The Leadership Lessons No One Taught You

Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] On this week’s episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast, our guest is Melissa Overton, the owner of The Overton Experience and medicaltraining.me. This is her second visit to our podcast, so you can go back and listen to her previous podcast that she did about 18 months ago.

But on this podcast, we really focused on her new book that comes out October 20th called “Focused and Fearless Leadership”. We talk to her about why she wrote the book, what she hopes people get from the book, some of the training guides that go with the book, and how you yourself can be a better leader.

So listen in.

Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by Breeden Law Office. Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this [00:01:00] unique community.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Best of Johnston County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden, and on today’s episode, we have a repeat guest with Melissa Overton of medicaltraining.me and The Overton Experience.

But this time, we might talk a little bit about that, but we’re really gonna spend a lot of this conversation talking about a new book that she has written that comes out October 20th called Focused and Fearless Leadership. She has pumped all the things she’s learned about leadership from being a trauma nurse and coaching leaders for many, many years into a book, and that she’s gonna share that, a little bit about that with us today.

And if you’re interested, we’ll definitely tell you how to get a copy of it at the end of the podcast. Before we do that, we’d like you to like, follow, and subscribe to this podcast wherever you see it, whether it be on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, or any of the other social media channels, the Best Johnston County Podcast.

Best Johnston County Podcast comes out every single Monday, and has now for over two and a half years. We’re well over 120 episodes. So you can go back and listen to our first episode with [00:02:00] Melissa. We’ve also had Dana Wooten from the Clayton Chamber of Commerce and a lot of other great guests. Welcome, Melissa.

Melissa Overton: Thank you.

Jonathan Breeden: Good gracious, I’m coughing here. But anyway. Allergies. Allergies, allergies. So anyway so what’s your name and what do you do?

Melissa Overton: Okay. So I’m Melissa Overton owner of medicaltraining.me and The Overton Experience. Background was critical care nursing and then life lifed and I got opportunities to lead and got to do that in the healthcare sector and then eventually left the bedside and came to start my own company and get involved in healthcare and pretty much all the other sectors of business from a training and leadership standpoint.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And so, I know medicaltraining.me trains EMTs, nurses, people that need continuing education in the healthcare field.

Melissa Overton: Daycares, doctor’s offices, dentist offices, safety teams for organizations. So anybody that needs life-saving skills, first aid, CPR, all the way up to advanced life [00:03:00] support.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right. And then you created, when you were here last time, you had just created “The Overton Experience”, which is more for the speaking and leadership coaching portion of, it’s, I guess it’s its own separate business, but it’s still you. We don’t have

Melissa Overton: yeah

Jonathan Breeden: multiple Melissas. But anyway, talk a little bit about that.

Melissa Overton: So “The Overton Experience” grew out of the fact that I had started doing some leadership consulting work and strategy team building. But I went into an organization that wasn’t medical and they said, “Why is a medical training company in here training us?” And I said, “You know, it, people skills are people skills, how to deal with people.”

And I got great reviews from the course. I just recognized that medicaltraining.me was not gonna open some doors if people didn’t understand who I was, what I was about, what my qualifications are. So that’s where we created “The Overton Experience”. It’s melissaoverton.com, and I thought going around and branding myself as Melissa Overton, representing Melissa Overton, sounded cocky. So the irony is I said, “Well, then I’ll just be The Overton Experience.”

And one of my friends goes, “Wow, [00:04:00] you know that’s a little more cocky. Like, you’re really raising the bar there.” And I laughed because that was not it. And I said, “But you’ve been in my classes. Am I an experience?” She said, “Oh, you are that.” Right. Right? Right? So that’s how “The Overton Experience” came about.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’s funny. That’s funny. And you’ve I mean, you’ve been giving talks all over North and South Carolina over the last few months.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: I know you were in Morganton the other day.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And then you just got recognized by the networking and women group out of Clayton as Businesswoman of the Year. That was recently. So, this new part of you where you go on the road and give these speeches and talk about leadership, which led to the book, you know.

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: Why did you start doing that, and have you enjoyed it?

Melissa Overton: I love it. I love working with people and helping people dig in and elevate, right? That’s, that’s the piece that excites me. So I’ve been doing speaking for quite a while. I just didn’t always tell everybody about it, and I never thought about making it a second brand.

And it’s just kind of been one of those God moments that evolved. I love [00:05:00] people development, and really, this company, this consulting, and this book all came out of a place of recognizing that, like most people, I was promoted because I knew how to do my job really well, but that didn’t necessarily mean that anybody had taught me how to be a great leader at that next level.

And so there were pitfalls that I ran into, and just challenges and obstacles that just weren’t necessary if I had just known a few things. And so with Focused and Fearless Leadership, the subtitle is Preventing the Crisis Before It Starts. It’s really about preventing what I call leadership emergencies.

And the fact is, is if you think about most emergencies you’ve had as a leader, they don’t usually just pop up because there’s this crisis. It’s because we’ve missed the mark, or we stuck our head down and said, “Maybe if I don’t pay attention, it’ll go away.” And so this book really starts to dig into, okay, what is the need to know information that I can use to evaluate myself, to use to lead my teams, and help us elevate and just be better at [00:06:00] the people side of things and the culture side of things, because productivity comes out of all of that.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that’s for sure. And you’re right. Most, you know, I’ve owned this business for 26 years or whatever

Melissa Overton: yeah

Jonathan Breeden: and there are emergencies that pop up.

Melissa Overton: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: And most of the time you saw them coming and you maybe did not move on from a team member that needed to go be a hero somewhere else.

Melissa Overton: I like that.

Jonathan Breeden: And you waited for that, you hoped they would leave before they did any damage, but then the damage get done because you didn’t make the decision to move on from them. And all small business owners have been there. All business owners have been there.

Melissa Overton: We have, ’cause we don’t think about, like, we think about the damage they’re doing, and we forget the example that it sets with the rest of the team to go, “Wow, they’re tolerating this,” right?

And that becomes such a painful piece and such a painful learning curve. So this book talks about accountability. I tell people, you know, great leaders put a light in every corner so there are no shadows to hide in. You create the culture, and either people join the culture or you give them an opportunity, like you said, to be a hero [00:07:00] somewhere else.

I love that.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah.

Melissa Overton: I don’t think I’ve ever heard that.

Jonathan Breeden: No. Yeah.

Melissa Overton: But I like, that’s sticking. I’m keeping that one.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, no.

Melissa Overton: I’ll give you credit for it.

Jonathan Breeden: No, yeah, yeah.

Melissa Overton: But that’s good.

Jonathan Breeden: I got that from my business coach, Richard James.

Melissa Overton: Oh, did you? Oh.

Jonathan Breeden: But you know, when you think about it, that is true because what I’ve learned, and it took many years to learn this, you’re not doing them any favors either, right?

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: If you’re unhappy with them, they’re probably unhappy working for you as well.

Melissa Overton: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: And so they would be better off if they went and did something else with somebody else.

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: And you’re right, and I’ve lost team members that I did not want to leave because, you know, donkeys don’t want to be with, you know, racehorses don’t want to be with donkeys.

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: And you know, I’ve had some bad behaviors that was unnerving to other team members, and I end up losing good team members, and I really had to move on from the bad team members.

So I know how that goes.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: The hard part for me, and I’m sure you probably address this in the book, is dealing with the anxiety of having to run this business

Melissa Overton: Oh my God, yeah

Jonathan Breeden: with a [00:08:00] payroll of what it is. Everybody needs to get paid. You get paid last. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of seasonality to divorce law. And, you know, a lot of seasonality to how, how you do in sales and

Melissa Overton: Mm

Jonathan Breeden: is your follow-up consistent, and all of that. So where I struggle is with the anxiety part of just like, “Woe is me, sky’s falling. We didn’t get as many hires as we wanted this week.”

Melissa Overton: Mm

Jonathan Breeden: and you know, I have to try not to project that out. But I don’t always do the best job. So what’s the book say about that?

Melissa Overton: I tell people that it is very dangerous when we hire warm bodies And there’s like a, there’s an illustration. My graphic artist did this illustration, and it says, “Hiring more bodies,” and there’s, like, zombies in the background, which I thought was a very funny take on what I was saying.

But yeah, I think sometimes we do get in that panic mode, and we go, “I just need to hire somebody.” And so maybe sometimes we make the wrong choice, and it… And the cost of turnover is so much more, ’cause now we’ve brought somebody in that’s not gonna be a good fit. They’re probably not gonna last. It’s gonna damage your [00:09:00] team.

