Creating Confidence And Overcoming Your Villains With Heather Monahan

 

Climbing the corporate ladder is an uphill battle but it only gets steeper if you’re a woman. Today’s guest is Heather Monahan. She is a bestselling author, Top 50 Keynote Speaker in the World 2022, Podcast Host of Creating Confidence, and TedX speaker just to name a few of her long list of titles and accomplishments.

In this episode, Heather joins Dr. Patty Ann Tublin to discuss how she broke the glass ceiling and made it into the C-suite as a woman in the industry. She also shares insights from her latest book, Overcome Your Villains: Mastering Your Beliefs, Actions, and Knowledge to Conquer Any Adversity, which outlines a three-step process on how you can power through the hard times both in business and in life. Listen in on their chat and gain valuable advice and insight on making it big, no matter your gender.

Bullets:

• Bestselling author – Confidence Creator
• Latest book – Overcome Your Villains
• TEDx speaker
• Rated Top 50 Keynote Speaker in the world 2022 by Real Leaders
• Climbed corporate ladder for 20 years – Chief Revenue Officer in Media
• 2017: Named 1 of Most Influential Women in Radio
• 2018: Named Limit Breaking Female Founder by Thrive Global
• 1 of few women to break glass ceiling & claim her spot in the C-Suite
• Podcast: Creating Confidence – Top 200 podcasts on iTunes
• Featured in CNN, USA Today, Forbes, Fast Company, Gary Vs audio experience
• It is Heather’s mission to help others break their own glass ceiling

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Creating Confidence And Overcoming Your Villains With Heather Monahan

I have an incredible interview for you. Since you are going to like this interview so much, make sure you like, share, comment, and subscribe to this show. We are so fortunate to have a woman who is a glass ceiling breaker, and a number one everything. Let me share with you a couple of her credentials. I know you are going to want to check her out after this show so I want to give you access to this incredible powerhouse you can read about her when we are finished.

Our guest is Heather Monahan. She is rated the Top 50 Keynote Speaker in the world. She has been named number one of the Most Influential Women in Radio. She has been named Limited Breaking Female Founder by Thrive Global. She is one of the few women to break the glass ceiling and claim her spot in the C-Suite. Heather has a book called Confidence Creator that shot to number one on the Amazon Business Biographies and Business Motivation lists. She also has a podcast that is incredible as well and she is on the board of directors. Buckle up because Heather Monahan is about to take you for a ride.

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Heather, thank you so much for being on this show.

Thanks for having me.

This is fantastic. You have accomplished so much in your career and your lifetime. Why don’t you tell us how it started? If you want to start from when you began to where you are now, going from corporate to entrepreneur or vice versa, wherever you are comfortable, we are all ears.

I grew up pretty poor in Western Massachusetts on the East Coast. I started working when I was nine years old. I had a paper route. I started busing tables at diners, waiting tables, and bartending. I was essentially refining my sales skills and sales approach for more than fifteen years before I ever got my first real job. I got to Corporate America, got into sales, and advanced quickly because I had had all this prior experience selling.

What were you selling in corporate?

My first job out of school was working for the gala winery and I was selling wine. I went from the wine business to the media business and started selling radio. I kept moving up the corporate ladder, ultimately landing myself in the C-Suite as a Chief Revenue Officer. I put in the work, kept asking for more, and advanced myself. I ended up being named one of the Most Influential Women in Radio in 2017. Unexpectedly, the CEO that I had worked for became ill. He chose his daughter to replace him and she fired me immediately.

Let’s go back a little bit. You said that you kept asking for more. A lot of women are raised as good girls. You wait to be asked for the guy to call or text. You wait for the promotion and the raise. Usually, that is waiting for Godot. Tell us a little bit about how the skillset you were able to develop along with the confidence to ask for what you wanted.

It is around repetition. I had been in sales my entire career. Sales is a numbers game. It is all about focusing on the yes, not focusing on the no, and not allowing noes to deter you. I was skilled by taking a lot of reps and asking. I became skilled at asking for whatever it was that I wanted. I knew it was a mathematical equation. It was not about emotion. It was not about people liking me or not liking me.

Competence builds confidence.

It was about asking the right people at the right time in the right fashion. I would always see it as a challenge and an opportunity. It was almost a game for me. “What do I want next?” I would put myself in their shoes and find a way, “How could I present this? How could I make this work for them?” That I will get the yes back instead of a no.

