Jay Boykin (00:01.489)
Well, what is up everyone? Welcome back to the Just Human podcast. I am Jay Boykin. And as you all know, this is a space where we explore what it truly means to be human, whether we're talking about at work, in relationships, in our communities, just in life in general. And you see, no matter where we come from, what we do, we're all wrestling with the same questions. How do we grow?
How do we connect and how do we live with a purpose and stay true to ourselves? And so just human is built on that foundation. And so we have a lot of fun here talking about a bunch of different topics that, you know, we, all take some interest in. And so I'm Jay Boykin, I'm your host. And I am very excited for today's episode because I've got someone who has
Such a unique background. I've got someone who is a former investment banker, turned stunt woman and world record pro skydiver. And she is a keynote speaker, a life coach and author. I mean, her resume is so vast, but I'm excited to have her with me. Melanie Curtis, how are you Mel?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (01:14.448)
Hahaha
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (01:27.806)
Yay! I'm so thrilled to be with you today, I feel like we were fast friends when we met and just sort of had resonant energy and I'm just so thrilled. Thanks for having me on.
Jay Boykin (01:40.219)
I feel the exact same way. And I'm so excited to get into your story. And I know that my listeners are really going to enjoy this. So we just have to jump right into the obvious question. So what made you first start skydiving?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (01:42.509)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (01:56.962)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (02:02.902)
Yeah, yeah, people ask me this a lot because it is weird, right? It's such a strange thing to skydive at all, much less to be a professional at this very weird, fringe thing. And so, yeah, how I got exposed to it is that it's in my family. So my dad is a pilot. We had a literal grass strip runway airport at my house. His best friend was a skydiver. And so I was just exposed to this.
Jay Boykin (02:18.14)
Right.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (02:32.926)
as a possibility of something you could do, just even as a fun thing, very early in my life. know, a lot of people aren't even exposed to the idea that they could go skydiving for you know, fun adventure until later, until they have money, until it's, you know. So the way that I sort of think about it, to be honest, is I kind of lucked out in a way.
Jay Boykin (02:49.555)
right.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (02:58.69)
that as a young person, was exposed to this thing that I was able to go toward with support and then really fall in love with as a young person who didn't know much, who didn't know better. You know? And so I was able to, with real passion, go down a road that I honestly, who knows if I would have gone down.
had I quote unquote known better. And I think that's an interesting thread of the entrepreneurial conversation and certainly being human and pushing our edges, talking about our potential. Like there's lots that tries to stop us. So like in reflecting about my young life, that's one thing I take away is that like I'm sort of grateful that I didn't know as much because I don't know if I would have gone there and there's so much I'm grateful for in my life now as a result of going in that direction.
Jay Boykin (03:57.299)
That is super fascinating because, you know, it's very interesting that you mentioned that and not knowing any better because I think that you're right. think that many times young people end up on a path and sometimes it's not even a path that they create for themselves. It's something that is envisioned by other people and just you're encouraged.
And I come from a family largely of civil servants and even the college thing. College was something that it wasn't even a question that I was going to college. was just going to be a question on what I was going to study. But I love the fact that you talk about the fact that you got lucky and you ended up doing something that you love that most people are not even
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (04:31.149)
Mm-hmm.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (04:41.112)
Yep.
Jay Boykin (04:55.653)
exposed to in their lifetime, let alone at such a young age. It's an amazing story.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (04:58.998)
Yeah. Yeah, well, I want to, the reason I say that and point to it, because I'm like you too, in that I have these interesting parallel lives in my own existence in that I also very much was on the traditional path, very much conditioned, not even a question you're going to go to college. So even though I had this young sort of obsessive energy about skydiving, this passionate love that was sort of
erupting in me for this thing that I didn't quite yet understand, but just was willing to keep trying to do and include in my life. I was also very much executing on the go to college, get good grades, get a job, make money, where do I fit in the world? Like all those things were also happening and I'm grateful for that too.
And I don't mean to be like, I'm so grateful. I'm so positive. Hashtag life coach. Like I'm really not because, but I think that's an important piece. Cause one thing that people ask me a lot too is I I'm a very positive person, but it's very true for me. Like it's a real part of myself. Like certainly there are days I'm depressed, afraid, freaking out, not my best self. Of course. Duh.
your podcast, Just Human. Like I'm a human, everyone's a human, we have those days. But I do think, and when people ask me like, how are you so happy all the time? And the truth is, I'm not, I'm not happy all the time, but I do and I have cultivated over time with intentionality, the perspective through which I see life, you know what I mean? So when I say I'm grateful for skydiving, I lucked out.
