Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #407: Listener Favorite- Plant The Seed: Harnessing the Power of New Opportunities With Heather!

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

In This Episode You Will Learn About: Clearing your queue & leaving room for new opportunities to populate Creating clarity around what you want & attracting it Giving yourself time to generate the results you are looking for Getting ready for massive change Resources: Visit heathermonahan.com Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Download NetSuite’s popular KPI Checklist, designed to give you consistently excellent performance - absolutely free, at NetSuite.com/monahan Start your free month now at justworks.com/confidence Show Notes:  Change takes time! I always say that you can’t expect the seeds you plant today to immediately flourish. But sometimes miracles do happen in an instant. It’s about leaving the space open for changes to occur. Sometimes you have to wait years and sometimes it all transforms at once. The point is to be clear on what you want and create the space for it to happen! You will see results. I just know it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash monohand all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash monohand now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash monohand. Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals,

overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up. Hi and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Thank you for being here. I wanted to get into this massive realization that I had as a result of New Year's Eve. Incredible. You know what's so funny is I always talk a lot about, you know, the day that you plant the seed is not the day you reap the harvest.

I remember when I started working for myself five and a half years ago, I thought it would take six months and I would blow up and have millions of books sold because I just assumed it would work and I was wrong. So sometimes you get frustrated that you're not seeing the progress that you want or the success you want overnight. And so I talk a lot about, you know, anticipate that, anticipate that today is the day I'm planting the seed, probably not going to reap the harvest tomorrow, but I'm going to keep on plowing, I'm going to keep on going. And that is great advice

that I need to take for myself all the time. However, don't ever discount how miracles can happen in an instant, literally in an instant, as shocking as it may be because I was shocked and this is crazy. I typically do not like talking about my personal life because I'm weird like that. I don't know why. Actually, that's not true because here on the show, I do talk a lot about my personal life more than I do anywhere else because you my people, you my team, you my ride or die. And I'm happy to share the things that I learned and the challenges I have. I definitely have more challenges and always had personally than professionally. For whatever reason, I'm sure there's some very good reasons actually, but for many reasons in business, I feel very confident.

I don't have everything figured out or nailed down. I still don't this year right now, but I have total confidence and conviction I will get it figured out. Like there's zero doubt in my mind, different when it comes to my personal life. And I think part of that is because I've had way more success in business than I had in personal relationships, right?

When I look back and it was funny, I had mentioned this to you, my dad was in town over the holidays and he was talking about all my past boyfriends. And I've always been in really serious relationships and my dad was talking about how great they all were. But I was looking back and I'm like, yeah, but I remember why I broke up with him. And I remember why I broke up with him. Like it just wasn't, it wasn't the guy.

It wasn't the right, you know, it was good for a window of time, but it wasn't the right person for the long term. So for whatever reason, for me, I haven't found that right person yet. And again, listen, most of it is because of me, right? And issues that I had with trust, issues I had with past relationships and getting hurt, fear of it not working out, this doubt, this underlying doubt that it wouldn't work out for me because it hadn't for a long time. So I've had to address so much personal work around this topic.

It's insane. But we here, we do in it. And I'm telling you this year is it. This is so crazy. So, okay. All right. So I'm going to tell you this story first, because I've got an ask for you at the end to apply back to your life that I think is super, super powerful. And it's not just for personal lives. It's for personal, transformational business, anything and everything in your life. And it's a message I continually need to be reminded of, which is so annoying. It's like I'm 49 and I keep forgetting this. Hello. We preach about and teach about what we need to listen to and be reminded about, right? And so I need to remind myself all the time about this, but I had forgotten it had eluded me.

So I hope it helps you today. All right, so I'm gonna break it down for you. So number one, yes, the day that you plant the seed is not always the day that you're gonna reap the harvest, sadly, right? That's typically not the way it is. However, also stay open-minded in this new year that miracles can happen in an instant

and your life can change in one moment. Literally like a light switch being flipped on. That's what happened to me. Okay, all right, so I want to share with you what happened. I think I told you about this last year that I fell in love with somebody. It did not work out, okay, sadly, which was devastating to me

because I definitely thought it was going to. I ended things, then we got back together. I ended it again because it was the same issue again. I didn't feel like I was a priority, so I wasn't happy. It just wasn't going to work, or it was the wrong timing, or whatever it was. The guy's an amazing person, and I was in love with him. Hands down, no, that was crystal clear. With all that being said, I held a place in my heart for him for sure.

