Structuring Chaotic Minds

Embracing the Chaos: Strategies for a Regret-Free Life and Visionary Leadership

• Meg King • Season 1 • Episode 12

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🔍 In This Episode:

Have you ever faced a moment so chaotic that you wished for a guide to navigate through it with grace and effectiveness? That's exactly what Meg King and I, Melissa Franklin, offer in our heartfelt conversation. Together, we unravel the art of living regret-free, embracing the chaos of life, and leading with a clear vision. Through tales of personal strength and shared wisdom, we uncover the importance of self-compassion, recognizing when to seek help, and the transformative power of completing mental cycles. This dialogue is for anyone yearning to balance the scales of their inner world and external demands without letting past regrets cloud the present.

As we dissect the nature of chaos in both personal and professional realms, we discover that the secret to managing it lies in preparation and values alignment. I impart my 'brain dump' technique for a peaceful night's sleep, and we discuss the snowball effect of stress when structure is absent. Meg's insights remind us that being present-focused can serve as an anchor in turbulent times. Whether overwhelmed by endless business tasks or bogged down by daily routines, this episode is a lighthouse for anyone seeking to find order in disorder.

Closing on a note of self-development and mental wellness, we navigate the challenges of high-stress roles and the vitality of supportive networks. Our stories of personal growth through financial resilience and the pursuit of fulfillment beyond financial gain illustrate the depth of leadership. Remember, at structureinnovations.com, there's a team ready to guide those seeking assistance in managing your mental wellness; because at the end of the day, we believe in the power of maintaining structure and positivity in a chaotic world.


🔗 Resources & How To Find Meg:
 
Website- https://www.megkingconsulting.com/
LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/megkingconsultant/
IG- https://www.instagram.com/megkingconsultant/
FB- https://www.facebook.com/megkingconsultant
E-Book- https://www.megkingconsulting.com/ebook


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Melissa Franklin:

We have to make sure that we reach out and ask for that help, because it's already tough enough.

Meg King:

Well, I had to let them in. I actually had to let them in. There was a part in a time where I was like no, I got this, I got this, I got this. But the other thing that I was doing, and what we tend to do anyway, is to beat ourselves up. I was out of town and I had to use some tools for completion. These are really great tools for leaders to really learn how to do with their team is to go through a completion exercise, but you have to be willing to be complete with it. You have to be willing to let it go so it has no leftover energy like yesterday's lunch in your inside of your energy field and inside of your heart and inside of your mind. It's not a one in a done. It's never a one in a done. I had to walk through that and get complete for myself and heal myself in order for me to take on the next level of my life. What that did for me is it brought me to where I am today.

Melissa Franklin:

From the structuring and chaotic minds, a show focused on balancing mental wellness and life. If you're just like me, then you likely enjoy crushing your goals, but it's also possible that right now, you're struggling with anxiety, being overwhelmed or balancing life due to mental health. I'm here to help. I'm your host, melissa Franklin. I'm a leadership and personal development coach on a mission to amplify the fellow voices about our situations, share critical information and knowledge with our family and friends and, at the same time, help remove the social BS about mental wellness and mindsets.

Melissa Franklin:

Welcome back to another episode of structuring chaotic minds. I am your host, melissa Franklin, and today we have a special treat for those of you that are in leadership or those executive roles and trying to find that special balance between how do you still crush it, take care of everyone else and still manage to focus on your own chaos and a little bit of you. We have a special FEMM, and I say this because I am so excited when I get to collaborate or network with my FEMM's. Femm City is just a treasure trove for women and entrepreneurs in that business area, and I'm so excited for her to get to share this insight today. Today we have Meg King. Meg, welcome to the show.

Meg King:

Yes, I have a special heart for FEMM's, and to be able to network and meet people like you is just a gift.

Melissa Franklin:

It's super exciting to be able to actually connect and be like hey, we actually think alike, we all are in the same pattern and stuff, and be able to collaborate. Can you share a little bit about your philosophy so the audience can get to know you more?

Meg King:

Yes, my philosophy on business or life. Which would you like to hear?

