Heather Monahan, Overcome Haters and Build Unstoppable Confidence | Leadership | YAPClassic

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21:46Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Heather now has a podcast called Creating Confidence. I would highly recommend it. We'll put it in the show notes. You guys got to check it out. She wrote a number one bestselling book called Creating Confidence. Now she has overcome your villain. She's spoken everywhere. What made you feel like you needed to write this book? Oh my gosh. Responding number one to questions people ask me, right? So people ask me, how did you get to the C-suite? How did you do this? Like, I want to let people know, listen, if I can do it, you can too. Let me give you the, I'll give you the cheat sheet, right?

22:19Like don't listen to the BS. Other people are saying, well, I haven't done it. Let me break it down for you in the simple steps. One of the big things that I realized now, looking back on my career and my life, nothing amazing happens until you overcome that villain. Like for you, the villain was the corporate job and the security and the safety. Like that was your villain in the moment. For me, my villain was myself and my negative self-talk and dialing myself down. I had to overcome myself in order to step into my possibility and power. So just I started thinking more and more about like, listen, it's no one's ever going to reach their greatness.

22:55No one's ever going to achieve the potential success that's out there for them until they deal with that one nasty villain. Everybody's got one. And it's about not just acknowledging it by overcoming it. Yeah. And I love what you're saying. You're saying it's not just only other people. It can be yourself. Sometimes your biggest villain is actually yourself. So the big idea in this is if we don't control our villains, they're going to control us, right? They're going to control our lives, whether that's ourselves or that's other people who are our villains. So let's talk about how to move beyond these negative people and situations.

23:27You have a three-step process to overcome challenges. It's called the BAC process. It stands for belief, actions, and knowledge. Can you give us like the one, two minute high level overview, and then we'll go deep on it? Yeah, I'll give you a real quick. I'll use myself as an example because it's the easiest to understand. Okay, so when I got fired, the belief I sat with when I immediately got fired was I've lost everything. I remember walking out and I'm like, I've lost everything. So when you're in that moment and challenge hits, pump the brakes and say, okay, what's the belief I'm holding? I've lost everything.

23:59Now dial that down to the most simplistic shred of fact you can find. So as I dialed it down, I thought, I didn't lose my network. I didn't lose my expertise. I didn't lose my friends. my health, my family, my business acumen. Wait a minute. I didn't lose anything. I lost a paycheck. That was fact. I did lose a paycheck. So suddenly going from I've lost everything to I lost a paycheck. That really helped to close a gap for me to say, well, I've gotten paychecks from other places before. When you start dialing that belief down to the most simplistic shred of fact, you're going to get your head in a much better space.

24:33Number two, immediately take action. And And this is where a lot of people get held up. Lucky for me, this is like my action is my wheelhouse, right? So I went immediately to LinkedIn and I put a post up. So take messy action. I didn't write some long, beautiful post. I just put out there, hey, Ben Fire, need your help. Like I'm raising my hand. Here I am, right? So take messy action. Done will always be better than perfect. And then three, knowledge. You want to surround yourself and curate the knowledge that you're accessing and allowing into your life. So that great example of this is landing on the Elvis Duran show.

25:05someone who's light years ahead of me, much more successful than me, speaking truth and life into me, telling me, Heather, you're writing a book. Had that man not said that to me that day, I don't know where I would be right now. Right. So be really mindful about the people you're accessing information from and never take direction from people who haven't been where you are going. I remember you were telling me that story. I just want to like touch on that a little bit. So Elvis Duran, he's this huge radio personality. Heather was live on air and he just announced that she was writing a book and she had no plans for a book.

25:38He just said it. And then that was it. Then you became a bestselling author. It's like, it's sort of like what you did to me, like when somebody just believes in you and then he just gave you all that accountability in front of other people. Exactly. And that's the thing. And this is important for everyone listening. Like whenever you feel something like you want to speak a truth into someone, do it. Your words are so powerful. You can change the trajectory of someone else's life. So whatever thoughts come into your mind, it's something positive or encouraging that you can give as a gift to someone give that gift because that man totally changed the trajectory of my, my life, my business life, my personal life, everything by speaking a truth and a belief he had, I had never considered writing a book, but when he had such a conviction and a belief that I could do it and that it was going to be great, I bought into it and I Googled, how do you write a book?

