Do you ever think about how our heart's work leads us to our heart's people? In the latest episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood dives into the world of entrepreneurship and the profound impact it can have on our lives. Joining her is the inspiring entrepreneur and wellness advocate, Nicole Meline, who shares her journey from being a Peloton instructor to becoming a successful entrepreneur with her platform, Alter Together. Nicole Meline's captivating storytelling takes listeners through her transformative entrepreneurial journey. From her initial foray into the world of fitness in New York City to ultimately launching her own wellness platform, Nicole's story is a testament to the power of following one's heart's desires. Throughout the episode, she eloquently articulates the fusion of her passion for fitness, her skills in leadership, and her unwavering commitment to wellness, culminating in the creation of Alter Together. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, wellness, or personal growth. Nicole Meline's insights into nurturing one's body and mindset to achieve both wealth and wellness offer thought-provoking perspectives on redefining success. As she discusses the correlation between wealth and wellness, listeners are encouraged to reevaluate their own definitions of success and explore the depth of their personal and professional journeys. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, an angel investor, or simply seeking inspiration for personal growth, this episode offers profound wisdom and invaluable insights into the intersection of entrepreneurship and holistic wellbeing.
Do you ever think about how our heart's work leads us to our heart's people? In the latest episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood dives into the world of entrepreneurship and the profound impact it can have on our lives. Joining her is the inspiring entrepreneur and wellness advocate, Nicole Meline, who shares her journey from being a Peloton instructor to becoming a successful entrepreneur with her platform, Alter Together.
Nicole Meline's captivating storytelling takes listeners through her transformative entrepreneurial journey. From her initial foray into the world of fitness in New York City to ultimately launching her own wellness platform, Nicole's story is a testament to the power of following one's heart's desires. Throughout the episode, she eloquently articulates the fusion of her passion for fitness, her skills in leadership, and her unwavering commitment to wellness, culminating in the creation of Alter Together.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, wellness, or personal growth. Nicole Meline's insights into nurturing one's body and mindset to achieve both wealth and wellness offer thought-provoking perspectives on redefining success. As she discusses the correlation between wealth and wellness, listeners are encouraged to reevaluate their own definitions of success and explore the depth of their personal and professional journeys. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, an angel investor, or simply seeking inspiration for personal growth, this episode offers profound wisdom and invaluable insights into the intersection of entrepreneurship and holistic wellbeing.
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Marcia Dawood
Hi, Nicole. Welcome to the show.
Nicole Meline
Thank you so much.
Marcia Dawood
I'm so excited to have you here today talking to us all about everything. Entrepreneur. You and I know each other from, oh, my gosh, almost like ten years ago when you first became a peloton instructor. And I was one of the very early adopters and I was, of course, one of your very biggest fans. And so I would love to hear a little bit about your journey. I know now you have altered together, which I absolutely love also. And I would love for you to just talk about the journey that you've been on and how you've become a successful entrepreneur.
Nicole Meline
Thank you. So a great banner for this conversation, I think, is our heart's work leads us to our heart's people. And that just kind of tumbled out a few years ago, and that has definitely been a life lesson for me. And it's why, for the last seven years anyway, I've continued on an entrepreneurial journey for all of its opportunities and challenges, of course, because it's just been my experience that our heart's work leads us to our heart's people. That when you are following the desire of your heart. And in my experience, I've come across or created opportunities that I couldn't have imagined existed because I was following in the direction of my heart and trusting that where my passions and skill set was going to collide with, the world's need was going to be something new. Right. A new frontier to create.
So I want to begin with that, I think mantra for our audience.
Marcia Dawood
Love that.
Nicole Meline
Yeah. So in that I was on a path toward academia, towards teaching, and I had fitness as a side, was working. I was living in New York City, going to grad school at Rutgers, and it was either bartending or fitness, because to find a job that would allow weird hours to work around courses. And so thankfully, I chose the right direction there. And just at that time, the boutique fitness boom was starting to happen in New York City. This kind of new phenomenon of boutique businesses as actually successful businesses, that possibility, and in other words, like taking fitness and wellness seriously, I think, as both an industry and as a priority in our own lives. So I started teaching in that, just as Peloton was really, it was a concept. It wasn't yet even a full fledged business.
