In this presentation, Melodie Donovan shares her story of growing up in rural Indiana and breaking out of old expectations to get to where she is today and the importance of having mentors. Her presentation will inspire others, especially young ladies and women, of how they can break through barriers and achieve what they set their minds to do.
Here is the transcript from the presentation:
Ryan: So now, what I’d like to do is introduce our speaker today, and her presentation title being Believe in the Underdog. Melodie is an IT professional and a financial expert and a published author, so three amazing industry areas that she has been able to build a career.
Ryan: And so everyone, let’s give Melodie a hand.
Melodie: Thank you, thank you.
Melodie: I appreciate you all taking your time today to be here and so yeah, I’m just going to share my story, Believe in the Underdog, because it might just be you, and this is my story.
Melodie: I was a young girl. I grew up in a very rural area east of here, and it was very, very much a common practice that girls in my neighborhood, in my little town, they were married and or pregnant by graduation day.
Melodie: So, and if my dad had any say about it, so in certain ways, I love my dad to pieces, and you know, he’s not with us anymore, but, but he’s very old school, and my dad has his way, I would be in that same boat, married and pregnant. And maybe graduated from high school.
Melodie: But, because of my second dad, my church dad, he was the one that, if you wanna do something else, you can do it, just, you know, get good grades, work hard, and put a dream out there and go for it. And when and I have two other sisters, so sometimes I’ll say we, because we were all in the same boat, but when, when I was accepted, so, he only let us apply to one state school, Ball State University, great school.
Melodie: But, when they said that they had sent me my acceptance papers and I told dad, was like, yeah, I got in. I got in. That’s OK, they have to accept you, they’re a state school.
Melodie: It’s like really good, I’m an honor student. I was in band, did all kinds of activities in high school.
Melodie: So then in his mind, that didn’t make any difference to him. It was the state school, they had to let me in.
Melodie: And even as I was moving to college to move into my apartment, lived off campus, he said to me and my other sister, I have a twin sister and he said, if you want to drop out of college to marry a man that’s fine by me.
Melodie: And I still remember this to my day, as if it was just yesterday.
Melodie: And I looked him dead in the eye, and I said, I will not be dropping out of college for any man though.
Melodie: So, I’m going to date myself. You know this is coming off of the 70s and in the 80s and this was when you know the ERA was big and women’s rights and, you know, we’re going to be business women. And we’re going to do everything and we can have it all. And that was that was my philosophy. I can do everything.
Melodie: And so, there was even, there was even a, a marketing commercial out there that was very popular, I think, and it was just really, it was a Enjoli commercial, perfume commercial.
Melodie: It was like, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you’re a man, because I’m a woman. I can have a job, I can have a family, I can have, I can, I can do everything, I can keep house, I can do it all, so just let me show you how.
Melodie: So, that was that was kind of like my theme song.
Melodie: I managed to, uh, so. I was an A/B student in high school. I became kind of a B/C student in college. But I made it and I graduated from college and I, fashion merchandising and management information systems, and I really, really wanted to be, the dream job would be to go to New York be a fashion designer. But I just did not have the courage to do that. I wanted to.
Melodie: I didn’t want to go back home. That was never an option, but, so then, the next, next best thing to New York was Indianapolis, the big town of Indianapolis. And here I am, well, Fishers, Indianapolis.
Melodie: So, I came here. I started in retail and then I got married and he worked retail and we worked in the same mall and we never saw each other, had opposite schedules. It’s like OK. Well, that’s enough of that.
Melodie: I’m going to go get an office job and so that started my office and my IT career. So, every, every office job I had involved IT just because it was something I could do and it was something I went to school for and, and I enjoyed it.
Melodie: So, over the years I moved up. I moved up in the ranks from office manager, Assistant controller and all the while, all those positions entailed IT work, there are some job losses along the way. And, and my marriage dissolved as well.
Melodie: So, but to me it was kind of all part of the plan, I, I was, I’m very much of a, if you’ve done personality profiling, the DISC programs, have you guys done that before?
Melodie: I’m a high C. I’ve got a plan, and I’ve got a plan and I’m gonna work the plan, so I was working the plan, until the company I was with for five and a half years went bankrupt after I came back from maternity leave of having my first child. And for me that just changed my whole perspective.
Melodie: I’m working for someone else. Maybe I’m a slow learner, because that was like 1994. But I was always doing something on the side, no matter, but I always needed that stability of a job and a paycheck.
Melodie: For so many years, and then I lost that mentorship, especially in the IT world. And it is very, I mean, only 14% of the executives in the IT world are women. And so, to get there is just, it takes a lot of toughness and, and connections, and that’s the thing you have to do.
