Believe in yourself
Don’t compare yourself to others (find your own way)
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Don’t give up when times get hard
Be kind to others
Resilience has been described as the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Times are not easy now. How do we develop greater resilience to withstand the challenges that keep being thrown at us? In this interview series, we are talking to mental health experts, authors, resilience experts, coaches, and business leaders who can talk about how we can develop greater resilience to improve our lives.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Monica Huldt.
Monica Huldt is a Swedish immigrant who moved to the US to be with her husband. After some hardship, she persevered, grew her social media following eventually becoming a verified influencer. She created an OnlyFans where she is now in the top 1% of all OnlyFans content creators and is working her way to being one of the most compelling stories in the adult entertainment industry. She now has grown her brand into a legitimate business with a team behind her that helps manage her. She creates partnerships, gets sponsorships and is using her growing brand to branch into other industries as an influencer and personality.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
I was born in Poland in 1983 I was raised super catholic and strict. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old and I was living with my mother and grandparents. When I was about 5 years old my mom met my stepdad and we moved to Sweden. That was pretty hard in the beginning because I didn’t know the language and I was bullied by the other kids because I was from a different country. We were also pretty poor because at that time my dad was the only one making money. My mom had to get her Swedish papers before she could work. I don’t remember my childhood as being great. My mom wasn’t the best parent and pretty abusive, lots of yelling and hitting, on top of that I hated school because the kids and teachers were not the nicest to me. When I was about 16 I went into foster care for about 2 years. After that I moved out on my own and got a job and decided to finish my degree. During that time I met my ex and we were together for 11 years, unfortunately that relationship wasn’t the best. At that time I had finished my bachelors and I was working. I met my current husband on Facebook through a close friend of mine. We hit it off, but he lived in the states and that was a bit hard in the beginning. After about 2 years of dating I joined him in the US and we got married. I couldn’t work at that time because I didn’t have a visa so I started exotic dancing, which I didn’t like. I was married and it made it really hard to have such an intimate job and be touched all the time.
I was active on social media and eventually grew a following. When my social media started to pick up I joined OnlyFans. My OnlyFans following grew quite fast and I was able to stop dancing and support both myself and my husband in a safer way. I now have complete financial freedom and am actively working to grow my brand from a business perspective. I secure partnerships, I work with a management company who helps create deals and get opportunities. I turned a negative situation into a life I am happy with. I am so grateful for being able to do all the things I am doing now. One thing that really saddens me is that I don’t have any contact with my mom. Even though she wasn’t the best I still love and miss her a lot.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
There are many, but one thing that being in the adult line of work has taught me is to never compare yourself to others. Everyone in this business is unique and you can’t really copy others, you have to be yourself and find something that works for you. This has been really hard for me, because I am very hard on myself and I always want to be the best. And I just have to come to grips with that you can’t always be the best, sometimes you just have to do your best and be content with that.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I think it is a combination of many things. I have been on Instagram for a long time so I have built a pretty good fanbase of very loyal fans. I think that is very important, but besides that my fans can actually see that I am a real person, I chat with my fans every day and I upload lots of content to all my platforms. I am very adamant about the content being of high quality, so I do put a lot of time and thought into everything I post.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I have a great circle of friends and my husband is very supportive. I think it is very important to have a good circle of people around you to get that moral support. Without that I wouldn’t be where I am today. I do get a lot of help from all the different telegram groups I am in. The women there are amazing and they support one another. This industry is pretty tough, and we face a lot of discrimination. I had my verified Instagram with 2.5 million followers taken down just because I do OnlyFans even though my Instagram content was within the community guidelines. They just hate women who are in certain lines of work which is sad because there should be safe spaces for everyone.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
I think that being resilient is being able to pick yourself up regardless of how many times you get pushed down. You keep on fighting to achieve your vision. Sometimes it is really hard because you get disheartened and you just want to give up. And I have been there so many times, but I would never have been this successful if I just gave up. Resilient people are often strong-willed, and they have a dream or vision that they want to achieve, and nothing can stop them. They just keep on grinding through the difficulties.
Courage is often likened to resilience. In your opinion how is courage both similar and different to resilience?
I think you need both to be successful. First you have to have the courage to do your own thing. Because when you are your own boss you don’t really have a safety net and you can be afraid of failure. The most successful people I know have failed more than once. But they are extremely resilient and picked themselves up again and tried even harder. My road to success was anything but easy and I made many mistakes but I just didn’t give up, I knew I could make it, and I never stopped believing in myself even though it was really hard sometimes. There were months when I didn’t have enough money to pay rent and ended up in situations that were very difficult, but with courage and resilience I preserved and knew I wanted to be in a better place and build a better life. So I guess you have to have both to be successful. You can’t give up when it gets hard.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
I would say my mom, even though we don’t talk today or have any sorts of contact, she is the most hard- working and resilient person I know. She, like me, moved to another country with a young child and became a super successful doctor and head of staff. She never gave up even though times were super hard. I take a lot after her when it comes to hard work and dedication. She did teach me how to be hardworking and always strive towards success.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
When I first decided to move to the US I had zero support from anyone. Everyone told me that it was a really bad idea, that I will never make it, that I will move back, that I will end up on the street. Everyone told me that I will fail and that will be the end of it. But I did it anyway, and I proved everyone wrong. America is definitely a hard country to succeed in if you’re not willing to put in some seriously hard work.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
As I mentioned before I used to be bullied in school pretty bad and I had a hard time at home, I rebelled quite a bit when I was young just to fit in and show my mom that I wasn’t going to listen to her. I dropped out of school and ran away from home. But when I got older and I was living on my own I decided to go back to school and finish my degree. I ended up getting a Bachelors in history and became a teacher.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Believe in yourself
- Don’t compare yourself to others (find your own way)
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help
- Don’t give up when times get hard
- Be kind to others
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think right now we need a safe space for women who are in the adult industry. We have so many issues with all the various social media platforms. We get constantly banned on Instagram, TikTok and FaceBook. I know so many women including me who had all their social media banned. One of my good friends Nita Marie had 4 of her accounts taken down on Instagram for no reason. I had my TikTok removed and my huge Instagram account removed. Instagram is completely discriminating women in the industry and refuses to help anyone out to get accounts back. I am blocked from appealing my account at this point.
I wish there was a way for us to be able to use social media platforms without being harassed all the time. Maybe there should be a channel on Instagram where you could post your stuff without having the issue of minors. Like a 18+ section.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
The list is long, but cooking is a passion of mine so I would love to have breakfast with Gordon Ramsy. When it comes to business and my favorite movie of all times, Wolf of Wall Street I would absolutely love to meet Jordan Belford, he is such an inspiration of mine. He never gave up and built an amazing life for himself even though he faced quite a bit of obstacles. He has such an amazing life story and I would love to pick his brain.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Instagram : swedish_bella_official
Twitter : bellaswedish
Tiktok : _swedishbella_
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!