Meet Monica Johnson

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Monica Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Monica below.

Monica, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
It’s very easy to get in your head and have negative thoughts take over that dilute who you are and what you’ve achieved in the past. It’s so important to maintain a positive mindset, say positive affirmations, talk to a therapist and know how far you’ve come and where you’re going. Focus on the good rather than doubting yourself and what you’re able to accomplish.

Time to give yourself flowers and applaud your successes, even if they’re small wins.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m a bit of a Jill Of All Trades and certainly a hustler. My personal story/journey has certainly taken several pivots that truly got me to my calling in life and put me on the path to where I am presently. While my career is in Advertising and still is, I found my passion and calling for makeup artistry a few years ago before my mom passed away in 2014 and then unexpectedly finding my passion for piano playing in 2020 because of the pandemic. Both passions were discovered as a result of extreme life changing events.
Around the time when my mom passed away, I was a producer at a big ad agency in NYC where the workload was nonstop. I decided to put everything on pause, including my career, in order to not go into a deep dark hole and rediscover who I was again. Makeup has always been something I’ve always been fascinated with since I was a little girl and one of the things that made me extremely happy. So, I decided to get trained and educated in the makeup industry, held a vision and later down the road, opened up my own business for doing makeup for weddings and photography. Now, I travel nationally and am featured on TheKnot.com as one of their Best Of Weddings vendors.
Piano came about as a result of the pandemic and putting my makeup business on pause due to Covid. The pandemic’s lockdown unexpectedly set the trajectory of my piano journey and unlocked a dormant passion I never even knew existed.
In each instance, I crafted things from my heart and shifted energy whether it was playing the piano or enhancing one’s beauty. Fast forward to now and I’m thankfully managing all three simultaneously.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three most important qualities that I carry with me on a daily basis in both my personal and work life are communication, transparency/honesty and drive. There’s never such a thing as over communication. Under communication with anything in life is setting yourself up for failure. Being transparent and honest holds the integrity of who you are and your character. Without honesty, how can there be trust? Drive is important because if you truly want to go after something, your drive is what will take you over the finish line. If you’re early in your journey, ask yourself the question, how bad do you really want it and then make it happen.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
If/when I’m feeling overwhelmed, breathing exercises, writing and meditation all help me to calm down and refocus. Medication allows you to create from within focusing more on internal vs. external. Breathing helps to slow the heart rate down which then in turn calm the nerves. Writing allows for all of those swirling thoughts to be put down to paper which helps the brain to prioritize.

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Image Credits
Credits Catarina Olivia Photography Orion Phillips II Christine Keeley Photography Taylor Lamar

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