Tony Stark Policci (00:00)
Confidence isn't something you're given. It's something you decide to step into. Today's guest, Monica Millon, knows what it means to juggle it all. 18 years in leadership, a corporate career, a busy mom, and now on her mission to help women step into their confidence and lead boldly. She's a leadership coach who focuses on helping females who are just starting their leadership journey. Through her coaching practice, she leads boldly.

Monica is empowering women to break through self-doubt, set strong boundaries, and redefine leadership on their terms. If you've ever questioned whether you have what it takes to lead, this episode will change the way you see yourself. Let's get to it.

Tony Stark Policci (01:38)
All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Hero Up podcast. Today, my guest, just heard her introduction. Monica, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to talk to you today.

Monika (01:49)
Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to talk to you today.

Tony Stark Policci (01:54)
So we are a world apart right now. You're on the other side of the world and it's morning here for me and it's evening there for you. So this is really exciting that we're having the opportunity to talk. But my first question for you Monica is tell me a little about who you are and what it is that you do.

Monika (02:11)
I am many things. I'm a mom to a little boy of his four years old and I'm married and I work at a corporate at the moment. I've been in leadership positions for more than 18 years and recently I decided to take my knowledge and launch a coaching practice. So now I am coaching clients privately.

after hours and over weekends. Yeah, so that's really fulfilling and exciting for me.

Tony Stark Policci (02:39)
I always honor the role of a parent. I think that's the most important thing that we ever do in our life is create little humans. I have six of those to my credit. Some of them are stepchildren, but the best thing that's ever happened to me. Monica, tell me a little bit about 18 years in leadership. Wow. That's a great track record. What got you started in leadership?

Monika (03:00)
I, during my school career, I was in leadership roles here or there, never really consciously by choice, it just seemed to happen. And then when I first started working, my first corporate job within a year of starting, I was appointed as a team leader. We had very much like startup vibes. So I feel...

privilege to have had that opportunity. It may not have happened if I joined a different company. In any case, I had no idea what I was doing. There was this female department head and she took me under her wing and she mentored me and coached me and I learned so much from her.

over the years, especially as I got older and I was just reflecting like how generous it was of her to spend time helping me develop into the leader I am today. And so I have been mentoring and coaching other people in the various organizations I've worked at.

as a result and it just kind of culminated in me, as I said earlier, deciding to launch my own coaching practice and just kind of continuing the...

the, you know, paying it forward to other female leaders in the industry. And yeah, so it's just, it's been great. I just love being a leader. It's very important to me to, it's very fulfilling for me to watch someone and help someone develop and grow and become leaders of their own or maybe specialize if that's more what they want to do. But it ultimately has been

more fun for me being a leader than any particular job I had to fulfill, if that makes sense. Like the actual deliverables I needed to deliver was almost kind of like a side project to me. It was more about the people.

Tony Stark Policci (04:51)
So in your leadership, you said this woman took you under her wing and mentored you. How long was that process before she kind of said, go, go show me what you can do? Or was it almost immediately? Tell me a little bit about that process.

Monika (05:04)
Yeah, at the beginning we had a very formalized kind of relationship. We met about once a week. And over time, the frequency of those sessions decreased and it became more informal, more of a friendship. But I think all in all, she probably actively mentored me for about two to three years. Yeah, which I...

Like I said, I feel very privileged for she had a lot on her plate as I'm sure you can imagine. She had children of her own and some personal difficulties and yet she still found time to be present with me which I am so grateful for to this day. So yeah, it was about I would say two to three years.

Tony Stark Policci (05:43)
You know that I am, I'm always so grateful for people that go the extra mile. I really believe that one of the principles of leadership is we create, how to a bigger plate. know, everyone is busy. Everyone has busy lives. We all have responsibilities. We all have troubles and pains and problems. And it can be so easy to just say, I don't have time for this person.

I don't have time for something else. So it's always encouraging me when I listen to someone tell the story about being mentored by someone and then acknowledging that you knew this woman had a lot of other things going on in her life yet she still made time to make an impact in your life. And here you are, what 15 years later, 18 years later, now the trajectory that your career is on.

is heavily influenced by how she poured into you. Is that accurate?

Monika (06:35)
Yeah, 100%. Now I agree. I dislike a lot of the corporate kind of narrative that says that you're all in competition with one another.

Tony Stark Policci (06:37)
Yeah.

Monika (06:47)
I feel that there's space for all of us and we need to support one another instead of trying to drag each other down. So she set an excellent example and it definitely set the trajectory of my career.

Tony Stark Policci (07:00)
So in this, did your mentorship with her come to an end because you went to a different company? Or did she move in different roles? What changed?

Monika (07:10)
I think it was more life happened. I did kind of move on to bigger roles and on her side she had some really hectic personal things she needed to take care of. It was just consuming more and more of her energy and time and so over time she kind of withdrew from the company.

I think ultimately she reduced her hours at the company and stuff like that. At the same time when I was just kind of like taking off and you know a time in my career where I was focusing almost exclusively on my career and not anything in a personal life so it just kind of yeah we diverged. that the right? Sorry English is my second language so sometimes I confuse words but I think that's the right one.

Tony Stark Policci (08:00)
Wow, you're doing

great. So were you in a particular industry? Have you spent the majority of your time in leadership roles in a specific industry?

Monika (08:02)
Thank you.

Yeah, it's been mostly the financial industry and over the last 10 or so years, the IT department of the finance. So more like IT focus dealing with IT specialists and engineers, which is an interesting nuance to leadership because, you know, typically...

not to stereotype too much, but typically people in IT are very much black and white type of people and they're very focused on the work and not so much the people aspect of managing and being managed. So it's been an interesting take.

Tony Stark Policci (08:49)
Well, my experience has been that many people that work in that field are analyzers. It's very much about making decisions, analyzing data, figuring things out. And I think being able to shift into the different types of ways to connect with other people and communicate with other people is essential.

