The 'Inspire your Life' Podcast with Arthi Rabikrisson
The 'Inspire your Life' Podcast with Arthi Rabikrisson
S4 E3 In conversation with Monika Malan: Perspective creates progress
Host Arthi is joined by guest Monika Malan, who discusses how different perspectives can lead to personal progress. Monika vulnerably shares a tragedy she experienced at a young age, in the loss of her sibling unexpectedly, and the impact this had on her. It was only when a colleague provided her feedback that she realized the full extent of that impact. This led Monika to take action and learn valuable lessons, including prioritizing family and mental health.
Monika is an advocate for women and is very passionate about supporting women throughout all stages, from young schoolgirls to fierce female leaders. Monika encourages women to identify their values and strengths and to lead confidently without sacrificing their authenticity. Monika shares her exciting new adventure of creating a community for female leaders to support each other and grow together.
Some wise words from Monika :
- “Women don't need to lead like men and to be successful.”
- "It's important to remember that you can't care for anyone else until you yourself are taken care of."
- "Work is work, but your family might not always be there."
Listen to the full episode for so many more insights and ideas offered by my excellent guest.
About Monika Malan:
Monika is a passionate leadership coach dedicated to helping emerging female leaders develop authentic confidence and thrive in their careers. With over 18 years of experience in the corporate and IT sectors, Monika has transformed her own journey through resilience, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to personal growth. She believes that women can be powerful leaders while embracing their unique strengths and authenticity without needing to conform to traditional, often male-dominated, leadership styles.
Connect with Monika here:
Do rate, write a review, and share with others.
Share, too, your insights from your journey based on themes from the episode - what has worked or hasn't worked for you. We can all learn from each other.
Connect with host Arthi here:
· Website
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Hello everyone, and welcome to the inspire your life podcast with me, your host, Arthi Rabikrisson, I believe we find inspiration all around us, especially from the stories that we all have in us. My aim with the inspire your life podcast is to bring some of those real stories to light. Stories of my guests that resonate with you and me. It's by listening to these stories that we can be inspired and motivate ourselves to overcome, find a new path and rise even higher than we thought possible. Joining me on the show today is Monika Malan, founder of she leads boldly. Monika is a passionate leadership coach dedicated to helping emerging female leaders develop authentic confidence and thrive in their careers. With over 18 years of experience in the corporate and IT sectors, Monika has transformed her own journey through resilience, emotional intelligence and a commitment to personal growth. She believes that women can be powerful leaders while embracing their unique strengths and authenticity without needing to conform to traditional, often male dominated leadership styles. So today, Monika is joining us to share a bit of her own story of courage and growth in our episode that we're calling perspective, create progress. Monika, a very, very warm welcome to the inspire your life podcast today.
Monika Malan:Oh, thank you so very much for having me. I am so excited to be here, and I'm looking forward to our conversation today.
Arthi Rabikrisson:I can't tell you how forward I am looking to this as well, because we've been in conversation for a little while now, and Monika, I've just been sharing a little bit so high level about yourself. I'd love it if you could actually tell us a bit more about you.
Monika Malan:Oh, gosh, I have been challenging myself lately to not answer that type of question with what I do for a living, because I'm so much more than my job, right? So,
Arthi Rabikrisson:correct.
Monika Malan:I am a toddler mom. My little boy is four. He's almost turning five. I love building puzzles. I love reading, and currently I am busy learning French.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Oh, that's something we have in common. I'm also in the process of learning French, so we must actually confer a little bit around that.
Monika Malan:yeah, that would be fun.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Anything else? I mean, those are all great things that you're in into anything more that you want to share with our listeners about yourself?
Monika Malan:Well, I'm very passionate about supporting women throughout all stages. I really get very emotional about, you know, supporting girls in school, especially when it comes to, like, their feminine care and things like that, that often really impacts their ability to be present and to learn as much as they could all the way through to women in the workplace. And I get very unhappy when I read or hear about women feeling like they're not being taken seriously in the workplace. And then I also, you know, just the recent Olympics that have passed, just like watching all those like fearless females on the Olympic sports fields was just so inspiring. So I'm very passionate about women and what we can achieve, and I want to do my small little part in helping us all uplift each other.
Arthi Rabikrisson:I love that I can hear the passion in your voice as well as you're speaking about it. It's also an area that's so close to my heart as well Monika, so there's so much that can be done, and I'm glad that you're going to be sharing a bit about what your expertise and what your advice and things like that can be to listen that our listeners can actually experience and benefit from as well. And I know a lot of what you're doing when we were talking beforehand, was coming from a place of your own experience, and you had shared with me that, you know, when you were still in your 20s, there was quite a tragedy that happened in your family and that it completely rocked you to your core, and I wanted you know, would you be willing to share a little bit about that with us?