I'm looking at that experience and going, I'm grateful for that. Like there are plenty of things that I quote unquote missed out on in life because I went the direction of this professional athlete traveling a lot. Like there are plenty of opportunity costs to that too, but I tend to intentionally with real care.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (07:16.654)
focus on the stuff that I've gotten from my experiences and how it's building to my highest good. So, you know, food for thought again. I don't know.
Jay Boykin (07:26.153)
I love that. I love that attitude. And you really do have an infectious positive attitude. And I definitely appreciate the comments that you made at the beginning that I do feel that we've become fast friends and we're going to come back to some more of your perspective on life and how you transition these things into your coaching. But you had a number
on your website and something that you told me that was staggering that you have over 12,000 skydives. mean, how is it even possible to jump out of a perfectly good airplane 12,000 times, Mel?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (08:13.55)
You're edge pusher, Jay. No, it's a totally valid question. It's so funny when I am out meeting people or at a dinner party with my partner or like, you know, just out in the world, entrepreneurially connecting or whatever and people learn that I'm a skydiver for the first time, it often comes up like, how many jumps do you have? And I often make people guess because the range of guesses can be really wide. Some people are like, I don't
maybe 200, you know? And that sounds like and feels like a lot to that person. And so when I say 12,000, it's exactly this question of like how, it challenges our perception of what's possible. The very pragmatic answer is that I was a competitor for a long time. So.
I went into the sport of skydiving very passionate, just like found every way I could possibly participate, spending all my money that I made at the investment bank, getting good, getting coaching, starting to compete as a beginner, all those things, making jumps just for fun. But a normal sort of quote unquote normal day for a fun jumper, non-competitor, skydiver, you'd make probably like four to five jumps a day at the most.
For a competitor, when you're starting to really train to compete at the either amateur level or even at the higher professional levels, you're doing minimum eight jumps a day and usually 10 to 12 and you're having multiple rigs, you land, you throw your parachute down on the ground, somebody packs it for you, you put on a second rig and you get on the same airplane you just jumped from. So that allows you to get more jumps a day.
and that allows you to get a lot of training because like we can train in wind tunnels for freefall formations. But for skydiving, there's no other way to do it. You have to exit the aircraft together as a team and that's the only way you get those reps. So that's how those numbers really rack up.
Jay Boykin (10:24.819)
So Mel, tell me this. A lot of my audience, they're gonna understand what it means to be a professional athlete based on some of the things that they see on television, whether it's football, basketball, hockey, baseball, a lot of great athletes, male and female athletes in sports that people recognize.
When you're talking about being a professional skydiver, what exactly does that mean? What does a competition look like in your world?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (11:03.874)
Yeah, yeah. When I say I'm a professional skydiver, what I mean, I think of it very simply in that I get paid money to do this thing. And so a professional can look lots of different ways and that there are nuances in skydiving as well. So like you could be in an arena football league and get paid money and that's your profession, professional football player. You can be in the NFL and be whatever.
You get paid money, right? There's just lots of different ways you can engage in sport. So in skydiving, you can be like a tandem master where you are the person that straps another person to you and you jump out and you help that person have their first skydiving experience. I don't have that rating. I've never wanted to strap people to me. It was always just too scary. I don't feel like I wanted to have to control a person. It just wasn't for me, right? So my path for professionalā€¦
Jay Boykin (11:58.793)
You knew you were gonna have somebody like me in your life that was gonna be out of control.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (12:01.55)
Yeah. I'm like, I don't want to have to do that. I even got my rating. As I grew in the sport, I did lots of different things. I got a rating where I can take people for their first jump and be as an instructor, which is different and distinct from being a coach that coaches experienced skydivers who already have their license. So I had that rating and I did that, but I found that
As much as that was enjoyable and I liked helping people grow in the sport in that way, it reallyā€¦ I didn't likeā€¦ and I say it like this, I didn't like saving lives, which sounds kind of bad. But I liked working with the people who already knew how to save their own life. They were cleared. They had a license. And they were now through that passion for skydiving, ready to get better, like ready to grow their skills.
as a competitor, I would get hired also to coach teams. So they would pay me to look at their videos, watch from the ground, and then I would also get paid to be in teams. So I'd be a player coach. So they would be paying for me to be on their team as someone who's a pro inside with say three other people who were learning. That's an elevated educational growth experience. That always really excited me and really was my thing because
I love the long-term goal. I love seeing real progress over time. The benefits that we get from doing something hard and long is different than just having a one-off experience that gives us a new insight into life.
