#232: Choosing JOY With Heather!

Come on this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. Fasten your seatbelt. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Okay, so interesting story for you. I had a speech in Dallas last week, and I was flying in first thing in the morning because people have been talking about all these travel delays and all these issues with flights and cancellations. And then I was taking the last flight back home on the same day so I could make sure that I was able to get in and get out same day and deliver a great speech. So that morning, obviously, it was gonna be really chaotic. I knew the airport was gonna be crazy. I knew it was a quick turnaround. But before I left the house that morning, I said to myself, no matter what, I am gonna go in with an attitude of gratitude. I know there's gonna be craziness at the airport. I know how tense it gets. I know there's delays. Right? But I'm just. That's my commitment today, is that my job's to find joy throughout this day and to be grateful for whatever is ahead of me. And so that's how I approached my crazy day to Dallas. So I get to the airport, and when I tell you the lines, oh, my gosh, I've never seen anything like it. And, you know, Obviously, it was 4th of July, you know, leading into 4th of July week, so I'm sure that, you know, holiday week had something to do with it. But it was crazy. I mean, just like I had never seen. And I think there's just, you know, there's a lack of staffing right now at airports because of COVID and it's just. It's intense. But the lines were really long. And I am not someone who gets to the airport really early. I always like to go just an hour before, check in online, and, you know, walk right on the plane. That was not in the cards for Heather Monahan last week. So I get into this line. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. People are getting so stressed out. You can hear people just complaining, right? Just out loud, complaining. Why is this line so long? Jeez. Really getting upset. And so as I get closer to the TSA workers that are standing there Checking IDs before you go through security, I can see that their faces are not. They're not looking happy, right? They're not, like, living their best life, excited And I get it, right? I'm sure people are complaining to them, and they're just probably over it, right? So I decided, okay, my job is to be grateful for every moment. Maybe I can try to put a smile on this person's face, and that, you know, could be something positive I could do and be grateful for. So I get up to. This is so funny. I get up to the guy at tsa, and. And there's so many people, it's insane. And people complaining and angry. And he takes my license. And I said, how's your day going? And he went. He grunted, okay. Who grunts, by the way? I don't know. He grunted. Clearly not having a good day. So I said, really? A grunt? I mean, we're alive. Hello. We need to be grateful for being alive. Today is a great day. And he went, huh? Again. He grunted again. So I guess he did not agree with my sentiment. And so I started laughing. I said, okay, well, you know, I guess you can pick your attitude, and that's your choice. I'm choosing to see it as a grateful moment, and I'm grateful I'm alive. So he doesn't say anything. And then he looks at my license, and he says, we have a problem here. I thought, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I did this. I've got myself in trouble. Cause I'm trying to practice gratitude, and it's backfiring. And I said, what's the problem, sir? And he said, see this smile? And in my license picture, I have this ginormous smile. It's ridiculous. And I said, yes. And he said, you're not doing a smile as big in real life. I need to see your smile as big as the smile in your license picture, or you cannot go through. Well, I start cracking up laughing so hard because it was very unexpected, right? Cause this guy just a minute before was being so. And suddenly he just totally turned his attitude around, and he started cracking up laughing. I was dying laughing. Everyone was looking at us because nobody was happy. Everybody was so pissed off except for me and this TSA guy. We were cracking up laughing. It was so funny. So anyways, so then I was so proud of myself that I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm so grateful that I got this guy that was having a really bad day to see that there's something positive to be excited about. La, la, la, la, la. Right? So I go through, see security. I'm in the best mood. I'm like, nothing is. No one's taken by Joy I'm staying this positive. I've got a great day ahead of me and I get to my flight.

