Monica Luisi, better known by her brand name, “The Teflon Mon,” is a fast-rising YouTube and Instagram personality who’s definitely someone to watch out for in 2020. Her addictive new podcast series on Youtube and IGTV showcases her unique take on the latest trends in showbiz and news, and it’s where she interviews some of the latest up-and-coming brands and public figures.
Monica, of Italian heritage, but grew up and schooled in New Jersey, has her Italian roots written all over her persona, with her incredibly charming personality and boldness always at the fore. However, achieving this persona didn’t come on a platter for Monica. She has had to work for it, clinging to her dream, working tenaciously towards it, battling with bullying and rejection, and eventually coming out with a resounding victory.
Monica has always had a thing for the art of presenting before an audience, with her early childhood dream being an affinity for performing arts on the stage as a dancer, a cheerleader—anything that will beam the spotlights on her against the backdrop of rapturous ovation from the audience.
However, growing up came with different challenges for Monica. She grew up in a cliquey town where the have-nots aren’t given much regard. She couldn’t really fit into the posh street credibility of her hood, this made her feel like an outsider at a very young age and pushed her to be her own person, no matter what anyone said.
When Monica finished high school in France and moved to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York where she got her Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism, she didn’t know that what she felt in her cliquey town would be a child’s play compared to what was waiting for her in college. The bullying in school, which she describes as the most difficult moment of her life, led to depression, rejection, and solace in alcohol.
However, Monica fought hard to overcome all these. She knew she’d found a career path by watching TV anchors such as Channel 7 eyewitness News anchor, Liz Cho, and Oprah Winfrey graciously do their thing on TV.
Fast forward to today and Monica is now a fast-rising media personality, she attributes her success to a lot of factors, most prominently, her family’s influence and her belief in the divine. She revealed that she got her brand name from the famous Italian gangster, John Gotti, most famously known as The Teflon Don. She is a huge fan of Italian mafia and old-time New York City mobster documentaries. Watching these made her grow nerves of steel and a no-nonsense attitude, the perfect badass Italian woman. Attributes that have tremendously helped her in her line of work.
Monica Luisi, The Teflon Mon, may not be where she wants yet, but she has laboured, strategized, prayed, and studied to be where she is today. And with her tenacity, craft, and flair, it’ll not be long before she becomes the number one name in world media.
InLife International recently caught up with Monica to discuss her journey in the industry and here’s what went down:
Talk about what it was like growing up for you. How were you raised? Was it tough growing up in a traditional, tight-knit Italian household? How does this still affect you now as a more independent woman?
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? I was born on Halloween 1995 to two Staten Islanders in Central New Jersey. We lived in a humble little ranch in Millstone Township, to which we built a second floor when my brother was born almost five years later. I still live there now, five minutes from Six Flags/Great Adventure and 30 minutes from the shore. So, you could guess, my childhood was filled with so many fun activities.
However, we didn’t come from money. Being so young, I didn’t understand this concept and I wasn’t raised with the mindset that you needed to have money or have the latest technology to have fun. Because of this, I spent a lot of my childhood walking the mall with my mom, playing at the parks, going for bike rides, and playing in the backyard, like a typical kid.
I come from a line of blue-collar family and during my childhood, my father was a New York City Firefighter while my mom watched my brother and me. When my dad retired, my mom took the position of high school English teacher, which she still enjoys to this day.
Holidays were always especially fun since we’re Italian, we have a LOT of families and as a kid, it was always a blast getting tons of gifts and playing games and always eating the BEST food with a lively bunch of people.
As a child, I LOVED to perform on stage. I was put into dance classes at four years old and participated in ballet, tap, and jazz up until I was eight and did cheerleading for a few years after that. I loved being on stage with the lights on me and the audience clapping. It felt so good to be loved by people who didn’t even know me…and I felt that at a young age. That feeling still sits with me and drives me to work harder and smarter towards my goals.