How were you able to develop that resiliency of hearing no and not taking it as a personal rejection? It is not just women that happen. It is a lot of people. What is the secret that you have for that for the readers as a nugget of wisdom?

It is not sexy. It is competence builds confidence. The more you do something, the more competent you become. It is like if you are playing baseball. The first day that you get on the Little League team, you are not going to be an all-star and the best player. If you get there every day before everybody, take more swings, and hit the ball more times, over years, you have become competent. That competence will build confidence within you, that you are willing to swing for the fences.

Sales and business are the exact same way. I always looked at it as, “I have been asking for things since I was nine years old. I would want to add houses to my paper route. I have been asking for things from the time I was waitressing to upsell people additional food to raise the tab so that I would make more on a tip.”

All of these things are putting the work in and asking. Some people will say, “I am not in sales. How do I do it?” Start asking for things when you go to Starbucks, “Can I grab an extra cup with this, please? Thank you.” Start asking for small things along the way, put those little reps in, and you will be surprised how quickly you will be able to see, “This is not that scary anymore.”

It is so interesting that you use baseball because baseball, perhaps more than any other sport, is a game of failure. If you strike out 6 out of 9 times at bat, you are batting 300 and you are a Hall of Famer. You have to be able to take that strikeout, forget about it, that is yesterday’s news, what did you learn from it, and then move forward with the confidence that you can achieve success. That is a great example of Starbucks how to ask.

How about speaking a little bit about internal motivation or internal inspiration? Somebody can tell you to have confidence. Somebody can say, “Do not be afraid. Do not worry,” but you have to own that. How did that happen for you? Even though you have had the repetition and the practice, some people can do it forever and then quit. For you, clearly, there is no quit.

Their confidence has ebbs and flows to it. It is not a static trajectory. When I got divorced, my confidence disappeared. I remember thinking it got obliterated. I did not project this in my life. How did this happen? This was not in my game plan. Suddenly, “Who am I? I am a failure.” I dipped my confidence at that point in time. I had to rebuild it back up and then the 2008, 2009 recession hit. I was leading a massive company and we had to lay off 1/3 of our employees. My confidence dipped. I felt responsible for these people.

There are so many times when I was cheated on by the man I thought was going to marry me when I was in college. My confidence disappeared overnight. I have had so many examples in my life of losing confidence that I have learned, “I have been here before. I can rebuild this.” In fact, confidence does not stay high all the time. If you are growing and stepping into new things, trying different things, and meeting new people, your confidence is going to ebb and flow all the time.

I see it as part of that journey and part of the ride. I remind myself, “You have been here before. You know how to build this again. This is not foreign.” I see one of the cornerstones for me with a lot of people. I was on another show and the gentleman said, “I have a hard time asking for what I want. I see that you always ask for what you want. Why do you think that is? For me, I get in a situation. I know I can’t do it.” With much passion, he explains to me how he is not able to do that, but I can. I started laughing, listening to him.

I said, “Listen to that story. You are a great salesperson. You sold yourself that you cannot do it. Good for you, if that is your goal.” He said, “It is not my goal.” I said, “How about this? Stop telling yourself that story, which is holding you back. Start with that same passion and conviction. Start telling yourself a story. Give me one time in your life you asked for something and got it.” “I got my wife to marry me. That was a huge thing.”

“That is great. Tell that story the next time. If you were able to get this knockout woman to marry you, you are so convincing and compelling. Start reminding yourself of the win stories you have instead of focusing so much on what is not working.” I remember growing up that I was labeled the social one and my sister was labeled the smart one. I let that story stick with me my entire life.

I was not aware of it at that time, but subconsciously I was telling myself that story. When I look back on business, I remember different times I was in the C-Suite. I had the title and the big paycheck. I had the business acumen and experience. I remember being invited to a meeting and the person that was hosting the meeting had an MBA from Harvard.

You are from Massachusetts, right?

I am from Massachusetts. In my world, that was the pinnacle of intelligence. I bowed out of the meeting. I never told anyone at that point in time why I did, but the reason why I knew I did is I thought I would be exposed as the social one. Maybe somehow this person was the smart one, and they would be able to identify that I was not. It is so interesting.

Let’s cut to the pandemic. A professor from Harvard reaches out to me on LinkedIn because of some content I was creating. He said, “Could you come in and teach a class for me?” I did then he ended up bringing me on during the pandemic as his teacher’s assistant at Harvard. It was a great experience because I got to see myself through the lens that other people see me. I was scared to do it at first. I could not get into Harvard.

Confidence ebbs and flows. It’s not a static trajectory.

