Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - Heather answers YOUR questions! Episode 288

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

In This Episode You Will Learn About:  How to give a great speech!   When to walk away from a relationship How to post on linkedin when you feel stuck Resources: Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Order my Soul Sayings Show Notes:  When something is meant for you, it will come to you with ease. You won’t have to force it– I PROMISE. Remember, investing in yourself is one of the best ways to elevate yourself! So, STOP questioning whether you are good enough, and start going after and creating what you want!  If you'd like your questions answered on the show, you can submit them at heathermonahan.com!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, you're going to chase down our goals. Overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. After you've seen the race, I'm ready for my close-up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Okay, so today I'm answering a few different questions that I've received either as DMs on social media or to my website, HeatherMondahan.com. If you haven't checked on my website before, there's tons of free resources if you want my 30-day email accountability program, my top tips to build confidence, my ebook on confidence ability. There's so much

stuff there, it's crazy. Okay, so HeatherMningin.com and you can always shoot me a question there or just send me a DM on any social media platform. But before I get started into that, I wanted to address something that happened this week in my life that I was not expecting. A good friend of mine is moving to Miami. I'm so, so, so, excited. I, this is out of left field. What's interesting is this person, when she called me to tell me, I said, well, what's going on in your life? This is a huge move.

And she shared that she had ended her engagement. Now, obviously, that's hard. And that's, you know, it's sad. Of course, you love someone enough to agree to marry them. That's a really tough moment, but she sounded so good. And I said, talk me through what's going on, how you made this decision. I just want to support you in this and understand. And it was so simple yet so profound, I had to share it with you.

And I need to get this tattooed on my arm so I don't forget it. But she basically just said, it was just too hard. Life shouldn't be this hard. Something good for you shouldn't be so hard. And I know for me, you know, this is someone who's been divorced, someone who's ended an engagement, I know that I've been that person that wants to fix everything and wants to make it work and is so loyal and so committed to the point where you literally lose sight of, it shouldn't be that hard. And when I was listening to her explain to me what went down, she was so right. But I of course applied it back to my own life and just thought, you know what, if we

just start seeing things through this lens, had I saw my old job through this lens, it was way too hard. I was having to show up as a different version of myself, I was having to dial my light down, I was having to live in fear of someone giving me dirty looks, that's way too hard. Life shouldn't be that difficult. And after that woman fired me, I started showing up to arenas and locations where people wanted me there. And it was easier. And it just, it wasn't so difficult.

Right. So I'm asking you to look at your life, your relationships, your job, your friends, your situations, and say, is it difficult? Does it really need to be this difficult? Or is this a sign that you're on the wrong path? That it shouldn't have to be this hard, because when you're in the flow of life and you're in those right places, of course, the success isn't easy, and no relationship is seamless and perfect every day of every week, but it shouldn't be so hard.

So that's just some amazing advice I got from a good friend who's living it, owning it, and I'm telling you, she sounds amazing, and it just inspired me to really look at my choices in my life in that regard. Looking for the easy button because life is not supposed to be difficult and hard every day. It's supposed to be joyful and a lot easier than sometimes

we make it, so it was such a good reminder. Okay, so I wanted to share that reminder with you. And then I wanted to get into some of the questions that I received. So let's start with this first one was about LinkedIn. Said, hey Heather, not sure if you get messages here. I do, I promise I do. I'm looking to change jobs and need to revise my resume

and I need some help. What I want to do is I want my resume to showcase my talents and skills, but also share a job description of what I'm looking to do. Basically, I want to reach out to my contacts to see if they can make a role to fit what I want to do instead of applying for a job that they have posted

already set up parameters and what not. Do you have any suggestions or individuals that you know that could help me with this? Okay, here's the thing. And this is so excited I got this note because I want to share this perspective with you. This and I mean this in the most supportive way. So I hope the person that sent me this receives it in that way. And I hope you receive it in this way too, because I'm trying to help it and add some value here. People remember what I just said about people want things that are done that are easy, right? So if somebody's posting a job description, they want people applying for it that meet the job description. They don't want people telling them another job

that they should create. Does that make sense? So here's another way to look at it. I get a lot of DMs from people saying, hey Heather, I want you to help me with this or do this or I work full time. I don't know where these people think that I have the time to go create whatever business plans for them or whatever it is. I mean, I get asked crazy things that I'm not retired,

I'm working, I don't just sit around looking for things to do, right? So they're wanting me to do something that would be difficult taking my time away from what I do. And I see that similar to what this person's asking, right? They want things their way, not the way others want them. Here's the bottom line. People want ease of execution. They want efficiency.

