Episode 191: A Fierce Life Starts With Ownership And Action | Tara Wilson | Founder, Fierce Lab & Tara Wilson Agency
What does it really mean to be fierce? For Tara Wilson, it’s not about being loud or intense. It’s about ownership and action. Tara is the founder of Fierce Lab, an empowerment platform helping women take charge of their careers, finances, mental health, and risk-taking. Tara breaks down why women often hesitate to claim their power, how to move past perfectionism, and why knowing your numbers is non-negotiable for business success. We talk about building teams, building confidence, and why control starts between your ears. If you’re ready to lead your life more boldly, this conversation is your call to action.
“Fierce is about ownership and action. It’s the perspective that I can do anything I set my mind to. I can craft the world I want to see.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 What fierce really means
01:20 Building a platform for women through Fierce Lab
03:15 Tara’s journey from lost 20-something to confident founder
05:10 The four pillars of Fierce Lab
07:00 Quiet confidence and redefining the word fierce
09:30 Owning your story and taking action
11:00 The role of community in achieving big goals
13:00 From events to experiential marketing
15:20 Why she pivoted her business
17:00 Letting go of control and trusting your team
19:00 How contractors can grow your business
21:30 Stats every entrepreneur should know
23:15 Knowing your numbers and what they mean
25:00 Facing fear with clarity
26:45 The perfectionism trap
28:15 Lessons from cold-calling and Girl Scout cookie sales
30:30 Early business role models and mentors
33:00 How to stay informed without getting overwhelmed
35:15 Why input needs boundaries
37:00 Tara’s support system
39:30 Advice for tough days
41:15 What powerful and lady mean together
43:00 How to join or support Fierce Lab
We don't have to sit back and wait for someone to tap us on the shoulder and tell us it's our time or give us permission. We have to step boldly into that and take ownership of it. And so for me that's what fierce means and is about.
That's Tara Wilson and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life By showing you anything is possible. People who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives, and who are making the biggest impact, are often people you've never heard of until now.
When you hear the word fierce, what comes to mind? Powerful, aggressive, inspiring. For today's guest, Tara Wilson. Fierce is her word, and she's built her second business, fierce labs on the foundation. That by being fierce, your creating your life your way. You and I know that fierce is a big word. So in this episode, we break down what that means, where we're stopped, and all the different ways you can access what you need.
For your greatness and your great life.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast. Hi, Kara. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you today. Let's jump in and tell everyone your name, where you are in the world, and what you're up to.
Yeah. Hi. So I'm Tara Wilson. I am the founder of Fierce Lab, as well as Tara Wilson Agency and Fierce Lab is an empower.
Platform for women. So like you Kara, we have a podcast where we interview women about the amazing work that they're doing as well as we have a live event series. And earlier this year we launched our app which is part of our membership. So we sit in Dallas Fort Worth and we serve women across the country here in the us.
I love it. How did find your fear start?
Yeah, I always tell people that I own the word fierce. It's been a part of my vernacular for quite some time. But Fierce Lab evolved out of our agency's desire to serve women in our community. We were talking about how could we give back, what could we do that really gave us a sense of passion and purpose.
And our team decided that we wanted to do something where we were speaking to women and meeting them where they were in their lives. My personal story really intersects with this. In my early twenties when I moved to Texas, I didn't know a soul and I felt very lost right out of college.
I thought I should have all the answers. I thought my peers did have all the answers and that I was the only one that didn't know what I wanted to do. And it turns out we were all just winging it, but I didn't know that at the time. And now in my forties, I'm much more confident and much more knowledgeable about that.
We're all figuring it out as we go. And so when we started to explore what Fierce Lab could be, even before Fierce Love had a name. It was really important to me that we focused on four key pillars, which were really pivotal in my twenties and thirties and even now. And we found that they were interwoven in a lot of women's lives.
