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123. Giving to Others and to Ourselves- with Melissa Bollea Rowe
81 Plays3 years ago
Melissa Bollea Rowe is a published author, professional songwriter of 20-plus years, and founder and CEO of the music publishing and artist development company Rhyme Partners, which she started in 2013. Her latest publication is her book, "God, Gratitude, & Giving," which was released in May. In the book, she shares the role these three words have played in her life story as well as how prioritizing gratitude and faith has gotten her to where she is now as an entrepreneur, a creative, and a person. She lost both of her parents as a child and has had a hard road to success, and she's passionate about sharing her story in hopes of empowering and inspiring others.
Melissa Bollea Rowe made her way to Nashville, Tennessee more than 15 years ago to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a professional Songwriter. Mission accomplished. She’s a self-taught guitar and piano player who doesn’t take one day for granted. She’s had songs cut by the famed Nine Days Band and well-known country music artists like Jimmy Charles, Karen Waldrup, Allie Colleen, American Blonde, Brecken Miles, Mary Sarah and many more. “Every step of the way has been organic and blessed. Hard work, timing and preparation have led me to some pretty spectacular opportunities. I feel like I’m always at the start of something fun and exciting!” says Melissa.
Melissa not only writes and performs for a living, she also mentors, educates and works with corporations and organizations like; Musicians On Call, The Beat Of Life and GAB, Generations Against Bullying. So, it was a natural fit when she was hired to oversee the creation of all the music for Speak Life To End Bullying, The Musical performed in over 1,000 schools and theaters nationwide. “Of all the songs I have written that have been released to the world, creating the music for this musical has truly been one of my greatest honors,” says Melissa.
In 2013 she founded Rhyme Partners Music Publishing on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. Aside from her own success as Songwriter, Rhyme Partners’ catalog includes hundreds of cuts on both independent and record label artists with millions of combined streams across all digital platforms. Their songs have been recognized, nominated for, and won several independent and major music awards. Rhyme Partners’ songs have reached chart topping spins on Music Row’s Country Break Out Chart, Americana, and Blues charts, and have celebrated the number one spot on four Christian radio charts with the release of “Grateful” in 2019 recorded by artist Chris Golden, son of the Legendary William Lee Golden of The Oak Ridge Boys. Rhyme Partners’ catalog has also seen success with national brands and sync placements for television and film.
Melissa is passionate about sharing her stories of life, success, heartache, and restoration with audiences all over the world. She recently celebrated becoming a best-selling author as part of the anthologies Everyday Woman’s Guide To Doing What You Love (Chapter 33 The Day I Cried In The Meadow) and Everyday Woman’s Guide to Success In Your Business (Chapter 3 RelationSHIPS). Both are available on Amazon Kindle. Autographed copies are available through her website. As well, her much anticipated book “God Gratitude & Giving” was just released! She is also excited to be collaborating with neuropsychologist, Dr. Sarah Allen on The Musical Imprint due out summer 2022.
Social links:
Melissa website: https://melissabollearowe.com
Rhyme Partners website: https://rhymepartners.net
Melissa Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissa_bollea_rowe/?hl=en
RP Instagram: https://instagram.com/rhymepartners
RP Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhymepartners
RP Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhymepartners
Get in touch with Kendra Rinaldi: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
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Transcript
Introduction: Meditation and Themes of God, Gratitude, and Giving
00:00:00
Speaker
So one day when I was in my meditation these three words were laid on my heart and the funny thing about it was I knew instantly the message of these three words on my heart. It kind of came to me in the way that music does and I talk about this a lot when I'm talking about music is that
00:00:16
Speaker
I feel like I've always been a conduit because I would just hear lyric and melody. And I always referenced looking up because I felt like it would come up and come down through me. But I would always hear melodies and music. And so when these words were laid on my heart, that was not as much a surprise to me, but I knew it was different. And I actually knew the message of those three words were that I would focus on God, gratitude and giving daily.
00:00:41
Speaker
that ultimately I would get rid of most of the fear and anxiety that I simply filled my days at that time.
Exploring Grief Through Personal Stories
00:01:00
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:16
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Melissa's Book and Career Journey
00:01:38
Speaker
Welcome to today's episode. Today we have Melissa, who is a published author, professional songwriter of 20 plus years. Melissa Bolero is the CEO of a music publishing and artist development company called Rhymes Partner. And she recently has her new book publication called God, Gratitude and Giving, which released in May.
00:02:05
Speaker
and we're excited to have this conversation and find out more about Melissa Bolera. Welcome, Melissa. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm very honored to be here today.
00:02:16
Speaker
I am so glad you are here. We're going to be talking a little bit about your life. The book primarily will be the focus of our conversation and that will give us a direction as to how it is you turned out to be who you are now as a songwriter and now CEO of this company as well.
From Florida to Tennessee: A Songwriting Adventure
00:02:38
Speaker
But first off, let me ask you a little bit about your life. You were talking about where you are now right now as we're recording, but tell us where you live and about your family life too. So I grew up in Florida, Tampa Bay Clearwater area.
