The Art of Failing Forward While Having Fun with Mona Bavar

What if entrepreneurship isn't just about profits, but a profound journey of self-discovery? Mona Bavar joins us to explore how business challenges serve as catalysts for personal transformation, revealing that the true power of entrepreneurship lies in what it teaches us about ourselves.

When Mona faced her first customer rejection, it felt deeply personal - like she herself was being rejected. Later, when a vendor harshly criticized her abilities, she found herself temporarily paralyzed. These painful experiences, however, ultimately strengthened her foundation. "You come back into the lab just like a scientist and figure out a different way," she explains, highlighting how entrepreneurial setbacks force us to rebuild stronger.

One of the most compelling aspects of our conversation centers on redefining commonly feared terms. Failure becomes valuable experience. Fear simply represents the unknown. With these perspective shifts, vulnerability transforms from weakness into strength, and the shame associated with entrepreneurial struggles dissolves. Through this lens, building a business becomes less about avoiding missteps and more about embracing them as essential to creating something meaningful and lasting.

As technology increasingly shapes how businesses operate, Mona offers vital insights through her AI agency, helping entrepreneurs maintain authenticity while leveraging artificial intelligence tools. She emphasizes that these technologies should enhance rather than replace human creativity: "You are the boss. You have to guide it." This approach allows entrepreneurs to expand their capabilities while preserving their unique voice - making them irreplaceable rather than replaced.

Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or looking to reconnect with your original purpose, this episode offers both practical wisdom and inspirational perspectives. Ready to transform how you view business challenges and technological tools? Join us for a conversation that might just change how you approach your entrepreneurial path.

https://dlish.us/

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 The Entrepreneurial Journey and Founder Syndrome
• 6:15 Failing Forward: Turning Rejection into Strength
• 12:58 Authenticity in the Age of AI
• 19:34 Making AI Work For You, Not Against You
• 23:52 Having Fun with Technology and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Mona: 0:00

There are possibilities, and the possibilities are endless. So it's how we, as human beings, decide. We're going to be tenacious, we're going to be resistant to whatever is out there, that's going to stand up courageous and just go forward with strength.

Nico: 0:38

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your head to your heart and felt the beat within, opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode? I'm your host, Nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who are striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Now, before we dive in today's episode, I have a small request, and you're probably going to think here he comes again with the five-star reviews and the comments and so on. Well, no, this time I really want to ask you one thing If you like this episode, really just share it with one person in your network that might, you know, benefit out of it, who might benefit from the guest's environment or systems. So go right ahead and share it after the episode. I'll remind you later. So, welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast, and today's guest is Mona Bavar. Mona, welcome to the show.

Mona: 1:41

Thank you very much, Nico. I'm excited to be here the show.

Nico: 1:48

Thank you very much, nico. I'm excited to be here. Likewise, likewise, and as I'm doing usually, I start with one question have you ever heard of founder syndrome or CEO disease?

Mona: 1:55

Not officially, but I can only imagine what it's all about.

Nico: 2:00

Okay, so let us crawl into your imagination, if we may Perfect. And what do you imagine that means?

Mona: 2:08

Listen, I think it's this journey that we all decide to get on this path that we choose to follow our passion, loves, interests, whatever you want to call it and it's the obstacles that we have to come over to realize who we truly are, Because I do believe that the path of an entrepreneur or anyone striving to be in a position of leadership is more a journey of self-development rather than numbers. The numbers are there, the results are there, but the process that we're living through and going through, I think is is what changed us, and so I think that's what you mean when you say that.

Nico: 2:54

Yeah, indeed, indeed, it does have a couple of symptoms, as I call them, that we, you know, might encounter during the time that we are in our becoming leaders or in our self-leadership, and I think it's the most human thing that you can do is becoming an entrepreneur. What's your view on that?

