Beyond The War Zone: Growing Through Uncertainty With Melanie Marshall

Uncertainty is not a barrier, but a profound catalyst for growth and self-discovery. This episode features Melanie Marshall, an accomplished speaker, coach, and filmmaker, who brings over two decades of experience reporting from war zones and natural disasters for BBC News. Melanie shares her extraordinary journey, from chasing childhood dreams of travel to navigating intense, high-stakes environments. She candidly reveals how she consistently found hope and optimism amidst chaos, developing an extraordinary resilience. Melanie offers compelling insights into recognizing inner strength and embracing unforeseen challenges as pivotal opportunities for growth. Discover how her powerful experiences have fueled her current mission: empowering individuals to not just survive, but truly thrive, even in the most uncertain of times. Her stories will inspire you to lean into your own "accidental bravery" and "deliberate optimism."

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Beyond The War Zone: Growing Through Uncertainty With Melanie Marshall

It is my honor to introduce you to my guest, Melanie Marshall. Melanie is a speaker, coach, and filmmaker who has spent over twenty years reporting from war zones and natural disasters for BBC News. Working under immense pressure in wild uncertainty for high stakes, she managed to come out the other side with award-winning results and with her sanity and sense of humor mostly intact. Now, she has traded her flak jacket for a new mission.

From the TEDx stage to the boardroom, Melanie is helping people thrive in uncertainty by leaning into their accidental bravery and deliberate optimism. She lives in Canada. A little fun fact about her is that she adopts animals everywhere she goes. That's something that, if you know her, you would be quite aware of that fact. I am so thrilled to welcome you to The Virtual Campfire, Melanie.

Thank you for having me, Tony. I'm ready to make s'mores. I brought the s'mores materials, so let's get together and get into it.

I love it when people evoke this feeling of being at the campfire. Something that I've always enjoyed are the stories that get told around campfires. You don't just tell surface-level. We get into the important things that make people tick. We're going to do that here.

I'm ready.

Flashpoints: Discovering Gifts In Childhood

No pressure. We're going to start with what we often talk about here, which is this idea of the flashpoints, the point in your journey that revealed your gifts into the world. You can start wherever you would like to start and share what you're called to share. Along the way, we'll pause and see what themes are showing up. Any questions before we get started?

No, I'm happy to be led by you.

Melanie, why don’t you take it away? Start with your first flashpoint.

Honestly, I was going to make a joke about starting as a child. I was like, “Actually, I'm having a childhood memory.”

Go for it. Often, the kernels of who we are start in childhood.

I think it is, too. When I was a kid growing up in Canada, my thing was stories. I loved to write. I wrote mostly fiction. I wrote this poem called The Unicorn's Christmas, which I was incredibly proud of. I can't believe I remembered the title of it. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I had a teacher named Mrs. Eisner, who completely encouraged me. She thought that this slightly weird kid who saw the world differently and expressed herself out loud was something special. I wasn't getting that in a lot of places in my life. Tony, you got me right away. That was a flashpoint for me because, as a little kid, she taught me that there was something valuable there. Even if that was buried for a long time, it was still there as a core memory and a core message. The same thing was my love of justice and my love of connection.

There was a girl who had come to our school who had fled Iran, and she wasn't speaking. I remember. It's so stupid. I look back now, and she probably wasn't speaking because she couldn't speak much English at the time. As a kid, I thought, “I'm going to be super friendly.” Mrs. Eisner set me the task of being friends with her. Boy, did I take that on. Poor old Iman. Again, it was this thing of seeing my gifts. She saw my gifts, my creativity, my compassion, and my desire to write petitions for all things that I thought were unjust. She encouraged all of it. That was a huge flashpoint.

I want to pause for a moment here because what you shared is so beautiful on so many accounts. There's a thing about this, which is that we sometimes need someone to put the key in the lock and give us permission to be ourselves. I think back to some of those early teachers who did that, and praise the teachers, because there's something about that. They spend enough time with us to see our gifts early on, and then give us the right amount of praise and encouragement to get us to step into the light of who we are. I hear you share that. I also think about all the things that you've done, and a lot of those things became the starting points of who you became.

It is a form of protection if you're a sensitive being. All of us humans are sensitive beings. We all have a story. The world can be hard. We can try to become like everyone else. When you have those people who put the key in the lock and see us, it can encourage us to hold on to what is special.

We all have a story, and the world can be hard. We can try to become like everyone else, but when people "put the key in the lock" and truly see us, it encourages us to hold on to what is special.