Melissa Franklin:

How about on managing life and business, even though there's those chaotic worlds going on?

Meg King:

Right, I'm being funny Because it's like you can't separate your philosophy from business and or life. And so when you were talking about what you represent as far as supporting people in the chaotic minds and really bringing it forward, you have to really see like, wow, what is my clear philosophy, what do I believe in? And, melissa, I had to take some time to figure that out a long while ago. But, to answer your question, my philosophy is and I said this to my husband when I first met him no missed opportunities, no regrets, and I mean that in a way that you're making decisions based upon what is important to your life, what is important to your business, not rash decisions or not making those quick things like oh that sounds like so awesome.

Meg King:

I'm going to do that when you really may not have the time, the money or the energy, whatever it may be Right. So, but that you're looking at what is the opportunity presented to me and will I regret doing this or will I regret not doing this?

Meg King:

And how will that regret impact my future or impact me here today? Because we never know what the future is going to bring. So we can only be in the present and that's really my philosophy is no regrets, no missed opportunities. And I take that and then I sift through what's in front of me and what I'm dealing with and apply that there.

Melissa Franklin:

It's just always helped me, that's awesome, I think, for me and my audience. We talk about the chaos of the mind, and really the chaos of the mind isn't like your dysfunction, it's just there's so much going on there. Because we want to do so much, we get so excited, just like you said, all these projects, they seem so neat, there's so much going on. So chaos is like not necessarily you don't know how to get things right, rather than you don't know what to focus on first. So I love that you shared the word values and that people have to really find out what's important to them first. So I guess that would shift me over to my next question, and what does the word chaos really mean in your context, for both personal life and business worlds? For us it means something a little bit different.

Meg King:

Yeah, I think it means something a little bit different for most people and the clients that I speak with when they say I'm an overwhelm, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so exhausted I'm. So this here's where chaos shows up. And when I think about the word chaos, it's actually the deconstruction of structure. It's just structure that's been kind of, that's been untended to. I'll put it like that. That's the way I see it for me personally. So when I look at my desk and I see mail and things all over the place, that's chaos to me in my mind. So I have to clean all of that up for me to have the focus for sure. So chaos is not always that overwhelmed that we operate from, but it can be a really just an illusion, and it's the illusion of out of control. Illusion of out of control. Let's look at that. Out of control, it's really just unorganized.

Melissa Franklin:

It feels like everything is happening to you, rather than you're not structuring things. Yes, beside what's happening to you. I love that Thinking of that context because it can get overwhelming really quick. What do you believe would be some early signs for individuals in their life or business that they're heading into that chaotic phase? How do you?

Meg King:

recognize them. Well, I think the first sign is when I know. The first sign for me is when I'm not doing my routine, particularly my routine of organizing my thoughts for the next day. I like to plan tomorrow, today, what do you call it? At the end of my day, I like to sit down and organize what's tomorrow really going to look like, because in the morning I can sit at my desk and go totally blank. I don't know why that happens, but it's crazy how that happens. So for me, the first sign is when I ignore my own well-being and that's me being organized on some level.

Meg King:

Now, I'm not a super organized person, don't get me wrong. I'm not like I don't have that kind of a thing, but I have to have structure sufficient to my resistance. So I have to have structure in order for me to stay on target and stay on task, because we're all busy people. So you have to figure out that structure for yourself. So I have found for me it is planning tomorrow, today and I coming up with my top six checklist. These are the top six things that I must deal with.

Melissa Franklin:

I like that. So, if I'm hearing correctly, your early signs would be the first moment that it's like I'm ignoring what I need first. And I'm not going to ignore your strategy, because I was literally just going to ask them what's the strategy to prevent that? How do we fix that? You're saying planning for tomorrow, and I was wondering what do you call that? Because I like to call that a brain dump. Let me just get it all out and get it out of my head so that way I can go to sleep. Because I'm busy thinking. I can't go to sleep because clearly I'm going to forget that. I'm going to forget that. I'm going to forget that and I usually do forget it and then the next morning I'm sitting there in shame at the computer because I'm like what did I say I was going to do? What did I say I was going to do? So I guess the proactive part would actually be planning it out, getting it onto paper and making sure you feel that confidence that it is okay to go to sleep, maybe.

