When we grow up, we think we have it all figured out, don’t we? We believe we should go to college, get a good job, find our perfect partner, be fit, have a good circle of friends, maybe have kids, etc. All before the age of 35. We have these insane expectations for ourselves and what our lives will be.
And then, we learn. Maybe the job or career path we originally selected isn’t right for us. Maybe we find ourselves without a partner or kids. Maybe life faced us with health challenges. Whatever it is, life tests our ability to pivot and reinvent ourselves into something new.
It’s like the Japanese art of Kintsugi. With Kintsugi, Japanese artists take broken pieces of pottery and carefully pour gold into the cracks to put it all back together. So, the bowls that were once broken are now even more beautiful than before. Look it up. Kintsugi is so beautiful even though it is technically broken. It has been made new.
During my conversation with my guest today, Nicole Meline, I was reminded about the power of reinvention. We chatted about:
- How Nicole believes in an unending number of chances and the underdog.
- Nicole’s personal journey of reinvention that took her from Columbia and Rutgers to something completely different.
- Why blood and sweat are the doorways to the heart.
- How spirited leaders have place in today’s work environment
- Nicole’s Alter podcast and membership.
- And more.
Listen to the podcast here
Breath, Sweat, and Reinvention: A Leader’s inner Journey with Nicole Meline
When we grow up, we think we have it all figured out, don’t we? We believe we should go to college, get a good job, find our perfect partner, be fit, have a good circle of friends, maybe have kids, etc. All before the age of 35. We have these insane expectations for ourselves and what our lives will be.
And then, we learn. Maybe the job or career path we originally selected isn’t right for us. Maybe we find ourselves without a partner or kids. Maybe life faced us with health challenges. Whatever it is, life tests our ability to pivot and reinvent ourselves into something new.
It’s like the Japanese art of Kintsugi. With Kintsugi, Japanese artists take broken pieces of pottery and carefully pour gold into the cracks to put it all back together. So, the bowls that were once broken are now even more beautiful than before. Look it up. Kintsugi is so beautiful even though it is technically broken. It has been made new.
During my conversation with my guest today, Nicole Meline, I was reminded about the power of reinvention. We chatted about:
- How Nicole believes in an unending number of chances and the underdog.
- Nicole’s personal journey of reinvention that took her from Columbia and Rutgers to something completely different.
- Why blood and sweat are the doorways to the heart.
- How spirited leaders have place in today’s work environment
- Nicole’s Alter podcast and membership.
- And more.
Important Links
About Nicole Meline
Nicole Meline grew up in Southern California, went to college at USC, then started a long journey through grad schools, exploring different versions of teacher, healer, pastor, poet. She then moved to New York City without a job or connections, because Nicole wanted to be forged by its energy and ambition. 11 years later, Nicole wrote it this love letter, having studied and taught at Columbia and Rutgers and somehow grown into the reach of it.
She then moved to the mountain west—first Santa Fe, and now Boulder, Colorado, where Nicole is out on the trails with her wolf mutt, Everest.
In classrooms, start-up companies, intimate yoga studios, livestreams to thousands, and the over 15 ALTER Journeys retreats Nicole has led, she has learned how to hold a space that invites each person to show up authentically, honor where they are at, and open to possibility. How to create a physical or digital room spacious enough for joy, grief, hope, disappointment, and dancing.
Having created a rhythm of practicing courage, navigating the many swerves of 8+ years of entrepreneurship and space holding, Nicole loves to mentor leaders to come into their voice and build an authentic brand and community, consult with companies to refine their vision and deepen team connection, and inspire audiences to create their next chapter.
Welcome to the Brave Women Network Podcast. This is your host, Jen Pestikas. I’m so glad you’re here. Well, hey everyone. How are you doing out there? So when we grow up, we think we have it all figured out, don’t we? At least I think that at least 12 13, between 12 and 18, I thought I had it all figured out.
We believe that we should go to college if that’s what, we grew up believing or maybe we just wanted to go to college. We wanted to get a good job. We thought that we had to find our perfect partner in air quotes, be fit or healthy, have a good circle of friends. Maybe we wanted kids and we wanted it all before the age of 35.
Because as my 13-year-old daughter says, anything over the age of 40 is old, so I must be ancient. So we have these insane expectations for ourselves and what our lives will, and again, air quotes should be, and then we learn. We get our butt kicked by life maybe the job or career path we originally selected isn’t right for us.
Maybe we find ourselves without a partner or kids maybe life faces with some health challenges, whether small or significant. Whatever it is, life will test our ability to pivot and reinvent ourselves into something entirely new. It’s like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on the podcast as we unmasked, quite the library here at Brave Women at Work, I can’t recall, but with Kintsugi, it’s a Japanese art form and artists take these broken pieces of pottery. So if you think of like these beautiful pieces of pottery and the piece of pottery is completely cracked all over the place, and then they take those pieces of that bowl or that piece, and they carefully pour gold into the cracks to put it all back together once again.
