Why Your Mindset Is Blocking You From Getting Unstuck (with Melanie Cox)

What if the only thing standing between you and freedom is the story you keep telling yourself? My guest this week, Melanie Cox — CEO of EMC Property, founder of Blue Oak Rescue, and Amazon #1 bestselling author of You Have to Know — spent over a year in bed, convinced she wasn't enough. Today she leads a real estate business spanning 4,000+ acres, veteran housing, and multifamily development, and she's been married 31 years. 

If you feel stuck in your leadership or your own head, this conversation will help you get unstuck. Melanie shares the daily choice that moved her from depression to unstoppable, the delegation approach that lets her work half the hours she used to, and the boundary she holds when integrity and profit collide.

Connect with Melanie at MelanieCox.org, or find her on Instagram as It's Melanie Cox. DM her the word "book" and she'll send you a free digital copy of You Have to Know.

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I want to invite you to check out the Committed Mastermind, a community I help lead along with world-class leaders like JC and Karen Hite, Vinnie Fisher, and Jonathan Mast, plus incredible mentors like Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, and many others.

This is for entrepreneurs who want to build a thriving business without sacrificing their faith, their family, or their health.

Check out the Committed Mastermind at https://committedmastermind.com/

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Melanie Cox

Dr. William Attaway 1:21

It is an honor today to have Melanie Cox on the podcast. Melanie is the CEO of EMC Property and the founder of Blue Oak Rescue, as well as the author of the Amazon number one bestselling book, You Have to Know. She's been married for 31 years and is the proud mother of five. Her passion is helping people shift from feeling stuck to living with freedom and a positive mindset. She believes true leadership comes from leading by example, trusting the people you put in place, and teaching them how to grow into their full potential. Melanie, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Well, thank you for having me.

Intro 2:06

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author, and leadership and executive coach, Dr. William Attaway.

Learning Leadership By Flipping A House

Dr. William Attaway 2:23

I'd love to start with your story, Melanie. I'd love for you to share a little bit of your story, particularly about your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Um, so you know the stuff that looks like popcorn ceiling on your ceiling? Yeah, sure. My dad, my father invented that. And um goodness. Wow. Yeah. And when I was early 20, he said, Melanie, I'm gonna give you a little bit about a little bit of money. Not it, not enough to, not enough to start your life, but enough to help you just a little. And he said, But I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna give you that's valuable. I'm gonna teach you. And that is gonna be the value of your life. Um, so I said, Okay, dad, well, what I want to do is is I worked really hard. I was a waitress and I went to college and I saved up just enough money um to barely put a down payment on a house. And I said, Dad, I I feel like I could flip it. I I love it. And um, and so I did. And he just sat there and just let me make so many mistakes. And I'd come in and he'd be like, You should have done it this way. Boy, I really would have done that. I wouldn't hire it. And at the end, I couldn't afford anything. So I'm the one who was laying the tile floors. And then I put in the cabinets and I learned how to dry well. And he would just sit back with a whiskey and he'd be like, you know, I'm gonna you got to use a different blade, Melanie. That's not gonna work that way. And, you know, and I had to scrape down the wall and redo it. And man, it took us about a year to flip that house and it was barely profitable. I was newly married, my husband and I, but it was a good learning lesson. It was it was a learning lesson on you can do anything you can put your mind to. Don't expect someone to do something else for you. And there is no dream that is too big that you can't realize if you're willing to put the work into it.

Dr. William Attaway 3:57

Hmm, I love that. That's so good. Where then? Where did you go then?