I always felt like I never truly fit in. For as long as I could remember and throughout my years of school, I would jump from different friend groups trying to figure out where I belong. Nothing felt right to me. I grew up in a very cliquey town where if you didn’t wear the newest styles or you didn’t have the latest technology, you weren’t ‘in.’ This made me feel like an outsider at a very young age and pushed me to be my own person, no matter what anyone said.
I get my work ethic from my mother, who always said to me as I got older into my middle school and high school years that ‘If I want something badly enough, I work for it and I get it.’ That meant my first job at Burger King when I was 14 years old, buying my own cell phone, and opening up my first debit account before the age of 16. I felt that I grew up fast and became very independent very quickly. When the other kids were enjoying their summers, I was working and I didn’t have many friends, to begin with; so I worked.
This independence grew more and more as I got older, since I was able to travel to France to live with a host family for the French exchange program in high school (Yes, I LOVE French culture and language!), and keeping a steady part-time job after school. After graduating high school, I went to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York all four years, and received my Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism. This was where I gained my true sense of independence, and this is also where my life spiraled out of control… I’’ll explain.
I was originally so excited to leave my town of cliquey-ness and start fresh two-and-a-half hours away with all new people and start learning what I was meant to do. I was so dead wrong. The students at this college made me feel like the black sheep. The majority of the student population was from Long Island, and EVERYONE talked, dressed, and looked the same. Here I am the “guido” from New Jersey and the butt of everyone’s jokes, the topic of negative conversations, and the reason why everyone’s heads turned when I walked by. During this time, anonymous forum apps were popular and every time I opened the app, I would see my name at least once or twice. Some of the things I read about myself made me feel sick to my stomach. I would stay up late trying to figure out how to transfer out, cry myself to sleep almost every night wondering what I was doing wrong; but when the crying wasn’t relieving my stress, I turned to alcohol. I would drink to the point of blacking out five out of seven days a week. Tuesdays, Wednesdays (at Applebees karaoke), Thirsty Thursdays, Fridays, and of course Saturdays. I cleaned up my act when I realized how much weight I gained from the 3 am drunk pizza runs and when I saw sorority recruitment. I NEVER pictured myself as a ‘sorority girl,’ since I was exposed to enough cliquey-ness as it was. This would eventually be the best decision I ever made for myself and I stayed at Marist for the rest of the four years.
My Senior year at Marist was the best year I ever had. I was able to land an internship as a Production Assistant at Entertainment Tonight in New York City and they placed me on the Upper West Side to live so I could do my course work online, and work at my internship. As if college gave me enough freedom and independence, now I’m taking over New York City! To put it bluntly, I made NYC my bitch. I took advantage of every opportunity: going to pop-up shops, going to the clubs, new bars and restaurants, anything and everything. I made so many new friends and new connections that made my life so much more fulfilling!
So, when I graduated in the Spring of 2018, my high on life and independence came to a screeching halt. I was living back at home with my parents. This was tough, since I did a lot of changing over the years, and now living at home, it’s like trying to readjust to classic ‘Where are you going? When are you coming back? Who are you going with? What are you doing? Who are you talking to?’ It was overwhelming to say the least, especially trying to balance a full-time job, commuting back and forth to the city. Living with them has, and currently is, teaching me so much patience and surprisingly, a lot of gratefulness. I watch my parents come home from a long day and cook dinner. I see the behind the scenes that I didn’t pay attention to when I was younger. So for that, I feel grateful.
2. How did you know this was the career path for you? What kinds of obstacles have you faced on this media mogul pathway, and what challenges do you continue to face?
When I was a little girl and my father was working as a firefighter, my mom would put on Channel 7 Eyewitness News to check for traffic updates to see how my dad is doing with the traffic. Every time she turned it on, I saw anchor Liz Cho reading off the teleprompter and into my TV screen and I ALWAYS knew I wanted to be her and do exactly what she’s doing. On lazy late afternoons, my mom and I would watch Oprah together. Seeing the way her guest stars interacted with her and the audience loving her, I just always knew it was something I had to do. I’ve felt this passion for television and entertaining for a LONG time.
