Confidence Classic: How To Stay Grounded When Everything Feels Uncertain with Heather!

If you've ever looked into starting your own business, you know how complex it gets. Setting up systems, finding partners, building processes. Fora simplifies that by packaging everything you need to launch and operate a successful travel business into a single platform. There's a big difference between having an idea for a business and actually launching one. Fora bridges that gap by giving you access to the technology, partnerships, and training you need to start operating a successful travel business now. Fora is a modern travel agency platform designed for entrepreneurs who want to build and scale their own travel business without starting from zero. It combines technology, training, and supplier relationships into one unified system. Fora is built to help you launch quickly, operate professionally, and scale with confidence without the traditional barriers to starting a business. Become a Fora advisor today at foratravel.com/confidence. That's foratravel.com/confidence, and make sure you tell them we sent you. Foratravel.com/confidence. Over 30 million customers have trusted Zazzle with their most important moments. Right now, save 25% on your first order at zazzle.com. That's 25% savings on your first order at zazzle.com. Go make something amazing. Zazzle.com. Right now, Keeper is offering our listeners 60% off personal and family plans at keepersecurity.com/confidence. This offer is only for podcast listeners. Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you. Keepersecurity.com/confidence. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/confidence for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/confidence for free shipping and 365-day returns. Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com, upwork.com.

Things can change in a day. Things can change in a week so drastically. The things that you think are a big deal really aren't. And gaining perspective is so incredibly powerful. The most important thing is that you're healthy, that you're with people you love, that you're showing up as that best version of you, leading with love, leading with joy in your heart, and caring for the people that are special in your life, and that, You know, if you have health and a roof over your head, that is, that's worth celebrating. 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 closeup. Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus Confidence Classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed.

I hope you love this one as much as I do.

Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited you're back here with me this week. Okay, so it's been a crazy week. And you know what's interesting? I was reminded this week how everything can change so quickly. The things that you think are a big deal really aren't. And gaining perspective is so incredibly powerful. It didn't come in the greatest way this week, right? Sometimes you can have these moments that are, incredible, like when my condo closed and I couldn't believe it was actually happening. I was so happy, right? That was like this incredible moment that changed my life. But there are other moments like with the hurricane this past week that changed so many people's lives, you know, across the entire state of Florida and even beyond Florida. So a couple things I wanted to say about that. Number one, give yourself some perspective, whatever it is that you're freaking out about right now, because I know most of us have a lot of pressure on ourselves, you know, worried about the economy, the negativity in the world, maybe bullying that your kid's dealing with at school, or bad grades, or, you know, not enough money, or you don't like your job, or who knows what it is, you're mad at your spouse, right? We all have our own challenges. But when these big moments happen that are potentially life-changing, and life-changing for so many people, not in a great way for most people, you know, it's a really powerful seismic shift. So here's where my mind is at with this thing. If you've been with me for a while, you know that in the past couple of weeks I've moved, which has been crazy and exciting. And I'm so blessed and so lucky and so grateful, right? This is one of those amazing, thank you, God. I prayed for this for the past year, more than a year. And I'm so grateful it came to fruition and so thankful. So that's been great. But obviously with any type of big move, you know, after 17 years living somewhere, I had tons of stuff to go through and purge. And a lot of it was emotional and sad, kind of reliving choices that I've made that I'm not, you know, happy with now that I'm saying, gosh, in hindsight I should have made that choice so much sooner. Or right, just trying to learn from the past 17 years while I lived in that condo and reflecting on things, which is super powerful and helps you with self-awareness. So wherever you are, you don't have to move to do that, right? I shouldn't have waited that long to go through everything in my house. I should have done that as an exercise once a year. However, I am far from perfect, and I'm gonna give myself some grace. I hadn't, right? So anyhow, it ended up being this emotional, interesting experience where I decided to get rid and purge anything that did not bring me joy. And so if I looked at a piece of paper, an old letter, a card, a vase from someone, a gift, if it didn't bring me joy, it was out, which meant so much went out. Crazy amount went out, which I'm so grateful for now that I'm in my new place and I don't have this stuff that's weighing me down, connecting me to a past that isn't my life anymore, right? So totally encourage you to do the same. I thought that was such great advice. You know, if something doesn't bring you joy, let it go. Let go of it and move on and find the things that do bring you joy. So I went through this whole emotional move and I'd been exhausted just because moving is exhausting and, you know, losing things, not being able to find things, unpacking, whatever. And then I got this great opportunity simultaneously to go on the Dr. Phil show, which meant I had to find someone to take care of my son literally overnight. I had to jump on a plane, go for a couple of days out to LA. LA, not knowing what I'm walking into yet again. Just take a chance and go for it and see what happens. Which I'm sure you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh, Heather, come on, it's gonna be great. Here's the thing that sometimes people don't understand. When you just take a chance, like it's not planned for, it's not prepped, you don't have a lot of information. You never know how you're gonna be portrayed when you do TV because you sign your life over to them. Literally, you sign a piece of paper that says they can edit it any way they want. They can use any footage they find of you anywhere, right? And stitch it together any way they want. So you're just taking this chance that it's gonna work out and you're just trusting that this is meant for you. The way that I looked at it, I remember another moment like this was when I got the Steve Harvey Show and I was, I was nervous, right? I was the only person going on the show that had difference of opinions because the producer told me that, that I was the one that kind