TGC Newsletter: The Reflective Issue

Looking Back

Masters Degree: Done

Four semesters, sixteen months, thousands of words written, and countless hours in the library. Plus, a full-time job, coaching, trying to maintain some sort of personal life, and taking care of myself. Phew. I’m tired again just writing it, but I did it. Truthfully, the moment I finished my last undergraduate final, I walked outside the building and screamed, “I’m done!” I told myself I would never go back to school. I am not a school person. I believed this. I’m a learner at heart, but I learn through experience, not in a classroom. Beliefs about ourselves can change. How powerful is that?!

Here are some updated beliefs:

1. Proving to yourself that you can change for the better is a grounding and powerful feeling.

2. Continue to show up when it aligns with your values, and take a step back when it does not.

3. We live in a system where everything is interconnected. This can make relationships complicated.

4. Go and get it. Try again, ask for feedback, and be flexible. If you fail, take a step back, assess, and be vulnerable to learn what needs to change. I cannot emphasize this enough: keep going.

5. When you’re inspired, create. Believe in growth and the benefits of change, and wiggle while at it.

6. Life can be tough. Create space for people who love you to show up for you. Accept that form of love. You’d want the other person to do the same.

Looking back, I’m most grateful for four groups of people: 1) my team in the Career Development Center at Emerson College for encouraging me to take this opportunity, 2) my cohort in the Business of Creative Enterprises program, who inspire me every day, 3) my professors who expand my thinking, and 4) friends and family who have been patient with and kind to me over the past sixteen months. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

I celebrated by going to Arches and Canyonlands National Park in Utah! The graduation commencement ceremony will be in May, and I'll celebrate again.

What now? You’ll just have to continue reading.

A Year of Newsletters: Done

Twelve months, twelve newsletters. Twelve songs to wiggle to! Twelve podcasts, articles, food for thought, and opportunities to learn. If you’ve been receiving the newsletters each month, I’d love feedback on what you read here that’s still ruminating in your mind and what else you’d want to learn.

Additional Highlights

It’s been a year since I received my Co-Active Professional Coaching Certification (CPCC)! I also received my Associate Coaching Certification (ACC) from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) in May. Say all those letters five times fast!

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Looking Ahead

What Now?

Great question. It’s the question of the month. First, learn to be bored. Be lazy. Recover. Second, stay in my current role as the Assistant Director, Graduate Students in the Career Development Center at Emerson College. I talk a lot about values. One of mine is stability. I’m aligning my values and my actions. Third, expand my coaching practice by opening my books to more clients. But how?

How you can help:

• Share this newsletter with someone who is looking to get inspired.

• Know someone who is stuck? Send them this Calendly link to set up a free 30-minute consultation.

• Bring me into your organization for coaching services. Set up a time to discuss with this Calendly link.

Who I work with:

• Youth: For teens and young adults in their 20s, figuring out what life after high school or college could look like.

• Adults Seeking Change (Professional or Personal): This is for adults navigating career or other life changes, including leadership development within your role.

• Entrepreneurs: For entrepreneurs starting or growing their small businesses specializing in creative industries.

• Non-profit or education organizations or social enterprises: For teams working to solve a problem. This will focus on individual leadership coaching.

• Do you know someone that doesn’t fit the description? Reach out to me to discuss.

How to Prepare for 2025

In preparation for 2024, I made a Bingo card to gamify my goals because I hate boring New Year's resolutions. Getting creative and playful and writing down personal and professional goals was fun. I had a mixture of goals I knew I would accomplish; some I worked towards (and failed at accomplishing), and some were pure fun. In the fall, I got Bingo!

Completed squares included seeing a celestial event, getting a cat, finishing graduate school, and volunteering for the presidential election. Goals not met yet included getting hired by a company to coach (hello, 2025 goal), traveling outside the US, and hiking Mt. Washington. Who wants to help me meet my 2025 goals?

Tips for setting 2025 goals:

1. Make the time-bound; for example, host a dinner party once a month.

2. Make them specific; for example, go dancing 4x.

3. Mix in goals you can easily accomplish and more challenging tasks.

4. Align them with your values; for example, volunteer (giving back), attend museum events (continuous learning) or visit one new place a month (exploration).

My 2025 Bingo card includes goals like:

• Teach my cat, Baxter, a trick;

• Take an art class;

• Get a new coaching certificate and;

• Double my newsletter subscribers (can you help?)

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What Are You Wiggling To?

Let’s flip the script! What song do you have on repeat that’s got you moving and grooving in your seat?

Stay Playful,

Tamar

TGC Newsletter: The Gratitude Issue

What I'm Reading

Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Spiral Dynamics, initially theorized by Clare Graves, teaches us about developmental stages, specifically around values. We must focus on our values as we design the best life for ourselves because they are our motivators, whether it is safety, achievement, or community. Then, when you identify your values, you can learn about how to live them through actions.

At the beginning of my coaching sessions with new clients, we learn about their values and how they impact their now and their future. This information guides our decisions about what to prioritize or leave aside. 

Another way to identify your values is to identify what you’re most grateful for in life. Are you grateful for peace and stability? Are you grateful for friendship and community? Find the connection between action and value. When they’re aligned, you’re moving in the right direction. If few actions align with your values, it’s time to reconsider your actions or values.

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What I'm Listening To

A client once decided to shift their time and attention from job searching to volunteering and service work. The job search process was difficult and confusing, but volunteering brought them back alive. For those of us who put significant meaning into our professional lives, without a job, we can feel lost. Service to others helps. That’s why in Finding Joy of Service from Rethinking by Adam Grant (Spotify and Apple Podcast), the secret to success is a commitment to serving others. 