In the past, I would worry about ‘what if I didn’t get this job,’ or ‘what if I’m doing this wrong.’ These are all such valid obstacles. Not getting a job right away was a huge one for me, I spent the entire summer of 2018 applying to over 500 jobs and not hearing a word back. However, I centered myself and really did some reflecting and praying that everything will work out for me, that everyone’s path is different and I’m destined for something different. I put all my trust in God when I felt stuck like this. And just like that, before the summer ended, I landed a job as a Video Producer for the DailyMail in NYC.
Now, I face more challenges within myself than I do obsessing over the future. Since being bullied in college, I became a lot more self-conscious about how I act. I became more reserved and a lesser version of myself… but I quickly realized, I love myself. I love my goofy, badass, tough girl mixed with diva attitude and I wasn’t in that negative space anymore. I turned my pain into power from that, and now I have my podcast. I get to showcase who I really am and the right people have been coming to me naturally.
3. You’re a huge advocate for mental health. What kind of mental health issues do you face daily and how do you cope? What advice would you give to other women (or others in general) who face the same adversity?
I think mental health is so freaking important and so regularly dismissed and overlooked. I remember at a young age picking at my cuticles or biting the skin on my lip out of just sheer anxiousness. So, anxiety has always been a mental issue for me, but it really started affecting me when I was in certain classes. Simply the lighting in a room, or zoning out and going into a daydream, overthinking my existence, being in the middle of large, loud crowds suddenly sent me into a shock-like state. These episodes would hit me at random: my heart would start racing, I would start to sweat, and I felt like I was in a dream, nothing would feel real, and I needed to get out and away from wherever I currently was and return back to Earth. I was later diagnosed with Panic Disorder. And I realized that Panic was what I was feeling, but I didn’t understand what was triggering it. Until a few late-night Google searches and I came across the term Derealization. This was exactly what I was feeling; being detached (dissociated) from my mental processes, usually with a feeling of being an outside observer of my own life. Weird, right?
In order to cope with these random bouts and episodes of anxiety, I started trying CBD oil as a way to calm me. This significantly helps me, even to this day. I feel more relaxed as a temporary way to help calm my mind. Long term help is something I still partake in therapy. Going to a psychologist has helped me in ways I never thought I needed. Since seeing a therapist, I have learned to walk away from moments that cause me stress, and to learn that I cannot control everything.
To those who struggle with the same adversity, try to teach yourself grounding techniques. If I feel a panic attack coming on, I start to focus my mind elsewhere and play a little game of Sensory Scavenger Hunt. I think of 5 things I can see, 5 things I can smell, 5 things I can touch, and 5 things I can hear, 5 things I can taste. When your mind focuses elsewhere, the panic subsides.
4. Describe the most difficult moment in your life you’ve had to face and how did you overcome this? How did this transform you and your outlook on life?
Being bullied as bad as I was in college was hands-down the most difficult thing I ever had to go through. Whenever I left my dorm and passed by my peers on campus, I knew they knew. I knew they knew what was being talked about. I lost friends, my budding friendships crumbled because people saw me as this girl that I wasn’t. Sure, I liked to go out and make friends, but people automatically assumed I was promiscuous, had diseases, and was the main character in these wild stories people made up about me to the point where I was actually more impressed at their creativity than feeling hurt. Everything I was dealing with at this time really took a toll on me. I became severely depressed to the point where suicide didn’t sound like a bad idea to me at all. I knew I couldn’t stay in this mindset forever, I knew deep down that I was meant for greatness. Long, tearful phone conversations with my mom made me realize this. My mother told me these incredible words that changed my outlook on life entirely. She said, ‘If you want to be successful and famous, you’re going to have to get a thicker skin, and this is it.’ This made perfect sense to me. Celebrities always have the wildest stories about them published every week, so what made me any different? I started seeing myself as a celebrity and I turned my pain into power. I walked into every room like I owned it. Every classroom, every house party, every single bar. People knew me, and I didn’t care because I was living in everyone’s minds rent-free.
5. What makes you and your platform different from everyone else? Why should people follow you and tune into your podcast?