So the bowls that were once broken are now even more beautiful than before. It’s something entirely new and even better than before. And so I would tell you definitely look it up. Google Kent Sugi. So K-I-N-T-S-U-G-I. And again, it’s so beautiful because even though it was technically broken, it has been made new.
So with that, I wanted to just share during my conversation with my guest Nicole Meline, today, I was reminded of the power of reinvention. Nicole and I chatted about why she believes in an unending number of chances and the underdog. So a girl of my own heart, Nicole’s personal journey of reinvention that took her from Columbia and Rutgers to something entirely different in terms of her career path. Why blood and sweat are the doorways to the heart. How spirited leaders have a place in today’s work environment, Nicole’s Alter podcast and her membership, which is different, it’s different than any other health platform that I’ve ever seen before and so much more. So here is more about Nicole.
Nicole Meline, grew up in Southern California, went to college at USC, then started a long journey through grad schools, exploring different versions of teacher, healer, pastor, poet. She then moved to New York City without a job or connections because Nicole wanted to be forged by its energy and ambition.
11 years later, Nicole wrote a love letter to that experience, having studied and taught at Columbia and Rutgers, and somehow grown into the reach of it. She then moved to the mountain West first Santa Fe, and now Boulder, Colorado, where Nicole is out on the trails with her wolf mutt Everest in classrooms, startup companies, intimate yoga studios live streams to thousands, and the over 15 alter journey retreats that Nicole has led. She has learned how to hold space that invites each person to show up authentically, honor where they are at, and be open to possibility. How to create a physical or digital room spacious enough for joy, grief, hope, disappointment, and dancing. Yes, all the dancing. Having created a rhythm of practicing courage, navigating the many swerves of eight plus years of entrepreneurship and space holding, Nicole loves to mentor leaders to come into their voice and build an authentic brand and community, consult with companies to refine their vision and deepen team connection and inspire audiences to create their next chapter.
If Brave Woman at Work has made any type of impact on your heart, your mind, your soul, your career, your life, please be sure to share it with a family member, a friend, or a colleague. And as you know, the ratings and reviews matter, so if you can leave a rating and review, I would so appreciate it. And something positive we actually just reached 38 or 39 countries across the entire globe. So how amazing is that? That just tickles my heart that we’re reaching more and more women and more and more spaces across the world.
If you haven’t yet downloaded one or all of my freebies from my website, check them out at bravewomanatwork.com. The three freebies are 24 career in leadership affirmations, getting paid 10 negotiation tips, and five ways to managing your imposter syndrome.
And last but not least, if you haven’t heard a podcast lately, I am co-hosting Women’s Leadership Conference, not just a retreat, a conference called Thrive in 25. We also just partnered with our amazing keynote speaker, Erin Gallagher of the Hype Women Movement and Podcast, and Erin also has a book of the same name Hype Women that is coming out in October of 2025 and she is our keynote speaker and resident badass.
She was named as her 2023 top 100 LinkedIn creator, top 10 DEI voice at number five and recognized for the top 100 most influential LinkedIn posts of the decade. I am so pumped to hear her. This conference is gonna be more than a traditional conference. It’s gonna be a movement, and we’re growing our Brave Woman at Work community, so you can learn more about the conference and register at thrive-in25.com. Again, thrive Dash in two five.com. All right, let’s welcome Nicole to the show.
Well, hello Nicole. Welcome to Brave Woman at Work. How are you today?
I’m so good. Thank you so much for having me.
Of course. So I am so jazzed to talk with you today. So tell me a little bit about you and your background story and how you’ve gotten to where you are.
