#73: Pitching the Right Thing, at the Wrong Table: The First Solo Talk with Heather Monahan

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. I am so excited that you are here with me again today. Thank you so much. Means the world to me. Okay, so I have to dig into one of my coaching clients I've been working with for the past 90 days. I'm so blown away by this woman and what she has accomplished. It is truly mind blowing. I'm going to give you a little backstory and I definitely know you will be able to learn something from this or take something away or just be inspired as to what you can accomplish in 90 days. Because that's how I walk away from my last meeting with her and is knowing that, holy cow, she could get this done in 90 days. You know, I need to hold myself to a higher standard and push myself to step into more fear and go for more and ask for more because we all deserve it and we're leaving it on the table. So I met this woman, she came to us from here from the podcast, which is so great. And you know, I just gotta give it to you. She was definitely self deprecating, Definitely, definitely so tough on herself. Really smart, super talented individual in a very niche business, which is amazing. However, she was undervaluing herself and interestingly enough, before the pandemic hit, business just came to her through word of mouth, just was funneled to her because she's one of the only experts that are out in her field. So she just got business by default. That sounds great in theory. It is not great in business and let me tell you why. When things just come to you by accident and default, there's no strategy, there's no pipeline, there's no top of funnel, there's no metrics you can evaluate and tweak in order to accelerate business when you need it. Right? So when the pandemic hit, business went away 100%. She lost all of her business. People shut their doors and just said for right now, we're holding. She didn't have any type of business model that she could manipulate to spin business up. Probably one of the reasons why she ended up coming to work with me. Thank goodness she did. So it's crazy. So anyhow, she was petrified on some levels. Right. Because now there's external forces affecting her business. She had never experienced that before. She didn't know how to spin up a business model overnight. Understood. Right. She never had to before. I get it. So luckily now she's got one. Ninety days later, it's working and she's billing big money. I'm so proud of her. I don't want to get into too much detail around that, but she's killing it. I'm so, so proud of her. And it's so exciting to see. And she's calm. That was the big takeaway for me yesterday too. She's figured out the model, she's implemented the model, the model's working. She feels confident in the model and in herself and she finally feels calm. And she, 90 days ago, super important to know she was not calm. And when we're not thinking calm and I've been there, oh my gosh, I'm still back and forth there. I have to keep it real with you. I have plenty of days. I'm not calm either and I'm panicked. But we all know this. When we're not calm, we're not at our best, we're not our most creative. We don't make the best decisions because we feel desperate to take things, desperate to do something. Even though we know we don't have time. We feel that we have to get everything done because we don't know which is the right decision. And that is not going to set us up for success. However, getting out of that window of time can be challenging because you don't see what that right next step is or that that right next avenue. Luckily now for my client, we do have a model in place where she doesn't feel that pressure. So when you find yourself in those situations, either tap someone that's ahead of you, tap someone that's an expert in the field that you need assistance in, or take a step back from yourself and reevaluate. When you've been in a position like this before, what were some of the steps that you took to get yourself out of it? You know, putting yourself first, getting enough sleep, working out, whatever, some of the real baseline things you can do because the sooner you can get calm and get outside of that storm of panic and despair, the better you're going to be. The better things around you will be. So 90 days ago, she was in pure panic mode and I loved her. She's. I still love this woman and I'm still working with her. She's the best. However, you know, she's got this great personality, but she was so, so tough on herself. She had been super self aware and known that and came into my first meeting with her, letting me know, hey, I've done a lot of work on myself over the past few years to elevate my voice and start positioning myself as the expert I am. However, I still struggle with it. You know, it's still an issue for me. So we definitely worked on shining her light, owning her awards. That was something that was tough for her. And we looked at that reframe that I went through a few years ago, which was inspired. Instead of making it about me, and, oh, I shouldn't shine a light on me, and I shouldn't share my awards. Instead, looking at who can I help with their challenges if I do share that. I won an award. And I always go back to this one example of an assistant. I had that broadcast a speech I was giving when I was accepting an award, and I didn't know it was happening. And she was sending it live to Facebook. And when I got out of there that day, I had so many messages from people saying, I'm so inspired that as a single mother, you can do this. And it inspires me to go for more. Thank you for this gift you gave me. And here I was. I didn't give any gift because I would never have let her do that. I would have been embarrassed, thinking, oh, people are gonna think I'm so great or so full of myself. I had to reframe it. And that opportunity that my assistant gave me in that moment allowed me to reframe. It's not about me. I'm not sharing something about, you know, beating people over the head. Oh, Heather's great. No, what it was was an opportunity to share. I've worked my butt off for things, and I'm getting recognized for it, and it feels really good. Cause I'm super proud of the hard work and the great things that I've done. I'm really proud of it. But I also want you to know you can do these same things too. Cause I didn't have that person to look to when I was younger. And if I can be that person for someone now in a similar circumstance, that means the world to me. And that's really where your passion and your purpose and your work and everything connect. So she and I had been working on that reframe for her, specifically around. She won a major international award, and she'd been hiding it. And it was so cool to see yesterday on Zoom with her. She has found a way to position that award in her Zoom video because she's doing a lot of virtual speeches and a lot of keynotes virtually. And now she's got her massive, completely amazing award featured in her shot with her. And I'm so proud of her because what that signifies to me is she's no longer embarrassed of who she is, ashamed of what she's accomplished. Instead, she's claiming these great things she's done and putting them to work for her. Not only does that further show that she's an expert or further give her more credibility, but it's also gonna inspire a lot of people to what they can achieve, just like she did. So definitely think about that. Reframe the next time that you think of. Oh, I'll look like I'm bragging. No, maybe you should stop making it about you and make it