Speaker 1: 0:00

people buy from you when they like, know and trust you. But until you can do that for yourself, there's no way that you can do that for anybody else. So yeah, I can write a value proposition, I can write a brand strategy and a story, and I can even align it right. You know I was taught how to do all of that through corporate communication, jobs and working in higher education and running national programs. But what you can't do is actually make it about you until you like, know and trust yourself.

Speaker 3: 0:43

You're listening to America's Healthiest City on Mike King Biz Radio Network on ESPN.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Richmond 106.1 and Choice 105.3.

Speaker 3: 0:54

Good morning, happy Thursday and welcome to America's Healthiest City. I'm your host, Will Melton, and today I'm in the ESPN studio with Michelle Mercurio. I'm really excited about this conversation. She is a woman about Richmond, the host of Creative Mornings, and she owns her own creative business. She is a starter of many things and I admire her for that, and we're going to talk about starting things and stopping things today, as well as the whole world of creative challenges and opportunity.

Speaker 3: 1:20

But before we dive in, if you are new to this program, please hop over to AmericasHealthiestCitycom to learn about our 10-year community partnership to make all of Richmond the healthiest in America by 2033. We need everybody to jump on board with this plan if we're going to succeed, and you can find out ways that you can get involved there through our ideas board, which you can add to or leave comments on others' ideas that have been left behind. And if you represent a nonprofit, a business, an academic institution or a government agency and you want to get involved in this project, you can find out what it takes to become an ambassador. It is totally free and we will help you tell your story about how you are making the region the healthiest in America by 2033. Without further ado, michelle Mercurio thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 3: 2:00

I'm excited about this.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Thank you so much for having me today. I'm excited about this.

Speaker 3: 2:04

Thank you so much for having me today. One of the favorite things that I have about you is that you are raw in your delivery of your message on social media Absolutely and that vulnerability is something that I admire greatly, and I hope others get the opportunity to see what that feels like to both be a part of the audience but also thinking about what that could mean for them and their pursuits. But before we talk about this topic, I ask everybody who comes on this show are you a native to Richmond or did you move here and, if so, what brought you?

Speaker 1: 2:39

I moved here twice, so I am not a native to Richmond. I am originally from Arizona. I went to school undergrad outside of Seattle and then moved to DC after that and wanted to come down to Richmond because of the art and creative community here. So the first time I lived here was many, many years ago and I left and then I came back in 2016.

Speaker 3: 2:57

So many, many years ago was that arts and culture scene visible.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Mostly centered around VCU. It wasn't quite the central focus that it is now. I think that Richmond has just a huge creative community now, and I'm sure it was there then, but I didn't see it quite as much. And now, everywhere I turn, that's what we see. We see creativity, we see art, we see people doing different types of things. We see an influx of cultures from different areas all coming together to make up what we see in Richmond today.

Speaker 3: 3:34

So your, your comeback moment, was there a something that happened that you were kind of turned on to this vibe, this creative vibe that was growing here, or did you just like visit and saw it? I mean, what happened?

Speaker 1: 3:47

So I blew up my life. I blew up my life in 2014. I had the perfect looking corporate job, the perfect looking suburban house, the perfect looking, you know, marriage and family, like. We were looking to expand into having a family and all of that stuff, and I didn't want any of it. I was living in somebody else's story and so when I decided to leave the job, the husband spoiler alert we're still still same husband. I just call it our second part of our marriage, right, like. But I moved down to Richmond and lived with a friend for a little while and then when I came back here, I was like I want to be here. I want to be in a city that's walkable, where people are working on social issues, where people are coming together with really great ideas, and Richmond was like the deal breaker. So when we decided to continue and continue to work on our marriage and rebuild our lives, we did it here in Richmond.

Speaker 3: 4:47

That's lovely. It's a lovely story. I can tell you that my wife and I fell in love. Courtney and I fell in love in Richmond on our very first date. We came here on New Year's Day and we were living in Williamsburg and there was no place to go on New Year's Day in Williamsburg for a date. So we came up here and went to the Franklin Inn and that was it, that was it. This place has something special, Well.

Speaker 1: 5:08

I appreciate you sharing that.

Speaker 3: 5:10

So I'm going to let you describe to our audience who you are, because for me you're a lot of things. I see you in a lot of different venues and a lot of different videos and you talk about a lot of different things. But just for the sake of our audience, maybe give a little bit of a background on how you arrived at where you are today. We heard a little bit about your corporate job and your blow up, but since you've been here in Richmond this time, what has been that story? That has kind of been your narrative.

