Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Lead with Curiosity and Confidence with Master Interviewer Cal Fussman
28 May 2025
What if the key to better leadership, connection, and confidence came down to how you ASK questions? In this episode, I sit down with legendary interviewer and storytelling icon Cal Fussman. He’s spent decades in conversations with the world’s most influential people, including Muhammad Ali and Jeff Bezos. We talk about the power of curiosity, why asking great questions builds certainty, and how to navigate your life and business through deep listening. Cal also shares the life-changing lessons he’s learned from sitting down with the best and how you can use them to lead with purpose and impact. Get ready to rethink how you show up, how you connect, and how you lead! In This Episode, You Will Learn 00:00 How to repackage your VALUE with confidence. 07:30 How to write emails that convert. 13:30 The mindset Cal used to connect with global icons. 22:45 What is the fastest way to monetize trust into revenue? 26:45 How to lead pricing conversations without fear or guilt. 35:30 Why your lowest-paying clients often demand the most. 42:30 Why giving fewer options creates more action and better sales. 50:00 The pitch strategy that gets decision-makers to say YES. Resources + Links Listen to Cal’s podcast Big Questions Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN. Want to do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic? Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com/MONAHAN. Get 10% off your first Mitopure order at timeline.com/CONFIDENCE. Get 15% off your first order when you use code CONFIDENCE15 at checkout at jennikayne.com. Call my digital clone at 201-897-2553! Visit heathermonahan.com Sign up for my mailing list: heathermonahan.com/mailing-list/ Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Follow Heather on Instagram & LinkedIn Cal on Twitter & Instagram
Full Episode
Is there a way of thinking to not leave money on the table?
First of all, there's market research that we can do, right? So we know with keynote speeches, they start at $5,000 and they go to $500,000. So just being familiar with how wide the gap is and what people are offering, you can pretty much feel confident going in that whatever your number that you think is big, there are people offering the same services for much, much more.
So know that you're not the highest price point. You know, I had the opportunity to speak with a lot of different people across the country over the past year. Some of them were getting $150,000 on the same stage I was on and I was getting 15,000. Here's the thing, Cal, you can always negotiate down, right? Say you go into a meeting and you're asking, here's my virtual speaker fee.
Let's take a look at what dates work for you. You know, so you put the fee out there and then you ask for the date and then they'll say to you, Cal, wow, that's a little bit more than what I had budgeted. And that's when you say, great, great. What did you budget? What had you budgeted? Come on this journey with me.
Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up.
hi and welcome back i'm so excited that you're here with me so this has been an interesting week for me i'm launching my first ever well when you hear this i'm already gonna have done it but for me i'm recording this a couple days earlier i'm usually a few days ahead of you but right now i'm Almost a week ahead of when you're hearing this.
So I am conducting my first ever live workshop with a Harvard professor tomorrow for a group of people who have bought tickets to attend. I've never done anything like this before. Right. And this all stemmed from the pandemic happening yesterday. Speaking engagements canceled, revenue dropping.
I launched this May mentoring program, which has evolved into me learning all about this online coaching seminar, masterclass, mastermind business that if you're like me, I had no idea was a business, much less it's multi billions of dollars. And actually more and more people are moving learning online, as I believe everyone is right now, right? So it's just how can we repackage our value prop
and bring it to market virtually. Sounds simple, however, it's not. So my mentoring program was kind of, that was easier. It's me coaching people one-on-one and then once a week as a group, which is essentially what I did in corporate America. So that's easy, but this is different. Number one, because I've partnered with another person, right?
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