And so that is our thoughts around career development, our thoughts around financial, inte. Mental health, self-care. And finally, this concept of risk taking. And weaving those four pillars together, we started to think about how we could grow a community and therefore, ultimately we built a platform that supports women.
I love it.
Thank you. Fierce is not a light word. It's, it has a lot of action and power. What is it about the word fierce that really resonates with you personally and how you want women to show up?
Yeah. For me personally, it definitely has this sense of power to it, like you said.
It's really about ownership and action, and just this knowledge that I can do anything I set my mind to. That I often think about some of the great inventors of the world. They just crafted the world that they wanted to see. And for so long we've been telling the stories of men that have done that, but women are just as powerful in that regard.
Yeah, and so for me, fierce is about. Building this world, creating this world that you want to see and taking action on it, knowing that you can create that. And I think that's a big piece of what I want women to know is that it's one thing to be inspired, but it's a completely to take action and move it forward.
And we don't have to sit back and wait for someone to tap us on the shoulder and tell us it's our time or give us permission. We have to step both. Boldly into that and take ownership of it. And so for me, that's what fierce means and is about. But I will say, you've hit the nail on the head from the start.
Fierce is a very powerful word and. And even in the beginning we heard from some women like oh I don't know. That's a lot for me. And so I often ask women to think about what does that word mean to them and how does that show up in their life? They don't have to fully embrace that powerful element of fierce that can be quiet confidence too.
I think that's what surprised me the most with powerful ladies. Because everyone, and I'll be asking you shortly, has a different opinion of what powerful ladies means. And it's been really surprising to me to hear women respond when I invite them to the podcast or to host an event that they will say, but I'm not powerful.
And I'm like, it just, it breaks my heart and it's honestly a reason why I started it and kept growing it and keep doing it. And to hear you experience the same thing where women are saying. I can't be that thing or I'm not that thing. Like how does that make you feel? And does that discourage you or encourage you?
Does it turn your fierceness up a level? 'cause you're like, oh, I'm gonna be fierce for you now too. Like, how do you react when women are thinking that they can't be whatever word we put in front of them?
Yeah. You know what, how I react when a woman says, oh, I can't do that, is yes you can. Yeah, absolutely.
Everything we want to achieve is between our ears. We have that ability. It just takes time and effort and focus. And I'm not saying that it won't be hard, that we won't have trials and tribulations associated with achieving the things we want to achieve, but. We can certainly create the life that we want.
And so I know that because I've seen it time and time again now that is not toxic, optimistic positivity. I don't mean to come across that way either. And so it does get back to say I recognize that we will all face challenges. Some of us will face more challenges than others.
But I do believe that the power to impact our lives and go in the direction that we want to go and build the things for ourselves that we want to build is within our control. Because if you don't believe it's within your control. I feel you're losing the battle from the very beginning.
Yeah. So you have to believe it's in your control, because otherwise you're saying it's in someone else's hands, and you will never have ownership over your life if that's a belief of yours.
Amen. I wish it, if I had a magic wand, I would take that away from people. Nope. Any of those doubt.
Nope nope. Yeah there's so much. And I do
think it's important to, to that regard, you ask if hearing a woman says that, does that turn my fierceness up? Or how do I react? Or what do I want her to know? I also want her to know she's not alone. And that's a big component of fierce slab is to know that.
You have a community of like-minded women that are trying to do the same thing, and we often talk about getting an accountability partner so that. You don't feel isolated in what it is that you want to achieve because it isn't a direct line and you are going to have setbacks. There will be plenty of times where it's one step forward and two steps back, and so you need that support system.
That can still continue to encourage you, hold a mirror up for what you're doing when you can't see it yourself. Really just help bring out the best in you and walk that walk with you. They can't do it for you, but they can be there to hold you up when you feel weak.
As a fellow female who has started your own business and then created an empowerment community, which came first, and how have they impacted each other?
So owning my own business owning an agency came first. And then Fierce Lab evolved out of the agency and the, they have certainly impacted one another. Certainly our agency contacts have allowed us to reach out and connect with women on. At a level that we might not normally have access to.