Wanderlust and Dreams: The Journey Begins

I love that. Once the key has been unlocked, where do you take it? What's the next flashpoint?

We haven't even got to the BBC. We're not going to get there for a bit, I don't think. I'm going to be sobbing like a baby. I never dreamed of getting married or having kids, even though I love kids. I love families. I glom on to plenty of my friends. I always dreamed of traveling. I don't know if you remember the company Let's Go. They used to be these travel books. I used to buy those. I would save up my allowance. I would buy those travel books, circle them, and imagine the trips I would go on.

I would say this was a flashpoint. When I graduated from high school, I moved out. I was seventeen. I graduated fairly early. I moved out and went to work. When I was eighteen years old and three months old, I went traveling. That was a flashpoint because it took me out into the world. It was the first experience that I had of making my dreams real. It was something that other people thought was maybe a bit nuts, because sure, loads of people do it, but not loads of people I knew. It was my first experience of, “This is something I wanted and something I made happen.”

The world is as amazing as I thought it was. It was scary and hard to navigate, but as amazing as I thought it was. I did some stupid things. I busked on the streets of Venice and hitchhiked with an Irish girl from Venice to Paris. I lived in a bookshop called Shakespeare and Company in Paris. I lived up in the library. I worked in the bookshop by day, which is something they still do. It was very romantic.

Yes. I want in. Sign me up.

I went back to that bookshop in 2024. It's so popular now. You have to line up to go in. I was having this massive nostalgia of when I was there. Check for bedbugs before you get into your bed in the children's library, ghost stories, and don't get drunk and go down into the catacombs by accident through the basement entrance. You're drinking wine with the handsome Greek guy. It was as romantic as it could get. It was amazing.

When I was there, I asked a couple of the staffers. I said to these young women, “Do you guys still do that?” They were like, “Yes.” I said, “I used to do that. When I was your age, I did this.” They were amazed. It was this real moment talking about flashpoints, nostalgia, and connection meeting, and me saying to them about where I am now. I don't know. It was such an amazing moment for me, a full circle moment.

That's so cool. It's like a history meeting the present moment.

Boy, did they seem young.

You get to connect with your youth as well, as you get to say, “I see those moments as memories come flashing back. I feel this connection to what drove me in those early days. I still feel that sense of that's who I am. That's who I always will be, that person who loves to have those uncertain moments, but also they're part of the adventure.”

I can't help it. It's part of it. I've always wanted home. I've always had this weird longing for home, which might be part of my bits of my Celtic DNA running through me, or the fact that I moved a lot as a kid. I've always had that longing, which is maybe one of the reasons I do understand the displaced and the dispossessed in a different way. I'm very open to suffering. I also love adventure. I love the unknown, the unseen. Even when it blows up in my face, which I guess is the next flashpoint, I can't help it.

When you have that in your heart, it's not just in your mind. In your heart, you can't help but get out and do the things that are meant for you, the travel, the adventures, and also knowing that there's a storyteller inside of you that is also needing to be part of this process. I can't wait to hear the next flashpoint because this is where the rubber is going to meet the road.

Falling For The BBC: An Unconventional Path

Picture it. It's funny. I almost skipped over my first encounter with the BBC. I suppose the next flashpoint was that I met the BBC and fell in love.

Tell me more about that.

I had to do work experience as part of my journalism degree. I decided to go back to school. I was studying journalism in Toronto. A lot of people were doing work experience. I'd had an offer. I had an offer to go and work as an entertainment reporter on camera, movie premieres, all very glamorous. What I wanted to do was go out in the world, go to faraway places, and tell stories that connected back to people like you, me, and our mums and dads.

I got it in my head that I was going to try to go to Africa. At the time, I aimed low. No offense to Canada, but I was aiming for the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company. If they read this, I might be cooked, as the kids say. I was calling and calling, trying to get a hold of the CBC's Southern Africa correspondent. I finally got a hold of his girlfriend, who told me, “It's him in his apartment. He's off in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” which at that point was Zaire.

She was like, “I don't think it's him, but I'm going to make him call you when he gets back.” He did. He said, “It's just me in my apartment, but you should call this guy in Johannesburg at the BBC.” I'd never thought of aiming that high because to me, that was the show, I think they say in sports. I thought, “I'm going to start calling.” I would call, and it would be super late there. He wouldn't take my call. He'd be busy. He was, to be fair, super busy.