Jay Boykin (13:48.521)
is so fascinating. said something, you said that you didn't want to be, you wanted to be around people that already knew how to save their own life. What do you mean by that?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (14:01.748)
Meaning if you don't have an A license in skydiving yet, you're not cleared to jump by yourself, right? So you haven't proven to instructors that you haven't passed all the levels that tell us you can be stable in free fall, that tell us you can recover when you do get unstable, that you can be altitude aware and you can deploy your parachute on time and in a stable fashion. So like that is, it's really...
a great thing. And honestly, if I had more time, if time and we didn't have to choose our life experience, I would still fully enjoy doing that. But when you have to select where you spend your time and energy and life force, there were plenty of places I could have done it in skydiving. I just opted to really focus on experienced skydivers who are new, right? Because in skydiving, you get 25 jumps, you get an A license, and suddenly you're
experienced and you don't know anything. I'm sorry, I'm about to swear. Like you don't know anything, right? You're very inexperienced still. And so those people were sort of cast into the void. And so it was more like these people really need help, you know, and I want to, I want to try and help them. And that's a lot of, and a large part of what my career is, has been built on.
Jay Boykin (15:26.205)
Yeah, well, that's a great segue. It's almost like you're hosting the show because you are a keynote speaker and you are a coach. so talk a little bit about your coaching business and how you translate your experiences as a professional skydiver to your coaching.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (15:50.7)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, God. The way that I approach coaching, and this is my primary work now in my life, is my keynote speaking and my coaching. So that's what I do for the vast majority of my income. You know what I mean? I'm a very entrepreneurial person. I'm doing lots of things. I have my own podcast. I do occasionally do skydiving jobs when they're unique and interesting.
usually now connected to some bigger purpose that matters to me. That's pretty much the only thing that will hire me, like can get me to do a skydiving job now because I just want to focus on other versions of impact. So, and that's me growing. Like that's me as a growth-minded person. You can see it so clearly in my entrepreneurial journey and expansion and as a creative as well. So to answer your question, coaching, I approach it like we are a team for
my client's goals. So if they say they are afraid that they are not living up to their potential, if they have a very specific crisis situation like a divorce or just a really challenging co-founder or it could be any number of things, but usually it's not that I'm a coach for any and all things, it's that I'm a coach for the
person who resonates with my energy and the intensity with which I go at goals and the way that I approach life. So like, it's hard to kind of describe that, but if you listen to me on podcast, if you hear me on a stage, if you watch any of my Instagram reels, you're going to get a sense for who I am. Like that person is not different. Even though I'm posting more cat funny cat reels and dumb, dumb memes on Instagram, that's still
how I show up as a coach for you. I'm not suddenly buttoned up wearing a suit and tie. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, I'm sort of riffing, but it's really about being a teammate. So like, there's not, I have one form that people fill out at the beginning. Otherwise, it's entirely custom based upon what the conversation and the relationship brings about for us.
Jay Boykin (18:07.037)
That's that is great. And I love I mean, I've I've listened to some of your clips of your speeches and you know, and you and I talk fairly regularly and you know, for my audience and thank you. However, you are joining us if you're on if you're watching on YouTube. So glad that you're here. Feel free to hit the subscribe button and leave some comments if you're listening on your favorite
podcast provider, thank you to you as well. But the way that you are seeing or hearing Mel on this episode is pretty much how she shows up all the time. I mean, she's just got this really infectious energy about her. so, and we have calls that are early in the morning sometimes. And so she's, yeah, it's just the two of us and she...
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (18:59.15)
Right. It's just the two of us. No performing necessary. Yeah.
Jay Boykin (19:03.835)
Yeah, she's not putting on a show. is true male. This is male uncensored. So, you know, I love it. I love it. You can feel free to use that if you want to. So tell me this, you you talk about people facing their hard and, you know, do you think that everyone needs to find that spot where they need to jump?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (19:09.486)
Thank you. I'm well-incensored. I love that. I'm stealing that.
Jay Boykin (19:31.983)
metaphorically in order to grow and what does that look like in everyday life for people?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (19:39.618)
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, we can't talk about doing more and being more and being all inspirational without also talking about the genuine humanness of what holds us back. You know, like I talk about being a really anxious young girl and how I could have skydived when I was, you know, 16, but I was just too scared. I was not ready. I really just...
It was too nervous, but I also felt this sort of intuitive calling toward it also. And again, I didn't know this when I was 18 and doing my first jump. I only sort of reflected on that later and started to discern, that was fear, right? So I go for my first skydive. I'm certain I can't do this. I'm certain I'm going to die. I'm certain something terrible is going to happen.
