Female Disruptors: Melanie Hicks of Inked Elephant Publishing House On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

The best words of advice I ever received was “View Life as an Adventure”. Goals and visions are fabulous tools to help us focus our energy and achieve things we want in life. But there is a downside. If you are only focused on the end game, forever striving for the ultimate prize, you miss a lot of life along the way. When you see life as an adventure, you can never be let down by what comes your way. There are no failures, only surprises and obstacles to overcome.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melanie Hicks of Inked Elephant Publishing House.

Dr. Hicks is an empathy driven leader with more than two decades of experience in workforce, education and nonprofits focused on the areas of human centered leadership, strategic planning, employee engagement and organizational culture. Her debut memoir, Incongruent; Travel, Trauma, Transformation will hit shelves March 2023. She is the founder of InPursuit Research, a boutique consulting firm offering organizational and workplace training.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Sure. I am blessed to have spent nearly two decades building a career toolkit full of unique experiences all grounded in making authentic impact. From education to nonprofit to public policy, I have sought to find ways to put people above profits in every chapter of life.

Finding my way to writing and social impact publishing was a long and winding journey. Early in life, I realized I held a gift for words, and I began centering my career pursuits around that talent. Over time I made intentional career choices to use that talent to benefit others. Early in my career, I was not necessarily sure how to do that. But I just looked for opportunities that seemed authentically interesting and had growth potential and said yes. I think life is richer when we take smart risks and just say yes even when the path is unclear or a little fearful.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Incongruent, my upcoming memoir is more than just a story of my own life and travel lessons, it is a call to action. It is meant to inspire others to take stock of the way we spend our time, our talents and our resources and become more intentional about the choices we make and the boundaries we set.

Disruption happens when we are vulnerable enough to take stock of our current reality and brave enough to go after what we really want. I have developed a 3-step method to help individuals and organizations lay a plan to begin this process called the 3E Method of Change©.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I have been blessed with a variety of fabulous mentors along the way. One comes top of mind as an important influence on this work; Dr. Fred Seamon. You can fill an entire article with his career accolades spanning fifty years and positively impacting hundreds of individuals. But much more important than any of that is his inspirational character. He is the living, breathing example of leadership he is as a man. He is the first to say yes to any opportunity that will add value to those he cares for, be that his family, company, community, or church. He will never ask of you what he will not do himself. He is the cheerful rally to a team that is down. He is the insightful influencer in times of controversy. And he is a voice of reason during times of distress.

Fred and I first crossed paths in 2002 when I arrived in Tallahassee as a doctoral student at Florida State. However, it was more than a decade later that his impact on my life truly began. Upon seeking his steady council for a decision weighing heavy on my heart, he was all too willing to put aside his busy schedule to listen, comfort, and reflect. The lessons he shared were powerful reminders. Be confident in the value you add. Set and keep limits on what you can healthily give of yourself. Be willing to walk away from what doesn’t serve you. There is always another door to open.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

There are absolutely times when disruption is the wrong way to proceed. (Did someone say recent Twitter changes?) Organizations that have a clear path for steady growth and articulated mechanisms for evolving and innovating are not served with a disruptive change plan. On the other hand, organizations that are stuck in traditions that do not serve them, hold historic or systemic discriminatory policies or norms, or generally have not been successful at innovating over time, these are the organizations where disruption is critical.

Can you share the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example.

The best words of advice I ever received was “View Life as an Adventure”. Goals and visions are fabulous tools to help us focus our energy and achieve things we want in life. But there is a downside. If you are only focused on the end game, forever striving for the ultimate prize, you miss a lot of life along the way. When you see life as an adventure, you can never be let down by what comes your way. There are no failures, only surprises and obstacles to overcome.

Here is an example, last summer my husband and I set out to do an overnight 60-mile roundtrip bike packing trip. About 22 miles into the trip the weather turned, the trail became a mudslide, and we were left shivering in a lightning and hailstorm. Rather than force ourselves to go on just to achieve our goal, we turned and headed back to town. That night rather than being miserable in the freezing rain, we had hot showers, classic cocktails and endless laughs. We still ended the weekend with a 40-mile challenging bike trip at nearly 10,000ft in elevation but we also made happy memories of time spent together. There are times in life when we need to stop, reassess and change direction. Being self-aware enough to realize that and allowing space to do that is a key to a happier life.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

After traveling the world and having the privilege of hearing so many people’s stories, I became passionate about the importance of storytelling and its place in our societal shared understanding. I spent the next few years studying the art of storytelling and the publishing industry. What came out of that is Inked Elephant Publishing House.

Inked Elephant is a Social Impact publishing firm assisting authors at every stage in the writing process. We believe everyone has a story and everyone’s story deserves to be told. We have a goal to tell 10,000 stories by 2025. For every story we tell from a paying client, we write and promote a story of impact pro bono. This is our cycle of life. This is how we honor and amplify those doing good for the world. This is how we shake up the publishing industry.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Perception of speaking out. Full Stop. Women are more likely to be judged harshly for speaking out than men and it causes so many of us to get quiet. We avoid the controversial stances and the uncomfortable conversations. We absorb workplace bullying and sexual or social trauma. The consequence of this repression is greater anxiety, higher levels of stress, more physical illness and less career advancement.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

While Incongruent had been a dream of mine for over a decade, there was a particular moment in time where I formally started to put words on paper. I was sitting on the balcony of my 26th floor condo in Tampa, Florida reading Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life for the third time. Despite having read the words before, timing is, in fact, everything. On this day, in this moment I read a line from the open chapter.

“What do you fear most in this life? What is your biggest fear? Right now. When I pose that question to myself, the answer is this: I’m afraid that I’ll die without having fully lived.”

Not only did this light a fire in my soul to live more present and more fully day to day, but also to follow my lifelong dream of writing. My version of fully living means following that dream with ferocity and that is exactly what I set out to do.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I deeply believe what the world needs most right now is a movement of authentic acceptance. I believe that acceptance of others is the deepest love we can give them. We do not have to agree with their religious traditions, political beliefs, or social values but we can love and accept them anyway. These differences make a beautiful stained-glass window through which we can view the world.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“You can’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.” This was shared with me by a mentor and friend Dr. Fred Seamon. To me it is the ultimate reminder to know our worth and set our boundaries appropriately.

During a particularly tumultuous time in my professional career, while working for a very toxic organization, Fred would remind me of this regularly. He would also continuously be encouraging me to assess its deeper meaning in light of my current organization. Was the organization really serving me? Do value and effectively utilize my talents? This mantra became not only critical to solidifying a fantastic career leap, but also to many future decisions I made in my personal and professional life.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can find all my social media as well as information on the release of Incongruent at my Linktree https://linktr.ee/MelanieSueHicks

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!