Confidence Classic: How to Find Hope When Everything Feels Like Too Much with Heather!

0:00Heather Monahan:Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code CONFIDENCE at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code CONFIDENCE. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free. Just head to granola.ai slash confidence. That's granola.ai slash confidence to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.ai slash confidence. For the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenue is at least in the seven figures, go to netsuite.ai slash Monaghan. Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom.

0:47Heather Monahan:netsuite.ai slash Monahan. For a limited time, my listeners get a free month of Primal Queen plus four free gifts at primalqueen.com slash confidence. That's primalqueen.com slash confidence. When you check out, tell them Creating Confidence sent you. There are people out there in the world that are going to love you that you don't even know yet. Sometimes other people see that golden goose egg that you have sitting in front of you that you don't see. So open yourself up to meeting new people, going for the meeting, even though it's two hours away, right? Like show up and put yourself out there, expand your network.

1:24Heather Monahan:Does it always work out? Nope, doesn't. But you know what? I can guarantee this. It'll never work out if you don't show up sometimes. So lean in, take the chance, expand the network, go for more. You never know who you can meet. There's so much information out there in the world that they just sometimes glaze over or miss it. I'm 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. Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week?

1:57Heather Monahan: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 glad you're back here with me this week. Okay, so today, something that is major top of mind for me is the idea that things can change so fast, right? Really, really fast. And sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's not so good. So let me give you a couple of examples of what's been happening lately. So I have gotten to a place in my life where I feel like I'm doing a lot better handling stress, managing stress.

2:40Heather Monahan:I know my triggers, right? I know how to spend my time, how to take care of myself so that I don't react to triggers. Instead, I respond. That's 99 % of the time. I still have my moments, my friends. Okay, so here's my low moment. The other day, well, it's interesting, and this is something to be mindful of too. I remember when I was younger, I would always say this to my shrink. Why does it seem like my personal life falls apart at the same time my work life falls apart, right? That's when stuff gets really hard is when it's all the things happening at one time. And she would always laugh and say, yeah, you're fine managing it when you go through a hard bit at work, when your personal life's okay, your health is well, you're sleeping well, you're like, okay, I can take this on.

3:22Heather Monahan:But when it seems like everything in your world is hitting the fan at the same time, it's a lot harder. However, sometimes that's life, right? Who knows what the reason is, what lesson you're going to learn. We don't know that yet. You can't connect the dots looking forward. We have to wait to connect them looking back. And we eventually will be able to do that. However, I want to have some compassion and empathy for you in those moments when it feels like kind of everything's going south, because it does feel really overwhelming. And I had a little overwhelming day in the past week that I want to share with you that I really was not at my finest, definitely was triggered AF, like I have not been in a really long time.

4:06Heather Monahan:Like I haven't been this stressed in, oh my gosh, a while, a long, long while. I don't even remember exactly when, but it's been a while. My son noticed it. I definitely noticed it. I was crying, right? I'm not, if I watch a sad movie, I cry for sure. If I watch a sad commercial, sometimes I cry, but I'm not someone who just sits around crying about my life. That's not how I roll on a standard day, right? I'm definitely more the person that is like, okay, bring it on. Let's go giddy up everybody. We got a challenge. Let's find the solution. I was not operating like that this week. And there can always be a lot of reasons for that, right?

4:46Heather Monahan:So your health, super important. Are you doing the things? Are you working out? Are you meditating? Are you getting a massage? Getting acupuncture? Spending time with the people you love? Are you spending time in nature? Like whatever your things are, I don't know. That's up to you to figure out. But for, I mean, I know what my things are. And if I'm maybe not spending as much time doing those things and then challenges come up, it's gonna be 10 times harder to deal with them. So that takes me back to, I need to go back to basics, go back to, am I drinking enough water? Am I sleeping? What time am I going to bed?

5:20Heather Monahan:Where is my routine at right now? Right, what am I eating? What am I putting in my body? How am I moving my body during the day? What thoughts are in my mind? You know, thoughts aren't always truths. I need to manage that. What should I be reading? What content should I be asking? Who am I spending time with? All of these things impact you in major ways. However, so if you're doing a decent job of that, right, that's always something you can lean into and tighten up on during these tough times. And I highly suggest it. That's what I'm doing for myself. Although I had three bad nights of sleep back to back.

5:53Heather Monahan:And obviously I'm not at my best when that happens. and of course that's when something hit the fan for me. So in my personal life, I don't want to get into, I need to protect people here, but in my personal life, I had an interesting situation, which was not ideal and left me feeling like really, really bummed out, right? Like just not ideal situation. And I was just feeling like disappointed. You know how you have those moments where you're like, gosh, why is this happening to me right now? Like this is not the way it's supposed to be. I'm a nice person. I'm a loving person. I'm a kind person.

6:28Heather Monahan:Like, why aren't things kind of going my way right now? Anyhow, I was having one of those moments after an interesting situation that I was not excited about. Part of the problem was that I will start here when I have super high expectations going into a situation for whatever reason, right? It happens to all of us. Sometimes you can feel really discouraged when things don't turn out the way that you anticipated. So it's about tempering expectations, right? I know that. But I'd already entered into it. And I was at really high expectations. I was very disappointed, which left me feeling really discouraged and down, like, which happens that happens to everybody.

7:05Heather Monahan:Simultaneously, I'm on no sleep. And then I get a legal notice that I'm being sued. Right. So this all happens within 24 hours. So it just kind of felt like, oh, my personal life is nowhere near I was like feeling bad for myself. I was discouraged, not feeling optimistic or excited or coming from like a really good place, which typically I think I do. But I had not been sleeping. So I physically wasn't feeling great. And then boom, I had a business nightmare thrown or thrust upon me out of nowhere. Here's the thing. Things can change so incredibly fast. And I want to encourage you no matter where you are, whether it be on your personal journey, your health journey, your romantic life, your business life, whatever it may be, maybe it's challenges with your children.

7:52Heather Monahan:I don't know. We're all facing challenges at one time or another. But what is so interesting and what is difficult to grab hold of in those moments? Truly, there's a number of things that we can do to change to potentially manage the situation and change it. But there's also things that can happen outside of us, unbeknownst to us, that can change a situation dramatically. I mean, dramatically. There's also things that we can do, like ask for help or, you know, and tap different people in our lives to see if they can help change the situation. But bottom line, there is always something we can do.

8:25Heather Monahan:But sometimes the answer is not in what we're going to do, but what might be happening in the universe around us. Don't lose sight of that, right? I want you to be hopeful, because you just don't know what's possible. And I, I believe the more we live in that uncertainty of what is possible. I don't know it's possible, but I turned it over to my higher power, to God, to the universe for whatever is for the greater good. And knowing that this will all come together at some point in the future for me, but letting go of it, not trying to control it and allowing for it can produce some great results.

8:59Heather Monahan:Now, okay, first of all, I'll start here. I've been sued a number of times in business. Oh my gosh, so many times. I don't even know how many, which is somewhat par for the course. If you are leading a large company, which I did for 14 years, we're sued all the time. And we have line items budgeted for this every month, every quarter. It's we have a team of lawyers are full time on staff, right? So you anticipate that that's going to happen. Cut to in the last five years, I work for myself. So I don't, I'm not doing business at the scale of$200 million, which I was before with 1000s of employees, right?

9:33Heather Monahan:It's much smaller scale. So of course, larger revenues, larger teams, larger problems. I don't anticipate those now that I have such a small company. Cut to anyone can sue anyone for anything at any time. Anyhow, I have this person who's suing me based upon a deal that I did a few months ago. And it's so interesting because there's no factual basis to the claim whatsoever. However, when I saw the letter, especially coming on the heels of not sleeping, that disappointment in my personal life and just kind of feeling like, nothing is going my way. Poor me. I'm crying in my soup. Then opening up this legal certified letter really sent me into, let's just put it this way, a downward spiral.

