Let Go of the Plan: Melissa Glick’s Audacious Journey
“I took a $15 receptionist job, and ended up the CEO.”
Melissa Glick’s story flips the founder script. In this episode, she shares how one unexpected move sparked a bold journey of business success, personal growth, and life-saving decisions. From scaling a company to taking control of her health, Melissa shows that trusting yourself is the boldest move of all.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, overlooked, or afraid to pivot—this is your reminder: the power to rewrite your story starts with one bold step.
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
Melissa’s surprising pivot from a high-powered sales career to a $15/hour receptionist role
The unplanned journey from supporting her brother’s startup to becoming CEO
How the BRCA gene discovery led to a bold health decision that saved her life
Why not all bold moves feel bold in the moment—and why that matters
The power of being an integrator vs. a visionary in business
Audacity as a mindset: what it means to trust yourself deeply
Melissa’s holistic approach to business growth through sales and systems
How to turn social platforms like LinkedIn into scalable sales machines
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“You owned your decisions, embraced them, and took bold, audacious action, that’s power right there.” - Courtney Turich
“There is so much power in being in the driver’s seat of your own life.” - Courtney Turich
“We all have bold moves in our story, we just have to sit down and reflect on them.” - Courtney Turich
“You don’t need a perfect plan, you just need to start taking steps.” - Courtney Turich
“Everybody has it in them to be audacious. You just have to trust yourself enough to do it.” - Courtney Turich
“I didn’t even know I was making a bold move until way later.” - Melissa Glick
“I had the audacity to trust myself when no one else understood my choice.” - Melissa Glick
“Bold doesn’t have to be big, sometimes it’s the tiny moves that change everything.” - Melissa Glick
“I kept waiting to be picked. Then I realized, I had to pick me.” - Melissa Glick
“I don’t think it’s bravery, it’s about making choices that put me in control of my life.” - Melissa Glick
About Melissa
Melissa Glick is the founder of Peak CEO and a business growth strategist who helps solopreneurs and small business owners scale with smarter systems, not more hustle. She simplifies growth by breaking business systems into four core areas: sales, marketing, finance, and operations. Through tools, templates, and hands-on training, Melissa helps clients remove bottlenecks and grow with clarity. If LinkedIn feels like a black hole, Melissa teaches you how to turn it into a lead-generating machine, without the awkwardness or guesswork. For Melissa, systems aren’t about restriction, they’re about freedom. Freedom to grow, connect, and close with confidence.
Follow Melissa Glick
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A Team Dklutr Production
BLOG TRANSCRIPT
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Courtney Turich: Hey, it's your friend and host, Courtney Turich, and welcome to Bold Moves, Confident Choices, the podcast where we own our path, make fearless decisions, and get real about what it takes to turn bold ideas into reality. Today's guest is a disruptor in the world of social selling and business growth. Her name is Melissa Glick.
She is a sales and business strategist who doesn't just talk results, she delivers them. She's a LinkedIn expert. Tech founder and get this. She built and sold her seven figure company and now is a creator of a game changing a CED method. Melissa is all about scaling businesses that actually work. So without further ado, I am super excited to introduce you all to Melissa Glick.
Melissa, thank you so much for being here today.
Melissa Glick: Well, that intro sure makes me feel special. Thank you.
Courtney Turich: You're so welcome. Well, you are very special, and from the moment I met you, Melissa, and learned about you creating this business, scaling it, and then selling it from that moment, I was like, wow, this woman is incredible. I wanna learn more and take whatever those little gems you can share with us all. Yeah.
Melissa Glick: Yeah.
The Bold Move I Didn’t Know I Was Making
Courtney Turich: So I'm gonna stop talking. yeah, I'm gonna stop right here. And I want you to share a little bit more about you with our audience.
Melissa Glick: Okay. So I love telling stories and I feel like share a story that will kind of illuminate how that even happened, the, what you just shared with your audience. And also I have a little, um, clarification on founder, right? So people think of founder as like the person who started the business, and that's usually what it means. But I kind of have a little bit of a different path to how I ended up owning this business and growing it and then selling it. So, yeah, I think I'll take you on a little bit of a journey and share it. Is that okay?
Courtney Turich: I love nothing more than a good, fun journey. So Melissa, it is all you.
Melissa Glick: Okay. So, thank you for having me. And I love this topic about making bold moves I think it's super applicable to talk about this because.
