#387: Become The BEST Version of Yourself in 2024! 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. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back. Okay, your girl is still not 100%. I don't even know how this is possible. Typically, I lose my voice for a couple of days once a year and that's it, but we're looking at like a week. Now, this is a little wild, a little crazy, but I'm always utterly optimistic that tomorrow is gonna be the breakthrough moment. So I keep saying that. My son's like, mom, you've been saying that for a week. Yes, and I believe it. It's coming. The breakthrough is coming. I hope it's coming for you too. Okay, so I'm gonna keep this as short as possible so you don't have to listen to this crazy voice. It is so bizarre. But a couple of big things that I wanna talk about. One, we're approaching a new year. Okay? So some things to help set you up for success. Write down your goals. This is such a great time for you to look back on this past year and be grateful for all you've achieved, all you've done, and then to take the next step and write down exactly what it is and speak it into existence. What you're going to be doing big this year in 2024. Let's go big. No more playing small. God did not put you on this earth to play small. You have been brought forth to bring all of the magic within you to the world. The world needs your light. I need your light. Like, let's go. Turn it up. Go big. Swing for the fences. And. And gosh, I can't wait to see what you achieve this year. Okay, so I'm writing down all of my goals, my intentions, what I'm going to achieve, 100%, as I always do, and I revisit it every morning.

Right?

Frequency is what sells and programs our mind. But it's just a great time to forecast that vision for your next year and what you're planning for, and then we're going to execute on it. Okay, so that's one. Two is every year they say not only, you know, create your resolutions, create your goals, but pick a word, a word for the year. So last year, my word was faith, which I love, and I'm gonna bring it along again this year. But for this year, my word's gonna be believe. Just going all in. In total and utter belief that whatever it is, is Coming forward, you know, whatever those goals are, I am believing 100% they're happening and I'm excited for it. That's my word for the year.

Believe.

Super excited for it. I can't wait to hear. What's your word for the year? Let me know. Send me a DM. Send it to heathermonahan.com there's plenty of places or on any social media. Just message me. Leave a message on my posts. I can't wait to hear from you. I'm in this with you. Okay? So I am. So much so that, you know, the last masterclass that Melanie Borden and I did together a little over a month ago, it went great. The reviews were all five star. Super pleased with it. However, one of the things I heard from people is they want more than one day. Right? Right. And I get it because you need accountability and you want to have to check back in and have the information broken up over time. So Melanie Borden and I are breaking it down for you. The entire month of January, you're gonna get an email every day from me holding you accountable to achieving your big goals, achieving your resolutions, and breaking down that word and going for it on the daily. Plus, you know, we're taking all the information from our masterclass and we're gonna break it up across each of the Fridays in January. So this is just a way for you to be a part of a tribe that is chasing their goals, going big for 2024, that wants to be held accountable, that wants to ask Melody and myself questions on how we made it happen and teach you how you can make it happen, whether you're selling yourself, you have a personal brand that you're bringing forward, whether you're looking to post more and have better results on Instagram or on LinkedIn. By the way, one of my posts went viral this week and has almost 5 million views on Instagram. Can't wait to share with you how we did that. You know, really elevating yourself and pushing yourself to go further out of your comfort zone. This is a great way to do it. And I'm offering a discounted price, half off right now. The link is in the show notes below. You can grab your spot in the class. We're meeting every single Friday at noon through the month of January. You're gonna get an email from me every day. We're getting so much more than that, but I'm just gonna give you that for right now.

Okay?

So I would love to see you in new year, new you going bigger than ever. And I'm going to do it holding your hand for the month of January to make sure you kick this year off right. It's that time of year again.