of stuck out and thought differently than the people that were gonna be on the show with me. So I knew I was kind of gonna be singled out as different. I also didn't realize everyone was personal friends with Steve Harvey but me. I had never met him before. Right? But these are the things like you just jump on a plane and take a chance and say, hey, if I have the opportunity to help someone or help people to see something or, or bring a different viewpoint or vantage point to something, then that's what I'm here on earth to do, right? I'm here to shed a light on things and, and bring my unique perspective to the table because I think it's really valuable, right? I think everybody has a lot of value, but if your heart's in the right place and you're trying to do good, I believe you need to take those leaps of faith and chances. Now listen, it has not always worked out flawlessly and perfectly for me. As you know, if you've been with me for a while, there's definitely a lot of bumps on the way. But we're gonna find out about Dr. Phil this week because I did get a call, just so you know. You're probably listening to this on Wednesday. The show is live on Thursday. So, if you're hearing this on Wednesday, first week of October, yes, the Dr. Phil episode that I'm on is coming out on Thursday. I have no idea what you're gonna see because I haven't seen it. And everyone keeps saying to me, "Oh, I'm sure you killed it." It doesn't matter. Let me just tell you this. It doesn't matter if you think you did great when someone asked you a question, you don't know how things will be edited. You don't know how things are gonna be framed up, right? There's a possibility it could be framed up as I was a, you know, a victim in the workplace, which is not my angle at all. I shared that with the producer. I don't want it set up that way. But you have to turn over control to everybody else. So I, I don't know. I hope it comes out great. I do know this, and these are the things that I go back to. If you're able to help one person, then you did your job, right? Yeah, it was a bit of a hassle being the first week that I moved and displacing my child and not unpacking and not setting up FP&L and internet and whatever. I mean, there were some issues around it, but we made it work and I hope so much that it all works out for the best. But anyways, these are the things that I had been worrying about, right? Was like unpacking and changing my address and figuring out, you know, getting furniture because I don't have enough furniture for this place and should I, I need to, you know, jump the shark and start ordering things, or like just putting all this pressure on myself that's, you know, and I'm doing so much around moving, I'm not working enough right now and my pipeline's gonna dry up. And okay, cut to two huge brands reached out to me during this time to hire me for speaking engagements for fourth quarter, which is amazing and totally unexpected and massive audiences. One of 'em is 16,000 people, huge brand. Can't wait to tell you who that is once I sign a deal, which hopefully is happening this week. And the other one's an even bigger brand, not as large an audience, but like one of the top 5 brands in the country. So super good things, right? Like these are things that if I had known a year ago where I'd be sitting right now, I would be overwhelmed with joy. But in the moment, right, things can get overwhelming and you're like not, you haven't slept a lot and, and you're discombobulated and, and nervous. It can seem overwhelming. That's the moment we need to pause and say, okay, the me from 1 year ago, the me from 5 years ago, right when I got fired, I would've been on the floor crying. I would've been so excited to know that 5 years from now I'd be in a new place with my son. My son would be thriving in school. The pandemic would be behind us. Speaking business would be back. Live events would be back. I'd be killing it, right? Like all these— I got Dr. Phil, right? These sound like exciting things. But in the moment, it can be overwhelming and you can lean into fear, right? It happens to everybody. It definitely happens to me. Cut to a hurricane. And that was the perspective moment for me to say, why in the world am I sitting around here worrying that my son doesn't have a trash can in his bathroom because I haven't had a chance to buy him one yet, right? Why am I getting stressed out about these things that, that make no sense in life, right? Like, what really makes sense is the people that you love, that you spend your time with, who you show up as a human being in the work you do in the world, you know, doing good, caring for others, showing up with love in your heart, your health, and the health of the people that you