Bold moves for me usually involve like making these really tough decisions and weighing the pros and cons and marinating on something like this is such an important decision. So my process with making bold moves and, and I make a lot of bold moves, that I like to minimize risk and I'm most comfortable when I'm in control and I'm like making Cal taking calculated actions.
That's, what drives me as a decision maker. And I'm an integrator. That's the kind of person that I am, like more than a visionary. Like a lot of founders are visionaries. I'm more of an integrator. And so it makes me a certain kind of business person, but like, how do I end up with this tech company?
Right? So what I wanna share today is how I didn't do any of that bold decision making with this story. In fact, I didn't even know that I was making a bold move until like way later, which is kind of funny. It's 2008 and I am living in Chicago and I have this really big sales job and a big career. I am 30 years old. I'm single, like my entire career up until that point has been. Making a big career for myself, but what I didn't have was like a personal life and a community and my family is all back in Colorado. My parents are in Colorado. My brother is have starting his family there. And I like I was like missing out on memories and I was really lacking that in my life and so I decided to give up the big job and the big career and moved to Colorado and a small town in Colorado, no less. And I thought that when I got there that it was gonna be really easy for me to replicate my big career. But it's 2008.
Courtney Turich: Yeah. Right.
Melissa Glick: Recession, Nobody cares. Nobody cared at all. So I'm like waiting around for this big opportunity to be given to me and it wasn't happening.
And at the same time, my brother, he's a few years into this tech startup company, His receptionist left. And I'm thinking. Well, I don't have anything else really to do, and I really wanna help my brother out. And yeah, it was a $15 an hour job. It was a receptionist job and. So I asked about it and he's like, what?
What? Okay. Like what are you thinking? I think he was more surprised that I was, that I would be even interested in this. So it wasn't like pressure to like step in and help the family. Like it wasn't any kind of family obligation. It was like, I wanna do this, and know, I think most people around me, including him, were like, this is a huge step down.
Like, why the heck would you do it? Like, everyone's questioning your decisions. It wasn't just that it was like this $15 an hour job, but like, this is my younger brother, the guy that like terrorized me growing up and pour the heads off my Barbie dolls, right? And I'm gonna keep it, be my boss. So I literally, I sat at the reception desk and I answered the calls. I spoke to the customers, but then I learned about what their pains were. 'cause I'm kind of like triaging and I learn about the employees and I learn about the tech. And then I saw these gaps in the business and I'm like, well I can fill these gaps 'cause I have all these experiences from my, big career. And I learned that business inside and out, like pretty quickly and became invaluable to him. And, I bought into the company, so we became 50-50 owners and I became the CEO of the company and we grew it into this multimillion dollar business. And then three years ago, it's, it's three years to the day that we sold it, private equity.
So that's the story of how I ended up with this company. This bold move that I didn't even realize was a bold move at the time. And, yeah, so, I wasn't a founder, but I was an owner with a successful exit for a company that I, essentially in scale. So that's, kind of how that happened.
Courtney Turich: Holy cow, Melissa, I did not know the backstory to how this all came to be and what's really fascinating as I listened to this, and I hope everybody out there hears this, you took a major step back. And that is something really hard to do, especially when your ego can be at play. We all have ego, right? So to know that you just needed to get your foot in the door, you were just trying to help your brother out.
Melissa Glick: You know, I think for me it was this, the reason that I wanted to do something like that was I just had this feeling like, I wanna do something different. I wanna shake things up, I wanna help my brother and his business. Like that was really important to me. But it wasn't ego check. Like I had been humbled. 'cause here I have this big career and I think that people are gonna actually care. Nobody cared. And so it was very humbling. And instead of fighting it and waiting and saying, no, I deserve this. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go with it.
and it's okay. Like it's, nothing's like this permanent thing. Like didn't think of it as this permanent thing. I was like, I'm gonna take this giant step back, because there was something in me that felt like this was what I wanted to do and I trusted myself.
Courtney Turich: You mentioned at the beginning, you talk about, you know how most CEOs are visionaries, and I agree.
That's what I think of, right? And I love your description as you're an integrator and your story that you just shared with us about stepping into this role as a receptionist, learning the business inside and out, seeing the holes and what needed to be brought together. That in itself, there's where your integrator comes in.
