Transcriber: Eunice Tan Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
Have you ever had to coexist at work
with someone that you know wanted to hold you back,
set you up, maybe even sabotage you?
(Audience) Yeah.
Me too.
And did that person take a toll on you and your confidence?
Again, me too.
I'm going to share a very personal story with you -
get ready for it -
but first, I'm asking you to rethink a relationship that's considered taboo.
It's one that's not discussed very often,
if at all.
And I had a difficult time putting it into words today for you,
so I chose to convey it in an image instead.
[Mean Girls] [Watch your back]
Well, maybe two images.
[The Devil Wears Prada]
Two-thirds of women in the workplace are bullied or harassed by another woman.
And I know you were taken aback by the title of my talk,
"The Me Too movement: misstep or mistake?"
However, it's not what you were thinking.
The Me Too movement has done an excellent job
calling out the male harassers at work.
But it's now time to expand that movement
to include the most cold, calculating, and unexpected villain
a woman will ever come face-to-face with at work.
And that, of course, is another woman.
I met my villain over a decade ago,
and it was clear early on, she was not a fan.
She really wasn't a fan.
So I decided early on, I'll turn a blind eye to this.
I'll go focus on me.
I'll focus on my job,
I'll get in my lane,
and then maybe she'll just go away.
What I didn't realize
is turning a blind eye to bad behavior is the wrong answer.
Turning a blind eye to bad behavior is turning a blind eye to you,
your inner voice, your intuition.
Slowly, over time, I was chipping away at my confidence.
I started dimming my light in hopes that I could ignite hers.
I was desperate for this woman not to see me as a threat,
because when you are a threat, you will always be the target.
And I was this woman's target.
Countless meetings of ignoring me,
passive-aggressive behavior,
not responding to emails.
It became very clear:
this B-rate, watered-down version of me
didn't have effect on her bad behavior at all.
Outlandish mandates, unrealistic expectations -
like the time I was told to board a plane 10 days after giving birth
to give a speech for work.
It had gone on too long.
I realized:
we are teaching others how to treat us.
And I had finally decided to acknowledge
the role that I was playing in this toxic situation.
But how do you create confidence in yourself
when something's gone on for so long that it's become your new norm?
How could I create confidence within me?
As a single mom,
I was petrified to lose my paycheck.
I was paralyzed by fear.
I'd hit rock bottom.
I threw my back out; I started losing my hair.
When I would open my mouth, my jaw would crack
because I was grinding my teeth so much at night.
My body was screaming for me to do something.
I had to take action.
I decided to attack this insecurity the same way I would a problem at work.
I'd been in media and advertising for two decades,
and I'd executed many campaigns successfully
to sell millions of hamburgers for McDonald's.
Why couldn't I leverage that same methodology
to create an ad campaign for me, by me,
to elicit confidence within me?
I could.
And I did.
I followed the same five-step plan that I used in advertising,
and I'm sharing it with you now.
Number one -
identify the right platform to run your campaign on.
Number two -
choose strong, powerful messaging,
and do it with frequency because frequency is what sells.
Number three -
identify a music bed or a jingle to elicit emotion and memory.
Number four -
you need a call to action to convert.
And number five -
when you fire on all five cylinders, you add a visual component,
that campaign will explode.
So first, I needed to find a platform that I spent more time with than anything,
that I alone curated and controlled.
I chose my mind.
For powerful messaging, I would run it seven times a day.
Seven times a day, I ran these messages to myself:
I am confident.
I shine my light.
I slay all villains.
I am powerful.
It was strong messaging, and I kept running it.
Now I had to pick my music bed.
And I know what you're thinking:
I'd pick Jay-Z, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder."
But I actually didn't.
I chose Kendrick Lamar, "I Love Myself."
And I love that song so much
it's become the theme song to the playlist for my life,
and it even is the intro to my weekly podcast.
Next, I needed a call to action.
"Fear is a green light that means go, and go faster."
Anytime I would feel fear,
I would step right into it and take action.
Okay, the campaign was shaping up really well;
I was starting to feel better.
Now, I needed to add a visual component,
and I didn't have to go far to find that.
I went to my living room,
and I saw the life-size cutout that I have of me rocking a red dress
with a megawatt smile that screams confidence.
I would run my campaign
while looking at that visual every single day, seven times a day.
You're thinking:
why does this woman have a life-size cutout of herself?
Understood, fair question.
And I'll answer that in my next TED talk.
But for today, know this -
if you don't have a life-size cutout of you yet,
you can use any confident image from your computer or your phone.
My campaign was going great,
and I was feeling more confident than ever.
And that's when I got the call.
The CEO I had worked for for 14 years,
that had promoted me three times,
helped me to smash the glass ceiling and claim my spot in the C-suite,
he'd become ill.
And he decided to elevate his daughter to replace him.
You guessed it -
my villain.
Immediately, I received an email
that the new CEO wanted me to come meet with her.
On that three-hour drive over to her office,
I had a lot to think about.
But one memory came to mind,
a really important one from my early 20s.
I used to run alone, every single day.
And a police officer explained to me,
"Heather, it's inevitable a dog's going to come for you one of these days,
and you're all alone.
Just know this:
you can't outrun an angry dog,
but you can show dominance over it, and the dog will retreat."
A few weeks later, I was out for a run,
and a Rottweiler broke free from its fence,
barreling at me -
"barreling" being the operative word.
I was petrified, but instinctively I knew exactly what to do.
I turned towards that dog, I raised my arm in the air,
and I chased that dog down, screaming and yelling at it.
I showed my dominance, and I stepped into my fear.
That dog retreated.
As I entered the new CEO's office, she was all smiles.
I knew that was really bad because this woman never smiled at me.
She said,
"I have no need for a chief revenue officer;
therefore, I don't need you.
You can choose which memo you'd like to sign."
And she pushed two pieces of paper in front of me.
The first read,
"Heather Monahan has been fired."
The second read something like,
Heather Monahan,
wonderful, longtime employee who we all love,
is moving on for an adventure, blah blah blah.
This was not my first rodeo.
I knew that if I wanted the beautiful memo to go out,
I'd also be getting a very large paycheck.
But I'd have to sign a lengthy, convoluted release.
I'd basically have to do a deal with the devil.
And this devil was wearing Prada.
I looked down at the memos,
I fought back my tears,
I looked back at her,
and I knew what I needed to do.
I pushed both of those memos right back to her, and I said,
"I did not write either one of these, so I won't be signing either.
And if there is nothing else to say to me,
I will be on my way."
In that moment, I was petrified.
I was petrified not knowing how I would pay my bills.
I was petrified not knowing when I'd get a paycheck
or what I would do for a living.
But in that moment,
I chose me.
I chose to create confidence within me.
And while that woman thought she fired me that day,
I had just fired my villain.
And when you fire your villain, you set yourself up to take off.
So now I ask you this:
do you have a villain in your life?
Isn't right now the time for you to run an ad campaign for you
to create confidence within you
so that you can dominate, fire your villain,
and put an end to the mean girls forever?
Isn't now the time for you to say,
"I choose me"?
And I really hope you do.
Thank you.
(Applause)