Meg King:

Yeah. So you asked what's the signs of the chaos? And that is the first sign is when I ignore me, I see, and I'm not doing my routine, and then I'm not sleeping. I mean, then it can snowball and I am in the middle of the night. I wake up. Listen, I wake up anyway.

Meg King:

Maybe it's hormonal, I don't know, but I wake up around three o'clock every morning and if I don't brain dump, like you said, it is a brain dump. But then I like to organize it and make sure I prioritize my top six things that I need to do. That's just the next level of structure for me to stay out of that chaotic mindset. So, at three o'clock in the morning, who the hell wants to wake up at three o'clock in the morning and start thinking about all the things that they do? There's nothing you can do about it at three o'clock in the morning. Well, I guess you could. You could get up out of bed or have a notepad by your bed. I do have a notepad by my bed, so sometimes when that happens, I got to write it down Because then I can go back to sleep. But that is really the first sign. And then it affects my sleep. And then if it affects my sleep, then I'm not able to stay really focused the next day or the next day.

Meg King:

It builds up. And then I start to you use the word you're sitting in shame. I don't know that I'm shaming myself, but I am kind of taking that stick and saying, meg, why didn't you do that? And then that's not good for anybody, there's no benefit.

Melissa Franklin:

Absolutely. Well, I'm thinking about that. Then I'm sure there's a time that you've had to figure out how to stay centered and such. Can you describe a time where everything seemed to start falling apart, and how did you actually manage to stay centered?

Meg King:

Well, when you ask me that, the first thing that comes to mind is when I lost my husband, and that was a very, very difficult time for me and my daughters. He was young. I wasn't even home, I was out of town. So the chaos of coming home to that and trying to be there for my children and trying to make sense of all of this that was one of the most horrifying times of my life. And what that then spiraled into is the loss of my house and then what that spiraled into, not because of the loss of my house, but because of other circumstances where what was happening at the same time as I lost my business. So what I needed to do and what I really allowed myself to do.

Meg King:

I know that I'm a pretty strong person, but I was on the floor in a fetal position and I had to reach out for help, and that's where I really talked to a therapist. And then I took time out of my life. I took an entire year off of my life. I was afforded that opportunity to do that. Thank the Lord that I was able to do that and I went into intimacy, and when I say the word intimacy, it's into me, I see Into me, I see. So I got very intimate with myself and what my values were, what I believed in really seeing my strengths and my core, the people who are around me, the people who do love me, the people who surrounded me and lifted me up, and that's really to me. When you're in that fetal position and you're in that dump, the only thing to do is to reach out and get help.

Melissa Franklin:

I'm just an awe hearing that. I thank you for sharing that with me, with us. That is can't even wrap my head around how I could have gotten. Hearing that news and just getting on the plane and coming back home and just I don't even know how you did one step in front of another and I'm sure now it's like, wow, I actually got through all that and that's great. Which is the level of what you had to go through. I'm sure it felt like, why me, why this? But you still have to do it. So at that point, I think that's where the support systems are necessary. Sometimes we think to ourselves like I don't even know what to do. But the reality is like, without the help and without the love and support of other people who can process things a little bit better, while we can't, we have to make sure that we reach out and ask for that help, because it's already tough enough.

Meg King:

Well, I had to let them in. I actually had to let them in. There was a part in a time where I was like, no, I got this, I got this, I got this. But the other thing that I was doing and what we tend to do anyway, is to beat ourselves up, and I was out of town and I had to use some tools for completion. I had to come in.

Meg King:

These are really great tools for leaders to really learn how to do with their team is to go through a completion exercise, but you have to be willing to be complete with it. You have to be willing to let it go so it has no leftover energy, like yesterday's lunch inside of your energy field and inside of your heart and inside of your mind, and it's not a one in a done. It's never a one in a done, but I had to walk through that and get complete for myself and heal myself in order for me to take on the next level of my life, and what that did for me is it brought me to where I am today. Without that that's the silver lining for me, because I always believe that there's a silver lining Without that I would not be the coaching consultant that I am today.