Yeah, so I have had a pretty, multi-passionate, professional life. I think a multi-passionate path of training, and I love, especially, I think, working with women who are trying to bring together some disparate strands maybe that don’t seem to kind of fit as logically or as linearly. When I was growing up in Southern California, I always, I think first of all I’ve always kind of had a sense of the divine or, and very much a curiosity about spirituality and I also was kind of also had a sense of myself as a leader, and I grew up in a context in a very conservative, evangelical, Orange County, California context where I didn’t see many people, many women in leadership. The little world that I was growing up in didn’t really take women’s voices seriously and honor women in leadership. So I didn’t see many examples of that. I kind of had this sense of myself as a healer, like I said, like some kind of a spiritual leader, although I didn’t see many examples of that, many other women doing that in a way that called to me. And so I headed down a track towards becoming a doctor, doing an MD. So I went to USC for college and was pre-med and was aiming towards medical school and applied several times and. One of the gifts of my life, one of the gifts of my story has been not fitting into or not being accepted into like the conventional track or maybe getting into it for a certain amount of time and realizing that I wanna do things in a broader way. Like I wanna do things in a way that’s bigger than this particular container. Of course I took several years to kind of metabolize the heartbreak and feel that sense of lostness. I came super close to getting to medical school. I got interviews, I got waitlisted and it was like almost, but not quite, but to the point where like the universe was telling me this is not the path, and I really had, I felt I started teaching high school right after that point, and I loved teaching. I loved teaching. I loved speaking. I loved the leadership role of it. I loved inspiring kids at that time to really discover their essence, like come into themselves and really find their voice. I was teaching literature and so that set me on a different path towards academia, and I first went through seminary did a couple master’s degrees in theology. Wow. You really have been all over the place. Yeah. All over the place. Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry. I just, I’m like, okay, I didn’t know about the seminary. I’m like, I’m stuck now. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, like very much what I was saying about all these disparate rabbit trails, but yeah, so did a couple of master’s degrees there and also got a lot of training in counseling, pastoral work. Right and leading spiritual communities. But it was really the academy at that point, which is where I felt like I ultimately wanted to go. So I did a couple of master’s degrees in English literature on the way towards a PhD in English Lit. And along the way, I had moved to New York City. I needed a job and so I started doing, I started teaching fitness. Fitness had always been this kind of like, through line in my life, although I didn’t think of myself as an athlete, I didn’t do like kind of team sports as a kid and it was really in college I definitely put on the freshman 15 and you know, I started running in college because it was just the easiest thing to do. I could do it at night, I could do it at any time, just throw on my running shoes. And I started, not only did I like fall in love with running, but I realized that it was when I was running, that I started to think more bravely about my life. Like I would have these kind of bigger dreams while I was running and I think a big part of it is I got this sense of my strength, right? Like I was tapped into my strength and so that really stuck with me, like that experience and passing that on to other people. So when I started teaching fitness in New York, just as a side job, it was really fun to build and grow a toolbox of leading people in fitness and in movement, especially in a way that’s like has bigger vision behind it than just burning calories. Yes. Inches, building muscle, all of that like for a lot of us, that’s not a big enough why to keep us consistent in our training. So I really had this realization I was probably about 10 years older than most of the people in my PhD program, so I was a lot more connected to the like, economic realities of what this road was gonna look like. I just kind of had this realization, Wow in fitness, I was just starting with Peloton as they were starting. I’m doing all these things that I love to do, but just in this unexpected container, right? I made the huge decision to drop out of a fellowship fully funded PhD program a couple years in and to just, you know, go all out. And so I got to be a part of really experiencing that startup culture for better and for worse. Like both the chaos of it and the possibility of it at Peloton, and then ultimately left to start my own platform and my own brand, which has included one-on-one work with people coaching and retreats and courses and then really the heart of it is a platform called Alter, which is soulful fitness and meditation. That, like I was saying a minute ago, is really ultimately about having this daily check-in with ourselves, this daily realignment and plugging into our power, and burning calories and building muscle and all of that. Doing all the things. Yeah. Yeah having this bigger why behind it.
You obviously are pretty brave, like you said, and pretty fearless. But the names that you know, you were a founding instructor at Peloton, and then you didn’t mention, but that you were a professor at Columbia and at Rutgers. I mean, these aren’t like, just like small colleges. So like what was there like a moment? Was there like a point, because you may in your mind at one point said, you know what, I made it right. Like I’ve meandered around and I’ve like found my way, and now I’m a professor. I’m in a PhD program and I’m working a Peloton or I’m doing exercise at the, you know, on the side there is gotta be some sort of like prompting moment or maybe some signal in your body or something happened where you were brave enough to walk away from all that and found your own business. Do you remember that moment? What was happening with you then?
That’s such a good question. I would say that moment happened both in the approach and in the departure. All of these, you know, I’ve gone to some big name schools and worked at some big name companies and at every single one of those moments of approaching those places or starting to dream about those places, I was not qualified or I did not come from like a network of connections. And so all of those, like with Columbia, there were a couple of professors that I really wanted to work with and ultimately I wanted to be in their PhD program, which is like, you know, 0001% of applicants that they take. But I applied and I got into their master’s program, right? And so I started on that lower level and I 100% made the most of being there. Like I just took every single class that I could and asked for things. That was, I think a big learning experience of ask for the things you want, which we’re often so terrified to do. A very much pivot moment in my life was when I was auditioning to be a spin instructor in New York City for the first time. I’d probably been in the city about a year. I mean, the city is so intimidating, so exciting and so intimidating. It’ll just, you know, remind you of how small you are all the time, and I had, and I was auditioning at New York Sports Club, which is kind of like the 24 Hour Fitness it’s like the entry level big box gym.