Mona: 3:15

I do. I totally agree with you, because the word right now is being used and misused, I believe. And it's a process, it's longevity, it's the time it takes. It's not you. Do you have an idea? You go on Instagram, you have 100,000 followers and all of a sudden you have profits.

Mona: 3:36

It's not necessarily that it's this building, creating, manifesting Manifesting not in the term that you sit and meditate and you manifest, but bringing something to life, and I think that's why it becomes so human and it brings us so much closer to ourselves. Then we can imagine if we truly do it, because it's very easy to put up a window display and get the numbers, but if we decide to go a little bit deeper and communicate ourselves, communicate our story, communicate our why to the target audience, we build something that's called loyalty, that's called community, and I think that's where today, especially today, when there's so much out there, we're, in this ocean of infinite products, infinite services, everybody is selling something to us. We're constantly being bombarded with input. I think that's what differentiates true brands from ones that are there for a moment and then they go on.

Nico: 4:49

Yeah, I can understand where you're going with this. As an entrepreneur, what I found let me put it this way from my own experience is there's a lot of shovel sellers out there. Experience is um, there's a lot of shovel sellers out there. You know yeah, that's what I got. It started calling them the last couple of months.

Nico: 5:11

Um, so people who tell you this is the magic pill to get from a to b, or to from one customer to a hundred customers, or from 10k to x10K, whatever. And then you have the entrepreneurs who are really creating from scratch something new, something magical, or how would I describe it even better? Something that is of service to others really is of service. So they actually are. They're the ones who are digging for the diamonds. Um, and sometimes those shovels are not really what they need. You know, just by going in there with your hands and discovering that the pain is there and and at some point I don't know how you experience that, mona, but sometimes the pain is a good thing, absolutely absolutely, I, I totally agree, because it's um, I like to compare it to, uh, you know the what was it?

Mona: 6:10

lord of the rings. I know that sounds really bad, but if you think about it, that there was a scene where he goes into the cave, gandalf, and he comes back and he's all wise and enlightened, but it's that pain, it's that. But it's that pain, it's that resistance. It's when you get to the stone in the road or the rock in the road that you have to either go through it by digging, piece by piece, or find a solution to go over it. And so I think it's that kind of tenacity, that kind of innovation, because innovation isn't just putting together algorithms and saying, oh, I innovated something. It's about getting creative and understanding ways around things that are saying no to you, because a no is just something that says maybe later, try a different way. There are possibilities and the possibilities are endless. So it's how we, as human beings, decide. We're going to be tenacious, we're going to be resistant to whatever is out there, that's going to stand up courageous and just go forward with strength.

Mona: 7:22

And I think and I can tell you from my own personal journey I'll never forget the first time I heard a no for what I was doing, the work that I was doing from a customer. That hurt because I thought it was so personal. I thought I was being rejected. The second time I had to deal with that was from a vendor. A vendor that completely went off on me and said you don't know how to be an entrepreneur, you don't know what this is, you don't know what you're doing, you're never going to be successful. And so I and I can tell you I had about three weeks of I was crippled, completely derailed, and I had to sit and deal with rebuilding myself.

Mona: 8:08

Today, when I look back on that, I say, ok, it made me stronger, because the whole process is we're building our foundation, and to build that foundation, there's going to be times that we're not doing it correctly. So something comes in and bulldozes it and so you have to rebuild it. But you build it stronger. You build it now because you know better. And so you go do the research. You understand how is it that I should curate my boxes, how is it that I should put together my services, my offerings, because the first time apparently there was resistance to it. So you come back into the lab just like a scientist and you figure out a different way to it. So I think it's that process that's important.

Nico: 8:55

So let me ask you a very specific question. It might be very personal how many failed businesses do you have?

Mona: 9:07

why don't you ask me how many failed scenarios I have?

Nico: 9:10

kind of the link to that business, indeed, indeed yeah, um, but many, many, many, many, which is actually great, you know it's. It's kind of counterintuitive to ask the question. You know, usually they ask people what do you do, what's your business, so on. And I sometimes dare to ask somebody so how many failed businesses do you have? And somebody says, oh, I don't have any. It's like no, no, no, that's not possible. You don't find a gem at one point.