You run a podcast and so always having guests and always being able to tell other people's stories is really important. And Tara Wilson agency has given me that ability to tap into an echelon of women that we wouldn't normally, perhaps we wouldn't have normally been able to reach.
And then. How fierce Lab has impacted the agency is it's made it really clear that there is this desire in the space of serving women, and that can trickle into the experiential marketing agency that we run as well. That we want to serve women, tell women's stories. There is a need to, to market to women in a certain kind of way and speak our language and so we're.
Our agency is able to marry what we know is in the experiential marketing space and what we know. Having this platform and community of women that we so adore and appreciate the opportunity to serve. How did the agency origin? It goes back to an even prior business. So I started an event planning company in 2007, and I did that for almost 10 years.
So corporate, social and nonprofit event planning. And what I share is that over the course of those. Eight and a half, nine years, I realized that my corporate business was coming back year over year. I could walk into January one and know my revenue that was already booked for the year, and it took a little time, but the light bulb went on and it's okay, this is sustainable, this is repeatable.
Whereas the social business was usually one-off. And so I asked myself, how can I continue to grow that repeatable business? And I said, all right, let's just focus on corporate. And in the process of making that shift of deciding to no longer serve nonprofits and individual clients, and therefore do a rebrand, so that my messaging was more on point, I am a marketer with the target audience that I would be going after.
I uncovered something that I intuitively knew existed, which was experience is experiential marketing. And it. It all clicked in. I knew it existed. I didn't know the name of it. I had experienced it. I had done some of that work on a smaller scale at the time for some of my corporate clients. And I was like this is what we need to be doing.
This is who we need to be serving. So that happened to be between the summer and. And late winter of 2014, so by 2015, the beginning of that year, I walked into the office. I called the team that's responsible for our graphics on our doors and our windows, and I said, come change the logo on the door.
Started taking calls to say. I'm sorry. We no longer do social events. We're only focused on corporate and really went headstrong into experiential marketing and have never looked back.
What do you love about owning your own business?
I definitely love that I call the shots, at the end of the day, if it fails, it's on me.
I will say if it succeeds, it's on our team, but I'm in control of that. There have been so many moments. Prior to owning a business where I didn't have that level of control and good or bad, I have it now. And so I definitely enjoy that. I enjoy the creative process and there's so much creativity that can go into owning a business.
I've had to get better at knowing my numbers. And becoming a person that can, manage the books and be able to recognize the numbers and create a profitable business. And I've enjoyed that challenge just as much. As I have the creative piece that comes into a marketing agency. Yeah.
I work with so many creative entrepreneurs and I love the aha moment when they go from hating a spreadsheet to going, it tells me so much powerful information.
Yeah, it totally is powerful. And one thing I would say about that is, is recognizing that. When you have a weakness, and I had a weakness in that area and I brought in experts to help me shore up that weakness. Yeah. I wouldn't say I am an expert in the numbers now, but I definitely know my numbers.
Yeah. And I'm confident in my numbers and to your point, I know that I can get the data I need. From my balance sheet, from my p and l, from my cashflow worksheet that supports the decisions that I need to make to be a successful entrepreneur. Yeah, and to your point, I also see so many creative women who don't want to face that at times.
They're scared to face it. And I often talk about is. It's not as scary when you know what you're looking at, once you see it, once you look at it and you know your starting point, then you know where you can go. I was listening to Matthew McConaughey's book, green Lights great book.
Yes. I read it in 2020 and now I'm listening to it out on walks in the evenings and one of his bumper stickers or prescribes as he calls it. He said something to the effect of, you're scared of the dark until you know it's black. And then when you know, something to that effect. And it's so true.
We're scared of what we don't understand. We're scared of what we don't know. And this can apply to the finances in your life. It can apply to where you're trying to take your career. Any facet of your life. But if you don't know where you're trying to go, you can be scared of it. But once you face it and understand where you are in the moment and have a handle on where it is that you wanna go, then you can build a roadmap to get there.