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Before I move into this, I'm going to tell you it's funny. Please go easy on yourself. For so long, I would beat myself up if things didn't go the way I planned. Or, you know, or ruminate, you know, circle the drain. You know, with the way I'm thinking, I've just learned to give yourself grace and kindness the same way you would a child or a loved one. And yeah, I'm not feeling great right now. I have not done all my Christmas shopping. It's a little discouraging and I'm bummed out about it. But at the same time, everything works out for a reason. It was funny. Last night my son said to me, mom, please tell me you haven't bought my big Christmas gift yet. He wants an iPhone. And I said, I don't know why. And he said, well, because I just found out it's not the new iPhone I want. It's the iPhone 14, not 15. So if you did already buy the 15, please take it back. Mom Mistakes for the win. I hadn't got the iPhone yet. So here's the good news. Sometimes these mistakes and delays that we have end up being blessings in disguise. But mom win. So mom hack is don't buy your gifts until last minute. And sometimes it works out. On another note, he wants to go to the Heat game And a friend of mine told me to wait to the last minute to get tickets because it'll be so much less expensive if I wait. I'm trying that. Keep your fingers crossed. I have no idea if this one's gonna pan out or not. I will let you know next week. But things don't go seamlessly. They're not perfect in my life. I know they're not perfect for any of us. But give yourself some grace, give yourself support, and give yourself some kindness, because you deserve it. And so do I. Okay, So I. You know that I believe this. When I get messages from people telling me certain things. I feel like it's a message for me to share with you. So I received a message this week, a DM on Instagram, telling me this person had just bought my book and had just read the first chapter, and the first chapter already changed their life. So I'm gonna read the first chapter of Overcome youe Villains to youo today in hopes that it can inspire you. Or maybe there's someone that you know that will be inspired by it and you can share it with them. Chapter one. My second book, Overcome youe Villains A New me. I got fired. Three words I never imagined I would say. Three words I was too embarrassed to say to my family and friends. Three words that changed my life forever in ways I had no way of predicting. P.S. that's an understatement. Some people describe being fired as a humbling experience. That's not how I would describe it. Maddening. Shocking. Psychotic. All words that instantly come to mind when I look back on that terrible moment. And what made it all that and more was how it went down. It might be a little easier to understand if I give you some backstory. First, I grew up poor. My childhood was not one I like to sit around and reminisce about. In some ways, this has been a blessing because I learned to be driven like no other. But in other ways, it's been a holdback for much of my life. I was driven to chase a paycheck more than anything. All I knew was I didn't want to be poor. I didn't want to struggle. I didn't want the kids I dreamed I would have someday to grow up in a trailer the same way I did. That feeling of standing in the grocery checkout line and realizing you'd have to put something back because you didn't have enough money pained me. Oddly, some people would have no problem with that. For some reason, however, when it happened to me, it ripped my heart out the shame I felt thinking others were looking down on me, realizing I couldn't buy what I wanted and had to operate differently. Long lasting. Once you feel like that, there's a really good chance you will do anything in your power to never feel that way again. And that's exactly how I responded. Working my Way Up I started delivering newspapers at 10 years old, then bussing tables at a diner, then working the front counter and drive thru at fast food restaurants, waiting tables and eventually bartending my way through college. My dream was to graduate and join a sales team. To be completely honest, I didn't just dream of joining a sales team. I desperately wanted to join a sales team. Not because I felt a passion or excitement to work for a business, but because I quickly learned that the owners of the nicest cars in the parking lot were the ones where they were salespeople I was bartending. They were coming in after work. They had the best cars. I figured out what I wanted to be. They were also the ones that left the biggest tips. They were the ones who had the nicest houses. They were the ones who had enough money to buy the most expensive suits, dresses and shoes and they never had to put their groceries back. I joined a top winery sales team as soon as I graduated and I flat out outworked everybody else, even the old timers. It didn't take long before I became the top salesperson and was promoted to brand manager. It also didn't take long after getting promoted that my new boss started sexually harassing me. I was too afraid to take on the company, too afraid to fight for what I knew was right. So I quit. I aggressively put myself out there looking for another sales job while bartending on the side at a networking event. A couple weeks later I met a man who stood out from the rest. I decided to chat him up. He told me I should go to work for him. I told him he couldn't afford me. When he asked how much I expected to be paid, I told him $75,000, never imagining he would pay anyone he had just met at an event. That kind of money you start in the morning, he told me. I was of course excited by this stroke of good fortune. I walked into the event part time bartender and walked out newly employed with a 75k salary. What I didn't realize at the time was this was the first of many times I would leave a lot of money on the table. I had undersold myself. This was something I would do again many times throughout my career. When you don't see your own worth, others won't see it either. People pay you what you believe you are worth. I later learned that this man was worth millions of dollars and he saw potential in me. I quickly became his top seller and he grew me to become his partner. In my early 20s, I moved myself across the country to take his $25 million company and turn it into a $55 million company. In just under three years, I finally had some money. I had established a reputation for generating revenue like few others in the media industry. Still, I wasn't