Melissa Franklin:

It's funny. You can see it in certain people, I like to say they sparkle, a little different than others and there's just something that attracts you to that energy and you don't know why. You're like, well, can you have gone through? But there's something about it and what I can say is we probably have completely different backgrounds, but we've both been through stuff towards like we understand that and we want to help other people as they're going through stuff and it's that completion part. But you have to be able to let go of your own stuff to be able to help other people through that process. So I guess then, thinking about CEOs and such, we're trying to balance that person alive. How do you ask them to actually balance personal life and their role as CEO during tough times like that?

Meg King:

So, as humans, there's only so much capacity that we have told anything at those very difficult times. So the first thing is the capacity for self-compassion that when you are faced as a leader and dealing with the team or listen as a mother, you're a leader. As a father, you're a leader as an independent person, you are the leader of your life. You are the leader of your life. You are the CEO of your life. But are you the CEO that's operating from chaos, exhaustion and overwhelm? That's where you have to say OK, I have to put the stop on, I have to stop and I have to do an assessment and I have to really check in. Where am I taking on too much in either work or too much in life? Where am I overextending myself? And I can do that in a heartbeat because I want to do for everybody. I want to give, I want to do, and I know that about myself.

Meg King:

So now I have to do a check-in and I have to make sure that this is something that goes back to what I shared in the very beginning. Is there no missed opportunities, no regrets? Is this a missed opportunity? Will I actually regret this? Is there an opportunity? I can do that later. Sometimes it's prioritizing what we have to handle in the moment when things are really tough. It's just the way it is. So and I say it's just the way it is not to dismiss the importance of it, but to actually understand you can only have so much capacity to handle one, two, three things in a day.

Melissa Franklin:

Yep, there's only so much energy.

Meg King:

Yeah, and if you're the leader of a team and you've got people coming at you at all sides. When I owned my brick and mortar business, I was the owner of a salon and spa for 22 years and when I had people coming to me at all different angles, there was like, oh my goodness, I had to stop and say, ok, what's the one thing I can do today to move the needle forward? One thing so I always like my clients to stop and ask themselves what's one thing you may do that brain dump the night before the morning of whenever you do your brain dump and organize your thoughts and your time and your day, but sometimes you just got to start with one and then have the self-compassion, be compassionate towards yourself.

Melissa Franklin:

I think it's just also just giving yourself the grace to say you still did it. You still have that work done.

Meg King:

You always have to count the wins.

Melissa Franklin:

There's always those undone projects, though. I think that lists of everything we want to do, but it's sorting out and I feel like the best leaders know what to prioritize and that's the biggest thing. Working through that, when you've gone to those chaotic times and such, what's the biggest lesson you learned? When things didn't go the way you wanted them to turn out?

Meg King:

That there is a second chance and another second chance, and another second chance. When you get to your thousandth second chance, there's another thousand second chances. You just got to take it right. Yeah, that it's okay not to get it right, but a lot of my clients, when I ask them what they want, what's their intention, that's the one thing that they would like to walk away with from working with me. A lot of women particularly because that's who I mainly work with say I want more confidence. We don't gain confidence. I can't give anybody confidence and we don't gain confidence by staying small and playing small. We only gain confidence by swinging out, messing up, cleaning it up, because then we have to be authentic and we have to stay within integrity of who we say we are and our values. You swing out, you mess up, you clean it up and then you get another chance.

Melissa Franklin:

I like that. You've been in the world of spas and such for so long, I think, for me as an educator, I go to places like you to do my let me take care of myself. I can't imagine how difficult that might have been as the person in charge of running that type of building and then go focus on you, because it's probably hospitality and you're constantly focusing on taking care of everyone else. How did you prioritize your mental health and well-being while balancing that high stress business? That was all about giving that calm appeal.

