melinda. And so it’s a different angle. With most of the clients that I work with, they’re not looking to be the next billionaire company. They’re more the SMBs, the small, the medium sized businesses. One thing that we really work on is something called the personal mission statement. And this is now how I run my entire life is based on my personal mission statement. I can share, it’s really easy. I can just share it with you.

So what it includes are three elements. So the first one are your core values. Getting clear on what are the things that matter to you the most, the things that make you tick. One way to figure that out is if you have been in a long term relationship, what do you fight about all the time? The recurring arguments? And if you unpack that, usually you can see, “Oh, I’m protecting this core value. That’s why it makes me so angry when we get in these arguments.” So that’s one way to find core value. So that’s the first part. The next one are your passions and your motivators. What are you passionate about? What motivates you? Think about that. And then the third one is your zone of genius. What you’re naturally gifted at, what you really love to do. And then you take that and you write one to three sentences and you make a paragraph at it. And that becomes your guiding light or your North Star that you always pay attention to.

If your business is built on your personal mission, say that’s a foundation of your business. So it incorporates your core values, your passions and motivators, and then also your zone of genius. You’re going to be pretty happy. And it also helps you persevere through those challenges that come up no matter what, I don’t care what size your business is. I don’t care what it is. You are going to have big challenges. But when you have your personal mission statement as a foundation, you get up a little more excited. You have more pep in your step. When you get punched in the gut, you’re more likely to get up quicker and keep going. So that’s a huge element that I work with women for the size of businesses that they’re creating.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so important. To be able to actually know what your zone of genius is, sometimes people don’t actually know what they’re great at. I have my team actually do this a lot. There’s 22 of us now. And it’s a four square where you think of what is the thing that you love to do, that time disappears when you’re doing it. And you can’t not do it and no one else can do it as good as you. It’s just that. And then there’s another box, which is, okay things that you love to do and things that you’re really good at doing, but there might be someone else who also loves to do that and is really good at doing that too. And then there’s this stuff that you’re competent at, but you don’t love. In fact, other people, it would make their heart sing to do, but you can do it in a pinch if you have to. It’s extrinsic to you, but you can do it. And then the last one is, “Oh my God.” You’d rather watch paint dry. You hate it and/or you suck at it.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I find doing that and periodically checking in with it, it’s a self-discovery thing, because I think we discover our zone of genius over time. We don’t necessarily we’re born and we know. Sometimes the clues are in what we love to do as kids.

Midory Verity:

Yes. Yeah. I have a client right now. I love the quadrant that you’re talking about because it’s so important to get clear on that. I have a client right now, she’s been working with us for about a year. And when she came to us, she said, “Midory, I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m a professor.” She’s a college professor, very educated, very intelligent. I’m a college professor, but not an entrepreneur. I’m like, “Well, why aren’t you an entrepreneur? What do you mean by that?” And so she went into it and there’s a bit of imposter syndrome like we talked about earlier. And what we did, we took her through the personal mission statement and we found her zone of genius and it’s this energy work. She is amazing at helping you see blocks. You see it all the time with entrepreneurs, right? Or people in general, these blocks that we’re blindsided by. We have no idea what it is, but we can’t no matter how hard we work, we just can’t get to the next stage. And she is gifted at identifying that.

And so we have helped her build out her business with this, and now she is crushing it. She just got someone from Shark Tank who’s in her program. She just got another client. She got MetLife. She has MetLife as one of her clients. And this is a woman who 12 months ago, did not see herself as an entrepreneur. She saw herself as college professor who didn’t know how to do the business speak and now she’s crushing it. So just like you talked about, we tapped into what are you really, really, really good at? And let’s magnify that and create your whole business around it and that’s what’s happening for her. And so when you do that and the more you can concentrate on what you talk about with what you really love to do, which creates flow, then you’re going to excel.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I love that you mentioned flow because when you’re in that zone of genius, I don’t know, you’re more open to seeing the opportunity, attracting the opportunity, being able to receive it. There’s just an alignment. There’s a magic or a providence that starts to kick in, I think in that moment. I’ve experienced that in my life. And when you’re doing a business that’s not in alignment. Oh my God, it’s so much harder.

