Episode 145: How Embracing Your Humanness Can Lead to More Success
In today’s episode, I am talking with Tara McMullin, podcaster, small business community leader, and speaker about how bringing her humanness into her life has made some huge shifts with her business, relationships, and mental health.
Being human is messy and imperfect—and, we’re bound to make mistakes.
It’s part of the deal.
We’re not going to get everything right, every time.
But we learn as we go.
That’s what being human is all about.
For some, being human—the messiness of it—is totally anxiety-provoking. It makes things feel harder to do and accomplish. But what if embracing your humanness could actually result in more ease and more success… with a whole lot less anxiety to boot? Is it possible?
Not only is it possible, but it is also achievable through tiny, small changes we can make to our everyday lives. And all this month, I’m going to go deep into how to embrace our humanness and discuss what it means to be human.
Today, I’m kicking off the Being Human theme with one of my business mentors, Tara McMullin.
We talk about how for Tara bringing her humanness into her life has made some huge shifts with her business, relationships, and mental health.
Tara is a podcaster, small business community leader, and speaker. She’s been helping small business owners find what works for them for over a decade. Tara’s goal is to push past the hype so she can better facilitate candid conversations about doing business in the New Economy.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
How Tara’s quest to be more human has enhanced and enriched her life
How hearing about High Functioning Anxiety gave Tara some real ah-ha’s
The relationship between depression and HFA
Tara’s morning ritual that helps her with her HFA
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Transcript:
Tara: But within that, I also had to be able to own that. I don't always get it right. And that sometimes there's more to learn. I can be of more value to people. I can create more connections to people when I share the stuff I don't get. Or when I share the questions that I'm wrestling with, or when I share, when something feels really hard and I had to recognize the credibility can come from that as well.
Nancy: Being human is just something we naturally are. We can do it without thinking planning or stressing. And yet it is something we fight against with everything we have. We don't want to be human because being human means being messy, being human means imperfection and being human. It means making mistakes.
But what if I told you and embracing your humanness can mean more? And more success with a whole lot less anxiety today. I'm talking with Tara McMullin about how her quest to be more human has enhanced and enriched her life. You're listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships.
I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. I'm kicking off this month's theme, being human with one of my business mentors, Tara McMillan. I can't tell you how excited I am for you to hear this interview. Tara is raw and real and brings all her humanness with all of its messy imperfections. Kara is a podcaster, small business community leader.
And. She's been helping small business owners find what works for them for over a decade. Her goal is to push past the hype so you can better facilitate candid conversations about doing business in the new economy. It's rare. You're here someone so openly discussed and embrace the ongoingness of their job.
We're used to hearing the typical linear story. I struggled. I changed. I persevered. What I love about this interview is Tara's ability to share the realness of the struggle. It isn't linear, it's circular. And at times frustrating Tara's podcast is called what works. And in this conversation, she shows how she embodies that concept.
When it comes to what's working with her high functioning anxiety and her ongoing journey of being. Tara. And I talk about how hearing about high functioning anxiety gave her some real ahas, depression, and high functioning anxiety and how they can work together. How her morning ritual helps her high functioning anxiety and how bringing her humanness into her life has made some real shifts with her business relationships and mental health.
Tara. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I'm so excited to have you.
Tara: I am excited and a little nervous to be here. Thanks for having me.
Nancy: We're just going to dive right in. Cause that's how I like to roll. I know you identify with the term high functioning anxiety. What about the term specifically speaks to you?
Tara: I think it probably would be helpful to go back to. When I first realized that I had an issue with anxiety in the first place, because the term anxiety did not use to resonate with me. I think we've had the conversation before. Ah, obviously off podcast that I had always identified as someone who suffered from depression and sort of the ups and downs of that mental health, the challenge.
And I have ever since I was at least 12 years old, probably before that. And so because depression was always something that I owned, it was part, it was part of my identity. It was something, yeah. Almost always forefront in my mind either. Hey, I feel great. Isn't it awesome that I'm not depressed right now or I'm depressed right now.
What am I doing about that? It's just something that has always been around that. Anything other than that just didn't register and it wasn't until, yeah. Literally last summer in the car with my husband, driving from Pennsylvania to Montana, which gives you a lot of time to think and process and talk about stuff that he said tell me when the last time was that you didn't feel anxious.