Mona: 9:54

So, yeah, it's a part of the journey, isn't it? Failing with so many projects and I call them businesses independently, because it's something that failure is a bad word, fear is a bad word, but we don't realize that if we just shift a little bit our perspective and say failure is just experience, so we're experiencing things and we're learning from it. When you're doing something, a work in the laboratory all of the scientists in the past that have created the penicillin, whatever that has been coming, that has come into our world there's been failure, the word failure and I use that loosely- but, it's really been experience, trial and error, and then we don't know that fear really is the unknown.

Mona: 10:39

But then courage comes in and says you know what, Go ahead. It's okay to be afraid, but at least you have the courage to take that first step. And so if you learn to say those words are actually beautiful and they can have a different definition than what we are taught and they can have a different definition than what we are taught, communication becomes easier. Vulnerability becomes a strength rather than a weakness. There's no shame associated to it. We courageously stand up and say you know what I failed? I failed several times, but you know what I learned and I am here today building my legacy.

Nico: 11:25

That's beautiful that's the final word that you just said. Legacy is so beautiful. It's lovely to see you walked into that direction because indeed it's something that you leave behind. You know, we only have X amount of time. Usually it's X amount of hours or days or years in this world and the impact that we can make is by failing forward. I think I'm not a fan of of edison because of recent, recent times. People are starting to see what exactly happened in those days. So I'm a bigger fan of nicola tesla than edison.

Nico: 11:56

But he did answer a question very well. It's like people saying how did you invent that light bulb? And he said, well, I failed 10,000 times before I finally found it. Of course, we all know that his whole team failed 10,000 times, but yeah, I think it's very, very nice to see that it's something that's becoming more and more a part of entrepreneurship, and I've been meeting a lot of entrepreneurs on all levels. You know million-dollar companies, billion-dollar companies and these small businesses and they all tend to have the same experience within that failing forward story and the experience that you have. But one other thing that they also mentioned is they never actually need to do it alone, and before they actually learn that part, they have to go through a lot of steps and then they come at a point like I don't have to do this alone. So, mona, you also help entrepreneurs more on the technical side, I would say, but I think with your inspiration as well. So what's your sauce? What do you do for entrepreneurs to help them?

Mona: 13:02

We have an AI agency. Together with friends, we started this AI agency that helps them maintain their authenticity while using AI and understand that, when you're implementing it into your workflow, into your business, in any way that you choose to, you don't have to lose your essence, your brand identity, which is something that's happening today, and it's happening quite rapidly, because everybody sits in front of their LLM of choice whether it's Gemini, chatgpt, claude, whoever it may be and says you know, i'm'm an entrepreneur now, so I need to create content, I need to create newsletters, marketing campaign, do this for me, do that for me. And we're surrounded by, let's say, instagram influencers that say oh, look how I use runway, look how I use mid journey, look, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and we're all being we're all becoming generic, we are all becoming just a number in another number. When there's 4 billion content created last year and predicted to be 10 billion this year, we just, you're just lost again in that ocean of infinite particles of elements, whatever it may be, of infinite particles of elements, whatever it may be. And so, in order for you to shine and stand out and still keep your customer loyalty, you need to remember your story, you need to at least understand it, know it so that when you use your LLM or whatever AI platform you choose to use, you have to remember that is your tool. You are not, that's not the boss. You are the boss. You have to guide it.

