Season 2: Episode 15 - How to Jump in Faith and Let the Lord Build the Wings

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to the Joy Inspired Podcast. I'm Mickey Cruz, and I'm thrilled to explore with you what it means to walk in a faith-infused business. This is your space to find powerful fees and insights, to build with resilience and to create impact through your unique purpose, discovering a joy that only God can provide. Together, let's embrace a business journey anchored in faith and empowered by joy. Let's jump in. Well, hi friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Joy-Inspired Podcast. And I get so excited because this is where we as faith-driven entrepreneurs come to breathe again. We come to rise and remember our God-given purpose. And today's guest is someone whose presence feels like a warm cup of peace on a cold, chaotic day. She's gentle, she's powerful, she is really anointed, and she's a wonderful friend, and she carries quite a testimony that reminds us all that your story is not the end. It's actually the beginning of someone else's breakthrough. I'm talking about my incredible guest, Wendy Melrose, founder of Resilience Press, storyteller, author, book midwife, and champion for anyone who's ready to turn their trauma, tragedy, and testimony into a message that can transform lives. Wendy doesn't just help people write books, she helps them heal in the process and then step boldly into the promises on the other side of their pain. And today we're gonna go deep, we're gonna get real, and we're going to joy it up with Wendy Melrose. So let's jump in, friends. Grab your coffee, grab your pen and paper, and get ready to take notes. Wendy, welcome to the Joy and Spy podcast. Hey, thanks for having me. I've been so excited to have this conversation because as we've talked in the past, I've recognized that you're somebody who truly embodies resilience. You embody purpose and the beauty of let God redeem every chapter of your story. For anyone meeting for you for the first time, hey, tell us who is Wendy Melrose and what does Resilience Press do?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Um, so who am I? Um that's a that's a loaded question. Um well to simply I am a child of the king, a daughter of the most high. Um I'm a wife, a mother of two, and a doggy mommy of two. You might see them walking around in the background. Um Resilience Press is um an amazing opportunity for me to serve the Lord, and it's the most current name that the Lord has used. Um, I it wasn't the original name, it's the third name that I've had because here's the thing um it's kind of my uh new pivot in life. I've had plenty. You know, if anybody has ever watched the the show Friends and you hear pivot, that's been my life the whole time. Um from 16 to 47, I have um done, you know, probably over 40 things to provide for my family. Um I have a degree in interior design and architecture that I don't use, but it still comes in handy. But when the Lord um created the most recent pivot from the insurance world, I was a farmer's insurance agency owner into restoring my gift of writing and you know, helping me start the process of learning something so quickly. So many times people are like, How can you do the process of writing the book so quickly? Um, I don't know because you know, when I do things with the Lord, I I feel like it's what I call outside time because God doesn't run in Kronos time like we do. And so I I um ask the Lord for the opportunities for I guess it's more like Kairos moments where you seize the opportunity in front of you. And so often people will say, but it takes years to write a book. Uh only if you're researching, you know, and you have to have all that data, but it's coming straight from the heart, and God's written this story in and through your life, you can get that out as quickly as you're willing to be obedient to do so. So Resilience Press was born because I realized from 2024 to 25 that 60% of everybody I've helped was sharing their trauma tragedy to resilience and in victory stories. So my business mentors, like, why are you called, why aren't you called Resilience Press or whatever? She had some other suggestions, and I'm like, I don't know. So I rebranded. That was a feat. That is not an easy thing to do, and it's super annoying because I even still find the old company name on some social sites even now. But um, does it mean I help people outside of resilience stories? Absolutely. I I help whoever the Lord leads my way, and then it makes sense for his kingdom and for his glory.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Oh, I I so love that, and it's so true. You you said something that to me is key, and entrepreneurs hear this. We can chase after people or we can sit back and trust God to bring us the people He wants to entrust us with, right? And it's a lot easier when you work with the people God's trusting you with. Does that mean you sit back and do nothing? Absolutely not. You work with him, but he will bring those people across your path. You know, ever heard of divine appointments, folks? We talk about it in every other way, but it's so true here. So I love that you stand in obedience in that, Wendy. And you talk about resilience. One of the things you mentioned in your form was that you took a bit of a business hit last year. And your company is called Resilience Press. You know, that's not a small feat when you take a business hit and you come back.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