And I said, what are you talking about? Feel anxious. And I pause and I took a beat and I thought, and I. And at that point, I'd learned enough about anxiety to be able to identify in that moment. Finally, there's never been a time feel anxious, however and I should also say, but, I told him, no, this is just how I feel.
This is just normal. And he said, but I don't feel like that. I know plenty of people who don't feel like that, who don't, you don't act on the way they're feeling the way that you do. That's not normal that's anxiety. And it was a huge wake up. And also I think helpful in that, that I had been out of a depressive mode out of a depressive dip for quite a while.
And so I had some space away from that challenge to really think through the rest of my mental health picture.
Nancy: But like a year out of the depressive episode or like a month out of the depressive episode
Tara: It would have been a couple of years since I had felt pretty bad.
It came back last fall. That sucked. But yeah, so it's been a, it's been up and down since then, but yeah, but it was a good time, that, yeah. I think at that point, I really started to realize was that my, what I thought of as anxiety. And the way I saw that manifesting for other people was not how it manifested for me.
And then I could identify pretty quickly that what was anxiety for me was also some of the stuff in my mental health landscape that made me really productive and efficient and look like I had it. Gather. And so then when, when we started talking more with you and really dug into high functioning anxiety, it was just very obvious that it was like, oh, this manifests in a different way to, this is clearly what I am experiencing.
So that's the very long story of how I relate to that term
Nancy: So you had not done any work quote unquote, around anxiety. It had always been from the lens of depression.
Tara: Absolutely. Yes.
Nancy: And so you were either hopped up in high functioning anxiety, this now, or that was like your status quo, the high functioning anxiety over-performing
Tara yeah, I would say status quo.
Nancy: Okay. And then you would have bouts of depression, right?
Tara: Yes. And I would say that now I can look at that and say that the depression is also colored by anxiety as well. And that. Probably one of the reasons that people are surprised to find out I suffer from pretty bad depression is that my high functioning anxiety probably keeps me pretty productive when other people would be in bed all day long.
Understandably. So yeah, so I, I think that's. I can identify my high functioning anxiety, even within a depressive period as well. And yeah, for good and for bad, I think probably.
Nancy: So was that a relief when you came to this? Aha. Or was it like a dammit?
Tara: It was a dammit. Absolutely. I think, there's a certain relief in being able to label something and identify it.
But it was also like but I'm doing so well. Why do I need to like, deal with something else now? So yeah, it was a very quickly turned into a dammit moment. Okay.
Nancy: Because I appreciate, I think that is so common for people with high functioning anxiety to have your hands. Say, I don't feel like this all the time.
It was just what really, that's such a great and also that's just great to have him saying that to you like to have that voice, but also a little bit. I remember no, when my husband says it to me, it's a little jarring to be like how can you live your life and not have this intense, Feeling all the time.
Tara: Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly how I feel about it. And I still even though I know what's happening, I find myself still ruminating on that too. Like, why am I the only one that cares about what time we get to this place or what the confirmation number is on the hotel or where we're going on vacation or like how the dishwasher is loaded or like all of this crap.
And I have to say, oh, he's not thinking about this, the way that I'm thinking about it. Yeah. And that's good for him that he's not thinking about these things. It doesn't make him low functioning. It doesn't mean that he doesn't care. It means that he's not ruminating on things the way I ruminate on things. I have to check myself.
Nancy: Yeah. Oh, totally. We just went camping this past weekend and my husband with my nieces and nephews and I'm like, okay. Making sure the food's already, even though the nieces and nephews were in charge of the meal, I'm the one that's boiling the noodles and teaching them how to cook and doing all the things.
And my husband's, drinking a beer, standing on the porch and I'm like, I get mad at him for being able to do that when I'm like, there's all this stuff that needs to get done. Why are you just chilling? And then recognizing I'm the only one that thinks all this stuff needs to get done. Everyone else is just camping.
Yes. I'm the one checking things off the list. So since learning about that, you have anxiety. What has changed for you? Has that changed anything in your work and your life and how you approach things?
Tara: I think I'm still at the point. With it, where I'm in the awareness phase. I've done a lot of kind of life change and mindset work and mental health work over the last few years.
And it seems to run in a few different phases where I hit that point of knowing of realization like, oh, this is what's going on. And then. Fairly long phase of just working to be aware of it instead of just letting it happen. And so I'm still very much in that phase of noticing when I'm ruminating, noticing when I'm getting angry at other people, for not thinking about things that I'm thinking about when.