Yes, it might not be easy and it might not be quick, but it certainly should be less scary.
100%. I couldn't agree more.
You, I think you hit on something that's really important, which is. When you succeed, you acknowledge your team and the fact that when you weren't an expert in an area, you brought on other members to be a team.
And a theme that I see happening for many women. I work with many women in powerful ladies. I imagine it shows up in Fierce Lab too. Is thinking that we have to do it all on our own. Otherwise, either it doesn't count or it's not good enough, or it's just not possible to have a team 'cause we can't afford one.
What is your opinion about teams creating teams and their level of importance? Oh, they're
very important, but I wanna be clear that I get caught in that trap too. We are a small but mighty team. And so to talk to, to speak to your point about I can't afford a team, you're right, it can be expensive to have team members.
Something that works for me in this moment and has started to work since COVID is working with team members that are 10 99 contractors. We have a stable of. Very talented people who are on our team and we can count on them. But it is when we have the work that needs to be done, and there is no shame in that.
I think sometimes you can get hung up on not having a certain number of employees. That's one of the first questions I get asked as an entrepreneur is, how many employees do you have? What's a measuring stick? And sometimes people don't know what measuring sticks to use for entrepreneurs.
So they wanna know how many employees you have. Does that matter? We know it it doesn't, what matters is not even your top line revenue, right? What matters is the numbers that you're bringing to the bottom line. And to some people that probab possibly doesn't matter, although I would argue it definitely should.
So I, I think it's easy to get caught in the trap of, I need a team. How can I afford them? I would encourage people to consider, building a stable of. Of independent contractors that you trust that are talented and that are willing to work with your team on an ongoing basis. That has worked really well for me.
The other piece of that is you talking about, I'm the only one that can do it this well. No. No, you aren't. And when I learned this lesson and I've talked about this on my own podcast, I learned this lesson out of necessity. We were working on a very large demanding project. Another project came in and I literally didn't have time to put eyes on both of them at the level at which I normally would.
So that second project that I came in. A team member took over and ran and when I got out of her way, the things that she was able to accomplish and do and really she'd always been able to do it. I just wasn't allowing it. I was in the way I was holding it back. It really opened us up for so many more opportunities, so getting over that, that you are the only one that can do the work or do it as well as it's done by you.
That's not true.
And I love the stat that the average small business in America, the annual revenue, average annual revenue is $47,000.
Which is embarrassing for all of us as a community, because I don't know who survives on that. And hopefully they have a, that's a side hustle revenue, not a full-time.
But the fascinating statistic that goes with that is the second you have four team members. Including yourself, the average revenue goes to $400,000.
Like you can
10 x your business with three other people. And to your point, they don't have to be an official W2 employee. They just need to be a team member.
Yeah. Now, the caution that I would give to that is putting the cart before the horse. Which is okay let me just go find three people to work on my team and hope that they bring in new business. 'Cause I've done that where, I've gotten out over my skis from a staffing perspective and not able to sustain it.
And you also have to make sure that those team members are on board for the work that needs to be done. But your statistic is. Is right? Yes. That you can 10 x your business when you have more people on your team and your efficiency grows for sure. The other stat that I find staggering, but I mean it makes so much sense is of all the small businesses, only 5% men and women owned small businesses will scale to over a million dollars in revenue.
And then that chasm between 1,000,005 million, it's a, that it's even wider. And again, only 5% of those at the million dollar level will scale to 5 million in revenue. It's astounding.
It really is. And I think people underestimate that. When we talk about official small business stats in the US it's anything under 40 million.
That's
right. What? Like 47,000 to 40 million. I think we need to change our definitions because there are so many people who own businesses, and as you pointed out, most are not even making a million dollars. And we saw some of that coming up with what happened in COVID relief type of things.
