#389: STOP Settling & START Pursuing Your Potential 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. Fasten your secrets. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Okay. A bunch of things I wanted to hit on today for you that I've been thinking about. You know, whenever I'm getting messages in my life, I believe that they're put on my heart so that I share them with you and I hope they help you in some ways. First of all, I'm so grateful for the reviews that you've left me on this podcast. I think there's like 6,000 or something. It's incredible. So thank you so much for doing that. It means the world to me and that definitely helps the show to get shared and seen by more people and impact more people, and I'm so, so grateful for that. However, the last two reviews I saw. I'm always looking at your reviews, by the way, because I'm so interested and I want to hear what you like, what you don't like. Two, three star reviews, and they're negative, right? And so my initial reaction, probably like yours when someone says something negative, is you feel attacked or, you know, you think, oh, why are people hating on me? Well, anyways, that's how I feel, right? And so I know I've learned it's a weakness of mine, but I've learned in the last few years that not all negative feedback is negative. Sometimes it could be just misinterpreted, miscommunicated, right? Like, maybe it's I'm triggered. Maybe it's I'm emotional, I'm, you know, feeling vulnerable or whatever it may be, right just the moment, lack of sleep, it could be anything, right? So give yourself some grace. So what I've learned to do is I step away from situations like that for 24 hours so I can regroup and process the information and see is there anything beneficial I can take from this. I actually wrote a chapter in my second book, Overcome youe Villains, about this when I was getting attacked on social media. And it ended up being such a blessing in the end, and it was a really funny situation. So anyways, I always look back to that one incident whenever I get triggered, especially around social media or, you know, computer reviews, stuff like that, where you can't see people in real life and you really don't know where they're coming from, right? So I use that in my head as an example to hang onto to try to keep myself calm. Super helpful. If you have an experience like that in your life that you can kind of look at anytime you get triggered with negativity or negative responses or people coming at you on social media. Okay, so the last two reviews I saw both said that there were way too many ads in the show. First of all, I want to explain something just so you guys understand it, because sometimes I think that lack of information can be confusing, right? So I want to give you the information first and then I want to address that feedback, right? And I want to see it as a positive. So I launched this show in 2019. I will tell you. So it's been. Now it's 2024.

What's up?

And happy New Year, by the way. Oh, my gosh, I hope you had an amazing new year. Super excited for this year. I hope you are, too. Major things are happening this year. I'm so excited to do this year with you. Okay, so I have had the show now with 2024. It's going to be my fifth year, right? Hundreds of episodes, years of expenses, years of promotion. And what goes on is when you create a podcast, there are expenses, right? Expenses to launch it initially, expenses to hire a team to produce it, expenses to book guests, expenses to read and research, search guests, expenses to read the books for guests, hours and hours of man hours put in each month into having a show. And then there's expenses of promoting a show, right? And advertising a show and then getting reviews from the show. And then there's a lot of expenses, time, effort that goes into creating a show. Do I love the show? Oh, my gosh, I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful you're here. But I just want you to understand, any podcast that you hear out there, there are deals, but typically after someone's had a show for years and years and years, some big company will pay them to do it. But that typically takes many years, many years of investment, many years of man hours, of hundreds of man hours a month, you know, to create something like this. So my point is this. It's a lot of work having a podcast. It costs a lot of money. And the goal is, is that it's worth it, right? That in the end, you know, your advertisers, your sponsors, your brand partners are sponsoring you enough such that it offsets the cost so that it makes sense to keep going so that it's making you money, not costing you money, right? Plus adding value, helping others that's the ultimate goal while not losing money, right? You want to make money, you want a for profit business. And you know that I definitely knew the first couple of years I was going to lose money. That there was no doubt. However, when I saw two reviews that said I had too many ads, I would just wanted to say this. Number one, I'm grateful for my sponsors. So, so, so grateful. Because without them I'd be losing money, right? And then I wouldn't be able to continue the podcast which would stink. Cause I love bringing the podcast to light. However, I also wanted to look at this and this is why I stepped away from the feedback for 24 hours. I wanted to look at it as what could I learn from this? Because here's the thing. Yes, I love my brand partners. Yes, I love my sponsors and I'm so, so grateful for them because that's how I'm able to create a free podcast that no one has to pay for. So super grateful for that. And I know that there are plenty of you, thousands of you that have left positive reviews that feel the same way. However, if there's two people that simultaneously felt like in the month of December 2023, there was too many ads, I've got to respond to that, right? So I thought long and hard about it and then I started researching it. And then I also remembered I had had a couple of companies contact me about this and I want to offer it to you. So you tell me, send me a DM on social media, go to heathermonahan.com and hit up contact me here and send me the info. Leave it in a review, whatever works for you. But let me know what you want me to do. There is an option and I had forgotten about it and I had never pulled the trigger on it. A little over a year and a half ago, one of these companies, I think it was Patreon, reached out to me and said, why don't you set up a subscription model where your listeners pay to listen and don't have to hear ads?

