Do you feel like you are living someone else's dream or chasing their version of success? This episode is a beacon of hope filled with inspirational stories.
Guest: Tara LaFon Gooch, CEO at Best Branding Solutions, LLC.
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/taralafongooch
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-lafon-gooch/
On Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/tara.lafon
On YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTXN57YGfMOMJdkphzr2PoQ
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Host: Dr. Rebecca Wynn
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/rebecca-wynn
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Episode Description
Do you feel like you are living someone else's dream or chasing their version of success? This episode is a beacon of hope filled with inspirational stories.
Tara shares her journey from being a corporate dropout to starting her own business. She talks about her struggles in being true to herself and shedding the masks she had worn throughout her life, emphasizing the importance of authenticity. She shares how overcoming her fear of public speaking has catalyzed personal growth, and connection with others, leading to her soon-to-be-released TED Talk. Tara and Dr. Wynn discuss the challenge of finding one's tribe and how rewarding it is to be connected with like-minded individuals.
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Resources
Podcast: The 5 Step Process Framework for Success | A Conversation with Theresa Payton | The Soulful CXO Podcast with Dr. Rebecca Wynn: https://soulful-cxo.simplecast.com/episodes/the-5-step-process-framework-for-success-a-conversation-with-theresa-payton-the-soulful-cxo-podcast-with-dr-rebecca-wynn
Podcast: Evaluating Your Culture for Success | A Conversation with Caroline Wong | The Soulful CXO Podcast with Dr. Rebecca Wynn: https://soulful-cxo.simplecast.com/episodes/evaluating-your-culture-for-success-agpP3PqP
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Soulful CXO - Tara LaFon Gooch
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Soulful CXO. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Wynn. We are pleased to have with us today, Tara LaFon Gooch. Tara is a two time business founder and entrepreneur. Currently, she is the CEO and founder of Best Branding Solutions, responsible for the strategic direction and promotes their client's first culture to driving long term success.
The company helps executives and businesses improve their personal brand and digital footprint to showcase them as subject matter experts, leaders, and visionaries in the field. Prior roles included leadership positions in sales and client relation management. Her latest book, How to Grasp Confidence and Own Your Power is a roadmap to cultivating unshakable self assurance. Her international Ted talk serves as a beacon of hope, reminding listeners that confidence is not a distant dream, but an attainable reality. Tara it's great seeing you again.
Welcome to the show.
Tara LaFon Gooch: Hey, Rebecca. Thanks so much [00:01:00] for having me.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Your background is fascinating. Can you explain to everybody, how in the world did you get to where you are today coming from relations management and sales, and now being the powerhouse that you are today?
Tara LaFon Gooch: I love that. Wow it's such an interesting journey.
So I'm a corporate dropout, right? One day I just realized, why am I doing this? I felt like I was living someone else's dream. I felt like I was chasing someone else's version of success. And not being true to myself and my authentic self. And I realized that nobody really knew who I was. And that was not good enough for me.
So I decided to go out on my own, become a full time entrepreneur. I like a crazy person, right? With no backup plan, just went head first. And here I am today and. My book's been out for a month, and it's a best selling [00:02:00] book, and I can't believe it. I'm pinching myself every single day.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: How did you get the courage to make that move? Did you watch a lot of podcasts? Did meet with a lot of people to ask? How did you allow your authentic self to come out? Because I know that kept me back for many years. What did you do to get over that hurdle?
Tara LaFon Gooch: It was not easy, right?
It's not one of those things that happened overnight. I didn't snap my fingers and boom, here I am being my authentic self. It was a struggle because. I realized through this journey that I had been wearing a mask my whole life, that I felt like I had to be somebody else to fit in. I, that was with my personality.
I didn't think people would like my genuine personality. I didn't like the way I looked even, right? Even growing up, I didn't like the name Tara. I didn't like the fact that I had pale skin and dark hair when other people had blonde hair, blue eyes, and tan skin. I wanted to [00:03:00] always be somebody else. And it took some time and some revealing, and I feel as human beings we're almost.
We're like onions, right? So we have all of these layers. We need to peel back to get to the center of who we really are. And it took some time, but what I started to realize is when I started to tell people my story, where I came from something that I had purposely not told others out of fear, out of ridicule, out of whatever judgment was actually the glue that really helped form a lot of human bonding and connection with other people. And without me telling my authentic story, through my book and with my TED Talk, it would have never happened. This book wouldn't have ever happened if I wasn't authentic. This TED Talk wouldn't have happened if I wasn't authentic. [00:04:00] This book was a real catalyst for me to...