Meg King:

That's a really good question. You're right In the customer service industry and it's customer service industries are all over, but anytime you're in a customer service role, in my opinion you are being a servant, servant leader, and it is giving all of you In the salon and spa industry, the doctor industry, massage therapists, anybody who's touching, even teachers. You are working with those souls, those little souls that are growing. You're exchanging energy and you're absorbing that energy. Yes, how do you make sure that you're not depleted?

Melissa Franklin:

Because at the end of the day.

Meg King:

I was exhausted Not to say that that doesn't happen to everybody at the end of their day when they're working really hard in high stress situations. For me, this is really funny. This may sound really strange, but I would go home and I would start to do dishes or clean. I needed something mindless to do to disconnect my thoughts and allow myself to get present back to me. That was just a trick. It's not a fix. There's nothing broken to be fixed anyway. It's more about how do you decompress? That was one of the ways that I needed to decompress allow the day to sift through my mind, not talk to a whole lot of people. My children knew I just needed to decompress and then they could have time with mommy. They got it. I had to teach them that and that they needed that as well. When they came home from school. They needed to find a way to decompress.

Meg King:

The other side of the well-being is listen, I've had a coach in my life, probably most of my life, when I think about it. I've always had mentors. I've always had people that I've gone to and sought out to support my personal well-being and my personal growth journey. Being a coach to me is just a godsend and just to really work through that. Then there's the other physical side of it. I would get services done. I would get services done outside of my salon and spa. I had to go somewhere else to be a customer. I was going to ask that.

Melissa Franklin:

I was going to ask did you do it there? Did you go elsewhere?

Meg King:

I did. My girls took very good care. We took care of each other, that's for sure. That's for me to really and I love customer service. It was more, even like a piece for me to learn more about customer service by going to other salons and spas and having services done. I could really see and measure a little bit about. Oh well, this is what I would do. I like this. I'm going to add this it's like a little secret shopper.

Melissa Franklin:

You mentioned the way you all take care of each other. It sounds like a support system and such. What role do support systems family, professional networks like Femm City, what do they do in playing and navigating that chaos for you?

Meg King:

I think having networks like Femm City and networks within family and friends and the support that it's just somebody to lean in on, somebody who can see things from a different perspective. Our mind, our brain I should say our brain cannot discern between what is real and what is interpreted. It has the same reaction. It's really important to have somebody else's perspective because my mind it can be a really dangerous neighborhood. I need somebody to get me out of that neighborhood and see it from a different perspective.

Melissa Franklin:

I love that analogy. I think I've often apologized to family members. Sometimes, as I'm trying to share the intimacy during a very depressive state, I've had to apologize for sorry. This is what's going on in there right now. I know it's not normal, but that's why I'm reaching out. I need help in sorting it out because who said it's not normal? Well, in those moments when I'm getting at it, it just feels really who's to say.

Meg King:

I mean there's when I say I'm being funny about it in some ways, but it is a really good question to ask that. Who's to say what's normal and what's not normal for our minds to be functioning other than if it's harmful to us? Right, that's a whole nother piece of mental wellbeing is if it's harmful to us. I think there's also a piece listed that all of us deal with chaos, confusion, overwhelm, sadness, depression. All of us have that. I don't know a single person who escapes any kind of issues and horrible things, tragedies in life. I don't know a single soul, not a single soul. So never to apologize, though. To be unapologetic about our feelings and our emotions of what we're going through is another piece that leaders also have to learn and to also build that up for their team, if they have a team, to allow their team not to throw up all over them but to be able to verbalize what's on their mind.

Meg King:

Just had a conversation with a client yesterday and he received a text message from his team member who was all upset with him and she literally threw up all over him and he's done enough work on himself and has worked with me for years now and he said you know, I let it be, meg. I didn't respond. He said I wanted to respond, but I let it be. And then my text to her was let's talk. And then, when I talked to her, I said that was very hurtful. And he said and that's all I needed to say. And she said I know, and I need to apologize for doing that, so sometimes we just have to give some space and then share was hurtful.

