Carrie Koh:
00:00:33
Hello friends. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Should you, do you monetize adversity? You know, I have a tagline in my business that is Monetize your authority because I truly believe that for professional women, for women of experience like you and I, our authority is the thing that matters and we should. Monetize it because when we go out into this world and monetize that thing that is innate to us, we create a better life for ourselves, but most importantly, more inspiration and a better life for others. But what about adversity? You know, we've all been through some stuff, right? But is it socially acceptable to share that adversity? In your business should you actually monetize it? That's what we're gonna talk about today. And the fact of the matter is people do it every day and you get to decide, and this is a question that I faced very early on in my business and it was a very important question that I asked before I stepped on the TEDx stage because the fact of the matter is, you know, when I look at those big events that happened in my life, For sure the birth and death of my firstborn son was, you know, the biggest adversity that I had been through. And you know, when I think back about around that time, He was born with a rare muscle disease. We lived in the hospital with him for five months. And when I say lived in the hospital, we were there 24 7. And something happens when you don't know how long you have with someone. I've heard this saying, love someone like they're going away or something like that. And there is some truth to like, Holding onto something you don't know how long you'll have. Like that experience taught me the art of presence, like real presence, you know, presence is like this kind of bud's word, like be present, but like truly I. When you have no idea if this is the last day you will have with your child, you take in every single moment, you create every single meaningful experience that you can. And so I'm actually very proud of the experience that we had with our son. It was obviously very challenging. My husband and I saw different parts of each other that we were able to rely on. We had laughter, we had joy. We had moments that, all the care providers would come in and say, what are you guys doing today? We had little parties in his room because, you know what? You have to celebrate life, not impending death. so we really took a unique approach to. My son and I had a choice to make. Is this something that I talk about? And, before I decided to do a TEDx talk, I had to kind of wrestle with this question because I knew that there would be people who would judge me. I knew that there would be people who would say, oh, well you're just using that experience to, you know, make money and. It was something that, you know now in hindsight, that was probably my own judgment, my own fear. I don't think that really anyone was saying that, but the way that I looked at this was, I do believe that we experience something that is unique and think, hopefully no one else will. Will experience that thing. But I think that there's always lessons to be shared. There's always different perspectives that we can provide to people once we are through it and have that hindsight. And so I did decide to talk about my story. I did decide to quote monetize it. Right? and so. Here's why I think that you all should consider the same, because first of all, let's look at the definition of monetization. It's really to convert something into money. Now, when we think about that something, and it's one of the hardest things you've ever gone through, maybe a diagnosis, death of a loved one, maybe a life-changing accident, like should you monetize that? You know, and it's, really like obviously a personal decision, but when we put so much weight on monetization, like it's a bad thing, right? Like there's many stories attached to money. Like money is evil, you know, rich people are assholes, like all of these things. But it's like, That's actually not true. Money is just a neutral state. Money is something that affords you to create a bigger impact to create something bigger than ourselves to make the world a better place. So why would that be bad to use our lessons from some of the hardest things that we've been through to help other people? Like, I just don't see that as a bad thing. And so, you know, if we can neutralize this and look at this from a standpoint of like, let's, let's look at like the less emotional, place from this, right? Because adversity happens to everyone big and small. Like you can get a flat tire on the side of the road on the way to a big meeting. Uh, we've all had a failed launch, right? We've all had a, really difficult client situation. And the fact of the matter is adversity is a marketing tactic, right? Like I just told this story. to my clients about an experience that my husband and I had at our school auction. And when you think about storytelling, the power of storytelling is telling real life stories the ordinary that become extraordinary. Sometimes those stories are extraordinary stories of adversity, but that's how we continue a mission is. Through storytelling. That's how we, build our audience. That's how we really create a movement is through storytelling. So if those stories happen to be about adversity, that is 100% a marketing tactic. And so, an example of this is when we were at this auction, I was up at the bar and I was getting a drink and I was talking to my friend and the live auction was going on, and I go back to our table and I literally sit down to this scene that is like etched in my mind. The auctioneer standing over my husband saying, sold for thousands and thousands of dollars. For something that was not worth thousands and thousands of dollars. And I looked at my husband, I was like, what did we just buy? He's like a parking spot. And I was like, you know, we can park for free, right? He's like, it's for the children. And so we're like, okay. You know, we go on with the auction. We have an amazing night. And I woke up the next morning in this moment of panic, I was like, oh my God, oh my God, what did we just do? What did we just spend thousands of dollars on? And then I realized it's just money. We have the ability to make unlimited amounts of money. Both my husband and I have the skillset and the mindset to bring in revenue into our lives with ease. And so that story became this lesson on money mindset and the progress that I have made around really allowing myself to spend money as well as receive money. And so when I told this story, To my clients, it became a lesson of, you know, how we view money and how we view our ability. So that's just an example of like, is that really adversity? No. But when we look at adversity from this place of like, okay, like that's something that happened that felt like adversity in the moment. Then it's not that