Melissa Glick: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, that's, I know that about myself. That's what I'm really good at. That's what I was good at in that role. And knew what I do now, like as a person that helps other people grow their business is like, I was able to step out of that situation and think, okay, I can do that again.
I can do that again for other people. And that's how this ended up happening. Me being this consultant in this business strategist. I did not plan for this. It's just what happened.
When Bold Means Trusting Yourself
Courtney Turich: So Melissa, this story that you shared is definitely a bold move, right? The step you took in life. Would you consider this, I know a question I love to ask.
What is that big, bold, pivotal move in life that took things for you to the next level? Personally or professionally? Yeah. Is that it? Or is it something else?
Melissa Glick: Yeah, so. well, like I said, like I've made a lot of bold moves in my life but I think this one shaped some things for me and, opened things up for me. And so I'll explain what I mean here.
So, we're both really good friends with Scott McGregor, right? Yes. And he uses this word audacity a lot. Yes. So audacity is, it's a mindset. So it's when you have courage enough to take bold, daring actions, like even when everyone around you is saying, what the heck are you doing?
But you do it anyway. And that's what that choice that I made was. It was not a calculated action. I just had the audacity to trust myself in my decisions. So when you're feeling nervous about stepping into something new or like making a tough call on something, I like to think about this word like audacity.
I have the audacity to do what's right for me, sometimes it's something small, bold can be backwards.
Courtney Turich: Hmm.
Melissa Glick: That experience shaped the way that I make decisions. Now, not all of them, but some of them, like I'm an integrator. I'm a carefully like, calculated person with how I make decisions, but this is an example of something very different, and it's an example of, of taking the ego out of making decisions and stepping into something uncomfortable and unknown can really open things wide up.
So. I don't know that there's one defining bold move that I have made in my life because there have been a lot of 'em and I've learned things from all of 'em. But I feel like this one made me think about things different and do things different than how I normally do. And I think that's really relevant.
Courtney Turich: Okay, Melissa, there is a lot there, and I really love the way that you describe this and being audacious.
You mentioned at the beginning and even again here, that you take very calculated risks, but this is a time when you actually were more audacious in your approach and listens more to yourself internally. Did I explain that right?
Melissa Glick: Yeah, it wasn't so much a thinking, it was a feeling and because it was a feeling, it was that I'm trusting myself, and I think that's what audacity is.
It's trusting yourself and your decisions to take action when it might not make sense.
Courtney Turich: Right. So tell us more about this action and this step you took for yourself to be audacious.
Melissa Glick: Well, in that moment it was, I'm gonna work for my little brother and make $15 an hour. But I can think of a lot of other examples in my life, particularly when it revolves around my health.
Because I've had a lot of ups and downs with my health along the years, and it's when I make bold decisions that things really turn the corner for me. And, and share some really personal stuff here with you. Around the same time that I moved to Colorado and I made this decision to help my brother grow his company.
I was also having some health, challenges. One of which was that my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was determined that it was genetic and it was in our family lineage. And I had discovered that I had breast cancer gene that put me at very, very high risk, 86% risk of developing breast cancer and also developing ovarian cancer.
And here I am, 30, single, I was, you know, wanted to be mom. And my options at that point were to live with this huge fear of developing breast cancer. And here, you know, that I am a person that likes to minimize risk. And I like the carefully calculated decisions that set me up for success. I was very uncomfortable with it, very uncomfortable with it.
And for me, I had to make the decision, undergo a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy. And this was 20 years ago. Before people knew what BRCA was. Before people were making decisions like this, I'm single, I'm not a mom yet, and I'm wondering what this means for me. How are people gonna think of me?
What's it gonna do to my body? I'd never even so much has broken a bone or been under an kind of anesthesia. So like, making a bold decision like that was a really big deal for me. but I knew even though everyone around me was like, you're gonna what to your body? I knew I trusted myself.
I knew that I needed to be in control and that was the calculated risk that I was willing to take, and I trusted myself. And I don't know that I would even be alive today had I not made that decision. Because would you get in an airplane if you had an 86% chance of crashing? No, nobody would. No.
So, yeah, I'm not afraid to take bold action because I trust myself.
Courtney Turich: Right? What a story, Melissa. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And 20 years ago, nobody really even knew that, BRCA gene Blood tests even existed.
Melissa Glick: No, they didn't.