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Um, so then my husband and I just started developing. And I and I had learned the skill and I had gotten better. I am going to tell you, I can lay a tile floor better than almost anyone in the United States of America. I am so, so, so I I'm actually successful now. And uh, we have a ranch and we have 4,000 acres in Santa Barbara and we rescue all like just an crazy, you know, uh, we had a camel for a while and circus donkeys and a wolf, and you know, if you're gonna kill it, I want it. And um they were doing the floor, and I was sitting there and it was off. And I'm like, but you know, but you're you're starting it wrong. And he's like, No, no, it's good. Thank you. That's good. Yeah, yeah, but if but if you would move it over just like a court, but you're space or I'm sorry, you know, I'm gonna, and I and they were actually sitting eating lunch. If why I'm like, can I gotta start the floor? I'm so sorry. And they just kept sitting there and they're like, they're like, okay, but are you paying us? And I'm like, yeah, just enjoy your lunch and I'm gonna show you. And then I ended up spending about two hours being let me like that, like you've got to start in this corner for your lines to map out. You know, we ended up being best friends.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Yeah. But we develop and and now we do um, we're actually we're large now. We do um uh one of my favorite that I'm the most proud of is we rehab homes and build veteran homes for veterans who don't have a space. And I love that. Yeah, and that's that's kind of nonprofit for us and college housings and you know, uh a casino in Vegas and lots of multifamily. So we develop big now, but you know, I love it. I'm passionate about it.

Dr. William Attaway 5:39

You

Balancing Business Marriage And Five Kids

Dr. William Attaway 5:39

know, you have done all of this while writing a book, while being married for 31 years, happily, while raising five kids. That's a bit of a juggling act to balance all of those things. Well, when I work with entrepreneurs, that's one of the most difficult parts for them is learning how to not steal from their marriage to fuel their business, and then at the end losing their marriage or you know, stealing from their kids. And I'm thinking time and energy and focus. How did you balance as you were building and growing this business?

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Can I give you an answer that everyone's gonna hate me for? And it's so incredibly counter-culture in today's culture. Yeah. I give very little for myself, but I have trained my mind and I find true happiness in the joy of others. And sometimes we get raised where it's like, I need me time and I need to be recognized and I need to get away. And you build this mindset that's really very selfish. And ultimately I find those people end up being the most unhappy because they're not getting enough of the me time. They're not getting enough of the focus on themselves. But if you can switch your mindset to be like, oh, how lucky am I that I get to raise five amazing kids? And some of my kids are grown, and you know, they still come for dinner three times a week. And mommy makes a big dinner for them. And we're in a group chat where we text 10, 15 times a day. I've got seven texts from grown children with funny jokes or stupid things, or you know, one said, Look at this frog I found in my backyard. You develop this culture where you start to find joy and it starts to come back. The love and the truth and and how family and community should be is when you give to others, it's actually your happiness. It's I give to my husband. It's not, I want your day off. It's like, ah, Eric, I love you. Can I just sit with you for five minutes and can I just hold your hand? And can I get you a cup of coffee and can we just go over our day? It's not, I'm so tired, work was so overwhelming, I just need a minute. It's like, oh, I don't even need 10 seconds. And when you start loving and pouring into other people, you balance your time well because the time that you take for yourself is the one that really land blasts you. So you have to change your mindset to find joy in the things you're doing, and then you have time for everything because everything's amazing. It's it's all your best day. It's your mindset.

Depression Recovery Through Daily Gratitude

Dr. William Attaway 8:08

Have you always been like this? Was this always your perspective?