It's also amazing to me that of the businesses that generate over a million dollars a year, only 4% are women owned. That's right. Trying to get as many people as possible into that 4% club. So it keeps growing.
And that's why it's so important as women that we know our numbers.
And that we recognize that numbers don't lie. Yes. They are facts. They are what they are. You are either profitable or you're not. And hoping is not a strategy for building a successful long-term business. And it's not to say that I've done it right all the time. I haven't, these have been hard learned lessons that have helped me grow and scale my business and be successful.
But knowing your numbers is so critical in order to be able to get to that point.
If that's a goal. And I think you hit on a little bit that grace that we need to give ourselves as entrepreneurs because so often. There's continued leaps of faith and testing and just doing it, and you can't.
I have so many clients who will ask me like, okay, give me all the steps so I can make sure it happens. And I'm like, we can't see some of the options until you start.
Like
we can decide you're a target consumer right now, but I need you to work with different people so you can know. Oh, actually I thought I would wanna work with women that actually I prefer working with men or this age or different age or whatever it is.
Like the assumptions we start with, 90% of them go out the window. So we just have to start. Please
start. Yeah. And it gets back to what we believe at Fierce Lab, which is taking action is so important. And you're right. And there isn't a one size fits all roadmap. For every entrepreneur, there just isn't.
You have to test, you have to fail, you have to be okay with testing. Thinking about it your journey as a hypothesis. I don't know if you're a Reid Hoffman fan, but I love his whole Masters of Scale community and the book he just released last year by the same name is immensely valuable to entrepreneurs because it helps you think about.
Building a business from the context of having a hypothesis, testing your hypothesis, recalibrating when it's not factual and starting again.
Yeah it I started my professional career in product creation and it's the hypothesis and the product creation it's not a linear line.
It really is this spiral, right? And. The other thing I think that women get stuck on is this perfect element, right? And as you mentioned, like we can't, we will never, if we're playing the perfect game, we're not playing the growth game, we're not playing the extraordinary game. 'Cause if we don't try things, we won't know.
And if we're gonna try it, it's guaranteed to get messy. That's true. Absolutely. When you look back at eight year olds, you. Would she expect you to have the life that you have today and to be running these businesses?
Definitely running businesses. I tell people that as a kid I didn't play dolls or teacher or house.
I played business, like when I made make believe as a child, I had a make believe business with the 10 key calculator and the faux credit cards. My mother used to get so angry at me when I was a kid, back in the early eighties. You would get a credit card offer in the mail, and that credit card would be a legitimate credit card with your name on it, my mother would put them in the trash and I would pull 'em outta the trash. She hated that because, this is like a legit credit card, but to me that was just a marker of a business owner. I had carbon copy paper and the whole nine yards. And so my imagination as a child was always centered around business and even things that I did as a child.
I was a girl scout and I sold girl Scout cookies every January and it was my favorite time of year and my mother actually taught me how to cold call. We would sit down at the dining room table, she'd hand me the receiver of the phone, and this is how old I am. The phones had cords, right?
And they were big, giant, long cords that could stretch across rooms. And I would sit in the dining room and we would go through the teeny tiny little phone book that was from Our Town, and she would say, okay. I want you to call Billy Sue and Albert, which were family friends, and she would call out the number and I would dial it in, and then I had to ask if they wanted to buy Girl Scout cookies.
Hi, this is Tara Mets. I'm Tom and Wanda's daughter, and I wanted to see if you wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies. Oh who can turn down an 8-year-old? Selling Girl Scout cookies. But then I like took it one step further. I, we had these things that were, they were called cookie sheets.
Anybody that's been a girl scout will remember 'em. A paper, big paper sheet that you kept up with. Who bought what? I would pull that out year over year, and I'd be like. And last year, Billy Sue, you bought two thin mints and two dough. See Ds? Would you like that same order again? And can I get you two boxes of tree fulls?