10:18Heather Monahan:And the funny thing was my son saw me and immediately knew something was wrong. And he said, um, what's going on with something's wrong with you. You know, I don't have much of a poker face. I have no choice, but to be honest, my entire life, because my face has never been informed when I'm trying to not let someone know what's going on. So I just had to tell him, listen, I'm not having the best 24 hours right now. However, I know it will pass. I don't know exactly what's going to change it, but I know something will, but I'm also being sued, which is a little intense. I need to have a meeting with a lawyer.

10:51Heather Monahan:I need to call a few different people and ask for help. And I need to get some advice and direction and take some action steps. Please give me some space right now. Like I had to ask for what I needed. And it was funny. He said, okay, but I'm not sure where positive Pamela is. Why don't you bring her back? And that made me laugh because typically I'm the one lecturing everyone on, all right, let's look at the positive opportunity here. There's always another way to see it. But this was a moment I needed someone to, you know, give me better counsel because I wasn't processing things the way that I could or should because I was in the journey.

11:24Heather Monahan:You know, people always say like, you got to enjoy the journey. Guess what? sometimes the journey sucks. And I'm here to tell you that sometimes the journey just sucks. And I was in one of those moments, I'm on no sleep, I'm dealing with some personal disappointment, and I get hit with a major business, punch in the face, unexpected and unfounded. So not the greatest day. And just because you don't have a great day doesn't mean you don't have a great life, right? And I'm sitting here today, not everything has changed, but I feel much better about my life and about myself, more importantly, in managing these hard moments and hard journeys, because we really all have the potential to do that if we give ourselves some grace and remember the steps we need to take to change things.

12:07Between board meetings, executive coaching calls,

12:14Heather Monahan:and meetings with my upcoming keynote client, I'm in back-to-back meetings all day, nodding along, staying present while part of my brain is scrambling, trying to remember what was just said and what's next. Meetings are a mess. Granola fixes that. Granola is an AI powered notepad built for how people actually meet. You take rough notes like normal in the background. Granola transcribes everything, then turns it into a clean structured note that moment the meeting ends, it runs through your device's audio. So it plugs right into whatever video tool you're already using. No setup. No bot on your call.

12:48Heather Monahan:Just your normal meeting with superpowers. I used to spend the 10 minutes after every call rewriting my notes so that they made sense to me and I wouldn't forget. Granola just does that for me now. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free. Just head to granola.ai slash confidence. That's granola.ai slash confidence to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.ai slash confidence. I've sat in CEO chair. I've been on boards. I've led five acquisitions. And here's what I know. Every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind. Fortunately, there's NetSuite next.

13:28Heather Monahan:You probably know NetSuite, the AI powered suite connecting your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into one source of truth trusted by 44 ,000 customers. NetSuite Next is the next huge leap AI built into everything you do. It surfaces custom insights all day. And anytime you have a question, you just ask, like talking to a colleague. It's built for your industry, whether you're doing millions or hundreds of millions. It's time for NetSuite Next, where your business meets AI. If I had needed this, it's what I'd use. For the first time ever, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenue is at least in the seven figures, go to netsuite.ai slash Monaghan.

14:10Heather Monahan:Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. NetSuite.ai slash Monaghan. I ask you to try to find your passion. So one of the things I did was I called my realtor, who was the person that I was leaning on during this transaction. And he had an amazing attorney that actually deals with this and was brought into the loop immediately. We had a conference call. You know, we all sat down and went through all the documents, all the facts, and we all agreed there's no factual basis for this. However, here's the reality, anyone can sue you for anything whenever they want. And oftentimes, that's a strategy larger companies use to bully other people or attempt to bully other people.

14:56Heather Monahan:Because if you, if your knowledge base isn't in the law system, or in other cases around, you know, something similar, you might be intimidated, you might be scared, you might say, can we settle, I don't want to have to deal with this. And people are hoping for and anticipating that they can bully others into that. Luckily, because I've been sued so many times, I know that there's if I did not do something wrong, if I operated with honesty and did everything I was supposed to do, I'm going to fight for that. I'm not rolling over for anyone. Because I also still believe in my heart of hearts that people see a single woman, and they want to try to bully them, they think that it could be, you know, something that I might crumble.