Over functioning over-performing in order to exercise control, or try to exercise control over a situation and just being able to identify and acknowledge, okay, this is what's going on right now. Maybe I keep doing it because in that moment, it's the only thing I know how to do. But knowing, just knowing and holding that awareness that this is what's happening.
I think I am hopeful that as the uncertainty of this year, Maybe dissipates at some points that I will be able to take more constructive action around it, but I'm very much still in a place where this is new enough to me. And then this whole, this whole wild year is new for everybody that there's too many.
Inputs going on for me to be able, I think, to take more constructive action other than a lot of self care. Making sure, just for instance, like one of the things over the last few months that I've really had to work on is making sure that every single morning I am spending a lot of time regulating myself.
System making sure that I'm in a really good head space to face the day. And waking up early, spending two hours in some sort of movement practice, whether it's lifting weights or it's running or it's walking or yoga and just really Cree creating that space so that I have. I have more capacity to deal with.
Whatever's coming my way. That's been really helpful. But in terms of stopping it when it starts, I'm not sure there yet. Yeah.
Nancy: That's that is, yeah, you're doing great. Just for the record. So is that hard? Is it hard to get up in the morning and do that stuff or is it. Because you see the benefit of it's been easy or is it still a struggle every morning?
Tara: No, it's the best part of my day is the best part of my day. It, does it suck to wake up at 5:00 AM every day? May maybe, I'm not sleeping a whole lot right now. So that I don't feel like I'm losing out on sleep. I go to bed really early, i, I get seven, seven and a half hours of sleep every night.
I feel pretty good about that as a 37 year old woman. And yeah, w by the time I drink my coffee and eat my breakfast, I am ready to hit. I would love to say ready to hit the gym, but I'm ready to hit my little extra room. Wait stuff is or I'm ready to go for a really long walk or a long run.
And I love it. It is my time to check in with me to listen to a podcast and either learn something or process what I've been feeling through someone else's voice. And just get that time where no one is demanding anything of me, but me. So yeah, it's, it is absolutely. I won't say that it's all best time of the day, my day, but it is absolutely one of the best times of the day.
And I look forward to it every single morning.
Nancy: Nice. That's awesome. Because I know a lot of people struggle with taking that time, even when they know it's important and it helps and it feels so good. It's the idea of I'm not worthy of this time or. I've, but there I have so many clients say to me, I know if I get up early and I, blah, whatever that is.
It sets me up for the day, but getting myself to do that, and it's not even the getting up early, they may get up early, but they fill it with other stuff. It's that you have this devoted time to you is cool.
Tara: Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think like why I don't feel more pressure to get in front of my inbox for instance, before, in that time.
But I think it is because. So I've been working out consistently for three and a half years now. And it has been a process of realizing just how much it does for me. In the beginning it was the exercise of discipline and. Routine and habit formation that did a lot for me it turned into like really optimizing for performance and like how much weight can I lift?
How much faster can I run? And that was really good for me. And now it really is the practice of self care. And recognizing that I can't do it. What I need to do the rest of the day if I don't carve out that time. And it really has in these last four months with COVID and everything that I need two hours, I need two solid hours, or I don't feel like I have the capacity to process what I need to process.
Throughout the day. So we really, it has become a non-negotiable for me. And as much as maybe I could convince myself that an extra half hour of work would be better or an extra hour of work would be better in the day. I know that if I. Collapsed that time that I wouldn't be any more productive.
Like I intellectually I can make that argument objectively. I can make that argument. There's nothing that extra half hour is going to buy me that the productivity and the capacity I get from the extra time to myself and in movement allows me in the rest of the day.
Nancy: Yeah. Yes. I think that whole concept, that is the whole concept of building self loyalty that I talked so much about, that you were saying, this is a non-negotiable time.
And I know even I've noticed for me, I have that. I do that a similar thing. But I was started sleeping in more and more like cutting into my time. And then my husband would get up and I'd be like mad at him for busting into my time recognizing, oh wait, I'm the one that needs to hold this time sacred by getting up earlier.
And it's the holding the time sacred, I think is the piece that's so powerful. Not because some journal told me that this is good for anxiety reduction or because I can get my workout in, but because this is just what I, this is my time. And anytime we can hold something sacred, that's a win. Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. So then the other place I want to go is, so I have been, Tara has been a mentor of mine for many years. So I have watched her from afar go through her own trends, transformation. And so I now that I have you in the hot seat, I wanted to ask you about that because as I just touched on, I think we can reduce.