love. That's really— those are the most important things in the world, right? Those are the things at the end of our life we'll look back on and say, was I a good person? Did I bring joy to everything, you know, I did in my life? Did I try my best? Did I lead with an open heart? Did I have clear intentions to do good and show up as that real version of me? And am I proud of that, right? Those are the important things, not all this, like, how will I look on Dr. Phil? Will they set me up wrong? Or— that stuff doesn't really matter. And I know that now sitting here today because when we heard the hurricane was coming for Florida, it definitely scared me. I've lived in Florida, gosh, for 20 years now. That's so crazy. I've lived in Florida for 20 years, 17 of which I've lived in Miami. And I will tell you that I only stayed through one big hurricane. It was a Category 3, and I swore to myself I would never stay through a hurricane again. True, true story. Here's what's interesting. So this is years ago. This is even before I had my son, I think. Gosh, this is a long time ago. A huge storm had come right when I moved to Miami. I went to one of my really good friends' house in Fort Lauderdale, and we stayed through the hurricane together. It was terrible, really scary. I mean, our cars were wrecked. I mean, it was bad, really bad. And that's the thing with the hurricane, you don't know. Today I'm sitting here, we're fine. The hurricane hit Florida. It was devastating to the west coast of Florida and to central Florida and many other parts. But Miami was spared. There was just no way to know. So my point is, when natural disaster happens, those are real things to worry about, not, you know, worrying about how you're gonna look on a Dr. Phil episode or if it's gonna be worth the trip that you made, right? That is ridiculous. And I get that now, but I know it's so easy for all of us to get stuck in the day-to-day and the minutia that doesn't, doesn't really matter. So I'm just sharing this with you to remind you, no matter where you are, The most important thing is that you're healthy, that you're with people you love, that you're showing up as that best version of you, leading with love, leading with joy in your heart, and caring for the people that are special in your life. And that, you know, if you have health and a roof over your head, that is— that's worth celebrating, right? I'm sitting here right now. I'm so grateful that we're okay. I'm so grateful that our new home didn't get completely wrecked from a hurricane. And for everybody that reached out to me with concern, sending beautiful beautiful notes or text messages or calling. Thank you so much. You know, having people show up to say, I care about you and I hope you're okay and I wanna encourage you. And if you need something, please call me. If you want somewhere, you know, all those things are just, it's so, even bad situations allow for beautiful moments to occur within them. And that's kind of how I felt, like so loved, so cared for, and so grateful for all the wonderful people in my life. And as you know, if you're with me for a while, I'm on the board of directors for a company, a medical technology company in Naples, Florida called HealthLink. And of course, as soon as I saw that it was the West Coast getting hit and not us, I realized my friends, my fellow board members, you know, this company is knee deep in this massive destruction and still with no power and, you know, destruction everywhere. And my friends with no power. And it's just, it is so sad and so scary having gone through one hurricane, not not as bad as this one. This one was horrible. To just see, you know, true destruction and natural disaster is incredibly scary. And those are real, real problems. So I hope that gives you a perspective shift. It definitely gave me one for sure. Things can change in a day. Things can change in a week so drastically and change your mindset. So going into this week knowing that the Dr. Phil show is coming out on Thursday, I'm not worried. That doesn't mean it's gonna be good, right? It might be awful. I have no idea. But I just, I don't have that same feeling that I had before where everything was contingent upon this, right? I was building it up so big in my mind. Instead, now I just know I'm really grateful and lucky that my son and I are safe. I'm grateful for all the amazing people that reached out to support me and encourage me. I'm grateful that my friends on the West Coast, you know, while they're struggling with no power, No one had any massive loss or health issues. You know, just overall trying to look at the good that is out there. And I hope that you can do that too today. Meet a different guest each week. Heather Monahan! Confidence creator.