It’s not like some incredible boutique brand or anything. In other words if I can’t get in there, I can’t get in anywhere. Okay. So, and I auditioned, I did the first audition, they did not hire me. The next audition was a month later. They did not hire me after that second audition. But every time I went to the and this took so much like grit and just kind of like having to lay aside my pride and like really honor, I had this little voice inside of me that said I think I’m gonna be really good at this. And, but yet evidence to the contrary, right? I’m not getting hired. And I remember a friend of mine at the time, after that second audition, seeing how hard I was working for this and I was going, I was taking all these classes and learning things and he said, you know, like maybe this just isn’t for you and that’s okay. And I knew like there was that which is sometimes true, right? That’s sometimes the right question totally. But I had this little voice inside of me that was like, no. I think this is for me and I just have to keep going. And so I went and I auditioned that third time, and finally I was hired, you know, to start subbing. But it was a win. It was a win. It was a win and that, I mean, if not for that moment I wouldn’t, of course not have been to Peloton, not the other like amazing boutique brands that I worked with along the way. And so I point to that because I think like, that’s really my passion is helping women to connect with that voice. Like that little voice in you that is your kind of feisty, like 10-year-old ish that’s, you know, it hasn’t yet absorbed a bunch of stories about how you’re not qualified or whatever, like that feisty little voice in you, that over time like it does, it can get a lot harder to hear and underneath maybe a lot of rejections and stuff, but it was that same voice, when I’ve had these moments of leaving, like to leave a PhD program which was, I’d been trying to become a doctor for 20 years, you know? Yeah. And so to finally to decide to do that and to say, I’ve learned so much on this journey and I’m realizing that this particular container that I was aiming for is not the right one for who I’m becoming. Right? Like the woman I’m becoming, the way that I wanna teach is a bit bigger and wilder than this particular container, and that took a lot to, a lot of courage to decide that. And similarly like to create my own platform and to launch that. And again, it kind of comes back to that little voice, which is when I talk about spirituality or spirited leadership, which is so much of what I love to work with women in, it’s really that, you know, it’s like, call it the heart or spirit or intuition like that voice. And I think especially as women, that we have a very refined connection to that maybe culture has taught us not to honor, especially corporate culture. What does it look like at all the seasons of our lives? To kind of clear that channel, right and to be able to tune into that.
My passion is helping women to connect with that voice. Like that little voice in you that is your kind of feisty, like 10-year-old ish that's, you know, it hasn't yet absorbed a bunch of stories about how you're not qualified or whatever, like… Share on XSo, beautiful. So, one thing that I’ve noticed, so you said that feisty a part of yourself. So I’ll just say like a quick anecdotal story. So I have a 6-year-old, I have a 13-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old daughter. And my 6-year-old is like trying to l well, she’s trying to ride her bike and also trying to roller skate. So we’ve got everything on wheels right now like happening, it’s like had a couple 60 degree days in Chicago and everybody’s out washing their car like in shorts. I’m like, it’s just like everyone’s so excited about spring ’cause it gets cold here. Although we had a mild winter and like it’s the cliche, right? Like she was terrified to like go on a roller skates and she’s like holding my hand and then she falls. But she’s got that grit, to get up and be like, yeah, again. Again. Again, there’s no one that’s like telling her I’m not being like, oh, don’t do it. I’m like, get up. Let’s try again. She’s like, yeah, let’s go again. Right and that’s what you’re talking about is that you’re like, okay, I’m not gonna get it. I didn’t get it this time. I’m gonna go again. I’m gonna go again. So somewhere as you know, that gets beat out of us. Maybe life is just really tough, you know? Or work is really tough. Or people say we can’t, or they give us outs. Like your friend didn’t mean that like your friend was trying to give you a soft place to land, not to like hurt you. Absolutely. You had to listen and go, no, that was right for me. That could have changed the whole trajectory of your life. And so how did you, ’cause we have a lot of, lovingly I call us perfectionists that listened to this podcast. So how did you get over that failure? Or perceived failure, even like the PhD program also kills me ’cause I’m like, oh my God. Like that would be killing me to be walking away from that. So you’ve had to make some very tough decisions about walking down one road in your life or your career and being like nope, nope. And you could have gotten stuck in those like holes to say like, oh, I failed. But it sounds like you didn’t, or you found ways around it. So how did you do that?
Yeah, thank you for that question. We are just generally in our culture, but I think especially for women, we’re so conditioned against failure right. And I’m really, I’m so struck by that word that you brought up with your daughter, again, like bring it on. Right. And that she’s, she views a learning process as inevitably including quote unquote failures, right? Correct. I love, of course, the reframe and I always have to like be very intentional about reframing this ’cause I’m still so conditioned to feel shame at failure. And, but the reframe of what if there are no failures? What if there are only lessons? No failures, only lessons or no failures, only wisdom, right? Like to reframe let me think about all the things that I learned from this marriage that has moved into divorce. Or, let me think about all the things that I learned on this one career track that I’ve been excused from, you know, or that, that’s funny. Yeah. Like we, it’s just, we’re so conditioned to feel shame at failure versus really seeing it as almost like, I feel like your daughter was seeing it playfully, like, oh yes. You know that just like, yeah. What, okay, so I fell, so I learned a little bit. I got a little more muscle memory about where my center of gravity is. If you met her, you’d be like, there’s a ball of joy walking around in the world. Yeah. There’s a mural i’ll never forget seeing this photo. I remember, I wish I could remember which company it was in at Silicon Valley. Maybe someone will write in and say but there was a company where in the office entryway was this huge mural of just a big script two words that just said in big script writing fail better. Oh, so beautiful. There’s a great line by the playwright, Samuel Beckett, the Irish playwright, he says. Fail more. Fail again. Fail better, right? So like it’s seeing failure as just this, it’s just information gathering. Right. We hear like how many times did Thomas Edison try before of course succeeding?