They want to be able to move quickly and get things done, the way that they would like them done. Then when someone else comes in and asks for something completely off topic or unrelated, and it's going to put that other person out, there's a major disconnect there. You always want to make things easier for the other person. Let's get back to how I get DMs all the time.

This is a great example. So I get whatever, however many of these crazy DMs every week I get from people asking me to do things for them that have nothing to do with what I'm, doesn't yet, I don't understand why people ask me these things. And the other day I received a DM from someone who said, hey, Heather, love your book, love your podcast. Just so you know, I left a review of your podcast, I left a review of your books.

Here's the screenshots. So this person's already showing me that they add value to my life. Okay, my ears perk up. So suddenly I'm a fan. I'm going to read the whole message, right? And then they go on to say, I'd like to help you expand your footprint. I think you could add a lot more value if you would expand into Latin America. What are your thoughts on that? Have you ever thought about that? And can I help you? I just want to add value.

Maybe if I can show you there's a market there, maybe at some point you would bring me on higher me and we could work together, but I'd like to show you that I can add value for you. Would you be willing to look at what I'm proposing for me to do for you? So basically make my life easier. to look at what I'm proposing for me to do for you. So basically make my life easier, asking if she can help me grow, which is something I talk about wanting to do all the time, right? So she knows she lists and she already added value because she already left me reviews. That woman was seeing something that she wanted for me.

She wants to ultimately work with me and she wants to expand my brand into Latin America, which is her passion and calling. But she didn't do it from a standpoint that she sent me a note and into Latin America, which is her passion and calling. But she didn't do it from a standpoint that she sent me a note and said, hey, this is what I wanna do, hire me now. And once you hire me, I'll go do this and that because that's not in my plan. I didn't have that budgeted for a rate

that was, shouldn't say it that way though. She said, here's how I'm adding value to you. Here's what I generally like about what you're doing. Here's where I see a marketplace opportunity for you. I happen to be an expert in that marketplace. However, I'm sure that isn't on your radar right now. So let me show you that I can add value by testing and trying some things.

If you tell me yes, I'll do the work. And if we come back and say that there is value opportunity and revenue there, then maybe at that point, we can work together and find a way to do this. So she made it really easy for me to say yes. And that's our goal, right? When we're reaching out to people, we want to make it easy for them. National security experts are warning.

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I went, this is when I was very young, I was an equity partner in my 20s and I made a big name for myself because I bought a $25 million company and sold it for $55 million three years later, really proving that I can drive revenue very, very quickly and drive results for myself and for my partners. I left that, my equity partners and the private equity group I was working with, and I went to work for a publicly traded company. I took a huge step back, okay? Financially responsibility-wise, title-wise, everything to go to work for this larger company, because I knew if I could get in on the ground floor,

I could earn their respect and trust quickly, because I deliver results, because I believe in myself, and I know what I'm capable of. And once I had the trust and credibility, then I would pitch them on an opportunity that didn't exist, because I saw a bigger opportunity there So I did that I went I took a big step back