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And I know so many podcasters are doing this. I never went down the rabbit hole and did it. I had the conversation, I learned about it, but I never actually executed on it. So this is my question to you today after getting those two reviews that said I'M running too many ads so those people didn't like it. Would you like me to also create a subscription model where you pay a fee monthly and you never receive an ad on the show? Let me know. Hit me up in DMS. Hit me up in reviews. Hit me up@heathermonahan.com Let me know and I'll put a link in the show notes below so that you can go to heathermontahan.com, contact me and send me info if you want me to set it up. Done, done and done. I will set up the subscription model. You will never have to listen to another ad again and I want to make sure that your needs are getting met. I love your feedback. I want to improve things for you and that doesn't have to be for everyone. Meaning if I set up the subscription model where there are no ads running in the show any longer, I will still have my free model that that has sponsors and ads so that you don't have to pay. Okay. So I would just create both giving you the option and trying to respond to the feedback and process it as positive feedback, not negative feedback. Okay. Trying to learn and grow on the daily. Okay. So now that we're looking at a new year 2024, it's going to be our best year ever. Because the best is always yet to come. I was reading this article about sneaky settling. I wanted to share it with you, the concept and sneaky settling. I think this is a great opportunity for us to look back on last year 2023 and ask ourselves this question. Ask yourself this question right now. Where in your life have you been settling? And it's sneaky. It doesn't have to be. And I've heard plenty of people like this, well, I'm in a relationship. You know what, it's not the greatest, but he doesn't cheat on me. So it's not that bad. Or you hear someone say, you know, I've been in this job for a decade and I'm not learning, I'm not growing. They don't invest in me. I'm not excited when I go to work. But I, I have a paycheck. So I guess the devil you know is better than the devil. You don't know if you're having any of these kinds of conversations with yourself. That's called sneaky settling. I did it for a long time in my romantic relationship. With my last long term relationship, that was eight years, I stayed way too long. I was sneaky settling on myself and I knew it wouldn't you know, at the same exact time I was sneaky settling on myself in my corporate job, I wasn't growing, evolving, excited, you know, I was sneaky settling in both. When I got fired, that launched me out of sneaky settling and into this new career of speaking, writing books, launching the podcast, getting my board seat, you know, consulting, doing all these new things. I no longer am sneaky settling, right? I'm like in the fire, walking it every day. I'm passionate about what I do. I love it. I want that for you. If you're sneaky settling at work, now is the time to start the side hustle, start reaching out about different opportunities and make 2024 the year you jump into a purpose driven life where you are excited to get up every day and do good and chase your passion and live your best life. But what was more interesting than that is when I got thrust into it on the business side. After a little bit of time realizing that I had been settling, that's when I ended my personal relationship. I was able to see, wait a minute, I've been settling for a while in business, but now I'm seeing the same that I was settling over here. So it started like a domino effect in my life. Okay, so what have I been settling or sneaky settling on in my life in the past year? I have not been sneaky settling in my business. I am swinging for the fences. I accepted the keynote main stage in Saudi Arabia for the largest tech conference in the world. I am so stepping into the fire with this one. Of course I feel nervous. Of course this is out of my comfort zone. I am launching new partnerships that are completely unnerving that I never thought I'd be stepping into. Right. I'm doing things I never thought I'd be doing. I'm swinging for the fences and going for it. So I'm super proud of that. I did the same in my personal relationship. I had my heart broken this year. That was a long, long time time ago. The last time I had my heart broken, right, Like, I'm definitely going all in on things and I'm so proud of me. So I was really pushing myself to say, where am I sneaky settling? And you know, one of the things that came to mind for me was with my workout. I work out all the time, at least five times a week, but usually seven times a week. And I've gotten into routine, AKA can lead to a rut, you know, of just going to spin class and just going to soul cycle. And while that's Great. And I'm proud that I go, I'm not swinging for the fences. I'm doing the routine. I'm doing what I like to do and keeping myself in that safe comfort zone. So that's something that I decided I gotta stop sneaky settling for. So for 2024, that's one of the things I am changing. Look into your life and decide, where have you been sneaky settling and pull the trigger. Get an accountability partner. Write down the commitments that you're making, revisit them on the daily and hold yourself accountable because you deserve more. You deserve growth. You deserve to reach your potential, no matter what that looks like and no matter what anyone else tells you. Because you, my friend, are worth it. Okay, so this is something that kept coming up and I'll get into more around, you know, I have a word of the year. I'm gonna give it to you right now. It's believe. Last year it was faith. I have my resolutions that I'm making. I'm gonna share those with you next week. I have all the things that I put together at the beginning of a year. My plans, my strateg strategies. It's just a great time, I feel like, to purge what's not working for you and to recreate and recommit to that which is going to work for you and that which you are creating for your future. Okay. It's such a beautiful time of year. I love, love, love this time of year. It's such a fresh start. As my church food, church would say, it's that time of year again.