If you're like me, you are in the middle of graduation season, which is also birthday season around here, which means there are a lot of save the dates. There are a lot of thank you cards being written. There's a lot of work, but luckily Zazzle now makes it manageable. Zazzle covers the full event: invitations, save the dates, place cards, programs, signage, party favors, and thank you notes, all customizable to match your colors, your fonts, and your whole vibe. Order 1 or order 500, whether it's an intimate dinner or the 200-person graduation party, Zazzle scales with you. 3 steps: pick a product, find or build a design, add your details.

That's it.

Zazzle handles the rest. Over 30 million customers have trusted Zazzle with their most important moments. Right now, save 25% on your first order at Zazzle.com. That's 25% savings on your first order at Zazzle.com. Go make something the amazing Zazzle.com. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on.

That's why I keep coming back to Quince.

They focus on high quality essentials. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at just $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear, and their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Quince's pieces that are really speaking to me are the linen. The linen is so light and breathable in the summer, and it gets real hot in Miami. You want to look good and you want to feel good. Quince is nailing it. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/confidence for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/confidence for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com/confidence.

I ask you to try to find your passion. Okay, so I was in church today, and the message that our pastor was leading with, a couple different things, a lot around love he was talking about, and the love that Jesus has for all of us. You know, when you think about that first love in your life, that's really the love from God for you, that every single one of us is loved. And when you go back to that, that's such a beautiful, safe, amazing, feeling and what an amazing gift that we all have. And knowing that we all have that love, it's our duty and birthright to bring that love forward and to lead with love and to show up with love in our hearts and lead a joyful life and give love and good to others. And so often we forget. And so he was talking about, you know, whether it be that you walked into church today and you didn't, you know, sit where you wanted to, or you, you know, you waited in line because the parking getting into our church is— there's a lot there's a lot of people there. And so, you know, maybe you're frustrated, but he's challenging all of us to see everything through the eyes of love. And I had to stop right there because my son has an incredibly active social life right now at 15 years old, which I'm super happy for him. You know, I think that's amazing. Obviously, I'm literally knee-deep in unpacking everything, organizing things, like ordering things. I am— I have not been going out at all the past couple of weeks. Of course, that doesn't stop him. Live your best life. That's what I tell him all the time. All right, you go for it, pal. But I was so annoyed last night because he came home late. And I said, you know, I can't go to sleep until you get home. Gosh, it's just not nice. That's not nice when you know I'm tired and you know I have to work. It's just not very thoughtful. And I was frustrated with him. But as I heard my pastor today talking about leading with love, It reminded me, oof, hang on, mic drop moment. Instead of sitting here complaining that my son came home late, I should be really grateful I have a son. I should be grateful I have a healthy son. I should be grateful I have a home that didn't get destroyed in the hurricane that he comes home to, right? Like this seismic shift that we all have the opportunity to have at any point in time, I was realizing it today when he was preaching about love. So, hoping that you are feeling the love that God has for you, that you have in your heart, and that you can bring forward to others. I definitely am feeling that way today, and I'm so grateful for that reminder. I hope this reminder helps you. It was so encouraging to me. The other message that he shared, which was really powerful, and this is around business life, it doesn't really, you know, in any type of leadership position, leading as a parent, right? Leading in any community at your church, leading at work, It's easy as a leader to wanna correct people, right? You wanna say, oof, listen, you missed the mark on this one. And I actually almost did the same thing to my social media team the other day. We had a post that didn't perform well. I'm always diving into data and analytics, right? Because data does not lie. You want to take a look at data and allow that to help guide you in business decisions. And we had a post that did terrible, and I almost flipped the post over to my social media team with a link to it to say, guys, this completely underperformed. What the heck is going on? Something like that. But by some grace of God, I did not do it. And I thought, you know, I should probably wait 24 hours until I calm down. I was just annoyed, like, why? Why? After we've been working together for a couple of years, you know, we should be performing at a higher level, right? High expectations. Somehow I got myself to stop and say, I'll do it in 24 hours. Of course, 24 hours later, I wasn't upset about it. It was not a big deal. And I figured I'd talk to them about it on our next— we have a monthly meeting to review performance. I thought, oh, I'll just bring it up then and find out why they think, you know, that one just didn't do as well. And the whole message, the second part of the message today was connect, then correct as a leader. Meaning, don't just throw the note, hey, why did this do so poorly, blah, blah, blah, right? That's attacking and negative when you're trying to correct someone in that regard. But instead, connect with them, right? Hey, did you have anyone that was in harm's way with the hurricane? How are you doing, right? What's going on in your life? Because you never know. Connect with people, be there for them, empathize with them, ask what's happening. We have no idea what someone else could be going through. And to that point, so funny, so many people because of where you live in the country didn't even realize there was a Category 4 hurricane coming at Florida. So I had people reaching out to me the day that the hurricane was hitting, which it was chaos here, right? Schools were canceled, everything's closed. It was, you know, high winds had already picked up here was like 40-mile-an-hour winds. We didn't know which way the hurricane was going, so it was a scary day. And people are sending me emails and calling me for work, and they're completely unaware of what's going on. And somebody was— had sent me something that they had wanted a response to and were kind of mandating a response back. And I responded from my phone because I did not have my computer up, hey, I don't know if you're aware, but there's a category of for hurricane coming at Florida right now. We're under a state of emergency. We're gonna have to hold off on this conversation until I see what happens and make sure that we're safe. But after that, I'm happy to get back to you, right? So just a good reminder that it's so important to connect with people before we correct, before we attack, before we assume in business and in life, right? Find out where someone's coming from. And I actually had a conversation with a woman that I coach And she was sharing with me something so similar. She has a new report on her team who, you know, she doesn't have all the intel and what's going on with him. He had been acting in a bizarre way, and she had reached out to him to basically say, "Are you okay?" Well, it turns out he wasn't. He had received a potential negative response or information from a doctor, and he was really uncertain into his health. And until he got that clarified and found out he was okay, he was not behaving like himself. Totally normal, right? But had she just come at him with correction, you know, "Hey, you didn't hit your number. Hey, what's going on with this? Why are the reports not in?" Whatever it may be, you know, that would be a tough pill for someone to swallow. So I love that message, not only that we are all loved by Jesus, and our first love is from before we were even born, and we are so blessed to have that love, It's also our duty to bring that love forward. Love thy neighbor, right? Show up as that best version of ourselves. Bring joy, bring love to everything and everyone in the world. And when we lead like that, of course, we're gonna connect and then correct. So hoping from a leadership position for you, whatever you're leading, whoever you're leading, whether it be at work, at home, for your family, for your kids, for your business, with your colleagues, connect first. Than correct, it's such a more powerful way of living. It's such a right way to lead, right? So hoping that that message lands with you as firmly as it did with me. Meet a different guest each week. Play Loud Entertainment. Confidence creators.

