Confidence Classic: How to Make Hard Work Pay Off with Heather!

0:00Heather Monahan: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.

0:34Heather Monahan: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 slash confidence. That's F-O-R-A travel.com slash confidence. And make sure you tell them we sent you. Fora travel.com slash 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.

1:14Heather Monahan:Go make something amazing. Zazzle.com. Right now, Keeper is offering our listeners 60 % off personal and family plans at KeeperSecurity.com slash confidence. This offer is only for podcast listeners. Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you. KeeperSecurity.com slash confidence. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to Quint.com slash confidence for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash 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.

2:00Heather Monahan:That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Upwork.com. Hard work works. I grew up poor and one thing I learned from growing up poor was just outwork everybody else. People are mediocre, right? The general masses is general for a reason. Try hard. I am a try hard. I work really, really hard. I always have. You didn't have to be the smartest person in the room. You didn't have to go to Harvard. You just had to outwork everybody. Most successful people in the world are still showing up every day putting the work in. Hard work works. So put that extra effort into you. When you start treating yourself like you're worth it, other people start treating you like you're worth it too.

2:38I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, you're going to chase down our goals. overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. That's a no-see. I'm ready for my close-up.

2:50Heather Monahan: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 glad you're back here with me this week. Okay, I got some incredible responses from recent episodes. You guys loved the episode with Ashley Stahl, which I thought was so cool. The Jason Tardik episode, people love that one. It was so good. He got into how to deal with haters.

3:25Heather Monahan:I thought that was super important. Ashley was sharing with everybody how to open up any kind of a talk to grab people's attention. And it was so flipping good. I'm actually bringing her on my speaker mastermind to teach my team. She's so incredibly talented. Okay, then I got this amazing note sharing a message from my church and pastor. Last week really helped somebody who is on a journey reconnecting to God and finding their way and just made me so happy. Like, we're all here for a short period of time, and to have the opportunity to affect people in a positive way means the world to me. I get so excited.

3:59Heather Monahan:I am so grateful. So thank you for all of your messages. Thank you for sharing this show with others that you think it can help. Thank you for posting about it. Nobody succeeds alone, including your girl right here. Okay, so I gave a talk this weekend in Palm Beach, and it was for a bunch of entrepreneurs. And what's interesting is I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to speak about. I'd like to look at the room ahead of time, you know, get a handle on the people I'm going to be presenting to. And I don't recommend this for everybody. I've been speaking for, you know, 25 years. So I've got a lot of talks on lock because I just put the reps in, right?

4:37Heather Monahan:I do, I'm speaking all the time. So I'm able to pivot in the moment because I put the practice in. When I got there, I started, you know, seeing faces and I don't know, I just felt called to share some different stories, which I did. I always story sell, facts tell, right? So I always think it's important to lead with a story. But I really got into this idea that I want to share with you today because I got a lot of feedback about it. And people were surprised, which shocked me. I got into this idea, two things, that hard work works. I grew up poor. And one thing I learned from growing up poor was just outwork everybody else.

5:16Heather Monahan:People are mediocre, right? The general masses is general for a reason. My son always says, be grateful for that, right? Otherwise, we couldn't be excelling or exceeding at something if other people weren't trying hard, right? So try hard. I am a try hard. I work really, really hard. I always have. And growing up poor taught me that like you didn't have to be the smartest person in the room. You didn't have to go to Harvard. You just had to outwork everybody. Now, I'm not suggesting that be your only strategy because for a long time, that was my strategy. And I didn't have any other strategies.

5:46Heather Monahan:And for sure, you can get burnt out with that. But today I want to share with you the strategies that are working for me. And I promise if you test them, I want for you, I want success for you and happiness for you. I want you to have everything in life that you deserve and desire, try it. I always say this to my kid. If there's no downside to it, like if I'm not asking you to light yourself on fire, like there's no risk, right? If I'm asking you to work hard and put in extra effort for the next month, do it. See how different your life will become. See how much better you will do and how things will start working out for you.

6:17Heather Monahan:Okay. So one, one strategy is just to outwork everybody. Fact, it works. Hard work works. What's funny is so many people came up to me after the talk and they were saying they had no idea I worked so hard that they had been following me for years on LinkedIn, love my content, but didn't realize I worked hard. What do people think like I just run around with like a lucky Buddha and fall into situations? No, I outwork everybody. I still do. And I don't want that to be my best strategy. I don't think it is anymore. However, it's still part of my game plan, right? It's just you got to work hard, you got to show up, you got to put the effort in.

