133. Kevin D. Monroe: From Prayers to Profits, Navigating Church Politics to Wireless Sales with a Side of Gratitude (and how to be grateful, esp. when you're not feeling particularly positive!)

Ever wondered what it's like to get fired from a church? Join us as Kevin Monroe, a perpetual optimist, shares his and inspiring (and hilarious) journey, Kevin's story is filled with unexpected twists and turns.

One minute he's battling religious politics, and the next he's embarking on a wild adventure in the world of wireless sales. Along the way, Kevin discovers the power of gratitude, even in the face of adversity. Learn how he turned his setbacks into stepping stones, embraced his unique perspective, and found solace in the simplest of things.

With his infectious positivity and practical advice, Kevin will inspire you to embrace your weirdness and chase your dreams. Tune in for a heartwarming tale of resilience, self-discovery, and a whole lot of laughter.

Learn more about Kevin here:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kevinmonroe
Website: https://www.imgratefulforyou.co/
Kevin's newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/i-m-grateful-for-you-7203385371152297984/

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Transcript

  Hey there. Welcome back to the show.  So as you saw in the title of this podcast, I have a rather unusual concept for a guest today. So Kevin Monroe is a perpetual optimist.

And if you're thinking, what a strange way to introduce someone. So this is a career show. What does he do for a living professionally? I'm going to get there, but hold on. Perpetual optimist.  To some, that's really weird.  So in Kevin's words,  he says, Hey, I'm not weird. I'm just wired differently. I'm wired for purpose and positivity.

It's more than my personality type. It's actually my strength.  It's my zone of genius. Even  I am a purveyor of purpose and And positivity. Oof, so many Ps in there.  Who creates environments, encounters, and crafts experiences, both online and in person, that allow people to embrace an extraordinary life and lead.

in extraordinary ways. Yes, please. I'm going to have what he's having.  But hold on. What does all this even mean?  And one of the themes Kevin talks a lot about, and that's how he and I connected on LinkedIn, is the theme of gratitude. But how do you find gratitude when you're not feeling particularly grateful, when life has thrown you more than your share of punches?

We're going to talk about all this and more. So without further ado, Kevin, very warm welcome to the show.  

Oh, Sonal, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited for this conversation. I'm excited to join you. And Hey, you that are listening to us now, thank you for listening. Right. So, I mean, I realize this, there are millions of podcasts.

in the world now. And the fact that you have chosen to listen to this podcast now says something about you. And so I just want to give you a virtual high five for listening and say, welcome into this conversation.  

Thank you. And yeah, if the, the person who's listening right now, if you kind of had a, had an idea, you have an idea now of what I was talking about.

I am so picky, my audience knows that I'm so protective. I'm so picky about the people I bring on the show. I observed them for a while. And yeah, there was just this feeling about you, Kevin. So well, we'll talk about that. So let us talk about  this movement that you have created on gratitude. It's a big freaking deal.

Okay. And we'll talk about that very, very soon. So this is a little teaser for the listener. But before we do that,  You know the show's called How I Got Hired. So we are gonna talk about all things career, and I see that LinkedIn tells me that you started your career in wireless, right? Telecom. And you were in like, sales across national in the us Uh, the company's called Singular, which I believe is now owned by, um,  

at t.

At t,  

correct. Thank you. So tell us about that first job or. Any job actually in your career before you sort of, um, left corporate life to do your own thing,  talk to us about one role that shaped who you are today in 2024 when we are recording this and tell us how you got hired there. 

Okay. So, so I, I. I so love this question and I'm so looking forward to it.

And, uh, I, I saw this question a few hours ago, right? You sent me something. I knew this was coming. I didn't know what my answer would be. And, and. As I slept on it, it's like, Oh, wow. Oh, wow. So, there's actually a career that's not on my LinkedIn resume that was before this.  And, and I want to talk about how I got from doing that into the wireless world and then how that led me because,  wow, at the age of 30,  the career that I thought I had prepared for, for years, I realized it wasn't for me anymore. 

And at 30, I was making a significant transition. And so this may come as a surprise, it may not, but what I thought, okay, I grew up in a very small town in a rural part of the southeast United States in Georgia.  And from the time I was 13 years old, I mean, I knew I wanted to make the world a better place.

I knew that was why I was on the planet. Now, where I grew up and when I grew up, I had a very small finite understanding of how that would take place.  I had like three options. I could be a doctor, I could be a teacher, or I could be clergy.  And in the system I grew up in, I wasn't smart enough to be a doctor.

Right? I didn't think so. And, and, and at that time, more, all the teachers I had were women. There weren't that many men teachers. There were a few. So I thought, gosh, this must mean I need to be clergy. I need to be a professional minister. And that's what I trained for educationally.  And that's what my undergrad was in.

And that's what I had pursued. And, uh, had, I was on staff at two different churches in my 20s, Sonal. And the second one of those, well, neither of them were really good experiences. The second one I actually got fired from. So it's kind of  

how do you get fired? How do you get fired from church? Like you must have done like something awful. 