Melissa Franklin:

I've got teary-eyed as you were saying that, because it was like I've never heard that, especially being bipolar, that I shouldn't have to apologize for my emotions, and it's been. That's not something I don't know, even through therapy, I've never been so upset. I have been told well, sounds like you've been through trauma, sounds like you've been through life. Makes sense why you're pissed off.

Meg King:

I'm like I'm mad oh well, yeah, I guess I am mad.

Melissa Franklin:

I am kind of mad that life went the way that it went has the right to be mad, Makes sense why you're like antsy and why you're oh. So I think I've come to accept the reason why emotions get triggered. But because I am more emotionally triggered than most individuals, I often apologize for my feelings because I'll hear it's too much for others to absorb and I think the process of having others there through the empathy can be draining and I feel like I put more on other individuals by having to share that space. And that's where that shame comes in and that's something that we're all sort through. So I guess what specific tools or techniques would you recommend to someone like that? Because they're making decisions and in those times of uncertainty and they still feel like there's so much going on, they're trying to sort out like what do I do? What do I decide on next?

Meg King:

The number one thing is journaling, in my opinion. Now, listen, I'm dyslexic so I can't spell to save my life, my poor children. They're like. They laugh at me all the time. They're like mom. That is just not how you spell. Cat, not that.

Melissa Franklin:

I can.

Meg King:

I can spell cat, trust me, but it's true. So I avoided journaling because of my dyslexia. But I have had to come and really come to own my dyslexia and go through completion about my feeling unworthy and not smart enough and all of that and take up journaling. And I don't care that I can't spell the word, I don't care that I look back at my journal I'm like damn, I can't even read that. But what it's doing for me in the moment is can be so cathartic because it's getting all of that out Again. Our minds can be pretty dangerous neighborhoods. So we got to clean it up. We got to go in there and scrape the graffiti off, pick up the trash, all the stuff To get it sparkling again. And the only way to do that is to get it out and to brain dump and to allow your emotions to come out. While you're brain dumping, I sob, sometimes I laugh, I'm mad, all of those things.

Meg King:

But then what that does for me and what I feel journaling can do for so many people is it allows the heart to open, and when we can have our heart open, our heart and our brain are directly wired together, and so, in order for our heart to be able to open, then our mind can open.

Melissa Franklin:

So we get into that whole energy state and attractions. Yes, there's so many studies on how powerful the heart really is with the energy and the magnetic waves that come out and being able to sink in and connect that you don't necessarily need to believe in religion or spirituality or anything, but you can believe in energy because you walk in a room and man it's cool man. I rocked into the wrong space and you can you do feel it.

Melissa Franklin:

Yes, I want to talk about moments that you've been able to feel inspiration. Can you think of a particular moment or crisis opportunity that actually helped you grow, or that there was a new innovation that can help others and inspire them to believe that there really is hope in the chaos?

Meg King:

That's a really great question and I want to kind of tease it out a little bit. A moment where I was inspired was after I lost my business and I said yes to myself to taking on this life coaching course the year long life coaching course and it was a $16,000 course and I had no money and I was like, what am I going to do? But I know I wanted it. I know I wanted it. There was something that was drawing me and the inspiration behind it. I don't know where it came from. To tell you the truth, I really don't. Sometimes inspiration is just a magnetism thing that just happens and you're like I'm drawn to this right, feel it burning inside, burning inside, burning inside, and I knew that I had next steps in my life and it felt like it was the right thing for me to do and I was going to figure out how to come up with $1,650 every month to pay off my $16,000 loan. And I did.

Meg King:

I cleaned houses, I walked dogs, I did gardening, I babysat and what that taught me? I painted houses. What that taught me about myself was my resilience, was my innovation. It allowed me to see that I could make things happen. Did I want to stay as a house painter? No, did I want to stay as a housekeeper and a cleaner? No, but I did it. And guess what else, melissa, I actually enjoyed it. It wasn't drudgery for me to get out of bed. I got to go clean a house. Today it wasn't that way. I was like, yes, I get to, not, I got to.

Melissa Franklin:

You were earning something towards something you were excited about.

Meg King:

Yes.