And I was trying to upsell. So you know, selling Girl Scout cookies taught me a lot about cold calling. And I will say this one thing, talking about perseverance. As we were earlier, there was a man in my hometown that was known for buying cases of cookies. There was a girl scout, she was older than me and she always sold to him, but my mother insisted that I would call him every year and every year I'd be like, oh, she's just gonna tell me no.
And what child loves to be rejected, especially by the person known to buy the most cookies out in town. And I don't know, I must have called him two, three times in a row each year. And finally the LA one year I called and he said, you know what? Becky is no longer a Girl Scout. She's not selling cookies this year.
I'll buy from you, and he became my customer. It took three years to get this man as my customer, but two cases of cookies to a, at this point, 10-year-old was a big deal.
Yeah, that's a huge deal. And so was your mother an entrepreneur? No. Or where did she teach you all these cold calling entrepreneur skills?
Yeah. My mom taught school for 45 years. My dad's a farmer and I don't think my mother thought of it as let me teach her how to cold call. In fact, I didn't even know what cold calling was until I graduated college and got my first corporate job. But looking back, I now know that's what I was doing. I think she saw it as an opportunity to teach me a life skill.
One, to be able to talk on the phone to be able to talk to adults. To be able to ask for an order, ask for something that I wanted. And quite frankly, I don't think she wanted to be the one selling the cookies. She knew that there was an opportunity there. And so that's where it came from. And to this day, I tell anyone that has a daughter that's a girl scout, I'm like, I will buy cookies from your daughter under one condition.
Call me. She has to call me. And I'll put this offer out there to anyone that listens to your podcast. I love it when a young woman calls me and wants me to buy Girl Scout cookies from her. I think it's a great opportunity, but she must be the one to ask me. Not the parent.
Yeah. When you were younger, who were you inspired by?
That's a great question.
The first woman that comes to mind, her name is Sue Benham Platner. She was from my hometown, so I should paint the picture here. I grew up in a town of 1400 people in northwest Arkansas. So I grew up on a farm a rural community, no stoplight. This woman was much older than me, but younger than my mother, and she ended up going to work for Merrill Lynch later in her adult life and became a financial advisor and. Being from a small town, you have eyes on what people are doing, the success that they're having, and I would hear people talk about Sue and she works at Merrill Lynch and she's doing so well.
And as I got older and in high school, you do things like. Future business leaders of America. And they did a mentor shadow day. And I asked her, I said, can I come shadow you now? I must admit I fell asleep at her office that day. I'm so embarrassed. So embarrassed that I slept at her office. She understood she had kids of her own, but I always really just admired who she was and we stayed in touch. When I went off to college, I talked to her about my internships. I ended up going to work for Merrill Lynch and I was there for 10 years. I stayed in touch with her, shared my successes with her, and then when I left the firm, she was one of the first people I reached out to, to say, I want you to know I'm leaving the firm.
And you had a big impact on my first career out of college.
How important was that for you? If she wasn't in your town, if you didn't know about her, would you have a completely different life today?
I don't know if I'd have a completely different life, but I think it's so important for us to all have role models as we say, you can't be what you can't see.
And so I saw this woman who in the late eighties, early nineties, was successful in what is considered still somewhat to be a man's world in the financial space. And because I was able to see her, it gave me something to emulate. Now that wasn't the right career for me. I stayed 10 years and I've since gone on to be an entrepreneur.
But I often talk about the lessons that I learned while working there. And the skills that I gained in the moment. I might not have seen it, but now removed from it. I gained so many skills being there that, that have impacted me as an entrepreneur.
We've gone through a lot of turbulent years just in the past five.
All sorts of things keep popping up and not a lot of new entrepreneurs are thinking about SWOT analysis or the industry impact or political impact, or just laws changing, how that impacts and changes businesses. What have you been doing to just stay equally focused on you and what you can control, and also being aware of what's happening so that you can best navigate outside forces?