I don't know about you, but I am never able to remember my passwords and then trying to create strong passwords so that you make sure that you don't leave yourself vulnerable to being hacked. Makes it even more challenging. That's where I use Keeper. Keeper is a password manager that creates strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts, stores them securely in one place, and logs you in automatically across all your devices. For businesses, Keeper takes the chaos out of managing access for teams so they can securely share logins, control permissions, and protect sensitive data without slowing down day-to-day work. Right now, Keeper is offering our listeners 60% off personal and family plans at keepersecurity.com/confidence. This offer is only for podcast listeners. That's keepersecurity.com/confidence for 60% off personal and family plans. Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you. Keepersecurity.com/confidence. Okay, if you've been wanting to make some money on the side and don't really want to put your own face on a camera to do it, you can.

You can make money on the side.

You can make anywhere from $10,000 a month to $50,000 a month just being who you are, teaching the things that you're already an expert in.

And you can even use an AI avatar to do it for you. You don't have to have your face on camera anymore. So the idea now of creator income is available to you, to anyone, and there's no barrier to entry.

It is is so simple to do. You can create your own AI avatar and you tell it what to say.

Now you're charging, you are getting recurring revenue every single month, and anyone can do this by just showing up and sharing your expertise, teaching the things from jiu-jitsu to working out to how to cook to how to bake bread to how to create confidence. Anything that you're an expert in, anything that you're great at, you can now monetize. The platform, It's already there, it already exists, and it's easy to do.

Why not start making your passion in life your side hustle and start getting $10,000 to $50,000 a month just showing up teaching what you already know?

It's easy, it's not hard to do, and it's ready for you.

You need to go to fanview.com to set up your account now.

It is so simple to do. Start making money on the side. It's www.

Fanvue.com today and launch your career. Scaling a business takes the right expertise at the right time. Upwork helps growing teams quickly bring in specialized freelancers so you can move faster and take the business to the next level. Upwork is a one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. Upwork helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across 100 25+ categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount. With Business Plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. And with AI-powered shortlisting, you'll get matched to the right freelancer in under 6 hours. No endless searching required. Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com, Upwork dot com.