In the office entryway was this huge mural of just a big script two words that just said in big script writing fail better. Share on XYes. You know, and I think about other, I got a shout out for my Chicagoans, like, Oprah Winfrey didn’t get hired, you know, like Oprah Winfrey people. Then we had Michael Jordan who I think got cut or didn’t get on his basketball team when he first was in college or somewhere in there. I mean, there’s so many examples. If you just Google like famous failures. I know that Einstein had so many failures in his life, so just Google that. I think it’d be fun for you as a reframe for anyone that’s listening that’s struggling with failure right now, that you’d be like, okay, if Oprah didn’t get hired, then like, maybe and she made it. I can make it too.
Yeah, and in all of those cases, it really came down to having that deep sense of intuition, right? Yes. Like having, and I think it’s also that it’s also an understanding that you can really be made for something and also have a lot to learn. Like these things, like you can have incredible raw talent that’s still not gonna be refined enough yet to be in the role that you want. And that’s like, of course we’re human. That’s just the normal to have this understanding of we fail our way into success. We fail our way into learning wisdom and in all those cases, I’m sure like Oprah had to have that moment with herself of like, am I gonna keep going? Yeah. Because I like she had the vision of who, what she was gonna become and the voice that she was meant to have.
So I have to ask you, and then I wanna go, ’cause you have some really interesting terminology. Like you said, the breath and sweat of the doorway. So the heart, so maybe this is the answer, but so I will share vulnerably that for many years, I mean women as a whole, like to survive corporate, I’m gonna say corporate careers, right? Like we’re taught to use our heads and not our hearts very often. So I broke up with my intuitive voice for a long time. We had a breakup for like probably 20 years. And then I found her again. And I’m like, oh, okay, there you are and there was like this, like shyness and she was in the corner and I was in the corner for a long time to like make up and stuff. So I guess I was just wondering for those of us that may have broken up with our intuition, you know, really are separated from heart’s wisdom, how do we get back in touch? Because it was really challenging for me, it was very, and I’m still in a process of like reconnecting with that ’cause it’s so much of an easier path, like path of least resistance. For me, when I have an issue, it always goes to like analytical mind. I’m always like, okay, writing down the pro and cons list. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s like beaten into me to be more analytical than to be in my heart center. So I was just curious about how can we find our way back there?
That's just the normal to have this understanding of we fail our way into success. We fail our way into learning wisdom Share on XYeah and let’s just acknowledge too, like the extent to which business culture in our country and still around the world it’s been shaped by the masculine and it is very masculine. I mean, you look at most C-suites of any corporation, you look at who gets venture funding, you look at all of these statistics and it’s just so dramatically surprising that masculine energy of structure, of analytics, of data, and I think that any healthy human being has both, like, has this really, we can talk about it in these just kind of broad terms of masculine feminine energy and that to be fully like heart centered, thriving human being, that there’s a harmony of both of these ways of thinking, like left brain, right brain. Data, intuition, all of this. So we want, we wanna be able to bring both when we are looking at any question, whether it’s like a life direction question or a business design question or something like that. But I also wanna acknowledge that I think that women have, there’s this great just Google the phrase witch wound and you’ll, it’ll take you down the, witch wound? Yeah. Okay. Tell me. I dunno what you’re talking about right now. Let’s go. It’s the whole history of how women’s intuition has really been penalized in our, in like all of history, right? So there’s, I just say that to acknowledge like there is this huge cultural weight when you’re talking about breaking up with your intuition. There’s a lot of reasons that we’ve been pressured into to do that, but I think that, I guess to circle around that phrase, breath and sweater, doorways to the heart that’s something that came to me, you know, even going back to those experiences running in college where as I was reconnecting with my strength and feeling my power, I started to dream bigger. A strong body dreams bigger, right? We’re flooding our, when we’re moving, like we’re flooding our brain with all of this blood and all of this oxygen, right? So, unsurprisingly, we think in a different way, often when we’re moving and in the alter practice that I lead, it’s a combination of what I call linear movement and non-linear movement. So linear movement is recognizable training stuff that we all do in the gym. Squats, lunges, burpees, weightlifting, right? Strength. So we’re doing that. We’re doing that structured linear movement, but it feels essential, and I think especially as women, for us to also give ourselves the chance to move in a non-linear way. So something like ecstatic dance or something like just turning on a song and letting your body move in whatever way it wants to, that it’s such a simple thing and it can take five minutes and it can be a complete revelation. I love to when I am leading that kind of movement to invite people to check in with their three-year-old self and their 90-year-old self. Like how does your three-year-old self wanna invite you to dance or to move? How does your 90-year-old self wanna invite you to dance and to move? And that brings us into this kind of primal, very core, very raw place that I think a lot of us, maybe it’s been years since we have been there, but, so that’s really the heart of the kind of movement practices that I lead is, yeah, we’re gonna build muscle, we’re gonna burn calories, we’re gonna like supercharge our metabolism, but we’re also gonna get in touch with like the raw core place.