Uncover my soul and show it to the world. And I'm so grateful I did that and it was scary, but here we are today and the rest is history.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Yeah. One thing I've, I noticed about myself too, is people say when I was going in conferences and I would speak at conferences, which when I do keynotes, they call me the Melissa McCarthy of cybersecurity.
Cause I like to tell stories and I'll use my own let's say failures as examples of what not to do. And that's okay. But I was really allowed to be my authentic self, interact with people, interact with my peers. They come to me as a subject matter expert, Rebecca, how would you handle this? How would you handle that?
And then when I would go into certain corporations, I felt like they wanted me to be how they read a chapter in a book and how you should be an executive. And I always felt like you said, I felt like I was in a straitjacket all the time because I'd like to go ahead and be a person [00:05:00] who's a coach and a mentor and I know my stuff.
Those are all assets to a lot of people. Did you find that too, that when you made that transition, that you're running into more and more like people like you and I, that we're finding our tribe.
Tara LaFon Gooch: Yes
it's almost like you're in a real, like an auditorium, ton, tens of thousands of seats, and it's dark, but there's one little flicker of light. Somebody's holding up a small candle, and it's hard to see at first, and you have to get a little bit closer and closer, and then you realize that that one flicker of light, that's your tribe, right?
That's one person that you connect with. And that's how it was for me on LinkedIn. When I first got started I didn't have a community. I didn't have a tribe yet, but I would put up posts that were inspirational, that helped me. I would share failures. I would share times that I got up, right?
Times I've fallen and got back [00:06:00] up. Inspirational things that I knew could add value to somebody else's life. And it was like that. That one little flicker of light in an auditorium of thousands and thousands of people, but people, the right people, the aligned people that I needed, my tribe, started to see that light.
And the more I posted, those people started to gravitate towards me. And I think a lot can be said about that And again, that goes back to being authentic. It's not about sharing all your successes and how great we all are. It's about sharing those relatable stories. Those times you've fallen because that's what people need right now.
There's a lot of people out there that feel like they're low, right? Think of all these mass layoffs that are happening right now. People need encouragement. They need support. They need a source of inspiration and beacon of light of hope. So be that person and show them that no matter what you're going through, guess what?[00:07:00]
Here's your inspiration for you. I did it. I overcame and so can you.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: No, I agree with you. That's why I started the show is because I wanted those real stories. I want those stories is like, nope, everything hasn't gone perfect for me. And the people it's gone perfect for, I probably don't know you and I don't hang out with you because I read a background on you that kind of surprised me that.
You were an innate speaker. I know myself when I was looking about speaking in college, I had to take a speaking class. I literally would shake getting up there and speaking all the time. Then I took Toastmasters. I'm a double CMT with Toastmasters. I think they've re titled that now. Competent Master Toastmaster did that twice.
Because I wanted to be able to speak better. I wanted to speak better impromptu. What did you do to come over that? Because there are people out there who maybe want to speak, or maybe they want to write, or maybe they want to do something else, but the fear of failure, fear, uncertainty, [00:08:00] doubt holds them back.
And so I'm curious, especially being a TED talk speaker, which I would love to do one day, TED talk. If you're listening, how did you overcome that that speaking fear?
Tara LaFon Gooch: Yes, it was the biggest, I would say it's the, it was the biggest fear ever for me. So even in school, elementary school, I can remember it vividly.
If my teacher were to call on me on class, same, my voice would close up and I could not talk. Tears would well up in my eyes. I would get red. I would run to the bathroom and cry. Literally, I could not speak. And it followed me throughout my adult life, even into my career. So if I was asked to give a presentation, I couldn't do it.
If I was asked to speak up during a Zoom meeting, I couldn't do it, literally. So it held me back in every aspect of my life. And that's why that this topic of confidence is so important for me. Because I did my first, delivered my first keynote speech [00:09:00] this year, it was just in January, just January.
And I faced my fears and I'll be honest, I went into the bathroom and cried before I delivered my speech because I had a lot of. It was nerves, but once I got on stage and I realized, I looked around, people were in awe, people were really paying attention and I could tell. And it was like this energy that washed over me and it's.
It became as easy as drinking water or eating, literally speaking now is so easy for me. But I started with just like this podcast interviews. So 2022, I would say I did about 60 to 70 podcast interviews and a lot of that's impromptu. And I did a NASDAQ interview with NASDAQ last year that really helped get me out of my comfort zone.