I was intimidated, but I decided to show up as that real version of me and say, “Maybe through my experience in life, I can give them a real-world experience where they are great at book and testing.” I was not great at that, but maybe my real-world business experience can add value to them. I showed up. I taught the class. We got great feedback and helped a lot of people. I was able to decide, “From now on, I am going to put those rose-colored glasses on when I look in the mirror instead of when I look outside at other people.”

I am so struck by what you are saying. As someone that has two Master’s degrees and a Doctorate, I am amazed at how much people think that matters. I know so many idiots with Doctorates. The joke is B is bull, M is more, PhD, Piled High and D. I also think you are underestimating. There is a lot more involved in getting into Harvard that has nothing to do with brains. I read a research specific to Harvard, but I believe in general.

Do not misunderstand me. I very much value education. It is important, but there are all different types of education. They are talking about the kids that get into the Ivy League. What they have mastered is how to please the adults. They please the coach and they get the starting position. They please the teacher to get the A. They please the parents to get the good girl and the good boy.

Here is what we have learned, Heather. This is what you have in space. This is a gross oversimplification. I do not want Harvard reaching out to me and yelling at me. They can and I do not care. This explains a lot about the condition of the world. What they are finding is that these kids do not know how to critically think because they do not know what they think. They do not know what they feel. What they have done is they have mastered, “This is what my coach wants me to know and think. This is what my parents and my teachers want.”

Emotional intelligence talks about understanding your own emotions and being able to read that of others. There is a lot of value in being able to read other people but it is useless if you do not know where you are coming from. I will share a funny story. I am originally from Brooklyn. This is clearly not a Harvard accent. When we moved from New York to Connecticut, my husband was working in ranch at that time, I was so self-conscious of my accent.

My husband was like, “Are you crazy? You have more degrees. You can run circles around these guys.” I am like, “Yes, but they are making all this money.” He goes, “No.” I am like, “They must be so smart.” He is like, “I do not think so.” I am like, “Really?” I moved to Connecticut. I meet these guys and I am like, “My husband is right.” I learned to ask the real question, “Who did daddy play golf with?” Many of us do not appreciate that what we know, everybody else does not know. It does not matter if it is from Harvard. It is formal education. Honestly, there is nothing like the School of Hard Knocks.

For everyone reading, there is something unique and special about you that you know that other people do not. You have got to put those rose-colored glasses on when you look in the mirror, instead of just when you look at people outside of you.

I am struck by someone that is so accomplished like you that you would be impressed with this Harvard degree. There was a time I was, too. Now I am like, “Whatever.” You have interviewed so many different people. Your book about Creating Confidence has struck you interestingly and you were surprised by who they were, perhaps who they are as opposed to their persona.

 

People ask me a lot, “What is your favorite interview?” I have had a podcast for a few years and interviewed a lot of people. There is one that sticks out to me. There are two but it is the same people. It is Jesse Itzler who is an incredible entrepreneur, successful author, unbelievable speaker, and amazing talent. That interview was so impactful for me. I went to his home.

Before the pandemic, I wanted to do everything in person. I believe that the magic that you can create with two people is when people give you their cell phone numbers. That is when people say, “Let’s stay in touch. Next time you are around, let me know.” I love that human connection. I had gone to meet with him. He and his wife, Sara Blakely, are billionaires. You never know when you walk into a situation like that. Is it going to be good?

He and the team were so down to earth. Everyone was so cool. They had food for me when I got there. They were thoughtful. In your mind, you might tell yourself stories about certain people like, “They are going to be this way.” It is so funny it almost always ends up being completely different than what you think. He shared so much wisdom with me that day, especially around parenting.

I have a teenage son and I am a single mom. I always wanted to become a better mother and leader for my son. I am always looking for ways around my child. How can I lead? It was interesting. I was having a tough time with my son at that point in time. He had gone away to camp. He was younger and he had a bad experience. He felt scared. He did not want to sleep there. Those normal kid stuff. I started second-guessing. I do not know if I send him again this summer.

I was telling Jesse about overnight basketball camp. He was like, “Let me tell you something.” It was so great. I needed someone to talk to me the way he did. He said, “Here is the thing. Do you want your son to start doing new things when he is 21 in college and do you want him to never fail when he gets out on his own? Are you setting him up for failure?”

When he put it to me like that, I was like, “That is interesting. I had not thought of it that way.” He said, “Heather, be there by his side, but then send him on his way into these scary things and let him go figure it out. I promise you this year is going to be so much better than last year. If you do not push him out there and give him that confidence to go for it, he will be 21 years old sitting in your basement.”