I land and I've done it and I've done this thing that I was sure that I could not do. And fundamentally, my psyche was changed in that moment, even though I didn't realize it was happening. But in reflection, I can see it. can go, and I say this a lot about fear, but it, because it's not like hashtag life coach, I can do anything. I'm so suddenly so inspirational.
that I had to at least question what fear was telling me I couldn't do because so often it's wrong. And so that frame alone is a huge reason why I have done so many of the things I could do. I've written a book, become an entrepreneur, get on stage and talk every time I do a keynote. I'm not feeling just fully confident.
it when I start those things. One thing I'm saying a lot recently as I'm sort of digging in on this confidence piece is that confidence is not a requirement. It's the result. You know what I mean? Like period. And that I've seen it just time and time again. I can see it in my speaking right now. Like, you know, we're growing as speakers together and I am not afraid to share.
Jay Boykin (21:50.43)
that.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (22:04.878)
with humility that I'm in a learning and growth process around certain skills that I care to build and being a really excellent keynote speaker is one of those things. I'm pretty good already. I'm not saying I'm not, but I'm also saying I care to be really excellent and get to that place where my confidence is absolutely without question. You know what I mean? And I know I can get there because I've seen it so many other times. I feel it in skydiving.
Jay Boykin (22:21.875)
Right.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (22:33.546)
with a great deal of respect as always, of course, but if that makes sense.
Jay Boykin (22:37.235)
Well, isn't that the place that, you know, we all should want to be in a growth mindset and recognize that no matter how good we are at whatever our craft is, that there's always opportunities to learn new things and develop new skills and to get better. And so I definitely feel like you're being
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (22:59.373)
Yeah.
Jay Boykin (23:04.359)
very humble when it comes to yourself as a speaker, but I love that attitude that you're continuing to work on that and continuing to refine that craft.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (23:07.95)
Thank you.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (23:12.684)
Yeah. Yeah, it's just, this is why I champion doing hard things and why, and I talk a lot about like type two fun. Do know what type two fun is? Yeah. Yeah, it's totally a, it's a silly term, but I like it because it, it just feels edgy and weird and I just like stuff like that.
Jay Boykin (23:24.39)
Explain that for my listeners.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (23:35.5)
But type one fun is basically stuff that's fun while it's happening. You're having a fun dinner with friends, you're laughing, you're dancing, stuff like that. Type two fun is a term outdoor enthusiasts use a lot for really like hard things like Spartan Race. It's things that are only fun after they're over. So, you you finish the marathon, you get back to the car after Kilimanjaro.
Jay Boykin (23:54.857)
Okay, that makes sense.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (24:02.412)
You know, you, and it doesn't always have to be an outdoor thing. Like writing a book. I have a book and an audible book. Finishing the audible book. Man, what an achievement. Like I am so proud of myself for that thing. It was really hard. And it was hard to figure out how to persevere through learning about technology that I didn't know and finding the right teammate to edit and be the audio person.
sit in my desk and try to have blankets in the same spot so that I sounded kind of the same each time. It was so much stuff, but that's what excites me. And so that's what I champion in other people is not necessarily the easy fix, but the commitment to something harder that's going to deliver so much more.
Jay Boykin (24:52.629)
That's amazing. Mel, when did you transition from doing the investment banking into being an entrepreneur?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (25:03.33)
Yeah, I was in investment banking for five years. So it was my job out of college. So I was, again, on that traditional path. And so I went to Middlebury College. I graduated with honors, super, super overachieving young Melanie, crushing it at doing all the right things, you know? And so I got this job. I worked for some great people. Again, I made a lot of money. I spent it all getting good at skydiving. And I share the story occasionally about
how I knew to leave. And it was, I was becoming a person in the bank, even at like 23, 24 years old, I was becoming a person I did not like and that I knew was not me. Like I just knew it. I was snapping at my boss. I was dreading going in. I just was experiencing myself in a way that I'm like, something's wrong here, you know?
And so I bought the job search book, What Color Is Your Parachute? Have you ever heard of that book?
Jay Boykin (26:04.361)
I have not, but I'm gonna look that up.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (26:06.432)
I mean, I don't even really recommend it. I guess I would. I have no idea if it would even be useful for people now. But why I bought the book is because Parachute was in the title. I was totally obsessed. But a question in that book changed my life. And that question is, what would you do if money were no object? Again, not a groundbreaking question in the sense that we've heard that question. It's very life coachy. It's very...