about helping others and inspiring others. And if you can inspire one person, will it be worth it? Heck freaking yeah, it is. Okay, so I'm super proud of her that she's been able to, over the last 90 days, start elevating herself, start shining a light on herself. And also we really worked on focus and focusing exclusively on revenue, which was hard for her. She did not like the idea of sales revenue. Remember, business just used to come to her. It was just word of mouth. She didn't have to sell herself. That's a broken business model. So we repaired that old business by chance model with a strategic model where she was taking every opportunity, whether it be a keynote, whether it be an inquiry where someone wanted to do a discovery call. Everything was about conversion. Where can we put these people in the pipeline of top of funnel, middle funnel, end of funnel, and how can we get them to close and how can we accelerate that process? How can we better qualify people? How can we ensure we're dealing with the decision maker? And how can we position her as not only an expert, but someone that needs to be hired? Right now we live in a world where people are not doing business on want, they are doing business on need. Her industry is really interesting because it's around cybersecurity, fraud, and all of that really gives us an opportunity from a marketing standpoint to tap into fear and fear. Fear is a driver for people to take action on a need basis. Right. So any way you can reframe your services and an emotional connection with people so they feel they need your services. That's a great way to get people to take action. So we've worked on how can we reframe some of her virtual webinars that she does to take people through, where she's still teaching and helping and supporting people, but in the end, she's converting them into Clients and right. The end has to be that conversion. And you can set it up from the beginning, right? Here's who I am, here's why you need to hire me, here's you know, what I'm teaching you. And at the end, if you'd like to see how much money I can save you, click here to, you know, for a free discovery call where we can discuss how much money you're leaving on the table or whatever that may be. So she's done a phenomenal job of that. So she started creating and pulling more business to herself in a very strategic way, which is fantastic. And now she's moving people through the funnel. She's feeling more confident, she's positioning herself in a better way. Well, last week we had our weekly call together and she says to me, you know, I built these other products and services that I really don't have time to deal with anymore, Heather, I need to start saying no to things. So that was a big piece for her, was to say no to the business model, that it was a low ticket model. She wasn't really interested in it anymore. It wasn't as savvy as some of the higher level things, bigger ticket things she's been doing. So she decided to start focusing on the high ticket products and services she had. So always reevaluate your products and services and where is your time best spent. I talked to her about the grief to gross ratio. Right. So if there's a lot of work going in for small ticket items, that's not a great business model. If there's a little work going in for a high ticket item, hello, you're calling to me. You are my people. That's where we want to spend our time. So she put it out to me. She said, I want to get out of this lower end business somehow I want to license what I've built to somebody else somehow I want to sell it to someone else somehow I want to monetize what I've created. However, I don't want to be in the the weeds with it every day. I want to separate from it. So we talked about a couple of different ways that she could do that. Through affiliate programs, through licensing, through selling that business off. And in the end she said, but there's these two companies I'm looking at. I just don't feel aligned with them because. So we both agreed, if you don't feel good about them, you know, let's just put it out to the universe that you're going to continue to work on Monetizing this model, stepping away from it, saying no to this stuff moving forward, but that you haven't found the right partner yet. Well, wouldn't you know, she did that last week and in the past week she's had two amazing opportunities spin up of people who she does align with that are interested in either licensing or having her as a consultant or working to advise a completely new business where she would make money from the stuff that she's created. She would monetize and not be in the weeds on it. She would advise and work with people from a distance that she does align with and feel excited about working with. So it would get her out of the weeds, it would make her money and she would feel good about doing good again. She put it out to the universe. She decided to say no to something that she would have said yes to previously. So she got away from being desperate and created those boundaries, said no to something she didn't feel right about, listened to her intuition, which is super important and essentially created an opportunity for the right opportunity to move in. That is not the end of it though. This is what was so cool. I always take notes when I talk to my clients when they're telling me stories of what happens because sometimes I see opportunity that they might not see when they're in the weeds. Know on the calls, in the meetings. And so yesterday she's telling me about this really high level call with a head of a huge publishing house. I mean huge, billions of dollars. The person's on the call with her, she wasn't intimidated, she was in her flow, going through, you know, what she could do for the company. And at the end of the call, this really high level executive says, wow, I'm blown away by this conversation today. Really appreciate your time, would love to work with with you again in the future. And so I'm writing down, follow up with him directly. I'm writing in my notes. Anyhow, at the end of this conversation she says, oh, and I want to tell you one other thing. So I'm drafting this email to follow up with this high level executive. I said what? She said, oh yeah, I'm drafting an email so I can see that opportunity. He opened a door for opportunity. I'm going to go right in there and pursue that opportunity for more business, push this man into the pipeline and funnel. I hold up my sheet, my notes and I show her that's what I just wrote. And it was just one of those aha moments where 90 days ago she wasn't approaching her business with confidence. She wasn't seeing the opportunities. And now she was ahead of where I would even think she would be. It was just. It was such an aha moment. Not only did she identify the opportunity, not only did she see it, but she was already capitalizing it and converting it. Because she believes in herself, because she believes in her business. Because she's taken. Taken a step back from the things that were slowing her down to focus on the bigger picture opportunity. Because she's worth it. So good. And then this is the end of her story that we'll go through today. But another great thing that she did, it's important to note, is for another meeting, she had. She had been asked, hey, do you think you could add value to this project or what we're doing? She took a step back to prepare for the meeting, which we should always do. And she shared with me. She hadn't been preparing for meetings much. Cause she was just winging it. And business had been just coming to her.