big a deal to use it in our business, but we have so much judgment around the big stuff. We have so much judgment around, you know, when something bad happens, how we each should behave, what is expected of us. But here's the thing, monetization, as long as it's in alignment with your core values and is. Really there to drive forward a mission when it's based on a positive intention. It could never be wrong. And the fact of the matter is people buy with emotion and they justify it with logic. Think of the last big purchase you made. Did you like want it so bad because maybe you love the way you felt in this new dress or, or maybe like you sat in this car, you're like, Oh my God. I can imagine myself driving up through this mountain pass and feeling the breeze and just like loving life. And then you're like, and it makes practical sense because it gets really good gas mileage, right? So without that emotion, we create an impact. And I learned this the first time I told the story about my son, I was presenting to a group of about 50 physicians and I told a story about a moment in time with my son when we opened this box and it was filled, but we thought was like confetti or something, but we looked closer and it was filled with, a thousand. We didn't know the number at the time, but a thousand. Origami paper cranes that were folded, hand folded by my husband's family in Singapore. And with each little crane, they had set a prayer for my son and it was this moment, the most meaningful moment that we had. And we surrounded, we dumped all of these cranes into his, crib, his little incubator, and we had these amazing photos with him. And these cranes. It was just like this representation of him being surrounded by, just love and prayer and like his impact was beyond God. I'm gonna like cry just thinking about this. His impact was beyond this little NICU room. And when I got done with that keynote, there was a line of physicians wanting to talk to me and saying, thank you for humanizing this leadership thing that we're doing, because my talk was on leadership. And it allowed them to be vulnerable. It allowed them to be human. And I got invited to three different hospitals to help them in their leadership programs. So was that me monetizing my son's experience? I mean, at the surface I guess it was. Right. And did it open up? Amazing conversation for people. Did it allow me to touch more people in my mission? 100%. So, we gotta get rid of this self-judgment we put on adversity. And it's a choice, right? Like adversity, 100%. How we use it in our lives, what we make it mean. It is 100% your choice because the fact of the matter is like right now, someone's looking to you for inspiration and you get to choose. You get to consider what it takes to build a business and how you want to build a business, and I want you to remember this one thing. People buy from humans. We are all part of this human experience. And when we open up the truth, when we open up the door to see a little bit more into ourselves, that allows and gives other people permission to do the same. And even for you who are selling to organizations, you know, this business to business, it's a human making the buying decision. Human to human is what matters when we are creating more impact. So don't be afraid to share your truth. Monetization of your adversity is not bad. It's not evil. It is the path to do good money in the hands of good people makes the world a better place.
00:00:33
Hello friends. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Should you, do you monetize adversity? You know, I have a tagline in my business that is Monetize your authority because I truly believe that for professional women, for women of experience like you and I, our authority is the thing that matters and we should. Monetize it because when we go out into this world and monetize that thing that is innate to us, we create a better life for ourselves, but most importantly, more inspiration and a better life for others. But what about adversity? You know, we've all been through some stuff, right? But is it socially acceptable to share that adversity? In your business should you actually monetize it? That's what we're gonna talk about today. And the fact of the matter is people do it every day and you get to decide, and this is a question that I faced very early on in my business and it was a very important question that I asked before I stepped on the TEDx stage because the fact of the matter is, you know, when I look at those big events that happened in my life, For sure the birth and death of my firstborn son was, you know, the biggest adversity that I had been through. And you know, when I think back about around that time, He was born with a rare muscle disease. We lived in the hospital with him for five months. And when I say lived in the hospital, we were there 24 7. And something happens when you don't know how long you have with someone. I've heard this saying, love someone like they're going away or something like that. And there is some truth to like, Holding onto something you don't know how long you'll have. Like that experience taught me the art of presence, like real presence, you know, presence is like this kind of bud's word, like be present, but like truly I. When you have no idea if this is the last day you will have with your child, you take in every single moment, you create every single meaningful experience that you can. And so I'm actually very proud of the experience that we had with our son. It was obviously very challenging. My husband and I saw different parts of each other that we were able to rely on. We had laughter, we had joy. We had moments that, all the care providers would come in and say, what are you guys doing today? We had little parties in his room because, you know what? You have to celebrate life, not impending death. so we really took a unique approach to. My son and I had a choice to make. Is this something that I talk about? And, before I decided to do a TEDx talk, I had to kind of wrestle with this question because I knew that there would be people who would judge me. I knew that there would be people who would say, oh, well you're just using that experience to, you know, make money and. It was something that, you know now in hindsight, that was probably my own judgment, my own fear. I don't think that really anyone was saying that, but the way that I looked at this was, I do believe that we experience something that is unique and think, hopefully no one else will. Will experience that thing. But I think that there's always lessons to be shared. There's always different perspectives that we can provide to people once we are through it and have that hindsight. And so I did decide to talk about my story. I did decide to quote monetize it. Right? and so. Here's why I think that you all should consider the same, because first of all, let's look at the definition