Jay Boykin (26:18.035)
Okay.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (26:35.498)
open-ended but it gets you thinking. My answer to that was immediate. It was skydiving, right? Immediately skydiving. But as soon as the answer came to me, well, obviously skydiving, just as immediately, the walls, the doors of how and why I couldn't do it started to come in. I don't want to live in a trailer on the drop zone. I don't want to eat ramen noodles for my life. I want to have a home. I want to have a family.
Jay Boykin (26:41.595)
Okay.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (27:02.946)
Like there was this perception that I had about what professional skydiving looked like and could be. And I did not want that for my life. I knew it. But because the answer was so immediate, I at least honored that and started to like crack open these doors and be like, wait, that person is a professional skydiver and they don't eat ramen noodles every night. They have a house and a family.
And that mattered, you know what I mean? That started, that introduced me to an idea, just like I was lucky enough to be at my dad's house and get exposed to skydiving as an idea. That's when that idea started to enter my world. And this is another thing that I talk about in my speaking is that thinking bigger is a skill, right?
We don't want to just hope that new ideas come to us and open up our perception. We can also seek new ideas, learn, listen to audible books, podcasts. We can have conversations with friends where we ask each other questions that might spark a new thought or a new idea. We can get coaching. Like we can do lots of things to open ourselves up to potentially bringing in a new idea that changes our trajectory. And that we have to be
committed to kind of doing that, right? Or we just have to wait and hope it happens for us, which is not what I would recommend.
Jay Boykin (28:34.949)
Yeah, this is, this is resonating so strongly because you know, I've recently transitioned into entrepreneurship, doing my own business. You and I have met as we've, star, we've, we've been developing our, keynote speaking craft and you know, I spent my entire career in corporate America in finance and accounting.
roles and essentially trying to fit the molds that other people had created and continuously telling myself, you know, I, I can't run my own business. I can't do this. I can't do that. And now I can't even imagine going back. You know, it's, I'm, I'm like,
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (29:20.558)
Mm, anything?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (29:29.954)
Yeah.
Jay Boykin (29:32.585)
I've burned my boats. I'm not going back. I'm fully committed. And, you know, much like yourself in how you are helping people through your coaching, I'm loving the idea in my business of being able to help small business owners deal with some of the challenges that they deal with every day.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (29:33.71)
Yeah.
Jay Boykin (29:58.791)
But being able to use some of the things that I nerd out on, know, going through their finances and doing spreadsheets and analysis. That's my idea of fun. That's most other people's idea of hell, but that's, that's my idea of fun. But you know, I'm, I'm really, really appreciative of your message and, just how well you articulate that in, in everything that you do. So.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (30:03.298)
Yup.
Correct. Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (30:24.802)
Thank you.
Jay Boykin (30:27.817)
I want to go into a couple of sort of fun questions for you. And then I'm going to come back to how this ties to your business and how other people can think about this. But what's the scariest jump that you've ever done? I know out of 12,000, may not be hard to remember. That may be difficult to remember, but what's the scariest one you've ever had?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (30:46.528)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (30:51.224)
Well, it's not that it's difficult to remember per se, it's that there are different categories of scary when it comes to skydiving. One of the things that I talk about a lot in my keynote speeches is I use the footage from the most recent world record that we did. So I talk basically in short for your audience, the world record that I'm talking about is I was basically a person on a bigger team made up of 100 women.
We're jumping out of five different airplanes flying in formation and we're falling, flying upside down head to earth, going 200 miles per hour each and building a predetermined formation. And if any one grip is off, it's not a record. So it's like this really amazing example of teamwork, but also of fear because I had, I'll tell you a super straight.
I'm basically fully retired from doing world records and I was retired from doing world records until this one came about. The reason is that world records are really, why I'm saying this relative to scary is that you go up to 20,000 feet so that you have more free fall time to build these larger formations. You go above where humans have enough oxygen. So you need to
breathe supplemental oxygen in the airplane, saturating your blood with oxygen so that when the door opens and it's time to exit, you put the oxygen tube down and you have enough oxygen in your system to get you through the freefall portion of the skydive that gets you back to where there is enough oxygen to breathe normally. And so that is no joke on top of all the other environmental elements of doing a world record.
In 2013, one skydive that I was on, I was breathing the supplemental oxygen, but for whatever reason, I wasn't getting enough. And I don't know if you know the term hypoxia, but I got hypoxic. And what happens when you get hypoxic, which is basically not having enough oxygen to your brain, is that one of the first things that goes is decision-making.
Jay Boykin (32:58.888)
Yes.