She.

So even when you're an expert in a field, it's great to sit down, you know, take 15, 20 minutes and jot down notes and look at what people's pain points are, what their challenges are. Put yourself in their shoes. Really be empathetic to their situation. Make it about them. That's one of the most important things about sales is understanding what their challenges are and what pain point you're gonna fix for them, how you're gonna solve a problem for them. She did that exercise on her own before her big meeting. She mapped out what their pain points were, what their problems were. She completely understood them, and she decided to approach the call in that regard. How well do you think that call went? She said, that client just sat there saying, yes, oh my gosh, you understand me. And remember, one of the most important things for someone is to truly be heard and felt understood. And that's so powerful, it elicits dopamine in the other person's brain being released, right? It creates trust. It creates. Creates this sense of understanding that's so huge. So she approached it completely, right? And she approached it in a way that I'm going to help this person. I'm going to let them know I understand them, I know where their pain points are, I know what hurts, and I know how to fix it. And so, of course, wouldn't you know she's going to land this deal, clearly. And she says to me, how would you structure this? And I asked her one question. I said, how would that best suit you? How would it work? Best for you. Ask yourself that instead of what is best for them. Because for a long time, she'd just been thinking out of desperation, how can I get this done? How can I do this? And instead, yesterday approaching it, how is this best for you? Because the more we can set herself and her life up for success, the better job she can do for her clients and for her family and for herself. And so that was sort of a new way for her to approach things. I'm so proud of her 90 days. She went from 90 days zero pipeline, not billing anything, to nearly back to where she was before the pandemic, but feeling so confident and now having a strategic business model in place, all because she's learned how to say no to what she doesn't want, how to say yes to what she does want, and how to continue to elevate herself and go to that next level by putting it out there and going after it. She could do this. So can you. Hang tight. We'll be right back. Hi, and welcome back. So, okay, this is kind of crazy. Totally out of expected. And I never thought that I would do this, I have to tell you, but there's a lot of people that just turn on a microphone and they just talk. They don't interview people. When I was thinking about launching a podcast, I thought all podcasts were. Were you interviewing somebody?

Right.

Well, then, as time has gone on, as podcast one structured my show with the intro piece, the interview piece, and the Q and A at the end, that was their advisement to me on how they wanted the show structured. Super smart. I've gotten great feedback on it, so I'm really grateful that they did that for me. However, I've heard more and more of a lot of podcast hosts. It's just them talking, right? And I never thought I would do that, but today, this is so typical me, right? If it's out of your comfort zone, if you never thought you'd do it, you need to go do it. You have to. And here's the thing. In business and in life, you have to test things, right? Like, if you always just do the same workout, you're just gonna have those same results. If you always implement the same strategy, you're just gonna get those same results. If you wanna get better, get bigger, learn and grow, you have to do things differently. So today, my guest on my show is me. Oh, hello, Heather. So I just thought, you know, maybe I should test and see. Yes, of course I'm gonna still have great guests, and I'm swinging for the fences to get the biggest and best people for you to meet every week so that we can all learn from them. However, I also wanted to see what does it look like? What is the feedback like when I do it differently? And so today I'm not bringing a guest on, I'm the guest. So weird and I never thought I'd do that. So I always like trying something different, testing things different. Would love to hear the feedback from you as well on what you think of that because I'm here for you. We're in this together. Okay, so where do I even begin? I want to share at a high level some of my story with you in case you don't know it and in case you do, just to revisit and remind you that no one has this thing on lock. No one's life is seamlessly perfect or easy, regardless of what it looks like. It's that time of year again.