We're in an age now where emotional intelligence seems to be more talked about than ever before and the importance of that in company culture, et cetera. tell me how, like what is one of the most challenging projects that you, that you led in this space and how did you navigate it?

Monika (09:27)
Yeah, no, 100%. It's a very valid point you're making about how important EQ is. So I was leading a project where we needed to implement a new platform for processing transactions. And

It involved large scale changes to some of the fundamentals of how the existing systems at the time were calculating transactions. I mean, imagine you're processing a financial instruction, you're obviously calculating things like prices and keeping tracks of dates and when you're buying and selling and all sorts of things. it's a very complicated.

piece of code in itself and then we were making fundamental changes to that. And so it was a cross department.

project where almost the entire department was affected. So we work in agile teams. So teams of about maximum 10 people in each team and almost every team in our department had to do work on this project of some kind. So it was really interesting and really challenging as well to coordinate all of the different moving pieces, make sure everybody understood the importance and the impact.

and then definitely coordinating things like testing, effort and things like that.

a lot of project management, which is leadership and definitely managing the people because you had to make sure that everybody felt understood and heard. There was obviously a lot of frustration, so a lot of people had to put other work on hold to get this in. At the same time, you're dealing with business stakeholders that didn't always understand why you can't deliver.

what they want right now because you're working on something that'll have a impact in the long run, know, like cost effort discussion that we were constantly having. it was really the challenging and exciting piece of work to get that into production. And it was very gratifying to get it in. But it was a big effort all around.

and yeah I can just I can thank most of the success of that project to my team and the fact that they put in a lot of long hours we really I feel like everybody gave it their all.

And yeah, it was.

It was a success at end of the day, what can I say? It's about six years later now, it's still running happily.

Tony Stark Policci (12:10)
Well, I think one of the most challenging things for any organization is bringing on a new piece of software, especially if it's something that requires everyone to make changes. It not only interrupts what's being done on a day-to-day basis, but it requires a learning curve and people have to adapt and all of this. So you mentioned the stereotype of some of the people in IT, but there's another one.

that I think around being a woman leader in a male-dominated industry. So how has that shaped your leadership style? How has your... I really believe that men and women approach things fundamentally different. Women have typically higher EQs than men.

I certainly think that women are the superior leaders to be honest when it comes to having a balanced view of everything.

Did you ever run into a situation where someone was like maybe resisting you or not wanting to cooperate because they resented working with a woman leader?

Monika (13:18)
Yeah, it has happened. Funny enough, on the topic of stereotypes, the most resistance I received was actually not when I was working in IT, it was when I was working in business operations. But I want to add that company culture makes a big difference in terms of how...

The rest, it has very strong ripple effect on the attitude of the people that work in that company. Because I worked at the one company, this company where I received that very strong, very strong pushback from this team member that not want to report to me because I was female. But the company culture overall was very masculine, very kind of...

innovation driven, rewards driven, like at all costs type of thing. And in general at that company, I struggled to have a voice just because I was dismissed very easily and not necessarily, like I said, I feel company culture played a big part in that. And then I went to a company that specifically hired me for IT because

I have high EQ. They said they know me because I've worked with them before. They know I'm a good leader. They know I'm a people leader. They hired me knowing I'm not the most technical person. They are hiring me for a technical team but I'm not the most technical person because they want someone with high EQ.

And that is a company culture decision. And so in my mind, that's a company culture that kind of drove that kind of desire and the knowledge, the self-awareness to know we need more leaders in the IT department that are people leaders. And so since working in that company, I've had a little bit of pushback here or there from individuals, but nothing that wasn't manageable.

Tony Stark Policci (15:09)
Thanks.

Monika (15:14)
And I've been a lot happier, needless to say, at this company. yeah, obviously certain individuals could and do resist, but in general, I feel if the company culture is supportive, that those types of individuals are worked out of the system one way or another.

Tony Stark Policci (15:34)
Have you ever, or can you tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision that might have gone against the popular opinion or the opinion of your team?

Monika (15:49)
Yeah, there was a junior guy in my team, junior and new, I think to the workforce if I remember correctly. He wasn't a grad but he like he had only been in the workforce for I don't know four or five years and he stupidly made some

derogatory comment on a team's channel of all things about a female colleague joining the department. I couldn't say it was such a kind of like a surreal because on the one hand, now you're the leader of this person.

Tony Stark Policci (16:10)
⁓

Yeah.

Monika (16:24)
Like on the one hand you don't want to necessarily overreact but on the other hand you can't be seen not to take action.

finding that balance was really difficult and at the same time if you do take action I'm not sure about the legal system where you're from but in South Africa they're very strict about confidentiality and stuff like that so even if you do take more kind of like what's the word I'm looking for

Tony Stark Policci (16:55)
a hard-lined approach.

Monika (16:56)
Yeah, like an official reprimand or warning or something. It's not like you can go around announcing it to everybody and saying, look, we gave this guy a warning, like you better watch your step like that. I don't know if it was necessary. I did in the end, we did take steps to address the situation. That was a situation where I felt I needed to get outside of Pinyana because I couldn't

Tony Stark Policci (17:01)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Monika (17:22)
I was being 100 % objective. But in the end, we did take action. I want to say it was probably about 50-50 split in the team around whether it was appropriate or not. But that was a really difficult one.

difficult one to especially because you don't expect that but having gotten to know the person better since then I realized he was just very he was still very immature and he the company came from before had that kind of culture like they could just make jokes and stuff he didn't necessarily

Tony Stark Policci (18:05)
Mm.

Monika (18:09)
He's not intrinsically the type of person that makes those jokes. He was just the culture he was used to, which brings me back to my point before about company culture playing such an important role. But he definitely learned his lesson and is actually a very valued and valuable member of the team at the moment. So all's well that ends well.

