We recently connected with Monica Strohschein and have shared our conversation below.
Monica, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Wow…what a question…I didn’t realize until that question that I don’t feel that as much anymore. I remember my first official job in the advertising world (my dream career I had been pursuing out of college). I took the position knowing I was filling a role that required 2 years of experience when I had a quarter of that time under my belt. I took the position because I am of the mindset that I am a fish that will grow when put in a larger tank; I was thrusting myself into a tank four times the size that I was ready for.
My journey in that role was a rollercoaster. I would gain knowledge and feel empowered and then a question from a client or a task I was unsure of would pull that confident rug out from under my feet. After two years of up and down, slowly experiencing fewer tasks and questions that made me unsure I started fighting for more pay; and then was fired…for my personality…oof.
A month later I found myself constantly questioning myself through my role as a freelance advertiser for a small business out of Sacramento called Love Her. As much as I would love to tell you that my ability to overcome imposter syndrome came from within, it didn’t. It came from Adreana and Jose, the owners of Love Her, who would lift my confidence up with their feedback and encouragement of how much I was doing for their business.
Being around a small business and hearing how they created their business inspired me to start my own. Every great business has started with an idea and I had a dream of creating a volleyball brand that would become a household name. A beautiful part of creating this volleyball company, Folgen, has been the encouragement I have received from those around me. They have all said “you’ve got this”, “this is going to be big”, “I can’t wait to see where you go with this”. All of that feedback has shown me that I am not an imposter and I belong in this space.
This space where no one can fire me.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I was always a very athletic kid. I played soccer and tennis and eventually fell in love with volleyball once my older sister started playing it. I began playing club volleyball in 6th grade and never looked back. Volleyball became my passion. I would spend every second in the gym and at home with a ball enjoying passing, setting, hitting, and serving the ball anywhere and everywhere. My senior year came and my parents told me I was not going to be playing my last year because they believed I wasn’t capable of getting a full-ride scholarship to play in college and they needed to save that money to help me pay for college. My dad told me I was too short to play D1 (which is where full-ride scholarships are traditionally given). My club, Northern Nevada Juniors, ended up sponsoring my entire 18’s year AND connected me with a D1 program in Southeast Texas that wanted to offer me a full-ride. You can only imagine my excitement when I got to call my dad and tell him I was getting a full ride to play D1 volleyball.
My experience in college was not the dream I had anticipated. Entering into an unsupportive team I developed the “yips” where my brain and body would not connect while playing. I found myself struggling to move my body, often feeling frozen in place. During the summers I would come home to Reno, Nevada and play in grass volleyball tournaments where I was surrounded by a kind and uplifting community. I was able to play again and didn’t find myself freezing. Grass volleyball was how I found my love for volleyball again. Then summer would end and I went back to the “yips”.
Volleyball has been a sport that’s brought me many opportunities, friendships, and community. It’s an amazing sport where you work with other people to compete together. It’s a sport I want to help grow and be around for the rest of my life.
I decided to create Folgen Volleyball Apparel as a desire to surround my life with my passion. I want to use it as a tool to share the beautiful sport with others and hopefully provide them with the opportunities it’s provided to me.
One way I am doing this is by donating 10% of Folgen Volleyball Apparel’s profits back in the form of scholarships for students to play volleyball. For now I have been able to support young athletes to play in clinics, but I would like to be able to sponsor a young athlete to play in a full club season once the company grows more.
So far with Folgen I have created three items for sale. Two of which are a hoodie and a crewneck that have lines on the sleeves that resemble the place where you contact the ball with your forearms when you “pass”. The idea behind it is so that you could wear the hoodie in the grocery store and someone will see the lines and know they are for volleyball and you two can connect from there.
My next piece, that is in the works right now, is a volleyball backpack. I am so excited to launch it this year!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I am so thankful for my background in digital advertising. It is such an important part of creating a business now and getting it in front of your audience’s faces considering the digital world we live in today. It can be intimidating as a new business owner because you have to wear so many different caps. For example, I know nothing about taxes and I hate feeling subject to paying a CPA hundreds to do something I know takes them seconds, but I am not educated in that world, so I am subject to paying them for their specialty. Another skill that I am thankful for is connecting with people and building relationships. It is such a large part of business, building relationships and I have been utilizing that skill to slowly create relationships with large names in the world of volleyball. There is an art to creating a connection with someone without making them feel used and not like you’re talking to them simply because of what they offer you.
My last quality is being open minded. I hope that does not change with age. I am 27 right now and I could see that being because I am younger, BUT something I have noticed in my corporate career is that older, established businesses don’t like to move with the times. For example, working in digital advertising I have learned that social media profiles are turning into the new “websites”. Rather than users leaving a social media platform to purchase an item on a website, they are learning about the products and purchasing directly on the platform. I know that as Folgen grows in size and I get older, it will be important to stay open to new ideas that are brought to the table to allow the company to move with the times.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I am currently facing a few challenges and I look forward to the moment where I can reflect back on them. The first challenge is that I saved up a chunk of change to invest into my company and currently that chunk has been knocked down to half after a year of business. I am coming to realize that’s normal and need to change my mindset to realize I won’t be seeing a return on that investment for a few years. I am just fearful of that chunk disappearing and feeling like I didn’t use it in the best way that I could have. The other challenge I am facing is this feeling of needing to be firing at 1,000% all the time to be able to create this business. There is an online representation of entrepreneurs that represents them as 4am ice bathers who live very rigid lives. As cool as it would be to perform like a robot…that’s not me. I believe that my business will become successful as long as I put time and energy into it, but no one said that time and energy needs to 100% of every second of my day. I wouldn’t be able to last if it had to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://folgenvb.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/folgenvb/#
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558924961762
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-strohschein/