00:02:53
Speaker
and lived there my whole life until I moved to Nashville, Tennessee about 17 years ago to finally pursue my dream of songwriting. And the reason I say finally is because I was in my 30s by the time
00:03:08
Speaker
I got out there and that's a whole story but well about seven years ago I reconnected with my childhood sweetheart and we got married and he was he has his careers in California and so he had five acres out there and and my career was in Nashville and so we Commuted a lot and then we're both from Florida and decided that we ultimately wanted to get back to Florida so a few years ago and
00:03:36
Speaker
We bought our dream home on the beach in Florida, and now we split our time and work remotely between Nashville, Florida, and California. I know it's a lot. That's amazing. Now, I want to ask about this whole childhood sweetheart reconnecting
A Romantic Reunion and Marriage
00:03:51
Speaker
there. I'm such a nosy. That's why I'm a podcaster. I'm nosy. I want to know about connecting with your childhood sweetheart. Well, really, it's really a great story.
00:04:05
Speaker
Literally, we were in those wonder years. I met my now husband Sean when I was in the seventh grade. We were in middle school. First boyfriend, first little butterflies and first little kiss and all that stuff. We were very young, of course. As the years went on and we ultimately ended up going to different schools and life happened.
00:04:29
Speaker
We tried to stay connected, but this was not in the air. This was not back then. We did not have cell phones and ways of connecting like the kids do now or staying connected. It was just a phone number and maybe at that time some, what were they called, pagers?
00:04:47
Speaker
It was a text but yet with the pager yeah i would like a major we didn't even have those because we were too young to have those the older kids of the parents have those so anyway. Ultimately i'm throughout the years you know we stayed in touch as friends we both moved on with our lives and then we reconnected again we were. In our early twenties but at that time he got married and i was married and we were just the best of friends i think.
00:05:15
Speaker
You know, we always knew that there was a deep connection with each other, but we were married. And so once again, life just kind of moved on. And then it was 20 some odd years later, and we were both single. He had reached out to me just randomly to wish me a happy birthday. And I hadn't spoken to him in many, many, many years, lots of years. And from that moment on, we reconnected and we got married.
00:05:43
Speaker
Hi, it's my cheeks hurt from smiling right now. I can it's like feeling all that, that beautiful love and excitement. And it's just awesome. So glad that you had this beautiful love story. Yes, it definitely is. And I don't think that either one of us I mean, somewhere deep in our hearts. I mean, maybe we
00:06:06
Speaker
new but we didn't really know I mean after so many years we just maybe had resolved to well you know that that's their life and this is my life but it's just so we're so happy that it turned out this way and it's been this October we'll celebrate seven years and
00:06:23
Speaker
That's wonderful. Yeah, it's super exciting. Congratulations. Congratulations. Okay, so let's talk about the
The Book: Personal Experiences and Life Changes
00:06:31
Speaker
book. So it launched in May. Yes. And this book will kind of lead us then into then what it is you do now because the book is part memoir, correct, about your life?
00:06:41
Speaker
Does it have, is it part memory? Well, I definitely, I would say that because I definitely share not just insights and ways that those words powerfully changed my life, but I do share some very personal examples of things that happened in my life. So yes.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah. And then that's part of the reason that I was contacted to have you on the podcast, partly because of the title of your book, Being God, Gratitude, and Giving. And the other part is you experienced loss at a really young age. You lost both your parents. So how old were you? And then we will talk about the three words in your book.
00:07:18
Speaker
I should probably say, there's just really, we could talk about so many things. I should probably back up a little bit and say that when you were asking me about the story of my now husband Sean and I, I've actually contributed a chapter in a book that's going to be coming out at the end of the year called The Cinderella Monologues. I actually tell our story in that book in a chapter called We Were Twelve.
00:07:45
Speaker
There's a lot of more details and there's actually some loss and a lot of grief and things that happened in those years. I know I was kind of surmising it, but I just wanted to say that because there is a lot more to our story that's pretty fantastic.
Loss, Resilience, and Personal Challenges
00:08:01
Speaker
But in terms of God's gratitude and giving and my story, yes. I lost both my parents when I was little. My mother, sadly, tragically, to a jealous boyfriend.
00:08:14
Speaker
who took her life, killed her, and my father to suicide. So without diminishing my story or anyone else's story, I just like to say that especially having listened to some of your other guests on your podcast, I know that to a large degree, we all have our stories.
00:08:38
Speaker
We all suffer some type of grief in our life and it's just part of it. When somebody says, oh, oh, you've had a sad life. I'd like to say, no, no, no, I've had a life. I guess it would be who defines what our life is supposed to be because so many of us, maybe if you're fortunate and you don't suffer any grief, that's a little different and you're just fortunate. So yes, so I moved around a lot when I was little from
00:09:06
Speaker
grandparents, two aunts and uncles, there were three of us kids. It became a little difficult for family even to take on three kids. That's what I was going to ask. Did they keep you guys together? Did they try to keep you guys together as you were moving? We did. At first we stayed together, but then we were separated for those reasons, I know.
00:09:27
Speaker
It was hard, and I mention this in my book that I do ache for that part of my lost childhood with my siblings on top of it because we were separated. Each of us in that went through our own different types of sufferings on that side of it, too. Yeah, we were separated. It was really rough. One of the things I'm the most proud of in terms of what I've been able to accomplish in my life is that
00:09:57
Speaker
I very organically found my way to living
Faith, Silence, and Meditation
00:10:01
Speaker
out my dream and what it is that I, who I authentically am. I know that there are people I've spoken to who tried their entire lives or not even known what they were meant to do or unsure about it in their life or have regret about not getting there. So I feel very, very blessed to have recognized early on that lyric and melody was something that I just heard.
00:10:27
Speaker
And so how all of this wraps into my book was that along the way, there was a lot of suffering and there was a lot of discovery. There was a lot of anxiety. There was depression. And even when I uprooted and moved to Nashville, you know, I had doubts and there were moments where I was like, oh my gosh, you know, this is harder than I thought. Or am I really cut out to do this? You know, all those doubtful things that enter into your mind, no matter what you're attempting to do, if it's scary.
00:10:55
Speaker
And so one of the things that was always important to me was my faith. And if there was one thing I was a little nervous about being completely transparent with this book was the word God. You know, I thought, well, you know, I want to be as authentic as possible as how this happened and why these three words, but
00:11:13
Speaker
I thought, well, people are really going to come for me, you know, with that word God. But so I quickly explained to people, and this is just the truth. For me, where I connect with God is in silence and where I sense that oneness and that
00:11:29
Speaker
where I can sort a lot of things out is for me in silence. And so for that reason, I focus a lot in chapter one, God, on silence and what that means to me and how I got there. And a lot of people can interpret that as meditation or for me, I talk about, you know, just being still not using music or anything to get me there. Although if that's what, you know, other people do, that's fine. I've done sound therapy in the past, but
00:11:56
Speaker
For me, it's just finding that place of being still.
Transformation Through Gratitude and Giving
00:11:59
Speaker
And that can be a process. It took me a long time before I can try to even quiet my inner dialogue or not be distracted by the sounds outside or suddenly get quiet and remember, ooh, I remember something you had to do and want to jump up and write it down. So it's a process and I talk about that. But the most important thing is when you can get there, it's a very healing place. It's a place where things that
00:12:25
Speaker
maybe didn't seem clear, suddenly become clear. And I talk about those things that you committed to when your inner being was saying, absolutely not, there's no time for that. So I get a lot of clarity in silence and my time with God. I do that daily and I also, the gratitude and the giving. So these two things, the essence and the message of my book is essentially not just talking about these three words, but how I incorporated them
00:12:55
Speaker
daily. So back then, when I began to incorporate those three things daily and what they meant to me, I was able to over a period of time move myself out of depression, anxiety, fear into a place of so much manifestation, so much joy, so much living, so much good energy that I knew eventually when the time was right, I wanted to share that with people. And I can't say 100% that I
00:13:24
Speaker
I guess I did choose this time, but it also happened to line up with a time where there's just so much going on in our world. And so what I hope is that, you know, my book is just a pause for people or a reminder of things that maybe, you know, for years people have talked about gratitude, but have we really soaked it into the point that we understand the magnitude of what being grateful does?
00:13:50
Speaker
And so I hope that people will just be like, oh, another book about gratitude, but yet maybe this would be the time that something would really click and they would really understand what shift can change in your life when you focus on being grateful in combination with the other things.
00:14:09
Speaker
and then with giving with that part. So God, gratitude and giving. So you mentioned then silence is how you connect with God and be that that is one of your things with gratitude, then just give us just a snippet at what your gratitude practice looks like.
The Power of Gratitude
00:14:24
Speaker
Sure. So a few years into my move to Nashville, things got really, really tough for me.
00:14:31
Speaker
And I had before I moved to Nashville, I would do anything. So Nashville is the music city Mecca and I was living in Florida and I was trying to immerse myself into music any way that I could, whether that was singing at the local fairs or writing music on my own, and I would do some.
00:14:49
Speaker
writing for public television, stuff like that. I was also on my worship team at my church in Florida, which was a non-denominational church. I was very comfortable there and I sang on my worship team. And for me, I wanted to be as close to the music as possible. And so I loved that space and time in my life when I was on my worship team and I could feel like I could be a part of music before I actually moved to Tennessee and could do it more.
