Conversations with the Inspiring Melina Shah

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melina Shah.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Born and raised in a very active state in New Jersey, being an active kid was something that kept me going from sports like soccer, dance and ice skating, to student council and school plays. I learned how to gather an audience, to move an audience, how to speak to an audience. I built myself structure, stability and continued to grow with time. I learned how to work with a team and to be independent.

I wanted to document everything, to take everything in and make it my own. I hardly sat still, and I wanted to continue to push towards a better tomorrow. I needed an audience, I wanted to thrive in whatever environment I went in, but I knew I wanted it to be one with people.

Even as a kid, I had the passion to collaborate and work with people from varying backgrounds. I felt that it was something I enjoyed doing. I wanted to make connections and sometimes felt like I needed to make those connections.

Going to business dinners and events with my parents taught me how valuable relationships were. Not just having two parents that were together, but also the two parents that cherished business and personal relationships. This built my outgoing personality that wants to learn more about everyone else and lend a hand to help whenever possible.

Being able to travel across the world with my parents to many parts of the world from Switzerland to India to several Cruise vacations and beyond, I have developed a deep understanding of many cultures. This evened me out and allowed me to gain a business perspective at a very young age.

Of course, I was accepted into Rutgers University as a nursing student because I had a passion for people and what do people that have a passion for helping others do? They nurse.

However, life just wasn’t quite right for me. I wanted more.

I switched from nursing school to business school, which was one of the scariest moments of my life. I didn’t know what I wanted out of life, I didn’t know what my passion was or where this road was going to take me. I felt lost.

Making this academic change abruptly, I knew this was the best decision I had ever made. I felt like a peg piece in a pegboard. I found my people, my calling, my place. I was content in my head and my heart. I worked hard, taking as many classes as I could, up to six classes in one semester, adding four summer classes and even adding two classes in during the winter break, I wanted to graduate and move forward. I wanted more.

This was one of the biggest risks I have ever taken in my life and one of the best things I could have ever done. I’ve learned you have to trust yourself and to always follow your calling.

This was where I came out of my shell and found myself. I would walk around campus and greet everyone, anyone. I worked on a new skill set – the skill set of people. I wanted to make connections, to build connections, to bring people together in their own connection.

I joined the Rutgers Program Board and started putting together events – Spiderman on Broadway, Skiing in PA, and many other School Events for students and staff.

I worked at different levels after leaving college, from my internship with a top Marketing and Advertising Agency on Madison Ave. in NYC to working for Martha Stewart. Even though I had to take the subway, train, and bus to and from these internships and other events, I continued to do it. Even though it cut into my time to study, I continued to do it. I was tired, but I was a college student determined and driven to succeed, to make connections, to go somewhere.

These experiences led me to be around the right people, meet with big people and learn how to hold and conduct myself while in the right environments. I networked at events, got my name around, learned more about others, made friends and developed relationships. One of the biggest events I would assist at was the registration table at the CTAM – Cable Telecommunication Association of Marketing events. This put me in front of CBS, Fox, MTV and many of the top names in broadcasting.

Networking is nothing new to me. It is who I am. I want to be the person out, shaking hands, speaking with people, learning more about them and creating relationships. Everyone has to have their own network of people to succeed, to shine. Everyone has to surround themselves with the best in order to be the best.

I never thought I would own a business. It wasn’t something I had aspired to do or even truly thought of in my teenage years. My passion was much brighter than my fears though and out of those fears developed something stronger. A business model that has built itself.

Come 2014, I landed here in Goodyear, Arizona trying to create my own life on the West Coast. Working for several different companies, I held many roles and positions in different Chambers of Commerce’s and became a leader within a few networking groups to drive in more business for myself. I quickly picked up that networking was being done the wrong way in Arizona. While many think there might not be a right or wrong way, but without the right elements, no one is going to be built up. Networking was backwards, and I wanted to change that. I wanted to shake things up, change the way networking was done and hold events that were successful.

I wanted people to come up to me and ask what I did and who I was. I wanted them to take notice. I built a platform for them to do this but on a larger scale. I made those events something that every business owner wants to sign up for. I built a new recipe for networking.