Jay Boykin (33:12.509)
Right.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (33:12.842)
And so even though I'm sitting there, I'm literally sitting on the floor of the airplane near the door, I'm one of the first to climb out on that particular record, I feel and sense and see my vision narrowing. I know what's happening, but I don't have the wherewithal to not go. And so I ended up jumping out of the plane on a world record attempt, hypoxic with really narrow vision.
Jay Boykin (33:31.923)
care.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (33:42.098)
miraculously, I made it through that skydive. I performed flawlessly on that skydive, weirdly enough. But I woke up, basically, already gripped in the formation. I remember this skydive. Like, I can see it in my mind's eye because it was, it's a very serious situation. So I have my grips. I'm in the formation holding on, doing just fine.
at about, I don't know, probably 8,000 feet, I sort of come to and sort of realize what just happened. I finished the rest of the skydive, but that was a reason where I'm like, I don't really think I want to do this anymore. Like, and I really, because I was burning out a little bit on skydiving at that point anyway. And so that, I know that's a very serious story, but I learned a lot from that. I can go on and on about it, but
Jay Boykin (34:33.971)
That's an amazing story.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (34:37.71)
The question I'm sure people are wondering is, what the heck made you go again? What made you show up in 2022 and actually do another world record? the short, short answer to that is that we had this incredible, wonderful opportunity where we were backed by philanthropy in a very strong, powerful way to use skydiving as a vehicle for
social justice, where we were using it as a vehicle to champion women and girls to be bold and brave, to talk about marginalized groups. And we had a full PR team. Like it was something that I was like, the opportunity embedded in this is so great. I could sense, knew, like even about my speaking career, Jay, I knew I'm like, I'm gonna have just so much opportunity because of this. So can I, mindfully, thoughtfully,
move through my fear step by step in this world record experience, you know what I mean, for the sake of that bigger purpose that I really believed in? And the answer, of course, is yes, but that's a much longer story.
Jay Boykin (35:43.987)
Wow, that's a very powerful story, Mel. I'm curious, I feel like we could go on for an hour and a half, but we're not going to, because I know you're so busy. you know, so for me, and I'll be very candid with you, I don't even like to fly, let alone jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. I fly because it's convenient and it's just easier than driving everywhere.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (35:52.351)
I know, I know. Now it's all good.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (36:02.177)
Yeah.
Jay Boykin (36:13.053)
but I'm just one of those people that has to focus on something else during the flight because I just don't enjoy it. But you talked about the fact that it's not that you don't have any fears. You have just worked through this way of overcoming it so that you can do these things that are challenging for most people.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (36:18.723)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (36:35.0)
Yeah.
Jay Boykin (36:40.347)
and maybe even still challenging for yourself, but it's not that you are completely fearless. And so what's your message to those individuals out there that may be facing something that they're afraid of right now? It could be a job change, some big life change, something going on in their life where
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (36:46.424)
correct.
Jay Boykin (37:06.739)
They are trying to make that decision to jump. What's your message to them?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (37:10.614)
Yeah. Yeah. Again, there's just so much here. I could say a million different things. One thing that I say a lot is that, well, what I feel like we need in just real quick bullets, we need skills, we need systems, and we need support. Meaning fear is, as we've said plenty of times, universally human. If you're feeling it, you're not failing. You know what I mean? Like it's normal.
It's normal. Like I don't feel bad about feeling afraid. Like I was just saying about my speaking, like I still have a lot of anxiety around, you know, certain new content that I put up and stuff like that. I'm not afraid of that. I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not afraid of feeling the fear. I don't like it. It's not fun. It's uncomfortable. But I have skills and I have a belief around what discomfort delivers me.
And I sort of experience, believe it is the door to these breakthroughs. So building skills around fear, whether it's breathing deeply and understanding your parasympathetic nervous system and how to interrupt that fight or flight response. that is simple skills, mindset skills, like I just mentioned, what do you believe relative to the situation that you're doing? Skills of reflection. And I mentioned having systems, right? So the world record, for example, I mean,
I'm not joking. I would be walking down the freaking sidewalk and it would be, it was months before the world record, but because I was committed to doing it, my fear would come up. It would start to cycle. All these fear thoughts would start to roll through my head. What are you doing? What do think you're doing? You don't have to do this. What if you die? What if you look like an idiot? What if you ruin it for everyone? Just ridiculous, right? But not totally normal. And so me working my skills to coach myself back.
