Transforming Tragedy into Triumph with Monica Rivera
Charting a path to success wasn't a linear process
Monica Rivera made margaritas out of the lemons life dumped on her, transforming the raw deal from her childhood into a triumph as an adult.
In this next portion of our interview, she lets us in on how nearly failing out of college ultimately propelled her trajectory. As a business coach for other women of color, Monica helps women grow their businesses so that any barriers to living out their own dreams (especially related to money) are overcome.
But because this is real life and not a movie, it wasn’t all sausages and flowers. There were more than a few ups and downs. Post-collegiate guidance appeared in the form of a mentor who could see past the rough exterior and helped her find the success she now coaches other women to find.
But first, college!
Below is Part 2 is also a condensed excerpt from our interview, which you can listen to or watch in full below.
Need to catch up? Read Part 1 here to find out who Monica is and what made her childhood journey so unique:
Monica lost a portion of her family at 16, which could derail even the most stable family. Realizing that she was going to have to pay for college on her own, she focused on staying local with the intention of graduating on time.
This is a woman with a plan. And a group of ancestors who weren’t going to let her squander her opportunities.
The Wake-Up Call
Monica: I did go to college, and graduated on time. College was a really rough road because I had all these dreams of going to a private college or university. But I had to make a decision that for me was going to be the best thing, which was to go to a state school. I studied economics. And that first year, ironically, is when I started to process the grief of losing my mother and grandmother.
This all happened in junior year of high school, but senior year is [when] you just have to get to the finish line. I needed to make sure I got into school, I needed to graduate, all of those things.
I was delaying the grief. I remember still feeling really sad and really disconnected. But there was something about the isolation of college and being someplace outside of New York City, which I had never experienced for an extended period of time.
And I was on my own. I was feeling so lonely, in a completely different way. I stopped going to class. And that first year was a mess. My cumulative GPA after my first year was a 1.0.
Paulette: Straight Ds!
Monica: Yeah. And I was someone who graduated [high school] with honors.
If I had gotten a B, it was a full conversation of, “why would you get a B? I don't understand. What's happening?”
So the fact that I had a 1.0, I understand what's happening, but also simultaneously, this can't be me. It was this very weird out of body experience.
I was home for break. I checked the mailbox and there's this letter basically telling me that I am on probation. If I do not get my grades up, I will be kicked out of the school. And I remember thinking, I have worked so hard my entire life for my education, and extracurricular, and student body president, all of these things.
You are not going to get kicked out!
And I balled up the letter, I threw it on the ground, and every semester after that, I was on the Dean's list. It was exactly the wake up call I needed. I just said that this has to stop and need to figure out how to get through this.
Because what's happening now is going to completely change the trajectory of my life and I cannot let that happen. This [my grades] is the one thing I can control, which is what I'm going to do for myself financially, the job that I'm going to get, and that completely sent me back in the other direction of where I became laser focused.
It's almost as if every voice of every family member that had passed away said almost collectively, “what the F are you doing?”
It was just this one moment. I didn't think about it. I didn't have to make a plan for it. It was just a light switch. It was like, today is the day that it stops.
And then it stopped.
I went to class, I performed, I got a job, and I sort of plugged into the college experience after that. And despite the 1.0 GPA after the first year, I still graduated on time. My plan was always to graduate college. It was never a question, and it's not going to be a question now.
Live Before You Die
The catalyst for Monica becoming a business coach came from watching her grandmother sacrifice her dream visit to Spain due to lack of her own money. So Monica now helps women of color overcome that obstacle so that they can achieve the experiences they would otherwise only dream about.
Paulette: Let's talk about how you've evolved into the business coach that you are now.
Monica: I've been in marketing my entire career and I love marketing. I realized that there was a point where I didn't love doing it for big companies as much anymore and I missed having the creativity.
I've always worked for fortune 500 companies, which is a blessing, but also can be very limiting because a big company has lots of money to have little roles for every single thing that's done. And it's hard to get people to understand why you want to do something else other than what you were hired to do.
So that really [started to feel] like I was wearing a coat that didn't fit anymore. I need to do something else. I feel so creatively depleted, losing confidence in my own capabilities because I keep raising my hand to do these other things, but told to stay in my lane.
And I hate staying in my lane. So I [asked myself], “what can I do with this information that I have available?” Two years ago in this business I really decided I wanted to help other women, specifically women of color, make more money.
We have all these businesses that we're starting and I'm sitting on all of this information for marketing and I want to help other people get there. I want them to be clear on their ideas, clear on who their audience is, and clear on the path that they're going to work to get that money.
It really becomes from my why, it goes back to my family. I shared with you prior to this, my grandmother passed away six months into her retirement. She had all these dreams of what it is that she wanted to do. Her biggest dream was Spain. I talk about this in the TEDx talk and she never got to go to Spain.
This thing that she wanted to do, she worked her entire life [for]. But because my grandfather controlled the money, it was this or that. And so she was always choosing what was better for the family.
Witnessing people pass away, the things that they're talking about is all the things they wish they would have done. But I noticed as women of color, we're always so caught up in the money: not having enough money, needing to have more money, saving more money, because we feel like to take that money [and] use it on something like a vacation feels superfluous, like it's not something we need to do.
And I just feel like if I can help women take their businesses, take their skills, take their talents and make some more money, then they can actually take the trip. The money is the thing, but I really want it to be so that you can do the thing you want to do and live before you die.
The Power of Mentorship
In between college and coaching, Monica did her time in the corporate world. Those real life bumps along the way? Here’s how this particular one played out.
Monica: I had a manager who was fantastic. I was very lucky my first manager was Latino, and he would gently tell me, “you're a little rough around the edges. There's a lot of good stuff there, but we need to just kind of soften your edges a little bit.”
And it was because, operating from survival mode, you're not really thinking about diplomacy; the way that you say things. Well, this is just how I communicate! I don't really know another way to communicate.
And he was just very kind and patient and also had a really nice gift to be able to say, “I know there's so much potential here. It's there. We just need to make her feel a little safe.”
He just knew that. I think it's because he had a daughter himself, and he recognized that I just needed to feel like there was a space where I could be safe. So I could go into his office and say anything I wanted about anybody in the company and he would give me the grace of not dinging me for it later on.
Paulette: That makes sense that your interpersonal relationships were shaken up at a crucial point in your life. So, of course, where were you going to learn it?
Monica: Right, absolutely.
Paulette: How kind of him to recognize that you were a diamond in the rough.
Monica: Yeah, I really appreciate that. He and his wife were actually really great and very generous to me during that time.
Later this week stay tuned for the final part of this interview where we switch gears and talk about being a childfree Latina and how that impacts our ability to leave a legacy.
Listen or Watch this Interview
There are so many great nuggets of wisdom I couldn’t include here in this post, but you can hear the all on the podcast episode called Grief Rides Shotgun: A Unique Journey through Loneliness with Monica Rivera (Part 1). It can be found in its entirety everywhere you listen to podcasts, like on Apple:
Or on Spotify:
And now on YouTube:
Like this post? Share with a friend and get on the leaderboard!
Support this publication by: