#392: Stop REACTING! How To Respond With Grace & Class Every Time 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 seatbelts. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me today. Okay, so new year, same me, but a new idea. Well, I've talked before to you about this. Data doesn't lie. Right. The numbers tell a story that are painting a truth. They're fact. Here's what we found when we look back over the last year on the podcast. Our most downloaded episodes, which means it's the ones you guys like the best, are the solo episodes.

Completely shocking to me. Right.

I don't know why. I just didn't have that expectation on the front end. So what I'm doing is to test today is instead of doing an interview this week and a solo, we're going to do two solos. I want to hear from you as I always want to hear from you. It does not mean we're getting rid of interviews. No, but maybe what we'll do is mix in double solo some week or every other week. I don't know. You let me know. We want to bring the most value to you. If there are certain topics you want me to address, DM me at Heather Monahan. I'm on every platform. Or go to my website, heathermonahan.com fill out the contact me form and send me a note. Whatever you want me to talk about, I will take it on here for you. Let me know what you think about doing more solos. Want to make sure that the show is adding value in helping you.

Okay.

You know, I believe that I get messages during the week that I'm supposed to share with you. Okay. So in the last week, there's been an interesting theme that occurred. I want to start with an example with my son. So my son plays basketball. And for any of you that play sports, did play sports or have kids that play sports, you know, it gets heated, right? Especially high school is like you're getting serious. It starts getting really serious. My son is super serious. Like, he's knocked out teeth, he's broken legs, he goes all in to win when he plays basketball. It's a passion of his. He works out twice a day. He has a trainer. Like, it's no joke. Boy's going to the NBA. He has a vision board hanging up in his room.

I did not make him create it.

He created it on his own. Okay, so that's Kind of a little backstory on where he's at. Well, I didn't go to this game this past week. I had a meeting and had no idea what was going on. My son gets home that night and he's upset. And so I said, what? Tell me, you know, break down for me what happened. He was the high scorer of the game. He was having a great game. It was super close. The game was really, really close. So everyone was tense or was arguing. You know, it just, it's like an intense moment. And with five minutes to go, my son missed a shot and the coach took him out. My son, I guess, got upset. Now again, I was not there, but knowing him, he probably was a little vocal. He probably did not handle it with all the grace and ease in the world. Again, 16 year old boy, not immature as an adult yet. So I'm imagining he didn't handle it as well as he could have because he was really upset and wanted to go back in and the coach did not let him. So he was vocal. Anyhow, the coach, from what he told me, I'm hearing it from his side. The coach came over and said to him like, back off, sit down, enough. Another coach had to come over to him and tell him, sit down, like take it down a notch, dial it back. Right? So he was obviously very upset and somewhat vocal. Cut to his coach was upset with him after. And again, I'm getting my son's side of the story. There's always two sides to every story. But my son said that, you know, he was like mad at him and we wouldn't look at him and was talking about disrespect and you know, being sounds like maybe a little passive aggressive in front of the team that he was upset and felt my son hadn't been respectful of his decision. And they ended up losing the game, which on top of it, my son was so upset. Okay, so high emotion. You know this. Anytime emotions are high, good decision making disappears. You never want to lash out or act out until you are in control of your emotions. I'm a big fan of waiting 24 hours before responding to things or, or, you know, trying to have a conversation about something when you're really intense or heated. It's that time of year again.