A professional and being a business owner is more than building an idea, or creating a product, or providing a service. It’s about how you can level up everyone around you and make others shine with you. I’m a girl with a vision who sees the world for what’s available, it takes strength and determination to lead a new way and it is a path I have forged for myself.

Has it been a smooth road?
Everyone has challenges. However, it is not the challenges themselves that make you who you are today but the way you overcome them. It is how you deal with the obstacles put in your way that determine the outcome of who you are.

One of my favorite quotes that go along with these obstacles is, “I know you have mountains to climb, but always stay humble and kind.” You never know what other people are struggling with at that exact moment. You know you have been down before, so why kick another? Build them up, make them stronger.

When I was born, I had suffered a Subdural Hematoma. The collection of blood outside the brain is essentially a brain bleed that can lead to further complications. This is a dangerous condition to have, as it can lead to coma or death if it is not caught soon enough or if the area is left untreated.

Due to this, I had to have several surgeries and it put me behind. Not only because of the time off but also because of memory issues and slower cognitive abilities. Not being as academically strong as my peers, I had to work twice as hard to do the same things.

This not only made me more determined because I wanted to succeed, I wanted to be like the other kids, but also made me tough and fearless. When other kids are saying not so nice things about you, you harden up, you work harder, and you overcome their words and I don’t think that has ever changed about me.

Right before I was starting college, I had a life-altering surgery where I had gone in but woke up with no memory of who everyone was and didn’t retain anything I had learned. I had lost so many memories that I felt like I was starting over, starting new. Giving up would have been one of the easiest ways to go.

But I didn’t.

My surgery taught me how to overcome barriers and to never take a break. Keep moving towards things that motivate you. This inner-drive continued to climb to new heights and the more positive and empowering people I came across and added to my network, the better I did. Even though the rehab doctors thought that holding me back from college would have been the best, I kept going. I didn’t want to be held back, I wanted to push forward.

After the surgery, I was a new person. I was a determined person and I was going to succeed, no matter what negativity the doctors had thrust at us. I was going to make my parents proud and show the doctors that they were wrong.

After college, graduating with a triple major in Supply Chain, Management and Marketing, I worked for Martha Stewart for a bit, but I made a bold decision to pack up and move out to Las Vegas with my aunt.

I remember closing my eyes on that plane as it took off with tears going down my face, not knowing what to expect – because this was the first time in my life where I didn’t have a clear plan, I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. I was excited about the opportunities that life was about to give me, though. All I had to do was repeat to myself, “you got the strength to make anything work” and still today, I follow that golden tip with each step I take.

I got off that plane determined, driven, with the world on my shoulders and I never looked back.

For any young woman that is just starting their journey, remember that people are always going to judge you, no matter how nice you are, no matter what you say or do, people will always have an opinion of you. You can’t change their opinion of you, but you have to make sure you fill your own soul with happiness, love, respect, and kindness because that’s what is truly going to keep you moving and around the right people. The more you are kind and humble to people, better opportunities start to appear.

The moment you are around someone negative, you have to remove them from your life, as quickly as you can, even if it is a bit painful. I never put myself around negative people because these are the people that bring you down.

If you don’t currently have a dream, get a dream. Keep running after that dream. Find the right support system, that dream will happen if you’re driven and leaning on the right people.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into Networking360, StrategicMarketing360 & Home Owner Alliance story. Tell us more about the business.
Being someone that is all for change, for the better and noticing that networking throughout Arizona was being done backwards, I noticed that something had to be done about these boring events. Everyone was not having fun, no one was mingling, and it was stale. Everything about these events made you want to run away.

I knew I had to change the infrastructure of these events, but how?

It was determination, hard work and a lot of hours that was put into this. I needed to make the events alive again. I wanted to give them a new facelift, more energy and boost the appeal of them. There were so many problems that I came across while trying to fix this.

You’d think that changing the way an event is held would be easy, but it’s not. It does take time. It also takes a lot of networking events. I went to three to four events, sometimes more every day. I would go to them far away or close by. I made sure to speak with every person and create relationships. I remember I wanted to sit on every board or committee I could get my hands into.

I wanted to know what they liked about the events, what they would change. I did market research in this way, but I also forged my own network. I started to know almost everyone in the area and could recommend a professional for every industry.