And which is why people were like, you're gonna do what? Yeah. and I think that's what you. Experience when you are going to make an audacious decision or a bold decision its there's a lot of noise around it. Yeah. If you're an entrepreneur and you're risking everything and you're going all in on something, people are like, what are you doing?
You're gonna leave your job. You're gonna invest all this money. Like what? People question it and you, you know what you need to do. And I think that's the definition of bold move.
Courtney Turich: Ugh, this got me right here, Melissa, because I was not aware of that either. And, hey, I know that there's a lot of women out there listening to this and can relate and might be questioning the same thing themselves right now.
Melissa Glick: Yeah, I mean, surprise, I dropped a bunch of, I dropped a bunch of stuff on you today, but I don't mind sharing any of these stories because, it kind of, it shapes who I am. And, asking about the bold decisions, like for me, there've been a lot. Yeah. And I can't really put my finger on one that's changed me.
They all have shaped me, in a different way. after I went through that, my mom, she always says to me. That She thinks that I'm the bravest person that she knows. And I don't think it has anything to do with bravery. I think it's about making choices that put me in the driver's seat of my life.
And so when it comes to making a decision that requires audacity or a bold move whether you know you're making it or not. I'm a big fan of taking control over your life and, um. so I think that's what makes being able to make those kinds of moves easier for me than it might be for other people is because I've been in so many situations where I feel like I've done it and it's, really worked out well for me.
Courtney Turich: There is so much power in everything you just said right here, Melissa. And you're in the driver's seat of your life and so many of us, you know this question. I ask, what is that bold move? You are so right. Every single one of us have multiple bold moves that we've done throughout life, that have shaped us and who we are today.
Be the One Who Picks You First
All of our listeners, you have many bold moves that you have done already. You just need to sit down and reflect on them. So Melissa, I would love before I jump into our last big question, just for you to share what you're doing for people today.
Melissa Glick: Yeah. I'm an integrator.I like to see parts of people's lives and parts of people's business in terms of systems and kind of all of the gears in the, cogs, in the wheels are all working together as a part of a whole.
Big environment, like a holistic view because it all matters. I don't really think that you can just do one thing and expect the whole thing to work. And so I like to work with founders and entrepreneurs small business owners to help them with their systems and, some of my most favorite systems To really grow and scale within an organization revolve around sales systems. I think sales cures all. So when you have, and you know this, when you have revenue and you have sales, then you can afford to fix a lot of the problems that a business might have. And so that's what I do.
And we met on LinkedIn. and I think that LinkedIn is a gold mine if you learn how to use it properly. and it's a sales system in and of itself if you know how to operate it. So I like to work with people on how to monetize LinkedIn in terms of growing sales and, depending on what phase of business a founder or a business owner is in.
Sometimes it's not just sales that needs to be worked on. Sometimes it's their operations. Sometimes they're caught in a situation where they're the operator they aren't the owner, they're stuck in operator land and they can never really get into ownership. Land sales sometimes helps cure some of those problems, but sometimes we just need to firm up some operation.
and some, more. ops things. So I like to take a holistic view and look at all the pieces of a business and then do the work where it's needed. So that's how I help people.
Courtney Turich: Okay, Melissa, I'm just gonna call a spade a spade. I am that person because I always, I am an entrepreneur at heart in my mind, and I have thoughts constantly everywhere, so to have somebody to help me funnel it down is much needed at times.
So I know you are a gift to so many out there.
Melissa Glick: Thank you.
Courtney Turich: You're welcome. Okay, Melissa. What would you tell your 18-year-old self today if we look back?
Melissa Glick: 18-year-old Melissa. so I'm imagining 18-year-old Melissa in high school, and she learned that. or she felt, I think that she wasn't good enough just as she was and whether she was waiting to feel a sense of worthiness from somebody or something. She was waiting. She was waiting for that, waiting to get asked out on a date, waiting to get asked to prom.
And then as the years went on, waiting for the college entry and the offer for the jobs and the friend group and just waiting, waiting, waiting to be picked. was a theme in my life. Like, I wanna be picked, like, pick me, choose me, and. For the longest time, I just thought that, I was going to get that feeling of being worthy from somebody else or something.
And it wasn't until I was much older that I decided to take this course. It was called Calling in the One, and it was, an online course back when online courses weren't even a thing. This was like 15 some years ago. and Colleen in the one Money back guaranteed, find your love match. Ooh.