Jay Boykin (39:03.208)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (39:07.778)
So that's one thing. Systems is more around setting up how do you have support and how do you have, because basically when we're doing something really hard, when our fear is elevated, we need to take everything that we can off of our cognitive load, right? I can't be spending energy worrying about my lunch on the world record. I need to just know what I'm eating. You know what I mean? I just got to bring the same thing every day.
Jay Boykin (39:36.361)
Okay.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (39:36.59)
I got to put my jumpsuit on in the same way. I got to sit in the airplane the same way. I got to put my seatbelt on in the same way. Muscle memory that takes the cognitive load off. So again, much more expanded here. And this is the most important one, most important even though they're all important, is that we have to have support. Like we can't and we're not meant to do this life alone. Like just period, you know, like the highest achievers. Like I can eat, this is myself to a nutshell, but likeā€¦
Man, there's so many of us that when we're conditioned for high achieving and we kind of pathologically go through life thinking that's going to keep us safe from rejection or failure or any number of things, right? That once we learn that we can be safely held for failing, for screwing up, for being imperfect, for anything, right? Then we...
are so much more able to employ courage because we know that if we do fail or screw up that we're gonna still be loved. We're gonna still be held. And that is the most important thing for me, feeling like I can go out into the world is that, I love myself and I have a support system around me of others that love me too.
Jay Boykin (40:57.139)
So beautiful, Mel, you are amazing. I'm to throw a question at you that you aren't expecting, but you've mentioned it a couple of times. You've talked about that support system and I'm definitely a big believer in, you know, that we are the average of those people that, that we surround ourselves with and
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (41:04.024)
Ha
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (41:18.733)
Yes.
Jim Rohn, right? Mm-hmm.
Jay Boykin (41:22.919)
Yeah, I love Jim Rohn. so, you know, what's, what's your message there? Because, know, it's sometimes it can sound really bad that, you know, sometimes you just gotta, you gotta choose wisely who you are allowing to speak into your life and who are those individuals that are drawing energy from you.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (41:34.701)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (41:45.878)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, this is, there's so many, just, you know me, I could just go on and on, but like, this is a really good one. I'm glad you brought this up because especially for people who are really kind and really care about other people, like when people ask me, what's your purpose? It's people. have...
deep fascination with the human experience. It's why I'm excited about human potential. It's why I love my people so much. It's why I'm always working on myself. I joke that the that there are that people I don't like I like not to say that they get access to me but that I'm fascinated by how they became who they became what their story is all kinds of those things but why I bring up
kind people and people who are committed to service is that usually there is a thread under there of like sort of fear of abandonment, fear of rejection. Again, I'm speaking all this from my own experience, take it or leave it, where I had to really learn how to have boundaries and learn what and where should people have, to what levels should people have access to me.
Entrepreneurially, as a coach, for example, it's a great microcosm of that. Friendships, obviously, are microcosm of that. Two-way street, give and get, is it one-sided? Usually, we don't reflect on these things because there's often a belief of like, well, I don't want to hurt their feelings or I don't want to, and I'm not saying go around hurt people's feelings, but I am saying it's okay.
to reflect on who you choose to have near you. And it is okay to make choices that old you made, that new you knows is no longer a fit for you. That goes for relationships and that is really hard. The last thing I'll say is that how I frame this is, cause I work with a lot of high performers, intense types like myself, is that that is...
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (44:05.418)
an elevated skill set, meaning old you made choices that got you into situations you're in today. If you're growth minded, you're growing, you're learning, you're understanding what boundaries mean, you're understanding about Jim Rohn, the five people closest to you make up your mindsets and how you energetically show up. It matters. You have to figure out how to make changes to your relationships and to
to those boundaries that you set for yourself.
Jay Boykin (44:37.449)
I'm so glad that I threw that in there because I knew that your insights on that were going to be really good. You got time for another deep question?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (44:48.545)
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Jay Boykin (44:50.427)
So, you mentioned high performers and you work with high performers. And sometimes you hear that very often, almost like a buzzword. I'm curious, how do you define a high performer to that individual that is listening in my audience today that may be questioning, I think I'm a high performer, am I a high performer?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (44:54.935)
Mm-hmm.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (45:03.959)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (45:10.349)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (45:18.626)
Hahaha!
Jay Boykin (45:20.263)
What does that look like to you, Mel?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (45:22.774)
Yeah, you know, the other way that I think about it, it's multifaceted, but again, this is all from my experience. Usually you end up working with people who used to be you. So I say this with a lot of compassion and love for myself and my own journey as a human being. But it can start as that pathological overachieving, right? And where we exhaust ourselves deeply.