Tony Stark Policci (18:28)
that's good. Yeah. I love it when things work was in all of your time in leadership, can you think of like maybe one big mistake that you made and how you recovered from it?

Monika (18:40)
Yeah, I think the biggest mistake I made was not understanding how important it is for my personal values to align with that of the company I'm working for. And now I'm hopping on about it a lot, but it was clearly a very formative experience for me.

working at this one company where they didn't have necessarily wrong values. I don't believe what values are right or wrong. They're just different and they could be potentially be conflicting. I'm someone that values reliability and integrity and stability and kind of making sure that your foundations are right.

before you start building on Bells and Whistles, whereas this company I was working for was very much focused on innovation and being first to market and driving very much.

I don't know if results driven is the right word because in my mind they were measuring the wrong results because they're about innovation that created the behavior that people would just come up with any kind of crazy idea because it's a new idea and they haven't done it before and they push it to market whether it makes sense or not and also whether the underlying systems to support this.

Tony Stark Policci (19:50)
I see.

Monika (20:00)
wonderful idea they have is in place or not. It just was very much in contradiction with who I am as a person. I like having things in place. like planning. preparing and not just being thrown into a new crisis every quarter when a new product is launched. And so that really took a big hit, gave my mental health a big hit. It was not

Tony Stark Policci (20:11)
Cheers.

Monika (20:25)
healthy for me. even saw I was an operations manager at this company for three years when I realized that this was not working and I actually negotiated a demotion.

into an analyst role on the IT departments purely that I could get away from that specific team. In my mind, that was more a team problem at that point. And changing teams definitely made a difference, but it wasn't enough. I didn't really get away from the company culture. And then not too long after that, I jumped ship back to the company where I'm at now, whose values align much closer with who I am as a person. And

I just think it's naive to think that you as an individual will change a company from the ground up. It's very difficult and not impossible unless you're appointed as a CEO. Maybe then you can make big scale changes. But chances are if you're not aligned with the company, they're going to kill your spirit.

first before you make an impact on them. yeah, that was, I would say that was probably the biggest mistake in learning I've had in my career.

Tony Stark Policci (21:32)
Well, that's a really powerful one. What kind of counsel do you give to people around making sure that they get involved in projects or companies or work that truly aligns with their values and not to compromise?

Monika (21:47)
I start off relationships with my clients by making sure that they identify what their core values are because it's really difficult to make any sort of decision, career or otherwise, about what you want if you don't know what drives you and what your values are. And so I help them clarify their values first.

And then through discussion of those values and how then it impacts their day-to-day lives. Look, I'm never going to be the person to tell you to leave a job. don't want to be held responsible for that type of decision. But I can guide you in terms of making a decision yourself as to whether...

you know how this is playing out for yourself because I can tell you it's not going to be fun working for a company that doesn't align but if you don't buy into it, if you don't see it yourself it's not going to make much difference and so I'm actually working with a client now that after a couple of sessions with me and we were talking through things like her passion and what she wanted to do so she works for a non-profit and

So she obviously has a big desire to help people. But the company that she works for doesn't have a lot of structure in place, it seems like to me. so she's always like putting up one fire or another. In any case, she was saying to me that after about like three or four sessions, she was saying to me, no,

she's really starting to reevaluate whether this is the right place for her. And she was also starting to realize that just because like you have a desire to help someone, doesn't necessarily mean you have to work at a nonprofit, for example. This was not her paradigm because you could work for a for-profit company, but then help out in your spare time where you're not expecting...

more back if that makes sense. You can just give because you are happy in the rest of in like 90 % of your life you're happy and then you can give with a free and open heart the other 10 % of your time and she was coming to this realization and

So even though like I'm not a therapist and I make it clear to my clients I'm not a therapist she on her own decided to seek professional therapy to help her work through these things as well and it's just it actually makes me proud. like it's not just the coaching is not just about necessarily progressing in the career ladder it's also about finding yourself and knowing who you are and what you're willing to accept and not in your life. If you're not happy especially at work

you know, then what's the point? Really.

Tony Stark Policci (24:29)
Right.

So, well, let's talk a little bit about your coaching. You started a coaching practice and tell me the name of it and what your focus is.

Monika (24:38)
It's called She Leads Boldly and I focus on helping female leaders in kind of the early stages of their career. I feel like that is my sweet spot. I like helping the ladies kind of find their voice, find their confidence and stepping into their own and you know...

That's just a very exciting space for me and I do feel that as women, we need to support each other. Like I said earlier, there's space for all of us at the table. You don't need to drag each other down and you don't need to learn the lessons yourself. You can learn it from someone who's been there and done that and someone that can help you and guide you and you'll just...

get the success you want a lot quicker by getting some help and I love being a person to help. So yeah, that is mostly my focus.

Tony Stark Policci (25:33)
Well, it's a great name. Just the name itself speaks volumes to me when I hear it. She leads boldly. There's an intention in what you've called it. So what made you choose to work primarily with women?

Monika (25:49)
feel they need me more. Everything... It is changing slowly, I think, but in general, men have it a lot easier, especially in the corporate world. mean, the entire principle of pushing, like the whole day, 24 hours every day, push, push, push, push, push, and you go, you get home, you rest, and then the next day you wake up and you do it all again.

I mean that's very much kind of a male centric way of looking at the world similarly in the corporate world. mean men predominantly lead all the companies they are in positions of power and it's just it's kind of a bias that perpetuates itself right because you're more likely to point people or trust people that are like you and so it's very difficult to kind of break that mold but as women

we work differently. We have a 24 to 27 day cycle. We don't need to push push push every day. We need to accept and understand that at certain points in our cycle we are better at communicating than at other points we are better at planning. At other points we are better at whatever the case may be. And I feel

The moment I can help women understand that you don't need to buy into this framework of having to push every single day and work until exhaustion in order to fit in, that instead they can be just as productive, if not more, by leveraging what makes them uniquely female and what makes them uniquely them. I feel we will get a much larger paradigm shift because you will be

with like a breath of fresh air you can just relax and the moment you can relax and enjoy what you're doing and understand why at certain points of the month you are forgetting where your cockies are whereas at other times you're like on top of it and you're firing and I mean if you can leverage that it will be unstoppable and so I want to help women specifically to get back to your question because they don't have as much support I think as men intrinsically do.