SPEAKER_03 8:13

No. I um I spent a year in bed depressed in college, and my hair was so mad and my husband had to cut it away. And I refused to get out of that bed. You know, I've got the childhood that everyone else does. My mom was uh, I don't want to say insane, but she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And so I just wanted babies. I wanted babies when I grew up. And I was told I couldn't have them. So I put myself to bed for a little over a year, and every day my husband would come and pick me up out of the bed and put my put my little face in the sun. He'd say, Oh, if only you would feel the sun today and know that God loves you and you'll always be enough for me. And I couldn't rectify, I'm like, I'm not enough for anyone. I I can't have kids, Eric. And this went on for about a year. And then one day I woke up and I just started praying. And I'm like, God, if you're real, will you show me something? If you're real, if this whole thing is real, will you give me one thing? And I don't know if you've ever played Bible roulette, but I I flipped through the Bible and I just put my finger on it and it said, night has been long, but morning is coming. And I just started weeping, going, wait a second, you're real, this is real, and I've got to get out of bed. And then I just started saying, and Eric's like, what is one thing you're thankful for today? And I'm like, Well, I'm thankful for you. You married a lunatic that lays in bed for a year. I'm real thankful, real thankful for you. That's a fact. And and I looked down, and that fat dog hadn't moved in two years and a little over a year. And I'm like, Well, I'm thankful for the fat dog. I don't, I don't know who's feeding that one, but he's here. And then I just started grasping for things to be thankful for. And when depression and being overwhelmed set in, I would completely change my mindset and be like, okay, but what do I give gratitude today for? And and as I started practicing that and finding more things, I'm grateful that I can have food. I'm grateful for my garden. I'm grateful for that, I'm grateful for this. And it started to shift my mindset. And I realized that as I focused my mind into positivity, my mind be my life became positive. My life, it's if I could think of something to be grateful for, that was a good day. And then I realized that, oh my gosh, every day is a good day because I choose it to be.

Dr. William Attaway 10:17

You know, that shift from where you were to where you are now is so dramatic and so impressive. And I think focusing on your wins, focusing what it is that you have to be thankful for and grateful for, that is such a simple practice. It's one that I teach clients all the time because I think it's so, so important for us to understand where we're winning. It's not hard to figure out where we're swinging and missing. Okay, anybody can do that. That's not a spiritual gift. Okay, everybody can do that. But focusing on what's going right is so, so important. And I love that you brought that up. I think that's so powerful.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

Even in the small. Sometimes it's like, well, nothing's going right. I hate my job. Thankful that I got a job. Thankful that I got a paycheck. Yes. You know? Oh. And if you could think of one positive thing about your spouse, one positive thing about the kid that's gone astray, one positive thing about your boss, your coworker, you you start to see life differently. But you know, you it's it's your choice. Every day we make choices and we don't realize that. But it's a choice that you have to wake up and consciously make every day.

Marriage Words That Wound Or Heal

Dr. William Attaway 11:27

Yes, that is so true. So as you're as you're looking now at 31 years of marriage, is there one thing that you can point to that you can say, hey, you know, even in the midst of the entrepreneurial journey, even in the midst of the difficulty that is parenting, there's one thing that was kind of the secret sauce to go in the distance with the marriage. Is there anything that you would point to like that?

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Well, I married a man who's better than I am, to be quite honest.

Dr. William Attaway 12:01

Well, that's good.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

Marry a good man. You know, I I wish this was mine, um, but this is really Eric's. And and man, I learned a lot from this. Eric and I, when we were very first married, we were moving, and uh, and he made me so bad. And I remember looking at him and I said, You are such an a-hole, Eric, and I am so sad I ever married you. And I was just, I was, you know, sometimes we, it was just, I was in my first year marriage, I was so angry with him. And I will never forget that he stopped in the middle of the biggest fight we've ever had in our marriage in 31 years. And he turned to me and he said, Melanie, I adore you. You are the most beautiful woman in the world. And he said, And I am so proud you are my wife. And he said, I am frustrated, but not to you. And the one thing it showed me that Eric and I do really, really well at is you could say a thousand nice things. You're amazing, you're beautiful, I love you, you're so funny. But the second you say one thing that hits home that's that's true, that really goes to the heart, that's very hard to get over. And we are very loose with our words, where we, you know, you're you're a bad dad, you're horrible, you're, you know, you're lazy, you're this. And it's very hard for someone to get over those. And they become arrows in our spirit that start to grow root. So you need to be very mindful about what you say to your spouse. And you never personally attack them. Don't don't attack who they are, the marriage, their role as a husband, as a father, as a as a provider. You you I'm doing we do very well at being angry situationally. You know, Eric, I'm really frustrated you didn't get that done. Really frustrated you didn't make that phone call, really frustrated that contract wasn't put in. And you you have to start training your verbiage to be frustrated at things because you personally attack someone, man, those are wounds that are not easily, that are not easy to get over. And then I don't know if you've ever revisited a fight when you said something a wound, and then the person almost always goes back to, well, yeah, because you think I'm an a-hole. You could have said something six months ago, and they will re-bring that back into the fight because the truth is, is it's a wall that's still there. It's a wound that doesn't go away. Watch your words.

Dr. William Attaway 14:06

Oh, that's so good. My wife and I'll celebrate 29 years later this year. Swear. Not too far behind you guys. But I would I would echo everything you just said.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 14:17

You know, the words that you speak have such power, and they last so much longer than you think they will. And the ripples from the words go so much farther than you ever expected them to. I think that's such great advice. I love that you said that.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Yeah. And I think you give power to the universe. I am a huge, you know, I'm a religious woman. So I always tell my kids, I say, the devil can't hear your thoughts, but he knows your words. Be careful what you give him. And there are so many studies with our mind shift, the super highways to our mind, um, energies that we put off. Your words are so much more powerful than you think. You will never hear me say, uh, I'm depressed. I'm feeling depressed. I'm feeling sad. I am not depressed. Every job I go into, you know, I can't see a way. I'm so excited that job's gonna come to fruition. I know that there's a way. God, I know that you're gonna bring it back. Something good's gonna happen. I never put negativity and negative words out there. Ever, ever, ever negative. Never. I don't give power to them. I don't allow them in my home.

Faith Led Decisions And Walking Away

Dr. William Attaway 15:23

So as a person of faith, you know, and also a leader in your business, how do you how do you balance those two things? Because I notice sometimes with entrepreneurs, they they're they're people of faith, but they feel like they have to kind of wall that off from their leadership in their business. They have to wall that off from their clients. How do you balance that?

SPEAKER_03 15:46

I don't. I don't. I do that poorly. I don't. I am I am um, man, I have lost some deals and I've looked back at them and I'm like, oh my gosh, God, you save that. I I tell people straight up, I'm like, look, uh, I've God's my CEO. And if and if my boss says no, it's a no for me. I have walked away from deals, from people that in my spirit it doesn't resonate. I am uh, I will say that I have never really had a project go poorly. And and I have had projects that in the world, I will tell you that I had a project once um, and and we were set to make millions on it. It was so lucrative, it blew my mind. I worked seven months on this project and I'm like, it's so good. It was this decrepit house that that they had lost to the bank on the on the cliff of an ocean, and it was millions undervalued. So we get in and I'm like 15 days, I have the last day to get out of it. And I know that God said, Don't do it. And I'm like, what do you mean, God? I worked really hard on it. This is a great project. God said, Don't, don't do it. So I had to call. I said, I'm sorry I have to pull out of escrow. And everyone was beside themselves. And I said, I know this is crazy, but I prayed about it and I know it's a no from God, and I honor my CEO. If it's not for me, it's not for me. I don't care how much money I'm walking away from, this is not for me. And a month later, she calls me. The neighbor's sprinkler had broken. They were in Europe, the pipe, the water pipe broke, the whole hillside fell into the ocean, and now that needed a $5 million seawall that the Coastal Commission would not give them. So they're the house, maybe five years later, is still condemned.

Dr. William Attaway 17:19

My goodness.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

So I'm not sure.

Dr. William Attaway 17:21

And that would have been your mess. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Yeah, I'm bold in my faith because I think that, you know, if if you believe, then you believe. And and if it's even if it looks good in the world, it just

Writing For Her Kids Through Cancer

SPEAKER_03 18:47

may not be good. And maybe sometimes I've walked away from great opportunities or people who just don't want to work with me. And that's okay. Because something better always comes my way. You know, I don't back away from my faith because I think my faith makes me. If you don't want to work with me, I get it. You know, someone better will come. They always do. You can't compromise your life. Even if you are not a person of faith, may I suggest you cannot live in compromise because when you live in compromise, you will never be living in purpose nor the fulfillment of who you are meant to be. There will always be an ugliness that you rest when you go to bed. Live in the trueness of who you are and who you were created to be. Because you live in someone else's shadow, then you never feel the sun on your face.