6:52Heather Monahan:The most to successful people in the world are still showing up every day putting the work in hard work works and try hard because why wouldn't you why would you want to be general or average gosh no chance I want to be the best and reach the potential that I have within me and every day that's changing and growing and there's new opportunity providing itself and we've got to grow and go for more all right so one start working hard give me a month of hard work right start trying really hard put the extra effort in it's so worth it when you start treating yourself like you're worth it, other people start treating you like you're worth it too, right?

7:25Heather Monahan:So like put that extra effort into you.

7:30If you're like me, you are in the middle of graduation season, which is

7:38Heather Monahan: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 one or order 500, whether it's an intimate dinner or the 200 person graduation party. Zazzle scales with you. Three steps. Pick a product. Find or build a design. Add your details. That's it. Zazzle handles the rest.

8:17Heather Monahan: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. 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.

8:59Heather Monahan: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 out slowing down day to day work. Right now Keeper is offering our listeners 60 % off personal and family plans at KeeperSecurity.com slash confidence. This offer is only for podcast listeners. That's KeeperSecurity.com slash confidence for 60 % off personal and family plans. Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you KeeperSecurity.com slash confidence.

9:38and try to find your passion.

9:41Heather Monahan:I was sharing how, you know, I try really hard to get ready and look nice and, you know, put the reps in and everything before I take a stage. And I was reminding people, I don't wake up like this, right? Like I, right now I'm in my sweatpants because I'm not on video, right? I'm just in my sweatpants with no makeup on. And yeah, there's days like this on a Sunday afternoon, but if I'm showing up to do a job, I'm going to go all in and try really, really hard because I care and I want to be that best version of myself. And for me, when I look good, I feel more confident, right? Like I get my swag on, like I feel like I got this, right?

10:14Heather Monahan:So you got to do the things that set you up for success to make you the most confident that you can be in any situation. Try hard, put the work in, it works. Major hack, major underrated hack. Okay, that was one. The other thing that I got into for this talk with the entrepreneurs, well, I got into a few different things, but one of them was to hold that vision, right? That good things take time, great things take longer. I've been talking about this a lot lately because a bunch of amazing things have been happening in my life. Find the right who. Find the person that's done the thing you want to do and find a way to get to them.

10:45Heather Monahan:Invest in yourself. Hire them. Right. Like hire them as a mentor. Hire them as a coach. Because that's how you can really start figuring out the hacks, tips and tricks to get things done. I was sharing the story around how I landed my book deal with HarperCollins Leadership. and again like I think people forget this stuff but it wasn't a layup my first book I self-published right and I hired an editor I invested in myself somebody who had written 19 books to help me write my first book right I hired the company called Scribe Media to help me create the cover and the layout and get the Amazon ISBN I didn't know how to do those things I invested in myself I hired someone who had been where I wanted to go right I highly encourage you do the same whatever that is for you.

11:28Heather Monahan:But when it came time for me to try to get a book publishing deal, I remember Googling the number one female nonfiction author. And at the time it was Rachel Hollis. And I found who her agent was, I put myself in the agent's shoes, right? This is what selling is. And I thought, what could be appealing or desirable to her about me? And I realized Rachel Hollis writes pretty exclusively about her Christian faith. That's what she really leans into her past is, you know, all around the church. And for me, my past is all around business. I write so much about business and my experiences in business, what I've learned.

12:04Heather Monahan:So I thought, listen, I'm going to reach out to this woman. She already has a roadmap for success based on what Rachel's done. I'm not competitive with Rachel because I'm talking about business. She's talking about the church and her Christian faith. She can very easily use that same roadmap for success. For me, it's not competitive. It's not going to take away at her existing client. It's going to be additive and it's not going to be any more work for her. So that was the way that I set myself up to approach her. And of course, she was interested, no additional work, new revenue stream, and solving a problem, right?

12:34Heather Monahan:People are always looking to grow revenue. So put yourself in their shoes, find a way to solve a problem that they have, make it very little work for them, because reality is nobody wants to work hard, even though I'm always advocating for it. That's the irony there. So she said, yeah, yeah, I'm super interested. Send me your book proposal. And I didn't know what a book proposal was, right? Like I'd only ever self-published. So I said, I don't even know what that is. And she said, well, our conversation's over then, Heather. I can't talk to you without a book proposal. I said, well, let me ask one more question.