Speaker 1: 5:34

So I do brand work. Right, I say I do brand work, I do brand writing and strategy for visionary small businesses, but that's not really what I do. Right, I can write, but that doesn't mean that that's actually really what I do. I am very dedicated to helping people be able to see themselves so that they can be themselves. And in order to do that, in order to be able to tell your story and make progress in the things that you really are skilled at, the things that are part of make progress in the things that you really are skilled at, the things that are part of your purpose, the things that you're just doing in your life you actually have to undo a lot of internal narratives in order to really discover who you are.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So many times I hear people say, well, that's just who I am, or that's how I've always been. But until we actually undo all of the subconscious programming that gets put on us throughout our entire lives, we don't even know if we're living into authentically who we are or who it is that we were told we should be. I'm hosting a mindful retreat. It's really about understanding the narratives that drive us first reconnecting to the things that are really like our biggest values, the things that we see as part of our vision, and why we're here and rediscovering those things, because a lot of the times you know, day in and day out, we are doing the things. You know it's really easy to go on to autopilot, it's really easy to have a to-do list and then have that be your life, and the whole goal of that, if you want to have a meaningful, authentic life, is to undo everything inside first.

Speaker 1: 7:17

So yeah, I can write a value proposition, I can write a brand strategy and a story, and I can even align it right, you know I was taught how to do all of that through corporate communication, jobs and working in higher education and running national programs. But what you can't do is actually make it about you until you like, know and trust yourself and you hear that in marketing all the time. Right, people buy from you when they like, know and trust you. But until you can do that for yourself, there's no way that you can do that for anybody else.

Speaker 3: 7:47

That's such an important lesson, and I'm sure we'll talk about it more throughout the program. I think it's something that I'm having to relearn constantly, and I think that we descend into these narratives when things don't go our way. Or you know, you try one day and nothing happens one day, and so the next day you don't try again, because you thought well, nothing happened when I did this yesterday, but it takes longer than that.

Speaker 1: 8:06

It's all about consistency, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:07

Well, I appreciate that perspective and another perspective that was shared on this program. Many months ago, catherine Blessing from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts visited us and she challenged me. She said you know, in your list of metrics of what makes a city healthy, you're missing creativity. And I said you know before, maybe a couple years ago, I would have said, well, that's probably not that important. But now, for whatever reason, whatever I've learned the last couple of years, I recognize the virtuous cycle of creativity, and so I'm really curious your take on this. What does creativity mean for you when it comes to being healthy?

Speaker 1: 8:42

So, as part of Creative Mornings, our manifesto is everyone is creative and everyone is welcome, right, and I have. I always meet people that say, oh, I'm not creative or I don't do creative things or I don't have a creative job. And what is creativity? Creativity is the courage to actually say to yourself, like, how am I doing this in the way that feels good to me? Is it aligned to me? Have I broken away from a standard way of doing it? Am I living into the things that I know I am here to do? So I know that that's a very different viewpoint of creativity, but it's really about, like, how do I show up? Am I willing to try things? Am I willing to have curiosity and say, maybe I'll give this a try, do something a little bit different? That's creativity to me. It doesn't have to be one way and we're willing to break out of any kind of mold. That's what creativity means to me.

Speaker 3: 9:38

So creativity is a scary thing for some people to take up. There's some risk associated with spending our time and our resources on these endeavors. What would you say to somebody who is hesitating to start a creative activity? You know, what are they not seeing on the other side of starting and what can they see for themselves as they go through that process?

Speaker 1: 9:59

A lot of the reason that we have any hesitation at all with anything that we do is fear, right? So that is a fear mindset. And when we have that, it's very easy to have a fear mindset, especially with everything that we are bombarded with on a day-to-day basis, right, new cycles, things that happen. You know we do not have control, we do not have the illusion of control, and so anything to break out of that illusion that we are trying to maintain, which is that we have some sort of control over our lives. That's why people don't want to be creative, right, because what if? What if this happens? But you know what? What if, what if it does happen?

Speaker 1: 10:37

You know it's being able to meet the moment that you're in and taking that, I believe that fear has this negative connotation, but it's almost like, yes, I fear it and I'm going to do it anyway. Can I just be curious? Can I dip my toe in? You know you don't have to go out and paint the next. You know it doesn't have to be about art even. It doesn't even have to be about like writing the next book or painting the next you know big mural here in Richmond it's more about. Can you ask the question and can you take a small step toward it?

Speaker 3: 11:11

Well, I love that advice and we'll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute. I'm going to take a quick break and we'll come back.

Speaker 1: 11:16

Okay.