The studio wasn't yet open, but they had a Kickstarter campaign. And I remember when I learned about it, I loved the vision of, of course, the whole company and this possibility of not just offering top level content and experiences to the whole global community, but the fact that we could actually create community. So this could be this way of connecting for wellness oriented people. And our conversation today is a testament to just the incredible people and especially incredible women that I've been able to connect with. Starting from that, I was trusting my own passion for fitness in my work, and that it could actually become something that could support me in my mind just through grad school. But a few years into Peloton, as Peloton was really starting to take off, I realized not only that this was a big opportunity, but that oddly, all of my passions and skills for speaking, for inspiring, for kind of pastoring and walking with people through difficult scenarios and music, that this was all coming together in this kind of unexpected container, and that I hit this moment. And I had worked really hard to get into a phd fellowship. I worked for about ten years aiming for that as a goal, going through various master's programs, and so actually have secured that was this amazing thing.
And ultimately, after two years of coursework, I left the program because I realized that the container that I was working in, the container of academia, was too small now for all that I had realized I wanted to do, that I could teach in these really innovative ways and fun ways, that I was going to have a lot more fun working in the wellness and fitness world. So I left that program and was full time at Peloton, and even was a master instructor there, training their kind of incoming instructors. And three years in, I left to essentially start my own enterprise. So what I offer now, and it took maybe about a year for the vision to unfold. I think that's really common, especially with entrepreneurs, that I want to normalize having 50% vision, or even less than 50 vision. Because one of the things that I've definitely learned is that it's only by doing that we learn what something wants to be. So we have an idea. But also I believe that that idea, that business, that enterprise, that community has a life of its own.
And it's only by starting to create and really creating a culture that welcomes feedback, where it's a collaboration with our customers. And that was definitely something I really learned at Peloton, was peloton in the early days, was really seeking customer input and feedback. So it was kind of making the customers a part of the team. And I think especially in a new business venture, it's such a powerful strategy to think about how can you make your customer base actually feel like they're co creating this thing with you. So they're invested in all kinds of different ways. So again, move forward with 50% vision because the rest can only be revealed by starting.
Marcia Dawood
Yes, I love that.
Nicole Meline
Now I offer my own platform. You can find out all about it@nicolemaline.com. Altar but it includes movement, meditation practices and also retreats, courses that are topics focused. And of course, I do one on one work as well.
Marcia Dawood
I love all of that. In fact, we just had an episode where Susie Deville came on and she was talking about, she's the author of Buoyant, and she was talking about a lot of the same things that you're talking about, how important it is to use our creativity in order to take us forward. And I think especially with entrepreneurs, we get so wrapped up in our head and we're just like a go go and we have to like, there's so much to do and it's twenty four seven and nobody else is going to take out even the garbage or do the very important sales call all of the things. And so they're trying to just do everything and they're not taking the time for the self care, the creativity that could actually help propel their business even more forward.
Nicole Meline
It's so true. And I think it's maybe particularly true with women as well. We're often caretakers of all different kinds in our families. And so there's that additional full time job that we're carrying. It's usually two full time jobs. And as an entrepreneur, which I've been for the last seven years, I've of course had to do a lot of work around what I call wealth embodiment, not just money mindset, but actually, what is my whole story about money? What is my whole story about being a profit driven business, learning to be someone who loves sales, the engine of business, right? And so I've had to do a lot of work around that. I created this course that I just launched this last year called sourced. And it's a deep dive, literally.
I really am using water as a metaphor there of being in the flow of abundance. And through that, through a lot of that work that I've done myself, I've learned that for a lot of women, especially for entrepreneurs in general, a glimpse of our abundance mindset versus scarcity mindset can be seen in how we're relating to our own bodies. So I try to live by is body before business, body before business. And even just in those three words, I can feel how revolutionary that feels. Who am I? How do I have a right? What a luxury. Who else is going to do all that needs to be done if I actually attend to the needs of my body. But first of all, you are your greatest resource. This will always be true.
Your health is your greatest resource. Your energy is your greatest resource as a leader. And I think that what separates a leader, a founder, an entrepreneur from an employee, essentially, is that you're working on the business versus in the business, right? So your greatest resource is your creativity. So we all know our creativity is completely bound to our physical energy. The more tired we feel, if we feel uncomfortable in our bodies or unwell in our bodies, there's no way you're going to feel creative. You're going to feel dull, you're going to feel self defeating. But as we, I've made this big shift in my life of thinking about working out and training from the goals of, say, what do I want to look like or certain amount of miles I want to be able to run or about weight that I want to lift. Those goals are great, but they're secondary to my body is a battery.