15:35Heather Monahan:And I'm not only going to stand up for myself, but I'm going to stand up for all women in those situations and say, Oh, no, my friend, you have tapped the wrong woman, because I am not rolling over for you, when you are the one and the wrong, not me. So luckily, I had great people in my circle that I was able to tap. And this is why it's so important to do business with ethical people that you trust that you rely on that you have a good relationship with. And those are the people that I'm working with. So I'm grateful, grateful for that. If you ever have one of those red flag moments, do not do business with these people like something's wrong.

16:07Heather Monahan:Listen to your gut, listen to your intuition, trust yourself, do business with people that you trust, like and know and respect and have a good feeling around. I even look back at when I was in corporate America and that woman that hated me, I had a horrible feeling around her all the time, forever. That's how I always felt around her. I should have trusted my intuition and said, if I feel like this next to a key employee that's supposed to be my peer, maybe I want to start looking at different opportunities in the world. And this might not be the table I should be sitting at forever, if I'm not feeling comfortable being myself and feeling like the people here support me.

16:42Heather Monahan:So stop in your life right now. Ask yourself that question. And if you are doing business with or sitting at a table of people who don't have your back and don't support you, get up and find another table. There are plenty of other tables out there. Speaking from mad experience on this one. Okay, so all this is going on. I'm in a tizzy spiraling out of control. I had lost positive Pamela. I had become Debbie Downer. And this was like a 24 hour window. But one of the things that I did, I ended up I never do this, I canceled two meetings that I had, because I literally did not feel well physically.

17:15Heather Monahan:That's how upset I had worked myself into this whole tizzy. And so I canceled two meetings, and I decided to go for a run outside. I live in the most beautiful place in Miami, right? And we have palm trees and ocean all around us. And for me, there's nothing that's going to make me feel better than to be out in fresh air exercising in such a beautiful place. And Miami is incredible. And I'm always grateful for that. So I know if I'm in trouble mentally, get myself moving physically, and I can change the dynamic quickly. Add to that hip hop music and forget it. It's lights out, game over, Monahan is back.

17:52Heather Monahan:so I went for a run and an hour later I was feeling so much better I was much more calm and then I decided you know what I'm a lot more calm but I know I need to sleep and I know if I get acupuncture that's one way to help my body calm down so I called made an acupuncture acupuncture appointment went to acupuncture and I know listen this was like I completely changed my day but I knew I I'm not helping anybody I'm not serving myself my child my podcast my company my business, my clients, or anyone else for that matter, if I'm going to be in a downward spiral and, you know, in a complete tizzy, feeling bad for myself, feeling discouraged and upset.

18:35Heather Monahan:Instead, if I can get to a place of peace, maybe not joy, but at least peace, knowing that, you know, ultimately the world is good. The universe has my back. I have an amazing child. I have an amazing life. I am so blessed and lucky. Right. If I can get back to that base level mentality, things are going to end up working out for me. They always do. They always have, and they always will. And that's the same for you, right? But we just have to get out of that negative mindset. So anyways, I did the things that should pull me out of it. It worked. I got home. My son was here and, you know, we had dinner and I said, why don't we watch a movie and go to bed early tonight?

19:11Heather Monahan:Because mom really needs some sleep. We watched the cutest movie and I was just in such better spirits. And again, my life hadn't changed, right? Everything wasn't resolved by a long shot. However, I just felt so much more hopeful. And at the same time, proud of myself that okay, I wasn't able to fix everything. There's plenty of problems still right in my face. The journey is sucking right now. But I feel so much better and more hopeful about my outcome. The best is yet to come. I know that I know that's my truth. I know it's a truth for you too, if you embrace it. And I just decided to allow for it.