Tony Stark Policci (28:07)
I think that's a great mission and it's certainly on point.

The thing that I wonder about is, there something that is a challenge that you found kind of as a pattern for working with women when it comes to leadership? Is there one thing that, is it that? it this, they feel like in order to succeed, I've got to push, push, push? Or is there something else that stands out as a challenge when it comes to mentoring other women?

and teaching them about how to lead well.

Monika (28:39)
think a lot of it boils down to self-doubt. They don't trust themselves. They don't trust the decisions. They're often seeking external validation or second-guessing decisions that they've made.

too scared to speak up in meetings. And so, I mean, all of that boils down in my mind to self-doubt and it breaks my heart because these are capable women. They are strong and capable and fierce and amazing. And because...

we've been conditioned to be people pleasers and not to rock the boat, we are putting ourselves lost and we're second guessing when you've got a lot of value to add and you're actually not doing anyone any favors by holding back. You can only be a positive change if you have the confidence to speak up. So yeah, I would say that is probably the biggest challenge I've seen.

Tony Stark Policci (29:36)
Yeah, I think about that quote. think it's Marianne Williamson who came up with the quote about our greatest fear. And one line in that quote is, you do no one a favor by being small. And I probably misquoted it, but it's so exciting when someone finds their voice. And I love the fact that you said these women are fierce. Believe it or not, I do a lot of work with men and men in many ways have become subdued because there's this

this idea of toxic masculinity and guys don't really understand what it's like to be masculine and powerful and quietly, quietly strong, you know, like a lion. But when I think about you helping a woman to actually find her voice and that moment where she can, you know, speak up, stand up, make the impact, that's gotta be

incredibly gratifying for you as a coach.

Monika (30:29)
It is, no, it's the best. Like I said, a lot of my coaching and mentoring experience up until now has been in the corporate environment, the company I'm working in. And so I've often had like firsthand like experiences of seeing these ladies take that step, know, speak up and act confidently. And it's the best feeling. It's the best feeling in the world. Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (30:56)
Yeah.

So have you yourself ever experienced like imposter syndrome in your own career?

Monika (31:02)
When I first started, like I said, I had no idea what I was doing until my first mentor ever took me under her wing. So that was very much imposter syndrome.

I have to say I did deal with some self-doubt issues at this other company I worked at where the values did not align. It took me a great deal of therapy to realize that the problem wasn't me, at least not entirely. yeah, no, it is something that we struggle with. And definitely now as well when I'm launching.

or having launched my business, but obviously trying to grow it and making people aware I exist. There's definitely some feelings of imposter syndrome there. Because there are actually so many amazing women in this space. I never knew, but I just need to keep reminding myself that we're all unique once again. We all have something to add.

Just because someone might learn better from me because they relate to me, someone else might learn better from someone else because they relate better to them. It doesn't mean we don't have to be in competition. We're all working for the greater good. you know, definitely that imposter syndrome is a sneaky one. Makes you doubt yourself.

Tony Stark Policci (32:18)
for sure. Yeah.

I don't know that anyone's immune to it. I mean, I've dealt with it so many times in my career and it's quite funny. For me, many times it's come within weeks or months after some kind of a huge success, right? Or even if I look back on my career and, but some people will meet me for the first time and find out some of the things that I've had the opportunity to.

Monika (32:24)
Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (32:48)
to work on and they're in awe, right? And I just have to laugh because like you don't realize, you know, sometimes what goes on in my own head and how I think, well, I don't know anything. And it's completely not true. Here's why, where I think that happens. When we take the focus off of who we are and what we have to offer and start looking at maybe somebody else, comparing ourselves to somebody else and saying, look at that person.

The truth of the matter in my experience is that everyone experiences self doubt. Everyone second guesses themselves. And I love what you said about, know, sure, maybe Tony Robbins is a fantastic coach for a whole lot of people, but he may not be the cup of tea for somebody that I'm the cup of tea for. And

We all have our life experience and our wisdom that we can bring to the table and nobody can take that away from us. So it's important to recognize anyone that's listening. If you've ever experienced imposter syndrome where you're suddenly asking like, who am I to do this? How, you know, why should I succeed at this? Who's going to listen to me? That is something that is quite common.

do not allow it to control you. You can rise above that and take a look at your experience, your wisdom and realize that you have a lot to offer. So when you're working with one of your clients, Monica, how do you get them to realize their power and to stop playing small?

Monika (34:20)
Sure. No, I just, I'm still processing what you've been saying. It's so valuable and true. So thank you for that. But how I deal with that with my clients,

I try and lead them to the realization themselves. I do a lot of interrogating, I ask them questions, them, when you did that, how did that happen? And then based on that, what was that person's response? And then I would say, well, do you think this person would have responded like that if you weren't capable? Or if you couldn't, know, that type of kind of reflecting back to them what they are saying to me and just,

being a sounding board and then just having them hear like, think a lot of the times just airing it and saying it out loud also takes the sting from it. And then you realize like, actually this is a little bit ridiculous. I don't have to worry too much about that. And it just, it helps also to get that validation and to get that external sounding board, if you will. And...

Yeah, I think that's primarily what I do and also why I enjoy the one-on-one coaching so much is you get to have those deep meaningful conversations with people.

Tony Stark Policci (35:33)
Yeah. Have you ever given someone what you would consider really unconventional advice?

