Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #118: How To Teach Others How To Treat You with Heather!

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Sometimes, it can be so hard to stand up for yourself! Especially when setting a boundary can feel aggressive or argumentative. But it doesn’t have to be that way! This week I take you through a few situations where my boundaries were pushed, where I went wrong, and how I would deal with them now. You can be calm, you can celebrate, and you can joyfully teach others how to treat you every day.  Rate, Review, and Subscribe to the podcast here! To inquire about my coaching program opportunity visit https://mentorship.heathermonahan.com/    Review this podcast on Apple Podcast using this LINK and when you DM me the screen shot, I buy you my $299 video course as a thank you!    My book Confidence Creator is available now! get it right HERE   If you are looking for more tips you can download my free E-book at my website and thank you! https://heathermonahan.com    *If you'd like to ask a question and be featured during the wrap up segment of Creating Confidence, contact Heather Monahan directly through her website and don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list so you don’t skip a beat to all things Confidence Creating! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited to be back here with you right now. So very interesting situation occurred. I had no idea when I had the opportunity to teach this semester at Harvard that part of being a teacher at Harvard means automatically all of the students receive a feedback inquiry. So basically, you're getting reviewed by the students that you teach. And I did not know about this.

So yesterday I got an email, unbeknownst to me that I would be getting. And I just saw your Harvard reviews are in. And I thought, what the heck is this? So it was not good that I didn't know it was coming. And here's why I went into it. immediately thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to have the most amazing reviews ever. I did not. So it was unfortunate because our last class was this whole hug fest and everyone was so grateful and we had so much praise that day. I just assumed that would come through in the review process that I didn't

even know existed. Wrong. So I opened it up and I saw someone gave me the worst rating possible for a teacher at Harvard and also commented some nasty things. And I had no idea. It's anonymous. So you don't know who the person is that's writing this. And it was a really tough pill to swallow. And here's why. I have been overwhelmed lately. I'm back under book edit deadline again from my new book, Overcome Your Villains. It's due next Friday. I haven't gotten much done on it. I have another book I have to read this week for an interview I'm doing next week. I've got a a legal issue going on, which is a freaking complete nightmare. I have a lot of things happening right now. And I'm sure part of it is, you know, my son's still at home on virtual school.

And it's just there's no type of routine right now. And the other thing is there's no type of projection, right, of cadence of how business is coming in, of forecasting. And it's just very stressful. Some days and weeks have been so busy and crazy, but it's not showing me enough into the future, which is putting some pressure on me. Anyhow, so I was not in the greatest mindset already. I opened this thing up, and I'm getting blasted by someone anonymously, and it just, it crushed me. I literally started crying. So luckily, I did something really smart. I decided, you know what, I'm going to call my friend John, who's been teaching at Harvard for a decade. And I, this is the first time I've taught at Harvard, I have nothing to compare it to. I, you know,

I'm just going to call him. So I call him. So I called him and said, I need to speak to you right now about this. So he pulled up the report and he said, oh, no, no, no, pump the brakes. You've got to calm down. You're reading this all wrong. And I said, how am I reading it wrong? Someone basically told me I'm the worst teacher that's ever been at Harvard. This is horrible.

And I feel like I did not do a good job. And he said, wait a minute. And he took me through, he's gone through 10 years of these reviews. and first thing he did was he shared some horrible reviews that he'd gotten, one of which, he said a student told him that he should have been paying the student to be there. That's how bad he was as a teacher. So that made me laugh and smile, and I felt a little bit better. And then he went on to share some other really negative feedback he'd gotten, some of which

was more constructive and then some was kind of nasty, like what I had received. And he said that it's very normal to get one to two really negative responses. out of every class you teach. Oh my gosh. And then he went on to explain to me further, because it's anonymous if somebody's not doing well in their life or struggling with the pandemic or virtual school or lost their job or whatever,

they will lash out at you anonymously through these reports. And it was a very helpful moment for me because I had decided that I was a terrible teacher from this one response that I saw. I was crying. I got really negative in my mind in regard to, to what this meant to me and about me. But really what my friend John was saying is, Heather,

this is about that person and they must really be struggling right now. Let's see if there's any constructive criticism we can take. And one person had said, I wish Heather had used more case studies while teaching. So that's constructive, right? That's something positive that I can learn and I can get better from. So it was super helpful. And I thought that was a really good point, too, and something I just hadn't thought about. So I was really grateful for that. And then John pointed out something else to me, he said the median at Harvard is a 4.4. That's the average score for a teacher. And I received a 4.5, which meant I outperformed the average teacher at Harvard my first time teaching. Suddenly, I was feeling so much better. Then he went on to teach me something

else. He went on to share that 85% of my reviews were five-star the best that you can get. He said that is unheard of and then he walked me through some of the comments were really beautiful and so amazing. And one person suggested that I should have my own class and not be co-teacher any longer. So there were some really positive stuff that I overlooked in the process because I got so negative. So what I want to remind you is a couple of things. You know, we can't lose our cool over one hater that's out there. There's always going to be haters and that's going to be about them and we can try to have some empathy for them and just keep it moving. But the other thing is, sometimes we need perspective and knowledge. And I'm so grateful I called John, who is 10 years ahead

of me in the Harvard journey. So he's someone who's been where I'm going. So he already knows the roadmap. He knows the drill. He knew that these reports were coming out. He's seen them before. He knows how to set the expectations. And now he's taught me. So when you, you're a lot of you, you find yourself in a really difficult spot or thinking that everything's negative. Reach out to that person that's where you want to be. Reach out to the person that supports, encourages, and is your champion and allow them to share some perspective with you. It might not be anywhere near as bad as you thought, number one.