00:15:15
Speaker
full time in that type of situation. But when I got to Tennessee, I didn't really know too many people. I had cultivated some relationships, but truly it was all just new to me. And so I didn't have a home church or a space or a place that I felt like I could
00:15:30
Speaker
get that part of my soul fulfilled. But what I did do is something I had always done, which is my quiet time, my silence, my meditation with God. So I just started diving into that a little bit more often since I didn't have a church and I wasn't in that type of situation. So one day when I was in my meditation,
00:15:50
Speaker
These three words were laid on my heart and the funny thing about it was I knew instantly the message of these three words on my heart it kind of came to me in the way that music does and I talk about this a lot when I'm talking about music is that I feel like I've always been a conduit because I would just hear lyric and melody and I always reference looking up because I felt like it would come up and come down through me and
00:16:11
Speaker
But I would always hear melodies and music. And so when these words were laid on my heart, that was not as much a surprise to me. But I knew it was different. And I actually knew the message of those three words were that I would focus on God, gratitude and giving daily.
00:16:28
Speaker
that ultimately I would get rid of most of the fear and anxiety that I simply filled my days at that time. I knew that the God part for me was my silence and my meditation because that's where it came to me. And gratitude was something that I had
00:16:45
Speaker
I think I had incorporated that in my life at that time, but not to the point that I learned to. I'm glad you asked me about that because I'm really excited to talk about that. I go into it in my book, but I'm very excited to share that here with you and your listeners. Giving. At the time, it was funny because I remember zeroing in on the word giving because I remember initially thinking, oh gosh, of all things.
00:17:12
Speaker
flat broke, I'm struggling right now, so how am I going to give every single day? But it was just such a neat process because very quickly, just like with gratitude, I realized that there were so many ways to give. Some of it, yes, were monetary, but other things were not. And so you would be amazed. So let's go to the gratitude.
00:17:38
Speaker
So most of the time, you know, when, when we think about gratitude, we think of kind of like the obvious things, right? I'm grateful for my home and I'm grateful for my husband and I'm grateful for my kids and blah, blah. But what gets really good and really gets your mind busy and almost you can't, I mean, whether you initially start out, yeah, writing some things down. I'm to the point now, because it's been so many years that I do go through it in my mind. Then if I feel like journaling, I do. And by the way,
00:18:08
Speaker
I added journal pages in my book for that reason. I know if anyone's like me when you're reading a book, sometimes you read something, you want to retain, you grab a pen, you maybe highlight it, or you write it on the side of the book. I wanted my readers to have a place to jot down some of their own thoughts.
00:18:26
Speaker
as they were reading my book or things that they were grateful for. It may take some practice like everything does, but you get to the point where you start being grateful for the things that you don't necessarily come to the forefront of your mind. For example,
00:18:42
Speaker
I am so grateful for the skill and the technology that we're able to get on Zoom today and we're able to communicate and I'm super grateful that, you know, we didn't have a power outage or a Wi-Fi problem or a disconnection. I'm grateful when I go to the grocery store for the girl or the guy that got up that day and decided to come into work to just make it possible for me to be able to go through the checkout line. And so, you know, I am grateful for
00:19:12
Speaker
My toothbrush, I am grateful for the recipe I discovered yesterday on TikTok that I'm so excited to. You can kind of see that really it's endless. It is endless. And I guess if you are so busy doing that, not only
00:19:32
Speaker
Does this really miraculous thing happen where you are so grateful? We live in this world that it's like an exchange. It really is true. It's like an energy exchange. So the more grateful you are, the more things come into your life to be grateful. And it can absolutely be overwhelming.
Profound Gratitude and Life Shifts
00:19:52
Speaker
And this is a true story, but at one point years ago,
00:19:56
Speaker
when I began practicing the act of gratitude and my life was beginning to really shift. I remember a day where I was just in silence with God and I said, it kind of, it gets me really emotional to even think about this because it was so real where I said, God, slow down because with all the things that you're bringing in my life and you're giving me because I can't catch up, I can't
00:20:23
Speaker
I can't thank you. I'm spending my day saying thank you and being grateful, but I slow down. Really, it was a product of how much gratitude I was having that was bringing more things into my life. There's a place in my book where I say, if we understood the capacity of how being grateful shifts in our life, we would start doing it every day. But I do think there is a certain
00:20:53
Speaker
even myself, like, you know, we see it everywhere we go. We see it in all these little stores, you know, be grateful or things on the wall. But I was hoping that maybe in my book, we would take a look at that word again, a little deeper. How do we stay in that attitude of gratitude in moments of hardship, in moments of those tests? And how do we even see those tests as something that we can be grateful for even in that process of
00:21:24
Speaker
of going through that? I think it's important for us to always remain human and know that there are going to be things that we're going to go through daily and it's going to be difficult. It's not going to be perfection, you know, 24 hours a day in terms of being grateful. I think it's healthy to feel things and to have moments of doubt. I mean, I still do as much as I have this practice down.