Monika (35:41)
Well, I think that would tie back to what I was saying earlier about syncing your leadership style with your monthly cycle. I think that's kind of still, I mean, to me even, a new concept, but something that...

has made things click in my mind, like yes, this is the piece of information I've been missing. And once again, I think awareness is spreading but slowly. in my mind, this is still considered controversial. I mean, it's also a bit of a tricky one. You can't exactly postpone a critical presentation because you're in the wrong.

part of your cycle. you can't. So, I mean, obviously awareness is one part and then it's also about controlling what you can based on your knowledge of your cycle. But then at least if you cannot postpone that critical presentation, knowing

Tony Stark Policci (36:21)
Sure.

Monika (36:40)
Just having the knowledge of what your strengths and weaknesses are at that point in time can help you compensate for things that may go wrong. And that shifts the power back to you.

Yeah, so I was giving this advice to a client of mine and she was just like, this is revolutionary. She never thought about things that way. And she was very excited to kind of go and explore this because there's actually so much research being done on this. And it's a bit of a rabbit hole because it's not just leadership style. Obviously it impacts everything from what is the best food to eat at certain times of the month.

what type of exercises should you do in certain types of the month? Like, once again, it's not, you can just do the same thing every day and get the same results. Apparently it doesn't work like that for women. But it's good that we know that now. So it just explains so many things that we've been struggling with. It just makes it all click into place. You're like, okay, okay. It's that whole mindset shift from a 24 hour cycle to 27 day cycle. And yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (37:22)
Heh.

Monika (37:37)
It's exciting, it's exciting the research that's coming out now.

Tony Stark Policci (37:41)
Yeah, it's really, hearing you talk about this, know, the thought that comes to mind is, man, that seems so obvious after hearing it. like, why isn't it obvious before it's brought up? I think it's like one of these things that we just don't talk about. you know, there's more information coming to light every single day, especially about our environment.

Monika (37:49)
Right?

Tony Stark Policci (38:02)
the products that we use and how those impact our hormonal balance, both men and women, but particularly women, because women more often are using a wider array of different products, which can impact their physical health, their hormonal balance. what you brought up about diet and exercise, that's fascinating. mean, it all ties, everybody wants to, anyone who's a leader, anyone who's success minded,

Monika (38:14)
Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (38:28)
We want to optimize our life, right? We want to be the best that we can be. And it seems like, I mean, this is just a judgment on my part because I'm certainly no expert on it, but because that's not something that is really talked about on, you know, a standard basis that it is, like it can be really revolutionary for someone to just say,

Wow, I never even thought about that. We just ignore those things. It's kind like we don't talk about sex or we don't talk about, you know, these other aspects of being human. And it's fascinating to think about that.

Monika (39:02)
Yeah, it really is. Like you say, like in hindsight, it seems so obvious. So yeah, I'm really, really excited. Like I said, there's a lot more focus these days on studying the female body and how we are different. I even learned yesterday that women are supposed to do squats differently to men because our hips are different. Like, if you just were to look at the skeletons of a female and a male, you could tell which one was the female based on the hips.

of that you need to do squats differently. I'm like really? But it's incredible that this information is coming out and I think that the point I'm trying to make is that you don't have to do things the way you are because it's always been done that way.

Tony Stark Policci (39:36)
Wow.

Monika (39:49)
keep an open mind and think that maybe there's a different way of doing things and it could align better with you. look, it's also, I very much believe it's not necessarily a one size fits all approach. I'm sure there are women that thrive in 24 hour cycles.

Like I said, this is what I believe in. This is how I feel I can best help people and that is why I'm maybe someone's cup of tea versus not someone else's. But yeah, yeah, it's exciting.

Tony Stark Policci (40:26)
So one of the other things that happens to anyone that's driven, a success-minded individual, is burnout. And is there a practical strategy that you work with female leaders on to help them set boundaries and prevent burnout?

Monika (40:44)
Yeah, so I've got a large portion of what I teach them dedicated to boundaries and specifically the power of saying no.

I think that's such an important lesson to learn, especially as a female. again, we've mostly been conditioned to be people pleases and say yes to everything. But at the end of the day, when you're a leader, you're not just saying yes to your own time, you're saying yes to your team's time. And it's your responsibility to protect your team from unnecessary work,

unnecessary demands of their time. Or if it's spent on something that doesn't add a lot of value. There's so many permutations of that. it's very important to learn to say no. And you can only say no when you know what your boundaries are. you know what your boundaries are when you know what your values are. that brings me back to the foundational values. But in terms of boundaries, I...

teach these ladies that they maybe don't want to admit it, but they know that most companies will take advantage of them if they let them. Nobody is gonna remember that you worked overtime three nights a week, every week for two years. They're just gonna accept it and they're never gonna hire the extra help because you're doing the extra work and you're not getting compensated for it in any way.

you're probably not going to get promoted either because then who's going to do the work? So I try and make them see that they are responsible for their own wellbeing. No one else is going to do it for them. And that by setting boundaries and by saying no,

actually builds credibility in the long term because then you are communicating that you respect yourself and you respect your time and your team's time and that in turn even though the person asking you to do something in the moment they may be like like why isn't she helping in the longer term they're going to respect you more because they know that

you have integrity and that you have boundaries and so that when you do say yes it means something and that you are willing to sacrifice or

manage priorities in such a way to help them out. yeah, I think awareness is a big thing because the same lady that was working for the nonprofit that I'm working with, like she wasn't...

away until she started speaking to me about it, about how much overtime she was doing and I just asked her a simple question and I was like, are you being compensated for that? And she was saying no, but who else is gonna do that? I said to her, is that your problem? Or is it the nonprofits problem? Because at the moment it's your problem and they're not gonna do anything about it.

Tony Stark Policci (43:25)
Hmm.

Monika (43:34)
until you put boundaries in place and you're just going to continue working until you fall down and then within a month or they would have replaced you and then where would you be? And I mean that's a hard reality. know we often feel very loyal to the companies we work to but having been in a position where needing to replace people that have taken sick

or whatever the case may be. mean, I know the company as a structure is ruthless. They're going to replace you because they need to get the work done. Obviously the people might care, but at the end of the day, you're responsible for your health, your mental health and also your team's health. So you need those boundaries. And I think just having those like...

very direct conversations with them often helps them to see how important it is.