Dr. William Attaway 19:36

Well said. Well said. You know, when when you think about the the things that we go through in our lives, uh I often say that that there's no such thing as a wasted experience.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 19:50

That every experience in our lives is either for our benefit eventually or for the benefit of the people around us, if we are a conduit and share those lessons with the people around us. You have written a book called You Have to Know about your experiences. I'd love for you to share a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Yeah, I I didn't write a book. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and I thought I was dying. So I wrote a journal and a love letter to my children to be like, look, mom's not here, but you gotta know. You've got to know if you are in lack that this is how you get out of it. You've got to know that little girls, the world's always gonna tell you not enough. You're not pretty enough, you're not smart enough, you're not strong enough. I am in a development business. I'm a woman in that field. I will never be enough in that field. But you have to see yourself differently through your dad's eyes. And then I would tell a story and then I would do a biblical verse with it, or maybe it was just truths that I wanted them to know. But the one thing that I know is you have two choices. And man, if this were a self-help and a different podcast, I would be like, oh, I'm gonna tell you what happened. Let me give you the first six things in my life. And you would be like, no way that you are standing. Your fires can either refine you or they can burn you. The choice is yours. You can either go through a fire and then you spend your whole life looking back and saying, Oh, but I was so burnt. It was so hot and I didn't have water. And now look at me, I'm scarred. Or you walk through your fires and you say, all of those imperfections, everything that I didn't want in me, they're gone. I am pure. You have to see yourself going through them. And the book was I knew the kids were going to go through fires, but I wanted them to walk through pure. I'm strong. There is no fire that I have ever been through that has not weaponized me. If you sit there and I have spoken to more people who say, you just wouldn't understand. And I'm like, why don't you try me? You know, try me. Spent my whole life trying to keep my mom from committing suicide. You had a bad childhood. Boy, I can let me explain. Your mom, I'm gonna go kill myself, and you gotta stop her from eight years old. You know, I'm depressed. Yep, tried to commit suicide, was in the same net house as my mom when I was in eighth grade. Yep, try me, try me, try me. I am pure, I am weaponized, I am happy, I am whole, I am functioning, and I am successful. Do not let your past define you. And the book was about that. It's like, kids, I don't care what you go through, it does not define you. That your your trials, your fires do not define you. You define yourself, and it's a choice. I am a huge believer. Like your life is a choice.

Dr. William Attaway 22:27

Well, I often say you get to choose.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Yeah, you do. It's a true saying.

Dr. William Attaway 22:32

Yeah, yeah. You get to choose. You know, people when they when they operate from a victim mentality, a victim mindset, then they are abdicating one of the most powerful gifts I believe God gives us, which is the ability to choose.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Absolutely.

Dr. William Attaway 22:46

Right? I'm gonna get up every day and I'm going to choose the focus. I'm gonna choose what I'm going to focus on. And it begins with gratitude. It begins with what are the wins I can celebrate.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

And I am telling you, it's a happy life. Some people think it sounds so hard. Do you know that you know the definition of being stuck? I love this. The actual definition of being stuck is an inability to move. That is the definition. The second that you take one step forward, the smallest step, an inch, a shuffle, a movement of a toe, you are no longer stuck. So you do not need this big full life plan in order to move and to get out of your situation. You simply just need to start walking. Find a thing to be grateful for, a thing to be happy for, one positive movement. Little by little by little, and I promise you, you start walking little by little by little, you can be five states away in a year.

Dr. William Attaway 23:44

And this is what you help people do. You help them get unstuck.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Yeah, you gotta move. You've you just you gotta move get up, move, walk, get out of bed.

