Announcer 0:01

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Meet Dr Melanie Sue Hicks

Beverley Glazer 0:19

Sometimes the strongest women hide the deepest wounds. Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a transition coach and reinvention strategist for women over 50, helping you turn a lifetime of wisdom into your most impactful next act. And you can find me and this podcast on reinventimpossible.com. These episodes share raw, real stories from women who refuse to shrink, settle, or fade away. And we don't sugarcoat our challenges here. We rise from them. And you'll leave with a stronger belief in yourself and a greater clarity about what's possible for you. Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks is a workforce, an employee experience expert, an author, a TEDx speaker, and a leader who has built an extraordinary career helping individuals and organizations thrive. She's traveled the world, served in communities across the globe, and she's devoted a life to leadership, service, and transformation. But behind all these achievements is a deeper story. Melanie survived personal trauma, sexual assault, painful relationships, and heartbreak of divorces. And for years, she carried shame, loss, and wounds that could have kept her down. But instead, through travel, service, writing, and deep self-reflection, she's rebuilt her life from the inside out. If you've ever had to heal from betrayal, trauma, or a life that no longer fits who you've become, this conversation is for you. Welcome, Melanie.

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 2:13

Thanks so much for having me.

Beverley Glazer 2:16

Melanie, take us back. Um, you grew up with the mom as a teacher and your father was a police officer. That's quite a different mix. What yeah, what was life like back in the day growing up in a family like that?

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 2:33

Yeah, you know, I was really blessed to grow up in the kind of small town that Hallmark movies are made from. It really was a thriving little community with a real sense of what middle class America, I think, you know, is made out to be and is not always the reality. And had a really supportive family. I got to do the things that children get to do, extracurricular activities and and you know, thrive in school and and have two parents at home, you know, that that were there. Uh and and that, you know, while great, there was also, you know, underlying stresses, right? As a, you know, as the time, you know, as two civil servants, a teacher and a police officer, as you mentioned, um, you know, times could be tough. So we weren't in a position where I ever wondered where my next meal was. But certainly our family made sacrifices um around financial stability. We made um, you know, we had hard conversations around, you know, stress in in our home and the way that manifested, particularly from my father and and his uh, you know, in those moments, his inability to connect and articulate what he was going through. And so there was, there's just a, you know, a real sense of understanding now when I look backwards about how that really uh culminated in who I became. And really my connection to travel had a lot to do with that. Our family traveled every summer for like six weeks at a time. And we had an RV, and so it was a it was a driving kind of place. And it was this very much a bubble of safety and a bubble of joy. And so I started to attach healing and resilience and connection to travel at a very, very young age, and something I I don't think I even understood until much, much later that my instinct for dealing with any kind of trouble situation, you know, trauma on the far end, or even just discomfort, was to pick up and go travel and pick up and go be in another situation, kind of reset my nervous system. Um, and so it became both an asset and an albatross in that regard, um, that sense of travel as safety.

Beverley Glazer 5:08

But you also love to write, and that also is an asset, an escape, and uh you know a comfort. Um when did you start writing?

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 5:21

Oh, I I think as early as I could write, I was writing. I was blessed with a a box of um kind of forgotten gems when I went uh back to visit my parents uh last year around this time. And in that box, I found a poetry book I had written in elementary school. I found diaries from high school and middle school. Um I found, you know, other, I found essays from kind of high school and early college essay contests and and other things. And it was really a reminder that I had been writing. I mean, I have a framed book that I wrote. And this was before the the age of self-publishing, and um my parents had no idea what to do with a child's book. So I have it uh framed on my bookshelf now as a book that I wrote when I was 10. Um, a multi-chapter book, um a you know, a fiction book with multi, you know, a whole storyline. And I just um, you know, treasure it because it really is this impetus of this is this is how I always expressed myself. And and that continues to play out to this day as an author myself and as a literary coach and uh the owner of a publishing house, I also really deeply care about other people and their stories and how do I help amplify what they have to bring to the world. But the yeah, the writing goes goes very deep. I think, you know, as early as I can remember, I'm sure.