My platform is like my baby, especially my Instagram. I think Instagram is such a cool concept that people don’t make the most of. You can literally transform your entire account to who you are, not who you WANT to be. I feel the new-age Instagram users are so basic. They wear the same clothes from Fashion Nova, they get the same plastic surgery procedures (nose jobs, tummy tucks, butt surgeries), and you can just tell when someone isn’t being true to herself. This is why I don’t like calling myself an Influencer. I am a DISRUPTOR and my platform does just that. I consider myself a little too honest sometimes, and I know that can be dangerous, especially to those who can’t handle criticism and heavy opinions. But, I am not for the faint of heart, nor the weak of mind which is when Teflon Mon was born. I am able to use my platform to call it how I see it, no bullsh*t. I keep the badass vibes, stay honest and true, and do my very best. I’m tired of apologizing for who I am and feeling sorry for myself that people aren’t able to handle me. You could be the ripest, juiciest peach on the tree and there will still be people who hate peaches.
I consider myself and my content to be like a breath of fresh air. In all the clutter filling social media nowadays with nothing but news and constant information and even seeing the same looking types of people, I want to break that mold and transform the informational aspect of the news, into entertainment. I want to criticize the news and question everything. I want people to have opinions and really start thinking for themselves instead of what a talking head is saying to you on the screen. I think it’s so important to form your own way of thinking in this ever-changing world.
6. How difficult is it to have a different political opinion in this 2020 climate? How do you overcome negative opinions and stigmas?
I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m a Republican. Yes, I can hear your groans from here. No, I’m not a racist, homophobe, xenophobe, all lives matter or else, pro-life advocate. You can breathe now. But I do want to say how absolutely terrifying it is to be a Republican female in the 2020 climate when all you read about are how absolutely terrible some Republicans are. There are terrible people everywhere you go, I’m looking at you too, Democrat Party; and there have been terrible people on this Earth for years, we just all have cell phones now and post everything everywhere (but that’s another story). I do want to clarify, that I have taken plenty of ‘Which Political Party Are You?’ surveys, tests, and evaluations and every single one tells me I’m a Libertarian. I believe less government involvement in my life, the better. That’s plain and simple. But, because a third party system is just not happening right now, I do associate with the Republican Party for the time being. However, just because I am on the right-wing side of things, doesn’t mean I agree with everything. Just like how there are progressive Democrats, I would consider myself a progressive Republican, not so much traditional when it comes to social issues. As times change, people should be more open-minded to new ideas, new beliefs, and new ways of thinking. We need to be more accepting of each other. I am so lucky to surround myself with friends of all cultures, political parties, and walks of life that I can understand them and they understand me. What it comes down to are respect and tolerance. Tolerate and COEXIST with not only those of different skin tone, religion, and sexual preference but ALSO those with different ways of thinking. If people cannot coexist and live respectably amongst one another when it comes to political affiliations, then we will never progress. At the end of the day, we must remember that we are only human. We make mistakes, and we learn.
When I get negative feedback when I express my political party of choice, I remind myself that it’s not me, it’s them. It’s THEM who have an issue with who I am, not me. I remind myself that I am not for everyone and I’m not here to be someone I’m not just to please everyone. I will always stay true to my values and my passions.
7. What kinds of celebrities and influencers do you look up to right now and why?
I’ve always looked up to Paris Hilton because of her BOSS work ethic and impeccable fashion taste. I’ve always looked up to Snooki (let me finish) because of her authenticity to herself, her loyalty to her friends and family. Lately, I’ve started having a thing for Elon Musk because of his brilliance and unique mind; to be able to think outside the box. To me, all three of these people have one quality in common that I absolutely adore and admire and that is that they just don’t care what anyone thinks of them. To be so different is a daring feat in this society and I commend any celebrity or influencer who has the strength to continue staying on-brand and not conforming with the latest trends of ‘what’s cool’ and ‘what’s not.’