Well, it depends how you define awful. No,  I'm  

exaggerating. You know, when you hear church, when you think someone getting fired, it's a, it's a rather nasty thing, but hold on. I'm, I'm so curious about  the, I did not expect this. You clearly, yeah, there is a side of you that's not. Known. Um, so, and you, you realize this at the nice plum age of 30.

Um, but before we get to 30, hold on before you get to, you know, getting that role and being fired from that. And thank you for being so transparent about it.  Talk to us about 13. So 13 going on 30. There's a movie. Oh, a movie reference at 13. How did you come to this? Big,  hairy, audacious goal about, I just want to make the world a better place.

Most 13 year olds are so busy kind of just in looking inward, friend circle, peer pressure, academics, you know, all of that stuff. What, what was going on in your head?  

I'm not really sure. I will talk about influences. So I had an amazing mother. She was barely five foot tall. Neither of my parents were well educated officially, right?

I only learned after my father passed that he had never finished high school because of something happened in his family. He had to drop out like some of the other boys and take work to support the family of 10 right? But he got a GED later in life. But my mother, she was just The kindest, most compassionate, most energetic person.

I mean, when my mother was 83 years old and she passed at 83, but my mother was walking six miles a day, doing aerobics five times a week, right? And she had this fast pace. She always walked fast, but she was, she just had this big heart. So part of it is the influence of my mom.  And I grew up in that generation.

Maybe you remember seeing these commercials, but there was a Coca Cola commercial, and it seemed like it's on the hills of Switzerland, and there are a whole bunch of folks there. Oh yeah, I think 

they showed it on Mad Men, um, the TV series Mad Men, and the guy who,  that was a phenomenon. That, that, that, 

that add. 

Yeah, I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, right? It was about making the world a better place. So I grew up in that era where there was something in the air, something in the water, right? That that was this, this, um, Yeah.  This optimism, I'll say that, right? This, hey, you can make the world better.

And part of that was, gosh, there was this resistance in the, uh, 70s, right? Late 60s and 70s over the Vietnam War and, right? The hippie movement and all of that was kind of this, there's got to be a better way. For life. So I was just kind of a product of that generation, but I had this awareness. So at 13, I just knew I wanted to make the world a better place.

Right. I didn't think it was giving the world a Coke, but it was inspired by that Coca Cola commercial. So that's the 13. 

That's the 13. And talk to us about what happened in your second job as a clergyman, uh, about getting fired and how you dealt with it because you, you also pivoted after that.  

Yeah, so I pivoted.

So, and that's what I want to talk about was the best piece of wisdom I received. Okay. That helped me pivot. Uh, because I think that's important for some people, uh, some of you listening, you may be in the middle of a pivot. Now, you may be like me that you have prepared. You prepared for a job that you thought was the job for you, the career path for you, and you spent your life and your education in.

Pursuing a path,  and then all of a sudden you, you find yourself at what seems like the end of the road. So for me, I, I ended up being part on staff at a fast growing church. It was one of the earliest what's called mega churches, really big church. But this church was upper income people, high, middle income and upper income people. 

And so no.  Through a wild series of events, I start finding a lot of connection, affinity, and opportunity to work with a group of recovering drug addicts.  And when those people started coming to our church,  They weren't welcomed.  Now that's, that's what really sad. 

Oh, that sounds like I'm watching a movie right now.

Yeah. 

Yeah. So, I mean, why I got fired is I had a different understanding of what we were here to do. And I am really finding this connection with people whose lives aren't all together, right. And who are really struggling with life. And our church had built this big family life center. Oh, go ahead.

Exactly. And, and you would, you could argue that these people are the ones who could have benefited the most from the sermons.  That's all I saw, 

right? 

But when they,  

and when they came and when they're hanging out at our events and, and we're playing basketball or volleyball, gosh, they would cuss, right?

Something goes, and it's like, well, who are these people? It's like, hey, anyway, so it led to me parting ways. And I remember a really good friend of mine saying, gosh, Kevin, you know, your biggest problem is when the pastor uses the word church and how you understand the word church, it's two different things. 

And so I was invited to leave. So no, and, and here's the invited 

to leave. That sounds so gracious.  I've been laid off three times. I'm going to call that in the future. Yeah, I was invited. So no, here's the door. You're invited to step out.  

Invited to leave. I mean, I technically, He wasn't fired. I was given a choice that I couldn't admit to.

Right. Sure. No, 

I understand. There's 

a commitment. You've got to make this commitment. I couldn't make that commitment. So I was invited to leave. 

I completely understand. And I also want to add here, um,  uh, because I'm interested to know what you did next, but, um, just wanted to add here, the, the religion.

organized religion.  Um, a lot of us don't think about it like this, but it's very political and they kind of are in opposition. You think about politics and religion, but the, the, um, the power structures, the way organization runs. I remember I was a 27 year old working in Chile. In Santiago, I was working in a company, and in my spare time, I was volunteering in a home of little girls who were abused, uh, hogar in Spanish and hogar, and I was tia sonal, tia sonal literally means aunt sonal, and there were some decisions that were made that just  Felt weird. 