Talking to some random Canadian was not super high on his list. I would talk to the receptionist, who was this Australian married to the Australian correspondent from ABC, no shade. She and I would chit-chat. I would tell her about Canada. She was nice. This went on for probably two weeks. I guess she finally went and said, “You have got to take this girl's call.”

“Get her off my back.”

He did. I was lucky. I had a good reference letter from a hardened news guy who'd written something like, “She's not ready to run a newsroom, but I'd give her a job.” It was a pretty good reference coming from him. I was very perky, whereas the gentleman I was on the phone with was not. He is not to this day, and was not then. He said, “We chatted.” I said, “I don't want anything. I just want to do the news. I had all these story ideas, and I had all this stuff.” He said, “I'll let you know.” He still hadn't replied. Remember, there's still this entertainment offer, shiny, sparkly, wear outfits, be on camera. This was to go and be an intern, answer the phones, fax things, and do whatever for free, and me paying for it.

I was working my butt off while I was in school to save money, pay for my schooling, and all of this. This is why it's a flashpoint, because I was like, “This was what I wanted.” This is aging me a little, but I still remember the day I went to the email lab at Ryerson. It's changed its name now. This is aging me. I had an email from him, and the subject line was, “I've thought about it.” I opened it, and it said, “The answer is yes.”

I can still feel that in my body. That was a flashpoint. Forget it, the entertainment reporter out the window and sliding doors. Who knows what would have happened? What did happen was I got on a plane to Johannesburg. I went and fell in love with the BBC. I stayed over twice the length of time I was supposed to. They did pay me some money because they felt so bad about how hard I was working and how diligent I was. I got to travel all over Southern Africa, except they wouldn't let me go to Angola. My boss called me into his office and said, “I'm not letting you go because I'm not calling your journalism school and saying I got the intern killed.” I was upset, for the record. I was salty about it. I was like, “That's not fair.”

There was no such thing as hostile environment courses at that time. These days, you wouldn't be allowed. That was such a flashpoint for me because I worked so hard. I pointed at it. I let go of more glamorous things. I fell in love. I also met Nelson Mandela. I'm saying that one because it was a big deal. It was a super big deal. That was another thing they did for me. I guess the correspondents had had a talk where they were like, “We should take Mel down. We should try to let her meet Nelson Mandela because she's so excited.” I was excited about everything pretty much all the time, which isn't different from now.

I want to highlight that. There's something about these two things that you've brought to the surface here. Everyone thinks that an opportunity has to be about the money. Here you are going in. It's not about the money. It's about the experience and about seeing where this might lead and what might open up from this process. It's also the attitude you brought into it, the eagerness, the willingness to show up, and being enthusiastic about whatever might transpire. Those two things are coming together. Facing uncertainty allows a lot of amazing things to happen. Those are a lot of things that I see embodied in who you are at that time, but even now.

Thanks, Tony. That's very sweet.

It's also what we need, for most of all. Those are the skills that a lot of people need to embody. Don't focus on what makes money. Focus on what's going to build for the future and how you can maintain the right attitude.

From Intern To War Zone: Embracing The Uncomfortable

I will say, and this speaks to now and my own life now as well, that it doesn't mean it's all roses. There's nuance in everything. Let's hold that. Johannesburg had higher crime rates than it does now. I remember being in my little house alone in Johannesburg with my little armed response alert around my neck, thinking, “What have I done?” I usually think, “What have I done?” after I've done it. I remember having my first big break when the boss came up to me and said, “You can shoot, right?” It means I could film. I was like, “Yes,” because I can, but now, I especially don't say it because I've worked with such amazing people. I was like, “Yes.” He said, “You're flying to Port Elizabeth in the morning,” and put a plane ticket down on my desk.

Fun fact, he was doing it to punish someone who had called in “sick” after a big night. It was my big opportunity. I went off and filmed this amazing road trip across South Africa with these wonderful colleagues, one of whom was later killed in Somalia. Rest in peace, Kate Peyton. I would stay up every night long after they'd gone to bed and look through every frame of footage I'd shot because I was so anxious to make sure that something was usable. You can hold both things at once. You can be excited. You can see the wonder. You can feel the anxiety and fear. They're not one or the other, for all of us.

You can hold both things at once. You can be excited, see the wonder, and feel the anxiety and fear. They're not one or the other for all of us.