Choosing A Practical Career Path

Beverley Glazer 6:47

It's part of you. And you went on, though, not to study English, but to study organizational communication and public administration and policy. What motivated you to go into that academic path?

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 7:01

Yeah, it's really interesting. I also, along, and I'm gonna bring us back to the story I just told, which is in that box, I also found a trophy where I won a contest in third grade for public speaking. And so I just I sort of always knew that the speaking portion of my creativity and of the writing, right? Writing for speaking was also a really impactful part of who I was. I um when I, if you were to look at my Gallup strength finders, I have, and they, you know, they put them into cat broad categories of like influencer, um, relater, you know, evaluator, all that. I have almost my top 10 is almost fully influencer. Like I am a person who is kind of naturally inclined to be in front of folks talking and sharing and and culminating and facilitating. And so I think that part was very early on. And that's what I sought when I got to college. And I um was looking at majors. What interested me more than reading historical literature, I just didn't have the appreciation for it that I kind of have now. But what interested me more in terms of the classes was this idea of how do I understand communication between humans? How do I understand the working parts of an organization that really revolve around communication? And and that kind of title, organizational communication, was was really another word for organizational culture. And I've always been very, very interested in organizational culture. And then very ironically, this public policy piece came in back about writing. So I, coming from a very pragmatic family, this idea that I would even study communications was sort of frowned upon because my dad considered it not a real job, right? Even though there's plenty of real jobs in communication. Um but it was foreign to him, right? It was foreign to, and I was very much, you know, a kid who was influenced by the opinions of and the expectations of my parents. And so I um, you know, public administration was like, was government adjacent, right? And so I was like, oh, well, if I study policy, maybe I could get a job writing policy briefs or legislation or work in the legislature or, you know, those kind of things. So it was very pragmatic in that sense. Um, and then by the time I was in graduate school and getting my doctorate, it became about speaking again, because I got the privilege of finding an organization who would allow me to use my research skills to come up with presentations and go and present to the legislature and to the governor and to other these things. And so it just sort of all rolled, it rolled all of my skills together. There's a there's a really seminal book in my lifetime. I recommend it to everyone I know. Um, it's called The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope. And one of the things I read it multiple times before it really sunk in. And I so I think it's one of those books that either hits you now or it might hit you later. It depends on the but it really is talking about we can put ourselves in a place where we are just outside what we are really meant to be doing. And I think that's what my degrees say is I was just outside of writing, I was just outside of speaking by taking this very pragmatic, practical lens on career.

Surviving Domestic Violence And Leaving

Beverley Glazer 10:21

Yeah. And you also spoke very openly about trauma that you experienced at a very young age.

Patterns In Love And Fear Of Stability

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 10:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in my 20s, I was in my late 20s, I was in a domestic violence relationship, marriage, actually. And it took me by surprise because I just didn't, I had stereotypes around what domestic violence looked like. You, you must be uneducated, you must be economically challenged, you must be, you know, all of these kind of stereotypes. Um, and I was none of those in my mind. And yet that's not reality of what domestic abuse can look like, right? It can, it's manipulation and psychological and sometimes financial, right? Um, if you are, you know, slowly your resources are taken from you, even if you have great resources. If they, if the power to use them is taken from you, you feel trapped. And that's all part of it. And um I was very, very lucky that um the very first time that it was really publicly um physical, I was able to just get myself out, get myself out right away with the help of a really wonderful organization in Tallahassee, Florida, um, called the Refuge House. And I I knew that the psychological could escalate and these other things and financial and all that, that it could escalate to physical, but it just hadn't. And I was gaslighting myself into saying, you must be crazy, you must be causing this, you must be immature and you know whatever. And only in hindsight did I realize the cycle that I was in and the inevitability that it would escalate into something like that. And then I was very, very fortunate to not go back um and be able to walk away at that point because that is not the reality of a lot of women.

Beverley Glazer 12:22

No, no. And you also got into other unhealthy relationships. It wasn't just one.