Monika Malan:Yeah, definitely. I was 23 and I had just moved away from home to finish my studies. And then, while I was busy with my studies, because it was part time, I got a full time job as well. So I was away from home, like in Cape Town, compared to Pretoria, which I think is around 1500 kilometers, so it's quite far you it's not easy to just go and visit and then my brother unexpectedly passed away. He was 18 at the time, and he was in a car accident, and it broke me, I mean, I was young. I was in a strange place. I hadn't really built up a support network yet in my new area, like all my varsity and school friends were in Pretoria. My family was in Pretoria, and I really struggled. I really struggled to process that loss. And yeah, it was a long journey to get back from a very dark place I found myself in, and it actually happened round about the time that I was first appointed to a leadership position. So it was a really rocky start to my career as a leader. But I feel my journey of kind of finding myself again and recovering from that loss, the silver lining was kind of forced into emotional maturity, you know, at a young age, and it gave me a lot of empathy, which I think is so important for a leader to have empathy, and also just really forced me to be clear around my boundaries and my values, which any good leader should have. So it really, I think, propelled me in that way. But it's not a lesson I would want to wish on anyone. Or not the way I would want anyone to learn those lessons anyway.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Oh, thank you so much for sharing that. And you know, it is devastating to lose somebody that you know you're close to family as well. And, you know, I can only imagine what it must have been like for you to just try and navigate through this loss and this tragedy and grief comes in such cyclical kind of ways. You know, you're good in one at one point, and then suddenly something innocuous comes in front of you and you're just overcome with so, you know, that's that devastating impact that grief can have. And I mean, coupled with what you're saying now in terms of this leadership role as well, that was also happening at the time, where we need to show up in a particular way, and we're still, you know, battling with the different emotions that are coming through to you, you know, Monika. I'm so curious, how did he actually then cope with this kind of different waves of grief and needing to be strong and so forth during that time?
Monika Malan:Yeah. I mean, looking back with my now perspective, I don't actually think I coped that well, to be honest, but at the time, yeah, but at the time, I did what I could, and I think it was my body, my brain, trying to protect me. But I threw myself into my work, and I think I was just not really at the beginning, fully capable of facing this loss and this grief, so I threw myself into my work, but about six months later, at a very humbling experience where my team member, one of my team members, came up to me and she said, Monika, I can see you're not okay. You're doing your best, but I think you need help. And to this day, I am so grateful she had the courage to come and talk to me about that because I didn't realize and I think this is a trap a lot of leaders fall into for one reason or another. We think you can put on a front. You think you can separate your personal and your work life, but it doesn't work that way. And that was like quite a, you know, splash of water in my face when she talked, when she said that to me. And so I took it to heart, and I started going to therapy. I was lucky enough that my workplace offered free counseling sessions to staff members, and that's how I started my therapy journey. And it was, it was really intense. So, I mean, I started seeing a therapist once a week, and it was difficult. It was, it was really, really tough, I'm not gonna lie. And it took me, I would say, probably, many years, even before I was like, fully recovered, if you can ever fully recover from something like that, but I still, I still go to therapy, not weekly, any longer, thankfully, it's no longer necessary. But I do feel that I've come to the understanding that I feel therapy is so essential, and I would recommend to everyone. I would shout it from the rooftops. I'm just it makes such a big difference to have someone impartial to speak to. And, yeah, so I think in terms of coping strategies, the therapy played a large part in my in my recovery.
Arthi Rabikrisson:I hear you what you're saying about, you know, having, you know, that kind of a support, that therapeutic support, to help you deal with something like this. And, you know, you're quite right. It's not something that you can, I mean, fully overcome, you know, again, because there's always these moments and these memories that will crop up Year and Year, whether it's birthdays or anniversaries, you know, that's attached to your loved one, where you always then cast your mind back to what was and what could have been in that time. So as I can fully imagine, you know how things must continue to still take a tollon you in different ways now. How do you feel? You're coping now, though, are there still areas that you feel? It's what hits me really badly, and I worked through that in therapy still, or do you feel, no, I look at it a bit more fondly now, not with as much hurt or pain. Where are you sitting at the moment with this?
Monika Malan:Yeah, I have definitely come a long way. So I mean, there was a point where I couldn't even mention my my brother, let alone tell the story I'm sharing today without bursting into tears. So I've come a long way, but something that a therapist early on shared with me, which has always stuck with me, is she said there was a study done where they had people that had suffered loss draw a picture like a circle to demonstrate how big the pain is in their life, and then draw a second circle to demonstrate how much of this pain is a part of their life. So if you could imagine, it's like two circles, one inside the the other, but the distance between them is very small, so meaning the grief is almost fully encompassing, like it's taking you over completely. And then those same people, about two, three
Arthi Rabikrisson:Yeah.