Speaker 2: 11:19

When we asked ourselves what could we do to stop the tide of plastic bottled water. We never thought we'd start a water brand, but an idea grew and Richmond Water was born. Now we're replacing single-use plastic on the shelf with collectible, refillable aluminum bottles of water and we're installing refill stations throughout RVA, launching a movement to refill. It's your turn to make a splash. Find your bottle of Richmond Water or add refill stations to your next event at drinkrichmondwatercom. That's kind of cool.

Speaker 3: 11:49

Welcome back to America's Healthiest City. On ESPN Richmond 106.1, part of the Mike King Biz Media Network, I'm your host, Will Melton, and if you're tuning in for the very first time, I am in the studio here with Michelle Mercurio. From Michelle, I'm going to try this again. Michelle Mercurio.

Speaker 1: 12:03

LLC.

Speaker 3: 12:03

You got it and the host of Creative Mornings. I don't get everything right, but I don't care, we're going to keep going anyway.

Speaker 1: 12:10

There's no such thing as perfection, Right right?

Speaker 3: 12:12

Well, that's what we're talking about. So I want to get back into this conversation about creativity and the fear. There are some folks out there who I know think to themselves, well, I don't have a purpose in life. And so they might say, well, I don't know that I want to try anything, because any of it's just work or any of it's going to have some kind of cost or some kind of risk. I know those people exist out there. I know some of those people pretty well. I'm curious what you think about that narrative and how folks might consider overcoming that or trying to break through that Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Absolutely so. It's a really daunting question to think about what your life purpose is. If everybody could answer that question, or if anybody can answer that question, it's only done after a lot of work, right? So I don't think that a lot of people and I too know those people, right I don't think a lot of people want to that a lot of people, and I too know those people, right I don't think a lot of people want to put a lot of stock into that, because it feels daunting, it feels like then you will have to go and take up the sword and charge forth and make progress on that thing.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Your purpose can be something as simple, though, as something that you loved as a child, and when I think about those narratives, when I think about why people don't make progress, it's mostly because we have been taught and conditioned to see that things don't always work out right, so we hold a lot of things inside. This is where a lot of inner work comes in. You know you would think that brand strategy and putting things out into the world, it's more about like what do you say? How do you, how do you put that into? You know talking points, how do you break it up into, you know, actionable, bite-sized pieces for a strategy. Everything that we do comes from this inner work, though, of how do we feel, how do we think? Are we curious enough to actually want to go toward those things? And a lot of that fear does stop us. So here's like three things that you can do right away.

Speaker 1: 14:10

If you are questioning what it is that you think that you want to be doing, you know, am I feeling the way that I want to feel today? I'm not saying that I always feel the way that I want to feel today. I'm not saying that I always feel the way that I want to feel every single day. That is not the goal. That is not the goal to control how you want to feel, right, but if you are constantly feeling overwhelmed or depleted, or that you're not doing something that is really bettering you and the world around you, then that question is valid, right? So I have a little exercise that I do with that all the time, which is just like write down some of the things that you do during your day, from getting up to brushing your teeth, to getting ready to go into work, to interacting with others around you and like write those things down and writing a little plus sign or a little negative sign. Like plus sign if it's fueling you and giving you energy. Negative sign if it's taking away maybe a little circle or a little dot or a little squiggly line, if it's just neutral and the whole reason to do that is we think that doing purposeful work is exhausting. But what's actually exhausting us are the things that are not for us. So when you get to that point, when you get to that very first thing, all of a sudden, that question how am I feeling? Actually is probably what is blocking you from taking that first step. So the other thing is so I said I had three things the feeling question.

Speaker 1: 15:39

The what is my story? What are my personal narratives? You know personally, and you know you said that you admire this about my social media, so I'm going to get right into it there are a lot of different things that I recognize from my childhood, from my life growing up, not necessarily from my parents, although there's a lot of, you know, people that I have worked with throughout my life that have wounds from family. Mine comes from different places, but it was like abandonment, fear, like not good enoughness. You know there's a lot of imposter syndrome, right. These are all things that came from somewhere and that often stops us from taking that next step. So if you can examine your own narrative and start to work on understanding where those things came from and clearing it in the body and in the mind, it becomes a really different game when you want to start taking purposeful steps.