Melissa Franklin:

Yes, yeah, it's funny when I stepped away from the roles where it was a consistent, very happy six-figure paychecks consistent, and I would show up at work sometimes and it's like not really fulfilling what I'm deep down inside, know I can and should.

Melissa Franklin:

I'm just going through the motions and doing what everyone else has been doing, rather than actually innovating and doing the things I know I'm capable of doing and there was just this sense of but it was trucking along. And then funniest thing is, when things became tighter, it was like, ok, I got to take on a couple of little odd jobs here and they're just to make sure that things stay afloat. I was excited about it. I was literally excited about it. Why am I excited to go do this little task? Because it just was pushing me towards something I was inspired by. So it's funny how inspiration you can go do the volunteer work that comes with no pay but it's still leading to something that's fulfilling inside. That's where it's the return of investment for me is not always money, sometimes it's just that fulfillment and then say, yes, that was worth it. That's why I keep showing up.

Meg King:

I love what you just said. It's not always about the money, and I agree it's not always about the money. Obviously, we need to be financially responsible as much as possible, but I'm not money-driven. I'm really not money-driven. I am more driven by how I can make a greater impact on society. That, to me, inspires me and it keeps me inspired. As a leader, you have to look at how do you keep yourself inspired, because it's hard to show up every day, I agree. So that to me is like self-development as well, taking on self-development.

Melissa Franklin:

I like that. I was just going to ask then what advice would you give an aspiring leader to make sure that they can thrive in both life and business? So it's just focusing on themselves consistently developing.

Meg King:

Self-development. It's learning a new. I think we have to. We tend to go into our reptilian brain, which is the fight, flight or freeze, so that's an easy brain for us to fall into. But how do we really be? Creative is to get into the prefrontal cortex of our brain and that's where creativity, that's where inspiration happens, that's where we really do get to move the needle forward and have more joy, time and freedom in our lives. So by doing Reading a book, by taking on courses listen, since the pandemic, there is a ton of online courses now that you can take. They are very reasonable and so many of them are all about self-development. So to invest into yourself first. Yes, invest into your well-being, make sure that you're taking care of yourself, but invest into your mind. There's a quote from Ben Franklin.

Meg King:

I live right outside of the city of Philadelphia, so he designed the city of Philadelphia. So I love lots of different things about what Ben Franklin has said, but his quote is invest the coins of your purse into your mind and your purse will become overflowing. I may not have it exactly right, but your purse will overflow.

Melissa Franklin:

I love it.

Meg King:

Yes, invest the coins of your mind into your mind and your purse will overflow.

Melissa Franklin:

It's almost like just saying get more education, build more opportunities. Like.

Meg King:

I love it. Let's just build your mind. Build your mind and then life the opportunities, all the things that can open up.

Melissa Franklin:

I know I said the word education, but I think I meant more the word knowledge and such, so those words can be interchanged a lot lately, especially when we just said after COVID, there's so many different things online and access to different things. How do you see the landscape of business and leadership evolving in the context of this increasingly chaotic world right now?

Meg King:

Well, I think for leaders in business, mental health is such a priority right now, since and it was before COVID, but COVID actually opened up and shined a light on it, which is beautiful. Thank you, covid, for doing that. For the pandemic I should say so. With that, leaders today and the landscape of leadership is really focusing on well-being of team. I said I told you I love customer service, but if you have employees, if you have team, they are your first line of customers, so you must take care of them first.

Meg King:

We need to have some compassion and understand that the good old days are gone where it's like I'm telling you to do this and you must do it my way and the highway. That we really need to co-collaborate on all of the different ideas that employees have, because their minds are brilliant too, doesn't mean they have to take their ideas, but to add them into the conversation, don't keep them in the dark. Communicate, communicate, communicate. You must communicate your vision with clarity If leaders today have to be more clear than ever on their vision with their team in order to get and keep their team in their boat.

Melissa Franklin:

Yeah, I think you could move further, and everybody says you can move further with the team. True, you all ain't going really in the same direction if they don't know where you're going.

