Thank you so much to everyone who nominated The Shift for a Choice Award! Please make sure to vote in Round One now through 11/27 and help me advance to the finals!
Self Love Philosopher Melody Godfred is a poet, author and speaker who is passionate about empowering people to love themselves and transform their lives.
Melody started her career as a litigation attorney, but soon realized a disconnect between her work and essence, so she left a prestigious position at a top law firm to launch Write In Color, her personal branding and career development company. She quickly established her reputation as a leader in the career development space. Through her work as a coach exploring the narratives of hundreds of women, and after undergoing several life transitions herself -- including motherhood -- Melody discovered a common trend: in their quest to fuel their careers and relationships, women were increasingly sacrificing their authentic selves, happiness and well-being.
Melody needed a reminder to choose herself each and every day and believed that other women did too, so she created the Self Love Pinky Ring, a self-commitment ring for women, and launched Fred and Far, her self love movement and community. Her ring and community instantly went viral around the world (Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, and more), and started a global conversation around self love.
In 2020, Melody published Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers, a collection of 200 poems that instantly became and remains a bestseller. One of her poems (“I thought 2020 would be the year I got everything I wanted. Now I know 2020 is the year I appreciate everything I have.”) was shared on social media by Oprah Magazine just before the Thanksgiving Holiday, quickly going viral and eventually reaching hundreds of millions of people, in addition to earning a feature on Today with Hoda and Jenna. In early 2021, Melody signed a three-book deal with Andrews McMeel Publishing, re-releasing Self Love Poetry and publishing her second book, The ABCs of Self Love, an illustrated guided journal that joyfully shares the foundational concepts of self love and makes them an actionable part of daily life. The ABCs of Self Love was recently featured by Hudson Booksellers at over 300 airports across the United States.
Melody is a trusted thought leader on women's empowerment, positive parenting and career development, whose advice has been featured on Inc., Forbes, Huff Post, Bustle, PayScale, Motherly, Mashable, The Muse, and Fairygodboss, among others. Melody was a featured speaker at the Teen Vogue Summit, The Massachusetts Conference for Women, Freelancing Females Reignite Conference and Entity Magazine Love Yourself Conference, and has led personal branding and operational workshops for Farfetch, Murad, The YWCA, The Actors Fund, Electronic Arts, The Magic Castle, and more. She received her law degree from Loyola Law School with honors.
Melody lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband Aaron Godfred and three kids, twin daughters Stella and Violet and son Teddy.
Her latest book, The Shift: Poetry for a New Perspective was released on September 27, 2022 (Andrews McMeel Publishing) and is a Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Best Poetry Book of 2022.