Speaker 1: 16:35

So what are you feeling, what are your narratives? And then really just kind of reconnecting inside that third part, right? So the feeling, the narratives, and then the reconnecting to actually the third one is really about connecting to the physical self. So, reconnecting to that self that you are doing right now. You are here as a physical being. You are taking action in the world as it is.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Are you actually taking care of yourself? Do you think about yourself at all? Are you doing for others all the time? Are you on autopilot? What does this human need? I talk to people all the time and this is a really interesting exercise that I love to do, where and it was taught to me by one of my mindset coaches many, many years ago where it's close your eyes and you start to think about all the things that you do for people in the world and so many times you know you think about the people in your community, you think about the people in your family, you think about people. You know if you were doing something for everyone in the world, that they could benefit like something they could do right now and they could benefit from it. You ever put yourself when you're thinking about the other people you serve. You are people too, and if you're not paying attention to this physical being, you're not actually going to feel like you can actually make any kind of progress. It's going to feel hard.

Speaker 3: 18:02

I love that. I think a lot of that resonated with me and kind of my journey through life and that imposter syndrome, that not being wanted sort of feeling, that comes from a bunch of silent interactions, things that are happening, that nobody ever said anything, it's just what happened, right. So I appreciate that a lot. So I want to shift a little bit here and ask this question about you know, where are we going? I think one of the things that resonates with me as a person who's in the brand and marketing space is that often I talk with people who say, and I want to hire you to do this great stuff for me and I'll say, well, what are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish? And they don't know and I'm like, well, I can't help you, I cannot do for you what you're asking me to do.

Speaker 1: 18:43

If I have what every single client I come to me. They want to do these things but they never realize that communications and marketing are actually tied to the bigger goals in life.

Speaker 1: 18:54

You know, and I have a five, like a five goal maximum, that any time of year and I'm going to let you actually finish your question, but it's so funny to me that people don't realize that you have to actually have a place, that you're headed, and then you have to tie the campaigns to that and you also have to tie the things that are innately part of you. I work with so many different people and people like they see my marketing and they're like oh my God, I could never be on camera like that, like you are. I could never, and there was many years that I couldn't do that either. Okay, so I'm not trying to turn anybody else into me, right? Your brand might not be your name. I chose Michelle Mercuriocom.

Speaker 1: 19:35

That's, you know, llc. That's what I do, you know. That's part of you. Know what I? You know I'm out there in the world as my other business, the your Resident Witch with the tarot and mindful retreats for evolving souls. That's a different thing. But you know what? The reason I'm there is because my whole goal in life is to help people see themselves and voice who they are on the inside, underneath all that programming, and do that. So that's why my marketing aligns to that. Other people I work with people that don't even do social media, and that's okay too, but you can't market something if you don't know where you're going. So what was the rest of that question?

Speaker 3: 20:16

You answered the question that I didn't ask, okay, but I think that's the thing, and I think when you tie that back to people without a purpose, I think there's an opportunity to plant a flag and say you know what, I'm going to pick something and I'm going to work on that because I'm not quite sure, right, and the thing is is just trying, it just stepping out. You are not married to that goal and even if you are.

Speaker 1: 20:47

If you leave it, it might get better. Okay, so all I'm saying is is these goals come out of you trying things. It's not the perfect plan on a piece of paper, right? If you wanted a plan to do anything, you could Google it AI nowadays we talked about AI we were talking about this before the camera came on you can have every single plan. It doesn't mean it's your plan, right? The only way you can find out your plan is if you understand yourself, and then you spend time trying and being curious and moving towards little things until something lights you up and you go aha and you put that big plus mark next to it, you put that energy into it and then all of a sudden, you're like, ah, this is the path, and the rest of the path isn't there until you start stepping onto it.

Speaker 3: 21:34

And nobody knows what your plan is, so they can't assess you against the plan that you're trying to assess yourself against and all that false narrative stuff that's going on, and if they are trying to assess you, what are they doing? Yeah, good point Advice I've shared with many clients who tell me about their competitors all day long.

Speaker 1: 21:49

I don't. There's no such thing as a competitor in my book.

Speaker 3: 21:52

I love it. I love it. I want to read it. I'm going to take a quick break and we're going to get back into this program because you and I Thank you for listening to America's Healthiest City on Mike King Biz Radio Network.

Speaker 3: 22:13

Good morning and welcome back to America's Healthiest City. I'm your host, will Melton, and I have Michelle Mercurio here in the studio. We're going to talk about creative mornings, creativity, brand strategy and all the things that get us out of bed in the morning. I want to talk about creative mornings. I've had a number of guests on this show who I have found through being an audience member at Creative Mornings. I'm signed up to go this Friday and I have to give my ticket up because I have another interview with one of my year-end guests, but Courtney will be there. Tell me a little bit about what compelled you to get involved in Creative Mornings and I know you were not always the host, so if at some point that opportunity opened up.