00:21:50
Speaker
I still go through things where I have to remind myself, but I think it's really healthy to feel what you're going through and that in itself to say, okay, if in that moment you can't find gratitude for it, no, because we've all lived that we know that later something
00:22:10
Speaker
It will be shown to us. There will be a light or a reason or something that came out of whatever we went through. So there's a lot of trust that goes into that. Because I can tell you right now something horrific happens today. I'm not going to instantly be like, well, I need to find a reason to be grateful. No, I'm going to be in that moment. I'm going to exist in that moment. But I think I'm going to ultimately
00:22:37
Speaker
get back to the practice of because the alternative is what to stay in that grieving place and create more grief or just as and I'll see if I can articulate this as well but you know when we fall down and we scrape our knee over the next couple of days we can visibly see that our knee is beginning to heal right but I think our emotions are like that too I mean
00:23:03
Speaker
When something comes at us, the only difference is we can't physically see. But I think that the way that we're designed is that our emotions are meant to heal also. And so they take time too. So we can't be so hard on ourself to say, well, I read Melissa's book and I know that I should be grateful. Well, you should also be human and you should also feel those things.
Emotions and Gratitude in Healing
00:23:27
Speaker
And maybe it's just an idea of getting back on that course when you can, because that's
00:23:34
Speaker
probably going to be ultimately the healthier approach and it takes practice. We have to remind ourselves that we can choose to how something will affect us. I mean if someone says to you, you know,
00:23:51
Speaker
You're ugly. I know this isn't a weird example, but if someone says, you're ugly. Well, the reality is that we would think most 99% of people would say that's insulting and I should be angry. But the truth of the matter is it's a choice to be offended by that. It's absolutely a choice to be offended. In that moment, if you understand you have a choice, you can just laugh it off and say, well, you know, you're not so cute yourself, you know?
00:24:14
Speaker
So in the reality that words and things, they can affect us, but I think bigger than that is the reminder that we have choices.
00:24:27
Speaker
The part of us being human, like you mentioned before, not being so hard on ourselves, when we do have those emotions and are like, but wait, I should know what to do. I've already been through hardships before. I already know that gratitude, you know, I have this slogan, I created a t-shirt like gratitude flips the switch. When we're in the middle of it, you're not going to be thinking of that right in that moment, right? You're going to be feeling
00:24:50
Speaker
the grief, the sadness, the whatever emotion as you scraped your knee, you know, the pain, and that's okay. But knowing that you have these tools that you've worked through in the process, like if you've already developed a gratitude practice, then as you start healing a little more, and your knee starts creating that scab back again, you could be like, okay, I'm grateful that
00:25:17
Speaker
that it didn't leave that much of a scar where we know where it was or something else that you can come up with. I love that that is your slogan, gratitude flips the switch. It really does. And like other things, I mean, even if I were to make the analogy or the comparison of weight loss, it's difficult, right? Because if you decide, OK, well, I'm going to start eating healthier, it takes.
00:25:44
Speaker
a couple of days or weeks, a couple of weeks for you to really look and for you to notice or see the results and you've lost four or five pounds. So think of it the same way. It takes time. And so maybe sit through the uncomfortableness of what it's like trying to get still because it's just something that we don't, or the uncomfortableness of really don't be embarrassed of like, well, I can't think of all these things to be grateful for. Well, eventually you will.
00:26:13
Speaker
And you'll get really good at it, but just be gentle with yourself in the process. There's times in the past where I would hear something profound and I would think, oh, I really like that. But unless I practiced that a few times, it just remained something profound. I mean, back in the day, they invented flashcards for children because they figured out that they needed to see things more than one time. So that is probably, yes, the bigger point here is that
00:26:40
Speaker
Be kind to yourself and take the time when it gets really good, when you ultimately get good at it. That's when all the excitement that I have in my voice and the things that I talk about in my book and the life that I'm living right now compared to where I was. I mean, I just attribute it all to that.
00:27:03
Speaker
to the God, gratitude and giving.
Innovative Ways to Give
00:27:07
Speaker
Now let's talk about giving. You were mentioning about the part of becoming really creative of how it is we give. That it's not always the aspect of monetary giving, giving of your time, giving of your talents as well. So tell us different ways in which Melissa was creative with the giving. Well, thank you. And so
00:27:29
Speaker
Side note, in the back of my book is my email address because I get so excited about talking about this and the ways that I came up with the creativity and the giving that I want to know when people, if they decide to incorporate these things, I want to hear from them. I want to know in what ways they did. I want them to share their excitement. I want to know about the changes that occurred in their life.
00:27:50
Speaker
My email is in the back of the book because I do want to hear from people, but giving. One of my favorite things to do, and it's kind of funny, I joke about this a lot, is I would love to send, give a silent prayer to a stranger. It didn't have to be someone who visibly was struggling or in a wheelchair or
00:28:11
Speaker
had something physical or visible, I would maybe see someone who was perfectly wonderful reading a book in a park and I would send them a silent prayer and I don't know for whatever reason that was just life energy to me and I enjoyed doing that and I joke a lot about how
00:28:27
Speaker
You have to be careful sometimes not to stare at people because the last thing someone's thinking is that, oh, she must be sending me a prayer right now. But how wonderful is it that to not even know that a perfect stranger you'll just never know saw you and sent you a blessing because I believe energy is real. So first and foremost, you can do things like that. You can smile at people.
