The 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love: A Practical Guide for Women in Leadership

By Monique de Maio

Imagine your life serving you, not the other way around. Imagine a journey whose destination is confidence. Imagine taking this journey with a group of other professional women and discussing the impact of your voices, time, choices, jobs, internal narratives, and external narratives on your satisfaction

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manuscripts LLC
• Release date: Oct 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889265160

Book preview

The 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love

The 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love

A Practical Guide for Women in Leadership

written for you by Monique de Maio

Copyright © 2023 Monique de Maio

All rights reserved.

Cover photograph Copyright © 2023 Ira L. Black

All rights reserved.

The 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love

A Practical Guide for Women in Leadership

ISBN

979-8-88926-515-3 Paperback

979-8-88926-516-0 Ebook

Table of Contents

Introduction

Secrets I. Your Voice: Being Your Authentic Self… Right Now

Donna’s Story

Your Voice: Being Your Authentic Self… Right Now

Your Voice Self-exercises:

Secrets II. Your Time: Spending It Intentionally

Olivia’s Story

Your Time: Spending It Intentionally

Your Time Self-exercises:

Secrets III. Your Choices: Making Each One, One at a Time

Kendra & Lorianne’s Stories

My Stories

Your Choices: Making Each One, One at a Time

Your Choices Self-exercises

Secrets IV. Your Job: Don’t Let it Take Over Your Life

Rachel’s Story

My Stories

Your Job: Don’t Let it Take Over Your Life

Your Job Self-exercises

Secrets V. Your Internal Narratives: Talk to Yourself Like a BFF

Jennifer’s & Lisa’s Stories

My Story

Your Internal Narratives: Speak to Yourself Like a BFF

Internal Narratives Self-exercises

Secrets VI. Your External Narratives: Creating the Story You Tell Others

Karen’s & Carajane’s Stories

My Story

Your External Narratives: Creating the Story You Tell Others

External Narratives Self-exercises

Secrets VII. Your Environment: Using Intention to Set Yourself Up for Success

Kathy’s Story

Your Environment: Using Intention to Set Yourself Up for Success

Your Environment Self-exercises

Secrets VIII. Implementation: Your Next Steps

Bernardine’s Story

The Secret of Implementation: Your Next Steps

Resources

Book Club Discussion Questions

Acknowledgments

Appendix

To my darling Steven—my soulmate and partner in all things—for your unwavering support, love, and guidance. And to Olivia and Alexander, who helped me love the hardest job I’ve ever had. I love you three to the moon and back.

Success is not about waiting for opportunities to come; it’s about seizing them and creating your own future.

—Oprah Winfrey

Introduction

7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love:

A Practical Guide for Women in Leadership

I invite you to imagine that you and I are having a coffee—or tea, or cocktail—and we are just talking about life—your life.

You are likely a woman currently in a leadership position or on a leadership track who appreciates mentors or friends who help you navigate the complexities of your work and personal life.

I know because I have been there, but I never had the benefit of someone helping me when it mattered. I want to be that person for you. I named this book The 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love: A Practical Guide for Women in Leadership because every moment, every micro-moment, as I call it, matters. Micro-moments turn into macro-outcomes. This book attempts to help you identify and win in those micro-moments. I want to help you experience the compounding benefits of your small choices—at home, at work, and in between.

I came to the United States at the age of five, not knowing English and interpreting and advocating for my family. We had no connections, money, or influence, which made navigating friendships, school, and life even more complicated. As a child, I had firsthand experience with bullying and discrimination. As an ambitious young woman building my career in the ’80s and ’90s, I faced blatant misogyny, sexism, and discrimination.

Because I am a female leader, there are aspects of my life and career that men just cannot understand because they have simply never had to deal with the same issues. I started my career at IBM, worked on Wall Street, helped turn around a nonprofit, and ran a trade magazine—all before starting the business I have today. And unlike those experiences, my business of today serves my life; my life doesn’t serve my business. That is by design.

The journey of having that be the case was not always straight and not always fun. I remember looking for answers, guidance, mentorship, and support, and finding that all the books and articles I could find were written by men. In those days, it was also very uncommon to find women willing to mentor other women, as we were coming up through the ranks. It was an environment of alpha men and alpha women. It was survival of the fittest for these women, and they did not have the time or inclination to worry about the entry-level women.

I decided a few years ago that I had to help change that for other women. You may also be a high-powered woman leader people go to for answers, guidance, mentorship, support, et cetera. The question is, who do you go to? I am hopeful that this book is the place for you. I packed my fifty-nine years of intellectual curiosity, learning, tips, tricks, and hacks on how I have been able to lead a life of intention and happiness—designed by implementing a few small things in seven key areas. I have blended my own professional and personal takeaways and compiled them all for you so you don’t have to!

I am now the happiest I have ever been in my life—more comfortable in my own skin, confident, and unapologetic. I don’t regret the decisions I made, and I have clarity and commitment about what I want my next chapter to look like. This book is the beginning of that chapter.

There are so many points in our lives when we are made to feel, or make ourselves feel, less than. Sometimes, we are not true to ourselves, we make bad choices, we are not intentional with our time, we speak to ourselves without grace, we allow others to dictate who we are, or we find ourselves in the wrong environment. Eventually, we reach a point where we want to get ahead of it all and create a better outcome for ourselves and, ultimately, a better life—a life that feels like we are driving the bus, not the passenger at the mercy of a crazy driver.