And in fact, maybe it's really good, which this ended up being pretty good. So hold tight. We'll be right back. When you want more, start your business with North, registered agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. All in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest registered agents has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides,

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and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's tachiatry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes. Okay, so it was very interesting today. I had my group team meeting, my coaching meeting every Friday at one o'clock. And one of the people in my course was talking about how she's being treated so badly at work. People are saying to her, well, you're single. You can do this extra work.

You can work on the weekends, ridiculous things, which to that point I said to her, someone says to you, you're single, you can work this weekend. I can't. I have a child. That's when you say, excuse me? And you just pause. and you just wait until they answer because that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You know, it's so inappropriate.

It's 2021. You can't speak to people like that. And if that person said what? You don't have kids and I do. You know, I would follow up with there's plenty I don't know about you and plenty you don't know about me. My personal life is mine and yours. I have a very robust and busy personal life and a lot going on and I will not be available

this weekend. I'm sure you understand that as you're busy as well. and keep it moving, right? So you have to teach people how to treat you. That's really powerful and really important. And it reminds me personally when I gave birth to my son, because he's turning 14 this week, when I gave birth to him, 10 days after, I got a call from the CEO I worked for at the time, 10 days later, and he said, hey, Heather, I need you to jump on a flight and go give a speech for me. And my response was, okay, great, where am I going? And I had had a C-section. I was in no shape, nor should I have ever left my 10-day-old baby to go take a flight and give a speech for

my CEO. So here's how I would handle it differently. And here's an idea. You don't need to get angry. You don't need to fight. A lot of times people think, you know, setting boundaries and respecting yourself is argumentative. It's not. The real power is in being calm and owning who you are. So I would handle it differently today. If I could be me now back then when he called and said, hey, I need you to jump on a flight, I'd say, oh my gosh, you didn't hear. I just had a baby. I'm going to hang up. I'm going to send you about 25 pictures of my gorgeous little baby, and I'm going to call you back in a couple minutes. And I would literally send pictures of my new baby to the man and then give him a few minutes, and I'd call him back and say, oh, my gosh,

are you so excited for me? Are you freaking out? I can't wait for you to meet him. He's so beautiful. I'm so proud. This is crazy. I don't know what I'm doing. Being a new mother is exhausting. but I'm really grateful for this moment. Okay, now you called me because you have something going on. Tell me what your situation is, and I'm sure you and I can find a solution. And when he would describe to me that he can't attend something and needs me to attend, I'd say, well, obviously, now that you know, I just had a baby 10 days ago and I actually just had a C-section, I'm physically not in the best shape to make a flight

or really be out and about representing our company right now. However, I think you and I can agree upon one or two people that probably are. What about Jim or John? Which one do you think would be the right fit to pinch it for you and for me this time? And it's not argumentative, right? It's really just calm and offering solutions and not fighting. And so often people think that you have to fight. You don't.

You just have to stand in your power, trust yourself, and set the boundaries because it's typically we are the ones creating the situation, right? Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished. They're perfect for layering, mixing, and building a wardrobe that lasts.

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coaching my son's baseball league and we're at practice. What's up? Are you so excited? I'm practicing my leadership skills on the field and bringing them back to work. What's going on? How can I help you, Heather? And I laughed and I learned something from that message. He didn't fight or act like he got caught. He didn't feel guilty or feel bad. He owned and celebrated what he was doing. And I really took a lot from that lesson. People treat each other the way we teach them, too. Had he panicked and said, oh my gosh, I know you're going to be mad. I didn't tell you I was leaving. I had to come to my son's game. I understand I should get back to work. That would have been a very different conversation. But because he handled it so boldly, so strongly, and in such a celebratory fashion, it really jumped out at me as, wow, that was a great angle that he took, a great.

great approach and I can learn something from that and I'm going to. So just recognize that when you notice you're not being treated well, think to yourself, does that person treat some people well and just treat some people not so well? That probably is the case. Well, look at the behaviors of people that they treat well. How do they behave? Powerful, confident, strong boundaries, right? And start to emulate those behaviors. When you start to stand up for yourself, when you start to put your foot down in a calm and gracious fashion, people will begin to respect you. And one of the people in my group has been employing these strategies now for a month. And she is a pretty high-level executive. And she'd been dealing with some negative, you know, kind of bully types in the C-suite. And she's been

changing her behavior. She's been standing up for herself in a calm and powerful way. And they are treating her so much better. She said she's actually getting kudos now from people who wouldn't even acknowledge her. So definitely look inward, see what way am I behaving that could be bringing this into my life and how can I reframe it? How can I adjust it? And what's a different approach I can try? And there's no right or wrong absolute answers. You've got to try some different approaches to see what works for you. But don't lose your cool. And I'm so glad that I've learned this strategy and tactic now. It's sad. It took me a 46, but I'm glad I'm rocking it now. I hope you're rocking it too. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review the show. It helps me so much.

And whenever you share it on social, I go ahead and repost your post. It means the world to me. I hope that you are having a fantastic day, whatever day you're listening to this message on. And until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know I will too.