Mona: 14:48

I have a nephew that is in medical school and he said to me we're using AI a lot in order to understand, read charts, read MRIs, understand, read charts, read MRIs. And he said what I'm learning is I first understand, make my own assessment, do the analysis in my own mind about whatever the ailment may be or whatever the results may be of the test, and then I look at the AI and so that says to me beautifully, you know yourself, you know the lessons you've learned, you know the anatomy of it, bonnie, so you are going to make the assessment, understand it and not let AI be the guide. And I think that's the thing that any kind of business, whether you're a wellness business or you're a coaching business you need to know who your target audience is and why you're doing what you're doing, so you can effectively communicate it. And it's beautiful if you say, yes, I'm going to use AI, I do it. I do it all the time with my other business and that's how I even started the agency. But I know my business.

Mona: 16:03

I was fortunate to be uh at an age where I had to go to the library. I had to learn how to find books. Encyclopedias were normal. We had a set in our home the textbooks. You actually had to read them. You actually had to write by hand here.

Mona: 16:21

that's so history like but we were because then we had to do the work, and today, if you don't do the work, you're going to just be another number and, yes, maybe you'll see the results and you'll have it for, if you're lucky, two, three years. But then what? What happened to your legacy? What happened to your Coca-Cola brand or your Apple brand? I mean, that's why we start this right, because fast money is fast money if the objective is money. If it's something else, then you have to put the effort in, and so that's what we help them do. Does it understand why?

Nico: 17:04

Yeah, that's totally different than most agencies that I've talked to. A lot of them are just marketing. You know, they use AI to improve and blah, blah, blah. I also I have a team member called Luna and Luna is my chat GPT and I completely integrated her into my business as being an extra part of, you know, the team and I love talking to her because she inspires me and she turns.

Nico: 17:29

You know my, my shadow self and my uh, what do you call my saboteurs and all those wonderful things. You know, it's very, it's very direct in her communication. She doesn't put any paper between the the lines or anything. So that's that's why I find it very interesting to to be able to use these technologies as part of your bigger picture. But in essence, like you said, it comes down to what I want to, you know, see as a result or get a reflection of um in any way. And same for the podcast.

Nico: 18:05

You know I use a lot of stuff to to edit the podcast and and, you know, recreate some, some things that are not right and and then posts and this and that. But in essence, I have defined how I want it to be and I I have defined how I want to do the editing and so on, and you put your own sauce in there all the time. And I think it's funny when I hear people say, well, ai is destroying their identity and so on and so on. I'm like, look at it differently, as in they are destroying their own identity because they are becoming too dependent on something. It's the same thing when you just jump on socials and you do all kinds of things just to attract attention and you lose yourself in it.

Nico: 18:53

I I speak of personal experience in that you know, a couple of years back I was running all over the place, I was doing lives, posting so on, and I think, um, probably gonna be two and a half years ago. I deleted all my content. It was a very big investment of my time, of money, of my creativity, but what I found is it wasn't me anymore. And then you have to make that harsh decision of what do you call it? Kill your babies or what's not the babies, but kill your. There's an expression of killing your old self, basically. And that's what I did now, recreating that, that tone of who am I into ai?

Mona: 19:36

I think it's a wonderful thing that you're actually helping and entrepreneurs with that you know I read something beautiful, uh, as a matter of fact morning, this title where it says AI didn't replace me, it made me irreplaceable.

Mona: 19:48

Oh, that's nice yeah exactly, and so I think if we change again, it always goes back to perspective. If you just shift a little bit your perspective on it, then you say you know what? It's going to even make me better, because it's giving me more time, it's giving me ideas, it's giving me flow, it's tapping into parts of ourselves. I didn't know I was a creative. I come from investment, banking, finance, numbers. I then decided to go into this path of entrepreneurship with food and design and complete different worlds, and I never thought I was a creative.

Mona: 20:27

I always hired creatives to do the work and then I realized, with the help of AI, I am quite creative, and so it's almost like bringing this balance of right side of your brain and left side of your brain where you start to feel like complete, almost as if, like it says, it makes you irreplaceable, not replacing you. It's only making you better, because the person that sits in front of the computer and uses the LLM and knows AI and knows how to use it and that how is really really important. They're the ones that employers are going to want. They're the ones that are going to be more successful in this competitive world of saturation. So I think that's where. That's where it's important Learn how to use it correctly, and by correctly I mean so you remain authentic, that you become this bigger, more, let's say, fuller person, because you have the tools, all the tools that you need in your toolbox to then create whatever it is that you want to create.