satisfied. Growing up poor had lit a fire in me that grew and grew until it consumed me. I needed more revenue, more room for growth, higher ladder to climb, bigger salary, more commission. I took my cash and my reputation and moved to Florida to go to work for a publicly traded radio company. It was a bigger company than the one I had worked for, with more revenue and far more upside. I pitched myself for a job that didn't exist and was awarded VP of Sales based on my performance. I was quickly promoted two more times and ultimately named Chief Revenue Officer. I was one of only two women on the executive team and I was so proud I had finally arrived. There was just one problem. The other woman on the executive team despised me, and she was the CEO's daughter. Instead of engaging this woman in battle, I decided to ignore her. I didn't want to get into the office politics. I'd focus on growing revenues, which I did by leaps and bounds. When I started at the company, we were billing 100 million annually. And before the time I was fired, we were in excess of 200 million in revenues and an industry in decline. Much of this increase was the direct result of my own efforts and leadership. I had the house, the car, the nice clothes, the fat cushion of cash in my bank account. I had made my dream come true. I thought I had it all. Then I was fired. In an instant, I went from being the hero who had more than doubled the company's revenue, won countless awards, and had been promoted three times. And suddenly I was out of work. This was not a humbling experience. This was a horrific moment that left me under a weighted blanket with a bottle of Chardonnay attached to my. This was the lowest of lows, a grown up version of getting your heart broken in high school. You thought you had it all figured out. You were so happy on top of the world, only to find out you were fooling yourself all along. That was exactly it. I had been fooling myself all the while. That woman was hating me. And nursing her apparent desire to eradicate me from the company. You see, when her father became ill and needed to step down, he elevated his only daughter to the position of interim CEO. She tortured me. I can't lie. The way this villain treated me made me feel miserable. But I refused to buckle. I wouldn't let her get the best of me. I refused to show any weakness. Here's just one example. I'd be sitting in the conference room, usually the only other woman there, surrounded by male colleagues. And the villain would walk in. She would go up to each person and say hello, even hugging some of them. And she would walk right by me like I didn't exist. Those days were rough. They were tough. Because by ignoring me, she was signaling to everyone else that I did not matter. I was invisible. This feeling of being ignored really got to me. And it became worse over time. And every time I allowed this to occur, I could feel her getting stronger as I got weaker. I was like Alice in Wonderland, shrinking away to nothing after taking a swig from a bottle labeled Drink me. I hated that feeling that I didn't exist. Things had gotten so bad that the night before I knew she'd be in a meeting with me, I'd start to panic. What should I do? And she would ignore me again. I desperately needed my paycheck, so I couldn't do what I wanted to do, which was to tell her off. What could I do? What I hadn't realized was that allowing her to continue to ignore me was not only chipping away at my confidence, it was building hers. And all other executives and managers could see it happening. The rest of the team looked at me differently. Everyone had always seen me as tremendously confident, a high performer. But I was starting to shrink. In their eyes. I was becoming nothing. I finally had enough of this game. I decided that while I couldn't tell her off, I could make sure she and everyone else in the meeting knew I was there to get ready for this moment. I practiced exactly what I was going to say in the mirror at home the morning of the meeting, I picked a red outfit. A power color that lets me feel my best. I did my hair and took some time to get ready. I knew it would turn my self confidence up a notch. I wanted to stand tall and exude confidence. With all my preparations complete, I knew I would. I had reached a point where nothing was worth allowing me to feel like a B rated version of myself. I wasn't nothing. I had delivered millions of dollars for this company for years. I deserved to be seen and heard to put the icing on my confidence cake. I played my Fire me Up playlist as I drove to the office that morning. I showed up at the meeting and chatted everyone up. Many people complimented my dress, smiled and thanked them. It was game on. Then in came the interim CEO, my new boss, the villain. She walked from person to person, as she always did, and passed by me as she always did. She sat at the head of the table, where she always sat. And that's when I made my move. I raised my hand. I said, good morning. You must have missed me. I'm down here, excited to be here. I gave her a big smile and a wave. I wasn't being mean, not disrespectful. But in that moment I was building my confidence and I could see that hers was being chipped away at. The reality is that in any moment you are either building your confidence or chipping away at it by the actions you take or don't take. If my new boss had wanted to build her confidence, she would have said something like, hey, good morning, Heather. Thanks for understanding. That was not intentional. Glad you're here. Let's begin our meeting. She didn't say anything, though she hadn't seen that one coming. I saw a few of the men at the table shoot glances to one another and I even saw one of them try to hold back a laugh. I had let it be known loud and clear I would not be ignored. That was it. The game ended right there. Or so I thought. Looking back, I believe this was the moment when the villain decided she was getting rid of me for good. Within a few months, I was gone. I'm sure you know the saying, when one door closes, another one opens. That's not how I saw it. I was in total panic. My source of income had been suddenly and irrevocably cut off. Not only that, I had signed a non compete agreement, which meant that when I became Chief Revenue officer, I could no longer stay in the industry I had expertise in for 18 months after leaving the company. This meant that I couldn't leverage my vast network of connections in the industry for the next year and a half. I would have to find some other way to generate income. And I needed income.