You’re, you’re just prolonging the inevitable. But at the same time, I’ve definitely been in a place where I’ve like, “I gotta have some help. Like, this place has gotta run.” This has never been a book that was written to say, “I’ve got the answer to all the problems,” right? ‘Cause I, I don’t believe that.

I think that there are so many variances in life, but it does open your eyes to what do you kinda instinctively know, and what does best practice and leadership talk about? Because, you know, I try to refer to other authors and thought leaders in this and say, “You know what? I didn’t invent leadership.”

Leadership has been here since the beginning of time. So, so what are these principles that we know, and, and how do we use those and apply those? I was just sitting here thinking like, bringing the right person in at the right time, giving them those opportunities. And, and so many times when I think back, especially in my healthcare career, we would tell our leaders, “I would rather work short a little bit longer and give you the opportunity to find the right person than for you to bring the wrong person to the table.”

But again, those are things that we need to be teaching others as we train them. And let’s, let’s say you [00:10:00] hire someone that is doing all of your employment selection, and so they feel the pressure to get someone in that next job. If you haven’t mentored them and coached them and said, “Look, I would rather you take a little bit longer and get the right client or get the right employee in rather than just rush because you think that I’m gonna chop your head off if you don’t have someone hired in the next 30 days.”

Have family law questions? Need guidance to navigate legal challenges? The compassionate team at Breeden Law Office is here to help. Visit us at www. breedenfirm. com for practical advice, resources, or to book a consultation. Remember, when life gets messy, you don’t have to face it alone.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and if you’re in a growing business like my office is, or you’re in the healthcare business, which is always short-staffed because there’s not enough healthcare providers, you kind of need to always be hiring.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Even if you don’t think you have a position, you should have an ad out there in case the right person comes along.

Melissa Overton: Maybe so. If you’ve [00:11:00] got that much growth, then yeah, I think so. And just to maintain those relationships so that when that ideal opportunity comes about that, yeah, you’ve got that relationship with them and you say, “Hey, I met you and you really stood out. We’ve got an opportunity now. Is this something you’re interested in?”

So I think, yeah, building that. The other thing you mentioned was about anxiety, and I tell people when we look at it, a lot of the book is about communication and conflict resolution because I feel like once you kind of understand what makes people tick, so we look at generational differences and we look at personality differences and the concept of unconscious bias, and we start going, ” Okay, now that I’m looking outside of just what do I see on the surface that I know about you, and I’m trying to figure out, like what kinds of experiences have made you make some of the choices you have or the way that you choose to communicate,” then the next piece goes into how to have those conversations when there’s any kind of potential conflict.

And the anxiety piece has always come up to me. There’s a framework that I have written in called the threat response, and it’s basically when I say something [00:12:00] like, ” John, we need to talk,” and you’re like and then I go, “But you know what? It’s 4:45, so I’m gonna talk to you Monday morning at 8:30. Come to my office, I’ll see you here.”

Like, your face is turning red, and this is just an imaginary situation.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, I know, right?

Melissa Overton: Like because all these thoughts come through. So the threat response is talking about like, what are the things running through our mind, you know, are you for me or against me? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are you a reliable person that I can trust that you’re gonna be reasonable when I work with you, and that you’re gonna give me an opportunity to speak up? Because I tell people, “It’s not usually the problem that’s the problem, it is anticipating what’s coming that is the problem.”

And so that’s a lot of what I’m always trying to build into this as well, is understand we just have to have solutions-based attitudes in life. And then we just take it as it is, and we learn to communicate better and understand that whether we meant to activate someone’s threat response or not, it happens, right?

I don’t mean to, but-

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Believe me, I don’t mean to either.

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: And, and I, and I don’t, [00:13:00] and I don’t even get it sometimes, you know?

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: I mean, I basically

Melissa Overton: Yeah

only ever work for myself.

Jonathan Breeden: And you know, I’m not trying to hurt people’s feelings or

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: You know, I’ve never been in a position where I absolutely needed a paycheck.

Melissa Overton: Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: Because I’ve always worked for myself as an adult.

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: When I was a kid, you know, I had different jobs, Applebee’s and stuff like that.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: But as an adult with bills to pay and a family to feed.

Melissa Overton: Mm-hmm

Jonathan Breeden: I’ve only ever worked for myself.

