Melinda Stallings: Positivity, PechaKucha, Gifts, Reset | Work 20XX Ep53

‍Melinda Stallings: Positivity, PechaKucha, Gifts, Reset | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep53 from Running Remote
‍English Transcript
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, llc.

Cold Open
Check check
Check check.
Excellent.
So I will count us down
and we will go.
three, two, one.

Jeff Frick:
Hey welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick coming to you from hot Austin. I'm not in the home studio today. I'm down at Running Remote for a special edition of Work 20XX. We wanted to come down to the Running Remote show in Austin because this is where all the people that are really at the cutting edge of the future of work are sharing their best practices giving great talks. And what's nice is that all these lessons and applications and best practices are applicable whether you're fully remote back in the office hybrid or anything in between. So we're excited to have our next guest. She's a Austin local I asked her if she's responsible for the weather and she's trying to push it off. Say no, it's Melinda Stallings and she is the founder of ‘The Positive Consultant.’ And she also runs a big event called DisruptHR Austin. Melinda, great to see you.

Melinda Stallings:
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Jeff Frick:
Yeah. I think you should have ordered it about ten degrees less. But that's okay. We’ll let that lie.

Melinda Stallings:
Well you know I say it’s as hot as a barbecue pit here.

Jeff Frick:
Well that's good. We had barbecue last night. Tasty brisket. Your big theme is leading with positivity.

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Frick:
What is that about?

Melinda Stallings:
Well, that's about just bringing the positive aspect into the world My tagline is the Infinite Power of Positive. And I think that what we need in leadership and management and employees and just in general is to raise that energy to that positive level. We've gotten into, I think, a cycle of looking for what's wrong instead of what's right. Instead of us asking, what's the what? Okay, I'll do it. What's the worst? What's the worst that can happen? Ask okay, well, let's think. What's the best that can happen? Because in positive psychology, there is that realm of training your neurons to connect in a more positive manner. But you have to extinguish some of those negative behaviors. So it takes a while. But it's not just woo woo. Thinking positively is not just woo woo. Right. It is backed by science and it is just re-training people to think in a manner of looking for what could go right instead of what could go wrong.

Jeff Frick:
So how do people start to do that practically? I mean, we live in crazy times, right? There's wars and geopolitical issues and unemployment and just got through with the Covid pandemic a word that none of us even knew. What that meant before. So and it's obviously easier to see what's wrong. It's easier to complain than suggest solutions. So what are the concrete behaviors that people can start to practice and not immediately just go to the negative but start to to shift their point of view to the positive?

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah. Our brains are hardwired for fear. And that's just a reflex that we have so we can protect ourselves. Right. So the first thing that we have to do is stop in that moment and say, okay what is actually going on here? Am I going to be eaten by a dinosaur? Am I going to be attacked by a pterodactyl? That is exactly what happened that you know prehistoric men use that for fight, flight or freeze. And so in our evolving world we begin to generalize things that we've had some kind of experience with a negative experience with and bring that forward as well here's what's going to happen. This is what happened in the past. So here's what's going to happen again in the future. So being aware in that moment and being it really is about being still and reframing. But the first thing you have to do is just take a deep breath assess where you are, what's really happening. And that's challenging for people because we're constantly in motion and just taking a moment to pause and breathe can seem like an eternity for some people But it’s totally reframing what the situation is. Okay, objectively what is happening? What's happening right now? Is everything okay? What can I project going forward instead of basing my decisions about what's going to happen on the past?

Jeff Frick:

So what happens if it's just not good? If there’s just sometimes where it just doesn't apply. You know, say you got some terrible news or you know there's layoffs. Your friend got laid off that you sit next to at the office. I mean, is there a way to justify it? Is there a way to get from that negative to positive when you just feel like ‘Ahhhaaa’

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah. Jeff, that's a great question. And honestly, it's not Pollyanna-ish either. I have bad things that happen to me, right? But one of the beautiful things is that once you practice this approach then you learn that you can look for the gifts and they may not show up right away. You may have to just move through whatever it is that's happening but maybe the next day. I mean, we're not saying stuff your feelings or anything like that. We're just saying maybe the next day you can breathe. You can think about if I had a similar situation what were the good things that came out of it? How many times have you thought oh my God, this is the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. And about three months later you're like oh gosh, I'm really glad that happened to me.

Jeff Frick:
Right, right. You said an interesting thing. You slipped it in there kind of quietly which is ‘look for the gifts.’ Yeah. And you know it's funny always in retrospect if you're sitting around telling stories the best stories the funniest stories the most memorable stories always started at a horrible something horrible happened. And either you got through it or to your point you learned a little bit. I never really thought of it as kind of the gift of the negative that there is something in there that you can take and build from.

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah, well, you know, we have contrast. So the negative shows us what we don't want. And then we can flip it. It's like a nickel, right. We flip to the other side of what we do want. And that is a matter of just retraining, reframing, resetting. I have a little button that I had made. You remember the Staples button? That was [Melinda] That was easy. [Jeff] Right, the ‘Easy’ button. Yeah. Yeah. So my button says ‘Reset’ And sometimes when I get into that I literally hit the button reset. And it's my anchor if you will Right, right. You know, here’s your anchor and move out of it. Or sometimes I just tell myself that. We get into habitual thinking. When people get in that loop of one thing happens and then they begin to ‘Awful-ize’ and what we

Jeff Frick:
Awful-ize, that's a good word

Melinda Stallings:
so what we need to do is we need to help them to learn techniques or encourage them. Stop the Awful-izing. Stop right then and there. Look around see what's happening and think okay What do I need to do next? And really move to a positive thought. People have always said, go to your happy place. It's truly one of the phenomenon’s that really work. Just move to a happy thought and you can get out of. You're not thinking about the negative anymore because you've made the conscious decision that you're going to move into that positive.