And I was like, what? I'll buy that. I'll buy that. And I bought it and I took the course. And shocker, no man came into my life. That was my love match. But I realized that the person I was calling in was myself, and that it was me the whole time it was me. And I don't think that was the intention of the course because the whole thing is set up to find your love match and they teach you how to find your love match.
But I came to this realization on my own that. I didn't have to wait for anybody or anything to fulfill my life or to feel like I was good enough or worthy or doing what I was supposed to be doing, or meeting the, obligations of the world the way that you're supposed to, like, you get married, you buy the house, you live in the suburbs, you have the kids.
Like, I was waiting for that for so long and it didn't happen, but I didn't need it. Because all I needed is me and I have the value within me to be worth it and I pick me. And man, if I could have learned that lesson when I was younger, I think I would've saved myself a ton of heartache and pain.
Courtney Turich: you're sharing that youyou would tell your 18-year-old self, and I'm reflecting on everything you shared with us today. Girl, I'm telling you that course you took that to your heart and you do not wait anymore because every move that you shared with us, you owned it. embraced it.
You took action. You are audacious. That is power right there. Thank you. Wow. Thank
Melissa Glick: you.
Courtney Turich: You are welcome, Melissa. I'm walking away today with a lot from our conversation, a lot that was new to me and has touched me in many ways. And to hear that bold moves have really consumed a lot of your life, just like they've consumed a lot of all of our lives.
And for us to reflect back on that and to realize some are calculated, maybe some aren't. But that's when we are being audacious and everybody has it in them to be audacious.
Melissa Glick: I agree.
Courtney Turich: And then, you know what, just start doing it right? Yeah. Like, just take those steps. as we get ready to walk away, what do you wanna leave all of our listeners with today, Melissa?
Melissa Glick: I think when people listen to podcasts and there are these big moments, these big revelations, these big ideas that get discovered and uncovered in podcasts, people walk away thinking, I'm intimidated. I don't have that. You know? And I don't think that bold moves needs to be this big, huge thing, you know, like.
It could be something so small, like, so tiny that, gets you to the gym one time or gets you up off your couch or, you think you're, you, sliding doors. That movie sliding doors where you could go this way or you could go this way and you decide to go this way at the last minute, it completely changes your life.
Like if these bold moves, these big stories, they don't have to be so big. And so listening to these podcasts can be an opportunity for you to. just do something different than you normally would. And you might not go into it thinking that this is gonna be this big, bold, audacious thing, but just do something different for once and see how it turns out like I did.
And, um, never really know what a move is that you're making sometimes until later and you find out, holy cow, this was the thing that changed everything.
Courtney Turich: Such a great point. And you know, to just take that a step further. So whatever path you choose, whatever decision you make, there's no right or wrong.
It's embrace it, enjoy the ride, and you're going to get something out of it. Yeah. Along the way.
Melissa Glick: That's the journey of life. We never know.
Courtney Turich: So Melissa, where if people wanna find you, where should they go? Well, it's really easy because
Melissa Glick: it's just melissa glick.com.
Courtney Turich: That is super easy and you're also very active on,
Melissa Glick: very active on LinkedIn.
Um, you can just type Melissa Glick in the search bar. You'll see my picture. You can follow me, um, you can connect with me there. I'm also on Instagram. You can find me on Instagram, um, Melissa Glick underscore on Instagram. And yeah, I love to meet new people. Um, part of the reason why I'm so active on social media is because I don't wanna limit my network to where I am locally.
I wanna meet people from all over the world. Who inspire me, who challenge me. Um, I do live most of the year in a small rural town in Colorado, and I got big dreams, so I, I don't wanna be limited to who I meet. Social media gives me opportunities to, to really scale in terms of the people that I know. And so I wanna know you.
Courtney Turich: Melissa, it has been an honor to talk to you today. Definitely the highlight of my day and I can't wait to share your voice with my audience. Thank you for
Melissa Glick: having me so much. This has been a great conversation and um, I love your podcast, so I appreciate you, um, you wanting to have me
Courtney Turich: here. Of course. Thank you.
Thank you. And to my audience, go be bold, be confident, and be you. Thanks. Thanks.
What a great conversation. Good. Thank you for sharing all.
