Dr. Monique Stubbs-Hall

I attribute my success to the solid foundation that started with my parents, Christopher and Stephanie Stubbs. I'm fortunate to still have them alive and kicking. It was the way I was brought up, the way I was groomed. My parents had very high spiritual guidelines and foundation that they built us with, and having that faith and watching the power within from that was number one. My parents were also entrepreneurs - my dad opened his first architectural firm when he was young, and my mom worked in the business doing the bookkeeping. They've been married for 59 years, so I grew up with entrepreneurship as an example all of my life. My parents were very strict when it came to our associations, who we selected as friends, and they set the example in that. They taught us etiquette and why your appearance and grooming is so important. I know for a fact that has been very instrumental in why I can enter certain rooms that maybe others can't, because what people know about me is I have a standard of excellence that I hold myself accountable to in the way I show up, my attire, and the way I treat everyone as a VIP - it's very clear that my personal brand is about that standard of excellence. My uncle Alan Blondell, my mother's brother, was also instrumental - he was a history teacher and principal in Washington, D.C., and he was the family historian. He researched our family, kept everybody together, and even sent us all photograph albums he prepared for each one of us with regards to our personal family history. He is the contributing factor to me loving storytelling and heritage and legacy so much.

One of the most important things that a mentor shared with me is the importance of understanding your value first. Once you understand your value, then others will respect your value. I think that sometimes we do the opposite - we think everybody should just respect us, just because they should respect us. But the question is, are you understanding your value? Because you're the one that's going to set the tone for how others will respond to you. The other piece is about stopping seeking power and recognition, but focusing on impact. When people are around me, they hear me use that word 'impact' all of the time, because that is what I am concerned with. I could care less about titles and recognition and all of the things. What's important to me is the difference I'm making in this world. I do believe that some of the most impactful people in this world were some of the most quiet-spirited people. We think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa - people who were of the most quiet spirit, but they were shaking the earth from underneath and moving masses. Their concern was not about all of the showy display and the material things. It was about truly moving people's hearts and changing people's perspectives in order for them to move and be better.

From a leadership standpoint, my advice is number one, enlist the help of a mentor. Understand that you don't know it all, and although you may be educated in that you have a degree, understand that there's always room for growth. Understand that there is value in building relationships with those that are older than you and have already walked the path of leadership. I believe that having humility, that humility is a strength and not a weakness. It's important that you understand that if you're in a room of those who are mature, you can still express your concepts, your ideas, and you can do it in a respectful way. You can still display humility even when you're in rooms of those that may have more experience or have been around longer than you, but maybe your fresh and innovative ideas are going to help the organization to grow - but it's the manner in which you deliver that can make a difference in you being heard. The other piece of advice I give the younger generation is that when someone opens a door of opportunity for you and allows you to be in a room of influence, do not go into the room and turn all the tables upside down and throw stuff up against the walls to show that you disagree with something. Because what you will do is not only will you get thrown out of the room, but you will now have closed the door for others that should be in the room to have an opportunity to be in there. So be mindful that it's okay, you can shake a table to make a point, but you don't have to turn it upside down and cause complete chaos and block opportunity for others. You also need to understand that when someone opens a door for you, you are now representing not just yourself, but that person who opened that door for you, and so you have to be mindful of how you carry yourself in these rooms.

From a storytelling perspective, I think that a lot of times people are nervous to tell their real story. Sometimes telling their story makes them feel vulnerable, and so sometimes it's very hard to get people to agree to do that. That's a challenge from a storytelling perspective - people are just nervous about being authentically who they are, feeling that if I'm authentically who I am and people really know certain things about my past, they worry about what the world will think. But that is what is going to attract your ideal audience to you. The real differentiating factor between you and everyone else that does what you do is your story, because your story behind why you do what you do is unique - no one else has a story like yours. From a leadership standpoint, I think that the challenge for me is that I am a mature individual, and so now we're in a society where corporations are looking at ageism. They know that they can hire these younger generations and pay them less. The mature ones and our wisdom, it's as if we have none, and they'll get rid of us in 2 seconds if it means cutting a salary. We may seek jobs and positions and be overlooked as a result of our age, because they know that that wisdom that comes with that is going to mean a higher pay scale, and they are not as willing nowadays to pay us what we're really worth. Many organizations are looking at the mature individuals as being outdated because of technology and all of the other things that are coming to the fore.

In my work and personal life, I would say that I move in a spirit of love. I believe that love is the seat of everything that's going to breed true success. Because if you move in a spirit of love, you're gonna always be concerned about the words that come out your mouth, you will always be concerned about how you move, how you carry yourself, how you conduct yourself, and you will be concerned about others' well-being. If you move in a spirit of love and you use that as your marker in life, you can't go wrong. Second, I have a quote that I use: 'You can choose to fly solo, and you will remain so low.' I am a firm believer in collaborations. You cannot do life and be successful by yourself. If you do not develop the mindset of collaborating with others, of being okay with not always being the chief, but understanding that by holding hands and moving together, we can have a greater impact on this world. I am a huge component of this other quote that I wrote: 'A rich lifestyle has nothing to do with money and everything to do with mindset and meaningful relationships.' I tell people I live a rich life, and not because it's about finances and how much money I have in my bank account, but it's about the rich relationships that I have built and cultivated and about the mindset that I have. I learned when I became a single parent the very first time that I could still be happy even if I had nothing in my bank account, because it was a mindset, it was a choice. Money can come and go - if people didn't learn that during COVID, they should have. If your happiness and your feeling of being rich is tied to a bank account or a title, you will have a real problem if you lose everything. If you have no relationships, you've not built, you've stayed siloed, when devastation and things happen, where do you turn? This is why we have people that jump out of windows and commit suicide when times get tough, because there's no support system.