And I do believe that there are people out there who need to hear that and need to hear why you're still here, why you're still going. Can you walk us through that moment?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah, sure. So when I sold the business, I had uh enough money that should have lasted a year, year and a half, right? Um, with hyperinflation and also um bad decisions, or what I at the time thought were bad decisions. When I sold the business, the Lord told me to wait. I don't know about anybody else that's a high age-driven human being. I do not know what that word means. I am not good at it. Um, and so I did wait for what I thought was the appropriate amount of time of sitting in my new house with new furniture because we also bought and sold a house. Um and I'm like, well, I don't know how to wait. So I watched my favorite Disney movies. One of my favorite ones is um called Elemental. And it's just, you know, I'm like, what can I do that I normally didn't have time when I was constantly answering the phone and dealing with people's insurance policies? I'm like, well, I will watch some movies. And then I also had a couple children's books that I needed to illustrate. So I was working on that, and I'm like, this is fun. And I'm like, okay, done with that. And because I'm very because I can be so task driven, I can work really quickly and be and get things done, you know, really fast. And so I decided to make, well, I can I was watching some different YouTube. You know, here's what you guys need to know. Waiting does not mean going and doing scrolling on the internet and getting proposed to by all the ads. Hence where my my issue came. I decided to join a particularly figuring out how to do the royalty program on Amazon. Because anybody who's like, oh, I wanna, I wanna hit the royalty market. Royalty market means how do you earn money on Amazon? Well, you can. There are people out there who are successful authors not doing it the way that I learned, but they also built an audience and it's a long-term game. Or you could hit the royalty market by writing the book that people are searching for, make sure the cover, the content's perfect, the cover's perfect, the keywords are perfect, the metadata is perfect, the A plus content. People are like, What is all that? Don't worry about it right now. But I learned all of that, and I was trying like, well, I could write a book. And so I wrote um in the category for teen girls, and so I wrote uh strong girl, you are loved, and it was fun. I didn't quite hit the mark the way I wanted, but so that was five thousand dollars for that program to learn. It was a lifetime membership, but then I got connected to a a um a networking group, and I was like, I didn't want to go, but then I you know, like I felt led to actually attend, and I'm like, well, um when I was there, it's amazing to me how there are some people out there who use the word Christian and kingdom to build trust, but don't necessarily have the fruit to back it up. It looks like fruit, but it's kind of rotten when you finally get into it. Well, I was encouraged by a um a coach that I hired because I'm like, he well, because I was seeing his posts, his raise the hand posts, if you guys have ever seen those, you know, um, where they ask a quick question, if it's you, raise your hand, right? So I'm like, well, this one was about events. I'm like, well, I do, I'm a high energetic person. I do love coordinating things, I love building things, putting things together. I you I could do events. So I reached out and he's like, okay, it's$5,000 for the program. Okay. Well, I was thinking, no big deal.$5,000 is fine. I still have plenty of money to get me to July. Except there's more money that goes into an event besides just paying for the coach. So he wanted me to find a videographer for free. I don't know how to do that. So I'm like, well, I don't want to just have a free videographer, I want the best. So I found a good one, but it was expensive. And then um, I also got a voice coach who's an amazing human being. Um, did I need to use him? No, but I love knowing that I know him. So that I don't find to have been a bad investment, but it was still$5,000. So here I go to have this event, and I wanted to have it in March or end up, I had it in April, beginning of April. So I had um a little a little bit more than three months to plan this event. Guys, what I didn't have was a following or a business name. Had the person actually been a coach with integrity, he should have asked, What is your business name? What's your business? What do you do? What are your following? But instead, he wanted me to build all of that while we're getting ready for the event. I was under a ton of stress. I cried a lot because I thought that's what the Lord wanted me to do. And, you know,$24,000 later, I had a$27,000 loss last year financially. I even had in one account that I was vetting to do my accounting, which was hard for me to find somebody because I don't I trust no one last year, right? And when a guy goes, Well, what'd you go do that for? I'm gonna make not helpful. I did not go out to lose that much money. Thank you very much. And so anyway, um, one of the things I did learn was how corrupt the publishing world is, and just how people make things seem like you write a book, you publish it, the world opens up. It's not true, it doesn't happen that way. You have to talk about it, you have to share with it, you got to build an audience. J.K. Rowling didn't become J.K. Rowling overnight. You've got all of these authors, C.S. Lewis wasn't C.S. Lewis until he became C.S. Lewis. Yeah. You know, I mean, I know that people are like, oh, it doesn't make any sense, but you no one is an overnight success. It doesn't exist. And I mean, regardless of what you feel about him, Trump wasn't an overnight success. He's in his late 70s or 80s, however old he is, he didn't become the powerhouse he is, or the you know, whether you love him or hate him, you still know about him. He didn't get that way by birth.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