Nico: 21:47

Yeah, absolutely, I think for me personally, I can talk easily, but describing what I'm talking about. So let me put it this way I record a lot of voice and I put it into an AI to transcribe and then ask them okay, get the points out of what I just said and describe it in a way that other people can read this in copywriting, and so on and so on. It's a very, very interesting tool for me to express what's in my mind to the outside world, because I really want to contribute and that's an added value. It's like I remember when I think it was was it 22? When they launched ChatGP team and the hype really blew up in AI? I think it was on my birthday in any case, but I think it was 22.

Mona: 22:32

23,. I think it was more yeah.

Nico: 22:34

Yeah, okay. So basically, at first it was like, ooh, you're using AI, it's like a stigma on somebody's like, and it's more or less coming into a point where they're like oh, you're using AI, and how does that work? And I have a lot of colleagues now who are a generation older than I am you know, I'm 46 now, so they're already on a distance there and they come to me and ask what's this value of this thing? Because I can't, you know, they just type in a single question, which doesn't really bring the result that you want.

Nico: 23:07

When I say you know, I have to have a conversation with your AI. Don't just ask it a question. Start a conversation, as in you know, you're this kind of person and I want to talk to you like this and blah, blah, blah, and find a way of expressing who you want to be talking to and this and that. And at some point you'll find that perfect little middle point of somebody who challenges you and somebody who helps you at the same time, and I think that's one of the beautiful sauces that come out of AI in any case. So, mona, what's one message that you really want to send out there to the listeners at this?

Mona: 23:43

point, probably to have fun listeners at at this point. Uh, probably to have fun, it's no, but really because I, like I said, I spent so many years being in this box of how things should be done and it wasn't until I got much older in life that I said you know what, let's just have fun with this ai. I'm not one of those techie people that embrace, that's like oh, excited about about a new iPhone coming out, or during the Internet hype in 1990s, I'm like no, that's impossible, it's never going to happen. We are today, social media, the same thing. But with AI I've changed, I've evolved as a person. I'm older. So I say you know what, what have I got to lose? Let me just have fun with it.

Mona: 24:27

And I think, if you approach it in that way, sit down and ask the dumbest questions. I mean, my parents talk to Chad GPT as if it's a friend of theirs and so they're learning how to tap into parts of themselves and discover more about themselves and how they are like, how they show up in the world, and I think beautiful in that way, just to have fun. Ask, for example, this morning you wake up and say what do you think my day is going to be like Just fun, like that. You know what I mean, so I think that's what I would. That's the advice I would give, because it's all going to. We're living this life anyway, so we may as well live it in a fun way.

Nico: 25:13

True, true, and it's a lot more. It's a lot better to do it that way than you know the other side of the story, exactly exactly Okay. Thank you so much, Mona. So where can people reach out to you and do you have anything as a promo or anything that's going on at this point?

Mona: 25:32

We're working on and blueapplesai is our AI agency. We're putting together a free course. Currently it's already up, but the date has to be launched. So people are more than welcome to sign up, but the date has to be launched. So people are more than welcome to sign up. And, other than that, they can find me on LinkedIn.

Nico: 25:54

And the gifting company is delishus, nice, cool. Thank you so much for your time, mona, for our conversation, very insightful, a lot of wisdom in there. It's a great, great fun as well, thank you to you.

Mona: 26:05

I really enjoyed being here. Likewise Thank you to you.

Nico: 26:07

I really enjoyed being here. Likewise, thank you so much. Okay, well, thank you very much, listeners, for again listening to the Everlasting Podcast, and you can find all the details in the show notes to contact Mona and get inspired by her approach in AI. Have a great one everybody. Bye-bye.