Jeff Frick:
Right. So we've been talking a lot about how you do it for yourself. Organizationally for leaders who are trying to get a more positive output, attitude, culture. What are some of the tricks from a leadership perspective that you can start to get people to turn to a little bit more positive and away from the negative?

Melinda Stallings
Yeah, I love that. The first thing is you know it begins with the leaders. And it begins with the managers. When we're going to implement a change initiative we have to come from the aspect of what are the positive possibilities. It's not just about Okay, we've got this change because everybody wants change until they have to change. And then it's not liked so much. So it's important that the leader has a specific plan of action because really we're back to fear. I have to change something. What does that mean for me? What does that mean for the team. How is that going to impact us. And so when we can give them just some very simple ideas to latch onto let them talk with us about what things may mean to them. People want to be seen, heard and understood. And so if I am going to approach a team and say okay, look here's what we're going to do in terms of change there are some things that have been indicated through our metrics or things that we need to change some things. The first thing they're going to do is how is that going to impact me? But if I can give them the opportunity to voice okay specifically what role did you play in that objectively? How could you begin to move the needle on making that a more positive outcome? When we allow people to have buy in when we allow them to have a voice maybe they're not going to 100% be in favor of whatever it is that we do, but they're going to be much more likely to adopt it and move through it because they've had the opportunity to have a voice. So starts from the top

Jeff Frick:
as do most important things,

Melinda Stallings:
Exactly

Jeff Frick:
Modeling the behavior, right. If the boss isn’t modeling it then nobody else is going to

Melinda Stallings:
Model away

Jeff Frick:
Okay, so tell us a little bit about your show DisrputHR Austin. So we're at Running Remote and Running Remote people had nothing but great things to say about you so I don’t think they’ll mind us giving you a little plug for DirsuptHR Austin

Melinda Stallings:
Well we appreciate that very much. And DisruptHR loves Running Remote It's been a real pleasure to partner with them to and promote Running Remote. It's been a great event.

Jeff Frick:
It has

Melinda Stallings:
Such a great vibe DisruptHR, this is our fourth event. We started in 2023. Resurrected DisruptHR and it's a global event. I have the license for Austin and I have a spectacular team of directors. We're all volunteers and all of our proceeds our net proceeds go to our charity of choice which is Love Justice International. [https://www.lovejustice.ngo/] And it's an anti-human trafficking organization. So we're doing good having fun.

Jeff Frick:
So it's a nonprofit. The whole thing’s a non profit?

Melinda Stallings:
Basically, yes

Jeff Frick:
Okay.

Melinda Stallings:
And so we have 12 speakers. They have five minutes to present 20 slides that auto advance every 15 seconds.

Jeff Frick:
Oh, I've heard about this somewhere.

Melinda Stallings:
It’s called the PechaKucha method

Jeff Frick:
I’ve heard about that where you got to go. And the slides are moving. Do You don't have any control the slides.

Melinda Stallings:
No, you have no clicker. It's just going.

Jeff Frick:
And how many slides?

Melinda Stallings:
20 slides.

Jeff Frick:
In how many minutes?

Melinda Stallings:
5 minutes. So it's 15 seconds per slide

Jeff Frick:
Five minutes. And so in just the one day, all 12 back to back to back.

Melinda Stallings:
It’s four and a half hours actually

Jeff Frick:
The whole show is 4.5 hours?

Melinda Stallings

Yeah, yeah. So it's a high energy. We've got an hour of networking. And then we present our first six speakers and then we have another 45 minutes of networking. And then we have our other six speakers. And then our VIPs get to go to something called Disrupt After Dark. And that's where the speakers gather on the stage And the VIPs can ask them any questions. And we do some other things afterwards some happy hours and some other events that we like to continue having the community involved with us. This year we're going to just one per year. Because I think that we were burning ourselves out you know, talking about burnout what we need to do positively. You got to give people rest. We're super excited. I will share that we have over 65 submissions for 12 slots.

Jeff Frick:
And what are they tech? Because clearly they're not like traditional keynotes which go

Melinda Stallings:
No

Jeff Frick:
a little bit longer than five minutes. But are they technology or what are the types of presentations that are done?

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah, thanks for that, so we want to appeal to things that HR practitioners can actively apply immediately after that event. So it could be anything from psychological safety to how you develop your teams to performance to change management and they have to come up with not just the same old, same old. They're our theme this year is ‘Elevate’ So we are asking them to work their speech around elevation what kind of practices that they can bring. And the beautiful part is we have people from all different genres. So we're getting this great variety of input and ideas. And the audience really benefits from that. We get rave reviews from our audience. Our event keeps getting bigger each year. So that's really our best form of advertising.

Jeff Frick:
Cool. So it’s like mini TED talks kind of.

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah, it is, it's almost like the Ted talks of HR

Jeff Frick:
Yeah. Cool.

Melinda Stallings:
Yeah, yeah

Jeff Frick:
Well, Melinda thank you for the time today.

Melinda Stallings
Thank you

Jeff Frick:
Congratulations on the next show. Sounds like it's going to be exciting. Five minute Ted talk with your slides running every few seconds. that’s a little stressful, I would imagine.

Melinda Stallings:
It is definitely an adventure that’s for sure

Jeff Frick:
All right. Well thanks again. Really appreciate it.

Melinda Stallings:
Thanks so much Jeff, really appreciate it

Jeff Frick:
All right. She's Melinda I'm Jeff. You’re watching Work 20XX coming to you live from Austin. It's warm at Running Remote. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Take care.

‍Melinda Stallings: Positivity, PechaKucha, Gifts, Reset | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep53 from Running Remote
‍English Transcript
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, llc.