The Confidence Creator: Heather Monahan on Risk-Taking, Resilience, and Why You Should Always Be an Outlier
accepted someone else's self-limiting beliefs, you know, at 10 years old and forgot about it Completely forgot about it. The irony is now I literally get on stages that are massive in front of hundreds of thousands of people or virtually in front of a million people to impact other people's lives and bring a message forward. It's so similar to what I loved when I was a little kid. I don't think that's ironic. Always think about what you loved as a child, because it's a hint as to what you should be doing now I love the opportunity to impact others spread a positive message in an oftentimes very negative world and pull back the curtain on what's real Too often, myself included, when I was growing up, people would tell me, "Oh, you can't make it to the C-suite. Oh, you can't be the boss. Oh, you can't, you don't, you're not a white man in a pants suit, you know, with glasses, with gray hair." And I remember being frustrated by that, like, "Who said? Who are you to tell me what I can be or not be?" And
what I’ve found over the last couple of decades is that any time I pull back that curtain and get to the next level even though it started back in my early 20s when I became an equity partner I started realizing it’s all hard work. It’s putting your expertise, leaning into the things you're great at and then hiring for the things you're not, building a team, building positive culture, creating clear goals, chasing them down together, having fun, doing good, giving back, involving charities None of this stuff was brain surgery, it was just so few people did it or did it well
And, you know, kind of figuring that out, I like sharing that with others that, "Hey, if you grew up a certain way like I did and thought, 'Oh, there's a lot of shame around this,' you know, 'I'm not gonna be good enough to do these things, other people can...'" No, that's not true. The biggest example for me was when I pitched myself to land a board seat with that company, that I was actually terminated from, for years. I knew I warranted it, I knew I deserved it, and I got the runaround all the time "Oh, no not now, maybe in the future ” Cut to, I end up getting fired, and within two years I landed my first paid board seat, and I've been with that company since Sometimes you just figure out, “Oh, I'm in the wrong place It's not me ” And that's the message that I like to bring forward to people. You might be surrounded by villains. You might be a fish climbing a tree instead of a fish swimming in the water. Let's get you to the water and see what you can do. Let's get you around those right people, and let you unleash and go for all that you're meant to do. Big stages gave me that chance
Last question, what does being an outlier mean to you?
Heather: Oh my gosh. To be an outlier is to not be vanilla. When people say, "You're not my cup of tea," of course I'm not your cup of tea. I'm a glass of champagne, baby. So to be an outlier is to have that contrarian opinion and not be concerned about what other people think about it, because I'm just doing me. You should do you, whatever that is. I love the idea of being an outlier. General and basic is so boring. And I wasn't put on this earth to be boring. I wasn't put on this earth to be basic or to do what other people tell me to do. I was put here to be an outlier and show people what's possible.
train wreck And he said, "Oh my gosh, you're a train wreck You cannot operate like this " And I said, "I need to get out of this town because I need to get away from this guy " And he said, "Great Get on a plane and become my partner " So we sold that company for $55 million, netting ourselves and our team $30 million.
I had a non-compete that the new company put on me 'cause they wanted me to stay, which I was never gonna do, so I moved to Florida to pitch myself for a job that didn't exist for a publicly traded company. I got into that company, was there 14 years, was promoted three times, became the chief revenue officer, did incredibly well there And then I was fired when the CEO I worked for for 14 years became ill and promoted his daughter to replace him She was my arch nemesis and my number one villain And I had an 18month non-compete, non-solicit, which meant I had to leave the industry I was
an expert in and start over somewhere as a beginner So I put a post up on social media, "I've just been fired If I’ve ever done anything for you, I need to hear from you now."
That post went viral and landed me on The Elvis Duran Show. And halfway through that interview, he spoke life and belief into me, and saw something in me I didn't see in myself, and he said, "Heather, obviously you're writing a book " I said, "Obviously," but I wasn't I had grown up the social one and my sister was the smart one, so I never thought I could write a book I jumped on a plane to head back to Miami from New York, and I Googled, "How do you write a book?" And it turns out anyone could write a book, you just need to sit down and write. And so that's what I did.
You’ve been named one of the top 50 keynote speakers in the world. What do you love about taking massive stages?
Heather: That you can impact massive amounts of people, right? I think that there are certain things anyone is inherently good at. And the funny thing, or the ironic thing, is when I was a little kid, probably like 10 years old, I loved acting. I went to public school at the time and you had to pick music or pick some, you know, whatever, and I picked acting I was the star in the play and I loved it, and I loved being on stage I remember I said to someone, "This is what I wanna do for my life I love this " And they said, "Oh gosh, you can't do that Only like 0 01% of the people actually make it That's terrible No, you don't wanna do that." And I was like, "Oh, okay. I guess I can't do that." And so I