I know my website has an about me section, but it doesn’t help you really get to know me. Like who I am as a person, what shaped me.

I want you to get to know me, so I wanted to share a little bit about me as a person, as a mom, what makes me tick, what makes me excited and touch a little bit about how I got into this online business space.

So, if you’d like to know me a little bit better, here are 10 things about me.

I would love for you to introduce yourself in the comments or drop me an email. I would especially like to know if you have suggestions for future topics. 

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I know my website has an about me section, but it doesn’t help you really get to know me. Like who I am as a person, what shaped me. So, if you’d like to know me a little bit better, here are 10 things about me. 

1. I grew up in a rural area made famous by author Mark Twain. He wrote of the jumping frog competition and yes, I did jump frogs at our county fair.

2. I was student body president and salutatorian my senior year of high school.

3. I got my BA in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Barbara and MPA in Public Administration from San Diego State University.

4. My first pregnancy was twins who both passed away at birth. Not your normal get to know me fact but it has shaped my life in many ways.

5. I became a single mom to my four kiddos when they were all age 6 and under. We moved across the state to be closer to my family. I was a single mom for 7 years.

Do you want to become a VA? Grab my FREE Quickstart Guide to Build Your VA Business. 

6. One of the scariest/bravest things I’ve ever done was move my kids and I to a new state where we knew no one, bought a house on my own and started my own online business. 

7. Shortly after moving I met and married my husband and gained a bonus daughter. WYKYK.

8. I absolutely hate belly buttons. My own and other people’s. Don’t ask me why but they grow me out. I threw up in my mouth a bit just writing this.

9. Things I simultaneously love and hate:

Family roadtrips

Watching my kids grow

Heights

Learning new technology

Social media

Exercise

10. I’ve been a married mom, a single mom, a working mom, a stay at home mom, and an online business owning mom. All are hard AF.

Let’s connect on Instagram! I’m @melyssamunday and @mamasmakingmore

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Melyssa: Hey, hello. Welcome to the very first episode of my podcast, like the very first official episode. I’m super excited to talk to you about my origin story, and I know that that’s not a traditional first episode. A lot of people just kind of jump right into the business content. And what I really wanna do is I wanna get to know you guys.

[00:00:23] Melyssa: I want you to get to know me. So I wanted to share a little bit about me as a person, as a mom, what makes me tick, what makes me excited and,  touch a little bit about how I even got into this online business space. So I’m gonna date myself here. I’m gonna take it way back to, , the days when I was in college. And one of the things that people did was they would send an email out to all of their contacts and they would say, Hey, here’s 10 fun facts about me. Share your 10 fun facts. And then we would all like email each other back and share those things. And of course, we don’t that [00:01:00] now because we have social media and we know all of the things, but, , it was fun at the time. And so I am gonna share with you my 10 things. I’m gonna run through those, uh, jump into them now, and then I’ll share a little bit about, , how I started my online business.

[00:01:16] Melyssa: So number one, I grew up in a rural area. It was made famous by Mark Twain. He lived in the area, it’s called Calaveras County specifically I grew up in the town of Valley Springs shout out to my friends back there. , so Mark Twain wrote a story about the famous jumping frog of Calaveras County and in our annual county fairs, we had frog jumping competitions like you would pick out your frog and you would put it on stage and you would literally jump the frog. I never brought home a trophy, but I definitely did participate in those competitions.

[00:01:53] Melyssa: Number two, I was student body president of my high school and I graduated second in my class.[00:02:00] Growing up I was always that, , go-getter, that achiever and that continues in my life today. I was super into high school. I liked high school and , I definitely made the most of my time.

[00:02:11] Melyssa: Number three, I got my bachelor’s in environmental studies from UC, Santa Barbara and I specialized in city planning. I did actually use that degree, , in my first couple jobs out of college. And I later got my master’s in public administration from San Diego State. Thought I might kind of go into governmental work. Didn’t do that. I don’t generally use the exact things that I learned in those degrees, per se in my business now, but the entire experience in a lot of the collaboration, the working together with people, I carry that through. And again, college was fun for me. So there, there’s that.

[00:02:52] Melyssa: Number four, my first pregnancy, I was pregnant with twins and they unfortunately passed away if you [00:03:00] are someone who has experienced that kind of a loss, um, whether it’s a pregnancy loss, an infant loss, child loss, my heart goes out to you. I can sympathize, I can relate to that, having been through it myself, it changes a person. It definitely changes a person.

[00:03:17] Melyssa: So then number five, I became a single mom to my four kids when they were ages six and under. We moved at the time we left, , San Diego, which is where we were living, and we moved so that I could be closer to my family and kind of have that support system for myself.