They didn't sit right. And I'm thinking now I'm 45 today as a 27 year old, even like, you know, that sixth sense, because at that time we think we know everything. I was still learning things. But I remember coming to the conclusion, this sister and this nun, and it was very Catholic. And I remember thinking, wow, Is there any place in the world politics doesn't exist as long as there are people that was my biggest conclusion as long as there are people, there's going to be power games, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's just what it is. And you would think church, a temple, a synagogue,  you know, it doesn't matter as long as there are people there's  at one point or the other, it's gonna get weird. Stonewall to 

that. That is the same realization I had. Now, here's how I've said this to people, and I wasn't prepared to say any of this when you had originally invited me.

So I'm loving this conversation. Um, so I am, and I don't mind saying this, right? I'm 64 at this point in life. So 40 years ago, I was young, naive, and idealistic. So I'm not nearly as young as you are, as you are when you are in your 20s, as we all are. Yeah, you know.  Now I'm not nearly as young as I was then, I'm not nearly as naive as I was then, but guess what, I'm even more idealistic about the way things should be.

And I just didn't believe politics had any place in the church. And so I was blindsided By politics. And it was really politics that put me on the outs. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. And here's what I concluded. If I have to play politics to succeed in this career, no, thank you.  I'll go to the business world where I know politics is part of the game.

I'll play politics when I know it's required. Exactly. 

Because you know that it's, you know, that it's coming. Right. Uh, and you're not like, your hopes are not crushed. So talk to us about like what you did next and talk to us about like, you know, that investment in corporate life. 

There were things going on with my family, my parents, my dad was aging at this point and my dad didn't age well.

He had a lot of medical issues  and we were living four and a half hours away at that point. And I got a few of these phone calls. If you want to see your father alive, you better get here now. All right. So you'd load up in the car and you'd race over. And, uh, so we were living in Birmingham, Alabama. My, I grew up in Perry, Georgia.

Well, Atlanta was big city, right? And Atlanta was. Uh, on a good day, right? In, in bad traffic, it may take two hours to get downtown Atlanta, but on most times I could get to my parents home in two hours, two hours and 15 minutes. So it seemed prudent to move to Atlanta, to be closer to family when I needed to be with family, and we just realized this is changing.

So that was part of the move, but it was my father And notice I said earlier that my father, I didn't know this until after he had passed, that he never finished high school. So when I was a teenager and trying to consider college, I had conversations with my dad that frustrated me to no end, Sonal. I would ask my dad, hey, cause I was the first in my family to attend college.

The very first in my family. So I'm asking, how do I make these decisions? Which college to attend?  And all that my father could ever say is, whatever you decide, I'll support you. Whatever you decide, I'll support you. Which was nice, but not very helpful.  But in retrospect, after I learned what I learned that I wish I had known then,  my dad was doing the best with what  because in 

the way, in the way that he knew, he didn't know any better. 

He never had, I don't know. I mean, I didn't even finish high school. How would I know? How do you choose a college son? Right? If he, if he could have said that, but he, he couldn't for whatever reason. But my dad, when I'm 30, my dad gave me 1 great piece of advice.  And I want to share this because some of you, you may be in that kind of pivot right now, and you may be thinking, wow, I invested years of my life.

I invested years of my education to develop a skill to get a degree to get a certification to get a licensure.  And that's no longer the path for me.  And my dad said, son, you have amazing people skills because I got them from my dad. My dad had amazing people skills. Son, you can succeed in a multitude of professions,  right?

It's not just the one you prepared for. You have people skills. And because of the family I grew up in, I had something else too. I had a work ethic.  And I understood that people's skills and a work ethic would be amazing. Now you ask, how did I end up in the wireless business? Let me just put it really clear  when I was moving from Birmingham to Atlanta and applying for all of these jobs,  the only job offered to me.

The only person that saw that maybe I could do this was a guy that offered me a sales job in the, in, and back then it was called the cell phone business, right? It wasn't yet the wireless, the cell phone business. And I took a job in Sonal, I took a job that was basically a full commission job. But I was so scared of a full commission and they did offer a draw. 

Now a draw, for those of you that don't know, it's an advance towards commissions that you have to pay back when you earn your commission. So it's not a salary, but it is something that gives somebody like me a little bit of peace of mind and a little bit of safety. Oh, I'm going to be able to feed my family.

So I remember being blown away when I took this job. So what I had made as a  pastor on a staff, at a church staff, to the next year, I made a 175  percent of that, right? I made a 75 percent increase. 

That is so cool. I 

thought the floor would fall out. Instead, it was like, oh,  we may raise the roof some, right?

No, I'm so glad that your dad made that observation. And you don't need a high school diploma or a fancy business degree to recognize. To be wise. To be wise. And to recognize wisdom and greatness in others. And the fact that he said, Hey, son, you have great people skills, and this is going to transfer really well, no matter what you choose to do, he kind of opened that up for you.