I took a very small job very small Pay small title and I became the number one performer in the company the first year Once I had done that that's when I asked for a meeting with the president of the company I pitched him on a job that didn't exist and by that time my head is trust I had credibility and I knew him I knew what about. So, was able to tee up the opportunity through his vision, through his words, so that it would make sense for him. So, he would take the idea on for himself, which he ultimately did, and I was awarded that position. Okay. So, that's a long way of saying, creating a job that doesn't exist is not always the easiest

thing because you see it and it seems like it makes a lot of sense doesn't mean the other people will. So back to this person that sent me this DM saying that they want to create their own job. Here's the thing, you need to make it easy for other people. You need to add value to other people. You can't do that at scale. You can't just change your resume to here's the job I want. No one cares what you want. People care what problem you can solve for them,

how you can add value for them, but they need to be able to trust you. They need to like you. They need to know you, right? So what have you done to establish that trust, that relationship, that credibility, add value? You need to look at it through the lens of the other person. So no, I don't agree with changing your LinkedIn profile to talk about what you want. I don't think that's a great strategy, and I don't know how that would work. Now if you want to do an individual one-on-one deep dive, kind of a strategy, meaning, let's say I'm making it up, that this person is in the hotel business, and they have

this amazing idea for this job they want to create in the hotel business, and how it will add revenue to general managers in the hotel business. Well, then maybe looking at your contacts targeting who is a general manager in the hotel business and maybe a fiber 10 on your in your community and sending them a personalized DM where you've researched them, you've researched their hotel chain, you've researched their objectives, you've researched what they've done in the past, you've researched what competitors are doing and then you've seen it through your perspective how you could help solve a problem, add value and drive more revenue for them and make it really, really easy. That might be something you could try. But again, until you have that trust from the other person, it's going to be a bit more

challenging. So I just, I don't see a strategy like that working at scale. I've never done that at scale for me creating and customizing opportunities like that has been on a one and one when I have trust and credibility with the other party and then seeing it through the lens of their eyes and how it can add value to them and how you can solve problems for them. Okay. So that's my answer there. Number two, I was asked about posting on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is by far my favorite platform to post on. So let's get to it. So I mean, first of all, the hashtags you use are important, right? So let's say that you're me and you want people to find out about your podcast. I'm going to oftentimes use hashtag podcast host because people sometimes are searching for new podcasts

to listen to. They want to know who a podcast host is, right? If I'm promoting my speaking business, I'm going to use hashtag keynote speaker because that's what people use when they look for. They're going to search hashtag keynote speakers to look for new speakers for their events this year. So be strategic in the hashtags that you're using, right? And pinpointing the audience you want to reach. But then also look at what's trending, right? So Salesforce laid off 8,000 people a week ago. If you're in the training business, maybe you're going to jump on that hashtag right away

and talk about those layoffs and talk about some of the things that the people who've lost their jobs can do and where they can turn to invest in themselves and train themselves so they can find a new opportunity, new job, right? Talking about relevant things that are happening in our world is a great way to create content. But then also looking at target, you know, five to ten people that are in your space that are doing their ahead of you, right? So I could target Sarah Blakely, Gary Vaynerchuk, I could target, you know, Brunei Brown, any author, speaker, podcast host that's out there, I can look

at them as potential competitors, find the five to ten best, and then, you know, once a week, once a month, search their content, see data doesn't lie. So you'll go in and you'll search and see which posted well, which ones did really well, and try to identify why did those do so well, and then try to reimagine those posts back onto your feed through the lens of you and the brand of you. People want to see pictures of you. They want to know that you're a real person. They want to see a video that includes you. They want to know who you are. So everything that you're creating is through that lens of who you are, but how can you add value to your

audience? So you know, just some basic ideas are top three things I learned in sales. Top two hacks I've learned in leadership. Top five ways to close a big deal. Number one takeaway I have from 2022 that you need to add to your 2023. These are just all basic things that it's all how you can add value, what you can teach and showcase, how you can add value, what you can teach, and showcase how you can help others, how you can teach others. So maybe you're great at marketing, and you're sharing your best marketing tips, maybe you're great at training people, how to be a public speaker, and you're sharing your best public speaking tips. But just think about what are

you good at? What do people come to you and ask you for in your personal life, in your business life, and start creating content around those things. Just do it. That's the most important thing. People get paralyzed by fear. You're never going to get the data that you need to analyze if you don't create content, right?

