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After enjoying a successful career as an entertainer—comedienne, singer, pianist, songwriter and actress—Mona Miller utilized aspects of those experiences to create a revolutionary self-realization program for people and businesses that have made her a widely respected life coach, author, lecturer, teacher and business consultant. Over a 15-year period, Miller competed in the Miss Indiana and Miss New York Miss America pageants, sang opera in Indianapolis, trilled light opera in New York and throughout the Midwest, acted onstage and in television drama, played top comedy clubs in New York and Los Angeles, been a member of two popular touring comedy troupes, played piano and sang across Europe and the U.S. and performed a popular, semi-improvised, in-your-face, one-woman comedy evening called The Miss Mona Show. Then she launched a radical approach to self-improvement that has grown rapidly among a wide range of clients. This extroverted, always-on performer and teacher began as a very shy Cincinnati child who aspired to become a nun. Teenage Mona organized shows at her Catholic school and was surprised when the nuns told her she would do more good going into entertainment than entering a convent. She studied at Cincinnati's Oak Hills High School and at The High School for the Performing Arts, shifting her career goal to being a singing-dancing actress on the Broadway stage. Miller attended Butler University, where she won the title "Miss Butler University" and competed in the Miss Indiana Pageant. She later studied music and theatre at Northern Kentucky University. At age 20, Mona set out for a Broadway showbiz career, and immediately landed a gig dancing on a Scandinavian cruise liner—where she injured a previously damaged knee and was forced to give up dancing forever. A year later Mona was chosen "Miss Manhattan" and competed with Vanessa Williams for the "Miss New York" title. Although Mona was chosen Miss Congeniality, Williams won (going on to become the first African-American Miss America). Miller then taught herself piano and changed careers, tinkling the ivories and singing in piano bars all over NYC. Over the next decade, her act evolved into a unique mélange of music, comedy and audience therapy. Mona played the Big Apple's top hotels and clubs, including the Waldorf, Dangerfield's, The Sheraton Center, Studio 54 and (she recalls) "all the gay clubs." Hip spots like The Duplex and Don't Tell Mama's "drew a theatre crowd, so you had to be funny," Miller recollects. "When I sang, the audience would sing with me—in harmony!" She also did comedy at a Queens drug rehab center—the beginning of a decade-long practice of performing in schools, hospitals and juvenile centers during the day, after putting in six-hour sets at piano bars or comedy clubs by night. "At the rehab center, I started by being funny, but everyone heckled me, so I dealt with their anger and it turned into discussing problems," Miller says. "These daytime shows went from funny to angry to sad and then to uplifting and hopeful. Thus, I was sowing the seeds for my future second career." Mona entertained in diverse ways: she did two highly successful comedy and music-show tours of Scandinavia, began a six-person comedy troupe called Regular Riot that performed at numerous clubs, did daytime TV and wrote and performed comedy-variety shows at conventions. She also found time to marry, have one child and divorce. After four years in New York City, Mona Miller moved to Los Angeles, where she knew no one, and within two weeks she was performing music and comedy in a piano bar at the Sheraton Grande. This led to other major L.A. clubs like The L.A. Connection and to a popular regular gig at the Westin Bonaventure's "Top of the Fives" club. Mona auditioned for a featured role on TV's popular Hawaii-based detective series Magnum P.I. At her Magnum audition, she was startled to realize that she was to do a cold reading with star Tom Selleck. She shook his huge hand and chirped, "What a pleasure for you! You get to read with me! Are you nervous?" This led to 35 minutes of bantering, Mona singing opera atop a desk and her landing the highly competitive role. Miller joined The L.A. Connection comedy troupe, which famously improvised comic dialogue for movies shown without sound at a Santa Monica picture palace (à la Mystery Science Theatre 3000). She proudly recalls improvising and voicing the dialogue of such unforgettable characters as The 50-Foot Woman with a French Accent. In Los Angeles, once again, she was involved in a wide range of entertainments. She sang in national commercials and NBC holiday spots. She was one-sixth of the popular "Funny Ladies of Comedy" show, which featured comediennes of different ethnic backgrounds. Mona appeared in a Shecky Green variety-show pilot, which included such disparate performers as Hells Angels bikers and Mafioso Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno. It was not picked up. Miller worked as a counselor for a year at Penny Lane, a Panorama City, Calif. facility for borderline criminal youths and kids in abusive homes. She found it an eye-opening year. For a decade, Miller performed The Miss Mona Show, in which she played various costumed characters and roasted celebrities, while her audience provided the sound effects. In the afternoons, she performed the show in schools and for community groups, encouraging kids to be clear and "stand in yourself" regarding peer pressure. Miller penned a comedy TV pilot called Take a Break, about her piano-bar experiences. "I never left the room for six hours," she confesses. "During my 'breaks,' I'd sit or lie on the piano and talk about the issues that the people in the room were dealing with. As a result, I learned everybody's issues. They'd come back later and bring their friends and families. And that evolved into what I do today." In 1992, Mona Miller launched the Communication Arts Company, starting with one client. Through that client's word of mouth, the firm began to steadily build…and build. Today Mona teaches two classes and sees 50 individual clients a week, and her program has a two-year waiting list. She regularly talks by phone with clients in New York, Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, New Jersey and Texas, as well as folks in Germany, England, Colombia, Mexico and Canada. "I have coached people in all walks of life: the military, cops, doctors, CEOs, lawyers, high-priced call girls, kids and families," explains Miller, who is an unorthodox cognitive-behaviorist teacher and coach. "My company is about understanding human behavior, thoughts, feelings and patterns. It's about communication and using the arts—writing, music and movies—to tap into the subconscious mind. Each second, 23 subliminal pictures go through the mind, and I have learned how to use writing techniques to help people catch their subconscious and ultimately affect negative thinking and behavior. I have taught intimidating people to become self-aware and change their thinking and belief systems, through subliminal replacements. A key to my program is non-judgmental self-observation. We replace tension with awareness and creativity; and we learn to live with confidence—not from ego." Clients have praised Miller's uncanny ability to see into them and identify their issues, just as she did with her cabaret audiences for so many years. Miller also runs an executive coaching program (group and individual coaching) to understand the roots of conflicts and reduce them, while improving internal and external communications. Miller created a program at the USC Marshall School of Business about communication in family businesses. She also does judicial work with criminals and troubled teens. "Many coaches come from a diagnostic POV, whereas I come from an intuitive, seeing POV," Miller states. "There's no bad or wrong here. I use writing exercises and humor, and sometimes I play piano and sing to capture an emotion. The arts are an important part of my approach. To discuss fear, for example, I may show a scene from a scary movie and teach through it." In winter 2007, Mona Miller wrote the book Invisible Warfare, which is designed to be a journey from childhood guilt, shame and anger to new awakening of internal power and enlightenment. In addition to the guidance provided in her book, Miller has created Invisible Warfare, Special Workbook Edition, which is full of corresponding exercises and opportunities to engage in techniques that understand what a client's journal writings are ultimately about. These tools stop the repetitive spin of journal writing and give the client insight beyond the obvious. She has also recorded a double music CD Something I've Gotta Trust that engages the listener in outside-the-box processing. "The songs are my personal stories that correspond to my lessons within the book," she notes. "The first song and chapter tell about self-judgment harming you, and the last ones are about visualizing the positive. I also composed a children's CD consisting of touching and exciting songs and lullabies with messages." Communication Arts Company, Inc.
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Communication Arts Company • 15030 Ventura Blvd. #19-884 Sherman Oaks, Ca 91403 • CONNECT |
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Mona Miller