He opened up the world to you. And that is so, that is so cool. That's the best gift. And by virtue of seeing that he  kind of almost gave you that permission slip to imagine. That it's possible for you. This is very powerful. If someone says, Hey, but  no, I, my French is really average. No, you speak really well.

I mean, it doesn't have to be perfect, but you speak really well. You should do keynote, keynote speeches on stage. If you, if I said that to a client of mine, who's German, for example,  he's going to start believing it because he never thought it was possible before. So this is exactly what your dad did. And guess what?

Yeah. The shortcomings, we are going to overcome them because we practice them because now that it's out in the open, you want to get better at it. And the second thing I want to say is a hundred percent commission based job is super duper scary. And I'm imagining you were  probably an important breadwinner for your family, right?

So this is a big. 

We were just having our second child, right? So yes.  

Exactly. So I can imagine and you did so well for yourself. So good for you. Good for you. Um, and 

I want to offer one other thing. So before we move on, so I said earlier, I saw this as the end of the road.  A little while later, I discovered what I thought was the end of a road was just a bend.

in the road,  right? But I couldn't see that hard right turn that my life was taking. And I want to say that to offer hope to some people that just lost a job that you thought was your dream job, whatever it was, whatever about it was perfect. And you may be thinking right now, gosh, I'm at the end of the road.

No, you're not. No, you are not at the end of the road. There is a turn. There is a pivot you can make into something to the next, right? So. It may look like the end of the road. And this is part of that perpetual optimism, I guess. Right. To, to recognize that what seems like the end of the road is not. It's just a bend in the road.

Yeah. I have this as a, as a post on my Instagram, I think five years ago, it may seem like the end it's actually a bend. You know, the road is literally just, just turning. It's easier said than done. But to believe that is when it just, it's very, very liberating. 

Oh, so I'll jump ahead a moment and just tell you this, as I started thinking about this,  this is the story.

This is one of the stories of my life.  Is that I've made several significant transitions that went from where I thought I was that this was it into something altogether different.  And it's that belief that my father instilled in me like, oh, you've got great people skills and a work ethic. You can make a change, right?

You can do something else. And so that wasn't just that one time you can do something else.  It's several times that I realized, Oh, 

wow. 

Right. So 

yeah, things don't change people. We dramatize it a lot, like in the movies. And that moment changed my life. It's very rarely this way. It's the repeatedness. It's the boring, annoying, hearing something.

And then you're like, yeah, I think it's meant to be true.  Very rarely does it occur to us for the first time, because guess what? Not all of us are listening.  Carefully, because it said once and before you know it, ooh, whether it was listening in our mind, ooh, that thought's gone or someone said it in passing and it's gone.

So, uh, completely understand and I love that you pivoted multiple times. I was listening yesterday to a podcast and this guy said, we also over inflate. the risk in our head. It's actually never that scary, but we tend to over inflate it because of the size of our massive ego. So we have to watch that, right?

And we have to keep that under control. So I want to now pivot speaking of pivot, uh, what a beautiful segue. I want to talk to you about this big, beautiful G word gratitude. So On a basic level, Kevin, we all know how important this is, how beautiful it is. To be grateful, I was telling you I was doing a 21 day meditation challenge with Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey on all things gratitude on Spotify.

By the way, it's freely available. Everyone should check that out.  It's such a great way to start your day.  So let's talk about  I want to talk to you about a few things on gratitude. First, I want to talk to you about how you see it and how, you know, by the way, totally charming your accent, Alabama, Georgia.

I mean, I, when I spoke to you the first time I had a feeling, but when you like spelt out Birmingham, Alabama, and this sweet little place in Georgia, I love listening to you.  So, uh,  you're, you're welcome. And I also, um, when I was introducing you.  And you said, I'm not weird. I'm just wired differently. Isn't it cool that the words weird and wired have the same letters? 

That's one day. 

Most of my life, right. And when I was in seventh, eighth grade, we, a label of weird was hard to wear. 

Yeah. Yeah. Nobody wants to be different. Nobody wants to be different. My childhood.  Yeah, exactly. 

Exactly.  I'm wired. I know I'm weird to you, but I'm wired differently. And I just own that now. Exactly. 

Now we talk 

about gratitude.

Let me, here's my favorite definition of gratitude. I used to use academic definition. And then  Patty Blackstaff, who's been on this gratitude journey with me for three and a half years, Patty wrote a journal. And in the journal, she drew this beautiful picture, and she had this definition. Gratitude is appreciation for all that we have,  all that we are, and thankfulness for our ability to show love and kindness to others. 

Now, I love, and I asked Patti, may I use your definition in all of my sessions and she said, Oh, please, please. And I, and I do, but I always attribute it to her  because most of my life, right? The first five decades of my life, I understood gratitude in that first sense of the word, appreciation for stuff.

Yeah, appreciation for possessions or the blessings of life or family, right? Those kind of things. But it's that next 2 lines appreciation for all that we have and all that we are, which gets into. Hey, can can I be? Be grateful for being weird. Can I be grateful for the God given idiosyncrasies I have and look at those as strengths rather than curses, right?