It's always easier to criticize than it is to create. So just understand that. Of course, there's going to be haters, dismiss them, and go ahead and create the content anyway, because what you're going to get as a result is data that you can then analyze, and then you can start saying, huh, my audience really likes when I talk about this. I should lean into this more often

if I want to reach more people. Also ask for what you want. So if you want people to share the post, make it shareable content, right? So like Twitter, you know, anything like a tweet card does really well right now. See what's trending on Twitter that you could reimagine, you know, through your own perspective,

create, go to Twitter and create a tweet, take a screenshot of it, edit it, you know, tighten it up and post that to LinkedIn because that's very shareable content. Make sure it's a strong message that people resonate with in your audience. And then ask them, pound the share button if you agree or, you know, click the share button. If you're with me, ask people to do the things that you want them to do.

Put it down pointing arrows and say comment below your perspective. You know, when you say top three ways to close a big deal, then put at the bottom an arrow pointing down and say, give me your feedback, what tips do you use that I missed? Right, ask people to do the things you want them to engage with the post, comment, like, share, ask them to do it. So ask people for what you want them to do. You should know what that means already. That's the best kind of notification.

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New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Find the millionaire university on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. I am asked this question a lot. Okay, so people ask me about how to become a better public speaker, how to get into the speaking business. First of all, I've done so many episodes about this. Go back and look at the all of the Kendra Hall episodes. I think we have two or three of them. We talk about that. I interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, the CEO of his speaking business, Zach, at Go look up the Zach episode.

We talk all about what it takes to become a public speaker. I know there's more episodes that I've done. I've probably done more solo episodes about speaking to, but here's the thing. So first and foremost, start speaking. That is the number one most important thing, meaning you're not gonna become a better speaker sitting in your living room watching TV.

Not gonna happen. You've gotta put the reps in. That is the most important thing. Pastors are incredible speakers, because they're swinging every single Sunday. They're up preaching every Sunday multiple times every Sunday and they practice all week long, right? So you've got to do the work. There's no magic button for it. Okay, so that's number one. And hey, go ahead and call volunteer organizations. Ask if you can speak for free for them.

Call your kids school. Ask if you can come in and speak for them for free. Ask anyone and everyone if you can speak for free. There's millions of opportunities I know because I get so many DMs asking me to speak for free every day. PS, that's my number one revenue stream in my business, so I don't speak for free unless I do it for charity once in a while and I have the time, but there are so many companies that want people to speak for free. So start looking online for those speaking opportunities. There's millions of virtual opportunities every year that you could sign up for and ask if you can contribute

and add value, but understand what problem are you solving? What are you teaching in your keynote? Get clear on that how you can add value because you're gonna need to define your unique value proposition to sell yourself, hypothetically or basically selling yourself, even though it's for free, to these organizations, you're getting access to their audience.

And then when you do these speeches, you need to take notes after you're done to find out what really landed with the audience, what resonated, what didn't, ask for reviews of your speaking once you do the speech. And then you're gonna start building testimonials that you're gonna showcase those on your website,

and your feed, share them on posts on social media to start elevating your brand and be seen as a speaker. Get clips and video of you speaking, I get it. This stuff is a lot of work, right? I did it and it's an investment. You're having to hire someone to do video for you, hire someone to edit this stuff for you. It's an investment in yourself. The other way you invest in yourself, and I did this for my TED Talk, I hired a speaker coach, right? So investing in yourself is one of the best ways

to elevate yourself quickly. If that really is an important goal to you, then I would suggest hiring a speaker coach. They will help you get a head quickly. You don't need to. I did when I had a big speech, right? So, I mean, it just, it's up to you and how far you want to go with this. Now, going to the PTA and raising your hand and asking to take on, you know, the charge of a certain team is going to force you to get up and speak more. Step into those opportunities, right? You've got to raise your hand and be willing to push yourself into the spotlight so that you start getting really comfortable speaking. And like anything, you know, Michael Jordan wasn't the best player on day one. It was after years of showing up and taking shots and practice, right?