Tony Stark Policci (44:31)
You must have done some work to develop a sense of boundaries in your own life because you You know, you're a mother you're a wife You're a coach you also in a position of leadership in a company like Was there ever a moment when you felt like you had to choose between career family? You know, and how did you handle that?

Monika (44:56)
Yeah, I am.

I think I had fairly good boundaries before having my son.

But then he got born and I needed to return to work after maternity leave. And nothing, nothing forces you to set clear boundaries like having an infant depend on you. I suddenly had to be ruthless in terms of what I said no to. Like even though I wasn't making a practice of working overtime, there was no more like

Tony Stark Policci (45:21)
Yeah.

Monika (45:35)
nothing. I'm finished working for the day I'm done. I wasn't doing anything after hours. I wasn't responding to emails or having like idle checks on Teams and see how people are doing or if there's some big production issue that's you know. I just had to be brutal and I said to my team and my manager as well and I'm very upfront about it because I just said I don't get notifications on my phone.

my laptop is switched off, my phone is on silent, I'm not responding to things work-related after hours, unless it truly is an emergency and then you can call me and I'll know it was an emergency because no one just calls anymore. So I had to be very brutal about that but then at the same time it was very difficult not having

my personal life interfere with work because my son was born during COVID, stage five COVID, like right in the beginning, April 2020, he was born. Yeah, that was fun. And so we were working from home. For the first time in my life, I was working remotely full-time. No nanny because you couldn't have any people help you. It was just me and my husband and my baby.

Tony Stark Policci (46:26)
my.

Monika (46:44)
and this laptop. And so how does your baby that you're trying to breastfeed and pay attention to not interfere with how you work? It really that was very, very difficult to manage. And at the end of the day, I just kind of once again communicated. I was just like, listen, my hands are tied. I'm a mom.

He is my first priority if I'm going to have to choose between attending a meeting and paying attention to my son that needs me. It's going to be my son, but I'll do what I can. And then the moment restrictions kind of lifted, I got a nanny, which has made a huge difference just in terms of managing my time. But yeah, I mean, it's difficult, even now, like he's four now, almost five.

He's a lot more independent, which is great, but he gets sick and You know what when he's sick and he needs his mom then I'm like I'll take the sick day and work or not the sick day the family responsibility day or even leave sometimes if I don't have any other leave available It's like guys peace. Sorry if this problems, but I trust you guys can handle it and I do it without guilt because

I know what my priorities and my values are and...

He is it. He's one of my big priorities in my life at the moment. Long story to say, it's difficult.

Tony Stark Policci (48:10)
For sure.

Yeah.

Well, my, my youngest child right now is almost 21 and there's still, there's still priorities, you know, we talked about the things we're learning about development and, know, 20 something years ago, maybe, maybe a little longer. had no idea about, it wasn't common knowledge, widespread knowledge about the prefrontal, you know, cortex development.

Monika (48:19)
Sure.

Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (48:40)
and how long it actually takes for boys and girls for their brains to develop. mean, boys like well into their late 20s into their 30s. it used to be like, you're 16, you're 18, be a man, be a woman. And I realized that this role of a parent is, it's a privilege and it is a challenge.

And I feel like I have the responsibility to be a parent and a sage and of support to my kids as long as I have the good fortune to be sucking air, you know? So I know that I learned an awful lot. I started my business.

Monika (49:23)
Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (49:28)
shortly after my boy's mother was incarcerated for, she had medical problems and was taking prescription medications. And she got three different, they called them DUIs, but it was not because of alcohol, was because she was on this prescription medication. So I started my business, I left my company that I built with my brother and started my business.

Monika (49:38)
to us.

Tony Stark Policci (49:53)
with a three month old and an 18 month old that I spent two and a half years with by myself. So that is how I started my marketing consulting firm. I recognized right away what the priority was. And it is tremendously difficult to juggle raising babies, and running a business.

But I learned an awful lot of lessons as a result of being in that position. I think the greatest growth experience I've had in my life has come from being a father. And I'm wondering, at this point, your son is almost five years old. Is there one lesson that you've learned from being his mom that stands out to you so far?

Monika (50:40)
gosh.

maybe not so much a new lesson but reinforcement I guess but just how important patience is and also the power of letting them do it themselves I mean it's something as a leader you want to empower your team members you want to be able to delegate to them you want to teach them

essentially at the end of the day you want to teach them to replace you. But you know watching my son learning, learning, insisting on doing everything himself...

And you know, I really need to actively work not to do things for him the whole time. You know, I need to actively like hold myself back and let him try and have him ask for help instead of me volunteering it. And because that then undermines his efforts and his self-confidence, which I don't want. And that for me was kind of just like a very like raw example of what happens with adults as well.

You always see it because as adults we're better at masking our emotions. We're definitely not going to throw tantrums. Hopefully, you're not throwing tantrums at the office. But I think the impact is very much the same. think you are undermining people's confidence if you don't give them the opportunity to try things themselves and make mistakes and learn.

Yeah, yeah, that's been very kind of top of mind lately.

Tony Stark Policci (52:19)
Well, you know, that's super valuable. And it's a great point, Monica, that in order to actually create leaders rather than just followers or, you know, people that take on tasks, we have to empower them to make decisions and figure things out.

Now, if I could go back and do my parenting over with the two sons that I raised when their mom was away, I did an awful lot of things for them because I just felt so overwhelmed that it was easier, right? And as they grew and they got into their teen years and now they're young men,

One of the hardest things for me to do and and I didn't realize that this was going to be such a battle until I was in it was to let them fall and Let them figure things out, but it's the same way when it comes to leadership and helping to mentor others right is I like to ask questions, you know, so what do you think you should do instead of just solving problems for them, you know, well

What are the options? What can you do? Well, I could do this or I could do that, but I don't know what the right one is. Well, make a decision. If you make the if you make a decision and it doesn't turn out, you can always choose again. But that's so powerful. You know what you said was because I think that applies no matter who we are mentoring, leading and helping to grow is to give them the ability to.