Midory Verity:

The first company that we had, that’s why I’m such a proponent of personal mission statement. I was so out of alignment, Melinda. I remember my husband and I had it together. I remember thinking I’m either going to kill him or I’m going to run for the hills. It’s going to be one or the other. So I’m going to have to figure this out. And luckily, instead of killing him or running for the hills, I was able to become more aware of it and I knew I had to get out of that business and it taught me. It was such a valuable a lesson to learn that’s helped me with all my future businesses after that.

Melinda Wittstock:

I had such a similar thing where one of the companies I was running a couple before this one and I wasn’t loving it. It was really hard. It was a social media analytics, social intelligence business, where we would get tremendous amount of data driven insights to help people find their customers just by using natural language processing and a lot of unsupervised machine learning and whatnot on, on vast quantities of social media conversations. And it was super cool and I loved creating all the algorithms around it and doing all that. It was amazing. But it was incredibly frustrating to have these amazing epiphanies in the data and have clients that didn’t know how to act on the insights.

And so it was literally, they’d pay you and then it would just sit there and gather dust because they didn’t know what to do with it, which prompted us to become more and more of, “Okay. Well, here’s what you do with it.” So we were becoming more and more consultant thing. And then it was like, “Well, can you do our social media strategy too?” And that’s what’s pushing us into being an agency and I wasn’t loving that. I just didn’t want to do that. And I remember I was sitting with the board chairman and one of the main investors and I thought I had to get it to exit before I could do anything else, because I felt so obliged to the investors. And he just looked at me and said, “You’re doing the wrong thing. Stop.”

Midory Verity:

He recognized it. Interesting.

Melinda Wittstock:

100% because I don’t think I would. And it was one of those things where for every little foothill you climbed, you’d slide down a mountain. You’d move it forward and then just something would happen and it just kept happening like that. Whereas my existing company now, Podopolo, the podcasting app platform network that’s socially interactive. It’s so aligned in so many ways with everything that I’ve proven previously in all my other businesses and something that I love to do around content as connection and bringing people together and providing that value for creators and for listeners and for advertisers. And I love this. So it has a flow to it and it’s completely different. So a big part of this, I guess. Here I am on my soapbox, but actually is sometimes knowing when to stop.

Midory Verity:

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. That’s a valuable thing. And luckily, you had someone who said to you, “Stop, you’re going down the rabbit hole.” I think that’s one of the important things about who you surround yourself with, right? Who is around you that has been there and done that, speaks the same language as you, who can help lift you up when you get knocked down but then can also be honest enough with you and say, “Hey, Melinda. I know that you have a lot invested.”

Melinda Wittstock:

I know you and this isn’t really you. You’re not happy.

Midory Verity:

Right. And also when you have someone like that, it empowers you. Because we have all that chatter of I can’t let this go. I can’t fail. I can’t walk away from this. What are people going to say?

Melinda Wittstock:

Well yeah, exactly. And it bears this tricky thing because on one hand, you got to be resilient and you got to push through the obstacles and all that sort of stuff. And on the other hand, maybe that’s not the right business for you. So knowing the difference, I think is really hard.

Midory Verity:

Yeah. But someone else can see the force. You were a coach, you’ve been a consultant with whether it’s doing the podcasting or whatever, how many times have you been talking to a client where you can see exactly what the problem is, but they’re so caught up in everything that they-

Melinda Wittstock:

They can’t see it.

Midory Verity:

Yep.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’ll tell you, Midory. The first time I ever experienced that. So as a kid, I was a competitive figure skater and I wrecked my knees when I was 15 and I couldn’t continue anymore. I was at national competition level. And so I started teaching skating and it was great. As a 16 year old, I was making a lot of money to teach skating. And I remember there’s this little kid who I swear to God, she hated being on the ice, skating. So this girl should have been in a boxing ring maybe, or maybe certainly a soccer player or a hockey player or anything but figure skating, okay? Hated it. And her mom was really pushy. Her mom was like, “I want that badge for my child. Make her do better, make her do better.” And I finally, I was 16 and I remember saying, “Hey, well, ma’am, if you’d like to get on the ice, I’m happy to teach you.”