So everybody I have to like back up, back the bus up on ecstatic dance and tell you guys, so there a lot of women, listen, I don’t even know in my community what ecstatic dance is. So everyone, it’s like basically you play whatever music, right? It’s typically, I don’t know if it’s it could be anything and you just, no agenda, there are no steps, you just let your body move intuitively and. It can be, and you shut your eyes typically because you don’t wanna be like judging yourself or judging someone else. And I have to tell you, that was so hard for me. I was just like, I feel so weird, like there are no steps, like there’s no like pathway. I mean, it’s taken me a couple rounds to do ecstatic dance to like, not judge, I love that you do this. I like, not judge myself, but it’s the equivalent to me of when you’re a kid, like, let’s go back to my little one, Olivia. Like, they just like color out of the lines, right? They just like, don’t care. And so that’s what it means to me. I don’t know what do you think about ecstatic dance? Do you feel like it’s almost like you’re coloring out of the lines and it is completely free form.
Absolutely. And it’s, so that word ecstatic has the prefix X right? Exit. Like to get outside of, so literally to get outside of the lines. To get outside of your head. It’s so totally normal to feel awkward, to feel embarrassed, to feel, you know, what am I supposed to do? Which of course, that surfaces how much we’re functioning with like shoulds and supposed tos and Yeah. All of that. Right. But so, and it doesn’t I think that ecstatic dance is this quick, instant way of accessing that place, but just as easily, I mean, it could, you could literally just be coloring outside the lines, be painting or be doing anything creative in a way where you are completely removing the product of what you know this thing is not meant to produce. I’m not gonna produce a painting, I’m not gonna produce a song. I’m just here to express. I’m just here to check in on my internal weather. I’m here to connect with my intuition. And just to, even for a lot of us, it’s like I’m here to just open up to the possibility that there is intuition, I don’t even know, like it’s been a long time. Right. But one, one vision that I wanna give us all is there are few things as powerful as a woman who has stopped trying to please. Right? Who has stopped, like having her foremost obsession be, what are the rules? And let me make sure that I’m playing by them, right? And who’s asking herself this other deeper question of what is my essence like? What is my radiance look like? What am, what are my particular gifts and skills and talents? How can I direct them into this staff meeting, or direct them into this, whatever, like the work context might be like, and I’ll sometimes it fall, like be on the beach and this, this’ll happen rarely. And you’ll see a woman who doesn’t have like a conventional, bikini body. By the way, how do you have bikini body? You put on a bikini! But I’m saying when you see a woman who’s just like in, like she’s in her body, she’s dressing in a way that’s gonna allow her to feel the wind, you know, allow her to fully feel and to a woman who’s in her body, that is I think one of the great glories and powers in the universe. And of course we’ve been taught, to like train that wildness out of us and to really play by these rules of structure and structure 100% has a place, but I like to give this invitation ’cause I think oftentimes just all of the streams of, all these cultural streams can really bring a woman, you know, when she’s like 40 plus 30, 35 plus or something into this sense of numbness, diminishment, a sense of like, the best is behind me. I’m not gonna really keep dreaming or dream as big or whatever and that’s the place that I wanna invite us to grow out of. Right.
So this is an interesting anecdote and then we’ll keep on keeping on. I was asked recently by a person, why do you have the side businesses like you have a successful corporate career? And I thought about it I looked at this, another woman and I looked at her and I go, because it makes me the most dangerous piece on the chess board. And she was just like, what do you mean? I go, because I don’t have my worth tied into this corporate place. My worth is coming from a much deeper well, and she just kinda looked at me because she’s still like in that like, and I’m still there too. Okay everybody, I’m just dabbling into ecstatic dance. Let’s not like say I’m like way over the other side. But it kind of felt like so empowering because for the longest time it was like about being in the zone. You know, I interviewed another woman, I think it was Susan Goldstein who has a whole course called The Matrix, and it was like, I’m in the matrix. I’m like living by everybody’s rules. I’m like pleasing everybody because that’s what I quote unquote should be doing. And now I’m like, just on the verge of, I’m like, yeah, no, I’m gonna do it my way. It just really, I hope it helped her to know that you don’t have to come from like, and connect your worth directly to your work or even directly to your family. I mean, like, yes, all those places, like in spaces are a sense of pride, but it’s not, like you said, connected always to the output, the work output. What’s really cool invitation about this conversation is that many women, a lot of women, like we don’t give ourselves permission to color out of the lines or do ecstatic dance, or to find that like playful part of us to tap into heart’s wisdom, to any, none of that. Like it’s always like, I have this meeting and this meeting and this meeting, and then you know, I’m done and I do it all over again. There is no space, there’s no grace for anything outside the lines.