And now thinking about it, it was ridiculous, right? I was totally holding space for this person. Have you ever done that? Like you close the door, you end the relationship, but you then sit and hold space for that person? Well, I didn't think there was anything bad about it until one day in December, and this was a great seed one of my friends planted for me, my friend said to me, why don't you just delete him from your phone? And I said, why would you say that? Like that's, I don't think that's very

nice. That sounds mean and he's an amazing person and I care so much about him and I'm in love with them. And why would I do that? Just because we can't be together doesn't mean I wish him ill will or like if he ever needed me or and she's like stop you guys haven't spoken in months delete him from your phone free up some space close that chapter so you can let someone new in now in my defense I've been dating somebody else right and I am definitely it's serious, but super fun and great guy. However, doesn't live here. And I'm out all the time meeting new people, super open to meeting new people.

So I think no problem. Like I'm doing all the right things. My friend pointed out she still felt like I was holding space for this guy. She wanted me to delete him from my phone. I just thought that sounded really mean, so I didn't do it. Cut to, it's New Year's Eve, I'm out with one of my best girlfriends here in Miami, she's amazing, and some other people, we're having the best time. I mean literally on a rooftop in South

Beach, the place is going crazy. We were having, ugh, the best time, it was such a fun New Year's. All is going well, best night. And I don't know, I didn't look at my phone all night. All of a sudden I picked up my phone. It was like 1.30 in the morning. And I see that a guy that I have been dating who's so sweet and so nice but doesn't live here, had text me and said you were the best part of my 2023. Now, I wasn't expecting that text. It was so sweet, so thoughtful, so unexpected, adorable, obviously immediately he's on my mind, on my heart, right? I'm thinking, oh my gosh, what a sweetheart that at midnight, that's what he's thinking about is me,

even though we're in different states. What a doll. Okay, in that instant, it was like everything changed and it just hit me. I thought, oh my gosh, I have to delete that other guy out of my phone. Like this is the kind of energy and vibe I want in my life, not someone who doesn't even message me or isn't even thinking about me or that's yep. Bye. Bye, Felicia. I deleted that ex's contact info out of my phone immediately. And I will tell you, I felt so happy about it and excited. And I share this with you. I usually don't get into this stuff because it is really personal, but I want you to know

things can change for you in one instant. They changed for me. I, here I was just a couple of weeks prior fighting with my friends saying, you're wrong. You don't delete him. He's the most amazing guy and I love him. And you know, you never know what could happen in the future to receiving this super sweet text from somebody else and realizing that's the energy I want in my life. That's the kind of person I want in my life thinking about me, sending me sweet notes. F this, like, oh my gosh, clear that space. And immediately deleted his contact. And so things can change in an instant.

I don't know how they're going to change for you. I don't know when they will, but stay open to the possibility. And I'm so excited. I'm not sad. I don't feel like I'm mean, right? He doesn't even know I did it. When I started podcasting, an online store was the furthest thing from my mind.

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Visit CBdistillery.com and use code confidence for 20% off. That's CBdistillery.com code confidence CBdistillery.com. So like it was more just something good to do for me. Now this is crazy how this comes together. Get ready for it. And this is where I want you to apply it back to your life. Okay. So that was my situation. Clearly it was something I should have done months ago, but I didn't for whatever reason. I wasn't ready to. I was holding out that somehow he was going to come back around and say that he had fixed

things in his life and blah, blah, blah, right? Like definitely that's a weakness of mine is that I always think of the potential of people instead of dealing with the reality. Now, okay, because of that great message that I got New Year's Eve, so grateful, so thankful for that, he's such a great guy. Okay, it just reminded me what I deserve, what I want, and the kind of energy I'm going for in my life. And then I needed to clear the space so I could have more of the energy and positivity

and people that I want in my life, and less of the stuff I don't want, right? Bath, alicia, close the door, moving on. When you do that, when you create space, you create the opportunity for greatness, positivity and that next level opportunity to come in. Okay. So such an interesting reminder. And it's like you make an announcement to the universe.