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My son doesn't know this yet. So my son gets in the car and decides to shoot a text to the coach. And he sends a coach a text. He read it to me. It was okay. I mean, it's not what I would have written. However, he wanted to make the point that coach, you heard me say that I didn't mean disrespect to you. Of course, the kid was really hot and excitable at the time. So, you know, who knows how that was received. I'm sure the coach was upset too, right? So you look at the circumstance and the context and he said, but I feel like you were really mad at me in the huddle at the end. And you know, I didn't do anything intentionally. I just wanted to go back into the game. I know that I could have scored or like he was pleading his case. Why he had been so upset and didn't feel like he was treated fairly or that it was a good decision or whatever it was. The coach doesn't respond. So my son gets home and so it's like 45 minutes later and he says he still hasn't responded, Mom. And I can tell my son's really upset and he's pacing around and I said, okay, well, he didn't respond yet. You know, you can't control other people. We've got to sit with it. I promise tomorrow you're going to feel a lot better. He said, well, yeah, I have to get up tomorrow and go to practice and face him again. You know what, Mom, I'm going to text him again. And I said, ooh, no you're not. And he said, what do you mean? I said, the other person hasn't Responded. You don't double text people. Like, that's crazy. That's like a crazy person that just starts firing off random text messages. It's a one sided conversation that's yelling at someone. That's not a conversation. And so I said, you wait until you get a response and if you don't get a response, you speak to him face to face. Tomorrow, after you both have had the chance to have emotions, calm down and you can see each other, you know, see how the other person is responding, behaving, feeling. Text message, just like email, does not always communicate effectively or efficiently because you can't tell and you read your own perspective and context into things. I said, dude, you're gonna look thirsty. I took that word from him, by the way. I said, you're gonna look thirsty if you come firing back with another text message when you didn't even give this gentleman a chance to respond. So he didn't like that idea of appearing thirsty. So he said, okay, I'm not going to respond, then I'll wait until tomorrow. Thank you.

Okay.

So he goes to bed, of course, the next morning he has breakfast, he's feeling in a better mood and he's off to practice and you know, everything was okay. The coach, of course, was not happy with the way he had handled himself. However they worked it out and they moved on and he's back playing again. I wanted to share that story with you because that's a basketball example with a 16 year old and this. It doesn't matter who you are, what situation you're in, or how old you are, we're all going to be confronted with situations where we might not like how the other side is handling things. It's on us to wait until emotions have passed, wait for cooler heads and respond, not react with all of the class and grace within us. That is something I have learned and put into practice in my life. And I promise you it is gonna help you. It's gonna prop you up for success in life. I'm so grateful my son did not send that second text. It could have taken him down a different road with his coach. Right. So give things time. Wait till cooler heads prevail and don't react. When you react, you're letting the other person control you. Don't allow that to happen. You control yourself. Respond with all the grace and class within you. That will always be the answer. Okay. During the holiday season, I was super, super busy. Not so much with work actually, but I had so many people in town, there were so many events Bah, right. There was a lot going on. But during this time, and this happens a lot as an entrepreneur, that people reach out to you, they want to work with you, they're not sure exactly what that looks like. It's a first engagement working with someone. So sometimes when it's a bigger project and bigger opportunity, I don't sign a client. That first time we meet, there's multiple meetings to talk about. Especially when it's something big, you know what the magnitude of the project's gonna look like. That was the case that was happening for me during the month of December. So I ended up going a few weeks, meeting back and forth with this potential client and it was a huge opportunity. I actually had to bring in another business partner. I mean, it's going to be a year long project. It's a lot of revenue, it's a lot of impact, it's a lot of work. So back and forth for weeks on this. And then approaching the Christmas holiday, the potential client said, listen, I know that you guys are moving into holiday right now. I want to be respectful of that, you know, let's circle back after the holiday. But I do, I want to get this contract done, I want to get this live and I want it done in live first week of January. Okay, great. So we sent contracts over docusign agreements, everything was over even before the holiday came. And then it was quiet for a week, which I understood because it's holiday. So I did not react, I didn't do anything. My partner saying to me, well, isn't this odd that this document hasn't been signed? My partner was getting concerned. My partner was reacting right. And I could see it. I'm older and so I have a little bit more experience with this. And I said, you know what, let me sit with this. You don't worry about it, enjoy your holiday. You know, I'm on it, don't worry. So we gave time. Well, now a second week had passed. Now this is weird, right? So this was getting a little weird because there was high sense of urgency. Yes, we're doing this. Yes, we need to get started now. And you know what this impact is like maybe if you don't, if you don't work for yourself, but you're putting off other projects, other clients, you're not accepting other speaking engagements, you're not saying yes to other opportunities because you know the bandwidth that's gonna be needed for this one project in this window of time is intense and big. Right? So there's a lot of balls in there. And you're taking risk every day because if you forego these other opportunities and this other one doesn't come to fruition, you got a problem. So that's one of the interesting conundrums about being an entrepreneur in the earlier years. Cause you don't have these massive pipelines built up where it's no big deal like it was when I was in corporate America, right? Because I had been in that situation for 20 years and I could forecast everything and I knew exactly what the pipelines look like. When you're a few years in, it's very different. You're building it on the fly. You're dealing with a lot of unknown, which can be scary. It can also be super exciting.