00:28:50
Speaker
I think, I mean, I joke in my book too that I'm not the smile police and by no means do you need to smile at everybody, but I do, I do notice lots of opportunities for somebody to smile where we're just caught up in our own space. And I say this in my book too, that I'm not going to go dig up the science behind what happens in our bodies when we smile or we feel good, but I know it's real and I know the scientific evidence is out there.
00:29:19
Speaker
You can simply smile more and you can give people a smile and you don't even know how, you may never know how that one little act was something that maybe they needed in their day. It's just a stranger smiled at them and just for whatever reason gave them a little bit of hope for whatever they're going through. There are obvious ways to give. I mean like you can't solve the problems of the world unless you're just a billionaire and you can do it financially. But I could have a friend that maybe
00:29:49
Speaker
got into a car accident or had some kind of financial hardship and I may not be able to help her out that way. What I can do right from my phone is send her a $10 or $5 or $25 gift card to Starbucks and say, hey, you know, I know things are tough. Go have a few cups of coffee on me. And these days there's a lot of different apps where you can send gifts and I have
00:30:11
Speaker
love it. There's one called Goodies, and I'm using- This is not a paid partnership. This is not a paid partnership. This is not a paid partnership. This is just something she loves. Yeah, this is just something that I love. Starbucks either. They're not paying us to tell them, give them more publicity.
00:30:28
Speaker
No, we're not goodies. Tell us about goodies. Tell us about goodies. Well, I love the goodies app. So if any of you have ever used it, oh gosh, I love this app. Okay. So one of the wonderful things about it is that you can send somebody a gift and there's multiple categories. You could send them birthday anniversary, just wedding, just a whatever, right?
00:30:50
Speaker
And so what they have to do is they have to actually open it on their phone and they make it fun. They make it like, oh, confetti and all that. But they actually can exchange the gift if there's something else that they'd rather have within that same, you know, and I've had people exchange and, you know, say like, Hey, Mel, you know, I've got 10 pairs of ear, ear pods, but what I'd really love is this or, or they just exchange it and I'm not offended at all by it. I'm happy to know that they got something that they wanted.
00:31:18
Speaker
They can exchange it and they can accept it. And the good thing about that is when they accept it, they put in the address they want it to go to so that there's no mistake. I love that actually. I love that. And at that point when they do that, then it bills me on my card. So you actually never kind of get in that, well, I sent you a gift and it never showed up. Oh, bummer.
00:31:41
Speaker
or I darn it, I paid for that and it went to the wrong whatever. So their process makes it to where they get that gift. And they get exactly what they want. But then it gives the option if you want to swap that for something else of that same value that you were going to get, they can.
00:31:58
Speaker
The most common thing can just like, I'll send somebody like homemade, like homemade, but these baked cookies. Yes. And they might be like, Mel, I don't like walnuts, but I just love pecans. And so I got the, and I'll see them exchange that or a different kind of, you know, cake, cake pops or whatever. So they, or sometimes they can just pick the flavor that they want, or, um, sometimes they can pick
00:32:22
Speaker
the flowers that they want or candle scent that they want. They may like, Melissa gifted you this and there's ocean breeze and there's this and they get to actually be interactive and have fun with it. So a lot about that, right, that we went into. And the thing about it is I've had my friends turn around and gift me right back and I'm like, wait a minute. No, I was gifting you something, but it's very sweet.
00:32:49
Speaker
So yeah, there are those ways.
The Gift of Time and Self-Care
00:32:52
Speaker
So then there's the gift, the obvious gift we all know about is our gift of time and giving because for me personally, I personally think in this world today, the thing that I'm most grateful for is the gift of time. You are giving me your time today, Kendra. And there's so many things.
00:33:14
Speaker
people who are listening to your podcast give of their time and I just feel like time is so precious. So whether we are giving of our time to encourage other people or just offer something to them or they are giving of their time to listen or be with us and sit on our side for a moment and engage, I think that is an amazing gift
00:33:36
Speaker
So there's that. There's also the giving to yourself. And I love this so much because when I really, really started doing this, I really talk about that healing process and taking care of ourselves in a way.
00:33:53
Speaker
and being gentle with ourselves. Say today for whatever reason, you know, you hang up and there's something stressful that happens with the family or one of the kids or whatever, you know, we just kind of go through our day and we're just like, oh gosh, and you know, we do that, but something we probably don't stop and think about is replenishing. And the ways that I would find replenish would be as simple as a bubble bath.
00:34:18
Speaker
You know what? I'm gonna close the door for 10 minutes and I'm gonna replenish. I'm gonna give to me. I'm going to take a bubble bath. I'm gonna take 10 or 15 minutes and I'm gonna polish my nails. I'm gonna read for 15 minutes. I'm gonna grab one of my favorite books. Give back to yourself when something has been taken from you during the day. I really can't tell you
00:34:47
Speaker
how powerful that is. And so in the act of giving, we have to remember that a lot of that is giving to ourselves as well. We can be so filled up by giving to other people, but we have to balance that. We have to balance that. So I talk about that in my book as well. So beautiful. When you said that, that gives something to yourself when something has been taken away. That just kind of like,
00:35:14
Speaker
got me those are the times in which maybe we feel like the lowest sometimes right as we're starting to feel drained and drained and drained and it's so easy to keep going down that spiral a spiral you know downhill when something's going not the way we want it to go so giving to ourselves just kind of puts a little bit of fuel onto the fire to kind of keep your
00:35:41
Speaker
Well, yeah, because we might kind of think, we might kind of throw our hands up in there and just kind of resolve in our minds. Oh, today's just been an awful day, but think about that again. That is a choice that we're making. You know what? There are parts of today that kind of sucked, but let's go for a bike ride.