Yes and I mean, I know what that culture feels like. I have felt it in academia. I’ve felt it in different companies that I’ve worked with, and there’s of course, you know, there’s something to be said for, and I’m very grateful for a lot of the time that I’ve spent on conventional routes. Yes. And then there’s also that moment, you know, of, for me it was like I said, realizing that I wanna create in a way that’s not gonna fit in these, in some of these conventional versions and when I was just listening to you, I saw this vision of like, what would, when we really kind of peel back, I think what just about any company is doing, when we peel back the product or the sales or whatever, it’s all about human connection. It’s all about belonging, right? It’s all about pleasure, right? So when we’re creating marketing campaigns or all the different like routes that businesses are going down, right? All of the different initiatives that businesses are working with as they’re working towards that primary goal, I had this vision as you were talking of what if you show up at that meeting in your heart’s wisdom? Like hopefully we’ve all had experiences of being in a meeting or being on like a, you know what we will think is just gonna be a boring zoom call or something and someone shows up and disrupts the situation with this moment of human connection or this moment of vulnerability and this right, that like resets the energy of the whole thing, like resets the conversation.
So I think that’s it’s making this shift to learn to value that, to learn to value your, when you are connected to your heart’s wisdom, when you’re connected to spirit as you experience it and you show up to that meeting in that radiance, in that openness, right? You show up to that presentation like supercharged with this real belief in your own value and belief in your own voice, which is of course, like it’s a journey that we’re all on to feel the trauma around and like, really, I believe so deeply that we are all full on miracles like the fact that each one of us is so utterly unique and to be able to walk in that value, right. To be able to walk in the worthiness of our voice and the worthiness of our particular energy is, it’s the journey that we’re all on. But when we show up in that way, it’s I think it can reset everything. Right? I mean, not just the meeting, that’s the whole marketing campaign. It resets the whole quarterly.
I think what just about any company is doing, when we peel back the product or the sales or whatever, it's all about human connection. It's all about belonging, right? It's all about pleasure, right? Share on XIt resets the whole environment. If everybody like, and you’re like, kind of like your work is just like, I’m gonna wave over one person at a time. Right? And so is that a roundabout way, is that the definition or your definition of a spirited leader? Is that what it is they’re bringing heart’s wisdom. They’re bringing spirit as they experience it, they’re bringing everything to table. Not like, oh, I’ve gotta stay in the lines, or this is what I should be doing. So am I hearing that correctly?
Yeah, that’s absolutely it. There’s, I love that the word spirited is a word that’s often used about horses, which is, you didn’t see that coming. No. And the image of the relationship between a horse and a rider. So a spirited horse is a horse that has a real sense of self, right? Has a real sense of direction, knows what they wanna do, they’re gonna, they’re like breaking they’re leaders, right? And I think that the relationship between a horse and a rider is actually this beautiful metaphor of collaborative leadership. It’s leadership that like one honors the other and this thing does not work unless it’s, there’s like a mutual honoring of each other and a mutual collaboration. Especially with a spirited horse, right? So that’s this other, so yes, spirited leadership is spiritual leadership. It’s leadership that’s honoring our spirit, our intuition, our heart. But also I love that image of it’s collaborative, right? It’s what does it look like to lead in a way that is honoring that spirit in all of the people that you are leading as well. You know, to kind of lead in a way where there’s this mutual bow toward each other.
Oh wow. That is so beautiful. And we typically talk about Word of the Year here at Brave Woman at Work I mean, I know we’re recording in March as we’re doing it now. We’ll see when it launches. But everybody, put that on your short list, the word spirited. That would be a fun word of the year. I’m gonna be living spirited, I’m gonna be working in a spirited way. I am gonna be a spirited leader. So this is new, so thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Okay, so you, we’ve kind of talked around the alter, your alter program, I think it’s a membership, and then your podcast. So tell us a little bit more about that. So if someone is looking for a new way to exercise, a new way to be a spirited leader, tell us more about the membership and then your podcast.
Oh, I’d love to yes. The Alter Together membership, you can find out about it at nicole meline.com/alter. And it’s a spirited community. Yeah, so it’s both, it’s movement and meditation as well as there’s different tiers to the membership. So I offer mentorship at the highest tier as well. And it’s both, it’s movement practices, workouts, strength training, meditations that are all coming from, I mean, I’m pouring into it my deep experience as a four time Iron man, instructor of many different fitness modalities, yoga, ,pilates, indoor cycling, treadmill workouts. So I have all of this structure right, that I’m bringing to it. But the difference is that I’m in inviting you to engage your, maybe it’s a daily workout, maybe it’s a few times a week from this place of this is my way of recharging myself.