By the way.

There is a fine line between fear and excitement and I'm always going to lean into I'm excited. I want you to be excited too.

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Okay, so I was with my partner and that I was getting a little frustrated. So I had sent an email saying, hey, hope you had a great holiday. We had noticed that you had not signed the docusign yet. I know you had said you wanted to start first week of January. It is first week of January right now. I know that you're going to be in Orlando next week. We had talked about meeting in person there. We need to figure out our flights, we need to figure out our schedules. Please let me know what your timeline is or if your timeline has changed so that we can make decisions accordingly. Again, just, you know, very calm. Okay, no response. Now this is strange because remember I had been back and forth with this potential client for almost a month now, multiple times a week on zoom on calls in depth, very, very in depth into this project at this point and had been told, this is what I want to do. I want to hire you guys. I want to get started on this, this date. And then crickets. I hate crickets. How about you? Okay, so I waited a couple days. My partner's getting so frazzled at this point because my partner was gonna need to bring some people on in order to support this level of work. And a lot of balls in the air, right? It was getting stressful. And so she said to me, well, I think that I should just cancel the DocuSigns, which is emotional because that would let the other person Know that, you know, this potential vendor had withdrawn the Docusign. And so I said, listen, here's the thing. Let's not react. Let's sit with it. We don't know if this person has been in an accident. We don't know if this person is having family situation. We're coming right out of the holiday. I mean, a million different things could be happening. And he's traveling going into next week. He's got a lot going on. So let's give him the benefit of the doubt and wait to hear back. And that's really hard to do, right? It's cause you need answers. So I waited. I had waited a few days and I thought, okay, I've gotta send another email. Cause I need to know we need to start saying yes to other clients and yes to other opportunities. I'm not gonna lose these events and lose this business if this other piece isn't coming to fruition. So I sent an email. And I'll tell you, this is kind of out of the Chris Voss strategy of leading with a negative, right? And so if you're not familiar with Chris Voss, go back. I think I have three or four episodes that I've done with Chris Voss. He's incredible, a negotiation expert, and he's a big fan of always lead with the negative. When you haven't heard from somebody, is it crazy to ask you to respond to this email or really be hit someone right between the eyes with, okay, I'm hitting you with a negative. Can you at least respond to this? And it was funny. I saw he put a post up today on LinkedIn where he did the same thing. He has a new book coming out. And the end of the post, he said, would it be crazy to ask. Would it be too much to ask you to leave a review if you found any value in this book? Right. He's always like, come at it with this negative, kind of turn on it. So I thought about it. I reached out, I said, is it crazy to think that you were possibly in an accident? Are you okay? I'm hoping you are not an accident. I'm hoping that you're okay. I'm a little concerned I haven't heard back from you. It's out of character. Based upon us working together over the last month. I hope everything is all right. Please let me know that you're okay. And that is legitimately true. I mean, this person responds readily all the time. So it was very strange. I hadn't heard from this person in two weeks. Well, as part of the body of that email, I said, just so you understand, I wanted to give him context, right. So he could understand it's not just me pushing to get a document sign. Just so you understand, if the timeline has changed for you, this is how I framed it up. If the timeline has changed for you, that's okay. I just need to know because I'm going to be able to take on different projects, clients and opportunities that I've been holding off on accepting because I wouldn't be able to take them on. If we are going to move forward with the January start, please let me know so we can make the best decisions possible for our business. So I was letting him know, listen, you're not making decision is impacting my business and my ability to help and honor agreements with other people and communicate effectively to them, which is not a good look. Right. So I wanted him to know without number one, I wasn't desperate. Right? I'm not desperate. I have other pieces of business out there that I can move forward with. So it wasn't from a place of desperation. It was more from a place of concealment, consideration, right? Please communicate effectively to me. Even if the communication is Heather, I don't know if I can move forward with this yet. I need more time. Whatever it was going to be was okay. But I just want him to understand, listen, this is a domino effect. You not responding means I can't respond to these other opportunities, which is a problem. And I need your help.

Right?