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Remember when I get there it's like, five minutes to boarding. Perfect. I'm so excited. And then they say, okay, let's start boarding. So we start boarding, and we're all walking down to the actual plane, and we start getting on the plane, and they say, stop, everyone stop. Back off, Everyone back. Back up into the on ramp. And so people start complaining out loud. What? This is ridiculous. It was so first world problems. Ridiculous. Like, come on, get over it. Who knows how long this is gonna be. No big deal. Like, we were just getting on. Now they're telling us to wait a couple minutes. No big deal. That's what I was thinking. And I kept saying to myself, you're not gonna let anyone take your joy. Stay in your gratitude. Be excited for this amazing day ahead of you. Make it positive. This woman next to me, oh, my gosh, she starts going off saying, these people are idiots. I mean, she was so nasty. It was insane. So she's going on and on about how awful the flight attendants are, blaming them. I mean, mean, mean, mean. And then she's looking. She wants, like, the people around her to, like, join her in complaining, which I was not going down that road. Nobody did, actually, by the way. No one joined in with her. But she kind of looked at me like, can you believe this? Like, aren't you so mad? And I just smiled and looked away. And I thought to myself, in that moment, I'm so grateful I'm not her. Imagine carrying that negativity everywhere with you that you're just so angry at people and blaming people for nothing. We don't even know what happened. And then, wouldn't you know, we were probably waiting for two or three minutes, and they said, okay, we got it fixed. Everybody come on the plane now. That was it. There was no need to be throwing a tantrum. No need to be getting angry at people and blaming people. So I was back to my la, la, la, la la. I'm going to sit in my seat. I'm in the greatest mood. We take the flight, everything goes well. We land, and I go into the ladies room, and I'm washing my hands, and I'm about to walk out, and the mean lady comes in, and she's standing next to me, and she stops and says, is that jacket Veronica Beard? And I said, yes, it is. And she said, mine is too. And I said, oh, amazing. I love that brand. And she said, me too. She said, I to just want to tell you, you wear it so well. And she was being so nice. And I thought, oh, my gosh, that's so crazy. I truly believe the energy that you put out there into the world and the attitude that you pick every morning, every day, and in any moment will come back and directly reflect itself to you. And it was just so funny to see this woman who was so angry, so upset, becoming so nice in the bathroom out of nowhere. It was just, it was an interesting turn of events for me and just reminded me that it's up to us what attitude we choose every day. It's up to us if we choose to give people our joy, or we choose to blame people, or we choose to empower ourselves. So I hope you're choosing joy. I hope you're finding joy in every moment, in whatever you do, and that you make it a grateful day. Because when you start your day with gratitude, just everything is always so, so much better. That's how I approached this crazy, hectic day. And oh my gosh, it was so crazy and hectic, by the way, I land in Dallas, get right to the venue, and I had hours, I got there so early because I thought, if the flight gets delayed, I want to be prepared and get there in time. There was no delays, no problems. Everything was on time. And then I had hours to wait in a green room before I went on. And the people were incredible. Everybody in Dallas was so nice. It was just, it was such an amazing day. I got back, I was done with my talk. I got back to the airport with plenty of time. Everything went seamlessly. It just worked out great. So try it. Approach your day with complete and total joy and gratitude and let me know how it goes. I want to hear if something magical happens for you because I feel like something magical did happen for me and I had an incredible day in Dallas. So I hope you have an incredible day too. All right, I want to talk today about some, something that I went through that I hope you can relate to, that I hope can add some value to whatever it is that you're doing right now. So as you know, I was a first time author when I turned 43 or 44, I don't remember. And I had no experience, no expertise in it. And when it came time to record the audiobook, I thought, am I even qualified to do this? Right? Am I even, number one, qualified to write a book? Probably not, but I did anyways. And then number two, am I qualified to be the narrator? I don't know. And I never liked my voice. Hands up if you don't like your voice, right? Like if you hear it on playback and you cringe. That was definitely Me. So I recorded it with a really good friend from my old radio career, who Scotty, who's amazing and made me feel super comfortable and supported me in such a positive way that I was able to get it done. Super proud of how it came out. It came out really good. But back then I didn't have this podcast, right? So I wasn't hearing my own voice all the time. And I wasn't speaking as much as I am now. So I just wasn't hearing my own voice. I wasn't used to it. Cut to a few months after it came out. I was at an event at the Four Seasons in Miami and I was speaking. And after the event, people were coming up to me and having their books signed and whatnot, and a woman came up to me and said, you have the most beautiful voice, Heather. I just wanted to tell you I love listening to it. And it was such a crazy moment for me because I had never liked my voice. I'd always thought it sounded annoying, frankly. And then hear this woman was allowing me to see something about me that I hadn't seen before through rose colored glasses. I chose to accept her compliment with gratitude and be really excited that she told me that and that it impacted her in a positive way. And I chose to start hearing my voice differently from that moment on. And then I launched the podcast, right? And so I started hearing my voice all the time, listening to my own podcasts and getting feedback from others, having people share it on social media and being able to hear those clips. And. And so after a while, I started thinking, you know what? My voice is pretty good. I like it, right? So it just took that. It was that initial moment that, oh, this is really uncomfortable. I don't like this. I don't know if I'm good enough at it. I don't know if I sound good. And then over time, taking the leap, narrating the book, putting it out there, then jumping into the podcast, putting that out there, then getting some good feedback from people suddenly changed the way that I could see it. So then when I got the chance to partner with HarperCollins leadership for my second book, Overcome youe Villains, and they told me I had to try out to be the audible narrator, which I thought was so incredibly crazy. But I did try out for it and luckily I did get it. So yay to that. And I'm so excited that they think my voice is good enough. I really thought for sure it was, but we still had to audition, but I still got nervous right when it came Time to audition. And I actually text my good friend Kendra hall, who is another author with HarperCollins leadership. If you haven't heard her episode, it's so good. She talks all about Change youe Story, Change youe Life, a great book that she just released this year, and great episode. Go check it out. But anyways, I text her because she had been where I wanted to go, right? And I sent her a text, and I said, hey, what advice can you give me when I'm auditioning to be Heather Monahan, the narrator, an audible for HarperCollins? And she just text me back, this, Just be you. And it was such a cool thing because I received her message in a very positive way. I got what she was saying. If you show up just as you, you're gonna get it, right? Like, why wouldn't you get it? And then the other side of her point is, if you are just being yourself and they don't like you, then you know what? It's not for them. But you can't try to fake it and be someone else or try to have some big strategy. Just show up and be you. And if it's the right fit, it'll land and it's gonna work. And so when she sent me that text, I immediately picked up my phone, took a voice note and just read a chapter from my book and sent it off. And two days later, I heard back, heather, you got it. We loved it. Sounded so good. So then I thought to myself, okay, this is great news. Super excited. But I want to do something better and different than I did with my first one. I always want to find ways, and I want you to find ways, too, to evolve, change, grow. And one of the ways that we can do that is by reading other people's books, right? Accessing other people's content. And I had been listening to the audible version of David Goggins book, you Can't Hurt Me, which is. It's a lot, but it's really good. It's a powerful book. He sold millions of copies and did really well with that book. But here's the thing that I liked. He didn't narrate his book for whatever reason, I don't know. But at the end of every chapter, whoever he had that narrated would stop and David Goggins would come on and riff and just be like, okay, here's behind the Scenes. Here's what was really going on, or here's what's happened since then. And so I thought, that's such a cool idea. It's unique. Different. There's more value to add to the listener. It's kind of exciting because you get that behind the scenes feel. Who doesn't want that?