Monika Malan:years later, they asked them to do the same thing. And the interesting part was that the size of the circle they drew that represented their pain remained the same size, but the size, the circle that represented their life, was bigger. And so the takeaway there is that, you know the pain is still there, the pain will never go away, but you learn to live with it, and you learn to move on. And so I have come a long way. I still have moments where I miss him very much, things like when I got married or at the birth of my son, but you learn to accept and you learn to move on.
Arthi Rabikrisson:And you know, you're saying it's about that progress and moving forward. And I love that you shared what the therapist actually shared with you about, you know, those two circles and how things move. I'm assuming such a powerful kind of visual, but also perspective as well, to kind of help you think through rationally what's going to kind of come and happen. But of course, the emotional self that is something that's just more and even like today, when you're talking about it. It just hits you. It comes through to the fore. So as much as you know that things are going on and life is healthy, your emotions are still are still there, and it's still a part of that part of your life that will always there. And of course, you know how beautiful that you know, as you said earlier, the perspective that you got from your colleague that actually then made you realize that do want to get support here, because it's clearly very visible. And these are the things that I think will continue to help our listeners to keep identifying what's key in terms of potentially holding us back, but potentially also in helping us take those first steps forward. So Monika and I'd love to know what are some of the lessons that you've taken away over the years. That's, you know, like we said, it's it's helped you move forward. It's shaping your journey. It's bringing you to where you are right now and today. What would you want to share with our listeners in terms of those?
Monika Malan:Yeah, well, my main takeaway, and something I strongly stand behind, is that people are people first, and they're your workers, your co workers, your employees, second, maybe even last, depending on what other roles they have. And so something that I don't know if preach is the right word, but I always tell the people that report me, the people in my team, I'm like, put your family first. Work will be there. Work is work, but your family might not always be there. And when my brother was in the car accident initially, so he didn't pass away on impact. He was actually in critical care for about a week before he passed away. And so at the time of the accident, when my father notified me what had happened, he was still alive. And I mean, look, I was young, but I debated for quite a while as to whether I should just come up to Pretoria to be with my family. I wasn't, I mean, I was new. This was my first job. Like, do I just tell them I'm not coming to work like this wasn't planned. I didn't really know what to do. So it took me a while to reach the decision to come up to my family and consequences be damned, I'm very lucky that my manager was a very caring and compassionate person. So he stood behind me 100% and he accepted the unplanned leave, and I was with my brother before he passed away. And if I hadn't done that, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. And so that is a lesson that I want to teach everybody else, especially now that I'm a mom. It puts it in a whole new perspective, and like my family comes first, it's one of my core values, is family, and I want that for everyone else as well. So if I don't want you to hesitate when it comes to to your family, like choosing between family and work, and that's why I think it's so important for people to know what their values are, because it will make these types of decisions a lot easier. So there was that lesson and then you know the obvious one, which is that life is short. So I mean, if you are in a place in your life where you are not happy, if you're not happy at your work, if you are not happy in a relationship, then do something about it, because life is short and you should be enjoying it, not hating life. So yeah,
Arthi Rabikrisson:I think those are such beautiful, simple, but, you know, very, very well said as well, and so much of meaning behind it too. And I can only imagine how this has coward you to what you're doing now in the coaching space. Do you want to share a little bit about that, in terms of how this has sort of catapulted you into the coaching space, and you know, bringing these lessons into what you offer in your business.
Monika Malan:Yeah, I, like I said, I feel women, especially, have been conditioned from a young age to be people pleasers, to put other people's needs ahead of ourselves. And how that translates in the workplace is that we often take on more than what we should more than what we are given credit for or compensated for. And I'm talking about things like, you know, who does the coffee runs, who does the meeting notes, who does the team build planning? Who does I mean, unless that's your role, you're not being compensated for that. I mean, it's let's just be brutally honest. And so I want to help women identify their values, identify their strengths, and then teach them how to play to those strengths and how to use their values to make confident decisions and to implement boundaries and to say no when it's no, and not feel guilty about it, and not want to just people please for the sake of it, because it's a vicious circle. So you want to people please, and you want to not cause a ruckus. You don't want conflict, but then you get upset because you're not treated with authority, or you don't know how to be confident, or people speak over you, or they don't respect you, but it ultimately starts with yourself, and if you know what you stand for and what your values are, it just makes navigating that type of dynamic a lot easier.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Absolutely, and I can I can hear the parallels as well. You know from your lessons that you were talking about and how you're working with women in this space, you know, it's, it's kind of like you're just allowing women to, you know, just find their voices again. Would that be accurate?