Melodie: You know, stuff, definitely I’ve learned is having connections and knowing people and talking to people, which being a C and an introvert just didn’t come easy for me, just didn’t come easy.
Melodie: But so, fast forward, several jobs and few things, and about 11 1/2 years ago, I was able to move, just, out of office, move from split office work and IT work and just concentrate on the IT work.
Melodie: And again, it was still hard to move up. I didn’t really know anybody in connections and, and I didn’t really like playing the games, you know, that you sometimes have to play and, and so it was a company where I needed to wait ten years to be vested, and then it was, I, I had to leave and that was, that was last year, just this past year, 11 1/2 years and I left and found another job, but a couple years ago, at the age of 56, I became an intern, an intern again.
Melodie: And I was like, and I actually, I actually talked to my boys, it’s like, what am I doing? I’m being, you know, I, I always raised my boys with what I didn’t get, is like you guys can do anything. Well, I got them got from my church dad and that was it.
Melodie: I was like you can do anything you want. Hard work and put it out there. Give a dream. You got me. I’ll support you as much as I can.
Melodie: And so, when, when I decided to, this intern opportunity came up. I was like I must be crazy to try and do this. You know at least 20 hours a week on top of a 40-50 hour a week of full-time job.
Melodie: So, but it was a great opportunity. It was working with a, a women’s business networking group, learned a lot and I just made a lot of great friends and a lot of women friends, which is what I really needed, because I had a lot of guy friends, being in the IT world, because you just couldn’t get away from that. And that was fine.
Melodie: And like I said, not here to bash guys, but they’re definitely, there are men behind the mission. What we call men behind the mission, who totally support equal opportunity for everybody, which I think is just fabulous, but it’s still a road, it’s still a big area that needs concentration.
Melodie: So, through the mentorship over the few last couple of years, I’ve been able to work through those inner critics.
Melodie: And you know, as you know, I’m an author which was a fabulous opportunity which came from COVID, where we went to, from virtual, from in person to virtual, because this group was out in California and the publisher that I met was out in California, and she’s working with women to write cooperation books, and so this, this Believe in the Underdog was part of my first cooperation book that I had opportunity to be a part of.
Melodie: So, it was just really overcoming a lot of things myself, that I had the, you know, I learn that to choose words for the year to build off of, last year my word was courage and boy did I use that word.
Melodie: You’re leaving a job of 11 1/2 years to go and do something else and just concentrate on. It’s still IT work, but what I’ve learned is I’m not, I’m not happy there, I’m not happy with the current job and I just know that now, I’ve grown enough that this year as the word is belief. Belief in myself, that I can do anything, belief that I can go out there.
Melodie: And so, I have a new mentor from the, the women’s group, the Business, VIP Center for Business Women, who from day one that she met me, it’s like, Melodie, you can do this. You can do whatever you want. I can see it in you. You’ve got it.
Melodie: And so, we just had this conversation at a networking meeting last week, and I was like, thank you, I know you’ve always believed in me, but I had to believe in myself. And now I’m there.
Melodie: So, I don’t know if you guys have ever gone through those, had those life changing moments where you had to turn left or right. What did you do? Some things to ponder.
Melodie: But I’ve also known, and what I’ve tried to do now as an IT professional or just a woman out there who has come this far, and it’s not that we have to do all those things, but it’s up to us to choose what we want to do.
Melodie: And I just want to be, because when I was growing up, outside of that one, main person, my church dad, I really didn’t have any mentors.
Melodie: I didn’t even really understand what that meant, and so for me especially being a woman in IT, and even if I’m deciding to get out of that, there’s still a lot of girls and young ladies who are wanting to get into that and I fully support that, and so I want to be the person I needed for then, I want to be that person for someone else, and so I encourage you, and the challenge for you, being this is a mentorship week, month for the group, is to reach out to somebody, because if they’re like me, it wasn’t easy to reach out to somebody from my side and ask for help.
Melodie: So, reach out, if you see somebody, say, you know, you’re doing great work. Is there anything I can do to help you along?
Melodie: You know, why your dreams? What do you want to do? Is this, is this where you wanna be? You know, what are your goals?
Melodie: That would be, that would be my challenge to you guys today.
Melodie: And the other, other thing I would say is, for yourselves, I would say, dream a bigger dream.
Melodie: Dream one size too big, I saw that on a motivational sign one time, and I just loved it, so, so anyway, and as I would say, I like, I like rooting for the underdog and, and I believe that I was an underdog and I still am an underdog and I just appreciate your time.
Melodie: And that’s my story, I hope, I hope that you found some inspiration, and, with it.
Steve: Thanks Melodie.
Melodie: Welcome.