Right?

And the other part is when you write a book for HarperCollins or any of these big publishers, it takes a long time. It's not like self publishing, right? When you self publish, you can write a book and have it out in the world in a couple of months, but when you do it with a traditional publisher, it takes so much longer. It takes like two years, a year and a half, two years. And so I thought what would be cool is of course I asked them to use Scotty again and Harper Collins hired him and was happy to do it. And so I had this amazing producer yet again, and I knew it'd be amazing quality. I told him my idea. I said, scotty, I haven't read my book since I wrote it, which had been like almost a year earlier. I said, let's do this rip idea. And he said, well, what are you gonna say in the riffs? I said, I don't know, let's just go in there and go for it and see what happens. And so it's kind of cool because I read the chapter for the first time in a year, so I've basically forgotten about the different chapters. And then immediately I go to, okay, here's what was really happening behind the scenes, or here's what's happened since then. And I give you that look. So I've gotten really amazing feedback from so many people on this. I'm sorry. Super grateful for it because I didn't even know if HarperCollins was going to let me do that ad lib the book. But they said they were happy, happy to do it, happy to try it. It all turned out well in the end.

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Story is I go back to I never liked my voice to begin with. I used to cringe when I would hear it on recordings, but the only way I got over it was forcing myself to hear it more and more. And then suddenly it just didn't bother me as much anymore. So whatever hang up you have, like whatever way you might be looking at yourself saying, oh, I don't like this about me or that about me. Try putting on the rose colored glasses that other people look at you through and put them on yourself. You gotta be your biggest cheerleader. You want to be your biggest champion and your biggest advocate. If you're not going to be, why would anyone else, right? If you're not showing up in that way, why would anyone else pick you? If I wasn't going to be a champion for my voice and for narrating the audible book, why would Harper Collins say yes, right? I had to be my biggest fan and show up and just be me and do it in a real and powerful way and say, hey, this is why you should pick me and here's my audition and it's fire and you're gonna love it and so is the listener, right? So be your biggest advocate. Be your biggest champion. The world needs you. There's just not enough good out there right now. There's so much negativity, there's so much divisiveness and arguing and separation. Any way that you can try to shine your light and be a little brighter, I'm gonna appreciate it, I'll tell you that much. And so will the rest of the world. And for the people who don't, those just aren't your people, right? For a long time I was dimming my light in hopes that it might make someone else feel better. That was the wrong move for sure. It is never the right move to dim your light. It will be and always will be the right move to make your light brighter, to shine brighter, to step into who you are and to stop shrinking yourself, especially for areas in your life that you've already outgrown. Right? Take the risk. Go for it. Go for more. We get one shot at this life. Make it the biggest, brightest, boldest thing that you can. And for those people that are knocking on your door, telling you about all their negativity, close that window. Close that door. Let them keep it moving. Wish them luck in your mind, like I did with that lady of the plane. Decided to say that I'm blessed and grateful I am not that woman. I am grateful that I have better energy. I'm grateful for where I'm at in my life. I feel so lucky seeing someone that's struggling so much with negativity. I feel so blessed that I'm not. And then that person may come around and feed off your energy and have a better day. So I'm hopeful in some way this brightens your day. Hopefully it does. I wanna hear from you, you know I always wanna hear from you. And thanks so much. I got so many notes from people last week on the episode that I did that I shared with you right after I had gotten out of church this week. I have not gone to church yet because my son and I are going to a later mass. But I appreciate the feedback. Means the world to me. I love to hear your stories. I love to hear what big things you're up to, what risks you're taking, how you're turning your light up and going for more. Keep em coming. And anytime you share the show, you know I will repost retag re share and so appreciate it. Please share the show with anyone that you think it could help. It means the world to me. No one succeeds alone and that includes me. Keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. I'll see you next week. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. Come on this journey with me.