[00:03:33] Melyssa: Number six. One of the scariest slash bravest things that I’ve ever done is move with my kids. To a new state where we didn’t know anyone. I bought a new house and I started my online business all at the same time. Super proud of that. That’s been something that now is like one of my top 10 accomplishments in life is, is that, that I, I pulled it off, [00:04:00] I did it. I took that leap of faith and it has paid off in spades for us.

[00:04:04] Melyssa: Number seven. Shortly after at that move I met and married my husband and gained a bonus daughter when, you know, you know, it moved fast. , but we knew, and so now we are a family, a blended family. And, , we have five very busy and active kids.

[00:04:22] Melyssa: Number eight. This is super random you guys, but I absolutely hate belly buttons, my own belly button. Other people’s belly buttons. My baby, my kids work babies. They’re belly buttons. I don’t know why they gross me out. I gag right now just even thinking about it.

[00:04:39] Melyssa: Number nine. This is kind of a list of things that I simultaneously like love and hate at the same time. I don’t know if you guys are the same way. There’s some things that you’re like, oh, I just love that. But like also it’s hard and I hate that, Family Road trips, watching my kids grow up , heights, like being high, like on a hiking trip, learning new technology. You [00:05:00] seriously it is. I mean, we need it, but also learning it is just not the funnest for me. Social media. Love to hate it,

[00:05:10] Melyssa: Number 10. This one is the most important that I wanna share with you. I’ve been a married mom, I’ve been a single mom, I’ve been a working mom, a stay-at-home mom, and an online business owning mom. And I will tell you one thing, they are all equally hard. None of them wins the prize for most hardest type of mom. So all of you moms out there, no matter what your position. They are all freaking hard. It’s all hard. That’s just end of sentence period. It’s all hard. It’s all hard. It’s not a competition. It’s just all hard . So that’s my list of the 10 things to get to know me. If you wanted to like send me a DM or an email and share even like your 10 things or your two things about you. [00:06:00] I love hearing from people. I have an email list whenever someone responds to my emails, I like get giddy because I just think it’s so fun to connect and hear that. So definitely if you wanna share, I am all open to, , receiving those, , messages from you guys.

[00:06:17] Melyssa: And now another important thing I wanna share with, about my origin story is how I even came to this online space. So a little bit of background, like corporate job-wise. I did after college, I had, , some corporate jobs. I ended up as a project manager in, , the environmental field. I love that it’s, that job has definitely, that experience in that position has helped me as a business owner. Cause it’s helped me see the delegation side. It’s helped me manage projects. There’s always lots of projects in my business. And so that was great. And then, when I [00:07:00] had all of my kids and I was a single mom, I worked in the corporate space as, um, an office manager and I was not full-time at the, at then I was a part-time office manager.

[00:07:11] Melyssa: But that really is what then led into this virtual assisting business that I started. So I got really into loving, helping to run an office. I loved the organization. I would color code the heck outta things you guys.

[00:07:27] Melyssa: At the time when I was contemplating this big move that I ended up doing and was very proud of, , I started thinking I needed a change. I really wanted to move out of state and I started thinking as a single mom in a brand new area, how the heck am I gonna get a job where it’s gonna be flexible enough for me to go out and be present and, , help my kids when they need to go to doctor’s appointments or all of their sports and other [00:08:00] activities after school, like what kind of job is gonna give me that flexibility? I don’t even know how I first heard about virtual assisting, but I heard about virtual assisting and I was like, huh, I’m gonna learn a little bit more about that. And so I started doing the thing that I do, which is doing like a ton of research, and I discovered I had no idea that virtual assisting existed. I didn’t know a lot of this online business existed at the time, but it was fascinating to me and I was like, I could do this. I can totally do this. I want to do this.

[00:08:33] Melyssa: Once I realized exactly what it meant for me and my family, it’s, it was great. The ability to set my own rates, to set my own hours, , to do the work that I loved, to choose, to take on the clients that I wanted to take on, and to have those boundaries to say, no, that’s, , the kind of work that I wanna do.

[00:08:52] Melyssa: It was very amazing and empowering. And in getting to know a lot of the people in the new area that I live [00:09:00] in, I realized that not a lot of people, especially not a lot of moms, even have any idea that virtual assisting is a thing. They don’t know that they can have this online business. And now I’ve moved into the coaching space because I really love sharing the knowledge of what being a virtual assistant is and can be. And I think there’s so many moms that are out there looking specifically like, I need to work from home. I need that flixibility.

[00:09:30] Melyssa: And so I am just really on a mission to share with you and others that this. Is an amazing opportunity, especially for moms to be able to have a business that is flexible and successful.

[00:09:47] Melyssa: So again, if you wanna share anything about yourself, I’m gonna put in the show now as a link to my Instagram and I will include my email. Feel free to reach out to me, [00:10:00] and thank you for joining me in this first episode.