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Okay? So whenever something keeps showing up in my life, I feel like it's on my heart to share with you. So one of my oldest mentors who's been a part of my life since I was 23 years old, literally, this man's been with me for more than 20 years. If you read my first book, Confidence Creator, you know exactly who he is. And it's not all roses and rainbows, right? We have our challenges, we have our disagreements agreements, but we challenge each other to grow. Now, I want to share with you that when I worked for him in my early 20s, mid-20s, we ended up being partners and we did incredibly well financially together. However, he was without a doubt the hardest person I ever worked for. To the point it was crazy, intense, crazy. You know, you're expected to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and screaming and yelling at people and not all good, right? I learned more from him than I have from anybody else in business. And I'm so grateful for that. He trained me so well. But at times. No, at times, what am I talking about? I resigned multiple times on him because he pushed too, too hard and it was too intense and too out of control and really bordering back then on the line of, you know, almost toxic, that it was just crazy. You couldn't go on a vacation for three years. What? It was really that intense. So I'm grateful for it now. I learned so many lessons, but I remember back then, I Wanted him to change. And I would say to him, and he's a wonderful person. His wife is wonderful, his family's wonderful. Like, again, he taught me so much, gave me incredible opportunities to become an equity partner in my mid-20s and make insane money. However, I always thought it was too hard and too intense and too not nice at work. And I used to tell them that moral of the story is this, when you want someone to change, doesn't mean they're going to change. Okay, you can want somebody to change, you can try to force them to change. Nothing will change. However, when they choose to change, they will change. Don't be shocked by that. And I'm going to walk you through what happened here. So very recently, his father had become ill. And I'm on a group chat that he created a bunch of people that are close to him in his life that all support him, encourage him, and are praying for him and his father during this time. And one day he comes into the chat and he says, wow, thank goodness I've been doing all the personal work I've been doing over the last few years. One of the nurses really triggered me today. I downward spiraled, but I was able to catch myself. And instead of yelling at her, threatening her and losing my mind on her, I decided to re channel that energy to doing something positive for my father. And it was so cool to hear him understand the difference. Right? He didn't understand that when he was younger, when I worked with him, when I wanted him to change. But through the last two decades, he himself decided to make change in his life, learned from it, grew from it, and is now a better person because of it, and is now responding with tact and grace and kindness instead of reacting or being triggered through anger, emotion and past experiences. And it was just so cool to see. So, you know, don't give up on the potential for people, but don't think that you are going to be able to play a role in any of it actually happening. It is entirely up to them. And I've seen this so many times in my life and I've had to learn to just walk away when you know someone has bigger potential and could do more and could be better, but they don't want to do it. It's not on you, that's on them. And they might not do it for another 10 or 20 years. So keep the focus on you. Let go of those that can't make those changes that you need and see what happens in the future. Right? Let it move on, let it change. Let it evolve. Some people will never change. Some people will. But that's up to them, not up to you. Put your focus back on you. That view is always so much better. But I'm so proud of him now to see the transition that he's made over the last couple of decades and how positively it helped him and served him in the hospital with his father. Don't give your power to someone else. Keep your power for you. Don't react. Always respond with class and grace. You deserve it. You're worthy of it. Okay, so same mentor, same person. Remind me of something so funny. We worked together in Michigan, whatever it was, 20 years ago, right? And I remember back then, he had met a guy that he thought, you know, was a couple years older than me, very handsome, very successful. I had met him, we hit it off, and he was just getting married at the time. And I remember both of us thinking, oh, my gosh, I so missed out on that one. Like, that was my guy. That guy, you know, was incredible. And he and I talked about it and we were like, oh, gosh, you missed the opportunity. Cut to. This is so funny. He sent me the person's Instagram profile the other day, and I about fell over laughing. This person does not look anything like who we knew. Like, completely changed. So the moral of this story, which I was happy to be reminded of, it's not always rejection. It's oftentimes redirection to something so, so, so much better for you. He was not the right guy for me. And the ones that get away oftentimes weren't the ones that were meant for you.