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Free on the outside and I was reminded about that. So bizarre what's happened in the past week. This is so surreal. And this is one of those examples in my life that I need to be patient. I am not patient at all and that's a blessing and a curse. But because I move super fast and break things, I test things. I'm always reaching out, taking action, trying to innovate, trying to reinvent new ways, figure out a better way to slice the bread, whatever it may be. And every once in a while I am reminded, oh, sometimes I have to be patient too. And that's hard for me. So I don't know about you, but patience has deluded me my whole life and I was hit over the head with it this week. So here's what happened. I have to back it up first. So as you probably know, I used to be a Chief revenue officer at a media company. I was there for 14 years. Promoted multiple times, led the team through more than doubling company revenues in excess of 200 million a year annually. I mean, I did some major things, won a lot of awards, blah, blah, blah. I was named one of the most influential women in radio in July of 2017, and two weeks later I was fired. When the CEO I worked for for 14 years became ill, he promoted his daughter to replace him. She clearly was not a fan. So that's sort of the story there. Well, during that time, listen, I knew I was in a toxic environment. I knew that that woman hated me. I felt it every day. You know when someone really doesn't like you and is trying to sabotage you, you see it. I knew it. It was awful. I was losing my hair. You know, my body was crying out to me that something is wrong. I ended up throwing my back out. It was really bad. The stress was off the charts well before we got there. Right. That was 2017, probably three years before that. Things were not as bad with that woman. It really intensified a year before I got fired because I launched my personal brand, which, thank God I did that. It was so hard of a decision at the time. I knew it was gonna ruffle feathers. I knew me shining my light was going to piss some people off. Oh, and I knew the ones that would. It was the GC and the cfo. And it did. However, I look back now, and that was the freaking smartest thing I did. Scariest, ballsiest. But I'm light years ahead of now, four years later, where I would have been had I not done that. And I was actually. I did a virtual speech for a big media company this weekend. They asked me to speak about personal branding and LinkedIn and driving revenue in business. And it all points back to that launch that I launched my brand back in 2016. And I started with no following and no likes, no shares, whatever. But thankfully, the more I stepped into really being myself over the past four years and being real on my posts and through social media, my social media, specifically on LinkedIn, has really taken off. It's been huge driver for revenue for me, business for me, and I'm so grateful for it. So, listen, whatever that big scary goal is that you have that you're thinking about in the back of your mind, now is a time to do it. If four years ago was the right time, now is the only time you've got to go for it. When I look back, I regret I didn't do that sooner. I don't regret that I did it, and that ultimately got me fired. Right. So none of this has been easy. Getting fired stunk. It's literally like getting punched in the gut multiple times every time you wake up. It was just awful because I didn't know what I was going to do. And now that I have clarity, now that I have perspective, now that I've had that Runway of the last few years, I see like, when. When you look back, you can connect the dots, right? But you can't when you're in it back. July 27, 2017. The day I got fired, I didn't know what was going to happen, and it was so freaking scary. However, I knew a couple of years leading up to that that I shouldn't be at that company anymore. I had outgrown that company. And when you've outgrown a situation and you know you're in a bad situation and people are trying to hold you back, you have got to find a way to fire your villains and get the heck out of there. You will take off when you give yourself the opportunity. Thankfully, that woman gave it to me on July 27, 2017. Okay. As I was saying a few years before that, I was very frustrated at work. Shocker. I'm always looking to innovate, to grow and push boundaries in business. And I came to the CEO with this huge presentation and deck. Now we're going back probably seven or eight years ago. I had worked so hard on it, and it was basically a pitch to reimagine the company that I was in charge of sales and revenue for. And they'd always only sold one product, and that was radio advertising. I went in with a presentation and pitch on how we could diversify revenue streams, how we could move the business to digital, move the company to an online model with multiple streams. It was so smart. I was ahead of my time. I knew I was going to be met with resistance. I'm so proud of me. I need to go find that deck. It's probably super funny. Probably is on my computer, too. By the way, this thing runs so flipping slow because I've kept everything under the sun on it. Anyhow, I went in to the CEO and the executive team. I got up to do my presentation. Super interesting. The CEO was, gosh, in his 80s, and within 15 minutes, he just said, yes, I get it, Heather. And I was so shocked. It was good that I had done all that work and I created this huge presentation. I had prepped people in the room ahead of time. I really done my Work, because I knew this was so different. But he just got it from a business perspective within 15 minutes and said yes to me. Anyhow, the CFO ended up being the one that got the opportunity to run with the concept, which was total bs. She got the green light to bring in somebody outside of the company, which was total bs. It was my idea. It was my initiative. I totally should. Whatever. Obviously, I was in a toxic situation even before I knew I was. She ends up failing with it. Let's just cut to the chase. But. So during all this time, I was so confused. I was thinking, this was my idea. I put my neck out there. I came up with the whole business plan. I came up with the pitch. I need to be running this whole new division. I ended up running it, by the way. So in that window, I thought, there's a problem. I don't know how to address it because I wasn't the CFO's boss. The CEO was giving everything to his daughter. And I was thinking, she doesn't have the business acumen. She's on the financial side. She doesn't know how to run operations. This isn't her expertise. This is my idea. This is my expertise. I've been running operations my entire career. So I thought, this is just so weird. So I would go home at night and say, okay, challenge yourself, Heather. How can you figure this out? God, I should have just quit back then. But anyhow, red flags everywhere, and I was not seeing them. So I thought, you know what? I know how I can fix it this. If I can get on the board of directors, I can fix this. So I was very close to the president of the company that was the CEO's son. And really, he was my wingman. He and I were left hand, right hand my entire 14 years there and got along really well. So I went to him in total confidence and I said, listen, I've got a problem. Let me lay it out for you. This is bs. You know it, I know it. We all know I need to be running this, and I'm the only person that can pull it off. I had the respect of the team. I had the understanding, I had the contacts. Like, hello, this is my thing. And he said, yeah. Off