And this is my way every single day that I recharge. Like my workout is a chance to plug into the energy source, to ignite my own energy. So it's kind of a different way of thinking, of putting this first. And I want to throw this out to our audience. I want to challenge you for one week to put yourself first and to put your health, your wellness first, to nourish yourself really well, to get at least seven to 9 hours of sleep, to drink half your body weight and water every day, to do that for one week and just see what is your decision making like, what is your creativity like. You're probably going to have ten times the amount of ideas and insights into how you can build teams and delegate and create help to support yourself. But I've actually created an offering around that called ignite, which you can learn about@nicolemaline.com. Ignite.
So a seven day reset for your body and your spirit to put your body before your business always.
Marcia Dawood
I absolutely love that. And everything that you're talking about related to mindset, I think is just something we need to keep talking about. You were talking earlier about money mindset, and obviously on the podcast, we're talking a lot about investing. We're talking about investing in entrepreneurs. We're talking to a lot of angel investors, and how can they be even better angel investors. But I think a lot of that comes down to your mindset. And in some cases, especially for women, I feel like what we were taught in childhood or even from the news and from the magazine, all the things did we do ourselves a disservice about how we're actually able to think about money now and trying to make that mindset shift is hard. So talk a little bit more about that and how you've done that.
Nicole Meline
I love talking about this. I do think that we are in a transitional generation right now where if you're anywhere from 30 and above, we grew up in a world where there were far fewer women leaders. I mean, the fact that we have a female vice president right now, of course, unprecedented to see the leadership that we've had in the US Congress just in the last generation, in the last decade, looks very different in terms of the number of women in leadership. And of course, as you know very, very well, the percentage of women founders who get funding, the percentage of women founders who even begin is so much less number of women on boards of Fortune 500 companies. It's astonishing how far we have to go. But what I find hopeful is I think that this upcoming generation, the women who are, first of all, we have more women in college now than men. We have a few percentage points more women buying homes than men right now. And so it is changing.
Our sense of possibility is changing. And thanks to people like Brene Brown, our understanding of the importance of emotional intelligence, the importance of relationship building, the importance of vulnerability, which are skills know, for lots of cultural reasons, maybe women have been shaped to really hone. And I think what it is, is women have been allowed really to create these skills of connection, and men have maybe been enculturated to downplay some of those things. But we know that women are this incredible resource of leadership, this incredible resource of emotional intelligence and mindfulness. And so, yes, we need to be leading, and we can, and we are starting to lead in all kinds of unprecedented ways just to get that out there and acknowledge that if it feels like we are in uncharted waters, if it feels like we're trailblazing, a word I really love, we are. And that when I can look back at both sides of my parents families and there's not a single woman, I would say there's not a single woman entrepreneur, someone who has gone out and really believed in an idea enough to throw her resources and her time behind it, which is, I think, really what entrepreneurship is. So we're in this kind of in between time, right? And so I think that it's probably common and normal for a lot of women in particular, to have to do more work on, and I say work in the best sense. I think work is all the fun and the juices and the work, right.
To have to do more work on a sense of deserving to be wealthy. And really what it comes down to is trusting ourselves with being a conduit of resources, and so we can create new habits and mindset around that, just on the kind of micro level of our own personal finance, right. And taking some brave moves. Even something like angel investing, is this beautiful way of actually building trust in yourself as a conduit of resources, as a conduit of generosity, and as our trust in ourselves. And I would even say our own body, like we can feel in our money story, is very much a somatic experience, right. You feel in your body a kind of tightening or a kind of expansion in your relationship to money and wealth. I think that we can start to exercise, and one of the reasons that fitness has been central and always will be to the kind of work that I do is that this word exercise, right. Like, we can train ourselves to become stronger, we can transform ourselves, body, mind and spirit.
So absolutely, whatever relationship with money that we have all inherited from our families, from our ancestors, from the stories that have shaped us, we can be the change makers in that. And I really view that as a way of ancestral healing, too. Like, the work that I'm doing is setting in some kind of a way, is setting my great grandmothers free in a way that probably they wouldn't have been able to imagine.