Cause they asked me questions I had, was not [00:10:00] prepared for, right? So it helped me with my impromptu. Now it's so easy. So it's really putting in the reps, but those things that are our biggest fears generally are probably something that we should look into a little bit more. And again, if it was my biggest fear now, it's.
And I used to run, literally run away from it. Now I run toward it. And if that doesn't give anybody inspiration to get into speaking, I don't know what will, but you just have to face your fear and when you're the subject matter expert, just believe it. Believe it, and conquer it, and do it, and put in those reps.
We have to have the self belief, and I feel like a lot of, especially as women suffer from that too, that we downplay our subject matter expertise, we downplay all these traits and abilities that we have, it's [00:11:00] all in our heads, all of it. Just try something new and step outside of your comfort zone and watch what happens.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Yeah, I agree with you. I think. What you fear most, a lot of times that's where your life is taking you to, and you should do that. So what lessons did you learn when you made that transition to being an entrepreneur? Because I'm sure you have big lessons learned there. I know one of the things I learned is that people who say that they're going to be there, and help you day in and day out, and help you pursue success, and push you.
Maybe they were telling me the true words, but I found out a lot of times it's a lonely road trying to get there. What did you learn?
Tara LaFon Gooch: Yes, it's a lonely road. And the more success that you get in life sometimes the more false friends that attract you as well, right? Those people who are not supporters.
So you have to the biggest lesson I learned are [00:12:00] pay attention to the actions of people, right? Don't pay attention to the words of people, pay attention to the actions. And my road was bumpy. So when I left my corporate job. I left a company car. I left a company cell phone. I left a company laptop.
When I say I started from zero, I mean it. I didn't even have a car, but I did it anyway because there was a little seed of self belief in me that said, I just want more out of life. I know this is not my purpose. I know my soul's not happy and fulfilled. So it's gonna suck. I'm gonna get over it. I'm gonna try it anyway.
And I'm really glad that I did. And it was uncomfortable and it was hard. And I learned a lot of lessons along the way. If you took my first year as an entrepreneur and made it like a [00:13:00] graph, it would look like a heart rate monitor. It was red and all over the place. Now it's a lot more steady and calm colors.
It's not red and splashes everywhere. So it's gonna be hard at first, most likely. And that's okay. I feel like that adversity is the thing we need to teach us exactly the lessons we need, right?
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Yeah. One of the things I know is because we both talked about LinkedIn and we're both very active on LinkedIn is to seek out people who look like they've been there and done that.
And they don't have to be 20 steps above you. But. If there were just even two steps above you, that can get you past those two steps a little quicker. Be very mindful of their time. Did you do that? That's what I did it. I have great mentors in my life that I can call on and go and I'm really struggling with this.
How can you give me some guidance? Not necessarily tell me how to do, but can you give me some guidance? Because I do think the School of Hard Knocks. [00:14:00] People need to go through it and learn it. Did you do that as well too?
Tara LaFon Gooch: I seek out mentors and advice every day, right? I ask a lot of questions. So I would find people just like you said, who are a couple steps ahead of me, lean on them, follow them. What are they doing? Look, observe, watch. But then I also had people that were reach goals. So re a reach competitor, right? When I was brand new, my competitor, a reach competitor would have been somebody who is making keynote speech, hundreds of thousands of followers, et cetera.
Then I'm closing that gap, right? But I watch what they're doing, what platforms are they on? What kind of content do they post? Where are they visible? And I started making steps to become that and just to, with, through my own authenticity. Through my own personal brand they have already paved the way.
So [00:15:00] aligning with that. I think that's really important. I'd say, what magazines are they in? How do I get in those magazines? How do I utilize those networks for my voice? And that's how it started. And now it's its own machine, which is great.
I'm not an anomaly. So there's a saying out there, if you ask for money, you get advice. If you ask for advice, you get money. And you also build friendships and alliances. So asking for advice, but also providing value back to those people that have helped you along the way.
So key, so crucial in developing this, that tribe that you need, but also that support system and network so that when you are ready to do something , you have people to help you, that are waiting to help you, that want to help you.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I was talking to someone yesterday about the shows that I do. And one thing I told them, I said we put a lot of work in. We put a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of effort in and a lot of times you don't [00:16:00] get a you don't get a positive comment, you get nothing.
But I said I've had over the many months that I've only releases. Where I've had people reach out to me and said, you know what, this is how you positively have impacted my life and thank you for having your show. I try to do that for others because I've seen how much it's impacted my life. Is that what you find too?
