Confidence Classic: Why Fear Means You’re Exactly Where You Need to Be with Heather!

26:52For years, I walked away from that idea of this magic and I went back to work. And that's not the answer. The answer was what I should have done. I should have started Googling speaking business. Is there a speaking business? How could I ever make money speaking? I should have started talking to people and trying to figure out and really put it out to the universe that this is what I want to do. Don't know how it can work, but I need to start asking questions and having conversations and opening doors. And I didn't do that. However, as you probably know by now, you know, I get fired. I put a post up on social media and it said, I've just been fired.

27:28If I've ever helped you in any way, I need to hear from you now. And people told me to take that post down. They said I looked so pathetic. And I listened to the one voice and opinion that matters. And that is your own. And my voice was telling me, my opinion was telling me, I don't look pathetic. I didn't do anything bad. That lady just didn't like me. I don't feel embarrassed about it. And then I Googled, has anyone successful ever been fired? Turns out Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, Mark Cuban. The list goes on and on. Heather Monaghan. Yes. In good company. I decided to reframe it.

28:05I have not been rejected. I have been redirected to something so much bigger and so much better for me. So I rocked that post and that post landed me on the Elvis Duran show. and halfway through that interview, he says to me, well, obviously you're writing a book, but I wasn't. I had always thought of myself as the social one, you know, the sales one and that you had to stay in that sales lane. And it was that moment that man spoke a belief and a truth and a conviction into me that I decided to grab that truth and conviction and run with it. So if you ever have something to say to someone, if you ever have a feeling or calling that you wanna say something, speak that truth into them, you can truly change the trajectory of their lives.

28:48And he did that day for me. I'm so grateful for that. I jumped on a plane. I Googled, how do you write a book? Said, just start writing. So I started writing. And within a few months, I said, I've got to go bigger. I need to find someone who has done this before. I hired an editor. I invested in myself. And we brought that book, Confidence Creator, to life in May of 2018, only months after I had been fired. And that book went number one on Amazon and Donald Trump, who was then president. for number one on the business biography list. And yes, I have the screenshot to prove that one. Super proud.

29:21Okay. So from there I Googled, how do you sell books? And it said, speak. I thought, oh my gosh, great. I'm so good at speaking. And then I went down the rabbit hole of cold calling companies and saying, Hey, I'll come in and speak if you buy my books. And then one day someone said, what's your speaker fee? And I Googled speaker fees. And I realized Gary Vaynerchuk was getting$350 ,000 a speech back then in 2018. And that's when I said, wait a minute, there is a speaker business. How did I not know this? And I just went all in on speaking. And I got hired to interview Sarah Blakely live on stage at a sales and marketing conference in Boston in 2019.

30:00And I gave my TEDx talk and my speaking business took off until the pandemic hit. And then it disappeared overnight. And again, it's like one of those things in the moment. It sucks. Everything sucks when the hard times come. But when you look back, I see, even though I hate to say it, it was actually a blessing in disguise, right? Getting thrown into that pandemic and losing my speaking business forced me to launch a consulting and coaching business, which landed me on the board of directors of HealthLinked. I wouldn't have my board seat if it wasn't for my consulting and coaching program. So one of the people that hired me was the CFO of HealthLink.

30:36And we developed a rapport and relationship over the pandemic. And he believed in me so much that he pulled the CEO in to meet me and said, she's got to join our board. She's amazing. And I have been pitching myself for a board for over a decade at the company that fired me. And here's what I've learned. When you're sitting at a table surrounded with people that don't actually want you there, there's nothing wrong with you. You're in the wrong room. Get up from that table, leave that room and go find a room where people want you at the table. And that's exactly what happened for me during COVID is I found that table and those people love me.

31:08And they cheer me on when I walk in the door. And our last board meeting, I had to do it. Virtually my son was on spring break and they were so bummed out I wasn't there. Right. And it's just so funny to I'm finally with the right people. And that's what I want for you.

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32:53Visit northwestregisteredagent.com slash confidence free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at www.northwestregisteredagent.com slash confidence free. I ask you to try to find your passion. As you know, I love to answer your questions. And I have a really interesting question that showed up this week. So here goes. This came through to me on LinkedIn. Hey, Heather, my question is, when writing a book that includes information about your personal life and experience that you've had with other people, how do you protect yourself from potential lawsuits?