Anxiety by building that self loyalty. Yeah. In watching you over the past few years, you really have embraced your humanness and taken off the I'm a professional. This is what a, an entrepreneur looks like, this is what I need to be performing. This is all my perception from afar. So tell me if I'm totally wrong about this.
And I'm just going to show up as me. And because that's where the sweet spot is. That's the stuff people want to see. And so you've really, I feel ticket a concerted effort to shut off the performance and the perfectionism, and really show up as this is Tara and I'm someone who loves to work out and I wear sweatshirts and I'm not all perfectly, done up every day and looking professional.
Makeupy. So I just was curious, is that accurate? Tell me more about that.
Tara: Yeah, so it was absolutely a concerted effort, a very intentional change that I made. And it was part of this whole process of getting clear on how I wanted to show up in the world, what mistakes I had been making that were.
And I do I don't say mistakes. Flippantly. It very, it very sincerely like things that I had done that were not helpful to me, that weren't helpful to anyone else and could have continued to do me harm and others harm had I not made a change. Yeah. I don't know if you want to get into this, but I am.
I identify very strongly as an Enneagram three. I I am very, I can see my own patterns around really caring. What other people think of me, how I present myself to the world. The visual component of it, the intellectual component of it, the leadership component of it, I very much want to be perceived as someone who has my shit together.
And someone who has not just has value in the world, but is doing something right, is really successful. And so when I think about this, I think about one of the. Big classes that I taught on creative live, which is a video learning platform where I taught for many years. And I taught a class called build a standout business. Back in 2013, I think 2014. Maybe 2015. I don't know. It was a while ago
Nancy: Wow. That's crazy. That it's been so long
Tara: . I think it was 2015. I think. I think I'm conflating some different classes I taught, but still at least five years ago. When I taught that class, like the. What I got from them was like, we're going to put all of our energy behind this.
This is you are our woman. We are so excited to have you for this class. This is going to be here. And I was like, yes. So I went out and. Spent a ton of money on the clothes that I was going to wear on this class. Because I wanted to embody the visual of what, some of what the star, small business trainer, the star, small business educator on this platform would look like.
Back at that class. And I looked great. Like these clothes were amazing. And also I don't look like me. I don't, I wasn't me. I was trying to be someone else. The last class that I taught on creative live, I literally wore a t-shirt jeans and Chuck Taylors.
And to me. It like visually represents getting more comfortable with showing up as I am owning what I have to bring to the literal stage in that case or in the metaphorical stage in life. And I can't say that I do that fully because I still have a lot of issues around self-worth and like the perception of success and all of that stuff.
Yeah. I used to use those things. As I used to conflate the perception of success with credibility. And I had to really get clear on my credibility, not coming from any particular milestone that I hit or any particular dress that I wore, how much I spent on that dress or how much money I made or how many clients I had or whatever my credibility had to come from.
Me my knowledge, my experience, my ability to work through a problem, even without, experience and any knowledge. And I had to be able to own that. But within that, I also had to be able to own that. I don't always get it right. And that sometimes there's more to learn. I can be of more value to people.
I can create more connections to people when I share the stuff I don't get. Or when I share the questions that I'm wrestling with, or when I share, when something feels really hard. And I had to recognize the credibility can come from that as well. And that I could do more good. I could actually.
I could actually be the thing I've always wanted to be. If I was willing to take off the fancy dress and put on the Chuck Taylors and own that, whether it's, in a blog post or a podcast episode, or a post that I make on Instagram or a conversation that I have with someone for a podcast. Yes, I appreciate you noticing that and it's, and it has been a very intentional slow.
Deep process of kind of unlearning how I learned to show up in the world over decades and finding a way to tap into what is true for me and owning the ups and the downs of that as a way to connect with people and as a way to better connect with myself, I think as well.
Nancy: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. That was so well said.
And being the person that's on the, who has followed you all those years and seeing that transition, as I said from afar is fascinating because I I think it was right after that. I unsubscribed from you right after the 2015 thing followed you for years, since I started my business and I started to know seven, I don't know when you came on.