record, he's like, yeah, of course you should be. But whatever he's giving, he said, my dad's giving her a shot with this. So knowing that, I said, listen, here's what I'm proposing right now. The board is comprised entirely of your father's college roommates and college friends. Every single Flipping person on the board is either a blood relative of you or in their 80s. I was a shareholder in the company. Obviously I had equity in the company. I said, as a shareholder, I've got a real problem with this. And as a leader in this company and executive in this company, the highest level, I have a problem with this. This company needs to innovate. I am freaking champion for innovation. I am the change maker. I have delivered and over delivered on every expectation you've ever put on me, all my goals, and I'm your girl. I need to be on the board. You know, he was great. He said, yeah, number one, I was asking someone to give me a yes that could not give me a yes. He was not the ultimate decision maker. Wrong move, Heather. But I was trying to prep and pave the way for what I wanted. I wanted to be on the board. I deserved it. I warranted a board seat. So he says, yes, let me talk to my father. So he talks to his father and his father's like, well, you know, we'll think about it. You know, just basically blows me off. This went on for two or three years until I finally got fired. I was constantly pitching myself to get on the board. In my mind, that solved the problem that would get her out of my way so I could get my work done and, you know, I would have a stronger voice and I would be able to have more impact in the direction of the company. I never got the board seat. I totally deserved the board seat. Anyhow, I did end up getting the digital division. Did she ran with it, failed. They handed it back to me, asked me to fix it and run it, and I did. And it went great until I got fired. I have no idea how it's going now, nor do I care anyhow. So I walked away from that situation obviously saying, okay, number one, where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do? Who am I gonna work for? You know, that whole thing that I went through when I first got fired and then I decided to become an author, and then I decided to become a speaker, and then I decided to become a podcast host, and then I decided to give my TEDx talk. And then the pandemic hit and then I had to reboot everything because everything went out the flipping window. And I decided to relaunch myself as a consultant and as an executive coach and create more of a virtual business with my video programs and blah, blah, blah. Okay, so all this is happening. And this is so bizarre. And so years before, I had been pitching myself for a Board position at this point in time, from now, must have been five years ago, six years ago, that I was pitching myself for that and then continuously did until I got fired. But then I forgot about it. It just wasn't even on my radar anymore. I wasn't going to be pitching myself for board positions just randomly. I just didn't really. I didn't really. I guess once in a while I'd think about it and have conversations with people, but there was no direct initiative like how I was so, you know, pitching myself years ago. Well, someone shows up for one of my coaching programs. He's actually a board member on a lot of different companies. And he says to me on one of our meetings, hey, you know, would you ever be interested in being a board member? You bring a lot of value around operations, revenue generation, you know, and social media, digital media, etc. I said, yeah. Oh my gosh, for years I was pitching myself for this. Yeah, I'm. I'm your girl. I'm the person that should be on boards. And now, of course, anytime you haven't held a position previously, there's that wonder of, you know, once you have one, it's so easy to get a lot more. And I liken that to when I wanted to get an agent in the speaking world, right, I had to get one. But once I landed one, and I'll never forget, I landed Harry Walker Speaker Agency first. Once I got one, I leveraged that one to get 15. And so it's always hardest to get that first domino to fall. But then the dominoes start knocking each other down. Well, I give it a little push, let's be honest. So he and I have this conversation and this is, oh my gosh, probably three months ago. And he says, yeah, I think I'd like to recommend you, you'll have to meet the CEO and founder and he'll have to approve it. However, think that you could really add a lot of value and that you would enjoy it. It'd be great use of your time and it's a great comp program. You'll have equity in the company, et cetera. So. So we had this conversation months ago. I said, I'm all in, you know, definitely, like, I was made to do this. Let's go. And then crickets, you know, he was in my program for a month and then moved on doing a bunch of different things, Was busy and was not in it anymore. And I didn't hear from him. You know, I was bummed out. I thought, wow, that was a great Opportunity. But, oh well, guess it just didn't happen. Crickets, you know, move on, Heather. Work on your next initiative. And so I did just that. And then wouldn't, you know, randomly just got a phone call from him a week and a half ago and he said, hey, we want to get on a meeting. You know, first they asked for a face to face meeting, but my son's in zoom school and I can't leave my child all day long locked up in an apartment while I go driving around the state of Florida for in person meetings. So I declined. I said, I can't do that. We ended up setting up a zoom meeting. Zoom meeting went fantastic. With the founder. It was very clear that my expertise adds tremendous value to them. While the person that I was dealing with is strong in financials and a strong cfo, that's not my wheelhouse. The founder, strong in medicine and in the technology that they've created. They have no one that has strengths in revenue, no one that has strengths in social media, no one that has strengths in marketing, you know, everything that I've done my entire career. So it was very clear within the one hour long conversation that I was the right fit. So the meeting goes great. Simultaneously, this is where it's so bizarre. I get a phone call asking if I would be interested in taking a board seat on another company. It was so flipping bizarre. And so I get on a call with the founder of that company. It's an international company. Cargo's extremely well. He asked to have another call with me the next day. Call goes extremely well and he verbalizes that he, he'd like to add me to the board. So it's so weird that at different times you might have an initiative or a goal like I did back six years ago. I saw that I should be on that board. I deserved it, warranted. I was going to add value, upgrade and up level what was happening. However, since I had never been on one, you know, I was told, well, you've never, you don't have the experience, you know, you've never been on one, you know, we're not going to make those changes. I was in the wrong place pitching the right thing, if that makes sense. So you have to look at, you know, where you are. And the problem for me is that because I wasn't recognizing that I was in the wrong place, I stopped pitching that even though I knew I warranted, even though I knew I could add value to any company. I'm sure I stopped pitching that or even thinking about it because I Just thought, oh, you know, that just didn't work out. I was pitching the right thing in the wrong place. And you're never going to make that work when you have toxic people trying to hold you back, sabotage