You've got to just start getting up and speaking. That's the single most important thing. And I know nobody wants to hear that because it's not sexy. And that's not a great hack, Heather. And well, guess what? I have stood in my kitchen and spoken in the mirror countless times.

I've stood and spoken for my son so many times that nauseates him. I have watched every single amazing TED Talk in the world, probably 20 or 30 times over, and visualize myself giving it, right? So visualization works, practicing, consuming content. If you want to be as good as Oprah, I'm using Oprah as an example.

I don't know who you know, figure out who is great in your mind that is similar to you in some way, and view their content, see what they're doing, right? There's so many different strategies. Once you're, the biggest thing is getting confident just standing up in front of people. Once you can do that, then there's tips and tricks like using your hands, using your fingers to count out.

One, two, three, you know, visual cues for people lowering your voice to bring people in when it makes sense. And then coming at them hard when you really want to get people excited, that is a really powerful way to engage an audience. Engagement is critical. People will lose their focus on you and start looking at their phone if they're not interested. My goal is I want to impact at least one person with each speech, so you want to lower those expectations on yourself.

Think about how you can add value and then try to connect. I call people out of my audience. Joe, are you with me on this? Does that land with you? I want to see the hands go. Ask people to put their hands up. Has anyone else ever been in a situation where they were the ones holding themselves back?

Let me see a show of hands. Right, you want to engage people. First of all, you want to bring your energy. That's see a show of hands. Right, you wanna engage people. First of all, you wanna bring your energy. That's like the most important thing. I always listen to the playlist of my life before I take any stage. I get so fired up that I am, you know, I'm jumping up and down, get your energy right.

Dress in the best way possible for you. Don't show up with somebody else. Don't wear a blue pant suit. If you're a girl that loves to rock a red dress, rock the red dress. Put notes on your shoes. I have, if you go to my link tree right now, you'll see my soul sings.

They're incredible. Put the soul sings on your shoes. You want to put reminders for yourself everywhere. Use the perfume that ignites this idea of confidence within you and excitement. You know, take the time to do your hair, do your makeup, whatever it is to make you feel your best. You don't want to be worrying about random things. You want to be focused on impacting the people in the audience. And then you want to

realize the talk isn't about you. The talk is about, can you help one person in that audience? Can you connect with and maybe change the lives of somebody there? Oh my gosh, if you can do that, that's what this whole life is about, right? Is bringing joy and elevating others and doing, leaving the world better than the way we found it. So to me, that's really exciting. And then reminding yourself, there's a fine line between being nervous and being excited. I lean to being excited. Of course, everyone gets butterflies and feels nervous every once in a while. Well, in that moment, remind yourself of three other times

you felt scared. You went through with whatever that scary thing was and you didn't die. You lived to tell the story. All right, I'm cheering for you. I remind myself of my Ted Sock. I remind myself of the day I was interviewing Sarah Blakely live on stage and my feet were so sweaty.

My Luba Tons literally fell off, right? I made it through. It went great. I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a video, I was in a such an incredibly healing scent for me. Tapping is another great way to get rid of nervous energy right before you do something Google EFT tapping. That's super helpful. And then hypnosis, you know, hypnosis is incredibly powerful. If you're really petrified about speaking, go see a hypnotist, it works, facts. I mean, these are things I've done in my life, right? Trying to think some other hacks to do.

Storytelling is one of the most important things. I open every talk I give with a personal story. People get drawn in by that. But, I mean, your ultimate goal is, right, and think of this. Any time you give a talk, okay, what's my ultimate goal here? My goal is to inspire the audience

while teaching how to overcome challenges so that they can hit their revenue goals for the year. So what I want to be really thoughtful about is the people that hire me, I ask them, what are your very specific goals? What is the feedback that you want to receive from people after this? The more clarity I can get from them

and guidance from them, the better job I can do and deliver. And then I also want to know, what are the challenges the audience that I'm gonna face tomorrow? What are they facing? What matters to them? Tell me about the audience. I wanna know as much about the audience as I can,