33:35while one could say a solution could be just leave that part out it's important to include in the book to build the story credibility and message just like you heather wrote about the woman that fired you how did you protect yourself from any lawsuits any advice on how to word this in a book obviously not naming the people also would it be different if these are personal relationships versus a professional relationship okay here's why this is interesting and hang with me on this because I think you'll like this answer. No, I know you'll like this answer. So there's a funny backstory that I haven't told on this.

34:11I'm going to tell you now because you're here in the fam and I want you to know it's interesting because a good friend of mine who I hadn't seen since before the pandemic and I had the opportunity to spend the day with the other day, she asked me the exact same question around how come you never got sued by that lady? And by the way, what happened? Did she come after you? Did you cover it up? Like what's give us the real dirt? So I just had a good friend ask me this and then I got this note. So number one, first and foremost, I am not an attorney, right? Now, probably this might confuse you a little bit and I hope it doesn't.

34:45But here, just to set it straight, I'm not an attorney, so I'm not someone to give legal advice. I can explain my situation. That doesn't mean I'm advising you on yours, right? I am not equipped to give legal advice. I will share with you what happened in my situation and I'll share with you the advice that I got and what I decided to do. But you need to make your own decisions. I highly recommend anyone that has a legal question, reach out to a lawyer, right? I mean, that's just the smart thing to do. I always talk about this. Never take direction from someone who hasn't been where you're going.

35:16You know, yes, I've been in a situation so you can hear what I have to say, but I'm not the authority on it. I'm not an attorney. So I'm going to share it with you, take it or leave it, but definitely speak to an attorney and find out what they think because I have no idea. I never pretend to be an attorney. Now, here's what's interesting. Back in 2018 is when I wrote and self-published my first book, Confidence Creator. And this is really what she's referencing, right? Because this is the first book. This is right out. I had just gotten fired. I got fired at the end of 2017, actually coming up on five years, which is so crazy.

35:51So I just gotten fired. And then I was writing and self-publishing this book. I was petrified, by the way, if anyone doesn't remember this, petrified, literally like hiding under my bed, scared that this lady is going to come after me. And here's why. She was now the CEO of this company, making hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm this single mom who just been cast out, had no job, could not go back to the industry I was an expert in because they had me sign an 18 month non-compete non-solicit, which meant I could not compete in the industry. I had expertise, knowledge. Now, I mean, I could have crushed it if I could have gone back.

36:29I truly believe now that happens for a reason. That was the way to push me out of that industry and to get myself to do take this leap of faith and go to work for myself, which seriously is a leap of faith. It is not easy. It's not for the faint of heart, but I would have never done it if I could have just gone across the street and competed against them. Right. So here's the thing. I was so scared back then. And I remember when I first finished Confidence Creator, my first book, I sent it to my family members. My sister is an attorney. She called me immediately and said, hey, here's the thing.

37:02You can't publish this. She's an attorney, mind you. And she said, you can't publish this. You're going to get sued. You're going to get sued by the lady that you call out. You're going to get sued by anyone and everyone you call out. and you're even going to get sued by Jen Sincero, the author of You Are a Badass because your book is similar and she's going to sue you. And so this was legal expert advice, right? So I hung up with her, made a smart decision. I called my editor. He'd written 19 books. And I told him, I said, my sister is an attorney. She said, I can't do this. I'm going to get sued.

37:33And he said, Heather, how many books have I written? I said, 19. He said, you don't think that anyone ever told me I was going to get sued? I said, I don't know. And he said, no, plenty of people told me I was, but I just went for it anyways. And guess what? I never got sued. And that made me think back to my time in corporate America. You know, over 20 years, I was leading teams and working for publicly traded companies in high profile positions. I was sued many times, right, in that environment. However, you have legal and a general counsel and the company's funds to protect you. So it wasn't something I worried about.