Melissa Overton: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: So I don’t know what it’s like to have a boss and that paycheck and have that response. I mean, I know exactly what you’re saying. I have that response when, you know, a judge wants me to come meet with them or, you know, you get a letter from wherever. You know, I get them.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: But it’s not as far as the job itself.

Melissa Overton: Well, that’s your livelihood, but you also think about, like, reputationally. You

Jonathan Breeden: Right

Melissa Overton: spent so many years building this, that you’re a staple in this community, so you don’t worry about that versus someone newer. So we had someone that we were recognizing as a new business of the month, right? Or not a new business, but a business of the month. They had been nominated. So [00:14:00] innocently, the phone call was made and said, “Hey, can you come in a couple of weeks on a Monday at 5:30?”

And the person was like, “Yeah.” Well, that Friday before at one of our networking events, someone said, “And congratulations, you’ve won employee of the month or business of the month.” And everybody’s like, “Hey!” And we’re like, ” Hey! That was supposed to be a surprise.” And it was like, okay, but there were like 75 people in the room, so it was perfect.

Here’s what blew my mind. The guy said, “Oh, God. Thank God.” I said, “What?” He says, ” I have thought for the last two weeks that I did something to upset your organization and that you guys were gonna ask me not to be a member anymore.” And he had beat himself up and he was so stressed out. All we wanted to do was surprise him and say, ” We’re recognizing you for being freaking awesome.”

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, he was business.

Melissa Overton: But, like, it was an unintentional trigger, right? And so when we think about that’s part of what I like to do in this book is instead of pointing fingers at people, I go, “Okay, let me look at myself. What about this have I done that has triggered that? And then how do I make it right?”

So it’s not only just pointing it out, but it’s like, okay, how do we create a safe environment? So there’s other frameworks to kind of [00:15:00] build in and go, and okay, because you don’t wanna do that. When I say we gotta talk and I can say, “You know what? It’s cool. We’re in a learning curve. I promise you your job isn’t on the line.

I just, we just need to talk ’cause this didn’t go as smoothly and I don’t wanna rush the conversation because it’s important to me that I get to hear your thoughts,” then you can go, “Okay, maybe it is something that maybe didn’t go well, but I know now that my job’s not on the line.” Because all weekend, what would you have done?

Jonathan Breeden: Worried.

Melissa Overton: Worried

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. Worried.

Melissa Overton: Called other people, tried to figure out what’s going on. I tell people, “You know, you got half the office ready to quit and burn the building down.” We ride at dawn, right? Yeah. Or you resign over the weekend ’cause you’re so freaked out, and it, and it doesn’t have to be that big.

And I don’t think… There are some people that do that intentionally, but most people don’t. So, and it, and it’s, again, it’s a mistake you make as a new leader because you just haven’t had those learning curves yet to stop and think about it. So that’s, that’s where I get really excited and really passionate talking to all kinds of groups about, because this are, these are universal concepts, right?

Jonathan Breeden: Right. [00:16:00] Well, and the book is actually designed to sort of be a workbook, right? And at the end of each chapter, there are questions that you can work through with your leadership teams, and there’s prompts to lead to discussions.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And I think there’s actually a teacher guide that sort of goes with the book.

Is that right?

Melissa Overton: So what’s happened is I am in a pre-sale process right now, because I wanna hit a bestsellers list. And so I know I’ve gotta sell a certain number to get there. So what you do is you do an early release, and anyone that buys the book now automatically gets three chapters of the book of it via PDF, and then they get a free training video that I’ve created.

It’s an hour-long talk that I get paid really good money to do in a lot of places, and it’s about learning to respond rather than react. So it’s about the threat response. It’s about these pieces. So then with that they get that. But when you buy group orders, like bulk orders, then what we did is to increase the value and say, “Okay, while you’re waiting for this book to come, you’re getting this, and we’re gonna give you this [00:17:00] facilitator’s guide.”

And it is I’m gonna be honest, sometimes I kind of regret giving it away for free, ’cause it was so challenging to make because I really took into account as a trainer and facilitator, right, as a strategist, what did I always want, or what did I always have to create because it wasn’t there with that.

So yeah, you work on it yourself, you work on it with your teams as discussions. The fun part of the book is I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t wake up one day and say, “Hey, I’m gonna write a book.” Not on my list of things to do. There is nothing about my personality that says I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna focus and I’m gonna write a book.