So that's part and gosh, can we? Look at the highs and lows of our life journey, the trials and tribulations as making us who we are contributing to us becoming the strong people, the resilient people we are right. So now my understanding of of gratitude encompasses all of that  and our ability to show.

and receive love and kindness from others to live in community. 

I love this. It's much more encompassing, but it's also, it hits you on an emotional level. And academic journals, the way things are described, they're rarely, you know, um, appeal to our, our emotional brain. It, they appeal more to our rational brain.

So, um, I'm glad that, that you, you, you found this definition. And I also think that, You know, on a side, like little tangent, all the people who are super duper successful in the world of music and films and movies and TV. I think they were all weird. They were all told that they were weird. If you look at Lady Gaga, if you look at, uh, Ed Sheeran, um, you know, you look different, you sound different.

And they, thank God, didn't let that affect who they are today. Because that weirdness is actually their personal brand.  And there's people who pay, there's millions of people who pay to see them who want to be near them. So, um, yeah, what is weird anyway, you know, so,  uh, let's talk about, um, the, I hate this word practical because it makes it sound like it's completely in opposition to, um, everything you're saying, but one of the biggest obstacles, and this is how you and I connected Kevin on LinkedIn. 

To talk about gratitude and I said, Hey, why don't you come on the podcast because I think we should all listen to this. So one of the biggest obstacles I hear and you probably hear a lot. Many people, um,  I hear many so particularly people in my world.  We talk a lot about our current circumstances.  That preclude them from starting a gratitude practice.

For example, I'm deep in job search mode right now. I got a big fat mortgage.  I got kids, school fees, mounting bills, all of that stuff. I don't, it's not about time. It's like, I don't really feel super grateful right now. What is this guy smoking? Right?  So. Talk to us about this.  Talk to us about how  you want to sort of  address this and, and, You know, uh, for example, I, I tell a lot of my clients to do volunteer work while they are looking for something,  but there is resistance sometimes, right?

Because I don't see a financial return. So, uh, there's so many ways people think about gratitude, but I'm curious to hear about your initiatives. Of gratitude on gratitude, but also your sort of thoughts on how we can make those little micro tiny changes to make  gratitude an important part of our day.  

So what you said about people, I think it gets into 1 of the major misunderstandings about gratitude,  whether it gets articulated this way or not.

I think there are a lot of people who think. Everything or most everything in my life needs to be good  in order for me to be grateful.  

And 

when, when most everything in my life gets good, then I will be grateful. 

And gratitude, okay, so if that's what we taught, if that's what I taught, you could accuse me of teaching toxic positivity, right? And gratitude often gets labeled as toxic positivity. So I believe in contrast to believing that Everything in your life needs to be good in order for you to be grateful. I believe even these people you've talked about, when there's so many things in life that seem horrible,  there's still something good in life to be grateful for,  right?

There's something good and being grateful means finding and focusing on those things that are good in life.  Especially when the so much of your life is not good.  So for example, when we start talking about so, so what happened to how we met is a couple of months ago, February, February of 2024.  I met some people in a community group and the next week, one of these people reached out to me and asked me this question.

How can I be grateful when I feel so defeated? Was her word feel so defeated  and I remember in the meeting that she mentioned just being laid off from a big corporation in one of these recent rounds of layoff. And I asked and she gave me permission to use her name because I, I sent her something anonymously.

She goes, no, I want you to use my name. So I said, Erica, is it because you. Your job search that you feel defeated  and she said, absolutely right. And so many of us, our identity is tied to our jobs,  right? And Sono, I mean, I've been reading stuff lately that's talking about highly successful CEOs. I mean, folks that have  massive amounts of wealth, massive amounts of success, and then they have entered retirement. 

And now all of a sudden that they are a former CEO and not a current CEO, they're, they're struggling with identity  because their identity was totally wrapped up in that title, in that position, right? So this happens. And so maybe you've lost a job and your identity was tied to that, right? So, so you, you felt this.

And so I asked her and I said, Oh my gosh,  She said, Can you help me? And I got and I started thinking, how can I be grateful? And the first response I said, Wow, when I'm when I find myself in despair, and let me be clear,  uh, I am no stranger to despair, defeat, discouragement, those things happen. https: otter.

ai 

I mean, there are times, right, that it is a struggle, but I still lean towards perpetual optimism. But let me define optimism real quick. It's part of being 

human. It's part of being human. It's impossible to be, yeah.  

Okay, so here's the difference. Optimism is a generalized belief that things will turn out for the good.

Okay, so I believe in optimism, but I also bigger believer in hope that there is something I can do to make that better happen. Right? So hope, hope is taking, so we have agency,  right? As human beings, we have agency. We have the ability to make choice. And when we take action on a choice, when we combine agency with action, something amazing happens. 

So that's the, that's the other nugget I drop here, right? If you're feeling discouraged, find something to do. But, but I said to my friend, Erica, I'm no, I am no.  Uh, stranger to discouragement, to despair, defeat. We've launched several things that bombed, you know, can we, can we 

stay here? Can we stay here for a minute, Kevin, and talk about this?