Childlessness And Grief After Hysterectomy

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 12:30

Yeah, I do, I do know that there was a pattern of seeking kind of this uh external approval. And I'm sure that that stems from some deep-seated, you know, seeking my father's approval, who was it was really hard to get him to say he's proud of me, right? Um, and and let's be clear, my dad loves me very, very much, and he did the best thing he could, right? And he came from a tough house himself. And so um I give a lot of grace as an adult to what his experience was and how that um, you know, taints or or, you know, clouds your lens. But but I was always seeking, you know, male attention. I was seeking that kind of, I mean, it is laughable to say the cliche of daddy issues, but it really did. It really tainted the way that I pursued relationships as I got older, even really healthy ones. I actually kind of gave a Heisman to healthy relationships because it it was so foreign to me that it felt scary. Stability felt scary to me. And so this idea that, yeah, I I chased folks that were not at all suitable. I was in relationships with people who were, you know, functioning alcoholics and kind of navigating that and and just not really living in my own self-worth of like you deserve to be stable. That's not a scary place. That is actually where we want to be. That's the that's the ideal, not, you know. And so it took a long time for me to understand where that came from and that and why I kept repeating the cycle. Um, so while I didn't have, you know, additional kind of severe trauma from a particular relationship, it certainly wasn't a healthy way to build a life. And as part of that, you know, I ended up um kind of in a position to be childless. And I say that in a position because it was, I was not a young woman who ultimately dreamed that I would immediately get married and have babies and have a white pick offense. That was really not my reality. But I also was not on the other end of being kind of resolute that a family was not for me. I was somewhere in the middle just saying, I'm sure that's gonna happen, but I'm gonna do all these things first. Right. And by making these continuous bad decisions in relationships, I ended up in a situation where I was 40 and I had an emergency hysterectomy. And my ability to have children at that point was taken from me at a at a real interesting point where I was almost of an age where I would have accepted it, but there's still just this inkling of like, oh, but there's still time. I, you know, this even if it's a fabrication, who knows what my body actually would have done. But there was this idea that it was a possibility. And when that possibility is actually diminished for you, it's a grieving process. And so, and I and a shame process because I I thought about all those bad relationships and all those repeating patterns and how I had allowed that to chip away at the time when I could have um made other choices or, you know, settled down into one of these things. And that took a lot of growth for me to overcome the the emotions around not being part of kind of one of the most universal clubs that women uh, you know, are allowed to be invited into. Um, and I was not.

Travel And Service As Healing Tools

Beverley Glazer 15:59

Yeah. How did you rebuild your self-worth after all that?

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 16:05

You know, you alluded to it in the beginning of this, which is, you know, I did, for better or for worse, I did what I knew to do, which is to get out of the current space. And for me, that meant travel and service. Travel because it was just running and that is a good and bad thing. The service piece is what I think really healed me once I realized that, you know, it gets you out of doing service in other countries where I am reminded of my worst day is could be somebody's best day, was a real eye-opener. And in fact, I would have sort of this empathy hangover when I would come back from global travel where I was doing these really hard things, like being in Sierra Leone in a brothel trying to help women escape the pattern of sex work and get into trade school or being in, you know, Nicaragua building houses from literal nothing, like cinder blocks and homemade concrete. And and you would see that you know, they they would go from like seven people being in one room to having a three-bedroom house, even though by our standards, it's still just a three-bedroom cinder block space. But for them, it was everything. And that reminder that it is all relative really helped to put it helped to to quiet the dramatic demons that I was carrying around and to say, okay, if these folks can be this happy, can be this joyful, can have this much hope, what am I even doing? Like, what am I doing wrong? And how do I snap out of that? And I don't think snap out of it is really the right term, but how do I make sure that I get the help, the therapy, the self-reflection, the what I need to remember that I'm very, very blessed. And yes, life did not go. My book um is called Incongruent because I have a very incongruent life, both to kind of the norm of what women or um society kind of says that your life will be like, the the thing you're taught as a child that this is how your life's gonna go, but also incongruent to my own norm. This is not how I thought my life would go. And learning to love the life that is presented to me is something that travel and service really taught me.