38:09I dealt with it, you know, going to court, depositions, all this kind of stuff. But so I'm familiar with the process. I don't like it at all. It's painful waste of time. But in most cases, you know, it's not true. And so you're just wasting your time defending that it's not true. If so, in the end, you know, either the company pays them to go away or you prove that it wasn't true and it's over and just frustrating. So anyhow, so back to, you know, all this is going on. My editor says, just do it anyways. I'm so scared because it's like that David and Goliath story, right? I'm this one individual person and she's the CEO of this massive company, hundreds of millions of dollars, a general counsel, full-time working for her.

38:52I don't have that, right? So I remember thinking all these things. My sister said I was going to get sued, right? So there was just all this general fear around, oh my God, fear. Oh my gosh, here we are again talking about fear. fear is a green light that means go and go faster remember so I was really clinging to this fear now cut to today I was thinking about this and I remember thinking okay have I ever talked about this prior to now and I remembered I had so here's the thing in 2018 a good friend of mine was a producer on the James Altucher podcast which is a huge podcast in New York City He used to film it live out of his comedy nightclub.

39:36And I had the opportunity to go on, be his guest. He's incredible. Now he's a friend of mine. I'm a big fan of James Altucher. Check the podcast out. It's so good. Check out this episode. He actually has it up on YouTube and it's hilarious. And here's why. James is brilliant, man. Super successful. Written many books, right? He's light years ahead of me as an entrepreneur. He has his own challenges with confidence, which was really interesting for us to get into on the conversation. but what's cool about this and I'm gonna I actually went to his website to search it up and I found a blog he wrote about this it's so spot on so you're gonna love it I'm gonna read it to you right now again check out the whole episode it's so cool but he interviewed me about the book Confidence Creator this was the week before it was coming out and we get into right at the end when we're about to get off the show we get into this whole legal question and he really helped me break it down and push me through.

40:31So number one, asking my editor for advice and direction was a really smart choice. And then ending up in front of James, who is an author who had done this many times and getting advice from him really propelled me through. I mean, this is how I did it. Again, I do not give legal advice, hire an attorney if you want legal advice. Okay, here we go. So this is up on the James Altucher blog, and it's about this conversation James and I had after he interviewed me on Creating Confidence. Here we go. The mic was off. Thanks for coming, I said. That was great. And everyone in the room agreed. When does the book come out again?

41:05Tuesday. I'm freaking out, she said. That's me, by the way. Wait, why? I was confused. We just did an hour-long podcast about confidence. What are you afraid of, I asked. And then I looked at my engineer. Jay, make sure you're rolling. Okay, stop for a second. So I had no idea James was going to do this. We were like off air having a personal conversation. And he says, no, hit record. Let's put this on. Rolling, we're on. The podcast was back on. I was talking to Heather Monahan, author of Confidence Creator, which just came out this week. I thought we had a great conversation. I learned a lot.

41:41But more on that later. I wanted to know what she was afraid of. It's her first book. And to me, that means one thing. Opportunity. I think I'm going to get sued, she said. I'm so scared of that. Why are you afraid you're going to be sued? James said. She told me some of her fears. I started to tackle each one. That'll never happen because they need to prove X. And no, you don't have to even think about that because of Y. And my friend Bill Betreat, he's a lawyer turned comedian. He was in the room and he agreed with everything. So then I asked her, what else are you afraid of? And she said, missing my flight.

42:18I checked the time and she left. I just spent the last hour playing devil's advocate with her. She was the positive one telling me how to create confidence, and I was the challenger. Because she made it sound easy. Confidence isn't easy. I know this because I don't have any. These were the questions I asked, and I learned a lot. I learned that I think I'll be a little more confident if I just take a few steps in the right direction. Number one, I said, it's hard to just start, particularly if you've gone deeper into the no confidence zone. So how can someone start, Heather? She told me about her moments, getting fired as a chief revenue officer because someone else didn't like her personality, getting divorced and questioning herself, her choices, and questioning who she was as a person.

43:05It's not about hard or easy, she said. This is a choice. If confidence was easy, everyone would have it. It's a discipline and a choice. And she's right. The reason she bounced back from those low moments was because she decided to. You don't just bounce back by mistake. So when I asked her to walk me through step one, she made it clear. Decide. Decide if confidence is something you're willing to work on. Get clear on it. Number two, how do you make the leap? If you just got fired, divorced, went broke, how do you say, okay, I'm going to make myself priority number one? So in any moment, you're either going to be building your confidence or chipping away at it, Heather said.