13:01Heather Monahan:If you had a daughter or a special friend that you love so much that wanted to write a book proposal and didn't know how, who would you send them to? And she said, well, Peter Economy. And that's all I needed. I said, you're going to hear from me soon. So I tweeted at Peter Economy. And I said, Peter, you're not going to believe it. Jill wants us to work together. Blah, blah, blah. He tweeted back at me. and I hired Peter Economy and it was a lot of money. I invested in myself, right? I hired someone who had been where I wanted to go. You're gonna see through my journey, that's so much of what I do is just finding that right who and hiring them.

13:33Heather Monahan:And I promise you, that's how you can move a lot faster too. So I hired him, we worked on the book proposal. We wrote and rewrote that book proposal 15 times, one five, 15. It was almost a year in the making just to do the book proposal, not the book. On the 15th time, I said, Peter, I think I'm done with Jill. Like, I just don't think that she likes me. I don't think she gets me like 15 times we've rewritten this thing. It's freaking awesome. Like what's wrong with her? He said, All right, send it this 15 time. And if she doesn't say yes, let's go find you another agent. Maybe she isn't the right fit for you.

14:06Heather Monahan:Well, on the 15th time, she said yes, I share that story with you because again, and I shared it at the event this weekend. Here's why people think like I just fall into book deals. No, this was like a year out of my life and like failing and failing and redoing and investing in me and hiring and like not knowing if it was ever going to work out. Right. So often success looks easy on the outside, but when you see what's really happening on the inside, it's a series of fall, get down, get back up, fall, get down, get back up, like keep grinding, keep trying, keep changing, keep improving and keep swinging, even not knowing if you're ever going to connect and hit it out of the park and just praying that you do right.

14:41Heather Monahan:Having that faith that, okay, good things take time. Great things take longer. I'm going to stay on this path. So I ended up signing with her. Then I signed with her. And wouldn't you know that we were in the middle of a pandemic and it was the worst time in the world to be pitching a book deal. And the first six companies we pitched said no. The next seven said yes. But again, I'm setting you up to understand like I get noed all the time, all of the time. But I just don't go away. right like I reinvent myself I regroup I take a different approach I reach out to somebody different it's a numbers game like listen you're always one ask one person one idea away from the right deal right place right situation right date right like it only takes one it doesn't take nine million it takes one yes that you need to get it takes that one right person that you need to meet and when you approach things with that attitude I promise things just start working out in your best interests.

15:38Heather Monahan:They certainly do. Okay, so a couple other things that I didn't share at the event, but I want to share with you that I was thinking about, you know, over the last couple of years that have made a big difference in my business and in my success. And I want you to try it, please try it. It's wild. One of the big things that opened up like a vortex of positive energy for me was clearing out and decluttering my last house when I was selling my home. My realtor said, like, we got to get some stuff out of here. You've lived here a long time. I literally gave away and threw out so much stuff. It was incredible.

16:13Heather Monahan:Not only did I feel lighter and happier and loved my home so much more after I did that, right? I did it because I was moving, but I loved my home when I did it. I was like, why didn't I do this sooner? Amazing miracles started showing up in my life. Now, what's so wild is this past week, I interviewed Marie Diamond from The Secret. You're going to hear she's coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to release the episode. I'm so hyped for you to hear it It's so freaking good And I'm implementing like everything This woman taught me, it's incredible Into my life, because that whole Declutter thing is part of Feng Shui Right, which she did not make this up It's an ancient Chinese Practice that's been around for thousands Of years, and again there's no Downside to it, like decluttering, what's the Downside, you're not going to get hurt, the worst that happens Is you have a cleaner house with more Space, but what she says and teaches around Feng Shui is that it creates space for miracles to start showing up in your life.

17:08Heather Monahan:And it truly worked out that way for me. I literally emptied out my house, decluttered my home. Within two weeks, I get a phone call from the Dr. Phil show to come on. Like so many wild things started happening out of left field, not things I was working on, not things I was planning on, things that just started showing up for me. So declutter, I'm tasking with that today. I'm going to do it to my bedroom now that I've lived in the condo I'm in now for a couple of years, I need to declutter again. Like it's never over, right? Why not always be creating space for miracles to show up in your life?