My challenge to you is to do something nice for another person daily. It can be anything from holding the door for a few extra people behind you to donating to a mutual aid fund, dedicating every Sunday morning to cleaning up a river, or organizing with your local climate justice chapter. Do this for a month and report back. How did effect your mood, and your perspective on your day?

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What I'm Doing

Sitting with gratitude. For a million and one reasons, I (and we) have experienced pain and loss over the past year and a half. For a million and two reasons, I am grateful. I am surrounded by activists who, despite the hate they receive, continue to fight for people and humanity. They ground me when overwhelmed. I am surrounded by people with different life experiences. They teach me resilience and nuance. I am surrounded by mentors. They believe I can fly. I am surrounded by loved ones who take care of themselves and me. They show me how to move on and love myself better. 

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What's Moved Me

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. IT could be anything, but very likely, you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

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What I'm Wiggling To

You can feel the raw emotion in the bridge of last night’s mascara by Griff, reminding you of the undeniable pain of heartbreak. Take the hairbrush as a microphone, wiggle it out, sing at the top of your lungs, and turn that volume up so high you can’t hear yourself sing along.

Stay Playful,

Tamar

TGC Newsletter: October 2024

What I'm Reading

When you think of goats and farm animals, do you think of leadership? Neither do I. In my studies and process of building a leadership course for Graduate students here at Emerson College, this article on Goats and Leadership: Fostering Talent in Diverse Teams by Jesse Hirsh came to my attention. Stay with me. 

Each creature or plant has a role within an ecosystem with unique skills and abilities (shoutout to evolution). The same is true for a team. Every group needs a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, thoughts, skills, and abilities; without it, we are a monolith. 

When we value diversity, we meet people where they are by empathizing with and respecting each other's backgrounds. These skills, paired with an understanding of influence, are required to be a successful leader. 

I once had a co-worker with a poor relationship with a group of our students. Both were wrong, and both were right. I first met with the students to understand what had happened and then de-escalated the situation. I listened, validated their frustrations, and shut down their inappropriate sexist comments. I told them when they were right and told them how they were wrong. Then I spoke to my co-worker, a peer. With kindness and empathy, I asked her what happened. I validated her frustrations and asked her, in her opinion, what went wrong. I shared where she was right and where there were opportunities to try a different strategy. All parties listened because I met them where they were with their experiences and their perspectives. I listened, and therefore, I had an influence. Despite my success and report with the students, I also needed my coworker's strengths. She was a tougher teacher than me, and many students responded better to her style than mine.

In leadership, just like in an ecosystem, we find strength through diversity, adaptability, and meeting people where they are—learning to balance our unique skills while drawing on each other's strengths to build something greater together.

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What I'm Listening To

As illustrated in the Goats and Leadership article, we need each other. It may be easier to achieve our goals when in tandem with a friend. In 2019, I became a close friend’s accountability partner for writing her book. It was an opportunity to connect weekly. The Buddy System podcast episode discusses the importance of pursuing goals with a partner. Have you done this in your life or career? What worked, and what would you change?

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What I'm Doing

Teaching CliftonStrengths to undergrads, master’s students, and the Museum of Science Think Tank Innovators and their mentors. What is the CliftonStrengths Assessment? Developed by extensive research through Gallup, we all hold 34 different strengths, but they are expressed at different levels and cause various types of expressions based on the unique outcome per individual. There is a 1/10,000 chance two individuals have the same top five strengths. Businesses, organizations, and students appreciate the new language around their strengths to support their personal and professional growth, shed light on how they think and work, and the additional materials that provide insights and guidance on leveraging each strength for success. 

My top strength is Winning Over Others (WOO). It means I’m motivated by working with people and thrive in environments where I can constantly meet new people. My other top strengths include individualization, communication, connectedness, and empathy. 

I’ve learned much about myself through understanding my top five CliftonStrengths. I already knew I love working with people and am an empath. However, individualization and connectedness gave me a better understanding of how I think, which helps me understand how I navigate the world, my work, and how I show up in relationships. Individualization means I am intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. I understand that no program I create will satisfy everyone, and each friendship is unique. Connectedness means seeing patterns in the human experience, making meaning out of everything, and believing there are few coincidences. Individualization consists of individual stars in the sky; connectedness is the ability to make a constellation. These skills allow me to create dynamic and engaging programs to fit individual’s needs and find ways for everyone to have a shared outcome. Learn more about CliftonStrengths here.

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What's Moved Me

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

— Derek Walcott

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What I'm Wiggling To

Settle Down by Wild Rivers from their new album. Try not tapping your foot to this one, or have a dance party in my pajamas in the winter.

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New Client Testimonial

Seeing clients “graduate” from their time with me as their coach is always rewarding. I believe growth is the coolest part of our experience in this world—from child to adult, from seed to beautiful flower, from pain to peace, or from the unknown to clarity. It’s an honor to be part of anyone’s growth process. Here is the latest perspective of a client who completed their time with me.

“Tamar has been an amazing coach and is a huge part of my success today. Her personalized coaching style is one that makes you feel heard and cared about. Throughout my time meeting with Tamar she opened my eyes to many new methods of thinking, especially in a professional space. Her patience and understanding made the daunting task of stepping into the real world much easier and more bearable.

At the beginning of my coaching, I truly was unsure if meeting with someone who knew nothing about me would result in a job/ career path. I felt so lost and didn’t know how I was going to figure out my next steps. However, it was quickly evident that Tamar loves getting to know her clients and working with their strengths to find a path that’s right for them.

I cannot thank her enough for all the time and effort she put into helping me grow as a professional and even more as a human being. Thank you!!!” 

Know someone who feels stuck in an area of their life? Share my website and link for a free 30-minute consultation.

Stay Playful,

Tamar