Because I think this will, it'll be very relatable. For the listener right now, talk to us, give us, give us an example of a short story where you had big plans and like Mike Tyson says, I have these plans and then, you know, I got punched in the mouth where things didn't go accordingly and, and you, um, had a lot of despair and how you got out of it, something, something that, you know, really 

hurt. 

Sonal, 

I, I, yeah, I'll, I'll accept the invitation  and I'm going to talk about something that's connected to the journey that brought us together. Right? So we had this idea of creating a 21 day gratitude shift journey for job seekers. And then, so we've created this as an evergreen program. That's there available today.

And I had this idea. We need to launch this as a live cohort because there are things we'll learn in a live cohort that can influence  the  evergreen program. So we go to launch a live cohort and people everywhere. Oh, this is such an amazing idea. This is such an amazing idea.  And so.  Wow.  Yeah. Okay. I'll go deep with you, sister.

I will.  I had been approached by a firm  that did SEO work. And when they heard what we wanted to do around job search, they're like, Oh my gosh, you're going to nail this. We'll help you. There's it, right. So we're optimizing our website and all of this stuff. They guaranteed us 600.  Signups for this because we did it at such a no brainer price for money not to be an obstacle So on a thursday morning  is when I came to the real well Actually the friday before I had sent a request for an update we'd work for a month Tell me where we're at.

What's what's happening next all these things were happening. I never hear from the company again Oh, no. So Monday, I don't hear back. Tuesday, I don't hear back. Wednesday, I don't hear back. Thursday, I realize, Sonal, I realize I've been ghosted, right? I mean, I might put it like that. And you paid them? You 

paid them?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I paid them. Oh, you were scammed. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. 

We are set to launch on Monday.  This is Thursday. On that Thursday.  One person had signed up for this. One person had signed up. And so I'm like, Oh God,  what do we do? What do we do? Uh,  and so I, I had been up since 2 30 that morning and I, my prayer, my meditation, my gratitude, trying to deal with the anger that I was having by getting screwed by this company.

I can't believe people would do that. All of this stuff. So I get to a place and. Uh, oh, oh, well, gosh, Sonal, this is actually, this is actually the day you and I were talking for the first time. It just didn't hit me. It's that same morning, it's that same day, because I went out and took my, I took my walk early.

That morning, so I could be ready for a call. And when I went to head out for my walk, I'm a big fan of Audible. And I knew I needed to get my head straight. So I opened my phone and there's a book I'm going to listen to. And when I open Audible, Audible, there's that right there on the homepage, Audible recommends you listen to The Art of Letting Go.

And I'm like, are you kidding me? Yeah, are you kidding me? Well, 

to be fair, big brother was listening as well. But  

I'm like, I need to let go. So I start listening to this book and I start letting go.  And I'm on the street coming back to my house 25 minutes before I'm going to meet you. And  I've got a shower and I have this message. 

From a friend, another recruiter who is an influential blogger in the career space. And she said, Hey, Kevin, I'm posting a blog today and I want, can you help me write three points about this? Here's the intro I've written. What are the three? So I send her something. I jump on the call with you. We have this amazing call.

Hope is rising in my heart. I'm like, I'm reconnecting. I'm like, yep, this is going to work. This is going to work. And then she posts this post. And in the post she goes, she offers to pay for people to join.  She goes, I so believe in this. I'll pay for you to join, but there are two conditions you have to complete the 21 days and you have to tell me how it's benefited you. 

And, and so I'm like, wow. And then other people jumped on for that. Okay. So over the weekend. So I'm, I'm, I'm being 

so logged. Oh my God. I'm just going, oh, I have,  I have so many goose bumps. So you ended up 

over the weekend, we, we get nine people to sign up. I thought we needed to have it. 

'cause Well, gosh, are you gonna pull the plug?  And I wanted to pull the plug. Now, why did I want to pull the plug? I wanted to, it was out of ego.  It was out of ego. It's like, gosh, I don't want people to know only nine people signed up. And I thought we needed to have 20 to have a quality experience or 25.

Cause I know the platform we were using and it's better with that. Those were all, I said, you know what? We're going to do it anyway, because the success is in doing it. It's not, and the success is doing it for the people that show up.  Not the ones that didn't show up, and I started to send an email to tell these people and to apologize that there weren't more people in the program, and I'm like, why, why would you write that?

That has no impact on them. They don't care. That is your ego. That is your income. So, Sona, I didn't even write that email. I just say, we're so excited to start this program. We started the program. It was an amazing 21 day journey,  but there were so many points, so many points that I was in the pit of despair, ready to pull the plug, ready to give up, ready to go.

You failed.  

This is such a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing. It's also very recent. So this is real. It's not, it's not from, you know, like, oh dude, when I was in my twenties, this is like, uh, we're recording this in June. We're recording this in June. It was a couple of weeks ago. So, so holy heck, I love how this turned around and she She offered to pay, um, you  know, I got goosebumps listening to this and how you got scammed.