That's a great question. So I'm gonna answer that based on from 2020 up until. Spring of this year, so spring of 22. I really started to incorporate reading the Wall Street Journal every morning. So starting in 2020 through the spring, I would sit down and I would read the newspaper. A tangible newspaper so that I was aware of what was going on in the world.
Selfishly, I was doing it because we were at the beginning of COVID, I didn't understand what was going on. I certainly didn't know how it was going to impact my business. And there was a lot of things that were happening for small business owners like the PPP lending and the small business loans from the SBA that were just coming out.
So that was my source of information. I would also say that I'm a big proponent of the work that Inc Magazine does for small business owners. They were a lifesaver during those first few months of COVID because they were constantly doing their weekly town halls and updating us about what was happening on Capitol Hill and what we could expect as business owners, such a, as we all remember such a tough time and we were also unsure what was coming.
So that was very valuable to me. I'm I like to take news sources in, but I will also tell you that starting this spring, I have decided to not so much block it all out, but to limit the amount of news I'm taking in and instead go internal and focus on my mindset. And so every morning I get up at 5:00 AM and I sit down and for the first hour and a half, I don't check email.
I don't check social media. I don't read and or watch the news. And I sit down and I journal and I work on my own mindset and I think about what I can control. And then, and only then after that do I start to put outside stimulus in. Because I wanna start my day from. My place of centered without outside influence.
Yeah. It's such a fine line of the output versus input that I think we have to navigate. And, being an entrepreneur today is easier because we can Google or YouTube or find people who are giving you pro tips in lots of places. But it's also so overwhelming because all of that input does not apply to us or what we need right now, or our specific business, or who we are.
So I do think it's such an interesting balance of where do we get our sources from? Which ones do we trust? Where we like, okay, I need to just hide.
And act
like a rock star and make this album in a studio with no windows and I'll be back when it's done. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think it's really easy to allow outside influence to impact your own energy.
I use. Social media a lot, and when I'm on social media, I try and be aware of how I'm feeling. And if I start to feel anxious or less than, which happens frequently, like I'll see someone else's posts or things that other people are doing, and I'll start to think less than myself.
I'm like, okay it's time to just close this, and try and recenter. I have to do that for me. There's so many things we can't control. One of our podcast guests and speaker at Fierce Lab live, her name's Kate Toda. She's on the leadership team for Walmart's e-commerce learning and development team.
She often says, control the controllables. And that is so true. It is very easy to get caught up in the worry and the anxiety. Frustration, all the different emotions around things that you have no control over. And so I try and really focus on what can I control instead of all the things that I don't have any control over.
It doesn't mean I don't care. It doesn't mean that I'm not listening. It doesn't mean that I'm not taking into account those additional opinions and resources. It's just there's a finite amount of time and space and I have to decide what's most important to me, and it's those things that I can control.
That's my approach. I'm not saying it's right.
When you think about yourself and the words powerful, and ladies, what do they mean to you personally? When do you know you're being a powerful lady? And do the definitions of the words change when they're put next to each other? That's a great question.
And the
answer to that
is
yes.
Powerful to me is about ownership, action, assertiveness standing and owning who you are. As a southerner, the word lady on its own is polite, congenial, goes along to get along great manners and etiquette. But then you put the two words together, powerful lady.
And that just brings a whole new, that is a woman to me who is confident, self-assured owns who she is, unapologetically and goes for it.
As you are wrapping up 2022 and preparing for 2023, what are you most proud of from this year and most excited about? Yeah.
I think for us this year, the success is the launching of our Fierce Lab app membership and that.
Now on the iOS platform, that was a huge win for our team. I never knew how much work it would take to get a, an app approved inside the Apple store. So that's been a really big win. I'm also very excited about Fierce Lab Live, which happens on October 20th in Dallas. We have pulled together an amazing group of women who are speakers and we've updated our formatting this year because our community said we want more hands-on workshops and panel discussions.
And so really looking forward to delivering that to our community coming up in just a few weeks. I love that.
We ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves in the Powerful Lady scale. If zero is your average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine.
Where would you put yourself today and on average?
I'd like to think that I'm sitting firmly at a seven and I would like to think that I'm on my way a.
Some days I'm barely a three, but I'd like to think that on average I'm sitting firmly at a seven.
There's so much advice that we get that has passed on or we stumble upon. What is a piece of advice that has changed your outlook or your life trajectory?
So many pieces. One thing I heard early in my career, and it has become a, an unwritten mantra at our office, is be the solution to the problem and not the problem itself.
And what that means is always come to the table with solutions and options instead of just saying, that won't work, or We can't do that, or Here's all we have. Coming to the table with those solutions, I think is so vital and important.
We know that the audience listening and all of the powerful ladies who've been here are a powerful and resourceful group, and I'm such a c proponent of making sure that we are asking for what we need, are looking for, because we never know who has that next key.
What is something that you need or you're looking for you or your businesses?
Yeah. Definitely exposure for fierce slab. I think that's really important because the more women that we can impact the greater good we can do in the world. We believe so strongly in our platform and the women that we're serving and the stories that we're telling, and so we always want more.
Women to be impacted by that. We would love to have them join us, whether it be joining us on LinkedIn or Instagram, which are both fierce slab. Joining us in person for a live event, if there's a. An expert in your audience that has something impactful to share around one of our four pillars. I invite her to fill out our experts form on our website.
We wanna know about you and we wanna know if Fierce Slab has benefited you in some way or if there's something we can do to support you.
When you are having those days where you feel like you're barely a three, what do you do?
I. That's a great question. I have a really wonderful support group.
I have a group of nine women that I run with. Sometimes we run more often together than not. We're in a season where we're all going in different directions, but they are an incredible support to me. And if I'm really having a down day, I know that I can count on them collectively as a group, as well as pull out individuals within that group to provide support.
I also have another dear friend. She's a Capricorn just like me. And, she is that friend that's like the inner circle, she knows all things and she's also a neighbor, which is great. So I'll find that some evenings I'll just walk over to her house and we'll sit on the curb and connect. And so I think for me it's about connection.
When I do feel down or alone or like I'm just not getting there. It's reaching out and making sure that I'm tapping into my support system. And so hopefully I can be that for them as well. I love that.
Thank you. It has been such a pleasure to talk to you and learn about Fierce Lab and learn about you and your journey.
It makes me feel better and I can go to sleep easier knowing that there are incredible women who are sharing commitments that I share to empower women and to move people forward. And. And just in invite everyone to step into this power that we all have innately. So thank you for being there because the burden of what we have to do is too big for any of us to do by ourselves.
Kara, thank you for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate that. And I also appreciate the work that you're doing with Powerful Ladies and how you two are lifting women up and telling stories of courageous women. It's so meaningful and what. Welcomed and I appreciate the opportunity to share the space that you and your community occupy.
Thank you.
And so for everyone who is now on your team and on Fierce Lab's team, where can they find you to support you, hire you, work with you, all the things?
Sure. Absolutely. So as I mentioned a bit earlier, you can find us on LinkedIn at your slab. You can also find us on Instagram. At Fierce Lab if you'd like to connect with me personally, I'm Tara Wilson on LinkedIn.
And those are the best ways to reach out to us. Our website is fierce
lab.com. Amazing. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today, and I don't wait to stay in contact with you and see the amazing success of Fierce Love. Thank you. Thank you.
All the links to connect with Tara Wilson and Fierce Labs are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. They're so important. For exposure to new listeners like yourself, come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies.
If you're looking to connect directly with me, please visit kara duffy.com or visit Kara Duffy on Instagram. I'll be back next week with a brand new show and a new amazing guest. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Facebook: @FierceLabLIVE
Website: www.fierce-lab.com
LinkedIn: Fierce Lab
Email: tara@fierce-lab.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