of monetization. It's really to convert something into money. Now, when we think about that something, and it's one of the hardest things you've ever gone through, maybe a diagnosis, death of a loved one, maybe a life-changing accident, like should you monetize that? You know, and it's, really like obviously a personal decision, but when we put so much weight on monetization, like it's a bad thing, right? Like there's many stories attached to money. Like money is evil, you know, rich people are assholes, like all of these things. But it's like, That's actually not true. Money is just a neutral state. Money is something that affords you to create a bigger impact to create something bigger than ourselves to make the world a better place. So why would that be bad to use our lessons from some of the hardest things that we've been through to help other people? Like, I just don't see that as a bad thing. And so, you know, if we can neutralize this and look at this from a standpoint of like, let's, let's look at like the less emotional, place from this, right? Because adversity happens to everyone big and small. Like you can get a flat tire on the side of the road on the way to a big meeting. Uh, we've all had a failed launch, right? We've all had a, really difficult client situation. And the fact of the matter is adversity is a marketing tactic, right? Like I just told this story. to my clients about an experience that my husband and I had at our school auction. And when you think about storytelling, the power of storytelling is telling real life stories the ordinary that become extraordinary. Sometimes those stories are extraordinary stories of adversity, but that's how we continue a mission is. Through storytelling. That's how we, build our audience. That's how we really create a movement is through storytelling. So if those stories happen to be about adversity, that is 100% a marketing tactic. And so, an example of this is when we were at this auction, I was up at the bar and I was getting a drink and I was talking to my friend and the live auction was going on, and I go back to our table and I literally sit down to this scene that is like etched in my mind. The auctioneer standing over my husband saying, sold for thousands and thousands of dollars. For something that was not worth thousands and thousands of dollars. And I looked at my husband, I was like, what did we just buy? He's like a parking spot. And I was like, you know, we can park for free, right? He's like, it's for the children. And so we're like, okay. You know, we go on with the auction. We have an amazing night. And I woke up the next morning in this moment of panic, I was like, oh my God, oh my God, what did we just do? What did we just spend thousands of dollars on? And then I realized it's just money. We have the ability to make unlimited amounts of money. Both my husband and I have the skillset and the mindset to bring in revenue into our lives with ease. And so that story became this lesson on money mindset and the progress that I have made around really allowing myself to spend money as well as receive money. And so when I told this story, To my clients, it became a lesson of, you know, how we view money and how we view our ability. So that's just an example of like, is that really adversity? No. But when we look at adversity from this place of like, okay, like that's something that happened that felt like adversity in the moment. Then it's not that big a deal to use it in our business, but we have so much judgment around the big stuff. We have so much judgment around, you know, when something bad happens, how we each should behave, what is expected of us. But here's the thing, monetization, as long as it's in alignment with your core values and is. Really there to drive forward a mission when it's based on a positive intention. It could never be wrong. And the fact of the matter is people buy with emotion and they justify it with logic. Think of the last big purchase you made. Did you like want it so bad because maybe you love the way you felt in this new dress or, or maybe like you sat in this car, you're like, Oh my God. I can imagine myself driving up through this mountain pass and feeling the breeze and just like loving life. And then you're like, and it makes practical sense because it gets really good gas mileage, right? So without that emotion, we create an impact. And I learned this the first time I told the story about my son, I was presenting to a group of about 50 physicians and I told a story about a moment in time with my son when we opened this box and it was filled, but we thought was like confetti or something, but we looked closer and it was filled with, a thousand. We didn't know the number at the time, but a thousand. Origami paper cranes that were folded, hand folded by my husband's family in Singapore. And with each little crane, they had set a prayer for my son and it was this moment, the most meaningful moment that we had. And we surrounded, we dumped all of these cranes into his, crib, his little incubator, and we had these amazing photos with him. And these cranes. It was just like this representation of him being surrounded by, just love and prayer and like his impact was beyond God. I'm gonna like cry just thinking about this. His impact was beyond this little NICU room. And when I got done with that keynote, there was a line of physicians wanting to talk to me and saying, thank you for humanizing this leadership thing that we're doing, because my talk was on leadership. And it allowed them to be vulnerable. It allowed them to be human. And I got invited to three different hospitals to help them in their leadership programs. So was that me monetizing my son's experience? I mean, at the surface I guess it was. Right. And did it open up? Amazing conversation for people. Did it allow me to touch more people in my mission? 100%. So, we gotta get rid of this self-judgment we put on adversity. And it's a choice, right? Like adversity, 100%. How we use it in our lives, what we make it mean. It is 100% your choice because the fact of the matter is like right now, someone's looking to you for inspiration and you get to choose. You get to consider what it takes to build a business and how you want to build a business, and I want you to remember this one thing. People buy from humans. We are all part of this human experience. And when we open up the truth, when we open up the door to see a little bit more into ourselves, that allows and gives other people permission to do the same. And even for you who are selling to organizations, you know, this business to business, it's a human making the buying decision. Human to human is what matters when we are creating more impact. So don't be afraid to share your truth. Monetization of your adversity is not bad. It's not evil. It is the path to do good money in the hands of good people makes the world a better place.