And it's such an important, I know this is completely tangents on the side here, but such an important lesson for all of us, you and me included, as well as the listener. If anybody guarantees something to you, when it comes to a service, physical product, it's different, right? I'm just guarantee it's a fridge.

It's going to work for four, two years. But when it comes to a service, if someone guarantees something, I usually run In the opposite direction, you know, like even when I work with, with clients in my group coaching, like, can you guarantee me a job? And I'm like, frankly, no, because I can't sit with that.

That's not like, that's not my cross to bear. I'll give you everything you need. You gotta, you gotta make the moves. I'll give you all the templates, all the guides, hold your hand. But when they say we can do 600, I'm so angry right now. But at the same time, those nine beautiful souls who did sign up.

Quality, not quantity. Quality, not quantity. The ego hates that because the ego says, no, but quantity. Quantity. Hello. Yeah. That's what followers likes. You're like, actually, no, that didn't move the needle. So you went ahead with this experience anyway, and I am so glad you did. And, and it's not that easy to be grateful when stuff like this happens.

So you, you were tested on, on, on this. Um,  I have to say this as well. Like it, it feels like the world is watching. Actually, no one cares. Right. And they wanna eat the burger. They don't wanna know what happened in the kitchen. That stuff inside is, it's a lesson and it's,  you share that lesson on a podcast and you laugh about it later and you learn from the experience.

Right. So,  wow. Wow. That is such a, um, thank you for the transparency that that was. That was amazing.  

Yeah, hey, I hadn't planned to tell that, but you can. And I want to,  I want to just put it out there and go, hey, do I know despair? Do I know defeat? Yes, yes, I experience it often, right? But, the thing I always remind myself, perpetual optimist, if you know American baseball, you know the name Babe Ruth, and Babe Ruth was the home run king.

What's also unknown about Babe Ruth is at the same time, he was the strikeout king.  

Wow. Talk about contrast.  

Right? He had more strikeouts than anybody, but when he hit,  it was out of the park, right? So we dream big. We go after big things.  Sometimes they don't work out.  

And that's part of the human experience.

That's part of the human experience. Only robots get it right every single time. So, um, Kevin, I know my listener  intimately. And. Yeah.  I would like to give him or her marching orders  on how to build a tiny, easy,  feel good gratitude practice that they can implement Monday to Sunday, Monday to Sunday.  How to go about it.

I'm digging knots.  

So Sonal, it's funny because you know, we didn't get into, but I didn't set out to do a, be a gratitude guy that just kind of happened on my journey. And along the way I realized, wow, I've been asked this question a lot.  And. You know, I, I say I'm slow. I grew up in the South, right? And, and there's this joke about people in the South being slow.

I think it was about two years in when I realized, I've been asked this question a lot and I always answer it the same way. Maybe I should create something. So I did. I created this little graphic. Pause.  Notice. Express.  Pause. Notice. Express. I'm an acronym. 

I'm an acronym queen. Pen. Pause.  Express. Notice.

Well, it's in a different order, but it's easy to remember. It's easy to remember. Talk to us about that. 

If you want to grow gratitude in your life, it starts by pausing,  right? You just have to slow down because most of us live such fast pace, such overstimulated lives that we just never slow down. And when you pause, then what do you do?

You just notice. Notice what? Whatever there is to notice. Notice that the sun is shining. Notice that the breeze is blowing. Notice you hear birds singing. Notice the flowers are in bloom. 

Notice that my plant hasn't died yet. Good. 

Yeah. Notice, right? Notice that somebody was kind to you. Somebody let you ahead of them in line when you were in a hurry at the door.

The grocery store or, or somebody paid it forward for you at the coffee shop, whatever these things are to notice, notice. And then when you notice, just express it in some way, whether that is writing a note or whether it's just speaking out while I'm grateful for, I'm thankful for, I appreciate, or whether it's sending somebody a text, Hey, I appreciate you doing this for me.

I appreciate, cause you know, here's, here's one of the other things back to my friend Erica, when we were talking about. How can you be grateful when, when life is tough? First thing I do is look at those things in life that don't change. Nature. The beauty of nature. Hey, even on days when it's raining where we're at, guess what?

The sun's still shining on the other side of the clouds.  And if you're ever in a plane on those days, you finally break through the clouds, and you're up above the clouds and the sun's still there. And you go, oh, I thought it was raining. Right. So you notice those things. And you also notice that there are people in this world that are going to love you, whether you have a title or not, they're going to love you, whether you have a job or not, they write, they just love you for who you are.

So pause and not because 

not because of your title, not despite your title, but just because you're here on this planet.  

You're my friend, right? You're my brother. You're my sister. You're my cousin, whatever that is. Hey, if you've got somebody like that, send them a text right now and say, thanks for believing in me.

You know, I could show you right over here on a wall on a closet door. And this goes, this dates back to  2016, and I've left it there ever since. 2016, I was in Norway, and I got sick on the way home. And I came home, I had this great trip to Norway, and I came home, and I got into a funk zone.  And, and there were, there were a lot of things going on in my life.