Right.

I couldn't see it at the moment. I felt so sad that, oh, gosh, here he was getting married, and that didn't all pan out for him. Now, looking at his situation, it's completely different. That person clearly was never meant for me. But in the moment, it can feel so intense and feel like, oh, my gosh, this is so sad. And I just wanna remind you today, as my mentor and friend reminded me the other day, just because you think that it looks like it's all that good, doesn't mean actually, in the long haul, it would be. What's meant for you will always find you. Keep your faith and keep your heart open, whether that be your friends, your spouse, your work, your passion. Don't give up on it. Stay open to it. Stay open to the sides. Keep your faith. Don't get discouraged when things don't work out the way that you think they're supposed to. Have faith that there's a bigger, better plan for you. I'm so grateful there is for me.

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The third message that I got from the same mentor and friend this week was I had set him up to meet with one of my partners on the board that I serve and I want to nominate him to obtain a board seat on our board this year, which can be a lengthy process. It's not something that happens overnight. You need to meet the key stakeholders, you need, you need to have discussions, you need to be interviewed, you need have multiple meetings. People need to research you. I mean there's a lot that has to go on, right? It was, gosh, a year in the making for me to land my board seat. So I wanted to start the process. So I ended up setting up a meeting with one of my partners and my mentor and I had talked to my partner about it, gosh, months ago and then they ended up randomly they were going to be in Florida at the same time Randomly, they come eat for breakfast. I wasn't going to be there. I'm like, great, go for it, guys. You know, we gotta start this process somewhere. Well, in the meeting there was a disconnect and I knew it as soon as they got out because my partner sent me a text saying, think it went well. I think I have a follow up meeting on Monday. I think he's gonna invest in the company. And I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, that wasn't the goal of which, I mean, it's great if that's gonna happen, right? We're always looking for new investors for HealthLink. But I'm thinking that wasn't really the goal of the meeting. Okay, this is an odd message. Maybe somehow I miscommunicated. Maybe I didn't communicate recently enough that my partner forgot about it. Cut to, my mentor sends me and no one says, sort of interesting meeting didn't go the way that I thought. So anyways, I get on the phone with my mentor and this is someone who's beyond successful, beyond like financially, has sold companies for hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars, right? Has a plane, has it all.

Right?

Like he just, all he does is travel the world and golf and so very confident person, especially in business, right? This guy knows how to knock it out of the park in business. This is the guy that trained me. And so incredible. He's incredible in business. Yet I'm saying to him, how did you sit in a meeting with someone, see that it was going off the tracks and not communicate clearly what your goal or intention was? And he said, well, I thought since I had never been in a meeting like this, maybe it wasn't protocol and I didn't want to, you know, upset you or do it wrong. So I just didn't say anything. Now, had he been in a normal business environment, let's say buying or selling a company, which he's done, you know, 50 times over, he would have been very direct and very clear. But I believe it's because he hadn't been in this situation before. Meaning there's a little bit of insecurity, a little bit of fear, a little bit of unknown. You know, I'm uncertain in this and I wanted to share that with you because if he can feel that way, as successful as he is, it's okay to feel that way for you. I feel that way sometimes like we all do in different situations, different environments. You know, maybe at the gym you feel a little insecure or uncertain. Maybe it's in personal relationships, maybe it's in trying to land a board seat because you've never had one before. Know that you're not alone. The most successful, financially successful people in the world feel uncertain or insecure when they step into something new. And those are the moments to say, hey, have I ever felt this way before? What does this mean? I always look at three different experiences in my life that were completely new to me. I always use my TEDx Talk as one of them because it was so scary. I'm going to definitely use this tech conference in Saudi Arabia as another one after we knocked that one out of the park. But looking at these experiences where we felt fear, walked into it, stood up in it, owned it, and moved forward anyways and then allowed it to be a confidence building moment for us, not a confidence depleting moment. And realize, okay, listen to ourselves. If I think I should stand up for myself right now, if I think I should communicate, ask for what I want, then that's what I need to do. That will build confidence in you. Okay, so that's the reminder. Ask for what you want. If you are not being heard or feel like there's a miscommunication, address it. Bring it up. I promise you that you will be saving your time moving forward, moving yourself towards your goals, towards what you want to achieve or finding out it's not the right fit to begin with so you can move on and save yourself time. Because time is passing, my friends. We're in a new year. It's 2024. I'm so excited for this year. I'm so excited for you to be here with me, to go big, to go for more, to chase your goals down and make this your best year yet. The best is yet to come and I'm right here with you for it. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. 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.