26:27I love that. So while we're on the topic of kind of helping other people, because there's people in our lives and we want to influence them, we want to help them as well. And sometimes it can be really hard to give advice. And Amy Moran gave you advice before your TED Talk, and she gave you this like sandwich technique to give other people feedback. Could you share that with us? Oh, yeah, sure. So the sandwich technique is, it's a really helpful one. Anytime you're leading teams, you're mentoring people or developing people. Oftentimes, times people have a hard time taking criticism, right? Like they shut down the minute they hear, Ooh, that's not so good.

27:01Or I wouldn't do it that way. They can't hear anything. They're not going to process anything else. So a great technique, strong leaders use very often is they lead with something positive, right? So let's use the example of when I was giving my TEDx talk, my friend, Amy Morin has over 21 million views on her TEDx talk. So she's been where I wanted to go. So she's the person I chose to tap for advice on my talk. And so when I share it with her, she came back at me and said, listen, wow, you're an amazing speaker, Heather. Like she's leading with praise. I love the whole concept. It's so unique.

27:35The idea is incredible. I love how you position A, B, C, and D. Now a sandwich is in the middle is the meat, right? So now here's where the constructive criticism and real impact is going to come, right? She's like, however, I didn't love, you didn't pull me in the way you usually do in the beginning. And I think that there's something bigger that you could come up with that would draw the audience in quickly in a different way. I'm not sure what it is, but I challenge you to find out what that is. And then let's go back to the bread in the sandwich, right? And then she closes with how she is so certain I am going to kill it, that my talk will be just as successful as hers, that she can't wait to support me and closes with a really powerful supportive gesture.

28:17So the sandwich technique is all about lead with positivity, praise in a true and honest way. The middle of that conversation is where you're going to give the constructive criticism and feedback and then close with encouragement and positivity again. I love that. I can't wait to use that because sometimes I feel like I'm too blunt with my team. And as I become a leader and have less and less time, I feel like I'm just always giving negative feedback. But if I could just pause, make sure I say something positive, then give criticism, then say something positive again, they'll always have like a great feeling about me as a person and just your relationships, I'm sure will be better, especially as a leader.

28:52Oh my gosh, I'm going to go find you like a little sandwich and send it to you so it can be on your next computer. A reminder, a sandwich magnet. Yeah, I'd love that. So let's talk about negative self-talk because like we mentioned, we can be our own villains. What should we do when we're having negative self-talk? First of all, stop, right? So one of the things that was helpful for me is just to pause and say, oh, gosh, this is like an old way I used to speak to myself. I don't do this anymore. I'm noticing. Just be aware. You want to be self-aware. But this was a huge one for me. I remember thinking, would I ever speak to my son like this?

29:28No. Of course I wouldn't speak. I wouldn't say, you idiot. I would never talk to my child like that, right? If you don't have a child, think of someone that you love in your life that you want to encourage and envision them and speak to yourself the way you would speak to them. So let's use an example. Let's say I blew it with some presentation or whatever, you know, and I'm beating myself up afterwards. I become self-aware and say, okay, I'm going to pause for a minute. This is an old way I used to behave. It wasn't helpful. So how can I change it? And then I picture my son and I picture he blew a presentation.

30:00And so now I talk to him and I say, listen, sweetheart, I know it seems like the end of the world right now, but I promise you this is temporary and I promise you, you're going to get better from it. And we're going to practice more for the next one. And I promise that this happened for a reason. And this is steering us to a new and better place. And suddenly I start feeling better because I'm real, like I'm coaching me the way that I would coach him. Right. And suddenly I feel more positive and I start believing in myself. So whether you need to carry a picture around of that person or carry a picture around of you as a younger version of yourself and you're coaching that younger person.

30:33But it's all about being aware, giving yourself the grace and then rewriting that narrative in the moment. I love that. I think that is such great advice. And if you don't have a kid, you can think about like coaching your little sister or your best friend or just anybody that you love and care about. Like you've got to have self-compassion and talk to yourself as if you love yourself, you know, otherwise you're going to carry all this negative energy and it's never going to do you any good. So I want to take us back to when you were a chief revenue officer at a public traded radio company. You worked for a very successful CEO and he had a house party one day and he brought you to his new mansion he bought on the Gulf of Mexico.

31:11And you were so amazed by this beautiful house until one of your coworkers said, this is the house that Heather built. And we were just talking about how we can be blind to our own surroundings. And I feel like this really like drives that point home. So how did that statement affect your beliefs about your future? Oh my gosh, that was a big, it's such a weird how you can have big moments at any point in time and you never know when something's going to hit you. But I had been at this company, like I said, for 14 years, right? We were doing in excess of$200 million annually. My job was I was responsible for all revenue and for the revenue team.

31:46And so when we walked in and he had just bought, this house was like$35 million. P.S. I don't live in a$35 million house. house. So yeah. And so we, um, soon with the podcast hollow, we will. So I walk into this party and someone was making a joke, you know, it was being funny saying like, Oh, this is the house that Heather built. I'm the one that's responsible for making the money for the company. But when he said it, you know, people were laughing like, Oh, that's cute. That's a cute, you know, that's funny, cute, whatever. I got pissed. I'm like, wait a minute. If this is the house that Heather built, why isn't Heather fricking living here?

32:19Like I'm the one out on the planes every week. I'm the one out cutting these big deals, building these teams. Why isn't it my house? So I left that night, not happy, but more challenged to say, why isn't it my house? And then I remember thinking, okay, this is back when I worked for the CEO that promoted me three times, not the one that fired me. It was her father. And I remember thinking, and he had shared this with me a few times, his story. His story was he had been a principal and an educator and did not have a lot of money, had a lot of kids, not a lot of money. And so secretly and quietly at night, he started working at a radio station.

32:55Then he built up enough money to buy that one radio station. And then he advanced that radio station, built enough money to buy another radio station. And then there was this huge crash in the nineties. And everyone said the internet is all there is and radio is gone, which was not the case, but he couldn't see into the future. He wasn't getting any loans from companies and he He didn't know how he was going to pay his debt and go on. And I remember him saying that he had to walk on the beach alone at night to say, I can either double down on this right now and take the biggest risk of my life and go all in on what I think is going to pay off tenfold, or I can fold up and sell for pennies on the dollar, lose everything and go back and be a principal again.

33:33And everybody was selling their radio companies because they were trading for pennies on the dollar. and all of his friends sold. And he doubled down and bought and bought and bought and leveraged everything he had and went into massive debt and it paid off huge. So I remembered that story walking out there and I realized, yes, I do all the work. Yes. I close all the deals. I make all the money, but I've never done what that man did. I never took that massive leap of faith. Like you eventually did. Like I eventually did after I got kicked out, but that was the missing piece. So until you're willing to take that big risk, you're never really going to get that great reward.

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38:40This story also reminds me of something that Ed Milet shared with us. So you're also friends with Ed Milet. He came on the show and he was talking to me about how he likes to step into his dreams. So when he and his wife were first coming up, they were pretty broke. They used to save money. And once a month, they would go to a very fancy hotel and they would get super dressed up and he would go golfing and she would wear a pretty dress and they would pretend to be rich for a day. And he says that that's what really pushed him to realize that he wanted to accomplish these dreams. So I'm sure seeing that huge mansion, you were like, whoa, like I'm playing like way too small.

39:16Do you believe in manifestation? Like, do you visualize? Like, tell us about your top tips for that. Oh, my gosh. Huge. You already know, but yeah, huge. I completely do. And to Ed's point, I was at his house. He now lives in that multi, multi-million dollar house on the beach, right? Like he's living that dream that he manifested at a younger age. And it is true. I did not know this when I was younger, but literally your words are your wand. Like whatever you speak, you are putting it, speaking it into existence. So instead of being the one to say, I'm such an idiot, Oh, blonde moment, which is something I said many times in my career.