Beverley Glazer 18:24

And you traveled to 45 countries and you volunteered in places like Nepal and Nicaragua and Sierra Leone. What did all those experiences teach you? What did it do for you?

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 18:38

Well, beyond the gratitude piece, which I think is the number one, it just taught me to be really intentional about gratitude. It also just taught me how similar we are in the human experience. It really, the idea that in particular at this time in American society, we are we have such, you know, uh we're having a really hard time having positive conversations with folks who don't agree with us. And and there's a lot of really strong emotions and passions. And one of the things that I think is so powerful about being in a service role to someone else is reminding yourself that we all are human. And in the end, we all have some of the same basic human values. Um, I mean, there's some exceptions to that, but for the vast majority, we all want to feel safe. We all want to feel seen, we all want to feel loved. And when you remember those core human things, that we're all really striving for that. And sometimes that looks like fear, and sometimes that can look like spite or hate because it's based in fear. And, you know, but we're all trying to have a human experience that is positive and loving. And that relativity helps me with the simple stuff, right? Like if I get frustrated at work, yes, I'm gonna come home to my partner and I'm gonna say, Oh my gosh, this person at work drove me crazy, blah, blah, blah. That's normal, right? But I what I'm not gonna do is let it keep me up at night or let it build up or fester or whatever, because I'm going to be reminded of, but they're human too. What is their lens on this? What is behind it? And I think it just gave me an automatic switch to try to do that, to see life through that lens. Um, and quite honestly, it also gave me just uh, you know, very selfishly a ton of joy. It is so joyful for me to be elbows deep in mud or concrete or dust or, you know, we built a cassaba plant, which is, I mean, a processing plant, which is a very staple to the Sierra Leone um diet. And it went from uh this processing plant allowed the work of like 15 women over two weeks to be done in six minutes.

Beverley Glazer 21:01

Amazing.

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 21:02

Instead of them having to grind out the stuff by hand, they were taught how to use these machines to do it, and then they could go spend more time. I mean, they love to play soccer there, and so they could spend more time watching their kids play soccer. And we're talking about very rudimentary, there's no soccer goals or like what we think it's dirt field and you know, bare feet. But they are, they got to, I don't know, live life a little more. And, you know, I am very intentional about making sure that we don't just come in and put Western technology in places that are not um that they don't want or that changes the culture in a negative way. But this was something they asked for. They asked for help to do this. And so I was so proud to be a part of helping to build that for them and to change the culture of that village, right? And so those are, you know, just really joyful moments. I got to go play soccer with all the kids, you know. And so this idea that, like, I mean, it was hot, it was over a hundred degrees, it was. 16 days of, you know, there's no air conditioning there. There's no, there's no running water, um, barely electricity. And that was still some of the most joyful times. And that really changes you as a person to understand deep, deep joy.

unknown 22:17

Yeah.

Human Centered Leadership And In Pursuit

Beverley Glazer 22:18

And tell us about your boutique consulting firm in pursuit. What's that about?

Building Inked Elephant Publishing House

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 22:23

Yeah. So I, you know, this is something that I got founded really, I founded really early in my career, really organically. Um, I was working in governmental affairs using my public policy degree, and I was doing a lot of volunteer work with local nonprofits. And I was asked to sort of help them train their volunteers on how to engage with the legislature. So it started so organically. I would go in, I would do these presentations on like get to know their aid, you know, know what policies that member voted for or against. Be sure you know what your organization stands for, all those things. And it just sort of evolved. It, I, you know, part of that I attribute to being a really good steward of their time and giving them really practical information. Some of it is, I think, a natural charisma that I can have when I want to in front of a group. And so it moved from thinking about GA, you know, governmental affairs-related items to general strategic planning, to board development, to, you know, curriculum planning, all these things. And um, I just sort of leaned in and it was my loving side hustle for a really long time and grew in terms of scope and sophistication. Um, and then for a while I did it full time. And honestly, then I missed being on a team. And so I moved it back to a side hustle and took a W-2 job and would work with a team. And then I've stepped in and out of it a number of times, but it's just, it's really precious to me. I think over the years, what I have really honed in on, and this is gets to kind of the leadership part of my background, which is I'm still I'm still that 18-year-old girl who really deeply cares about the workforce. And we spend so much of our lives in our career, in our workplaces, with our work colleagues, that I deeply care about bringing the lens of human-centered leadership that is what I get from my global service work, into what does that mean in a workplace? What is this, what does that mean in a practical sense? And that's what InPursuit allows me to do is to um sort of go in and help bring that version of um leadership for a broader term. But really, I work with organizations on what they actually need. I'm not coming in with anything necessarily pre-cut. It is what do you need? What are you searching for? But the lens that I bring, this human-centered leadership focus, is in the forefront of everything. So I do have a I have a copyrighted method called the 3E method of change, but it's really such a skeleton that gives structure to help people articulate what their needs are and then move to a path. And it's it is it is just that. It's a skeleton. And every organization, we build the meat on the bones together. Um, and it's just it's a real joy to be able to sort of translate and and merge those pieces of my um personality and career into that space.