This is what I want in my life. This is what I'm expecting. I'm telling you my new year has been so good. And I think it's because of this. I feel like a big part of it is because of this, right? This energy that I'm putting out there that I'm claiming now and what I'm saying, what I'm not tolerating anymore. And it might seem small to you, but it's been really big for me. Okay. So the next day, I went on a dating app once a long time ago, right? Because sadly, it's a little unnerving when your social media profiles are public and whatnot, and then people start messaging things

that's not always good, right? That was my experience. I think I lasted on a dating app for 24 hours before I deleted it. I never went on a date with anybody from a dating app, right? It just creeped me out. Cut to, people have been telling me for the last year ever since that guy and I had broken up that I need to go on a dating app. But at the same time, my friends are always setting me up on blind dates with people, which I love because then if somebody loves me and they love that other person, there's a we're at least going to end up being friends. They're good people, right? So I love that. However, every time somebody sets me up, we end up just being friends. It's not like I found that connection of someone that I want to date. The guy that I've been dating,

I met in real life. And granted, you meet some people in real life. Sadly, most people meet people online these days. Okay, cut to. I have been completely against it. My friends have been hitting me over the head with, you need to go on a dating app. There's a couple of dating apps out there that you get pre-screened for, like you have to be invited to or whatever. It's a little bit more, there's more vetting that goes on,

so no crazy people, I guess, or less crazy people, right? I'm sure there's still crazy people. But okay, so the next day after New Year's Eve, I woke up and I just decided I'm going to go on a dating app, which is so crazy. It's so out of character for me. I know you're laughing. You're like, why is this a big deal, Heather? I don't know. Everyone has their own weird things, right? I just always thought it was sketchy for me because that one experience I had a couple years ago. So I went on this dating app the next day, and it's so funny like this domino effect that occurs

because of one thing, it can change everything. It changes your attitude, changes the opportunities, the people that you meet, everything. So I went on this dating app, here we are, I don't know how many days later I'm recording this, it's almost a week later, not quite a week yet. And I'm still on it, I've not gone on any dates or spoken to anyone other than in message on it, right?

I'm still a little skeptical. However, this is like a big deal for me, right? Like here's what I learned that I want you to apply back to your life. And I'm super excited about it. So I'm stepping into unknown. I'm stepping into scary, weird situations, which I think is good.

That means growth, right? So I'm messaging into scary, weird situations, which I think is good. That means growth, right? So I'm messaging with these people and the way that it works on this app that I'm on is once a day they send you five people that the algorithm thinks are a good fit for you and you vote yes or no that you would want to talk to them or whatever or that you would go out with them or consider them or like them or whatever. I don't know, whatever it is. Okay. But it's basically pick yes or pick no. Like you're voted off the island or you're even the potential to be voted on the island, which is so weird. The whole thing's bizarre to me. Okay, so here's how I was handling it. I thought someone was a possibility I would, you know, do thumbs up. But then if I didn't think they were, I didn't thumbs down them because I felt bad.

I'm like, well, it's kind of mean, like, I don't even know. Do they find out I voted them off the island or like whatever? I'll just ignore them. That was just kind of my attitude. Cut to two days in, I get a message from the company. The company says, Heather, you're doing this wrong. Shocker. I have no idea what I'm doing. Anytime you show up as a beginner somewhere,

you're going to definitely have some room to learn, room to grow. And the company says, you're doing this wrong. You are keeping your queue filled of people that you're not choosing. Whoa. Okay. And this is my home message for you today. This is so crazy. And I've done this so many times in my life and it has not served me. It has hindered me. It has held me back. And I'm not doing it anymore. Not doing it anymore. And I'm telling you, this applies to your personal life, your business life, your workout, your opportunities, everything and anything in your life. I swear this is such a big message. And I want to write a book about it right now because I'm so fired up about it. But I want

you to apply it to your life. I want you to clear your queue. Okay? So here's what this means. He explained it to me that each day that would come and there would be people sent to me. And if I didn't X them out, those people held spots so they couldn't remember. I said they send you five new people a day. The algorithm sends you five new people a day that they think you might potentially be a match for.

Let's say that on any given day, I didn't like three or four of the people, but I felt bad about exing them out, you know, or just thought, oh, I'll just let them pass by whatever or what I just don't think. They could only send me one person the next day because I had a queue full of people I wasn't either picking or I wasn't voting off the island. So here's my message to you today. Do not allow for a full queue. When you allow for a full queue,

you're not gonna see the potential prospects, people, opportunities, business deals, partnerships that are out there. Clear your queue. Literally, the company reached out to me and told me, stop leaving your queue full of people unless you're gonna pick them. And then once you pick them,

they move into a different arena and the queue is empty again. It was such a powerful reminder for me. And I started looking back across my life and remembering, these are the same issues I had back when I got fired. And I was keeping one foot in, well, I think I'm gonna go back to corporate America and I could run sales teams. Just I have to go to a different industry.