In that process but then once you started being more Tara, I came back, and I think, and I say that not to be like, just to be like, yeah, it's fine. You know what, and all the people that I followed when I was following you back in the very beginning, I have unfollowed if they're still around, because I, their message hasn't changed or whatever, a thousand different reasons, but I can relate to your desire to be human and to lead from that.
Tara: It's funny you say to lead from that place too, because I think for. In that process. I thought I needed to step out of leadership to be human, to own my mistakes, to be vulnerable. And so I diminished myself. A lot in that process. So was it a learning process? Was it a growing process? Was it a process that brought people back that brought in new art?
Yes, absolutely. And I S even in that process, I still assumed I am that I was diminishing myself and that I needed to diminish myself in order to be able to pull this off. And now literally right now I am reckoning. What does it look like to keep all of that intact, but the step back up on a stage, what does it look like to be vulnerable, to share mistakes, to say I don't have it all figured out, but to say in all of that, I have something to say, I can help you let's do this together.
And I will lead you. That's a really, I don't know what that looks like yet, but that's what I'm reckoning with right now. And it's an interest. It's a really interesting problem for me to tackle in my, in this like next step of the journey for me.
Nancy: Yeah, I could totally see that.
And that's something that I reckon that I also reckon with because the number one feedback I get from my clients is, oh, it's so awesome because you're fighting this fight too. And I'm, so I want to work with you on that. And then I'm always like, and that, that is such a human response. Yeah.
I want someone who's, that's one reason I'm attracted to you. I want someone who's wrestling with the same stuff. I'm wrestling it at a higher level, I you, because you immerse yourself more in leadership and you talk with different people than I talk with, so yeah. You do know different things than I know, but you're also wrestling with the same stuff I'm wrestling with, which I, and I want that person as a mentor.
Yeah. Wrestling on a higher level, but it is uncomfortable as the leader person, as the me to be, to remind myself. Yeah, I do know more. I am higher level than my clients because I have immersed myself in this and because not, as I frequently will say to my husband, not everyone is obsessed with high-functioning anxiety and that just blows my mind, because it is where I spend all my time.
And just to remember that even that is giving something to my clients. Yes. That could leadership, but man, that voice of that idea of what we need to be a leader isn't it, is all around. Cause I think it is easier to put on the fancy clothes and go out there then to be completely one with.
The authenticity of this is me and all my vulnerability and all my, I don't have it all together. And I'm still here.
Tara: Yeah. Yeah. And especially in the space that I operate in, like here I am. T-shirt jeans, sweatshirts, hoodies, hair tied back in a ponytail kind of Instagram person next to the fancy ladies on Instagram.
Right next to the people in high heels and gorgeous dresses and perfect waves and amazing eye makeup and eyelashes. Yeah. It is very easy to discount showing up as I am. And that being enough,
Nancy: yeah. Because it being human isn't valued by the larger society. Showing up as human is not valued and.
But I think there are by the larger society, like I said, but I think it is a huge value. And I think it's an important value for the, if you have that value, it is important to be sharing it with the world because that's back to the self loyalty of that's going to show up. Yeah. What. When you say I'm going to I'm backing up here.
When you said you made a mistakes that were harmful. Do you have an example? Like not a super-intense one, but I was just curious, like you made a mistakes that were harmful by doing this separating out who you were having the performance person from, who you are.
Tara: Yeah. I think that the, one of the biggest quote, unquote, mistakes that I can just think about is, I used to have a business coaching program called quiet power strategy, which is great program.
I completely stand by it. I stand by the way. Th the vision for it. And one of the things, one of the mistakes that I made was getting. Allowing myself and even joyfully moving in the direction of being the one with the answers. And so the purpose, the vision for the program was giving people tools to coach themselves on their own business to work through what does it mean to have a brand?
What does it mean to put together a business model? What does this look like for me? How am I going to approach this? And really the whole thought process of how. Wrestle with those questions and problems as business owners. And then to do that also in a peer support environment, in small groups where you could work with other people on those things, but where the program evolved was people wanted a piece of me.
They wanted me to answer questions, me, to tell them what to do, and there's something. That's that can be really intoxicating, right? People wanting your opinion and what, your answer. And you're the expert. Tara, tell me what to do. And I will fully admit to being drunk on that a few years ago.
And at the same time, very frustrated by it and being like, how did I get here? This wasn't what I meant to build. But it took it took a process of wrestling with that. So that's one of the mistakes, because. It did impact. It impacted my business. It impacted my life. It impacted my self identity.