Midory Verity:

But your daughter.

Melinda Wittstock:

But your daughter on the other hand, I think this is not the sport for her. But you’re right. You do see this with an outsider’s perspective, which is why what you’re doing, Midory, just to square it back to what you’re doing with your accelerator and Fuel to Fire is providing the other eyes and ears. Not only your own, but other people in the group who can see these things because we can’t see our own shadow.

Midory Verity:

Yes. So true. I want to talk more about what you just mentioned. So with the child that was better, probably more aggressive, just a different demeanor. If you gave her the opportunity to go play soccer or to go experience those things that are more in alignment with her, she would excel.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly.

Midory Verity:

And her confidence would go up and she’d be happier. And when there was a challenge, she’d be able to have that resilience and get up and go much quicker and easier. It’s the same in business.

Melinda Wittstock:

So true. So true. You learn a lot of things, and this is the interesting thing, we’re going back full circle. When you’ve lived your whole life and you start connecting these dots and Steve Jobs said it really well, you can connect the dots looking backwards, just not forwards.

Midory Verity:

True, true. Darn it.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s really true. And so you have all these things, you have something called the entrepreneurial success triangle. What is that?

Midory Verity:

Yeah. So that includes this. That’s what we incorporate into Fuel to Fire. So it includes your summit goal framework. So that’s a whole system that we use to create the roadmap to your big goals. Because one thing that I’ve seen from working with so many entrepreneurs across the world for over a decade now is that they’ll set these big goals, but then life happens and business happens and you get taken off your path, right? So we have this whole framework, which makes it really easy, tangible, and you can visualize what needs to happen to get you to that summit goal.

So, we have approach goals, which are your 90 day goals. And then we have action goals, action steps that go underneath that to help you hit your approach goals, which gets you to your summit goals. So it’s just very, very clear. And then on top of that, the next part of the entrepreneurial triangle is the accountability. And that is having that person there, your peers that keep you on track and help you see the forest through the trees as well and hold you to what you promised to do and what you wanted so that you aren’t wavering.

And then the third component is the mentorship, talking to someone, having someone there who’s been there, done that, proved it and is helping you shorten that learning curve and getting to where you want to be much quicker. So that’s the entrepreneurial triangle. And if I think about all the times that I’ve been successful, I’ve had those three elements in place.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Right.

Midory Verity:

Right?

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s true. Everything is more powerful in a three, in a triangle.

Midory Verity:

True. Yeah. So it’s stronger. It has that platform.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so true. So I could talk to you for a lot longer, Midory. I have a feeling you’re going to have to come back on this podcast again later in the year, because I feel like we scratched the surface in a way, because there’s so much more, about all your businesses and everything that we could talk about. One thing I would suggest though, is to come on and join the conversation on Podopolo after the episode, because we can keep the conversation going there. Podopolo is fully interactive. So invite you to join us, download the app. I can add you as our guest and we can keep the conversation. If anyone has any other questions or perspectives or thoughts to share, it would be awesome to have that conversation move beyond just being on air here with you.

And I want to make sure though too, that everybody knows where best to find you and work with you and how to get involved in Fuel to Fire, because it sounds incredibly valuable and very helpful to lots of people.

Midory Verity:

Yeah. Thank you. No, I would love to continue the conversation because there’s so much more that we just scratched on. But yeah. Talking about the client that I mentioned earlier, the professor that didn’t see herself as an entrepreneur. The big part of what has made her successful are the summit goals and then also the personal mission statement. And so what I’d love to do for whoever’s listening, give them those frameworks. So the personal mission statement framework, and then also the summit goal setting framework and all they would need to do is just go to Fueltofiregroups.com/mission. And they can get access to all of that right there. And they’ll also be able to get in touch with me if they have more questions on anything.

But my thing is from being an entrepreneur for so many years. And luckily, I think you’re probably in the stage too, where I now get to just give and enjoy it and have fun with that. And so that’s what I want to do. I want to see these women rise up and kick ass. And so those are two ways to help them get there.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well Midory, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Midory Verity:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.