Dr. William Attaway 23:54

So let me ask you this. You know, you have to lead at a higher level today, Melanie, than you did five years ago. And that same thing is gonna be true five years from now. You know, your your your family, your husband, your your clients, everybody that you serve, right, they're going to need more from you. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that the people around you who count on you are going to need you to have in the years to come?

SPEAKER_03 24:25

I think people's biggest mistakes is you're unwilling to lift other people up. And I don't know why, but we we tend to be in a field or a business and we want the accolades and the recognition, and I did this and I'm so Great and look at me with my big briefcase and my fancy car. And you can have all those. But you have to be able to lift people up to be able to mentor them, to teach them, to pour into them, because then they could do a better or a greater job than you can. And we want to keep our things for ourselves, either because we're control freaks or because it's it's ours. But I do a really good job in finding people and seeing their skills and being like, ah, do you know what you're really great at? You know what you're fantastic. You know, we run a ranch and it's 4,006 square miles. It's it's big. And uh man, I have a ranch hand that speaks almost zero

Leadership That Levels Others Up

SPEAKER_03 25:19

English. We I think we uh we communicate with like odd hand signals and funny grunts and you know picture drawings, but he has a heart of gold. And I can see that he really resonates, especially with animals. So I had a translator come one day and I and and I spoke life into he fails at a lot of things, but it wasn't like you fail at the sprinklers, you can't do this, you can't do that. And I brought a translator. I said, Do you know what you are fantastic about? You have a real heart for these animals. You have such a love and a you see things that I probably wouldn't see that are going wrong. I honor that in you. Oh, I honor that in you. Now, can I tweak you and can we do this? And I still put daily chores that he's not doing well, like you're not cleaning the animal traughs, you know, you're not doing the cleaning portion. But because I built him up on his love for the animals, he wants to do a good job in the areas that he doesn't necessarily love. You know? Oh, they need this clean water and you love them so much, and I can see you care for them. This is so unhealthy for them. If you would clean this and really muck this out, oh boy, that would be so much healthier for these ducks and these geese and these turkeys that you love and care for so much. And then I went, man, every time I got there, it is spot, it is spotless because he's he ha he takes pride in it. You have to give them a sense of pride. Oh yes, I take great care of the animals. Well, really, I just got you to muck out every water trough that you never wanted to muck out. You know what I'm saying?

Dr. William Attaway 26:50

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's so good.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

You you build them up, and and I don't want to say you trick them because that's not a good word, but you pour life into what you see that is good in them. Like strengthen what they're already. Everyone has things that they're strong at.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

And then eventually they get to do everything that I do. I I go to work half the time I used to because I've built people up to say, oh, you know what you're so great at? You're so creative. You know what you'd be really good at is designing. Oh man, you really put this together, you're so good at managing people. You have such a kind word for people. Oh, you're you're really good in that field. Yeah. I always tell Eric, it's like you build them up. If you want 100%, you don't start it, you do this at 100. You build them up here, and then you're you're having them do stuff that they are even completely unaware that they're doing. But they're doing it joyfully with a joyful heart and a great job because ultimately they're they're they're just living up to what you've already called into them.

Dr. William Attaway 27:44

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Thank you.

Dr. William Attaway 27:45

Is there a is there a book that you've read that's made a big difference in your journey that you'd recommend to the listeners?

SPEAKER_03 27:52

Well, that is the worst question. Um because I am an honest person. I'm gonna tell you that, okay, look, I am a good, successful, smart woman who just happens to love dragon lore. So the only books that I read are like Iron Flame, um Borderlands. Yeah, like I want to give you the most thoughtful how to win friends and influence people. But no, I have never read an intelligent book in my life outside of college.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

No.

Dr. William Attaway 28:26

Well, I thank you for the honesty. That's good.

unknown 28:29

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Oh my gosh, no. Well, what did what did what did the Hobbit say? I don't can I make that sound intelligent. I don't think so.