That year, I took his words. I pushed my son back into overnight sleep at camp and he killed it. He loved it. He had the most amazing experience with so many great friends. I was so pleased. Anyways, that was a powerful moment personally, for me, via that interview. I had the opportunity to interview him and his wife together. That gave me this amazing marriage and their funny. It was so real and cool.

Here is what’s so interesting and this is where someone focuses on trust and relationships. In your business relationships, wherever you go, there you are. It is no different than your personal life, marriage, or parenting. Let kids and people that work with you and for you fail fast and fail forward. If you are not failing, you are not trying and innovating.

You need to put those rose-colored glasses on when you look in the mirror instead of just when you look at people outside of you.

I could go on a whole tangent about, “We are not allowing children to fail.” It used to be the helicopter parent. Now, the parent ahead is the snowplowing parent. The helicopter parent, at least let the kid fail and swoop in and pick them up. Now, the snowplowing parent goes in ahead of the kid and paves the way so they never fall and fail.

That is why for many kids, the first time they experience failure is when they do not get into the Harvard or the college of their choice. It is as if the sun will never set another day. You are doing your kid a huge disservice. It is like the employee and the leader that is over-managing. You are never going to let your people shine or reach their full potential.

I do have to tell you a funny story about SPANX. I was at a co-leading workshop in San Diego. We talked about Sara Blakely because we all respect her. Everybody there was younger than me. I said, “It is interesting what she did.” I am not minimizing what she did. I said, “What she did is she modernized and innovated girdles.” We are talking about that a little bit. A young woman turns around, looks at me, and goes, “Dr. Patty Ann, what is a girdle?”

She was young. Somebody else googled girdle. At first, it did not come up and then she showed it to her and she goes, “You are right.” Anyway, the whole dynamic of how we evolve and grow was so interesting. What is ever relevant now won’t be relevant in the future. If anybody is doing business years ago, they are probably out of a business.

Look at Kim Kardashian with Skims which is an innovation off of SPANX. These new iterations keep coming in any business.

Is there anybody else that surprised you may be in a negative way? You do not have to reveal who they were.

I have had the interview with someone who appears on social media to be one way and is not genuinely that way when you are with them.

How do you reconcile that for yourself? We all want to have our heroes and then you find out maybe your hero or somebody that you looked up to is like, “They are crap.”

 

To me, it is more humanizing. It almost gives you permission to be flawed. You see that these people who have millions of followers, make millions of dollars, and so “successful” are not the real deal. That is like, “That is great because I am. I feel better about myself. People are going to be excited when they figure out that I am the same on social as I am in real life.” It made me feel better about myself.

As a true thought leader in the female entrepreneurial space, what do you think about the #MeToo Movement and the gender conversation? Do you see it playing out at all? How can women use whatever is going on to their advantage?

I do not hear about it very much anymore. It does not seem to be as top of mind. There are so many other things because of the pandemic and the war. You alluded to the new conversation around gender, gender bias, and not choosing to be male or female. That seems to be dominating conversations these days. To me, it is all about showing up as who you are. If you are in a situation where you are being harassed by anybody, a man, a woman, or whoever it is at work that were speaking up, asking for help, and shining a light on the challenges that you are dealing with. The hopes are that those people that come after you won’t have to deal with those same kinds of cultures.

Since you work internationally, what do you see as the difference from an entrepreneurial perspective for work being based in the States as opposed to anywhere else? I am fascinated by Elon Musk for many reasons. If you read his bio, he felt strongly that he had to be in the United States to be successful or to have the opportunity to do what he wanted to do. What have you experienced with that?

I feel so blessed that I happen to be born in this country. For any of us that have the opportunity to live here, I am so grateful. There are so many issues around politics and this division in our country which stinks, but I still do not want to live anywhere else. I love living here. I feel so grateful for our freedom and we do have the ability to speak our mind, have a voice, and not have this backlash as some other countries have to deal with.

Due to the pandemic, I started virtual speaking which is new to me but I am able to speak in Australia, Japan, and all of these countries I previously had not been traveling to. I see so much difference around culture through these Zoom talks that I give. We always do Q&A at the end. What I have learned from all of these is the most aggressive and honest line of questioning always has come from United States companies, not when I am speaking internationally.