I ask you to try to find your passion. Okay, so this morning, as you know, I'm big into spin. And so, and thank goodness with the pandemic behind us, we have group classes. So I'm near, you know, next to real people. It's super exciting. And one of the things we always do is they'll say, okay, air cheers, right? Like you don't want to touch people because of course we're still in this weird world. But, you know, either air high five or air cheers to people around you just to be like, hey, I see you, you know, great job, keep going, proud of you. I love that stuff. I'm totally, I'm here for it, right? I'm cheering everyone on. I'm just excited to be in the energy of other people and working hard, doing something I love. It's so fun. We're so lucky. And so I was doing that and this, some woman's next to me who I've never seen before, right? Which happens sometimes. Sometimes it's people I know, sometimes it's not. And so I'm sitting next to a woman on a spin bike I don't know. And so I air cheers her to say like, hey, I see you, you know, great job. And she leans over and says, hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm injured. And the reason why I'm not standing up and running when you guys are running is because I'm in pain. And that's why I'm sitting here. And she was trying to explain this whole thing to me. P.S., in the middle of class with music so loud and the instructor yelling out, you know, direction to us. And all I could think to myself is, I'm not judging her. But like, I, dude, I'm the biggest cheerleader and advocate for others that I know. I'm here for you. Like, I'm here to cheer you on and say, take care of yourself. I hope you're okay, but I'm proud of you for showing up if you're injured. That's hard, right? And so I just looked at her and I said, I'm not judging you. I won't judge you. And it was this powerful reminder for me that Wow, like, I wonder what's going on in her life. I wonder what villain she needs to overcome, right? Whether it be in her family, her friend circle, her job, I don't know. Or maybe just in her own head. But her first reaction was that she had to justify to me and explain something away. No one has to do that, right? Number one, I'm not judging. Number two, if I was, then I'm a tool, right? Like, who's this? She should be thinking, that lady's judging me. She's a jerk. Like, something's wrong with her. That would be, you know, the way people see and treat other people is more about them than it is about you. But she was so off base. I'm like her biggest cheerleader, and I let her know that in the moment. Hey, I'm not judging you. Number one, if I'm judging you, then that means I'm really judging myself, and that means I'm really scrutinizing myself, right? And I'm inviting that judgment into my life. No thanks. Hard pass. That is rare view, like, in my past. I don't think like that. I don't want to judge other people. If I ever catch myself being judgmental at all, which of course I have, I pump the brakes immediately and I think, would I want someone judging me? Heck no, they don't know my story. And oh, I remember, okay, then I can't be judging someone else, right? So it was just this interesting reminder that I had today. Also that we think so often, and this is so true, we think so often everybody's fixated and focused on us. Guess what? I wasn't even thinking about her, right? Like I was in my zone, I was excited, I was just having fun. I wasn't sitting there wondering what was going on with her. It didn't even cross my mind. And so 99.9% of the time, we think other people are judging us. Maybe we think other people are scrutinizing us or wondering what we're doing. People are focused on themselves, their problems, their potentials, their opportunities, and their life. So just remember the next time that you think somebody's, you know, being judgmental of you, there's equally as good chance that they're not even considering you in that moment. Because that was what happened today. And hopefully I was able to encourage her a bit today. I definitely hope I could. But I will say this, when I was younger, I did judge people a lot. I remember when I was really insecure, when I was in my early 20s, and I had gone through having some bad bosses and, you know, some negative situations occur, I would judge other people, right? Like, oh, that person, you know, I'd have a chip on my shoulder. That person has it so easy because they came from this, or, right? Like I would create and craft all these stories in my mind. And over time, I've just learned that the more I behave like that, the more I invite judgment into my life, the more I scrutinize and put myself down. And I'm not about that anymore, right? Like, fire the number one villain. And if that villain is you, fire that one too. And start treating everybody as equals and let people do them and you do you. You know, that's a beautiful thing about this world is that you can do it any way you want. But comparing yourself to others, that is disaster waiting to happen. I don't need to compare myself to other people. I don't wanna compete with them. I don't want to judge them. I want to lead with love. I wanna connect first, then correct. I want to show up with joy regardless of how others show up and keep my expectations out of it, right? If your goal is to show up as that best version of you, doesn't really matter how others show up, right? Just keep putting that good energy out there. Keep leading with love. Keep being that best version of yourself and watch how things will unfold in such a beautiful way for you. Not every day, right? We still haven't seen Dr. Phil, people. We still have no idea what's about to happen there. I'm just kidding. But, you know, it's not all gonna be perfect, but there's gonna be countless opportunities for us to improve ourselves. And that's how I choose to see it now. When these challenges or plot twists show up in life, it's an opportunity to strengthen my faith. It's an opportunity to turn within and challenge myself and say, all right, radical accountability. How can I do this better? How can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? And the more I've slept and, you know, am around people that love and support me, and I'm doing good work, those things are easier to do. But we all have those low moments, like when the hurricane's coming that, puh, we start white-knuckling and freaking out. And that's okay too. We're only human. And we definitely all make mistakes, myself included. Okay, so I know that I mentioned that, you know, to give yourself a moment and think about where you were one year ago today and how proud you would be if you could be that one-year-ago version of yourself knowing where you are today, or even better, How about you 5 years ago, right? 