17:37Heather Monahan:Okay, then back to her Feng Shui. I, I really went down the rabbit hole, like her whole idea. And again, I'm going to get into the detail on the show on that episode. So you'll hear it, but I'm prepping you for it now. So you can start getting in the mindset because I want to set you up for success so bad. Her whole concept is like, we all know what a vision board is, right? Like putting the spouse that you want on there, the book deal that you want, the millions of dollars that you want, the home that you want, the child that you want, whatever it is, right? Like all the things you want, you desire your vision for your future.

18:06Heather Monahan:You map it out, you put pictures against it, you visualize it. But her ideas go even further, make it part of your home. So for example, she says, like, don't put pictures of yourself alone in your home. That's sending the message subliminally that you're alone. If you want to be in a relationship, put pictures with you and people you love in it so that you are always seeing I'm always surrounded by love. I'm always surrounded by people who love me, right? Like share the message and the vision board, not on just the vision board, but everywhere in your home. So declutter the table, declutter the desk, declutter the bedroom and have pictures of two hearts together, have pictures of you and your best friends hugging together, you know, have pictures of you on amazing trips that are super expensive that you know, like you need to be making millions of dollars to go on again, right?

18:53Heather Monahan:That's all sending this message that you're succeeding, that things are going well, start living out your vision board in your home. And that can be done through the colors that you choose. That can be done through plants. Oh, here is another great one that she shared with me. Get rid of all fake plants. Fake plants stagnate energy and stop flow. So I chucked, I had these beautiful fake plants, got rid of them, put real ones in, like bring things to life, bring energy into your home and create movement and energy. I have a fountain now in my house. It's very small. It's cute. So cute. But like it shows that water is always moving, like money's always moving into my life, like energy is always moving, positive things, miracles are always coming to my life.

19:37Heather Monahan:It's all about setting your home up to literally like be a vortex for good for you. So I'm so hyped for you to hear this episode. I can't wait. And ironically, the same day I interviewed Marie, which is so crazy. I interviewed Michael Beckwith. He was in the movie The Secret with her. And I say ironically, no, it's serendipitous. It's a miracle, right? Like these are people who I've watched that movie a million times and think it's incredible. And now here they are coming on the show, right? Same day too, which is so wild. I don't know. To me, that's like gets my attention. There's miracles happening all over.

20:11Heather Monahan:Anyhow, when I was on with Michael, such an incredible spiritual individual, amazing energy, like soul vibing high, like he's all about getting your vibration to the next level to attract the right things into your life with the right people. It's so much good. But he also shares, right? Like it's first connection to God source. You know, I say God for sure. Some people say universe. I say God. He says God as well. So it's your connection to God and prayer to God, right? Super, super, being aligned with God and what your soul purpose is, getting clear on that. And that can be done through prayer.

20:44Heather Monahan:That can be done through journaling. That can be done through religion. Like there's so many different ways, right? For me, a lot is going back to the Bible and reading the messages from the Bible. Gosh, they're so powerful. Like, you know, the power of the tongue is stronger than that of the sword, right? Like there's all the power resides within you through Jesus Christ, right? Like there's so much truth and power in the Bible. It's incredible. And it's just so wild to me. It's thousands of years old. Like all of the information we ever needed was already there. It was the last original piece of artwork that we've ever seen created.

21:15Heather Monahan:Okay. So he's talking about first, God first and your relationship with God first. Next, he's talking about positive affirmations, positive prayer, meaning, I don't know that I'm saying it correctly, but I'll teach you the right way. Instead of when you pray saying, Oh God, please, I would like to have a new car in my life. You thank God for the new car that you already have in your life, even though you don't have it yet, right? It's all about like, you're so expectant and this is back to the Bible. You're so expectant for what it is you're asking for that it's already here. You're already showing gratitude for it.

21:47Heather Monahan:So gratitude, love, like joy, being on that super high vibe and speaking it into existence because the power of the tongue is so incredibly powerful. Like, thank you so much for these incredible miracles in my life. God, I'm so incredibly grateful and thankful I received them today and every day with so much gratitude, right? Like this positive affirm prayer instead of like begging for something, you're thinking that you already received it, even though you probably actually haven't yet. Okay, so that was super important that and he was reminding me of that living your life's purpose. And like the more that we can come into alignment with what we're really meant to be doing.