39:54Now I speak, I'm kicking ass. I'm going bigger. I'm going for more. And those doors start opening. Whatever you speak will create some type of movement or opportunity in your life or a hold back for you. That choice is up to you. So now I take my time to, when I was interviewing Sarah Blakely live on stage, I was really nervous before taking that stage. So for a week leading up to it, every night I would lay on my floor, I would close my eyes and I would see her smiling at me. I would see me smiling at her. I would see us taking the stage. I would see a standing ovation. I would see what I wanted to put out into the universe, into the world and that energy that I wanted to have.

40:36And yeah, I was nervous as all get out when I took that stage, but because I had played it through my mind so many times, it went amazing. Even though there were lots of mistakes and bumps that occurred, it didn't matter because I had this vision of what was going to happen. And it happened. And it was the same way with my TEDx talk. I was so scared. I was so nervous taking that stupid little red circle. And I'll tell you, because I had envisioned it and played it through my mind so many times, it didn't matter the amount of challenges that occurred that day. And there were plenty of them because I had this vision that I hung on to and it manifested in the in.

41:14I love that. So I had one of my first speaking engagements. I did it at MIT and I had insomnia that night because all I kept doing was replaying a very good job of me saying this speech. But then I ended up doing a great job. And I was even though I had insomnia because I feel like I was just visualizing the whole night and I didn't have much time to prepare. So my body was like, you need to visualize all night and you'll worry about sleep later. So I totally agree. Sometimes when you just see yourself on stage and you imagine it going well, it usually always does turn out okay, which is just so interesting to me.

41:50It's science back. There's so much science that points to that you're priming your brain for something. I mean, Olympic athletes use this when training, right? Tom Brady will talk so much about this. Anyone who's extremely successful on some level is using visualization, whether they realize they're doing it or not, and just be willing to give it a shot. And it doesn't have to be for a TED Talk. It can be for a presentation at work next week. It can be for asking somebody out on a date, right? Like whatever it is that you're feeling a little bit of angst or anxiety that you want to happen, start envisioning happen and watch how it manifests.

42:27Yes, and we can't just dream, we've got to do, right? So the second part of your Bach method is actions. Now we love actionable advice at Young and Profiting Podcasts. And you say that we can track our progress toward achieving our goals by using a 30-day grid. Can you explain what a 30-day grid is and how we create one? Yeah, so I liken it to weight loss, right? So if you're gonna, if you wanna lose five or 10 pounds, you need to know what your baseline is that you're starting at, know what your goal is, get a picture of that goal, right? Like if I wanna lose weight, I'm gonna get a picture of me in a bikini when I'm younger and I'm like looking like I'm killing it.

43:03So you know what you're chasing after and then you wanna weigh in every day and track the progress and action steps you're taking to help you achieve your goal. You want to tap somebody to hold you accountable, right? These are all like basic steps. So, but it doesn't just have to be for weight loss. It can be for this idea of, I want to be a more confident version of myself or I have, for me, when I got fired, I have no idea where I'm going. So that my baseline was like, okay, we're at ground zero right now. At the end of 30 days, I want to be feeling like a much more confident version of myself and having some idea of where I'm going.

43:36This is truly what I did do. And so I created a vision. I actually have a life-size cutout of myself that I put up in my living room because I'm super confident in that picture. And I wanted to see it every day. Like, hey, I'm coming for you, girl. I've been there before. I'm coming for you. And so I would keep that visual. And then every day I would chart my action steps that I was taking to create opportunity. But the other really cool thing, I'd also practice gratitude and I would do it on this grid as well and encourage everyone to do that because it just helps your mind shift to what is possible, what is good instead of what is so hard, as we all have challenges.

44:10But staying focused on the positive really will help you build momentum. And so then I would start tracking the amazing gifts that started showing up in my life, like Elvis Duran, like all these different people who started showing up that I didn't know were coming a week before. And then when you start seeing that, oh my gosh, I wonder what's going to come next week then. That just helps you build more and more momentum. And then the more momentum you have, the more action steps you take, the more things that you do that create more opportunity and it feeds on each other. And before you know it, you're living the life of the life-size cutout that I have in delivery.