5 years ago for me is when I got fired and I had no clue I was gonna write a book, Confidence Creator. I had no clue I was gonna launch a podcast, which I did in 2019. I had no clue I was gonna give a TEDx talk that would get promoted to TED. I had no clue I was gonna sign with HarperCollins Leadership and write Overcome Your Villains. I had no clue I was gonna land a board seat for a health incorporation or start consulting or be named top 50 keynote speaker in the world in 2022. That was mind-blowing, right? Like, none of this stuff was part of my big plan. I do believe it's all part of God's plan, and that's why I completely surrender and turn it all over to him. His plan is so much greater than mine. And if you haven't done that, consider it, right? Because as I've moved forward in faith, my life has improved immensely. It doesn't have to be that hard. So that's just food for thought for you, wherever you are on your journey. But one of the things that I wanted to share with you that just, it's so surreal for me, is about a year ago, maybe even a year and a half ago, yeah, it was probably a year and a half ago, one of my friends started connecting me to people at Northwestern Mutual in an effort to, he had done speaking engagements for the company. It's a, it's a very big company. And he said, hey, I think you need to, they need more female voices, as does everybody need more female voices. He said, you know, I think you should start speaking for them. There's huge opportunity for you here. You know, thousands of employees across the country. It's a great opportunity for you to network in. And I had no contacts there, right? So I'm all in. It's a good friend of mine. This is about a year and a half ago we started working on this. And it is so bizarre how many people have reached out to me, whether it be through the podcast or through my website or on social media, on DMs. Just when you start putting an intention out there of a goal and getting clear on it and then taking action steps and then following up and taking chances, right? And some things pan out and some things don't. The shift that starts to happen and the momentum that starts to build. And here we are a year and a half later, which is crazy. And this week I'm giving my first in-person speech for Northwestern Mutual. Super grateful, super excited. Oh my gosh. And it started a year and a half ago, right? So sometimes things like the Dr. Phil thing kind of felt like it happened out of nowhere. It just came together so quickly within 48 hours, and I didn't reach out to them, right? They reached out to me. But then this situation with my keynote this week, this process started a year and a half ago. So what I wanna remind you of, 'cause I'm reminding myself for sure, is that yes, there are these brilliant moments where things just seem to align and line up and come together in a day. It's so exciting and what a blessing it is when that happens. But not everything is gonna happen that way. Oftentimes we need to be patient. Oftentimes we need to put the work in. And, you know, it's probably a function of both, right? That there's gonna be moments things just come together and there's gonna be moments that we're in the grind and we don't see and we can't foresee what that outcome is, right? I didn't know 6 months ago that I'd be giving this speech. I had no idea. Kept taking the calls and showing up and responding to people messaging me, right? And moving, moving the ball down the field, not knowing what that outcome would be. And sometimes I do that with companies and nothing's happened yet. But I know this for sure, and I know this for you, keep moving the ball down the field. Here's why. When you do that, you have that potential of that event coming to happen or, or that potential of something more ahead of you. If you don't move it down the field, you've stopped everything in motion and you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking back, right? So I'm, number one, I'm so happy my friend started connecting me into these people a year and a half ago. I'm so grateful for the people that reached out to me and encouraged me and started introducing me to more people. I'm so grateful that I kept moving the ball down the field and showing up for the discussions and having the meetings and taking the calls so that we could end up at this place where we are, where I'm giving my first in-person keynote for the company. And who knows what that's gonna lead to next, right? You never know what door that might open. You've just gotta keep moving it forward, taking the chances, betting on yourself, leading with love, connecting before correcting. Okay, so that's my message for you today. I hope in some way that it helps you. I hope in some way it helps you to remember to keep creating your confidence because you are worth it. And the best is yet to come. I for sure know that. Wishing the best week ahead for you. Oh my gosh, let me know what you think about Dr. Phil if you see it. I probably won't be able to watch it because I don't know, I sometimes I get so nervous when I have to see something live. At first I wanna hide under the couch. You'll let me know what you think. I appreciate your encouragement. I appreciate your support. If you like this episode, please share it, tag me, and when you do, You know I always repost you. I got you. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. I'm going to make the world forget. I decided to change that dynamic. How do you like them apples? 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.