And then the other foot I had in, I'm going to work for myself, I'm launching my speaking career, I'm gonna write books, I'm gonna launch a podcast, I'm gonna launch my own company. And I kept toggling back and forth. The queue was full, but I wasn't clear on where I was going.

And I really wasn't picking anything. So what I want you to do, not like what I did, because I'm not doing that anymore, now I clearly say no, no, no, to anyone that comes in the queue I don't want, because I want that queue open to the possibility and opportunity of who could come into it.

When your queue is full of other things, you are blocking that possibility, that opportunity, that new partnership, that new person. Stop blocking yourself from your potential. Stop blocking yourself from all that the universe has for you. Clear your cue in every aspect of your life. Here's a great example of that. And I was talking to you about this last year. I keep going to Soul Psych all the time. It's my routine. For me, a lot of people are like, you know, routines are great. They are, but they can also

be a rut. Right? When you only do the same kind of workout all the time, you're going to plateau. When you only push yourself onto certain level stages, you're gonna plateau. That's why I'm so excited about Saudi Arabia in a few weeks. This is so out of my, it's next level. It's scary. You've got to keep scaring yourself, right?

So I've got to stop going to SoulCycle. If I canceled my membership, that would be clearing my queue. And it would force me to pick something else. So like me on the dating app, I'm picking yes or no every day, exiting people out or voting them on and clearing the queue. And I want you to do the same, whether it be in your dating life, whether it be in your business partnership life, whether it be in your dating life, whether it be in your business partnership life, whether it be in your workout life,

your personal journey, clear your queue and create space for opportunities that you deserve. I'm so excited that I had this realization and I hope that it helps you. Let me know, leave me a review of the show, let me know how you're clearing your queue. Send me a message.

I'm on all social media at Heather Monaghan. Or you can go to heathermonaghan.com and send a contact me form. Let me know how you cleared your queue. I can't wait to hear how it impacts your 2024. Okay. So enough about that story, which I'm super excited about. And if you want to hear more about the data app, I will keep you up to speed.

Let me know. I don't know if this is a business show, so I don't know how relevant it is. Definitely clearing the queue is relevant, but I don't know about these other weird things. Let me know. Happy to tell you more about it. Happy to keep you updated.

Okay, as you know, each week I will answer your questions. All I have to do is DM me, send them to me, get me the question, and I'll answer it. All right, so today I posted on LinkedIn about how everybody asks for everything for free, right? Heather, share my post ring, promote my book for me. Heather, coach me for free, invite me to your courses and classes for free.

I get this stuff all the time. So I did a post about it today. Listen, there's things I'll do for free. This podcast is free. I'll answer your questions for free here. I'm totally in for it. The other things, I I'll do for free. This podcast is free. I'll answer your questions for free here. I'm totally in for it. The other things, I'm not speaking for free unless you're a charity.

I do that once a month. I speak for free for a charity, a university, or a school once a month. But other than that, I'm not doing stuff for free. I run a for-profit business. Like most people, hello. We are here to pay our bills and make some money. Let's go.

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me around Heather, you don't like people asking you to do things for free. However, you have cold outreach on DMs pitching stuff, which is true. I have a social media team and they will oftentimes, you know, it's a system where they reach out to people who are connected to saying, hey, have you checked out the podcast this week? Here's what, here's the episode's going on. Like they're apprising them of what's going on, what I have to offer in my business and in my company. Well, with that being said, this woman was saying,

well, don't you think that, she's calling me out a little bit, which is fine. I get it. She's like, listen, don't you think that's asking people to do things for you? And so I responded to her something like, actually, no, I don't, here's why. When you're on a social media platform, if someone reaches out to you and you're in their network

and they're offering something that's for free, they're not asking you to buy something, I just kind of see it like as an ad, right? Like a television ad or an ad when you're listening to the show or just it's just if you like it and you're interested in it, click on it, go down the rabbit hole and check it out. If you're not, keep it scrolling, keep it moving. Like it's not offensive. The request I was getting or like inmail DM saying, Heather, you need to promote my book. I have a new book coming out. If you would promote it,

it'll reach so many people. Here's the PDF. Please share it with your, I'm like, what? I don't even know who you are. To me, that's different. That's like a targeted direct presumptuous ask versus a, hey, don't know if you caught the show this week or hey, don't know if you knew Heather's got a master class launching. If you want to get involved, you know, click here. Like one is apprising you that another one's expecting you to do something. I think those are very, very different. Okay. So I respond to her, what my response was, I just shared with you. And I said, what's your perspective on it? Okay. So I'm going to read it to you.