That is interesting because as a quintessential American New Yorker, people say to me, “It is so refreshing. You tell it as it is. You are so real.” I am like, “I do not know any other way to be.” States has allowed that for women. I have spoken in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and places where women do not have the freedom that we have. Even in England, it is different to be a woman, even a female entrepreneur in Europe or these other countries.

We are not perfect but there is no other place I would want to have been. It is interesting because when you travel, sometimes, you have to be like, “Pull it back. It might not be appreciated or might take a little longer.” I see you are like me. You are speaking fast. I am like, “Here we are.” I could see other people trying to keep up. Tell us about your book, what inspired that, and the response you have had?

There are different ways and tactics that you can go about things that can help you leap frog over everybody else.

My new book is called Overcome Your Villains. It is a three-step process to overcome any adversity in business and in life. I am a big fan of Data Doesn’t Lie. Ever since I wrote my first book, the majority of DMs that I get is, “When is the next book coming out? Are you going to talk about the next steps how you picked yourself up from getting fired and how you advanced yourself as an entrepreneur? Are you going to reveal what the steps were that you took and how I can take them too?”

I would get so many of those messages that it directed me, “This is what people want me to create. I am going to go ahead and create it.” That is the rationale behind this new book. It is everything that is happened since the day I got fired to getting to where I am, what those shortcuts I took, what the tactics are, and what levers you can pull to do the same things no matter what situation you are in. The key to the whole thing is all about overcoming your villains, starting with the villains that are around you. Once you have cleared out those villains, it is dealing with the biggest villain you are ever going to meet, which is the one that lies between your own two ears.

For many people, in a critic, it is that inner voice and the limited beliefs. What are some of the golden nuggets? You mentioned something about shortcuts. Are there shortcuts? I do not think there are shortcuts to success.

There are some tactics that are going to set you up for success. For example, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, “How did you get Gary Vee as a guest?” This is a shortcut. A great shortcut for any goal that you have if it involves another person is to take out a Google alert on that person. What is going to happen is every morning when you wake up, you are going to get an email from Google that is going to say, “Here is what is going on with Gary Vaynerchuk.” It is going to map it out for you giving you all these updates and knowledge to help you say, “How can I leverage this information to get what I want?”

One day, the Google alert said, “Gary Vaynerchuk launched a new wine company with his partner Trouty.” I thought, “Gary is tough to get to but maybe Trouty is not tough to get to.” I went to LinkedIn. I sent Trouty a DM and said, “I was in the wine business for years. I had a lot of success and a lot of failures. I love to jump on a call and give you the skinny on the business and hopefully, set you up for more success than I had.” He jumped on a call with me. He was like, “I wanted to serve and offer help.” We ended up speaking for an hour. He was from Boston. I am from Boston. We had a lot in common.

At the end of the call, he said, “I owe you for this. If there is ever anything I can do for you, let me know.” I said, “That is great. I would love to have your partner Gary on my podcast. Can you facilitate that and make it happen?” He started laughing. He said, “I hate you. I am happy to help you.” We have become friends. He helped me to get Gary on. That is a way to cut the line. Most people are DM-ing Gary Vaynerchuk and posting on his social media and he is not seeing it. There are different ways and tactics that you can go about things that can help you leapfrog over everybody else.

I love that because you did two things that I am sure the readers picked up on. One is you offered to give. Let me share with you my knowledge, not you want something from them. Two, you found a connection. You are from Boston. You and I are both from the East Coast. You look for that commonality to build the relationship but I am surprised you asked for the Gary connection right at the end. I would have thought you waited until the next email.

Once he opened up that floodgate, I was all in.

To all the readers out there, if that is the “only” thing you learn from every show you tune in, Heather has given you probably $1 million worth of gold right there. That is brilliant. I am so anxious to hear the other two.

In every chapter, I have outlined different hacks and tactics that people can implement in their business. I do a chapter on how I landed my TEDx Talk and then how I prepped for it. How to give a big speech and big presentation? What are those tactics that are involved and how to land a TEDx? People think it is so hard to get it but it is not that hard.

The skinny on that is I took out a Google alert on TEDx speakers wanted and then I get an email every morning telling me, “Heather, there are five opportunities that you can apply for.” It is a numbers game. I also learned that everyone putting a TEDx event on is a volunteer. Instead of making it about you and the pitch saying, “I am a great speaker. I am going to add value,” make it about them.

“Thank you so much for volunteering. It is so great to see that you have made this part of your life’s work and you are giving up so much time. I would love to come in and support you. I would love to sell out the arena for you and promote it on my social media. I would love to support you at your VIP sponsor events, get behind you in anything that you guys are doing to try to bring my value and support, and have a conversation around this.”