8. What advice would you give to those who struggle to have drive or motivation? What motivates you?
Everyone has been there. Every celebrity, businessman, influencer, entertainer, you name it. Everyone has felt those same feelings of being ‘stuck,’ or questioning if you’re even doing what you’re supposed to be doing. What has helped me the most is this: Find what you love to do and turn it into YOUR thing. Make it yours, make it as different and unique as you are and it will transform you. Another tactic I’ve really come to learn over the past few years is improving my relationship with a higher power. I was born and raised into the Catholic faith where we go to church every Sunday, receive communion and confirmation and you say your prayers. Just the power of prayer alone and giving your problems up to a higher power can really help release the weight off your shoulders. Now, not everyone believes in God and I’m accepting of that, but if you believe in any sort of higher power, pray and give whatever you’re struggling with to that energy. Lastly, a really personal motivation for me is the concept of financial success and security. I choose to be loyal to my future, not my past and I want to work hard so my future self will be thankful that I put in the work. My family is a huge motivator for me because I want to give them everything they gave me and more because they deserve it more than anyone I personally know.
9. How did you come up with the name, The Teflon Mon? What advice do you have for others struggling in the creative aspect? How did you find your passion? What are your plans for the future?
The TEFLON MON! Growing up watching the Italian gangster movies and watching old-time New York City mobster documentaries, I always had an attraction to the loyalty and bad-ass attitude of the mob: Where they don’t take s*** from anyone. One of the most famous Italian gangsters is none other than John Gotti, most famously known as The Teflon Don. Teflon is most commonly known for the non-stick qualities (as John Gotti’s charges never stuck with him, hence the nickname). So I decided to make my own play on it and brand myself The Teflon Mon, because whatever negative things people say about me don’t stick…and I’m a badass Italian woman.
For those struggling creatively, it always comes to you when you least expect it, I swear. I poked fun of myself and instantly thought it was an amazing idea to totally create Teflon Mon into my own brand. Turn your pain into power and step out of the box, no matter how ‘weird’ your ideas may be, there are billions of people in the world who would understand your mind.
I found my passion when I realized how much I loved storytelling and how opinionated I was about every topic. My friends always told me I have something to say about everything. I’m also a huge thinker, I’m always thinking about something even when I don’t mean to. So, I decided to take all my thoughts I have bottled up and broadcast them and talk about them. I love having deep discussions with people (I’m a Scorpio, we’re very intellectual), so if I’m having a discussion with hundreds, thousands, however, many people tuning into my podcasts, then I’m feeling good to connect with at least one person who understands me.
Future plans are so hard to decide because your life can change in a matter of minutes, hours, days, or weeks. My set goals right now are to continue my podcasts, continue telling my story, and really breaking out into the entertainment world. I’d love to start interviewing more people, make connections, network, and just enjoy the ride. I would love to break into TMZ or any sort of entertainment news segment. My ultimate dream goal is to host my own talk show one day on television and break into modeling because I absolutely love it. Eventually, the one thing on my bucket list for me that I absolutely MUST accomplish at some point in my life is to create my own Suicide Prevention Charity or group for young adults, teens, and children because I know what it’s like to feel the absolute worst, but I also know what it’s like to feel the absolute best and it’s not worth losing lives over.
10. What is it like being an independent woman in the media world with a larger-than-life attitude?
It’s a LOT of work, believe it or not. Being independent in general comes easily for me. I’ve applied to countless jobs I never heard back from and went for dozens of interviews at jobs that never hired me, so being independent allowed me to create my own success instead of relying on a boss or a company to do it for me. Having a Large and In Charge personality in the media world where there is a lot of collaboration, and working with different kinds of personalities, can be difficult. Sometimes it can be awkward when you’re collaborating with someone who isn’t matching your energy, so you have to figure out a way to get him/her out of his shell. As much as I do enjoy working with people, I feel the most productive when I get the job done myself because I know my own work ethic. Being a woman in the media world, for me, is not intimidating at all. I understand the incredible amount of strength and passion it takes to make it in this industry and I’m willing to put in as much honest work as it takes to make my dreams come true.