Dr. William Attaway 28:39

I think there's a lot of a lot of wisdom in the Hobbit, I'll just say.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 28:44

Oh, I love it. Uh Melanie, uh, one more question for you. Uh you know, people people can look at you from the outside and they can see the highlight reel. And they can think, oh my goodness, man, Melanie has never struggled like I struggle. She's she's her journey's just been up and to the right. And of course, we know that's not true because every entrepreneur struggles. We all have moments, we all have days, we all have challenges, and you've shared some of yours from your journey today. In in light of this and this idea that there's always more than the highlight reel.

SPEAKER_04 29:19

Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway 29:20

If I had the ability to snap my fingers and solve one problem right now in your business, what would you love for me to solve?

SPEAKER_03 29:29

I really struggle with dishonesty. And uh I I have a business with a brother and and a sister, and they do not live how I think they should live. But those are one of those things that you can't control other people's actions.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

I can only control my own. I can only do with my own conscious. And those are the things I I am actually really struggling with that because I'm like, God, it's so wrong. It's so gross. I I don't even want to be a part of it. Like, I can't even, like, I can't even go to the meetings. It it hurts my heart. And it's funny, I just read this in the Bible. I was praying about this this morning, and I I did Bible roulette and it came to Eli, where Eli has his two sons, Phineas and Hopney. And it's like superfluous. It's like a half of a paragraph of a Bible, and it says that God's eyes are on the good and the wicked at all times. So the one thing that I that I that I strive for myself is to allow other people's wrong choices to be their wrong choices. And oftentimes we see people we love and they're doing things, kids, and you're like, how could you do that? Spouses, coworkers, siblings. It's like that's so gross. Like, how could you, how could you live like that? But you have to let people make their own decisions

Integrity When Partners Act Wrong

SPEAKER_03 30:45

because you cannot control the outcome nor their decisions. And you can only live a life that is right and honoring and and living a life in integrity for your own self.

Dr. William Attaway 30:55

I think sometimes we we rob other people of the opportunity to learn because we're trying to, we're trying to rescue them from the consequences. When in fact, the best thing is for them to face those consequences and learn what brought them there.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Yeah. Or even when you don't, you can't be wounded by other people's wrongness.

Dr. William Attaway 31:15

No.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

People really get stuck in that. Like, how do they get away with that? There's it's so wrong and yet they're being blessed. They're so dishonest, and but yet they're getting money. And that's where the really crux, because the poison starts to come in yourself. And it's like, how is that allowed when it is so far against the nature of how the world should operate? The people who steal and never get caught, or, you know, if you see any of those videos, especially living in California, you know, what do you mean they just got off with a warning ticket? They, you know, destroyed someone's life. And and you can't wallow in other people's wrongness. You've got to be able to say, I'm living a good race, I'm I'm walking a good line, I am, I am gonna do it right. And you put the blinders on, and you know what? You have to give it up and say, God, the universe, whatever you believe in, it's gonna take care of that on its own. It is not my job to police them, it is not my job to write them, it is not my job to tell everyone on them. I can only live what I can live, and that's how you live in peace.

Dr. William Attaway 32:14

Melanie, this has been such a great conversation. Oh my goodness. Uh, I'm so grateful to you for sharing so generously and so honestly from your journey. Uh, I know people are gonna want to connect with you and read your book. What is the best way for them to do that?

SPEAKER_03 32:32

So you can find me on um, I have a a website, melaniecox.org, but your best way is if you find me on it's Melanie Cox on Instagram. And if you would DM me book, I will send you a free digital copy. Uh, I want everyone to live in freedom and everyone to live in happiness. I'm passionate about that, about a fullness and richness of life. So it's Melanie Cox on Instagram, DM me book. I will send you one. Um, I will stand with you, I will give you advice. I I am I love building people up. It's it's the next chapter of my life.

Dr. William Attaway 33:06

Love it. That's so generous, and we'll have that link in the show notes.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Thank you.

Dr. William Attaway 33:10

Melanie, thank you.