43:47So she said after step one of deciding, you need step two, build reminders for yourself. One of the ways she does that is with a 30-day plan. What does that look like, I asked. She told me about her son who broke his leg playing basketball. It was cool, she said. Not that he broke his leg. That was horrible. And for him, it was devastating because he was 10 and loves basketball. How do you break his leg? a basketball game. He was devastated because he'd have to be out of the game for a while, but instead of allowing it to be some unknown amount of time, Heather helped him create a 30 day plan.

44:22I like to give myself that sense of, okay, I can get through today. I can cross this day off. They showed themselves that they could make it back and they were had a bigger focus and goal of getting back on the court, getting back to the parts of life that they really enjoy. One of these days, Heather's son even wrote on his shoes, I can do all things. Heather also did a 30-day plan trick when she got fired from her job. She made a priorities list each day. She asked herself, what do I want to focus on? Keyword, want, not need. That's so important. Because if she only did what she needed to do, she'd still be suffering.

44:58Staying sad for more than 30 days, that was never an option for me, she said. I had that map for the first 30 days. I was allowing myself to feel what I needed to feel. But honestly, within the first 10 days, I wasn't feeling that sad anymore. Doing what she wanted, making a list of it and checking it off each day helped her get out of her sadness and into her confidence. Number three, how long should you allow yourself to feel sad? I like that she didn't push it away. This is actually the first tip she gives in her book, Confidence Creator. She said, it's okay to feel sad and to reach out and talk to people about it.

45:32But she also didn't let herself get trapped in it. So when I asked her how long someone can be sad for, she talked about vision. Beyond 30 days for me, I saw more for my future and my vision for where I wanted to go. So the first 30 days after getting fired, getting divorced and so on, Heather dedicates to just getting through the day. She set her priorities and goes down the list. But after that, she makes a new plan. And it doesn't have to be exact. She didn't know the name of her book or what she was going to write about. She even made a mock-up book one day just to push herself a little closer to the direction she wanted to achieve.

46:09It looked terrible, she said, but it helped me realize this is what I'm working towards. I think the reason so many people feel like their confidence is static is because we forget to move past the 30 days. Something bad happens. We either bounce back or we don't. And wherever we land usually ends up being our new status quo. But Heather showed me it doesn't have to be. I can make a new plan any day, and I don't even have to believe in it. I can just fake it until it comes true. Heather even bought Sheryl Sandberg's book, Option B, for in case things didn't work out. Her son walked by it, saw it one day, and said, You don't need a plan B, Mom.

46:46Let's throw this book away. Which she did. Okay, so I'm going to stop there. This article goes on and on, right? So he's kind of recapping the whole show. Check it out. James Altucher Podcast. Just type in James Altshire, Heather Monahan. It comes up on YouTube. You can read this blog or you can go check out his podcast and listen to the whole episode. So a lot of the back end of the episode is about the legal part. So ultimately, James advised me, do not feel fearful about getting sued. It's not going to happen. Anyone can sue you for anything. It's completely irrelevant. And that should not stop you from creating or moving forward with your plans.

47:24Right. So his advice as an author and entrepreneur was just go for it. It's not going to happen. My sister's advice, who's a successful attorney, was don't do it. You're going to get sued. So everyone comes at things from their own life perspective, their own experience, which is great. My editor, who had written 19 books, came at it from his experience. He said, go for it. You're not going to get sued. So here we are today. Cut to the behind the scenes. Here we are today almost, well, now, I guess, four years later from book launch, and I never got sued. And so, of course, were there times I was so petrified when I would hear, you have an official note at the desk, Heather, in my building?

47:59I think, oh, my gosh, it's here. I'm so dead. I'm going to get sued and I'm going to lose two years of my life in court and I'm going to have no money. Of course, I thought those things, right? I was super, super nervous. However, I needed a little bit of information to understand some things. James and my editor gave me the push forward that I needed in that moment of time. I'm grateful for them. I'm grateful I listen to them. Doesn't mean you should listen to them, but, you know, consult an attorney and see what your truth is. For me, that was my truth. I needed that push they gave me and it worked out.