And I think it impacted people too. It impacted other people. And maybe saying that it did harm is going a little too far, but I look back on that and think. What harm could I have done? What did I do in that process that I didn't catch it sooner that I didn't, that I didn't change tack sooner that I didn't set expectations more clearly.
And so I have a lot of that's still something that often keeps me not, maybe not keeps me up at night, but something that I think about quite a bit. And so a lot of where I've gone over the last few years is moving away from that. And. Maybe even too far in one direction. But that's one of the mistakes that comes to mind.
Nancy: Okay. Thank you for sharing. Cause I just wanted people to be able to hear, the downside of this in a specific way. And I do think that's how we make change that, you recognize, oh my gosh, this I'm too intoxicated. On this expert thing. So I'm going to completely go into, I'm not an expert, I'm just one of you.
And then we regroup into the center, which sounds like what you're wrestling with now is what do I do? Yeah. And I think that is especially intoxicating to someone with high functioning anxiety to be the expert, because then I don't, I, my worth is answered every time I answer a question, I get up, I get a little ping of I'm worthy.
I'm worthy, which is such a win. So it's this dangerous combination. Of being an enneagram three, having the high functioning anxiety, not that you don't want me to be psychoanalyzing you on the podcast,
Tara: but having daddy issues. Yeah. Yeah it’s all there (laughter)
Nancy: I'll send you a bill when we're done. Okay. (laughter)
So how, what is changed since making, what are the benefits or what have you, in the negatives that have changed? You have noticed since making this shift to being more, bringing more Tara to the scene?
Tara: I think one of the biggest benefits is more genuinely connecting with people.
One of the things that used to frustrate me immensely was that I would. Very honestly and authentic authentically, even with such authority or share from such authority or teach from such authority that I'd get nothing back. People just be like, yeah. Yeah. Let me just tell me more, which was great.
Lots of note taking lots of nodding. Lots of whoa. Ah, Tara. That's good. But not any dialogue. And like I'm an academic at heart. I would, I crave that experience of being in the classroom and having these conversations about ideas and concepts and exploring things from different angles and seeing how things resonate with different people.
And I didn't have that. Then and now showing up in a much more human way, having a lot more openness around what I share, even when I am speaking very much from a position of leadership, I get that dialogue. I get the people. Sharing back with me, I get the connection there and the relationship building there.
And that's intoxicating in its own way. And then I think in a much more positive way. So that's one of the, that's one of the huge benefits. I think also I start to see. Sort of the teachable opportunities in a different way. I don't have to have figured something out in order to share it. I am way more free to share when I'm in process with something, what I'm struggling with, something when I've noticed something.
And I don't know what it means yet, but I think, maybe other people have had this experience too, and I want to draw people into that conversation. And so that's created a lot. Yeah. Creative freedom for me. And I think just on a much higher level as well. I don't beat that true. And it's also not true.
I want it to be true. I don't beat myself up for quote unquote failure as much, right? Like I'm more accepting of when something doesn't go the way I thought it was going to go or when something breaks and it needs to be fixed. I still struggle with it a lot, but it doesn't. Quite send me into a spiral of.
Negative self-worth or like just negating any value that I bring into the world. It doesn't change my identity as much as it used to. Because I see the value in the stumbles too. I still have a lot of work to do on that particular piece of it, but I can see how. I can see moving in the right direction with that one.
Nancy: Because I know there was a glitch that happened recently with on the, you did a forum around money and the first session had a glitch with the person being able to join. And it, it was good to you guys handled it amazingly well, and it all went to curious, but I'm curious on your, behind the scenes, in your brain.
As that glitch was happening and it took us 15 minutes or so to get re combobulated, what was that like for you?
Tara: Oh my God. It was terrible. So yeah, technology problems. Our, one of my big triggers. If there is a technology problem, I will spiral out of control really quickly. What you may not know is that we have the tech problem in that session.
And then in the next session that I was hosting the speaker did not show up.
Yes, we had a time zone issue and we had communicated that at least Eastern time she had put it in her calendar on central time is fine. We worked it out, but that one, two punch just about ruined my day.
And. I think it was, it's a huge win for me, even to be able to say that I got anywhere back on track by the end of that day. But it did take me, it took me until the final session until I felt like, all right, we're here, it's fine. And I could see, people were loving it, no one cared and it wasn't a big deal, but yeah, no technology problems just send me down a complete spiral.