I need more information from you. You got to tell me more here, what's going on? So he did respond to that email and said that he was fine. And he said, here I am, I'm fine. I've been working through some things on my end. And yes, I want to get started. And yes, I want to get started immediately. Expect signed documents today, which they were sent. Expect money transferred today. Everything immediately was handled. And this was just yet again another example in my life of, thank goodness we didn't cancel the documents. Thank goodness we didn't react instead of respond. Now, again, I've seen this go the other way too, right? Sometimes people come back and say, yeah, I'm not going to move forward. And it's frustrating because you're like, gosh, I put all this time in, but I do believe lead with your best foot forward in business. Always right? Like, do that next right thing. Always anticipate that things are going to go in a positive way. They won't always. Sometimes you're going to be discouraged. Something didn't work out or didn't go the way you thought. But I'm also a big fan this year. And when one door closes and you didn't expect it, and this is what I am holding onto so strong with. I had mentioned to you with a relationship that I had last year, you know what? God saw something I didn't. And God saved me from a major challenge. And for that, I am so grateful. So when you look at these situations, just thank God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God, for saving me from whatever train wreck was ahead that you didn't want me to go through. I'm so grateful for it. And when you decide to accept rejection as redirection to something better, the way that I'm looking at it is I decide to accept it as God saw something that I didn't. And I'm so grateful he saved me from that pain. And that's it. And I'm moving on. And that way, we don't have to stay attached or emotional or negative or angry to these situations. We can instead be grateful for them. So I'm grateful it worked out. And has it been chaotic? Yes, absolutely. I'm jumping on a flight tomorrow to Orlando, which was unexpected. I'm giving a talk during the day, I have a speech during the day, then I'm going right to a flight that was not anticipated and juggling with my son and all of my meetings. And I'm taking the first flight out the next morning at the crack of dawn so I can be back from my meetings in Miami. And then I'm heading to New York next week. So there's a lot happening in this. Listen, it wasn't planned perfectly, but here's what I know. When you show up for people, when you make it raid, when you make it happen, even at the last minute, people know and feel your conviction and your commitment. And if you're gonna do something, be all in, right? Be committed to it. Make it happen. This is an important partnership. This is a big opportunity. It's a really cool opportunity for us. I want my clients to know you're a priority. I want my clients to know that, listen, when it's possible, it's not always gonna be possible, but when it is, I'm gonna make it happen. And I'm jumping on this and turning it around. So it's gonna be an exciting week. And in this new mindset that I have with 2024, step into fear on the regular. More and more than ever, I think I had shared with you. A couple of months ago, I was asked to attend a dinner called the Influencer Dinner in New York City, which is put on by a very well known TED speaker who each month of the year holds a curated dinner of 12 individuals that are either politicians or social media influencers or celebrities or Nobel Prize winners or some influential list in some regard. I haven't gone yet, so I don't know exactly. There's not a lot of information. Okay. So I had to google it. I did see it was in the New York Times, so I know it's a legit thing. Anyhow, the bottom line is this. I couldn't go last month. They told me that I could come this month instead. So I am heading to New York next week. I've got meetings out there as well. But this is the thing I'm really excited about is to go to this Influencer Dinner not knowing what I'm walking into, not knowing the person's home I'm going into. I just received the address. It's so cloak and dagger. It's so out of my comfort zone and we are jumping on it and I can't wait to tell you I have no idea the benefit or value or who I'm going to meet or if this is worth doing. Of course I will be secretly giving this address to one of my friends so that somebody knows where I am and it isn't a complete mystery. But I can't wait to get back to you next week and let you know what happened. Keep stepping into fear, Keep stepping into new opportunity. Keep stepping into possibility. You never know what can happen.

Okay?

So wish me luck. I'm wishing you luck this week. I'm wishing big things happening for you. Step into the possibility, step into the opportunity. And as always, we respond. We do not react with all the grace and class within us. I will see you again this week with a second solo. Let me know what you think about that. Let me know if that works for you. If you like it, if you don't like it. I want to make sure this show brings you value. If there's a topic you want me to cover, just let me know what it is and I am on it. And if you could share the show with one person, it'll mean all of the difference. It makes such a difference to me. It helps so much. Building our audience, building our community. And if you share it on social media, always repost re tag and I appreciate you. Here's to an amazing 2024. 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. I'm on this journey with me.