That's exactly how you get through it. It is to be able to balance both and know that, because there are two sides to a coin. They allow you to navigate those moments of challenge, uncertainty, and the uncomfortable moments. That's powerful. Having colleagues along the way who pass away in the line of duty is something that not a lot of us have faced. When you say it, it's not something that a lot of us have experience with.

It makes us all appreciate. Kate was sweet to me when I was just a baby. I remember going to this house party. I'm sorry. We're taking up so much time on my past.

No, it's okay.

It's worth talking about Kate because she was so incredible and such an amazing journalist. I remember being at this house party. Always watch out for a cameraman. That's a top tip for young journos. This cameraman was chatting me up, and I didn't quite realize that. I was still pretty young. I think I was 21. He was telling me about how he'd been bitten by a shark and showing me his shark bite. I still remember Kate. I guess she pulled him aside and was like, “Listen, mate, no.” She came up and told me, “I'm taking you home.”

She took me out for dinner, and I was quite, “I'm a grown-up,” and then the next night, she took me out for dinner and gave me the young female foreign journalists' equivalent of the talk. “Here's what you need to know. When someone shows you a shark bite, they probably had appendicitis.” She was such a wonderful human. She was such an amazing journalist. I always want to remember who she was as a human, as a partner, and as a friend. It should inspire all of us to live more fully in our lives.

Navigating War Zones: A Female Journalist's Advantage

I was going to say this idea of being a female journalist takes on a whole different ballgame, especially in the world of war and being in the war zones. Maybe you spend some time, not just in Africa, where women are seen very differently.

I've always found it a benefit. I worked a lot in the Middle East. I spent the last four years of my career running the day-to-day operations of the BBC's Jerusalem Bureau, so Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and a lot of time in Iraq. My nickname there was often Assad, not for the dictator, but because I can be a lion. That means lion when I'm crossed. I found that I was able to occupy a space where I could see people's humanity. I could meet the women.

I could see family life. The men treated me like a sister. The men I worked with treated me like a sister. Sometimes, people didn't know what to do with me. I went to a Hezbollah rally in Beirut many years ago when Nasrallah still appeared in public. I was behaving badly and not doing what they said. They didn't know what to do. They couldn't touch me. They didn't want to manhandle me and kick me out because I was a girl.

It can be a real benefit in both warmth-driven and also the taboos of “I don't want to be quite as much of a jerk to her.” I've always found it a real benefit. The only place I've ever found it hard is in the politics of an organization. That was painful, where you have to work hard. You can't be yourself, but you need to get better results. It can drive you nuts. In the field, it was never a problem. Inside the restrictions of my beloved organization, yes, a problem.

Isn't that crazy? I reflect on that in the sense that I hear the advantages, the idea that we always say that female leadership can be such a great way to lead in the world, because of the emotional approach that female leaders can have. They empathize better. They have this approach to seeing people and being able to understand where they are. When you bring that inside an organization, why are we not seeing it differently? Why are we not approaching things in that way? I know we've come a long way, but we're still not there yet. That's the thing that I find so interesting about this.

I find it interesting, too, particularly when it can get such great results. It's not restricted to men or women doing it, but it's a style of leadership. For me, it's a style of leadership. I'm touched when people whom I led before send me messages saying, “We miss you.” I've done a couple of things where I did a fundraiser. I organized something, and somebody says, “We miss you,” or “This is the thing we miss.” Other people could and should be doing these things. Noticing the human side gets results. If you have people who are high achievers, they're not working for the money anyway, most of them. Even if they're making a lot, they're probably not.

Noticing the human side gets results.

It's more of a follow-on effect of being a more human leader.

I say this. I worked for the BBC, where none of us did. I've seen people who are at the absolute less than a dollar a day, and I've petted the dolphin of a billionaire. I've been at both ends of the spectrum. That's not a euphemism. That's a real dolphin.

That would be weird if it were a euphemism.

I know, but I felt like I should clear that up.

A Turning Point: The Paris Attacks And Self-Discovery

I want to fast-forward a little bit. You've covered a lot of interesting stories, and you've been in a lot of interesting situations. What had you deciding that, “It's time for me to break into a different world,” if you're willing to share that?

I think I had a knowing going for a while. Probably you and your audience recognize that when you have that little glow start for a bit when you know change is coming, but maybe you're not ready to let it out. I was doing work I loved in a lot of places. It went in two parts. Here's flashpoint number one. I'll tell something very vulnerable. After the Paris attacks in 2015, I had a moment. I don't know why this was the moment.