00:36:01
Speaker
Let's do these things. Let's make these decisions. Let's talk about our highs and our lows, but let's not just say, well, it was all low type of thing. Oh, that is a wonderful, wonderful tip. And how you worded it was just perfect as an author would, as an author and a songwriter.
Songwriting as a Healing Tool
00:36:24
Speaker
So let's talk about songwriting. How do you use your stories of your own life
00:36:30
Speaker
And how do they, how does songwriting end up being part of that process of even healing as well? And then how did you create Rent Partners? I've heard many questions. That's okay, that's okay.
00:36:43
Speaker
Well, one of the wonderful things about that I love about being a songwriter is getting in a room with an artist and trying to kind of help them articulate what they want to say and tell a story that's fun and personal but universal to the world. But an added bonus to being a songwriter is being able to come home at the end of the day, sit on my couch and maybe just kind of
00:37:05
Speaker
sort out something that I've been going through for myself personally, whether it ever sees the light of day out there to the world or I end up sharing it at a show. Because there's a difference between being a performing songwriter as I am and being an artist. An artist is someone that goes out and wants to perform in front of 30,000 people, whereas a performing songwriter
00:37:30
Speaker
is someone who wants to be part of those songs that that artist cuts and puts out to the world but also is able to share her own, their own, he or she's own music along with those songs in a different setting or situation.
00:37:48
Speaker
And Nashville is perfect for that. There are shows every night of the week. I imagine in Vegas, there's a slot machine in every bathroom there in Nashville. There's a show in every hotel and every venue, and it's filled with stories and songs and sharing those moments. And so it is fascinating. If you've ever been to Nashville, then you know, and you've been to these music rooms.
00:38:12
Speaker
You get to hear songs and stories that you may never hear on the radio. But at the same time with today's technology, the way it is today in having streaming outlets and YouTube and Facebook and TikTok and the ability to be expressive, more and more songwriters are getting songs out there that you would otherwise never get to hear. So I love that process so much. And so I'm just like everyone else, you know, I could have something happen.
00:38:39
Speaker
in my life and I want to talk about it or I might reflect on something that happened in earlier years and I'm just ready for that song to tell that story now. That's the thing about songs is, I had a friend the other day was talking about getting her first number one on a song she wrote nine years ago. So what does that mean? That means she had a number one song nine years ago that nobody knew about. So songs just like everything else in life, they just have their way of finding
00:39:06
Speaker
there are times sometimes they're a little premature sometimes they come along you know where you're like yeah that would have worked really well in the early 2000s but now it's just an exercise okay file it in the list of all the songs but nine times out of ten
00:39:21
Speaker
When I share songs in situations like in Nashville at the Listening Room Cafe or the Bluebird Cafe, wherever I'm at, and there's people in the audience, nine times out of 10, somebody will come up to me and say, oh gosh, you know, I went through that. And they want to tell me their story. And I love that because that's the validation that
00:39:39
Speaker
the things that I'm writing about are universal or that we've all gone through them and that's the power of music and so I knew that once I finally got out to Nashville that I wanted that music was going to be my thing and I knew that this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life so I was trying to figure out how do I create a space where
Founding Rhyme Partners: Success in Music
00:39:58
Speaker
It's up to me and nobody can hire me or tell me, you know, I have to go home or a lot of what I'm doing is riding on someone else. And so I decided to create Rhyme Partners Music Publishing. And honestly, it's been a journey.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's been tough, but it's been worth it. I learned a lot. There are a lot of things that I just dove into in owning a publishing company that I was clueless about, and at times I had to work backwards with my little company. But here I am today, still valid, still thriving more than ever, and knowing that
00:40:33
Speaker
I get to do music as long as I want to so I created a music publishing company where we have catalogs of songs that we have written over the years until we have a lot of them and you know we pitched them to various things and we've had success with brands and writing commercial radio jingles and we've had success
00:40:53
Speaker
with some of our songs being on Netflix and TV and film. We've had songs cut by indie artists, by major artists. We've worked with, you name it, we've had hundreds of cuts and it's really neat. But I also expanded into working with artists. All of this experience and relationship and connections under my belt, I can now help them get to the next place in their career.
00:41:18
Speaker
we do artist development as well. So we just stay busy. It's a lot of fun. Wow. And it's almost been 10 years since you launched it. 2013? Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah. So that's hard to believe that it's been that long, but yes, Rhyme Partners is almost 10 years old. 10 years old? Yeah. That's wonderful. And then the part of it also then helping coaching pretty much an artist and guiding them through the next steps.
