Melanie Verstraete is the CEO and founder of The Wild Heart Life, as well as an author, mentor and host of Silence The Sh*t Talker podcast. “I help men and women kick toxic relationships to the curb and find soul-synced love.” Learn about Melanie Verstraete…
Hometown: Detroit, Michigan
First job: My first “real job” was as a designer for Ford Motor Company. My first actual job was as a waitress at 15 years old.
Favorite ways to spend your free time in AZ: Spending time with my kids, friends and family, and Doberman Pincher. Hiking, exploring, traveling, working out, reading, learning, growing meditating, creating, having self-care time, driving fast, having fun and giving back.
Your biggest accomplishment and why: Becoming me. I had many obstacles and adversities in my life. I easily could have become a negative statistic as many bad things happened in my life including two marriages to two very toxic men and all the past trauma that led me to make those decisions. But every single thing was a gift, every good and bad thing that happened in my life was a gift. A gift to teach me a lesson about myself. The ideas and unworthiness I was accepting about myself were never who I was, but was only the environment I kind in that shaped me. It was the awakening, the epiphany I had after the realization that I was going to get divorced again for the second time that I asked myself the question: “What is wrong with you that you keep attracting these toxic men and choosing them?” And the truth was there was actually truly nothing wrong with me. I became a product of my environment. After that epiphany, I began working on myself like it was my job and, through that process, I unveiled all the crap, all the lies I believed, the program that was running me to reveal the real me. The most authentic me who acts out of a place of love, joy, peace, forgiveness, freedom, prosperity, health, vitality and all things good, a place of Oneness, wholeness and unity. And this has allowed me to be a better person, mother, mentor, daughter, friend, lover and contributor to the greater good of humanity.
The biggest obstacle you overcame: The biggest obstacle was all of the above. It was not an easy road to take to come to the conclusion that my life was indeed my choice and a compilation of decisions good and bad. Taking what you could call an honest real look at me in the mirror and the role I played in getting to where I was, was the pivotal moment in my growth and ascension.
Someone who inspires you and why: Everyone who is doing their best every single day inspires me, the ones who never give up. The people who do not look at their current circumstances as who they are, but instead create their own circumstances. The people who release all the lies and limitations of what society says is possible and bring the vision to life of the impossible.
Advice to someone pursuing a career path in what you do: My advice would be the same for whatever career path someone wants to take, whether it is mine or another. Choose the thing that lights you up. Choose the path that you have no idea of how you will do this, you just know that you love it, and you have a burning desire for it. Whatever “it” is, you feel it in your soul, in every part of your being, you feel it.
Favorite quote: “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal; It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston S. Churchill
Something someone would be surprised to learn about you: I competed in fitness competitions.
What makes someone fabulous: Being the most authentic, truest version of yourself. You were born fabulous!