19:48Heather Monahan:I don't know what's going to happen outside of me. I don't know if this person that's trying to sue me is going to realize what a knucklehead he is when he gets a letter back from my attorney pointing out that, uh, hello, read the original documents. Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous. Maybe he's just going to throw his hands up and run away. But you know what? I know that I do that next right thing. I know I turn it over. I know I keep showing up as the best version of myself and get back to that place of peace. Maybe not positive Pamela today, but definitely from a place of peace and hope and things are going to end up working out.

20:22Heather Monahan:So I hope that you can approach whatever challenge you're having in your life today in that same way. Between board meetings, executive coaching calls and meetings with my upcoming keynote clients. I'm in back-to-back meetings all day, nodding along, staying present while part of my brain is scrambling, trying to remember what was just said and what's next. Meetings are a mess. Granola fixes that. Granola is an AI-powered notepad built for how people actually meet. You take rough notes like normal in the background. Granola transcribes everything, then turns it into a clean, structured note that the moment the meeting ends, it runs through your device's audio so it plugs right into whatever video tool you're already using.

21:09Heather Monahan:No setup, no bot on your call, just your normal meeting with superpowers. I used to spend the 10 minutes after every call rewriting my notes so that they made sense to me and I wouldn't forget. Granola just does that for me now. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free. Just head to granola.ai slash confidence. That's granola.ai slash confidence to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.ai slash confidence. Growing up, money in my house was scarce. And the conversations around it were a little stressful, to say the least. That shaped how I handled money for years.

21:51Heather Monahan:Modern didn't just change that. It gave me the chance to rewrite that part of my story and start a new story. Here's the thing about lifestyle creep. It's silent. You don't even notice it happening. My savings rate had quietly slipped 20 % and I never noticed until Monarch put it right in front of me. Now it's like having a financial advisor in my pocket. The AI Weekly Recap catches spending spikes and net worth shifts before they become a real problem. And when I want a straight answer like, how much did I spend on travel last summer? I just ask Monarch's AI assistant. Write your own money story with Monarch.

22:30Heather Monahan:Use code CONFIDENCE at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code CONFIDENCE. Can I be honest with you? For way too long, I thought feeling off was just part of being a woman. That 3 p.m. crash, the brain fog, mood swings that no one can explain. I got so sick of accepting it, and that's what sent me down a rabbit hole that landed me on Primal Queen. Beef organs were not where I expected to end up. Primal Queen built a formula specifically for women. Not just organ nutrition, but female organs too, like your uterus and ovaries, packed into two capsules a day.

23:11Heather Monahan:No taste, no prep, just that real shift back to who you are. high energy, locked in focus, and a great mood. It's grass-fed, pasteurized, no hormones, no antibiotics, third-party tested, and over 25 ,000 women have given it a 4.6-star rating. For a limited time, my listeners get a free month of Primal Queen Plus for free gifts at primalqueen.com slash confidence. That's primalqueen.com slash confidence. When you check out, tell them Creating Confidence sent you.

23:53Heather Monahan:so I will tell you you know I like to look back at my own experiences where the journey has sucked right so I'll give you an example that I look to and I want you to pick some out of your life your career so that when things do hit the fan for you they hit the fan for everybody once in a while you have something to look back on and say oh yeah this part of my journey sucked but now that I look back and connect the dots, it led me to blah, blah, blah, which changed my life and made it incredible and allowed me to find my passion and my purpose. That's getting fired for me. That part of my journey sucked.

24:25Heather Monahan:Oh my gosh, 9 million times worse than this situation I'm dealing with right now, right? This is so isolated and this too shall pass. And I know that. But when I got fired, I remember thinking 18 month non-compete, what am I going to do for 18 months? Oh my gosh, I was freaking out. And it was just, I couldn't figure out how this was working to my benefit or how it ever would. And it so did. It led me to my purpose, my passion, doing the work that I love, that I'm excited to do every day, getting messages from you and reviews. And, you know, it's so exciting. So, and definitely I would have never guessed that if somebody had told me that.