Monika (53:48)
Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (53:53)
figure things out and do things on their own because that's where confidence comes from.

Monika (53:57)
Yeah, yeah, 100 percent. it actually, for me, it became critical to in order for me to maintain my boundaries. I was forced to teach people, to teach and mentor and help them in that way so that they can step in when I'm not available, when I have to be with my son, for example. And so I had to be once again, very deliberate about

people opportunity to take charge, to make decisions and to learn so that they've got confidence to step into that role when I'm away and that helps me, that makes it easier for me then in the longer term to take the day off when my son needs me.

So it's very, it's such a, it's actually so empowering, like empowering others empowers yourself. It's really, I wish more people, men and women alike, understood that. I think there's a lot of people that hold very tightly onto their quote unquote power and no one other people to share it, but it actually is so liberating.

Tony Stark Policci (54:59)
Yeah, I 100 % agree with you. You mentioned earlier about your values and one of the things that is really important, one of the big lessons was for people to make sure that their values align with the company that they work for. But how have you handled situations where maybe your personal values conflicted with corporate decisions? Because in your coaching practice, you get to decide all of that.

You may not be making all of the company policies or things in the corporate environment. How do you handle that?

Monika (55:34)
Yeah it is a tricky one. Like I said the previous company I was working for, was a very harsh, like a very distinct disjoint between our values and I ended up ultimately leaving the company for my own good. And now I am in a place where I don't necessarily agree 100 % with everything at the company.

management, the senior management decides. However, at this point in time, I do feel that the fundamentals still align. But it is getting more difficult for me to accept company direction. me put it like that. Because of that misalignment and because now I'm aware why I'm unhappy.

I realize what the problem is. And to be brutally honest with you, that is part of why I launched my coaching practice, because I'm hoping to then at the end of the day step away and own my own business full-time, so that I do not have to deal with external influences like that. I mean...

I think you'll be very lucky to work at a company that aligns with you 100%. I think you for yourself need to decide what is good enough and what you're willing to tolerate and what you're not.

Tony Stark Policci (57:02)
I imagine that the women that you coach are going to be faced with these types of decisions as well. And that's, I believe, probably where having a really solid sense of what your values are and your boundaries are and finding your voice comes into play. So you can actually make strong decisions and leadership decisions in situations where there's something that conflicts with

what your personal values are.

Monika (57:34)
Yeah, I mean I do believe that as a leader when you are in discussion with other leaders around what direction to take you should raise your voice, you should disagree if you want to disagree and obviously there's ways of doing that and

As long as, which I still feel at this point, as long as you have that voice and you can make your case and explain why, for example, you disagree with whatever direction people want to take or you at least are actively participating in that discussion, then I feel you are acting in alignment with your values.

However, we need to be emotionally mature enough to understand that not everybody will agree with you and sometimes as a group the leadership might make decisions that you disagree with. I do feel that because you are in that position of leader then you do need to support the decision that was made publicly. least, mean, when you are communicating with your team you can't be undermining the entire leadership structure by saying, this was a bad decision and I disagree and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

because that's just counterproductive at the end of the day and you are undermining your own authority then and any chances you had of in future influencing future decisions will diminish. So I just want to kind of like clarify that. So I feel you should participate in the decisions at the right level. But once a decision has been made, whether you agree with it or not.

If it's not your own company, you need to step in line and hold that decision. As long as I say, if it's tolerable to you. If it's not, then I'm afraid you probably need to make a difficult decision as to whether you're going to stay at the company or leave and maybe find someplace else that suits you better. yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (59:27)
What is an ideal client for you when it comes to your coaching? Describe for me who that woman is.

Monika (59:42)
So she is in a position where she wants to be promoted into a leadership position for the first time, as in yet, or she has recently been appointed as a leader and she feels like...

She doesn't quite know what she's doing and she needs some support. Additionally, I also, if someone has been a leader for a while, but they're also like, I'm just not getting anywhere, I can also help those ladies. And I feel this woman is someone who is...

interested in progressing their career, climbing the career ladder but also personal development and they want to make an impact. They also want to make a positive impact and have a voice and feel like they matter and they are passionate about others.

That's what drives them is that they want to be a better leader for their team or for the person that hasn't been a leader officially yet. They want to be a good leader when they get into that position or they want to position themselves where they can help others. And so that ideally is the person that I want to help because

ripple effect. I help them and then they can help others and the joy just spreads from there.

Tony Stark Policci (1:01:03)
Is there one valuable lesson that you've learned from a mentee or someone that you've coached that comes to mind?

Monika (1:01:16)
Let me think... yes. This was actually...

one of those in hindsight lessons. But early on in my leadership career, I lost my brother. He passed away to a car accident. He was 18 at the time. Yeah, no, was devastating. At the time, obviously being in my early 20s, I didn't quite have all the skills I do now.

Tony Stark Policci (1:01:34)
I'm sorry.

Monika (1:01:43)
I really struggled to process that and I fell into quite a deep depression. And at the time I thought I was handling it well. I don't know if you're familiar with the illness, but you do kind of feel like no one knows, like you're putting on this mask and you're like, you're handling it, right? You're handling it. And then there was this one lady in my team.

I thought I was helping her and then one day she looked at me and she said Monica You need help and she's like you need to talk to someone you need to see a therapist and she actually pointed out to me that the company Has a program in place where you can speak to therapists for free as part of the perks And I was just like blown away and it was like it's like

It was just like this bucket of cold water over my head. was like, my hat. But that changed, once again, my life. It never occurred to me to get therapy. I don't know why. I don't know why I didn't consider it.