because then I can pick the personal stories that will resonate with them and be relevant to them, that they can identify with. And then I can help add as much value as possible. If I know the struggles they're facing, I can use some of those as examples and teach how to overcome those, specific to them. Right? So it's a lot more work than just grabbing a mic and running it out on a stage if you want to do it well. And the more you do it,

the better you're going to get. That is just fact. So use your personal stories, start taking swings, get your family to listen to you. Another thing that I'm just insane about is when I gave my TED talk, I had to write it out. So I had to actually word by word write out the entire talk. I typically don't do that. And here's why I trust in myself. I have a lot of confidence in myself on a month stage. I bullet point. The key thing is I want to have the audience take away in my talk. The reason I do that is then I don't get so caught up with a script per se. I get focused on the goal and then I can add lib to get to that goal while I'm on stage. And that can be really helpful.

Now, some people will say, well, that scares me too much. Well, then use the guardrails at first, right? Like in bowling, put the guardrails down and say, I'm gonna write out an entire script and I'm gonna work to memorize a script. Do that at first if you need to, but then begin to trust yourself and start bullet pointing things

because the more you that you are, instead of the more scripted you are, the more the audience is gonna feel that, know that and connect with you. And that's what this is all about. Connection, helping, adding value, right? And leaning into whatever weird, quirky thing you have, I'm pretty funny in real life

and I always bring humor into my talks. And so that's something a little different and unexpected that people crack up about or I'm super high energy, right? And so I bring that heat to everything I do, figure out what is unique, special, and different. Maybe you're super empathetic or if you're shy, call that out. Anyone else here feeling a little nervous?

What if you were on stage? Really ask those questions. People relate to that. Just be that real version of you. That's the most important thing. Don't try to be the best B-rate Oprah Winfrey. You can be the best A-rate you. And that's going to be incredible. And I'm going to be so proud of you. And most importantly, you're going to be building confidence every time you get up and try something new. Every time you take that stage, no matter how big, how small, how virtual, or how real.

None of that really matters. It's just about you taking a chance on you. And I hope you are doing that in 2023. I know I am, and I want you to know. I'm cheering you on. This episode is brought to you by Taukaya Tree. Talking about mental health isn't always easy. Finding care should be. Meet Taukaya Tree. They about mental health isn't always easy. Finding care should be.

Meet Taukaya Tree. They offer virtual in-network psychiatry to treat the most common mental health conditions, like depression, anxiety, OCD, and trauma. Within a week, they can match you with a doctor who takes insurance and takes the time to listen. Get started at TaukayaTree.com-start. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com slash start. I've had so many incredible interviews for the show over the last couple weeks. You're gonna hear them. All these episodes are coming up over the next month

to two months. They're game changing. So please tune in, not only to my solo episodes, which I so appreciate you listening to, but the interviews in the next two months are incredible. And these guests are incredible. And I'm just, I'm so proud of it. I'm really grateful.

We've been showing up. We're now top 10 on the Entrepreneur Chart on Apple Podcast and top 20 on the Business Podcast. This would not happen without you. This business of podcasting is all about listeners listening, subscribing to the show, leaving reviews and sharing with others. So please, if you haven't yet subscribed,

leave a review and share it with one friend that you think might like the show or benefit from the show, that helps me immensely. You have no idea, I appreciate you so much. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. I hope I'm on this journey with me. I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. I'm Jennifer Cohen, host the top ranking business an entrepreneur podcast, Habits and Hustle, apart the YAP media network, the number one business

and self-improvement podcast network. So most people live the life they get and not the life they want. And I'm here to change all that. My goal with each episode is to give you the habit and hustle tips you need to show up to your life better, bigger, and bolder. Tune in now, and I'll not only help you answer the questions like, what do you want most in life and why don't you have it, but will also help you make it a reality.

I also picked the brains of top thought leaders on how they've gone to the top and the advice they have to help you get there too. Head over to Habitson Hustle. Once you've done listening to this episode and get one step closer to boldness, one episode at a time. At Croger, you can find the highest quality products

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