44:43I love that advice. Something else that you say that's really interesting is you said that we should put a song behind our goals. What is the power of putting like music or having a theme song surrounding your goal? Oh my gosh, so funny. So my whole career was in the radio business, right? So I've read so many research papers and white papers in regards to the impact music has on the mind. And there's a reason why McDonald's has a jingle. They want you constantly to be thinking about that, right? So pairing an action step or a statement or an affirmation with music is only going to further ingrain it in your mind and frequency cells.

45:22So the thoughts that you hold more often are the ones that are going to impact you in a positive or a negative way. So why not be the director of your own at home movie here that you're running around with all day long. For me, I chose a song by Kendrick Lamar. I love myself. I chose a visual and this is back to the media business, right? You want to pair a visual with an audio jingle or song with messaging. In my idea, I wanted to be more confident. I wanted to be like that best version, that 10 plus plus of myself. So I got that visual. I started running the Kendrick Lamar song all the time in my head.

45:59And then I started stating this, fear is a green light that means go and go faster. And whenever you feel it, Heather, you're moving into it. And so like those three things, I just made part of my daily routine. And I will tell you within 30 days, if you practice this, you will see a profound difference in whatever it is that you're going out there trying to achieve, you're going to see that you will be achieving it. I certainly believe it. So let's take a step back because we all have goals, but we need to be making sure that we're working on the right things. And you have a great actionable piece of advice because you say when acting on something, you always ask yourself, what's the grief to gross ratio, which I thought was super interesting.

46:40I've never heard this before. So talk to us about this little framework to help you make sure you're working on the right things. I came up with this back when I was in the media business. We'll use my old job for an example, right? So I could add more people to my team to accelerate revenues. I could create new business contests to have people focus on bringing in new business. I could train the existing team up. I could personally go after the largest clients in the country and close the biggest deals myself, right? There's so many different things that you can do in any job to have bigger and more profound impact and more success.

47:12So you have to start taking a step back and observe the entire landscape and say, where is my time best spent, right? Like we need to be strategic here. I don't want to be running around like a chicken with our head cut off, darting onto the left and right. No, where can I have the most impact and where can I do it seamlessly and most effectively and efficiently? I started looking at things as, okay, if there's going to be a lot of grief around this. For example, going out and interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people to find one good candidate, that didn't sound like the best grief to gross ratio for me.

47:45I started thinking, and this is years ago, this is probably six years ago. this is why I launched my personal brand six years ago. I started thinking, how can I flip the current? Instead of me chasing people, how do I get people to start chasing me? And so six years ago, I launched a personal brand to attract people into my life that might be like-minded, that might be looking for ways to elevate themselves, get tips, those are my kind of people. I wanted to pull that current towards me so that those people were constantly applying for the jobs that I did have available. And that grief to gross ratio was so much better than the way I had been doing it before.

48:22Yeah, I have to say, like you're a very like go with the flow type of person. Like you're one of my clients, right? I've been working with you for over two years. You are like not an annoying client at all. There's some clients who don't let us do our jobs. They want to be social media managers. They want to write the copy. They want to give so much feedback, but you're so much more of the person where you're just like, you're the expert. You do it. I'm going to do what I'm good at and you do what you're good at. And I feel like that works so well because you like, don't you feel like that's just such a better way to approach things like not to be micromanaging people?

48:55Well, here's the thing. That woman that ended up firing me, she was a huge micromanager. So in my opinion, this is my how I see things like there are certain qualities I admire in people and there are certain things I don't. And I think it's good to reflect on like that. Listen, she's super organized. I'm not. And that's like good for her. I wish I had that. Right. So there's things that were great about her, too. But I do remember this nasty, like coldness I felt about her that she was always questioning, always will show me the speech before you take the stage. Why do you care what I'm going to talk about when I'm talking to a sales organization has nothing to do with you?

49:29All, you know, asking for control. And I remember learning from what I didn't like about her leadership, that that lack of control and her trying to control it showed up to me as weakness. And I see that as a weakness in people. when you want to grab hold of something so hard, it's because you don't feel really confident in you. So to me, why would I hire you and your team if I don't have trust and belief in you? And then how could I ever think you're going to show up as the best version of yourself as a media expert if I don't empower you to go out there and do it? You're not going to be the best.