Meg King:

Right, I saw this great little video on I think it was LinkedIn actually and it was these boys. They're young men, young men I'm 63, they were a lot. I call them boys.

Melissa Franklin:

They were young men.

Meg King:

You're like 30, but they're sitting, they're at an airport and you know how they have the moving walkways All right. They're all lined up as if they're sitting in a boat and they're going like. It's like they're rowing in a boat together and their dads had their friend take a video of it. It was hysterical and it was brilliant and it got so many comments and I made comments on it and like you've got to get your team in your boat and going in the same direction. So it's your vision.

Meg King:

And then the other thing that I know about the leadership landscape now is accountability in living and holding up our mission. So our mission is the bold promise that we make to society, to our community, to our clients, to whoever we interact with. That's our mission. It's our bold promise, but inside of that we actually have to have accountability that we're staying on task to live our mission. That goes back to that keeping that cohesiveness For leadership. Right now, vision and mission and values are so important. They've always been the foundation of the backbone of business, always, forever and ever. But now more than ever they must be brought forward and lived and addressed every single day.

Melissa Franklin:

In order to sustain and stay healthy and make it through those next years.

Meg King:

Yeah.

Melissa Franklin:

What's going on? I appreciate you, meg, so much. I'm definitely going to have to go decompress and cry a little.

Meg King:

Thank you so much.

Melissa Franklin:

What do you think Then you could share with our listeners because I think we've talked about a lot, but just one key way that you would end up saying it on that piece of advice whenever, as they're trying to balance life and business in those chaotic times.

Meg King:

I'm going to go back to your vision. What's the vision that you have for your life? Then, once you have your vision, that's your roadmap, no matter what. Again, it could be the vision of family, it could be the vision of business, it could be the vision of your life, of where you want to be in your future. I'll just share this real quick. I have a friend of mine who said that she wanted to live in Florence. The next thing I know she goes yeah, I'm living in Florence, florence, oregon. Make sure you're really clear in your vision. Why?

Melissa Franklin:

No, it happens. Be careful what you say you want, just make sure you line up with it.

Meg King:

I make a funny of that, but we do have to have clarity in our vision and clarity for what it is that we want. We need to speak it, we need to write it. We need to create our plan of how we're going to make that happen, which is our milestones, goals and action steps. In my e-book, connecting to your Chaos and Reclaiming your Power on Purpose, there is a way to really break some of that down inside of there. You're going to walk through a little rate yourself and really seeing what your vision and clarity is all about.

Melissa Franklin:

I love it. I love the trackers and different pieces that make you actually put it down on paper and see it, because we can think it. I think we like to think it. However, in our head. That makes it the prettiest lie we can tell ourselves, rather than putting it down on paper and having to own it and be like so that's actually what happened.

Meg King:

The prettiest lie.

Melissa Franklin:

Yes, I love doing that one. What are we telling ourselves at that moment? It's all the stories that we tell ourselves that create those emotions. But thank you so much for being here today, meg Guys, thank you so much for joining in on another episode of Structuring Chaotic Minds. If you have questions for amazing entrepreneurs, business leaders or anyone else that we have coming on as experts onto our show, please be sure to share them at admin at structuringchaoticmindscom. We will be sure to go ahead and get those questions answered for you.

Melissa Franklin:

We did bring Meg on because, after requests from a lot of you, I actually got so many DMs saying I'll be honest, I cannot admit to people that I'm struggling with the mental illness. But thank you so much, keep posting that content, keep posting that content, keep posting that content, keep sending me those questions, keep sending me that information. However, you guys are getting it out there, it matters that we're delivering to you all what you're asking for and what you need. So stay safe, stay structured and stay smiling Until next time. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. To catch up on the rest of the season, visit structuringchaoticmindscom or take a quick browse on your current app to see which episodes resonate with you. If you struggle with your own mental illness or even just balancing life, we have a team of individuals at our site who can help. You can visit structuringtautionscom and find a coach or mentor fit for you. Thank you for joining me once again, melissa Franklin, on this episode of structuring chaotic minds. Stay structured and smiling.