I tell people if I can be that positive ripple effect to someone else's life, even if they're like, Oh my God, I don't want to do it that way. Because look what happens. I tell people what I look at. I view things as that can be a generational impact. You either don't want to do it the way I did because I made a major FUPAW, I'm a human, or you might say, Hey, look at her, man.
If she can do it, I definitely can do it. And I said, that's a generational thing. And it's a global ripple. That's what I look at. Was I positive global ripple more times than not? Because again, I'm human. I'm going to make FUPAWs. [00:17:00] Is that what you see as well, too, that, that really leads you as your heart and your soul.
Tara LaFon Gooch: Absolutely. It's... I feel like everyone's purpose is to help others. So our purpose, why we're here on earth is to contribute to the betterment of humanity, society, the collective as a whole. And if we do that again, it's. With intentionality it's not about self service.
It's about service to others. If we can do that absolutely, we will create that positive ripple effect. What it leads to is impact. If you can create impact, then my goal is nothing short of global impact. At the beginning of this year, I set my intention that I wanted to help a thousand people all over the world succeed.
So my intention was to help a thousand. Now that's going to be my intention for a month, right?
And honestly, that's why we do [00:18:00] it. That's why we do what we do.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: You've mentioned a couple of times now about setting. Basically, I'll call them short term and long term intentions, monthly intentions. Can you walk us through that process? What do you do? Is it on a Sunday morning that you think about what I want to accomplish tomorrow?
How do you walk through that? What is the process of people can try incorporate that into their life?
Tara LaFon Gooch: Yeah, I think it's really important. I start my day off with an intention. I start we have, you could call it a goal. I call it intention because that makes me I think when we think of a goal it's okay to not do it.
Oh, it's okay to not work out today, or it's okay if I cheat a little bit on my diet today. It was a goal, but it's alright. What's your intention? If your intention is to live a healthier life, then you're probably going to stick with it a little bit longer. A little bit more strict, right?
The same thing when you go to set your intention for [00:19:00] business, for impact, for change. It's an intention, and I set those intentions every morning. And I say to myself, sometimes I write it down, this is my intention for the day. And I don't stop my day until that intention is. Satisfied. So if I haven't touched enough people that day, if I haven't made enough impact, if I haven't done whatever, I make sure I get that intention done.
I want to really be an agent of change. So I create these intentions every day. And then at the end of the day, I express gratitude for fulfilling those intentions. I do the same thing for every month now. Sometimes goals are broken, and that's a good thing, right? But I feel like when we set a goal, it's a lot easier to be swayed from.
But when you call it an intention, I [00:20:00] don't know. There's some, maybe it's a psychological power that goes behind it. I'm not sure. But I think it's a lot more powerful. If it's more powerful to you, lean into it, try it. If not, lean into it and try whatever works for you. But for me, setting an intention is so key, so crucial, because it keeps me on a path that I need to go on.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I know when I had Theresa Payton, who was the first female White House Chief Information Officer, her and I talked about her five Fs. But one of the things is that's how she breaks right. Friends, family, faith, things along those lines. And I do that too. I have a habit app that I use. And then in there, I've actually used that.
And now like you said, diet what I do on my exercise. What do I do on certain. Certain interactions. And I did that. I do this for Mondays and Thursdays, things along those lines. I use that [00:21:00] to keep those areas of my life on track. And then I can see where I was off from month to month.
Maybe I need to adjust it. Maybe it's I have to get more sleep. Therefore, I need to adjust my other intentions to use something similar to that, a color coding system or something like that. So you can see if you're on par or not on par.
Tara LaFon Gooch: Ooh, that's a you're just giving me ideas. Now I need to implement something.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: You have to go listen to the episode.
Tara LaFon Gooch: I, I had never thought about that. I'm a little bit of a data nerd. So I have my MBA is a specialization in analytics. So I do watch trends if something, if it starts to slip down, I look, revamp. What is my data showing?
What is it telling me? What's the story? I need to get some kind of an app, right? But. I'm old fashioned. I like write it down I write down a lot of things. So I'm a big journaler. And at the beginning of every day, write down, like [00:22:00] I said, the intentions of that day, things I'm grateful for.
And then I do that towards the end of the day as well. But I need to get an app, don't I? You're giving me all the ideas. I like that.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I'll tell you, so Theresa Payton uses a calendar and she color codes those 5 areas that she has. And so every time she puts on a calendar, each of them has a corresponding code color code.