Yeah, one of the early things that I got when I first went to therapy, I was basically, and I'm a huge mental health advocate, super, super proponent of deeper healing, all those things. I could talk, do a whole episode on that. But one of the first things, like really insights that I got from an early therapist that I had who was amazing was I got this understanding of how deeply exhausted I was.
Jay Boykin (45:58.481)
As am I.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (46:19.392)
and how that connected to this overachieving, this relentless overachieving. Now, stay with me. That is a part of me. That Mel, I love her. She is dope. She is awesome, right? But now that I know her, I know what she would do to be sort of pathologically doing it to...
avoid her feelings, to avoid a difficult conversation, to whatever, to avoid softness of any kind, femininity, right? Like, so there's lots of ways that if a high performer or overachiever is listening, they can sense by like, what is their pain point? Are you deeply exhausted, but you feel like you kind of just have to keep go-go-going, right? Do you really kind of get off on
doing big things, right? There's nothing wrong with that, right? I still do that, right? The reason I point to this part of me being a really awesome person is that now I can deploy her, right? I can choose into that. And that'sā€¦ you're seeing that with me in speaking. Like, I am so clear and it took me multiple years to be like not in high resistance to really giving myself fully to my speaking career.
Jay Boykin (47:32.958)
Yes.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (47:44.088)
So that was a whole, that's a whole nother freaking diatribe, but I'll skip it for today. But my point is, that I can deploy that high achieving self now. I have a really amazing skillset in terms of how I approach goals, how I have grit. Like there's lots of stuff that my high achieving self can really work and use toward things that I've really thought and reflected on matter are aligned with my intuition.
Jay Boykin (47:47.172)
Hahaha
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (48:10.176)
are aligned with my values. But if I'm still unconscious and the overachieving for the sake of love and safety, then I'm going to feel deeply exhausted. I'm going to feel just like uncertain, confused. I'm going to have days where I'm really depressed. And again, I still have those days, but I know that that's my system telling me I need to really rest. And that's when I take this high achieving part of me really offline and I employ a different set of skills, which is in the realm of softness, self-love.
connection, et cetera, et et cetera.
Jay Boykin (48:42.963)
Wow, such a powerful message. You are so amazing. And I said we could go on for a while, but I'm going to be respectful of your time. So I'm going to put some links out there, but Mel, for those folks that are listening that may want to follow you, whether it's on Instagram or check out your website, what's the best ways for people to connect with you?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (48:49.486)
Ha
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (49:06.666)
Yeah, thank you so much, my friend. My website is melaniekurtis.com. If anyone wants to reach out to me directly, my email is mel at melaniekurtis.com. Instagram, I'm melaniekurtis11. For all Spinal Tap fans, it's because I go to 11. It's like a stupid joke. I'm a big lover of comedy. You'll get that over there. Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Those are my two main social channels. But yeah, melaniekurtis.com. And I'm just so grateful. I loved our chat today.
Jay Boykin (49:35.265)
I did too. You know, Hey, on the, on the way out on this, this, said, I was not going to give you any more questions, but I have to. So, you know, when, when you see other athletes and they're getting ready for their big game and they've got either their buds on or their big, headphones on and they're listening to whatever. So for Mel, you know, what's, what's in your playlist of choice? What are you listening to to really get you pumped up?
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (49:42.594)
love it.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (49:52.779)
Yeah.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (49:57.398)
Ha!
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (50:01.892)
yeah. I have a series of songs, but one, the world record song, which, and sound is proven to help you connect to flow state, another conversation as well, but whatever it takes by Imagine Dragons. Legends, like this, this is how legends are made. I really get pumped up on that song as well.
But there's other songs that also soften me and bring me back to that. So it's not just hype up songs, it's also like healing is not my purpose. So it's also just letting myself live. Why do all the healing if I'm not gonna enjoy my life, have fun, be in relationships? So it's kind of a collection of five or six songs that support me and all the things I care about.
Jay Boykin (50:51.003)
I love it. love it. Well, Melanie, it was so great to have you on. And for my listeners here on Just Human, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. If this resonated with you, please share it with someone in your circle because I know that there are people out there that would love to hear this story about Melanie and to hear her message and to feel her energy. I hope that you all can feel it.
coming through your earbuds the way that I hear it every time I have the opportunity to talk to her. So definitely feel free to share. And Mel, thank you so much for joining us. And I will talk to you here very soon. But for my Just Human audience, go out there, stay curious, keep exploring, and we'll see you on the next episode of Just Human.
Melanie Curtis (she/her) (51:48.91)
Thank you so much, everyone.