Like I spiral is the best word that I have for that, because. It just, it goes out of control and I go round and around and around and around until it either gets fixed or, we reschedule or whatever it might be, whatever the next step is. And it will take me hours and hours to shake that field.
Nancy: Because that was interesting to observe because I just knowing you, I knew you were spinning out on it, but also being a participant was just like no big deal, like it wasn't, you guys handled it. You moved us all to the next place. Like it, it seems. Stressful for you, but relatively like whatever on my end.
And so I always find those fascinating when I knew in your brain, that was, it was not a whatever experience,
Tara: Not it wasn’t. (laughter) And maybe thanks to high functioning anxiety, I think really fast on my feet. I just always think really fast. So we did not have a specified plan B I think in the future, we will have a specified plan B, but It was very easy for me to know what to do next, but yeah, no, that was rough.
Nancy: But I think too, that idea of when I can recognize I'm going to be human and I'm going to wrap us up here when I can recognize that I'm being human. Like you were in that. That's what was so wonderful about that session was the humanness about it. You were human about it. And Shannon you're the technical runner person was human about it and Jacare the speaker was human about it.
And then everyone was like, now, here we go. Like we messed up. Here we go. And I think when we can have that idea of I'm being human, we can recognize where we messed up. We can make necessary things and then we can move forward. Next time. Now we're going to have a bucket. Now we're going to have a plan B all the time.
Cause we're not doing this again. And so being able to recognize that, I think is the power in being human versus getting so caught up in the performance? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Not saying it's easy or, but I think it is it is a worthy goal and I really appreciate you coming on and.
And sharing some concrete examples of how this has shown up for you and the struggle it continues to be, but the victories you are having because of it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Tara: It's been quite a journey and it's the journey continues and who knows what will happen next year in 2020 that could bring it be another step on the journey.
I appreciate the chance to talk about it.
Nancy: Has it been helpful to talk about, I'm just curious, and this may not make it on the podcast. Has it been helpful to talk about it in this vein, in this lens? Or you think about it like this all the time? This wasn't a new lens?
Tara: That's a good question. I think just because I think we have been working with you long enough now I have started to think about it through this lens on a regular basis.
Yeah, these are actually like the conversation around the dresses that I bought for that one creative live class versus wearing jeans. And then my last creative live class was a conversation that Sean and I had a couple of nights ago. So yeah. And honestly, I think probably even more than me thinking about it through this lens, he's thinking about it through this lens and then grilling me.
So it's really just like I'm talking to him right now.
Nancy: It was classic. I said to him the other night, my husband and I were talking about something in my mom and I, my mom, I have a habit of putting my monger on. So it's coming from him and and he turned to me and he goes, this is your monger. I'm not talking with you about this.
And he just turned on the TV and totally shut me down. And I was a little bit like what's that? I was like, he's right. Why are we headed down this path? And then I'm like, oh my God, I have trained him to. He knows my stuff too. Now he's calling me out on it.
Tara: Yeah. Because I feel like I'm starting to suffer from that problem too.
Nancy: Okay, Tara, thank you for your time and your honesty and your sharing, your journey and being the marketer. Absolutely. Thank you. Tell people where they could find out more information about what it is you're doing. Yeah,
Tara: so I'm the easiest place to find me is@explorewhatworks.com. You can find the, what works podcast there and you can find our community there and all the things that we're doing our newsletter.
And then if you're interested in podcasting yellow house.media is the website for our podcast production agent.
Nancy: And if you don't already know yellow house media is who does my podcast as well. So that is how I've gotten to experience more joy with Tara and Sean. Yeah. Okay. Thanks Tara. Being human is an ongoing journey and surrounding ourselves with people who are also struggling to show up more fully, despite their monger telling them they need to fit in is key.
It's so helpful to hear Tara story and to recognize we aren't alone. Business leaders, mentors, parents, friends are all struggling with mongers. And self-doubt, I recently heard a quote that said, never assume you're the only one in the room who has self doubt. That is what I kept hearing during this interview.
We are all struggling with self doubt. Even if we have mastered a calm, cool exterior, and we can all make changes, small, tiny ways to check in with ourselves and make sure we are listening to our own wisdom before heading out into the world to see what we should be.