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There's another part of the story I neglected to tell you When I was fired, I was a single mom with a 10 year old son, Dylan. P.S. i'm still a single mom. He just happens to be 16, which is much easier than 10, by the way. While you may be expendable, you are never replaceable. Truth. There's no one else in the universe like you. I didn't realize this at the time, but today as I write these words, it's crystal clear. You have the ability and opportunity to take your unique skills and attributes wherever you want. Just because you've been successful in one lane doesn't mean you can't succeed in another lane. Getting fired was painful. That day I truly felt I had lost everything. What I didn't realize was that while they could take my paycheck, everything else stayed with me. No one can take your reputation, your experience, your network, your talents, your skills. No one is replaceable. The scariest thing I did was deciding not to go back to corporate and to go to work for myself. Instead, I decided to go to work for me. And I would take all the success I had earned for others and start putting it to work for me, for my son and for me and for our future. Sitting here right now, I still can't believe I did it. While I love the security quote, unquote security my steady paycheck provided, I hated the way it made me feel. I wasn't living up to my potential and I certainly wasn't happy. I was simply surviving, hoping my boss wouldn't recognize my worth and leave me alone, Just let me do what I do best. But that's no way to live. To find your true calling in life, you need to be willing to take risks and put yourself on the line. This may mean escaping your box by jumping out the window and realizing you've got wings and that they will open when you need them the most. I think we all intuitively know this, but sometimes we have to be pushed out that window to discover our wings. And that's certainly what happened to me. Making the decision to sit alone instead of sitting at a table where you are not supported. It's not easy, but it will be worth it. There's a little more to the story. That day, when my new boss fired me, she slid two different papers in front of me. One said, heather Monahan has been terminated. The other was much longer. And it said something like, Heather Monahan, wonderful, successful person. We're so proud of her. She's done amazing things, blah, blah, blah. We wish her the best. She also had a stack of papers behind the Two memos. She explained that I could pick which memo I wanted to sign. But if I signed the long, beautiful memo, I'd get a big check and parting gift. If I decided to sign the one line memoir, I would get nothing. After years of countless fights, work trips, leaving my son behind with babysitters, and now being treated terribly by this woman, I knew that she was getting a tremendous amount of pleasure from this final opportunity to twist a knife in my back yet again. I'm certain she was convinced I would sign the longer memo and take the check. But not today, villain. I pushed both pieces of paper back across to her and I said, I didn't write these memos, so I won't be signing either one of them. I'm not sure what you're trying to pull here, but if that is all, I've got to get going. I have nothing else to say. I'm leaving. In that moment, the entire dynamic in the room changed. I took all the power out of that room. What the villain didn't know was that I was finally more driven to respect myself than I was to take the money. At that moment, I was no longer the little girl who had grown up poor without the things other kids had in school. I was no longer the young girl who had put groceries back. I was no longer the career woman who was always putting my company's needs before my own. That was a pivotal moment for me, the turning point in my life that sent me down an entirely new path. As I stood up from that table, I watched my boss's face turn beet red. She may have won the battle, but she had lost the war. When I stood up for myself that day, I set myself up for finding success and happiness on my terms, not on someone else's. But that success wouldn't come overnight. There was much work to be done. And there was that little thing about not having a paycheck. As I drove home from the office that last time, I didn't know how I was going to pay for my mortgage for my condo, make my payments for my son's school, or take care of all the other bills I had. But I knew that I had what I needed to figure it out. That day, that woman thought she had fired me. I had actually just fired my villain. And when you fire your villain, you set yourself up to take off. That's what this book is all about. In the pages that follow, I will reveal to you the lessons I learned after I was fired and how I used what I learned to rebuild my confidence, find the kind of success that we dream of having in our lives. I'll show you how to identify the villains in your life and leapfrog right over them, leaving them in your rear view. My goal is to help you wake up excited about the day to come and everything else ahead of you. Now let's get started. Okay, that was the first chapter of Overcome youe Villains, my second book and I would love to be a part of kicking your 2024 off to be your best and biggest yet. I'd love to hold your hand. Meet with you on Fridays. You'll get an email from me every day. You can click the link in the show notes below to grab your seat. In my January New Year New you event. I'm gonna hold you accountable. We're gonna do it together. Until next week. Keep creating your confidence. 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.