The purpose of this book is to unpack all of these variables, one by one, with you, the reader, and see pragmatic ways to address and overcome your not enoughs. In each chapter, I have stories from dear friends, as well as my own life, that you might be able to relate to. I give you my thoughts on how to look at this particular topic, some tips and tricks I have learned over the years, some exercises to do, and a summary with takeaways for you to think about and implement in your own life.

There might be certain times or areas where you feel like you are slaying it, while others are just really hard for you. These feelings are completely normal. You cannot be operating at a thousand miles an hour in every aspect of your life. You have to be comfortable slaying it in one area while you are doing your best in another. In case no one else has told you: You cannot be everything, everywhere, all the time, or be at your best all the time. It’s not a realistic expectation. But you can make small changes in various aspects of your life that will make a significant impact on your life, your attitude, how you show up, how you feel about yourself, and the overall quality and satisfaction of your life.

I want to help you make those small changes in your life so you can design a life you love that supports who you really are and includes things that give you joy.

Think of this book as a tool—a thought-provoking, easy-to-follow guide to the seven key areas—aka my little secret hacks!—that I believe are essential to creating the life your friends and family will be happy to see you living. Read on and see just how great you already are and how, with just a few more intentional thoughts and actions, you can design the life you want, created by you. Go for it! You won’t look back.

My sincere wish is that once you read this book, you will come away much more aware, pragmatic, and prepared for the curve balls we all experience in life—especially as women—when we wear as many hats as we do. And please remember you are never alone. Like so many other things in life, creating change can be easier—and more fun—if you are part of a community, a tribe, or a sisterhood. You’ve just entered mine. Welcome! I am happy to have you.

With love and gratitude,

Monique

Secret # 1:

Your Voice: Being Your Authentic Self… Right Now

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

—E.E. Cummings

Donna’s Story

Donna is a good friend of mine and a talented copywriter and editor I have relied on over the years. Donna is smart, funny, and a few years older than me, but we share similar experiences with the sexism and double standards that existed in the ’80s and ’90s. Her commitment to being her authentic self, even in the face of uncertainty and risk, really spoke to me for this book, and I thought you would appreciate her story. She was the one that was told she couldn’t run a division of her company because she was too cute and her legs were too good! Really? How could you not want to hear her story?

By Helping Other Women Find Their Voices, I Found My Own

Donna has always considered herself a what you see is what you get, wear her heart on her sleeve sort of person. So it came as a bit of a shock when she realized she had not been showing up in her professional life in a 100 percent authentic way.

I decided to leave my job as a communications director for a local nonprofit. Since I was in my early 60s, I figured I was too old to be hired for a full-time job elsewhere. Nonetheless, I went through the motions—applying for communications executive positions and going on some interviews. But I found the process exhausting, and eventually, it dawned on me that I was tired of handling the overwhelming array of responsibilities that came with the job. After thirty-five-plus years of excelling as a marketing and communications professional, I was done!

Coming to this conclusion was both frightening and exhilarating. On the one hand, I felt that my entire identity was defined by what I did for a living. And I was proud of the successful career I had worked hard to create. Who would I be if I stopped doing what I was doing?

On the other hand, I was excited by the idea of doing work I truly loved. I just didn’t have a clue what that was!

As luck would have it, a public relations colleague offered me the chance to freelance as an account manager and copywriter, which gave me the security to quit my full-time gig. I spent the next year trying to figure out what my dream business would look like.

During my years at the nonprofit, I was involved in promoting programs aimed at career development for women. I learned a lot about the challenges women faced in the workplace, whether they were transitioning back into the workforce or leaving the corporate world to start their own businesses. I had a strong desire to continue to support women entrepreneurs and business owners.

I also loved to write. Having done it for decades, I knew it was something I was good at—and something of real value I could offer to clients. The big question was: Could I make a living creating content for small businesses? And if I was honest with myself, did shifting my identity to just being a writer carry the same weight as being a chief marketing officer?

For months, I journaled and visualized. I began networking with women professionals and sharing stories about their unique challenges when it came to marketing their businesses. The more I put it out into the world, the more I became convinced that women needed someone to help them tell their stories without apology and that, having faced these same challenges myself, I was the right person for the job.

What I didn’t quite see was that, in the process, I was redefining who I was in my professional life.

Throughout my career, I was aware of being a chameleon. I had an innate ability to adapt to the company, the boss, the client, and the situation. The downside was I often pretended to be someone I wasn’t in order to succeed. But this felt really different. I was developing the confidence to own my years of experience and lessons learned; to honor my own value and the gifts I’d been born with; to trust that, by being my authentic self, I could help other women do the same.

For me, the truly magical aha moment came when a close friend gifted me a sound healing session for my birthday. It was a new experience that left me feeling emotionally and mentally open. Afterward, I sat outside, sipping water, and the practitioner said, Your friend tells me that you’re launching a business. I said I was and then the practitioner said, So you’re going to be mentoring women?

I was ready to say Umm, no when it suddenly hit me: Mentoring women was exactly what I was going to be doing! Everything fell into place after that—the name of my business, the branding, the website. And while I never felt I was going to fail, I never quite imagined I’d still be happily writing away almost ten years later.

Donna’s Takeaway:

Donna’s story shows us that sometimes when you decide to be open to possibilities and take a chance, and stay true to who you are—in her case, being the real Donna—things line up and happen for the best. Her commitment to remaining