I was in Paris for BBC News. I was standing on a bridge. Some of the attackers were still at large. I was standing on a bridge right by Notre Dame. I remember the police came running towards us, telling us to run. They did it in the way that the military and police do when they don't care what you think. They're trying to save your life. I had this moment where I thought, “My god,” and it cracked something in me. I don't know what it was. It sent me into a spiral where suddenly, I was a little bit broken.

I couldn't get on a plane to a hostile environment. I struggled with being on subways. I had somebody say to me, an actual professional said, “It's not quite PTSD, but it has to do with your work.” I suddenly wasn't sure if I was ever going to be able to do what I'd loved and what had so much meaning for me anymore. I had to start to explore what my identity was. That started a journey of growth for me because I had invested so much, blinders in, that this was who I was now.

The good news was that I got better. I had great care. I got better. I was back out daring do on the planes. All of that work I had started doing, all of these changes, and all of this exploration. That's bubbling away. I started to realize that the Melanie we talked about at the beginning of this conversation wasn't allowed to be fully present in the work I was doing. The experience that I was having was starting to hurt me. In the organization I was in, I was hurting myself to be in it because I loved the work and I loved my team.

Many people at the same time were saying to me, “Don't you think we're all doomed?” I'm saying to them, “I don't think we're all doomed. I promise you.” All of these things are combining, and I'm like, “Something has to give here.” I'm not explaining this super well as a flashpoint, but it was, “This isn't the right place for me, and I know it.” I remember driving in Jerusalem. Taylor Swift has a song for everything. You Know When It's Time to Go came on.

I was driving in my car to the bureau. I was like, “Universe, that's a little on the nose.” I'm having these conversations where I'm passionately telling people about all the good things I've seen, how the world is not black and white, and how I have seen hope in the darkest circumstances. I'm thinking, “I am never going to be able to tell this story, and I'm never going to be able to be this full Mel if I stay.” I knew it was time to go.

Embracing The Unknown: Life Beyond Journalism

Mel, this is so interesting because this feeling that I have around this is that you had to get back to yourself, fully expressing yourself in the way that you know you could be, but staying where you are wasn't allowing you to be yourself anymore. The choice to leave this world was really about coming back to yourself, to be yourself. That's the hard part of all this, which is to say that you loved what you were doing, but it wasn't allowing you to be yourself anymore.

It was hard. It was scarier to leave than it was ever to go into some war zone, or land in some disaster easily, because I knew how to do that. I didn't know how to go into this unknown and how to let go of the identity that was Mel. What does Mel do? Mel is a BBC journalist who goes and tells stories from war zones. For a long time, it was hard for me. It took me longer to decompress than I thought it would. I thought I'd figure it all out and three weeks later, I'd be ready to go. It takes time.

Humans are complex. That's one of the things that, as I hear you describe this, the inner journey is probably the longest and the most challenging. It is full of so many ups and downs that it's harder for us to understand ourselves than to go out and understand the world.

It's so much harder. I'd sent a friend of mine a picture of my beloved rescue dog Sonora, my current dog that I rescued while I was living in Oaxaca, although I met her on the street in Mexico City. I sent her a picture. I said, “Sonora, living in the present.” She said, “It'd be nice if we could be like dogs, but we are very complicated monkeys.” I thought that was so perfect. I said, “I'm going to put that on a T-shirt. I am a very complicated monkey.”

You reminded me of an old book. Have you ever heard of Ishmael by Dan Quinn? There are some religious undertones to it. It's a story of humanity told through an intelligent ape. It's an interesting book if you're willing to entertain the idea that it's an ape telling the story, but he's witnessed history. He's telling this person, “Here's what I've observed about humanity.” It's a wild book. It's an old book.

I'm down with that. I've written that down. I love book recommendations.

It's Dan Quinn. I could be wrong. After your story, what a wild journey you've had. Tell people where this all ended up. You left the world of journalism. You've left all that behind. You got into now what?

I am now a professional speaker. I have found that what I love to do and what I'm good at is to get on stage and speak to people about how to move through uncertainty. I call it how to see in the dark.

I am so resonant with that. It's such a great way to look at it and see how all of those experiences that you've had personally, but also the experiences that you witnessed through other people's eyes, the darkness that you've seen. Honestly, it's not just the darkness. It's also the light.

The darkness always makes the light shine more. You think about the darkest moments of any of our lives. What do you remember most?

You remember the light. That's a wonderful thing.