you, set you up. That was the real problem I had. That's why I ended up getting fired. But I should have been added to that board. And I just had this realization in this last week when serendipitously, these two opportunities happen at exactly the same time. Now, I haven't signed a deal yet on either one, so. So I'll circle back with you when the baby's born. We don't want to celebrate quite yet, but it looks like basically, you know, this year, over the next month or two months, these two deals will come to fruition and I will be able to help these companies and this will be great because again, just like getting the first speaker agent, once you have a board seat, it's so much easier to market and position yourself for others moving forward. So that's new revenue stream and that's that next level of expertise. Right? So you just continue to position yourself and shine a light on these great things that you're doing and diversify your revenue and just feel better positioned and in a better business plan and stronger mindset that you approach things from. So I wanted to share that with you that if you've pitched yourself for things before, but you've been pitching them in the wrong position, in the wrong company to the wrong people, don't give up on that idea of where you see your value add because your value adds is still there. You just might be pitching it in the wrong place. And I was and I forgot about it. And I don't know how in the world this played out so serendipitously with both of these opportunities coming to me within two weeks of each other. After I had years of pitching this and not hearing anything good back, you know, just hearing that, no, you can't have this opportunity, no, it's not for you. So don't give up when you see and know your value and keep evaluating. Am I talking to the right people about it? Am I in the right industry? Am I at the right table? Am I with the right people? Are there any people around here that don't see my value or are setting me up for failure? And if so, it's time to leave this table and join a table where people are open minded and available to hear what you have to offer. And that's the table that I feel like I'm finally sitting at it's kind of crazy so I had to share that story with you. Hope it resonated and hope that you make sure you're sitting at the right table. Hold tight. We'll be right back. I asked you to try to find your passion. Hi and welcome back. Okay, I hope you enjoyed my guest Heather Monahan today. How funny is that? Please let me know. Did you like this episode or should I scrap this model or should I mix it in once in a while?

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Wait to hear back from you. Okay, I got so many questions this week, I can't even get to them all, but I'm gonna hit a few right now. Okay? This came to me on LinkedIn. Hey Heather. I have not responded because I wasn't sure if this was you or your assistant. Sometimes I send out messages to people checking in on how business is going for them, she says. We met at a CRO conference three years ago when I was just about to be fired. And you were fired right after that. Hello. That's a tough pill to swallow. I thought your sales presentation was great, by the way. I did. I was a speaker at this event that day. What impresses me most now is how your business, your brand, and you have taken off. I ordered your book, blah blah blah. I was one of your beta testers for your course, and in three years you've played a huge role in success and you've won. And while I know that comparison is deadly, I can't help but notice in the same three years I have played small and I'm losing. I've always generated revenue and found money. That's my gift. But right now, if something doesn't happen, I could lose everything. Getting over that fear of not being vanilla enough and caring what others think about me has been a monumental task. I'm finishing your book and your course. I can't afford to work with you right now one on one, but that is my hope to do that at some point. Your words mean a lot to me. If I had one ask, it would be this. If you take on pro bono clients, I would want to be that one. Okay, so this is so interesting, and I so appreciate this woman reaching out and sharing that story with me. That's so crazy that we were at that same conference together and then we both got fired right thereafter. So bizarre and so unexpected. So here's the thing. Here's what I hear her saying, which is that, number one, she sees me as someone who's made it and succeeded. And you guys know me better than that. It's like up and down, up and down, you know? And then Covid hit and everything disappeared, and now I'm rebuilding. The more you keep stepping into these things, I'm so. I guess my point is I'm so much stronger today now than I was three years ago, right, when I got fired, because I hadn't been stepping into uncertainty. I had been living in that, you know, well lit corporate America world. So I had to sound so cliche, but get more familiar with uncomfortable, right? And I've done that in the last three years. I've learned, okay, when it hits the fan, don't freak out. Get on your peloton bike, go for a run, do the things that allow you to start thinking creatively. Think about what people ask you for, think about what you like to do, think about how you can add value and then take massive action and go for it. And that's basically what I did when I wrote my book. It's basically what I did when I launched my speaker career. It's basically what I did when I launched my podcast. It's what I did when Covid happened. Right? So I guess my message to this woman who I so. And thank you for your support and feedback that you sent me in your note is that here's the thing. None of this was flipping easy. And if you're looking back on your last three years and saying, oh, I wish I had done what Heather did then, if 3 years ago is the best time, now is your only time. There isn't an alternative. Playing small is not paying off for you. You see that? You wrote that to me. You know that what I've done isn't brilliant or miraculous. It's hard freaking work. It's scary. But what is more scary is not doing it. So that's my challenge to you, is that don't fall back into what isn't working for you. Playing small is not working for you. You already know that. We see that it didn't pay off. However, you now know what you need to do, which is step into fear. Fear is the green light. That means go. There is no other alternative. Get moving. Okay, that's my message to you and I can't wait to hear. You're gonna kill it. Like, you know how to find revenue. You know how to make it happen. Like, this is your wake up call. Go. She's. I'm about to go on a tangent. Okay, here we go. Here's another message I got on LinkedIn. Hey, I just watched your TedX talk. Well, it did get promoted to Ted. I call it a TED Talk now, by the way. I don't even know if that's legal that I do that, but I believe it is. Okay. And I'm literally speechless. I seen the link for a million times in my feed, but I never took the time to watch. I decided it was time to stop and look at some of the content I passed by. So imagine my surprise watching your talk. You should know I'm an accomplished sales leader. I've won every award out there for a very prestigious company, which I am not going to share, but it's very impressive. Much bigger than the one I was with. I'm an advocate for women. I believe in lifting others up. But I was fired in March after delivering the highest revenue for my huge team by a female villain. Oh, look at that movie. God, we need a movie made out of this.