It is making it about recognizing what they are doing and then supporting their efforts. It is not about your speech. It is more about their goals. They need to sell their events out and have sponsors. How can you help add value and support that? From the speaking standpoint, the key is you are supposed to be sharing an idea like, “What is this game-changing idea of thought worth sharing? How does it tie back to their theme?”

You need to do your research. You need to go to their website and read about the theme that they have chosen for this event. Mine was rethinking relationships. My original pitch was first, I made it about them. I told them that I have a good social media following. I will sell out the arena. I will promote it until you have no tickets left.

That is a commitment I made like, “I am your partner in on this if you add me to the lineup.” I went on to the pitch, “It is about rethinking relationships. Let’s rethink the relationship between C students and the C-Suite.” I was an average student in school but I made it to the C-Suite, which is only a small percentage of women do that.

I was proposing the idea that you do not need to be an A student to find business success. In fact, I believe that being more of an average student will launch you to that business success. That was what I led with. A month before giving my talk, they challenged me to dig deeper. They wanted something a little grittier. We ended up coming up with my new talk, which was reexamining the relationship with women in business and how it is worse than the #MeToo Movement. That should have been the real movement around identifying the female bullies at work and how much havoc they wreck for other women.

You went with how women do not support other women at work.

There’s a fine line between fear and excitement.

To me, that is the biggest elephant in the room in any business situation or equation. I used to believe for sure that women will be my biggest advocates and cheerleaders. It was funny what I found. My biggest cheerleaders in a male-dominated industry were men. My mentors were men. The people who supported and promoted me were men. This is back in Corporate America. It is different from me now. I have tons of phenomenal supporters. You being one of the women supporting other women and Amber Lee.

I have so many cheerleaders, champions, and partners out there that are female. However, that was not the case in Corporate America. It was more of this idea of scarcity like, “There is one seat at the table that a woman can claim. I will be damned if she is going to get it. I am going to cut her out. I will find a way to get rid of her and cut her out of the loop. I will get it.” That was what I remember or how I felt treated when I was back in Corporate America.

You say I do a lot of work, I go into companies, and I will create women’s councils or women’s programs to empower women and move the needle. This one company I have been working with for a while is a tech company. When I went in, maybe they had 4% women. Now, we have 34%. It was incredible.

We had the support of the chairman of the board and the CEO who is among my fav five. He is a great guy, very much supports women, and does not give it lip service. He truly puts and created a whole structure. It was a strategy because we want the right people. We do not want you second-guessing saying, “You are a woman.”

We were having a conference and I said, “We have to address the elephant in the middle of the room, which is women not supporting women.” What I have said and I do is changing although not as rapidly is with COVID, everything is up in the air. This is where I feel you alluded to it but I want to take it a little bit deeper. If there were ten executive positions and only one of them was for a man, they would be killing each other too for that one spot. It is not like, “What is wrong with you, women?” Men would be the same and act the same way if there was only one seat at the table for them. What do you think?

It is interesting because that is never the case, so we do not know. It is a tough question to answer because we do not have any data to support it. Theoretically, it makes sense what you are saying. However, I still go back to my personal experiences. Let’s give an example. When I was in leadership in media and I would have one sales management opportunity open, it was either a man or a woman. It did not matter to me. I wanted the best person in there. What did that competitive landscape look like?

Let’s say six people were applying for the job, 3 men and 3 women. When I look back, I did not see the men trying to sabotage the other competitors the way I did with women. I almost feel culturally through media, movies, or whatever it is. There has been this narrative that women sabotage other women and that it is okay. They are not cheerleading for one another. Somehow that scarcity mindset is so prevalent in Corporate America. In my experience, I did not see it the same way in the situations when I saw men competing for a seat at the table.

I totally understand what you are saying and you are right. It is hypothetical. I do not think men would be so collegial, into mentoring, and sponsoring other men. If there was truly one seat in my company, one seat in your company, and one seat in the company next, common sense dictates to me. Survival of the fittest, if you think about it, but COVID has changed everything. Prior to COVID, I did see it start to shift. I hate to say it. There has been a little bit of regression for women in the workplace everywhere.

 

This is the good news. That is why women are starting businesses and becoming entrepreneurs in record numbers. We are going to change the world. If you give a man money, he will buy a toy. If you give a woman money, she will feed her village. I am so excited. You are being so transparent because people will absolutely buy your book. We will make sure of it. What is the third hack?