Speaker 3: 22:49

Why'd you say yes to it? And just for those who don't know what Creative Mornings are, maybe share a little bit about the national presence and international presence that Creative Mornings has, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 23:01

Creative Mornings is a global organization dedicated to welcoming creatives in local cities gather face to face for a breakfast lecture series here in Richmond. We are part of a network of 286 or so sometimes the number fluctuates a little bit chapters around the world in 69 countries. Tens of thousands of people attend every single month in different areas. Here in Richmond. We meet on the third Friday of the month, except for in December when we're on the second Friday because of the holidays and it's always free. We open the doors at 8.30 on that third Friday Program starts at 9. You're out by 10 and back to work and we actually have something that, if your boss doesn't want you to go like, you can email that Richmond at creative morningscom and I'll send you a little link and you can talk about why, why you should come. But here's why you should come.

Speaker 1: 23:57

We gather through this global theme every single month. So all of the chapters around the world are, you know, have one word that they focus on. We gather a speaker and they come and they talk about their life through the lens of that theme. They're not giving a lecture about the theme. They're talking about things that feed them, things that fuel them, how they approach it creatively, and there's usually some takeaways that come from it as well. So how I got involved is a friend of mine dragged me to my very first creative mornings. Oh my gosh, seven years ago, eight years ago eight years ago, comfortable on video.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Yeah, Way before I felt comfortable way before I felt comfortable getting up in front of hundreds of people every single month to to wing a program, right.

Speaker 1: 24:42

But yeah, that was eight years ago and I ran up to the host at that point Doug, he is the person that started creative mornings here and I said, my gosh, I have to be involved. And I started doing their social media and some communications. And then I worked with the team to select speakers. After Grant Millsaps out front, who's the head of Frontier Group, when he gave up speaking, he's like, all right, you got to bring in the speakers. So I brought in the speakers and he gave up speaking. He's like, all right, you got to bring in the speakers. So I brought in the speakers.

Speaker 1: 25:17

And then, during the pandemic, jolinda really wanted to step down as host and she's like, look, you have a presence that can happen online, can you do this? And you know, I tried to pull in other people with me but nobody wanted to come. So I took on the host role and I'm really grateful for our team who helped bolster all of that and Jolinda, who you know helped give me that opportunity. And then we returned back into live in-person events and so the reason you should come to Creative Mornings we are 100% volunteer led.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Our team is amazing Lindsay George, who has been on the team longer than I have Lauren Knight, who was a founding member and is part of our board. Benita, who does our partnerships. We have so many wonderful folks on that team who are just dedicated to being creative and putting on this event every single month. Every month is a different kind of speaker we have people like, whether they're artists or muralists, or you know, I'm trying to think of all of my favorite people. Right, we had Avram. You know, sabrosa just went through a whole bunch of things here in Richmond.

Speaker 3: 26:23

I cried. That was my first great morning, so I cried I cried too, so did Avram.

Speaker 1: 26:27

And then he made a great joke. So if you, haven't seen that episode or that one. It's one of my favorites, although there are so many. There are so many favorites.

Speaker 3: 26:35

And you can get them on YouTube.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Yeah, you can get them at. Actually just the creativemorningscom backslash RVA talks. If you hit that talk, every single speaker is on that site. Wonderful.

Speaker 3: 26:49

Well, we've run out of time. I don't know. I don't know. We talked for too long, so let's do this. I want to make sure people know how they can get in touch with you out in the world, and if you have a name at the ready of somebody we need to interview in the future who's making a difference in the community. I'd love to hear it. If you don't, that's okay too.

Speaker 1: 27:03

Yeah. So Ashley Williams, who's running the Well Collective I have two. I believe that what she's doing for wellness here in Richmond is going to go global. Also, hamilton Holloway, who is really about civic and social engagement and what that looks like with wellness. You need to talk to both of those people and then, finding me, you can find me on LinkedIn, michelle Mercurio. You can find me on Instagram at mishmerch, m-i-c-h-m-e-r-c, and then Creative Mornings you can find us at creativemorningscom and on Instagram, creativemornings underscore R-V-A.

Speaker 3: 27:41

Well, michelle Mercurio, I am so grateful you came into the studio to share your many nuggets of wisdom. I'm going to come and listen back to this episode because I'm sure I didn't get it all absorbed, but for those listening out there, I'm sure you were able to take it away. If you did miss any part of this episode, you can please subscribe at podcastamericashealthiestcitycom. You can also find us wherever you get your podcasts on. Let's see YouTube, linkedin, instagram, all over the place. So this was America's Healthiest City on ESPN Richmond 106.1. Thank you for joining us and catch us next Thursday at 6 am for another episode.