50:05And I'm going to be the one sabotaging you and setting you up all because I'm insecure and I'm a control freak. No, things. Exactly. Let's stay on action. Let's talk about asking because this is really important. You're never going to get what you want if you don't ask for it. And you are like an expert when it comes to pitching. So let's talk about the ways that you've pitched yourself in the past. You've got some really great stories about pitching yourself and then some tips you have to pitch ourselves. Oh my gosh. All right. So always put yourself in the other person's shoes. That's the number one most important thing.

50:35You're solving a problem for them. So I'll use the example when I went to a publicly traded company, they didn't have a VP of sales position. And I saw as soon as I got to the company, I'm like, oh, there's so much lack in different market. But I saw the solution. I knew what the solution was for their problem. They didn't know they had a problem, but I saw it. So now I had to put myself in the shoes of the decision maker and think, okay, what are his holdbacks? Fear of change, fear of failure, right? I had to think through all those challenges. So put yourself in their shoes, see what pain points they're going going to have, see what fears they're going to have and address all of those in your pitch.

51:09So then you make it really easy for them to take hold of the idea and make it their own. So I went into the pitch, always go face to face. Don't do it on Zoom. Don't do it on email. Don't do it on the phone. You're very easy to say no to in those situations. It's much harder to look someone eye to eye and say no to them. So if something's important, pitch in person. And I did my homework. I got to the meeting. I made the pitch and he said, no. And I learned such a big lesson that day. I ended up, I went back two weeks later and I was going to resign. I was going to take another job. And he said, hang on a second.

51:44He excused himself from the restaurant, came back five minutes later. I said, where did you go? He said, oh, I had to call my father to get approval on the position, Heather. Yes, we're awarding you the VP of sales. And I learned this powerful lesson that even if you think someone's a decision maker, qualify it, qualify it ahead of time. So you don't waste your time or their time or make a misinformed decision. Yeah. And I have to say asking is so powerful when it comes to just like leveling up in your career. I feel like so many things I've gotten was because I asked for even the cover of podcast magazine, I was just supposed to have a regular interview.

52:18And I remember at the end of the conversation, I was like, so am I going to be on the cover? And he was like, maybe. And then it happened. You planted the seed. I put it in his ear and he was like, well, I guess this is the best article she could be on the cover. And that like totally accelerated my career. And if I hadn't asked that, I don't know if they would have like really thought about me or considered me. Of course not. You put it out there. And that's the exact same thing that I did. I had Gary be on my podcast. And at the very end of the episode, while we were still recording, I said, Gary, now, do you think that your audience could benefit from a story like mine and some of the tips and techniques that I can teach people how to bounce back from adversity?

52:57And he's like, absolutely. I said, well, then I need to be on the show, right? I just showed up and asked. And then he put me on a show. And right. But it's all about having that willingness. You have to be willing and allowing for someone to say no, knowing that's just part of the journey. And that, you know what, it's a numbers game. And you're just going to keep asking, bringing value. And those right doors will open and see what happens. Exactly. You just have to realize that the worst they can say is no. But if you don't ask, and by the way, they'll say no, but it will be in the back of their head and they'll know that you're available and wanting of that opportunity.

53:30And people love to help. Like at the end of the day, people like to help other people. Well, most people. I mean, we're going to keep a couple of caveats. There are some really bad villains, but screw those people. All right. So let's talk about knowledge. That is the third part of the Bach system. It's the information and skills. We need to be more effective people in every aspect of our work and personal lives. So this has actually been a hot topic for me on the podcast lately, because I find that I've been finding more and more young people who don't have skills or knowledge and they want all these opportunities.

54:02They want a great job. They want to make money. They want to be an entrepreneur, for example, but they have no skills. So talk to us about the importance of getting knowledge and skills and some advice you have for my young listeners. I mean, listen, here's the thing. Nothing is going to replace hard work. And I know it would be beautiful if something could and there was a magic wand, but there isn't, right? Like competency builds confidence and competency comes from showing up and learning, right? And doing the hard work and making the business trips and like being in these meetings where you're asking and being told no and no and no, and you're refining your process and you're learning and you're understanding.