So there’s, I think a lot of the language that I hear in the kind of fitness world. There’s from instructors, from coaches, there’s a lot of kind of negativity built into it or a sense of dissatisfaction with who I am now. Right. Like even stuff like you know, summer bodies are built in the winter. It’s like negative right outta the gate. It’s like, I don’t wanna work out hearing that. Right. Yeah. It’s like that’s not a big enough why to get, you know, on the days that I do not feel like showing up, like that kind of negative reinforcement or that kind of small reason for working out, that’s not a big enough why. Right? But when we are coming at it from this place of this is actually where I experience great pleasure. I show up to this because the music is amazing. It takes me on a journey. I reconnect with my vision, with my purpose, with my voice, with my strength. Like, yeah, like that is a big enough why to get me to show up consistently. So that’s the kind of different vision and voice of alter workouts and meditations. And I offer courses as well that are topic focused. So there’s Energize, which is a nutrition and metabolism reset. There’s the Visionary Master Course, which is really all about spirited leadership, the last volume of that is called Spirited Leadership, and then I offer one-on-one work as well.
Spirited leadership is spiritual leadership. It's leadership that's honoring our spirit, our intuition, our heart. Share on XAnd then tell us about your podcast, because I know that’s very popular too. Oh, so yeah, the Alter podcast is the mission statement, very simple, is exploring the practice of growth. So, yes we, a lot of the guests, or when I’ll do solo episodes, are focused on elements of our wellness, right? So nutrition, mindset, meditation, all of these things, different kind of physical practices, workouts, et cetera. But I also love I’m always doing all of that to get into that deeper work of personal growth of, asking that question again of who am I becoming right now at this season of my life? What is my next chapter look like? So that’s a lot of what we explore in Alter as well.
I love it. So how can women be braver at work? Can you give me maybe one to two ways that women can be braver in their careers today?
Tomorrow, start your day but either before you walk into the doors of work, or before you open that first zoom or whatever it is, hand to your heart and just take a few breaths into your heart center and make a deal with yourself and with everyone that you’re gonna encounter, that you’re gonna show up today from the heart.
And sometimes that’s gonna look like saying the brave thing that really feels true for you and you’re a little nervous to say. Sometimes it’s gonna look like creating a boundary around yourself or around your time in some way from something that’s really sucking your energy. But really connecting to that essence of yourself because that’s also about, I loved what you said to your friend who’s asking about why you have all these side gigs, that it’s also about deciding how much energy that you’re going to give to this work today, and what you’re gonna allow it to take from you and what you’re not gonna allow it to take from you.
So I think just that very simple and maybe especially, if there’s an especially challenging meeting or something that you’re gonna have during the course of the day to just take that moment with yourself. That’s also, I think, connected to the second thing, which is trusting the value of your voice and trusting your worth and especially for women, we are so conditioned to compete, we’re conditioned to make ourselves small in all kinds of different ways. What would it look like for you to trust you belong here, the value of your voice, the value of your perspective, and your literal worth, like your worth to be in this room, in this community. It’s no small thing. And I love, I think that, HR departments at their best, are really working from this perspective, it’s no small thing for someone to give the percentage of our lives that we give to our work to a company that is no small thing. This is your life. This is your time. This is your one wild and precious life. So to really be valuing yourself that you belong here, that your voice is valuable to the conversations that you are in. And I think that when we’re working from that place of our deep value, we show up differently. We show up courageously.
I actually really like that perspective. I mean, I think we take for granted, that we’re giving our, I mean, we are giving our life to this company. Like I haven’t heard that or thought about it in a long time. So then that gives a whole new perspective for what you’re giving to your career. It’s not just your time, it’s like your time equals the moments of your life that you could be doing anything. And I know we need to make money, and I’m not saying that, you know, like, okay, fine just like go live in a hut on an island. Although that sounds fabulous. I know that we have to do like real logical things, but thank you for kind of just reminding me that when we are working, we are giving it’s more than just our work output, it’s our time, it’s our energy, it’s our spirit, it’s our life force, and our energy and we get to decide how and when, and. It’s kind of disseminated, I guess, is what I’m thinking. So thank you for those. I just love them. I’m collecting them as as an FYI, so I’m kind of like trying to like categorize all like 200 some episodes. I’ve heard so much good good wisdom over the last three to four years, so thank you for that. So how can women find you, The Alter podcast? Alter membership? Where do they find you in your work online?
Yes. Everything lives at nicolemeline.com, N-I-C-O-L-E-M-E-L-I-N -E.com. If you go to the programs page, there, you’ll see courses. You’ll also see a page about mentorship, one-on-one work. I have a couple of retreats that are coming up this summer. One in particular just outside of Aspen in July in Colorado, which is where I live, that I am so excited to invite all of these spirited women into as just a total reset. So you can find out about retreats there as well and one-on-one work. The podcast is on all podcast platforms, but of course on Apple Podcasts on Spotify, and I’m on Instagram as well.
Well, thank you so much for being here. It was such a fun, it was just a joyful conversation and I love the work you’re doing and kind of bringing us a little out of the box, you know, out of the traditional, out of the norm, so we can get back to our heart. So thank you so much for being here.
Such an honor.
Well, that does it on my discussion with Nicole today. I hope you found our conversation both valuable and inspiring. As a reminder, please rate review and subscribe to the podcast in Apple podcasts and Spotify. The show is also available on any other podcast platform you enjoy. Until next time, show up.
Reinvent yourself and be brave.
