Season 2 Episode 005
Bonnie Treichel
Episode 068
"Accept failure as part of your journey to get where you want to go."
Melissa Angeli: Making mistakes or failing is just part of learning and growing. When we learn to walk, a lot of times we fall down and then pick ourselves up and learn to walk again.
Alice Tang: Good morning everyone from Portland, Oregon. I am Alice Tang, the host of Women’s Million Dollar Conversation. Today, I have the excitement and the pleasure to, talk with and interview with Melissa Angeli, one of my good friends from Vistage. Melissa. We are so happy to have you today. Would you share with us, who you are, what you do, and what impact you’re making to the world?
Melissa Angeli: What I do is I go into small entrepreneurial companies and help them scale and make their dreams come true. The name of my company,when I started was Jacquarden,and after being in the business for a while, we decided to really focus and the new name of our company is Undaunted Future. And so we’re really honing in on what do people need in order to make their dreams come true. And we come in and we do a variety of things like. Coaching, help them with systems, help them with governance. Just do a variety of things to make it happen.
Alice Tang: Thank you very much for sharing, and also you have a specific passion for culture and how culture can impact the future, their vision and their goal. So here I am because, the guest who come, to, women’s million dollar conversation, either saved a million, made a million, or sold a million. So we are talking about money here. Tell us about your journey to your first million dollars.
Melissa Angeli: I’ve never sold a million. I’m still working on doing that, but I did save to a million and I think the journey, started kind of at a young age. My grandfather was someone who taught me about money, and the importance of cash and always having money. And so I always believed in paying myself first. So early on I was put back money for myself early, and with that I was able to save to a million.
Alice Tang: Do you mind if we ask about how long does it take for you to, save?
Melissa Angeli: You know, it’s interesting Because I did it different ways. So I saved and then I invested in some of the companies I was in part of. And so with that, I don’t actually know how long it took me. I really wasn’t watching it that closely other than to make sure that as part of what I was doing every year, was putting back money for myself, and for my future.
Alice Tang: Money is to support you, but you don’t watch it frequently because they keep coming in and you’re living well. If you would, go back to rising to that first million, what are some of the hurdles, or roadblocks, or challenges that you have faced would you share with our audience and, how do you overcome them?
Melissa Angeli: Yeah, I think, we’re kind of an instant gratification, culture. And so one of the things is when you decide that you’re gonna put back money versus doing something else, right? Going on a trip or buying something. So I think that was some of the hurdles of just the mindset of knowing that, we’re looking for the long term, not the short term. And so I think those were some of the hurdles that I had to face, especially as I was getting older and had two children and things were happening. And it’s just like, well, do we go on that really nice vacation or do we smaller kind of vacation where we still enjoy each other and still put back money. I chose the latter.
Alice Tang: So if I would, paraphrase that is, you have a long-term goal and, you sacrifice the short-term pleasure sometimes, in achieving the long-term goal.
Alice Tang: We are also curious about the advice that you received or you were given that impact your view of money.
Melissa Angeli: My grandfather owned his own business, at a very young age. He always talked about money and always, interacted with money. So I remember being a child, maybe five or six and being handed cash to go to pay our bill for like a restaurant, for example, and get the change back and make sure he had the right amount of change. And I remember him having lots of conversations to me about the importance of having cash, of barter, and being able to utilize it. So I think at a very young age, I was introduced to it in a way that was age appropriate. But it wasn’t something that was hidden from me. It was something that was talked about at the dinner table. I mean, living below your means, right? There’s always gonna be something that’s gonna come up. It was a constant dialogue at the table. So I think that’s where I at least learned.
Alice Tang: It is very similar to my journey, but it’s not my grandfather, but my mother. She’s really a saver.She would, save first before pleasure. Just like what you, have shared with us. So from a very young age, actually, I feel that this overcast me, Melissa, because of her. I know how to save, I know how to put money away, but I never know how to enjoy the fruit of the saving until I’m your age now. So we had constant conversation about upping my game.
Melissa Angeli: You know, it’s,interesting my grandfather was a lot of fun. He had a lot of play in him, and so we just did a lot of fun things that didn’t include a lot of money. Right. It wasn’t high dollar to spend, it was just like fun things we did as family.
Alice Tang: Yeah, a good demonstration that, sometimes the very memorable experience does not cost much, most likely just cost time.
Alice Tang: Going back to your work and your professional guidance to, some of, the companies that you’re working with you have mentioned that you focus on helping people work at the top of their license. What do you mean by that? Can you tell me how does that lead to some of their success and their financial freedom?