Since that day I've pretty much been in therapy constantly, even though I've long since recovered from that initial bout of depression, I've come to a place where I'm like, you know what, my therapist is my homie. She helps me with everything. I think everybody needs a therapist, some impartial person that you can just vent to and talk to and get opinions with. so yeah, she just pointed out to me that it's important to take care of yourself.

Tony Stark Policci (1:02:55)
Yeah

Monika (1:03:12)
because if you... it's that can't pull from an empty cup type of thing. That's kind of what she was telling me and I was like okay, okay point taken I'll do something about it.

Tony Stark Policci (1:03:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

That's powerful. I really think that everyone needs either a therapist, a coach, a mentor, or all three. And maybe not all at the same time, but maybe because we cannot see our blind spots. That's why they're called blind spots. And, you know, it's imperative for anyone that wants to grow to have a mirror.

Monika (1:03:33)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Tony Stark Policci (1:03:51)
to have someone that can help us to see what we can't see, help us to walk through things that we don't have the experience of walking through. yeah, you know, anyone that poo-poos therapy and hasn't even tried it, I think they're doing themselves a disservice. But I want to ask you this, you know, going,

Monika (1:04:10)
100%.

Tony Stark Policci (1:04:16)
Going forward, like if you weren't in your current role, like, or even coaching women, what do you think your alternative career path would have been and why?

Monika (1:04:31)
and accountants.

Tony Stark Policci (1:04:33)
Ha ha ha!

Monika (1:04:34)
You know, I think I mentioned earlier, I really like structure. I like planning. I like order And funny enough, I I loved accounting in high school and I even took accounting one in varsity as part of my degree. you know, I probably would have ended up in that direction. Yeah, would have made my perfectionist heart very happy.

Tony Stark Policci (1:04:39)
Yeah.

That's great.

Okay, if you could go back to and talk to your 20 year old self, and I know you're not much further past that now, but what advice would you give to her? Or maybe not your 20 year old self, maybe your 13 or 14 year old self. What advice would you give her?

Monika (1:05:23)
Don't take decisions so seriously. Even though your big decisions feel like it's life altering, you can make a different decision. You can learn from it if it doesn't work out and then do something different. It kind of feels to me like in school they're like, your final, I don't know what you call it, grade 12 metric. They call it metric here.

Tony Stark Policci (1:05:46)
Yes.

Monika (1:05:46)
high school marks are super important, it's gonna set you up for the rest of your life and it's gonna basically you know be your whole worth for the rest of your life these marks and then you know what you're gonna study and how important that is and it's gonna set you up for life and then it just everybody makes you feel like these decisions that you're doing making are gonna like

be life altering forever and it's not. At the end of the day, the subjects you had play not that big a role. Obviously, I think if you want to be medical doctor, you might want to pay attention to your subjects. generally, even if you didn't take the right subjects, you can go back and do after school classes if it was really important enough to you.

Or should you move to Cape Town or not? If you do and you don't like it, move back. It's not if you know change careers if you want. you don't like it then you can go back to what you were doing before. So I think that's the advice I would give myself. Sorry long story short, don't stress so much about every decision you're making. It will work out. You'll either learn or it was the right decision and you'll be okay either way.

Tony Stark Policci (1:06:55)
I love that. That's great. So as we're coming to the end of our time here, Monica, I want to ask you, is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wish I would have?

Monika (1:07:11)
No, I can't think of anything. We've spent so much time together, it's been so much fun, but at this point I feel like we can probably keep on talking the rest of the night, but there's nothing in particular I feel that we haven't touched on.

Tony Stark Policci (1:07:23)
For sure, yeah.

Well, you know, one of the things that is important to me about doing the show is I like to know, you know, who people want to be there who.

One of the things that's important to me about doing this show is I'd like to know who people want to be heroes to. And the real motivation for me to do this podcast is to inspire and empower and uplift and encourage others to chase their dreams, to go after the things that they want to do, to realize that they are capable, that they can accomplish what may seem impossible. And

also to make an impact. at this point in your life, right now as we're talking, who do you want to be a hero to in your life?

Monika (1:08:10)
I want to be a hero to those female ladies in their 20s that are struggling with self-doubt and don't think they can be a good leader. I want to take them under my wing just like my mentor took me under her wing and I want to make that difference because I know the ripple effect it would have in the long term. It's so important to me. I want to be that person. Yeah, 100%.

Tony Stark Policci (1:08:34)
Yeah, I love that. That's super powerful. how do women get a hold of you? Where can they find out more about you and get in touch with you and talk to you about your coaching and your mentoring?

Monika (1:08:48)
I mostly hang out on LinkedIn. You can find me at Monica Malan. I will send you the links and then my website has got a lot of information on it. It's www.sheleadsboldly.com and if you add a forward slash quiz to that there is a quiz you can take about what kind of leader you are. It's completely free and it might just help you

identify some areas or just get validation around what type of leader you are. So yeah, if anyone is keen to try that, they're welcome to.

Tony Stark Policci (1:09:21)
Okay, well, I will link those things below if you're on a platform where you're listening to this on audio, the links will be below, but sheleadsboldly.com, that's the website. And then on LinkedIn, it's Monica, M-O-N-I-K-A, M-A-L-A-N, is that right? ⁓ fantastic. Monica, thank you so much for the time that you spent with me today. It's been an absolute delight talking to you and...

Monika (1:09:33)
Yes, that's right.

That's great, Tess.

Tony Stark Policci (1:09:47)
I can't wait to see what you do going forward as you continue to impact the lives of others. I love your mission and I appreciate you spending time with me today.

Monika (1:09:54)
Thank you so

much. Thank you so much for having me on and I think the work you're doing is so important. So let's keep it up and thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

Tony Stark Policci (1:10:06)
Thank you. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me and we'll see you on the next episode of the Hero Up podcast. Talk to you soon.