You know, you've you've hit on so many powerful points there. And I know the use of the word kingdom and Christian that gets rejected by people is something that we're going to devote a whole episode to. Because this has come up with me in conversation with people a couple of times. And please, folks, I encourage you to look at the fruit before you identify people by the label. Uh-huh. Because the label can be anything. And it's very sad that people do use those terms just for marketing. But the other thing that happened is, in a sense, you went after a quick rich scheme. You wanted the abundance God promises, but you weren't standing in the alignment that God promises.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

And I know that our time is short. And Wendy, I'm definitely going to have you back for a second episode because you have a whole method called paying to promise. And I would love to explore that more with you here and you to get to share that with the audience. But folks, from Wendy's story, don't be discouraged if you've made mistakes. Because you see, she's still here today. Her business is thriving today. Because God doesn't say, Oh, you made a mistake. You didn't hear me. I'm writing you off. Go figure it out on your own. He's there in those moments. And he is the redeemer. So just before we wrap up, Wendy, I have fire questions for you.

unknown 15:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Other than the Bible, favorite book.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

My nose, my most recent one is Gap in the Gain.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Nice, nice. Favorite scripture to bring encouragement on the tough days.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Proverbs uh 16, 3, Amplified Classic Edition. I can tell you it real quick if you'd like. I commit my works to you, Lord. I trust in you, holy, that my thoughts would be agreeable to your will, that these plans would be established and succeed. It's been my I've been saying that over and every day for three years, at least once a day.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Beautiful. And folks, if you're wondering where do I get hold of this amazing woman, it uh we can ask Wendy to tell us, but it is also in the notes and in the description below this episode. So if you are somebody who's got a message and wondering how to get it out there, or you know what, I've got a story, but I'm not fully healed yet. None of us need to be perfect before we share our story. And I would encourage you to reach out and connect with Wendy. You don't have to be there. If you were already there yet, you would just be going, okay, to your assistant, go publish my book. That's not who Wendy deals with. And most of us aren't there yet. I believe we'll all get there if that's what God's called us to. So, Wendy, tell us where can people get hold of you?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

If you go to my website, resilient statspress.com. Um, and I think you can get there also by writeyourstory.com. I could be wrong, but just Google me Wendy Melrose and it'll pop up. You'll find me on Facebook. Send me a Facebook message. So it's Wendy C Melrose when you're on Facebook slash Wendy C Melrose. Same with LinkedIn. Um, feel free to send me a message. I um a very high responsive person. So send me a follow request, send me a message. Um, schedule time with me. You can hit the talk button and then schedule some time to, you know, um talk about what the Lord has asked you to do, and you just need to say yes. And we know what I have plenty of different things to support you for. And when we say yes, how do we tell the outer enemy no? We no longer get to, we can say to the out loud, and I do it every day, multiple times a day, I take all thoughts captive in the mighty name of Jesus, filter the good, keep it on me, filter the bad, cast it to the sea. Because I I'm only want to hear what the Lord has for me, and all the enemy, all the evil thoughts can just go.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah. And I want to add to that, we we live in a culture that's tended to say, not today, Satan. I would encourage you not to do that. You don't need to be paying attention to the enemy or addressing him. And you might think, but that's powerful. I'd rather say, what today, God? We don't need to be entertaining the enemy at all. Right. So, Wendy, this conversation has been so powerful. And I do believe healing for people who see the power in your story and the way that you have been resilient. And thank you for your transparency and your vulnerability. So, friends, if you have somebody else you know who needs to hear this message, please invite them to listen, share this podcast, and put your comments and questions in the comments. We will respond to them because Wendy is somebody who gets to help you bring your God-given story to life, or maybe it's somebody you know. So, friends, remember that your pain is not the period, it's not the end, it's the comma, and it's the setup for promise for more to come. So, walk boldly in the story God has written through you and let your joy rise up again. Don't stay in that place of pain, see beyond it. So, until next time, stay inspired, stay anchored, and stay joyful because you choose it. Blessings all. Look forward to seeing you next week. Bye. Thank you so much for joining me on the Joy Inspired Podcast at www.joinspiredpodcast.com. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so that you can get this and every other episode that comes out. We have lots of great stuff coming, and you don't want to miss it. So make sure to hit that subscribe. I am so grateful for all the reviews and comments, and I look forward to serving you for next week's episode.