That is what I feel the most excited about. It's what I love doing. I am also making films. I'm enjoying doing that. I'm doing it a little differently. I'm still making films for other people, but I'm also working on projects that are about telling the story of the world with a bit more light and dark in it, a bit more action that people can take to impact the world. When somebody leaves an experience with me, I want them to feel that they are a bit braver and a bit more able to create the change.

Unveiling Personal Brilliance: A Journey Of Self-Worth

We could spend another hour and a half or more diving into this because there's so much richness to what you're up to. I want to start, first of all, by saying, what is something you've learned about yourself that you haven't shared already with this journey that you want to share?

This is going to sound funny. I've learned that I'm not as bad a person as I always think I am. That's going to sound weird. I'm always like, “That person is amazing.” My stories, my speeches, and my writing are usually about other people being awesome. One of the things that has come up for me is that I did this drive from Mexico up through the States, through to Canada. I spoke along the way. I was doing a bunch of new research for this new body of work I'm working on. Along the way, I had this moment where I thought, “I'm good, too. It's not just what I'm telling other people about other people. I'm good, too.”

Darkness always makes the light shine more.

I love that. When you said that, at first, I was like, “Where is she going with this?” I get it. There's a sense that we don't see our own brilliance. We're so steeped in it that it's like, “Whatever.” We have this outward lens of looking at everyone else's highlight reels and saying, “Look at all of them. They're so fancy and great.” We discount ourselves, but then you realize, “I'm amazing.”

I'm super good at self-criticism because I'm always looking for the tweak. I'm always looking for the “You shouldn't have been so judgmental,” or “You shouldn't have said that,” but then I'm like, “Hang on a second. That wasn't bad. You're all right, girl.” There's an ease in that.

Literary Inspirations: Books That Shaped A Life

You're all right in my book. That's for sure.

Thank you.

In the interest of time, we're going to start wrapping up. I have one more question for you. What are one or two books, or three, or four, that have had an impact on you and why?

Do you know this is the stump question? This is the world's hardest question. My favorite place to go in the world is the library since I was a kid. It's the most Zen comforting. Anywhere in the world, I'll find a library. Can I do authors?

Sure. There are no rules here, my friend.

I don't know. I'm like, “I'm going to break the rules. I'm going to get kicked out of the campfire. We haven't even had our s'mores yet.” People say it. When I was eighteen years old, someone gave me a copy of The Alchemist. I know everyone says it now, but I'll tell you. That book blew my mind then by Paulo Coelho. It still does. I love the prose. I love the message. I love the fairy tale quality. I can still pick it up and read it. I loved it. I love it still.

It's pure gold.

There are so many amazing authors. I read a lot of stuff, but I love Father Richard Rohr, who is a contemplative and runs the Center for Action and Contemplation. It is all about inner work and outer action. I'm currently reading his book, Tears of Prophets. It is a relook at the books of the prophets and about how people misunderstand them. That sounds very dry. I swear it's not. I love all of the things he writes because they appeal to the mystic in me, which is sizable. I love poetry. I love E.E. Cummings and Pablo Neruda. I remember being in Budapest when I was young. Again, I got one of those 101 love poems at some English bookstore. Do you know the poem, I Carry Your Heart?

I do know that poem. Don't quote me, but I'm going to go dig that up because I do remember that one.

I love that poem. There's a poem by Pablo Neruda called Tonight I Could Write the Saddest Lines. There's a line in it that says, “Love is so short. Forgetting is so long.” I love that. I probably should tell everyone, “Go book me for fall or winter in 2025 or 2026,” but I'll be like, “Who wants to see my Goodreads?”

Goodreads sounds like it's a great place, a good link to share with people. That's awesome. Mel, I want to thank you again for being on the show. This was pure magic and a heartwarming conversation, but also full of so much hope and optimism in many ways. I thank you for that. Before I let you go, I want to make sure people know where to find you because they're going to want to follow these breadcrumbs and see where they can find out more about your work. Where are they going to find you?

You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on my website, MelanieMarshall.com. I'm also telling stories and putting them up on YouTube these days.

I appreciate that. That's awesome. Thank you again. Thanks to everyone for coming on the journey. I know you're leaving completely blown away. It's been a wonderful journey with you. Here's to more. That's a wrap.

Important Links

• Melanie Marshall's Website
• Melanie Marshall on LinkedIn
• Melanie Marshall on YouTube
• Ishmael
• The Alchemist

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