Melissa Hawks

In today’s episode, Starve the Doubts host Jared Easley, along with special co-host Cory Copeland, the Editor-in-Chief of Bedlam Magazine, interviews Melissa Hawks, a passionate dreamer, a storyweaver, a writer for Bedlam Magazine, and the genius behind the recently successful Kickstarter campaign, Mutiny of Dreamers.

Melissa’s project, Mutiny of Dreamers is about embarking a 40-day road trip across the country interviewing different people who are dreamers and serving as her inspiration for the book she’s working on, which is of the same name, Mutiny of Dreamers.

Melissa believes that story changes us. And love redeems story. As she loves learning from stories of other people, she too seeks to share with us her story and her dreams and how this trip has changed her life forever!


In this episode, you’ll learn more about:

Melissa’s Mutiny of Dreamers Kickstarter campaign
What inspired her to do this trip
What Peter Billingham said to Melissa that sticked to her up to this day!
Doing a pilgrimage of people
Building a community around her dream
Choosing the cities she was going to
How the trip was different to what she expected
Some challenges along her journey
Who were the dreamers that impacted her life?
The common threads she found among these people
What has changed after the trip?
Tearing down her high walls
Her big takeaway from the trip!



Items mentioned:

Mutiny of Dreamers Kickstarter campaign
Interviewing people who are pursuing their dreams and their dreams taking them on a journey.
How their dreams have impacted Melissa’s life in some ways
Launched the Kickstarter campaign which was successfully funded
Now finishing her trip and working on her book


Who inspired her to travel and talk to people
Peter Billingham - one of the greatest storytellers you’ll ever meet!
She knew it was time to come back to who she really is


The cities Melissa visited for this project:
LA
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Tucson
Portland
Houston, Dallas, Austin
Nashville
Chicago
Atlanta
DC
North Carolina
New York
Minneapolis


Going through the trip without expectations

Organizing everything with her VA

Things don’t usually work out as you plan

The Dreamers
Some she had met only once or tweeted with once.
She contacted them and were willing to get involved in her project
Teri Murphy, author of the book Connect
Jon Acuff, bestselling author/speaker (and her wife, Jenny)
Doug Willock, astronaut
and more!


The things common to the people she’ve met:
High-performing
Highly driven
Difficulty to pursue rest
The tendency to take on a lot of projects
They are dreamers and doers


How the trip has changed her life:
She knew she would be different at the end of the trip
We get really good at putting up walls and putting up masks in front of the world.
Masks can be useful but they can translate to bigger walls and you end up blocking people off
Experienced different, small moments of people loving her well
All these things tore down her walls


The power of letting go!

People who interest Melissa as of the moment:
Matt Chambers of an inspiring startup organization, Gener.us
Sarah Hermeyer, Neighbor’s Table

Connect with Melissa on Twitter @MelissaHawks.

www.mutinyofdreamers.com


Melissa’s final thoughts for the listeners:

“All of us are created with a dream. You have something that you’re created to do… when you begin living that thing you’re created to do, you are filling your role and your piece of the greater narrative of the greater story. And that makes the better story as a whole… it’s very important that you find them.”