Monika Malan:Yes, I like that.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Because, as you're saying, there's just so much that it's piled on us. I mean, not withstanding our own sense of guilt around things that we're doing and the different roles that we play, and where we always feel is that we should be doing more. She does own so much that one of them right? So in terms of, you know, your your coaching practice and and anything else that you might have, in terms of the business, where, where do you envision that going and growing, and how do you want to get there?
Monika Malan:I primarily want a community where women can get together and support each other and grow together. I want this to be a global community, because I feel we can grow by lifting each other up, and we women that are further along in their leadership journey can help those that are just starting. Because the sad truth is, is that in a lot of workplaces, it's scary to ask for help with the people you work from you don't like, depending on the culture, there's a lot of backstabbing. Not all women want to support each other, some step on each other. So you may not feel comfortable in your workplace to ask for help. There may not be other female leaders that you can turn to for help. So I want to provide this community for female leaders to grow and support each other. That really is my ultimate goal, and I am launching a membership soon. I don't I'm not entirely sure when this episode will air, but yes, I'm launching the membership soon, which will help hopefully plant the seeds of what this community could one day be. So I am very excited about that.
Arthi Rabikrisson:That does sound very, very exciting, and especially the community piece too. I mean, I think you're right. We do tend to feed off each other, especially in a supportive environments. I think that's that's really beautiful, and, of course, global as well too. That's great. Yeah. So what would you offer then, Monika, in terms of, you know, women were feeling, you know, a bit stifled, or feeling like they're running ragged, what would be a couple of tips that you could offer them today?
Monika Malan:Well, I want you to prioritize your mental health. It's important to remember that you can't care for anyone else until you yourself are taken care of. So do prioritize your mental health and do some work to identify your values. Like I said, most of us have, like, a vague sense of what we stand for, but you know, we can't really articulate it. So I would encourage those women to dig deep and identify like three to five core values and then use those values to make your decisions, to set your boundaries and stick to it, and by sticking to those boundaries, by making values decisions that align with your values, you are also prioritizing your mental health. And yeah, it's all like this circle that just keeps on reinforcing like a flywheel. I like the Stephen Covery references.
Arthi Rabikrisson:Yeah, no. I mean, they are great references to the music too. Yeah.
Monika Malan:So, yeah, it's this flywheel that just keeps on going. And you know, once you have prioritized your mental health, you'll be in a position to help other women. Again, it's really this exponential movement. The more women you help, the more women or being helped, which is, which is just fantastic!
Arthi Rabikrisson:No, absolutely. I mean, it's almost like this paid forward type of a situation. But beyond that. You know, we always say the impact is beyond just the person who's receiving it. It actually goes so much further. So those are, those are really, really beautiful tips. Monika, we're coming to the end of what's been a really, really lovely conversation today. I would really, really enjoy it if you could share something that continues to inspire you. It could be a poem, a quote, something spiritual, even a song lyric, but you know, something that really keeps you on your journey of growth, both personal and professionally. What would you want to share?
Monika Malan:I recently over, I would say, over the last like two, three years, have really started digging deep into my faith as a Christian, and something which is a lesson I continuously need to learn, but it's really inspiring for me, is that ultimately, God is in charge, and that it just kind of gives me this ability to just accept where I am, do what I can, be kind to myself, and just trust and have faith that there's a higher power that's looking out for me and that it will all be okay in the end. I've even got it as my my screen lock on my phone. This is a little reminder that God is in charge.
Arthi Rabikrisson:That's beautiful and, you know, inspiring as well. Really, really inspiring. Monika, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's been such a pleasure to have this conversation with you.
Monika Malan:Oh, thank you so much. This has been a really good talk. Thank you so much for this and for your kindness as well.
Arthi Rabikrisson:It's an absolute, absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining today.
Monika Malan:Awesome.
Arthi Rabikrisson:So remember listeners and subscribers, women don't need to lead like men and to be successful. This is a key thing that I think Monika has actually shared with us today, and it actually leads boldly. Monika coaches ambitious female leaders to embrace their unique strengths, to command the room with confidence and to advance in their careers without sacrificing who they are. So if you're ready to own your leadership style, feel free to book a free strategy call with Monika on her website, www.sheleadsboldly.com/book Take care. Everyone. Bye for now. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode today. If you like what you heard, rate the episode and podcast and feel free to write a review, plus, of course, share with others too. I love talking around topics like these, so if you like my perspective or insight on the subject close to your heart or something that you're grappling with, reach out to me in your comments, or send me an email via my website, or connect with me via LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook all my social media is on the podcast, information, if it's important to you, then it's important to you. So happy listening to the inspire your life podcast and catch you soon on the next episode. Bye. You.