What the heck?

Who is going to help me make a movie, by the way, out of my book? I need that to happen. So there's a lot more. To me, I'm a mom, but those are all points at the forefront of my mind. I'm allowing what happened to me to define me and diminish me. I am slowly getting back up and standing a little taller each day. But it's not easy. I've joined a startup and accepted an equity partnership, which is super exciting. So she's in a new world she knows nothing about. She's a rookie. I got you. I'm so a rookie every day. Needless to say, I'm petrified, of course, because it's unknown and it's uncomfortable and you are comfortable and familiar in that environment you were in before. However, something clicked today after watching you. And I wanted you to know today is the tallest I've stood in a long time. This is. Oh, gosh, I literally could cry. I'll tell you, this is the difference between in my old life, I just would make rich people richer, and now today in my new life, I make good people feel better. I teach good people how to take steps in action to better their themselves in their life and their business. And that touches my heart. It's that Ekagi. I don't remember how to say it, but I write about it. My book, Confidence Creator. It's where passion, purpose, monetization, work, effort, all come together as one. You're doing good, you're getting paid for it, you're valued, you're helping others, and you feel amazing. And for so long, I didn't feel like that in corporate America. And I spent so long, so much time in charity work outside of corporate America trying to find that feel good. And now what I do for a living is feel good. That's so bizarre to me. And I can't believe it's taken me three years to figure that out, how to pull it all together. And I'm finally freaking getting there. And I want everyone to have that. I don't just want a small few to have it. I want everyone to have that in their life. So, number one, I'm so proud of this woman. Listen, I get it. It's is so scary to go from a land and a space that you're an expert in and that you've got all the contacts in and that you're familiar with, right? That's your routine. I get it that it's super hard to be catapulted out of there by some jackball and be angry and hurt and devastated and then say, okay, I'm gonna step into the space over here and close my eyes and go for it. Not knowing if those stairs will appear before you. They will. I am here to tell you they will. The more you step forward, the more you see that whole staircase, the more the next step reveals itself. But you have to step out when you don't see anything. That's how you figure it out. That is a guarantee. And the more you believe in yourself and believe that next step is going to appear, the faster it appears. So, so start putting it out there that you're gonna kill it at this equity partnership opportunity at this startup, that you're gonna move fast and break things and no, every day won't be easy, but it's gonna be exciting. And you're building something and you're stepping out into your unknown, which is gonna reveal so much greatness about you that you haven't found yet. So excited for this woman. I'm a big baby today. Okay, let's see the next one. Hey, Heather. Hope all is well. We've Talked previously through my work at. I'm not gonna say where it is. I've seen a lot of your presentations, find them inspiring. However, right now, I'm in a bit of a rut. It's okay. It's Covid. I get you. I got you. I've been there. And I alternate in and out of ruts during COVID myself. I wanted to reach out and ask, how do you get people to see your potential and not be afraid of the things you are capable of doing first and foremost? I'm not even gonna read the rest of her stuff yet. If you don't see your own potential, no one else will. Let me say that again. If you aren't realizing your own potential, why would anyone else see it? So start with you. Start with you. Write down your resume, take a look at the feedback and testimonials you get from people with the great jobs that you do. Appreciate all that you have achieved. Because once you really begin to say, wow, I really am worth it, Wow, I really have have done so much. Draw out the timeline of your life and see all that you have done and really feel proud of you. Okay? So that's the first thing that I would do and I would compile. I have my fam Love folder on my phone and I revisit that anytime I question my self worth or my value. You must see your value first. Then I would practice. You know, if you're pitching yourself for a job, you're going for an opportunity. Practice, stand in the mirror, video yourself, and put yourself in the other person's shoes, right? So if you're trying to convince someone of something, understand where they're coming from, understand the problem that you solve, understand what is unique about you, what is your unique value proposition? Why you? You have to answer these questions, right? And you need to come at these questions and to these meetings from a place of confidence. If you walk in extremely confident that you are the only person for that opportunity, then you will convey that. But if you don't, if you're shrinking back, if you're not standing tall, if you haven't practiced, if you haven't revisited all that you've done, if you aren't feeling like a million bucks, if you're not firing up that playlist that reminds you that, oh yeah, you're about to go get this job, you're about to crush this meeting, then you won't step in there like you will. So, you know, and I talk about this with my TED talk, I went and visited the location ahead of time. I saw myself on that sc. Did I panic that day? Heck, yeah. But when it came to the moment that I was going to walk out to that red circle, I removed all the pressure from me and I said, if you don't walk out there, you're never going to forgive yourself. And if you walk out there, even if you blow it, I'm going to be so proud of you, Heather. Go. And I did. And I killed it. But I killed it because I practiced so much. I killed it because I saw myself killing it ahead of time. I killed it because I visited that venue weeks in a day. I killed it because I tapped Amy Morin ahead of time and asked for her help. I killed it because I tapped a speaker trainer and had her work with me. There's so much that went in behind the scenes on that. I wrote that talk out three different times. I posted my power moments all around my apartment. I put the work in. And you can put the work in, too. So don't think that miraculously I just show up confident every day. No, it's work. It's a choice. It's work. I put it out to the universe. I know the steps I need to take. I write on my shoes. I can. I will. I listen to my playlist, I look at the things I've accomplished and I feel super proud. I reconnect with my why, you know, these are all things anyone can do. Are they easy?

