As an entrepreneur, you live in constant uncertainty.
Monica Levi is an attorney, HR leader, and executive coach.
She works with lawyers, startup founders and leaders in helping them effectively and confidently navigate the myriad of challenges they face daily.
She helps leaders make impactful decisions swiftly, hold powerful and effective conversations that change people’s minds, and behavior. Through her work with leaders and teams, she helps companies increase engagement and results.
Monica holds a JD from Northwestern University and an Executive MBA in Organizational Development from Oxford University.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Monica Levi: I started out my career journey as a Securities Litigation attorney at a big NYC law firm. While I loved the intellectual challenge and the exciting work, I found myself miserable in the grind of working 70-80 hours a week and lacking control of my time. It was a terrifying step but eventually, I gathered the courage to leave the practice of law and explore working more closely with people (rather than documents) and seeing more immediate impact of my work.
Through lots of informational interviews and an internship, I came across the field of organizational and leadership development. I loved helping senior leaders reach their full potential and grow as leaders. I spent 18 years working for large international law firms, consulting firms, Google. I subsequently got certified as a coach and hired my own business coach, and that investment transformed so many areas of my life and business.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up?
Monica Levi: There are so many times indeed!
As an entrepreneur, you live in constant uncertainty, experience a lot of failures (or, as I prefer calling them – lessons) and it’s a matter of constantly managing your mind to not give up and run back to the safety of a job.
There are many times when I got rejected, put a lot of effort into projects that didn’t work out as planned. But my WHY kept me going, kept me focused on the long-term goal. I do have a great support network of friends and a coach I leaned on a lot in the beginning. It was important for me to remind myself that my progress is not a linear path, but rather a mountain with lots of beautiful peaks and valleys. Being able to normalize and expect all the setbacks has strengthened my resilience and helped me stay in the game.
Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. What’s the worst advice you received?
Monica Levi: Hmm, that’s a great question. I was told to never quit. And while that may be great advice in some cases, I don’t think one should blindly follow it. There’s a huge stigma attached to quitting. But the reality is far more nuanced. It’s true, many people quit when they should persist.
You shouldn’t give up on your goal simply because things got too hard. Yet, many people persist when they should not. I quit being a lawyer because I didn’t find the work fulfilling. I left Google for the same reason, and subsequently gave up the security of a steady paycheck to start my own business.
By clinging to one thing, you’re passing up the opportunity for something else. If you keep pursuing a dead relationship because you hope you can fix the other person, you won’t find a relationship that feeds your soul.
We stay the course in part because we focus on the short-term loss. We ask, What will I miss if I quit? But there’s another question to ask: What will I gain if I let this go? Sometimes—just sometimes—quitting might be the best thing you can do.
Resilience is critical in critical times like the ones we are going through now. How would you define resilience?
Monica Levi: Resilience is the human capacity to meet adversity, setbacks, and trauma, and recover swiftly. In other words, maintain equilibrium under pressure.
Resilient leaders have the ability to sustain their energy level under pressure, cope with disruptive changes and adapt. They bounce back from setbacks. They also overcome major difficulties without engaging in dysfunctional behavior or harming others.
What is most important to your organization—mission, vision, or values?
Monica Levi: I don’t like thinking in absolute terms, e.g. one is more important than others.
They are all critically important, and it comes down to context to decide which one to lean on at the moment. But all three should be closely aligned and it’s rare that you would have to think of them in order of importance.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
Monica Levi: Discipline – I feel incredibly grateful for how disciplined I am.
I rarely struggle with doing the hard thing first, focusing on the long-term goal, rather than the easy or quick win.
I have routines, I set challenging goals and I work on my mindset to believe I can do hard things, I can manage whatever comes my way. This doesn’t mean I don’t have “down” days or experience struggles, but I have the self-confidence to know that the obstacles are just speed bumps that may slow me down but won’t deter me from reaching my destination.
Courage – It takes courage to start a business, but more importantly it takes courage to do what others aren’t willing to do and to stay the course. There are many decisions I have to make that feel uncertain and scary.
The path to anything meaningful takes the first step. The first step is abundant with fear. Being courageous means taking the step anyway. Trusting that no matter what, you will be ok!
Vulnerability – the ability to admit mistakes and apologize; asking for help and knowing that it’s ok to not have all the answers, it’s ok to lean on others for support; the ability to show your humanity and imperfections even while striving for excellence.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
Monica Levi: This may be more geared towards promoting yourself, but it also relates to branding. I often hear judgments about someone “shamelessly” self-promoting, presuming there is something shameful about self-promotion. I disagree. Self-promotion is not about spamming people with unsolicited messages.
It’s about promoting yourself with kindness and respect. It means you promote to people who’ve given you permission. We may have the most magical product or idea but if we don’t promote it, we won’t serve the people who need it.
Self-promotion is an act of courage, and willingness to be vulnerable. If there’s any shame, it’s in not promoting something that can benefit others because we are too afraid of rejection. But to go back to the more specific question about branding – the way I think of it is that “Branding” is what people say about you when you are not in the room. I keep that perspective with everything I do.
How would you define “leadership”?
Monica Levi: It’s difficult to narrow down leadership to a single statement, there are so many ways to embody leadership. And in reality, leadership is a moving target. If you desire to become a better leader, get comfortable with change. And if you want to lead up, learn to think like a leader. Think people, think progress and think intangibles.
I resonate with this quote: “Never complain about what you allow”.
As leaders, everything we do sends a signal. It’s often in the behaviors we tolerate that we send the strongest signals about our values.
What advice would you give to our younger readers that want to become entrepreneurs?
Monica Levi: Take action! Start today, start imperfectly, start before you are ready.
You may have a million reasons not to get started now. In a month or a year or five years from now, you may have only one regret – that you didn’t start now. Also, your willingness to fail and experience discomfort is the currency of your dreams.
The path to success will not look the way you planned or imagined it, and that’s OK. What you need more than anything is believing it’s possible.
What’s your favorite “leadership” quote and how has it affected the way you implement your leadership style?
Monica Levi: It’s hard to identify one favorite quote, there are so many great concepts that speak to the different layers of leadership. But one that has consistently resonated with me is:
“Great leaders don’t set out to be leaders… they set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role or the title – it’s about the goal and the impact.”
I use that as a guide for action, staying focused on what matters, not letting my ego get in the way.
This interview was originally published ValiantCEO.