She says, Hey, you got an hour. That's funny. This is something I think about daily. I'm in the early stages of my business, so I'm on the other end of this equation. I prefer to do cold outreach only to people who I know intimately. If I've read their book, I've attended their events. I've been a subscriber for years. I prefer to do cold outreach only to people who I know intimately. If I've read their book, I've attended their events, I've been a subscriber for years. But that seriously limits who I can reach out to and makes outreach more time intensive.

I also love the jab jab jab hook model, but again, early days so inbound leads can be a trickle, not much. No matter how you slice it, early days means the focus is on getting the flywheel going, how to make money to make more money How to offer value not inconvenience someone further along? I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm leaning heavy on offering value which means fewer but more meaningful touch points Okay, yes, listen if success was easy everybody would have it what this woman's describing I've gone through and I continue to go through at some level. Even Gary V continues with a jab jab hook, right?

He still goes through it. Look at his speed, right? He's always creating content. And then sometimes he's got very direct asks whether he's selling his wine products or he's selling his books or he's selling his events, right? Listen, people think that the longer you're in business, these challenges go away.

They don't, they just grow and get bigger. Your challenges are going to change. The opportunity change, the challenges change. But everybody starts off as a beginner with no audience, with no community, and building that community, building that value, it takes time. I wish I had a simple answer for you, but that's why I posted what I did today,

to create a personal brand in the community. For some people, it takes six months or a year. For others, for me, it took years to do it, right? I'm in five years now, and yes, I built a community, but it's still not the size of Gary V's, right? We still want it to be bigger to reach more people, help more people. But at the end of the day, keep showing up,

keep adding value, keep sharing your expertise, keep answering the problems and questions that your audience is asking of you. Keep showing who you are. And don't get discouraged. Everybody has been where you are. Everyone. The only ones who haven't are the ones that joined platforms, large platforms early on. I have a friend of mine who shows on with Dave Ramsey. So Dave Ramsey is already massively connected, and his platform has millions and millions of users. So when he joined his platform, he accessed that audience. Smart, smart, smart, smart.

That's one way to do it, right? That's definitely one way I've been getting it involved the last year is meeting with different really large platforms and looking who are those right partnerships. But again, you're going to give up something to get that. So if you are going to go it alone, which is what I did, keep creating content that adds value. Get a podcast.

Host people on your podcast. Ask how you can support them. I'll never forget the way I got Gary V. Was reaching out to him over and over and over again, taking a Google alert out on him, not getting anywhere, hitting roadblock after roadblock. And seeing on the Google alert, he launched a wine company with another guy

and going down the rabbit hole on that guy, Trouty, and going to LinkedIn and sending him a private DM, asking how I could add value or help him. That led me to a phone call with him. I talked to him about launching a wine product, which I had done years ago, shared some insights and some help, made some connections for him.

And at the end of the call, he said, if I can ever help you, just let me know how. And I said, great, get your partner to be a guest on my show. He went back to Gary and asked, and Gary came back and said, well, then tell Heather to buy wine. We're launching a wine company. She needs to be a supporter of us.

I bought the wine. None of this stuff was a layup. Think differently. Think about how you can add value. Think about showing up on the regular and think about your end user. If you keep it about adding value instead of what you can take, your success will build over time. that fly will begin moving, the domino effect will occur, you'll build momentum, and the results will come.

Just don't forget, if you plant the seed today, doesn't necessarily mean that the harvest will be there tomorrow. But there is the possibility. It could. Anything can change in an instant. Don't forget. And go clear your queue. Let me. Anything can change in an instant. Don't forget and go clear your cue. Let me know how it works out for you. I hope it's as exciting as it is for me.

Until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. I'm gonna make it longer again. I decided to change that dynamic. I feel like they're my own. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing inevitably something will happen no one succeeds alone

you don't stop and look around once in a while you can miss it I'm on this journey with me