Beverley Glazer 25:14

You speak about it with such joy. And I'm gonna bring out something else that I know is joyful just by the name Inked Elephant Publishing House.

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 25:25

Well, it is this is another one of those um complete, you know. I I absolutely love my own um use of my ADHD, which is um it gives me very distinct curiosity. Um, and I'm a doer. And so that curiosity often turns turns into these deep and large projects. And some of them over my career are not still showing up on my resume because they failed. And that's okay too. I grew. Um, these are happen to be some that do. And so Inked Elephant was, I had studied the publishing industry for about 10 years. I had really just put myself in places, workshops, um, writing retreats, publishing webinars. Um, I wanted to understand it from the point of an author. I never really envisioned founding my own independent publishing house. I just thought I want to understand this really well so that I can be the best steward of this industry. And what happened is I realized how gatekeeped the industry was and how hard it was for, especially in the age of social media, for a regular person, a regular, really talented writer to have their work put out in the world in a professional, actual published way, not self-publishing. And let me caveat by saying there is no wrong way to put your work out in the world. I say that to every author I ever talked to. However, for those who want to be part of the literary community, there are standards and foundational efforts that have to be put in. And I couldn't find a publishing house, an independent that was truly nurturing and focused on first time and emerging authors. And that's, and also on social impact works, works that have a mission larger than just a vanity of I want to write my story, which everyone should write your story. But I really wanted to focus on this idea of who is telling a story that actually has a social impact and how are they being ignored because they just don't have a giant following or they just don't have time to learn how to network and rub elbows with the right people to get into an agent and a public. And so they say write the book that you want to read and you can't find. And I say found the publishing house that you wanted to be a part of that you couldn't find. And so it just has become the joy of my life. It's we'll be um celebrating our five-year anniversary in 2027. So we're this is our four-year anniversary this year. And the authors that come on my plate, even if I if I have to um say they're not a right fit, um, I get about a manuscript every week now. It's grown to that um that level, which is just uh mind-blowing to me. Um, and some obviously some I, you know, quite most of them, I I, you know, say it's not a right fit, but I love talking to the authors. I don't send them a form letter, I I give them real feedback, I offer to get on a call with them. I just, it's that personal touch. I want to see them get their work out in the world. It just may not be through me. And so that is a true, a true passion.

Beverley Glazer 28:34

Oh, I can feel that.

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 28:36

Yeah, I love it.

Beverley Glazer 28:39

What about your memoir, Incongruent? What's that all about?