And, you know, I realized I was questioning believing in myself. And I came into my office one day, and my wife had put on the, uh, closet door. Top to bottom. I believe in you  and we all need somebody who continues to believe in us. Even when we stop believing in us, or we start questioning believing in ourselves.

And says it to us out loud,  right? Because that part you said, the expressive, that expressive part is very important because that's a gift. It's not meant to be kept, it's, it's meant to be given,  it's meant to be given away. And that sign must have kind of helped you like in the, you know, proverbial sort of  adrenaline, just sort of finds its way and you, you feel, you feel better.

What a simple message.  What a simple message, but such a powerful message. Eight years later, it's 

still there. 

Yeah. 

Right? Yeah. Because Yeah. Yeah. 

I, I, I love this because I also, I heard somebody tell me this once, if you're not grateful for your present circumstances. So where you are, how much you earn, your home, your family,  you're not going to be grateful when you get new set of circumstances, more money, better house, better family, because it's just doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work if you don't appreciate and express gratitude for what you have, which is why you see so many, I'm putting this in air quotes, you see so many successful people,  well off, who are miserable, right? And, and, uh, who make these, a lot of them make these trips to remote parts of India that I haven't heard of, and they go on the spiritual quest,  looking for the answer.

Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah,  yeah. Um, so two quotes I always use in sessions. We don't love a 

good, love a good quote. We 

don't see the world as it is. We see it as we are. Anais Nin, right? So we all have these filters that affect the way we see the world. Back to what you said. And Dr. Wayne Dwyer said, Dyer said, when you change the way you look at things, The things you look at 

change, 

right?

So, what is gratitude then? Gratitude is the ultimate perspective shifting tool we have. And that's why you can't wait for your circumstances to change to become grateful. Because what you just said, you won't be. But if you start using gratitude, and you find something. Okay, so I have a new friend, uh, 90 days we've been friends now.

And in that time, she got sick with bronchitis. And she had a birthday. And, and she had struggled with bronchitis. Had this birthday, and was getting better. And she said to me, she sent me a note the day after her birthday. She said, I never realized how good it could feel to blow out candles.  Because she had not had enough breath  to blow out candles, right?

So what can I be grateful for? Well, there's so many things we take for granted, right? You and I, we're both breathing. There's blood flowing through our bodies. Our heart was pumping when we woke up this morning. It's still pumping now. I see the sun shining in, out your window. The sun's shining out my window, right?

There's things to be grateful for. Right? Even when  not everything in life is good. And when we find those things and we pick something, pause, notice, express gratitude for whatever it is,  then all of a sudden you start noticing, Oh, well, gosh, there's something else. That's good. There's something else.

That's good. There's something else. That's good. Because we find what we're looking for. Yeah. And you're looking for what's right in your life or what's right in the world. You can find it. If you're looking for And if you believe the world's against you and nothing good ever happens to me, well, that's what you're going to see as you go about today.

Correct. Correct. Um, very good. I heard this quote yesterday as well. Ananias Nin on a  podcast with a guy called Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Oh, yeah. I know Ben.  You do?  Yeah. Oh my God. So knowledgeable. I might talk to you offline.  I'm going to talk to you offline about that. Kevin, this has been amazing. You are also a leadership consultant.

I highly recommend people check out your LinkedIn profile. That's the best place to follow you. How can, how else can they learn more about your work?  

Oh, our website, KevinDMonroe.  com website. Um, LinkedIn  The best place and, and reach out to me on LinkedIn and tell me you heard this episode with Sonal. 

My people know, my people know, do not send a blind to action request.

If you enjoyed listening to Kevin on how I got hired, tell him I sent you. He's going to give you a. An extra warm welcome for sure  

and gosh, so  if, if you're listening to this and you're, you're wondering, how do I get started? I want to get started on this journey. We have a gift. It is the beginner's guide to growing gratitude.

Beautiful. 

It is a five day free, uh, drip course, right? You'll just get a lesson a day, actually six days, the intro day, and then five days that follow that help you. And it walks you through this pause notice express framework. 

How do we find it? How do we get our grubby little hands on them?  

Um, I think it's let's grow gratitude.

com. I'll make sure we'll set that up. I 

mean, all the details. I'll put them, I'll put that, I'll put that information in the show notes. Kevin, this has been such a pleasure. Uh, it's been a long time coming. I'm so glad we made this happen. I'm my day is better because we spoke and I know this is mutual. I see this in your body language as well.

Uh, thank you so much for your time, your honesty, your generosity, your energy, everything you put out in the world, may it come back to you. Continue to come back to you. 10 X. Thank you. 

Thank you, Sonal. Thank you for asking me really difficult, not, right, questions that just allowed me to be honest and to share things that, gosh, I'd probably be more comfortable not sharing with a lot of people.

But that's, that's kind of my thing. I love bringing that out because that's the human conversation that I know I'm craving and I know my listener is craving as well. Thank you so much, Kevin.   📍  📍