54:35You've got to immerse yourself in the suck. It sucks. I did not like being an account executive when I first started in the radio business. I did not like being a first-time author, having no idea how to sell books, but I had to stumble through the suck to start figuring out what did work. And that's what so often today, because of social media, because so many people only post the highlight reel, that people think, oh, she just stumbled out onto that stage and gave a great TEDx talk. Oh, hell no. I pitched for a hundred times. I was told no a hundred times for TEDx before I landed a TEDx, right?

55:10And then I worked for months on that speech that took 10 minutes that people just think I strolled out for on a Saturday, right? Like people don't see the work that goes in on the back end. So the most important thing is pick your head up. Like you were saying, ask for help. Sometimes you're not going to get it. That's okay too, but you need to ask, ask. And when you don't get it, start self-teaching. We live in an incredible time. You want to learn from Ed Milet, go put on his YouTube channel, go put on his podcast. You want me to mentor you? Go turn on my podcast. There's so much content and information out there.

55:42You can teach yourself anything. Last night, I went into the kitchen. My son was in the oven. I'm like, what are you doing? He said, I just made banana bread. I'm like, well, I don't know how to make banana bread. He's like, well, you need to watch TikTok, mom. You can teach yourself anything if you have a phone or a computer. So I just see it as a weak excuse that people are being lazy if they don't want to build their skill set. Like knowledge is everywhere. It's up to you if you're going to access it and run with it. I completely agree. I feel like almost everything I learned was on the internet for free.

56:14I did go to school. I got my MBA. I got this and that. Everything that I use today is either something I learned on the job or something I learned on the internet. And there's no excuses. Just work hard, get the experience and take the time to learn. I think that's the other thing. People want to spend time watching TV, scrolling on social media. Yeah, you've got to take the time to learn to read and to like level up your knowledge on your specific niche or industry. Well, I just want to say one thing to that point. You did a lot in academics before and people are going to say, oh, that's why she got Disney.

56:45Here's what I want to say is I'm coaching a very senior level executive at a Fortune 10 company. She's amazing. She never went to college. And for a long time, that was her holdback. This woman makes millions of dollars a year. And she would say, I can't pitch myself for that because I don't have the pedigree. I don't have the Harvard MBA, right? Here's the thing. Instead, what she leaned into on the knowledge side was her experiences, her network with where she spent her time. So your knowledge doesn't have to look the same way somebody else's does, right? Like I have a bachelor's from Clark University, and then I have a ton of networking and experience on the job, right?

57:23Your formula can look so different than anybody else's. Yours can be entirely self-taught. Don't let any of it hold you back. It's just about immersing yourself in the place that you're supposed to go, doing that work that is that right fit for you at the time. That is such an excellent point. Okay, so we're going to wrap the show up. I always ask the last two questions. I ask everybody the same questions, and then we do something fun at the end of the year. So the first one is, what is one actionable thing that my listeners can do today to become more profiting tomorrow? Ask for help. Find someone out there in your world, in your sphere of influence and reach someone who is where you want to go and send them a note and ask them for help.

58:03You never know what doors you could open. I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life? To me, it truly is mindset over everything. Like you hold the key to unlocking the door to yourself. You hold the key to going bigger. There is no one holding you back. It is all on you. So unlock that door and go for it. Awesome. So Heather, tell us where we can find Overcome Your Villains. Tell us about how we can find your podcast and learn more about everything you do. Oh my gosh. Go get the audio book, Overcome Your Villains. It is top charts on Amazon right now. I narrate it and I go, I riff on live on every single chapter.

58:40It's so, it's my favorite. I'm super proud of it. Go check it out. My podcast, which is with Holla's network is creating confidence with Heather Monaghan. I'm at Heather Monaghan on all social media and I would love to hear from you. guys, Heather is amazing. Heather changed my life. I hope you guys enjoy her content as much as I enjoy her. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me.