Melissa Angeli: Yes. a lot of times when someone starts an entrepreneurial company, it’s kind of all hands in, like kind of doing everything, right? They don’t have the means yet to, really be specific. They just have to like try to get this thing going. So they start workingand everyone kind of around. And again, they get their friends and family and whoever wants to help them. And it’s kind of like all hands in. Once they start to create this market and create this thing that they’re gonna be doing, eventually in order to scale, in order to make this go farther, they really need to hire people with special expertise that kind of round them out. And so this allows them to work at the top of the license, do something that someone else can’t do in the company that’s really specific for the company. So that’s when we talk about top of the license, it’s about surrounding these founders or these entrepreneurs with other people that have competencies in things that this founder doesn’t, and that rounds them out. And when everyone’s working at the top of the license, then things go, better, because everyone then is doing the things they like, and it all works together as a team. So it’s kind of like when you have a left hand and a right hand, the left hand doesn’t do the same thing the right hand does.
Alice Tang: You also have a passion, that you share with me for younger professionals and the next generation, especially building them up to leaders, what’s one piece of advice you would give them to empower them to, shape the future?
Melissa Angeli: Yeah. For me it’s take more risk. I think that’s really important. I think what they also have to learn is,about failure, or mistakes. Because people are always afraid to make mistakes and make risks, but you know, making mistakes or failing is just part of learning and growing. When we learn to walk, a lot of times we fall down and then pick ourselves up and learn to walk again.
No one thinks of that as a failure or a mistake. They just think that’s part of learning to walk. The same thing can be said about doing business right? Sometimes you make mistakes and you fail. And I would say some of my biggest mistakes or failures I’ve learned the most and it’s helped me the best.
So without those, I don’t think I would be where I am. And so not to look at it as like a failure, but look at it as part of the learning journey. I think that’s what I would tell people and that is what I tell people.
Alice Tang: Very good advice.
Alice Tang: I have a follow up question, Some of us, especially women, we worry about how we are being perceived. So we are very cautious in taking risks and sometimes risks adverse because I worry about failing. I worry about how people look at my failure. So what is one piece of advice you would give to me?
Melissa Angeli: If you don’t have it embodied yet,one of the things I would say is surround yourself with good people who can be your cheerleaders. That’s what you need. So surround yourself with good people. The other piece of advice is, getting more comfortable for failure,I think that sometimes women don’t feel comfortable to fail and it’s all part of learning and it’s something that’s really important.
The same thing has to do with business and failure. So really to accept failure as part of your journey to getting where you wanna go. We need to normalize failure for women so they take more risks because we need more women in the world taking more risks..
Alice Tang: Accepting meaning, feeling, okay. My identity, my value, and my belief has not changed. I’m a good human. Even though I didn’t do quite right this last time.
Melissa Angeli: You’re not gonna do it right the first time. And even if you have done a business well the first time, the next business, the conditions are different. Things are happening in the world. That affect how it’s doing. So just knowing that trial and error and mistakes and recovering from that is a normal process.
Alice Tang: You have reminded me of some, other, guest who is on women’s million dollar conversation. She said that when she’s growing up, at her dining table every night with her dad and mom, her dad always asks, what did you fail at today?
So they normalize the failure already. So when she grows up, She doesn’t worry, Oops. Let’s do it again.
Alice Tang: Melissa, what’s your why? Why are you doing what you do?
Melissa Angeli: Ah, I think I’m doing what I do because ultimately, I wanna make an impact in people’s lives. And so the best way for me to do that, is to help them with what’s important to them and for, in this case, the business. But this is not the only place I do it because I do business and like you said, I have a passion to help women, and young women, so I help mentor and do that too. I think every person in the world can make an impact. It doesn’t have to be a big impact, but it’s a ripple. And so that’s why I do what I do.
Alice Tang: You definitely have impact me and many others. The fact that you would drive to my neighborhood to have tea with me demonstrate how much care you have given to somebody that you just meet probably two times in a year, to the people that always work with you and receive your coaching and advice daily.
Alice Tang: I do have one final curiosity how do you want to leave a legacy and make an impact to the world?
Melissa Angeli: Yeah, so interesting. the way I’d like to leave a legacy is, I wanna use what I have, to make a difference in people’s lives today, not when I’m gone. So if I do this right, I will sail out of the world, you know, giving the impact and especially the money before I leave versus after I leave, because I like to see it working now. That’s the gift to me. Just have people receive it now, versus later.
Alice Tang: Thank you, Melissa, for giving us time and, we wish you a lot of success in your journey touching lives through, volunteer work, giving them now, and also helping a lot more entrepreneurs to get to that goals and find that freedom. Thank you.
Melissa Angeli: Thank you, Alice, for having me.
Melissa Angeli is a seasoned business strategist and leadership coach with over 20 years of experience turning organizational vision into operational reality. As the Principal at Undaunted Future, she specializes in helping founders of professional services, tech firms, and family businesses navigate the “messy middle” of growth.
Melissa’s career is defined by her ability to see past the sugarcoated “textbook” solutions and address the honest, underlying systems of an organization. From scaling a tech firm by 6x to helping family-led enterprises professionalize their leadership, her approach is rooted in a simple promise: I’ll bring your team together so your company can build something that lasts.
“Success isn’t about having a perfect vision; it’s about having the organized systems and impassioned teams to carry it out.”