It was more so mind over the matter with how I was able to overcome the obstacles I was always leaping over. With Arizona being so big and there being literally, tons and tons of people, I had to come up with the fastest and most efficient way to get in front of my audience – thus, Networking360 was born.

By knowing the right people, I was able to gather a team from DeVry University made up of a dean and 12 students that took my passion and vision to create the launch of Networking360. Now four years later, it has turned into the largest family of professionals in the state of Arizona.

Networking360 isn’t about gathering numbers or getting members to join, it is about creating relationships and building foundations. When you are a part of Networking360, you are family. It is 100% about how everyone is going to become a better person or how their business can excel.

Before launching the platform or holding any of these networking events of my own, I met Thomas, my fiancé and him and I have built Networking360, passionately, together. From our first date where we talked and drew out the exact platform to launch nighttime events to today where we put on events side by side, we continue to strive to do better, to be better. It takes a team to make every step work.

Working together to really bring this to the area, Thomas launched the morning Business Alliances where everyone listened to his every word, holding on, because Thomas is very moving when he speaks, and he brings value to every business owner sitting in these meetings. Everyone leaves with a new idea or concept that they can implement in their business.

We took out the competition, the need to be seen or heard, we got rid of the norm or what everyone else was doing or what everyone else thought worked. We created a new way of doing things. YOU are important. YOU should be heard. We make that happen.

We are so much more than a networking group or a bunch of business owners. We are a family that makes things happen and involve one another to elevate, uplift and inspire. We are the only Networking Organization that builds one another up. Whenever I hear a professional refer us as a group, I immediately cringe – we are so far beyond that!

We are set apart from the rest because we do have an interview process to become a family member. These individuals that want to become a member of the alliance have to meet with us during an event at night. We watch their energy, we see them talk to others and more importantly, we learn their level of commitment. You go through an interview process because we are only looking for people that have a strong desire to succeed, that want to elevate one another and help them grow. We only want to be around the right people, this is how we grow.

We are expanding quickly with memberships growing because we offer and provide value. We do things so differently from the others, but it is so good for every member that we have.

2019 is already looking bright for Networking360, alongside our other businesses that were added within the past year – StrategicMarketing360 and Home Owner Alliance, which also ties into our new brokerage, American Security Realty.

Which women have inspired you in your life? Why?
My mom is not only my biggest fan, but I am hers. My mom came from a large family with 8 brothers and sisters and being the youngest, she had missed out on a lot when her mother passed away at a very young age. Her father (my grandpa) along with her brothers and sisters made sure that she had everything that she needed to succeed. My mom overcame so many obstacles without a strong woman lead, like I had which really gives any woman more appreciation of one another.

As I was growing up, my mom made sure that I was able to be a strong problem solver and creative thinker so that I could also one day go my way and succeed. With my struggles in school work, she would sit next to me and go through all of my homework assignments helping me to understand certain problems in a different way, where she knew I would be able to grasp it better. Even though my mom didn’t have the best of situations placed in front of her, she showed me what perseverance and hard work meant. She showed me that I could amount to anything, I could do anything, and I could excel at it if I wanted too – even if it meant going out of my own comfort zone.

My mom is inspiring in so many ways but being able to be at the top in her life and overcome her struggles made me appreciate my life and what I could have. She took the time to teach me things that I could continue to use through life. Going above and beyond, I never want to let my mom down because she never let me down. Through all of my surgeries, you would find my mom always right next to me. We were each other’s support system.

When my mom and dad met, they had the vision to work hard together. My dad came to America, after going through boarding school in India during his childhood and entering into the Navy where he obtains his US Citizenship. Both my mom and dad have strived and pushed to excel and make a life. As a couple, they empowered one another to be who they are now, which has encouraged me to find the best power partner I could find. That led me to find Thomas, who is an Army Veteran and lead businesses that bring people together and help businesses grow. My parents empowered me and now we are empowering others to do what they truly were meant to do.

My mom overcame it all and even though her background wasn’t the perfect fairy tale one, she quickly became a Project Manager at a fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. I am here forging my own path, as we speak, with no intention of stopping – just like her.

Contact Info:

• Phone: 602-708-1956
• Email: melina@networking360az.com

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