I was mentioning about giving presentations. That is something I have a lot of experience with. I have been doing that my entire career and now I have built my speaking business around speaking. I would like to share with people what I know. This is for a mom that is on the PTA or a person giving a toast at a wedding. At some point in your life, you are going to need to speak up and give a talk or a presentation. You do not have to be a sales leader or a speaker to do it. When you do, I want to empower people to be as successful as possible and be heard.

It is about living in a noisy world. People are always on their phones. They are not paying attention. It is challenging to grab someone’s attention in this day and age. I like to set people up for success and give them the tools that I have learned. Number one, I will always believe this. It is leading with a personal story. Anytime, whether you are giving a toast, you are speaking at a PTA meeting, or you are giving your TED Talk, lead with a personal story to captivate and pulling the audience.

The most critical portion of a talk is that first minute where people are going to decide, “Am I listening? Is there something to learn or add value to my life here? Is this boring and I am checking out and going to be on my phone texting everybody for the next hour?” It is focusing on. I believe in testing and trying things with different groups. I am constantly standing up for my poor son and saying, “Tell me what you think about this lead-in for my talk this week.” I will test it on him. He will be like, “I thought that was boring. I liked it better when you did this one,” and he will remind me of something.

Leave it to kids. They will be brutally honest.

That is what we need. Many people say, “I am not going to do that. I am too nervous.” The real day is the day you give the talk. Let these little moments with your friends, your family, or strangers, or record yourself on a video and see what you like and do not like. Put that work, show up, and do the reps. The other thing is you want to make it about the people that are there. You want to tell them what value are they going to get out of being there with you so that they want to hang in until the end.

I come in high energy. If that resonates with you, you want to jump around ahead of time. You want to listen to the playlist of your life that fires you up so that you are going in there saying, “Why am I doing this? I am doing this to change one person’s life. I am doing this to add value.” Make it about that why so that it can help you push through that fear. Anytime you feel nervous before a presentation or a talk, remind yourself, “There is a fine line between fear and excitement. I am excited.”

The more you start telling yourself that, you start believing it. I write on the bottom of my shoes, “I can. I will.” Write a message to yourself to remind yourself how amazing you are. Look at three other times in your life that you did something big that you were afraid of and say, “I lived through that. This is social proof that this is going to go well too.” I put in the work to remind myself. I wear a power color when I was nervous about my TED Talk. I wore blue because blue and red are my go-to’s.

 

If I am nervous, I need every little help that I can get. I want to get my hair and makeup done. I want to wear the dress that makes me feel like $1 million. I invest in myself because it makes me feel worthy and reminds me that I am worth all of this work and taking this stage. I lowered my expectations of myself. Right before I walked out to give my talk, I said, “If you do not walk out there, you will never forgive yourself. If you walk out there and blow it, I am going to be so proud of you.” I took all the pressure.

You need to do that in these moments where you are in a pressure cooker. You are putting too much pressure on yourself. It is about showing up and doing it. It is not about anything else. Too often, we get caught up in that. I use other hacks. Lavender scents for me are a big thing. I constantly have lavender in my back pocket so I can get centered, get calm, and remind myself of other times I have taken big stages and how I felt and impacted people.

I keep a file on my phone called Fam Love. Anytime I get a beautiful note about how my book or a talk changed their life, how they left a bad marriage or left a job, I save all those. When I start doubting myself or getting scared, I go to Fam Love and I start reading. When I read that, I am like, “I am going out there to take this stage.”

Maybe you are giving a toast to your best friend at their wedding and you are so scared and so nervous, go back and read that letter that she wrote to you when she asked you and said why it was so important that you be the one to give that talk. Make it about them. Stop making it about ourselves and that can propel those nerve-racking moments.

You mentioned colors. I do not know the frequencies, but I know there is such thing as frequencies attached to color. I find that interesting. Lavender is known to be soothing. You also talked about being afraid and excited. I love to dabble in neuroscience. I dare say I am an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I do not play a neuroscientist at work and I do not play one on TV. I am much into the mind-body connection more and more. We have functional MRIs that can show us this stuff. Apparently, fear and excitement biologically in our bodies show up the same way. It is a matter of how we label it. That is what you said that is brilliant.

I want the readers to learn that you define what you want that emotion to be. That is brilliant. We can make it fear that paralyzes us or excitement that cheers us on. The other thing that you said which is so important, to sum up for the readers is that when you are nervous, afraid, never did it before, and it is all normal and natural. Some of the best speakers in the world are vomiting in the bathroom before they go on stage. You would be shocked as to who they are. They do this as well and you say, “When have I done something before that I thought I couldn’t do? When have I put limitations on myself and then I found out there were my own limitations? If I could do that, then I can do this.”