Marcia Dawood
I absolutely love that. And you said about angel investing being a conduit of generosity, I was like, yes, I'm talking a lot, especially now that I have a book coming out later this year. But I talk a lot about doing good while doing well. And angel investing is tough. There's no liquidity for a long time, usually sometimes five, seven years. We're trying to help these companies. It's never roses and kittens, like, the whole time. Of course, there's all kinds of problems with building a company.
Nicole Meline
It's hard work.
Marcia Dawood
And if we just wanted to go out and make money, maybe we'd be a day trader or something, I have no idea. But that's not the point. The point is that we really want to be able to help be a change maker, bring the change that we want to see happen in the world. And how can we do that? Each and every one of us can help an entrepreneurial company, even if it's just like you were saying, with your time, with having an open mind and being able to help them into their next phase. Maybe it's just that, you know, somebody and you could help network them into where they need to go. But there's just so many opportunities. And I think the more we keep talking about it, the more people will actually believe, like, hey, yeah, I can do that.
Nicole Meline
Absolutely. And I'm really intrigued by this similarity between the words wealth and wellness. Right. So wealth has within it. Well, and I really want in my life to define wealth in this very holistic way that to be wealthy is first and foremost to be. Well. And I bring that up with this kind of theme of nurturing our bodies as our greatest resource.
Body before business. But also because when you're talking about with angel investing and having that, it's a long game, right. It's a slow return financially. That's true. Right. But if we're viewing wealth in this very broad, expansive way, one of the benefits of angel investing is that you get to be a team member, you get to experience the joy, you get to experience the journey of walking alongside, and of course, this would be true of being an advisor as well as a financial investor, but walking alongside a community that is which a business is, that is creating something new in the world. And sure, it's great to get a payoff at the end, right, financially, but I think that in all of know, there's kind of this new era these days of kind of documentary, semi fictional films about startups like Uber or like Wework. And some of these are really negative, right? But it's beautiful to see that what is often the most satisfying when a business comes to its fruition, if at ipos or there's a payoff in some kind of a way, what's more valuable are the relationships that were built along the way.
And these two, maybe it's an advisor and a founder, or an investor and a founder catching each other eyes across the room. And this sense of, wow, look what we did. Look at the journey that we took together, which I imagine an angel investor. It's a closer, more intimate relationship, right, than just like a hedge fund funding a company from afar, like a marriage sometimes. Totally. Yeah. So that part of the payoff, even if there isn't the kind of financial payoff that you would want, there can be this incredible relationship. Payoff, creativity, payoff.
We did this thing and we learned all of this along the way, right? That if we're including in our definition of wealth, the health of our community, the health of our connections, then, I mean, why wouldn't you?
Marcia Dawood
Exactly. Yes. I love the words wealth and wellness coming together, because sometimes when you think about riches. I was thinking about that word yesterday, and I thought, well, so often you might think of that as I always think of gold coins or something like that. But it can be love and relationship and community and all of these things. I tell a story a lot about how my husband's really into golf and he meets all these people and he makes all these connections that at first I was like, I don't know, how do I get to make connections like that? Then I started to find my own golf course, and that's kind of what we're doing here.
Nicole Meline
Yeah, I love that analogy so much. What would your golf course look like exactly, that we get to answer that question. Right? Yeah. And that's part of becoming investors. And I want to challenge our audience with that. I'm always calling people into thinking of themselves as leaders, thinking of myself as a leader. We're all leaders, even if we're leading the micro community of our. Of our family.
Nicole Meline
I mean, first and foremost, we're leading ourselves. Right. Calling ourselves into self leadership, but at the same time, we're community builders. Right. So we get to decide what is the golf course that we want to create.
Marcia Dawood
Yes. And I think even, especially for women, we're very good at.
Nicole Meline
Yes, absolutely.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah. Well, Nicole, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And we're going to put everything in the show notes about where people can find you and where they can find the ignite seven day reset, because I know I'm signing up, and it was great to talk to you and connect with you again and hope to see you soon.
Nicole Meline
Thank you so much. And thanks to this community. It's a wonderful path that we're on.
Marcia Dawood
Yes. Bye.