So then she can reflect very quickly on the calendar, what she's successful, not successful, and what she has to adjust. We both use Habit apps, and I can share mine, there's a plethora out there, but I can very easily just go ahead and say here's those goals. I'm going to do this Monday and Thursday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, when I'm going to do the posts for LinkedIn, different social media.
Did I hit that? Did I not hit that? How can I just but I can see it very visually very quickly. And then I'm like a paper person so my day starts out here's five things I want to get accomplished today, and they might have subtasks, but I also my head [00:23:00] had them generally in an order that you know what, it's goes back to the Ben Franklin, where they did A's, B's and C's that.
If this one doesn't get done, and you know what? I'm exhausted of the day. It's really okay. The world is not going to end because I didn't get it done. Because I think the worst thing to do in life is that we all have 1, 440 minutes in a day. And if I'm super consumed on using those 24 hours, for 1 440 minutes up solely to get tasks done and not have positive interactions with other humans.
I think that one thing is that we can all become workaholics is where that is and lose that sense of balance.
So how do you maintain that?
Tara LaFon Gooch: Wow. There's something I keep in mind always. And I feel we all have tons of tasks, right? But our job is to not do a [00:24:00] million tasks. Thanks. Our job is to do as many possible tasks as we can do in a day in a successful manner without hurrying. I feel like when we hurry, we start to get into a different frame of mind.
We start to mess things up. We have to remember to take breaks, right? I keep that in mind every single day. If I feel like I'm hurrying, that's when I stop what I'm doing and reflect. Because honestly, it can happen to the best of us, right? So I try to be very mindful of my time and energy as well. And if there's too much on my plate, I need to look and see where my time is diverted.
Because honestly especially as women, I feel like. We can't pour from an empty pitcher, and I think so many of us try to do that, but at the end of the day, if we have nothing left in that pitcher, we're not doing anything for anybody, especially [00:25:00] ourselves. Do what you can do in a day that's successful, that you can feel accomplished, that you still feel like a whole person.
But, don't hurry, don't rush through things. I think so many of us are just rushing through life and we're not getting those good relationships going. We're not having those good conversations that really uplift our souls, right? So pay attention to the things that are feeding your soul as well, don't you think, Rebecca?
Like it's like a meter almost if you feel your meter start going down, your soul meter. It's time to refill it. What makes your soul set on fire? Take a break from whatever it is you're doing and do something that really lights you up. And then I feel like that gives us a lot more energy to go back into those tasks if we need to.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I agree. I saw a post the other day on LinkedIn and it was, if you're feeling overwhelmed, take a moment and focus. And there were, I don't [00:26:00] know, 192, 193 people liked it, and reposting. And I went. No, I don't agree with this at all. If you're feeling completely overwhelmed, say no more often. That's what I've had to learn over the years because we, I just was constantly taking on more and more stuff. And you're right. You, the quality of work doesn't come out. Your resilience goes down. So instead of telling people you need to push more, focus more, you need to be intentional, as Carolyn Wong has said on my show, you need to be intentional on your time, intentional where you want to go ahead and focus on.
And potential on what you want to add to your life and who's others lives you wanted to add on to it.
Tara LaFon Gooch: Yeah, absolutely. I think NO is a superpower. I used to say yes to everything and I was miserable, right?
Those were the days. At the beginning of the show when I was talking about wearing a mask, I felt like I had [00:27:00] to come into work and be the first person there on my team and be the last person to leave and I worked through lunch. Guess who remembers that today? Myself, my family, nobody at work, right? So we take on too much things sometimes and it's okay to say no, especially if it's things that don't serve us.
It's okay to say no, and we have to remember to refill that pitcher at the end of the day, before the end of the day. Refill it as many times as you want. Again, we're no good to anybody if we are empty. If you're saying yes to too many things, absolutely I agree with you. Start saying no a little bit more, and a part of that's like owning your power, knowing your worth, and knowing that it's gonna be okay if you don't say yes to everything.
Some people may not like it and that's just perfectly fine.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Tara, our time has run short. What is the best way for [00:28:00] people to find out more about you, engage you in speaking engagements, and learn more about your company?
Tara LaFon Gooch: Oh, wonderful. One of the best places to find me is on LinkedIn but you can also find me on my personal website, www.taralafongooch.com or www.bestbranding.solutions, which is my company.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Tara, you are a Soulful CXO.
Tara LaFon Gooch: Thank you so much.