If you remember when you first started to ride a bike. It was petrifying when the adult let go of the seat. Now you look back and say, “I was afraid of that? That is easy breezy.” That is true for us throughout every area of our life, and certainly in our careers and our work. Heather, I want to leave you with one question before you can tell people how they can find out more about you. What is the one book that you most recently reread and why?

I am into Dr. Joe Dispenza now. You are talking about the mind-body connection. It is not for the faint of heart. It is interesting. The teacher shows up when you are ready to learn. I could have been exposed to his material probably a few years ago but I was not as open-minded. I am all in on this. I bought his other book and I have read this book on Audible three times. There is so much information and knowledge there that I have to keep listening again and again.

 

I am learning something new every time I listen. It is also serving as a reminder for me and to your point around neuroscience, understanding the brain and that mind-body connection. Some of this stuff is so different than what we learned growing up. It is so powerful. My tendency is to go back to my old way of thinking out of habit. I am 47 years old this 2022 and be like, “I remembered it this way.” I have to pump the brakes and I put this Audible back on and it has been a powerful experience. I highly encourage his work for anybody to check it out if they are interested.

At the conference I was telling you about, there were three people there that are huge Dr. Joe fans. I can tell you things they have experienced. They came back from a three-day retreat with him. It is interesting because he speaks, but the work that he does explains why placebos work. We think we were given a drug, so our mind and our neural pathways, which are connected to our spinal cord work the same way the drug works. This is fascinating ancient wisdom, pre-AMA, and pre the pharmaceutical companies. Heather, how can people find out more about you? Where would you like them to go?

My website is HeatherMonahan.com. I am on all social media @HeatherMonahan. My podcast is Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan and my books are Confidence Creator and Overcome Your Villains.

Heather, thank you so much. This is fascinating. Thank you for your time and all your wisdom. That concludes our episode of The Trust Doctor, restoring trust and enriching significant relationships. If you like this, and I do not know how you could not have loved this interview, make sure you like, comment, share, and subscribe to our show. Until next time, be well.

 

Important Links

• Heather Monahan
• Confidence Creator
• Jesse Itzler – Creating Confidence Podcast Past Episode
• SPANX
• Skims
• Overcome Your Villains
• Data Doesn’t Lie
• Gary Vee
• TEDx Talk – Heather Monahan
• Dr. Joe Dispenza
• Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
• https://www.Facebook.com/HeatherMonahanOfficial
• https://Twitter.com/_HeatherMonahan/
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/TheHeatherMonahan
• @HeatherMonahan – Instagram
• https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=eVCOZse0468&t=46s
• https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=T5gbga_cBjQ&t=34s
• https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=cp3JHL19qz8&t=37s
• [email protected]

 

About Heather Monahan

Heather Monahan is a best-selling author X2, Top 50 Keynote Speaker in the World 2022, Podcast Host of Creating Confidence, TedX speaker and has most recently been appointed to the Board of Directors of HealthLynked Corp. Having successfully climbed the corporate ladder for nearly 20 years, Heather Monahan is one of the few women to break the glass ceiling and claim her spot in the C-suite.

As a Chief Revenue Officer in Media, Heather Monahan is a Glass Ceiling Award winner, named one of the most Influential Women in Radio in 2017, Thrive Global named her a Limit Breaking Female Founder in 2018 and in 2021 Girls Club named her the Thought Leader of the Year.

Heather’s book Confidence Creator shot to #1 on Amazon’s Business Biographies and Business Motivation lists the first week it debuted on Amazon. Forbes named Confidence Creator one of the 5 must have books for women in business in 2021. Heather’s show, Creating Confidence, debuted on the Top 200 shows on Apple podcast. Her guests include Sara Blakely, Gary Vaynerchuck, Ryan Serhant, Kaitlyn Bristowe among many other noteworthy celebrities and entrepreneurs.

Heather was named one of the Top 40 Female Keynote Speakers in 2020 and Top 50 Keynote Speakers for 2022 by Real Leaders. Her TedX talk was promoted to TED and translated into 6 languages. Harper Collins Leadership published her new book Overcome Your Villains in November 2021.

Heather has been featured in USA Today, CNN, Forbes, Fast Company, Gary V’s Audio Experience and The Steve Harvey Show. Heather and her son Dylan reside in Miami.