00:41:45
Speaker
Wonderful, especially because you, as you said, you started, quote unquote, late, later, right? When you moved to Nashville, which is really not, right? But we have these, you should have already made it by this age or whatever. You have your own journey that you've already taken, so why not pay it forward and help somebody else that's also in that journey and definitely a way of giving.
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah, and I say that with every new song I write, I grow into myself and I don't expect that to ever change. I'm continuing to grow as a writer and still get very excited about my songs and their placements and my company and the success that we have and branching into writing these books now and being part of that and being able to
00:42:32
Speaker
speak and show up and do things is all part of just the expansion, which is really, really neat. So in that, the relationships that I've cultivated and the things that I've learned, if I can cut five years off of that process for you, well, then that's beneficial, right? You mentioned books because you've been on other books.
Involvement in Book Projects and Inspirational Work
00:42:53
Speaker
This is one of the books you've written is God Gratitude and Giving, but you've written chapters and some other books as well. Do you want to mention those?
00:43:00
Speaker
That's either Cinderella, Cinderella want, what is it called again? Cinderella monologues that will come out. That'll come out later in the fall. But I actually, I'm actually a part of a really exciting project right now that I partnered on with Dr. Sarah Allen. She's a neuropsychologist. So she's a brain gal. We partnered on a book called The Musical Imprint. And that's actually coming out in September. That's actually will be released on September 13.
00:43:27
Speaker
And we have 22 authors along with the two of us in this book. And each author wrote a chapter and basically the essence of the musical imprint is that each chapter is about a song that marked a moment in someone's life. Every time they hear that song, they go right back to that time, right back to that memory. Because we really wanted to, there's lots of books out there on the effects of music on the brain, but we actually wanted to share these stories.
00:43:57
Speaker
And so the book is incredible. Some of the stories and some of the songs, you will recognize some of these songs as timeless songs that we all know. And some of them you may not know, but you'll be very intrigued by the story and want to go listen to the song. So that has been a labor of love and that has been a process, but we're so excited about that. It's called the Musical Imprint.
00:44:21
Speaker
And it's myself and Dr. Sarah Allen. And that comes out on September 13th. So I have that coming out. And then later in the fall, I have a chapter I contributed to the Cinderella monologues and my chapter as we were 12. And that's all about myself and my husband. So I'm really excited about that, that I finally get to tell that story. Our love story. I get to tell it there. But backing all the way up
00:44:46
Speaker
A couple of years ago, I was a part of Everyday Woman's Guide to Doing What You Love, and then Everyday Woman's Guide to Success in Your Business, and I contributed chapters. I found that to be highly beneficial as my introduction into the whole book world. It kind of got my feet wet. I was a part of something. I wasn't at the helm of it, so that was kind of refreshing. I really
00:45:11
Speaker
Say to anybody who is thinking about wanting to get into authorship At some point that if you have an opportunity to be part of an anthology It is a great way to kind of tiptoe into the book world So yes those and everything's available on my website You can get autographed copies from me. You just order it from my website or on Amazon and then the
00:45:38
Speaker
musical imprint and the Cinderella monologues. That'll all be out soon.
00:45:43
Speaker
And those will also be available on your website as well when they come out. So your website will be linked in the bio below so that people can read and go straight to your website to order and more proceeds will go to you that way. And you get an autographed copy. So that is wonderful.
Inspiring Others and Reaching Out for Support
00:46:04
Speaker
Anything you want to share with the listeners before we close off? Anything I did not ask? I think you were.
00:46:13
Speaker
think you were wonderful and asked a lot of questions. So I really can't think of anything that we didn't touch on. I would say to your listeners that anybody who's there, you can contact me on my website. There's my email address or just rhymepartners at gmail.com.
00:46:32
Speaker
One of the things that on top of creating music and being creative and expressing myself is just I love to be encouraging because from where I've come from to where I am, I know what's possible. I remember one time in prayer with God saying I had been talking to a young lady who had been struggling.
00:46:51
Speaker
And I was trying to encourage her about how she could really accomplish her dreams. And I remember later going into prayer saying, gosh, I never want to give any type of false hope to anybody. And I remember him laying on my heart right on that moment that you only give the tiniest smidgen of what I can do. So you never have to worry that you're giving too much encouragement or hope.
00:47:20
Speaker
I received that I was like, Oh yeah, there's a great big world out there. So it was kind of like a little, uh, giggle on my side. He, it was like, as if God laughs at somebody, he's kind of laughing going, I got you. You don't have to worry about, so say all that to say, I love to encourage. So reach out, encourage you any way that I can.
00:47:42
Speaker
Well, just even with this podcast, the beautiful nuggets that you gave were encouraging for people that are going through hard times, as well as for artists as well, hearing your story. So thank you once again, Melissa, for sharing of your time, for giving up your time as well. Thank you so much. Thank you.
00:48:06
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:48:34
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.