Divorce During Book Tour And Recraft

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 28:43

Yeah. So incongruent is really the story of um my really my first 40 years. It is a I um trekked to Everest Base Camp in 2019. Um, and I did uh kind of overlay that the realities of that trek. So it's a little bit travel um related in the sense that I really talk the reader through what a journey like that is. It's eight days up and six days down, and and you know, some really hard pieces of a trek. Um and and I I but beyond that, I really talk about this story of coming into the ownership of being childless and what that felt like and coming to grips with that. And and more than that, what I kind of said earlier, it's really about um the uh the forgiveness process, the grief process and the forgiveness process of I caused this to happen to me by making these poor choices and by repeating cycles that I should have grown out of far earlier than 40, right? And and so the story is really um walking through both the physical track of Nepal or in Nepal, but also this kind of retrospective of that series of choices that I made and how I ended up there, and then how to forgive myself and to and to see it as a part of a journey that I, you know, now can use to maybe help other people, other women, um, forgive themselves for whatever the choices are. Maybe the choices aren't around childlessness, but maybe they're just around, you know, life partners or missed opportunities or whatever it is. And so I'm actually doing it, it was released in 2023 and I'm I'm doing a recraft of it because I never, um, this is uh maybe a whole nother story, but I um I had a bit of trauma during the book tour um where my husband at the time asked for a divorce. He left me for um another woman that he worked with. And so I kind of halted my book tour and I never did the audiobook. And so I'm doing a three-year um kind of annary anniversary um that'll be released in October this year, uh kind of a second edition. I'm calling it the recraft. Um and in a lot of ways, it's just reclaiming this thing that I feel like I um allowed to be taken from me in a bit. And so we'll put out the I'll put out the audiobook in in October finally with a a bit of a recraft.

Beverley Glazer 31:19

So good for you. For women who are healing from betrayal, trauma, what do you want them to know?

Advice For Healing And Finding Community

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 31:30

You did you're doing the right thing. If you are listening to this, then you are already thinking about how to transform. You're already taking the baby steps to come to terms with whatever it is that is um, you know, weighing on your soul. And so know that you are doing the right thing. Know that it doesn't, that grief and healing is nonlinear. So you're not a failure. If you feel one day that you are on top of the world and the next day you were back in the valley, that's okay. Just keep climbing. Um, it doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen. And also, it doesn't happen alone. So find the safe space. I will say the women who quite literally saved my life in 2023. I almost get choked up talking about it, is this group of writers that I met in Tuscany on a writing retreat, right after a month after my whole sort of life crumbled. And I still to this day, they are women who saved my life. And I think you have to find that community. Don't be afraid to share your vulnerability in the right spaces. Um because that's that is the key. We are we are human people who are made to connect.

Takeaways Resources And Where To Connect

Beverley Glazer 32:49

Thank you. Thank you, Melody. Dr. Melody Sue Hicks is a workforce, an employee experience expert, an author, a TEDx speaker, and a corporate trainer. She is vice president of programs for the Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation, founder of In Pursuit, and founder and editor-in-chief of Inked Elephant Publishing House. Melanie is also the author of incongruent travel trauma transformation, and her work is rooted in resilience, leadership, and service. Her expertise has earned her recognition in Forbes, NBC, CBS, solidifying her reputation as a thought leader in her field. Here are a few takeaways from this episode. Travel, service, and reflection can become a pathway to healing. Betrayal can be a breaking point, but it's also can be a turning point. And it's never too late to become whole again. If you can relate to this episode, here are a few things to do for yourself right now. Don't cover up the pain. Talk about it, journal, get it out, find community. Look at the positive and repetitive panels, see where you have to stop those repetitions and take one small step towards your healing. Reach out and get help. For similar episodes on trauma and healing, check out Lifestyle Change at 50. That's episode number 174. And resilience and renewal, that's number 149 of Aging with Purpose and Passion. And if you love stories of unapologetic older women, check out Reinvention Rebels. That's reinvention rebels.com. And so, Melanie, where can people find you? Please share your links.

Dr. Melanie Sue Hicks 34:49

Sure. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn at Melanie Sue Hicks PhD or on Instagram at In Pursuit Mel Sue. Um, and I also have a website, MelanieSueHicks.com. So any of those, and I answer everything. So reach out personally. I'm okay with it.

Beverley Glazer 35:06

Terrific. And all of Dr. Melanie's links are in the show notes and they're on my site too. That's reinvent itpossible.com. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you ready to move from stuck to unstoppable? Or download my free roadmap, and that's in the show notes. And if this conversation speaks to you, please add us to your playlist and share it with a friend. And remember, you only have one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Announcer 35:39

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible.com. And while you're there, join our newsletter. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion. And celebrate life.