Nope.

Do they take time? Yep. Is it a choice? Ab so freaking lootly. Okay. She goes on to say, I ran for a position in the government and was told I'm too young. But I ran anyway and I only lost by three votes. Then I applied for another big position and was told that I have the passion, energy and drive. But do not be surprised if you are not picked. Oh, that's such a nice person. I need some perspective and clarity if you can provide it, so. What a jerk. Gosh. First of all, whoever said that to you, I'd ask them. Why do you say that? I'm curious. Like come at something negative like that from a place of curiosity. I'm curious as to why you would think that while I have the passion, energy and drive, I should not be surprised if I don't get the job. Why would you say that? What am I missing? I want to hear what that feedback is. So please get back to me on that because I'm super interested. But here's the other thing. You're always going to be told you're too young or you're too old or you're too skinny or you're too fat or your hair is too blonde or your dress is too short, or the fact that you're a man means you're not the right fit, or the fact that you're a woman means you're not the right fit. I am constantly told why I can't do things. I do not allow those comments to stop me. I just stay focused on what the solution is. So if the solution is, ask for the feedback, try to understand why, because maybe we can learn something from it and better ourselves from. And if you keep hearing that, you know you're too young, you're too young, what does that really mean? Because you can put young to work for you. You can reposition that as innovation. Understanding technology, you know, coming at things from a fresh perspective, like whatever people are throwing at you, you can actually volley that back and make it work for you. So it's sort of like when I was pitching myself for that board, you know, and I'm saying, listen, everyone on the board's freaking 80 years old. I, at the time I was in my late 30s. I bring a fresh perspective here. I bring innovation here. I bring what is missing here. I compliment it. Now. I kept being told no because I was pitching that in the wrong place. And maybe you're pitching the wrong people or you're pitching the wrong opportunity, but don't let that stop you from what you know is valuable inside of you. Maybe you just need to go to a different place to pitch that. Maybe you're pitching to the wrong people. Maybe they don't see your value. But first and foremost, make sure you see your value. Your value. And then let nothing and no one stop you. Next one. I'm reaching out to you because I am at a standstill and follow your content. I've been searching for a role because I have grown a glass ceiling on current affairs and I'm looking for career growth. Would you happen to know any companies or that are hiring for operations, VP, SVP or within that category? LinkedIn's amazing, but I'm starting to see that most opportunities are a wall and do not get you anywhere because of lack of recruiting. Any insight would be amazing or any leads. Betting on myself is my main goal. I don't have a cap on what I can do. I have so much potential. Okay, so here's the thing with that question. That's not a good use of time, right? So sending people you don't know, DMs asking for them to give you SVP positions. Not the best use of time. Number one, anytime you reach out to somebody, you either want to add value to them, ask how you can help them. Right. I'm super busy, so if someone thinks I'm going to drop everything I'm doing to generate revenue to pay my bills for my son and myself, and I'm going to say, oh, you know what, let me just go help this woman try to find a job. I'm not a recruiter, that's not what I do. So that doesn't make sense to me. I would be very strategic, number one, if I was this person, I would identify who the top recruiters are in your field and I would reach out to them, I would add value to them, ask how I could help them. I would ask if there's a way we could get on a 15 minute call to showcase how I can help them and add value for some of their opportunities. Right. I would be very strategic. I would then identify the top 10 ideal companies that I want to work for. I'd find out who the highest level executives are and I would start DMing them and giving them compliments and saying, I love your content on this and that. Start taking initiative to shine your light and showcase other people and add value to them. I jump on their feed and comment on their stuff. I would go to Seamless AI, which is an amazing software program that allows you to find anyone's email, and I'd send them a direct email asking how they're holding up during COVID and how the company's faring. And then I'd showcase how I can bring value and add value and drive revenue and fix problems, whatever. But I would be really targeted. I'd be very strategic and very specific in my approach. And it's a numbers game. Right. So once you get your resume, I showcase my testimonials, my reviews and recommendations of my work. You know, I would really get strategic and aggressive around who I'm approaching, making sure that I can add value to them. And then again, it's a numbers game. In the end, the more outreach that you have, the more opportunity that you're going to have. And. And it's not about the no's, it's about getting that one right. Yes. So I hope that that answers your questions. I would love to hear from you today what you think about this version, this different kind of version of the show. It means the world to me that you give me your feedback, that you share the show, that you leave a review if you haven't done it yet. And if you share it on social, I will always repost. And reshare means the world to me. Thank you so much for your support. Until next week. Keep creating confidence. You know I will. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to 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.