So I actually have to give a shout-out to David Rendell, right? So the Freak Factor. Dave is from Goldsboro, and he’s an international speaker now and has written some really great books and has worked with a lot of very interesting people all over the world.

And I said, “Dave, how do you do this?” And he says, “You got one of two choices. You can write a bunch of blogs and eventually put them together in a book,” he says, “or you can hole away somewhere and you can write until your [00:18:00] fingers cramp and your eyes bleed.” I’m an ER nurse. I said, “I’ll take option two.”

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Melissa Overton: Right? ‘Cause that made sense.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Melissa Overton: So the beauty of it is like this book because my pushback when I was encouraged to write this book is I was like, “There’s enough leadership books in the world. Why do we need one more?” And I was very honest, and they said, “Because they don’t talk about it the way you do.” They said, “It’s your crazy stories that, that bring these points home that you get to think of that are interesting, that challenge you, and you’re so honest about it.”

And they said, “It’s the way that you do it. And write the book the way you wanted it to be.” Like, this is the book I wish I had gotten as I was emerging as a leader. It’s also a book that as a leader now, every time I talk about these chapters and I do these keynote talks about all these different topics.

It’s interesting because there’s always a learning curve for me too. How am I upping my game? How am I holding myself accountable? How am I listening to the feedback in the room and going, “Okay, bring that in. Are you doing these things or not?” So yeah. So there’s a facilitator’s guide if you buy a certain number, like there’s a [00:19:00] upsell, and these are limited time offers because once that book drops and those things come, then these videos become proprietary, like individual sales.

And the actual physical book prints October 20th, and then it will be mailed out. So everyone that pre-orders, all that money is sitting there waiting with their contact information, and those orders will be processed through Amazon, Books-A-Million, and Barnes & Noble.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that’s exciting.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: It’s exciting. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: I love to read leadership books and I’ve read a lot of them.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: I’ve read some of the more popular ones. I’ve read some of the local authors’ ones as well. So I’ll definitely make sure I read this one.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: So how can people pre-order the book?

Melissa Overton: So for right now you can go to my website melissaoverton.com, and as soon as you click on that, you can go over to the tab and go to the book, or it just becomes a pop-up that gives you an opportunity. So if you give it three, four seconds, it’ll pop up and be like, “Here it is,” and you can click on it, and that’s where you can go in and buy a copy.

You can look at buying additional copies [00:20:00] if you want to. At different levels, there’s different bonus content that comes with it, and the really cool thing about it is I wanted to exceed the value of the book. So when you’re buying, you’re getting these other additional add-ons that are worth so much more than the book.

The book’s $19.95 and we’re charging $23.95 right now because of taxes and shipping, right? So, that’s the price and that includes all of it. There’s no surprise anything, upgrade, anything else with that. But we’re making sure they’re getting that information. And I’m gonna be doing some webinars soon online where people can go online and listen to some additional free content just to try before you buy. Kick the tires.

Jonathan Breeden: All right. That sounds good to me.

Melissa Overton: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: That sounds good to me. Well, that’s great. Well, the last question we’ll ask everybody on this podcast like we asked you last time, what do you love most about Johnston County?

Melissa Overton: I love Johnston County because we are so close to all the things, right?

We’re so close to the best healthcare in the world, let’s be honest, right? We’ve got some of the best healthcare facilities in the world, all the amenities, but we’ve got that hometown feel. So even at the [00:21:00] end of the day when you’re meeting new people, there’s still that hometown feel, give somebody a hug, somebody asking how your mama’s doing kind of situation, and I just, I, I love the way that feels and I love that- This area is big enough but small enough that I can lean in and I can give back, and I can influence and share these gifts locally before they hit global.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that’s great. That’s great. Well, we’d like to thank Melissa Overton, owner of The Overton Experience, medicaltraining.me, and the author of the new book, Focused and Fearless Leadership, for coming and being our guest on this week’s episode of the Best of Johnston County podcast. As we mentioned earlier, please like, follow, subscribe to this podcast wherever you see it.

It comes out every single Monday. It has now for over two and a half years. And also, if you tag us in your Instagram stories Best of Johnston County, that’ll help raise our reach as well. We could also use five-star reviews down below. Until next time, I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden

That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining [00:22:00] us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.