48:33Cut to I signed with HarperCollins Leadership in the end of 2020. And one of the things that happens when you sign with a big publishing house is they have a huge legal team. Yet again, it was like being back at a big company in corporate America. Now I had a legal team at my disposal to use to help me. So I had now this is my second book, Overcome Your Villains. And so I get on a call the first time with one of the attorneys on my team. And he had read my new book, Overcome Your Villains. And he said, OK, let's get into some of the legal situations. Obviously, I don't want to use these people's real names, blah, blah, blah.

49:09Is everything that you're saying true? Yes. OK, he said. So here's the thing, Heather. He said, your first book, Confidence Creator, he said, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm surprised you didn't get sued for that. I said, really? You're kidding. He said, he said, but you didn't. And here's the great news. Because she didn't sue you for that. Her statue of limitations has expired. I had no idea what that was. But apparently, I think it's a two year statute of limitations. So he said, if I was going to get sued, it would have had to have been in 2018 with confidence creator, or in 2019, with my TED talk, which I addressed her bullying me at work.

49:45He said, so it had to have been one of those two things. He said, I'm here to give you some really good news. She didn't do it. She didn't pull the trigger while she had the chance. And so she can't anymore. He said, so we're pretty much in the clear with Overcome Your Villains because you're not, basically, I'm not releasing some whole new hidden thing that I've never talked about before. I might get into more detail on some things in Overcome Your Villains, but I've already addressed them in the bigger picture earlier on. So he explained to me as my attorney that there's nothing she can do anymore, which is so crazy that, you know, had he not told me that I'd still have a little bit of fear around it.

50:23Right. I mean, it's kind of a weird thing when it's the unknown. You just don't know what to expect. OK, so that was great news. And then so I was talking to my girlfriend last week about it, and she's saying, are you shocked that she didn't see you or or are you not shocked? Here's what I know. I'm sure she got legal advice. Right. But here's what I think she got for advice that maybe she regrets now maybe she doesn't I don't know it doesn't really matter right it's irrelevant but I have a feeling that someone said this to her that you know you suing her Heather will blow it up on social media she'll expose it and she'll leverage it and use it to her advantage which of course I would right I would definitely bring you into the story on it and I would definitely let people know and here's the thing you know Heather was telling the truth with what happened so really for you to make a case that she's defaming you or, you know, saying something that isn't true.

51:17How are you going to do that? Right. You're going to be pouring gasoline on a fire that doesn't need to be amped up. Just give it some time. Heather will, you know, go away or Heather will go back to corporate America, take another job and no one will ever talk about this again. In my mind, I have a feeling she probably thought, yeah, that's, you know, listen, there's really nothing to sue her about because she's telling the truth. And to make this a big deal and try to shut her down, it's going to be really hard to do that. And we'd just be amping up her voice, amplifying her voice even more.

51:47So they probably decided, okay, just, you know, let Heather go away. The weird thing is, and I shared this on my social a couple of weeks ago, when I left that company, we were trading at, I think it was$11 a share price was right. And that was at the end of 2017 in 2018, that stock started going down. It's gone down consistently for the last five years, it's trading at a dollar. The last time I checked a dollar and 30 cents, I believe it was. So what's weird is I mentioned the David and Goliath concept, right? Like this huge company and then this little me. And so, I mean, I'm still not some huge company, but the trajectory has changed.

52:25And the reason why I share that with you is things don't always go the way you think they will, right? Like I was so sure I was going to get sued. I didn't get sued. And then I found out from my attorney now, I can't get sued by her. Like it's over. The ship has sailed. I didn't know any of that was going to happen. I was worrying about something that never even transpired. I was wasting my energy on things that never came to fruition. What are you wasting your energy on today? So thank you so much. As always, if you could share the show, share with just one person or post it on social media, I'll always repost.

52:59And when you do tag Tag me. You got a chance to win Overcome Your Villains audiobook or Confidence Creator audiobook. I narrate both of them. You will love them. And on the Overcome Your Villains audiobook, I give off script at the end of every chapter. I just go raw and break it all down for you. So different. I definitely took it from the David Goggins book. I loved how he did it and went off script on this one. So I think you'll really dig the audiobook. And if you haven't, you're going to love the Confidence Creator audiobook, too. So until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know I will be.