Tara Geraghty - Forget the Rules and Follow the Fun!

00:03  All right, well, welcome to my session forget the rules and follow the fun and for those of you who don't know me, my name is Tara Geraghty. If you follow me anywhere on social media, it's you'll see it as Tara's voice. I have been building my own business for 27 years and have literally coached over a thousand women who have started their own businesses and so I'm really excited that we're going to spend this time with each other because I am all about throwing the rules out, finding fun in your business there's no way I would have been able to sustain 27 years as an entrepreneur if it wasn't fun along the way, right? So when I started my business and I was really young, I was 20 years old, and I was looking at everybody else.    

00:48  And how many of you guys find yourself in this situation where you're looking at what everybody else is doing, all of the successful people who are where you want to be? And I'm watching them and I'm thinking they're succeeding and I'm not, right and then we go down that comparison road. And what I would think to myself is if I just knew what they did, if I just did what they did, I would be successful i mean, that makes sense, right that sounds logical if I do what they do, then I'll have the success that they have and then how many of you have ever felt like you're doing your business wrong because you're not following somebody else's formula, right? Like how many of us have, we've gone to a conference or we've taken a webinar or a course and they say, I'm going to give you the formula.    

01:31  I'm going to teach you i'm going to show you what I did. And we think, wait, I'll do what you did and I'll have success. Well, I was doing that and I still felt like I wasn't having the results that I wanted i still felt like I was banging my head against the wall and like wasn't why couldn't I get where they were right? Well, I had a a move, a cross country move i moved from New Jersey where I grew up and I moved to Colorado and it was a light like light go off, eye open, life changing experience.    

02:08  Because what I realized when I moved my business is the first year I was in Colorado, nothing worked. All of the things that I had done in New Jersey didn't work in Colorado the things that I had done well, that I had had success in didn't work in this new state. Now, of course, this is before social media and digital and everything is in person, right so it was really what was working in New Jersey wasn't working in Colorado. And what I began to realize it's because people were really different, values were different, lifestyles were different.    

02:40  And as I started to step back at the end of this year and kind of see this, I had a mentor who took me in and she said, let me teach you how do we do things here the stuff that you do, the, the style that you do in New Jersey that is not going to work here and, and she was right. But what I started to realize is that there was a lot of differences in, in simple culture so for example, you know, in New Jersey, where I lived, a lot of people commuted into New York people didn't even get home from work until seven o'clock seven thirty monday through friday.    

03:09  So holding appointments at like, 6:00 would have been insane nobody would do that, right? But in Colorado, most people were home by five thirty this was early on it wasn't, as, you know, quite as congested as it is now and so I could literally hold a 6:00 appointment. But people also went to bed earlier. And so if I made a phone call past eight thirty, people thought I was bothering, where in New Jersey people were like, call me after 9 when the kids are asleep, right? And so I began to realize that here I had spent these years going to conferences, learning from different women who were building businesses in different areas, and part of what made it work for them was the area they were living in.    

03:47  The other thing I began to realize is that we all have different straights. There are certain things that you are really good at and they are in your zone of genius and they are the way that you like to work and then there's other things that aren't. And I would try to make myself be like someone else who was successful in my eyes, it wasn't working. See the the rules that work for one person don't necessarily become the rules that work for you because you have your own unique DNA. And when I started to work in my strengths and do what I enjoyed and what was fun for me, and I started to follow that fun and think, what would I really enjoy doing, guess what success started to follow.    

04:35  I stopped trying to follow everybody else's rules that worked for them, for where they lived and how they worked and who they were. And I began to realize that it they were successful because they were working in their zone of genius they were working in their strengths, in their community and their culture and if I could do the same thing for myself, I would be successful. And here's why. Following the fun works because your business is your unique DNA, right no two businesses are the same because no two business owners are the same. So I'm a resiliency expert i teach women how to grow themselves so they can grow their business and step into the best version of themselves now there's lots of people who maybe teach something similar, we may even say something similar, but we're different people.    

05:23  And so the person who connects with me may not connect with Suzie Q over here and the person who connects with Suzie Q over here may not connect with me, right. And so this is in a lot of ways, I had AI had a class recently on how to competition proof yourself in business and a big part of it is that there is no competition because you're unique. Your style, your DNA, your strengths, your life experiences, your stories, all of those things contribute to you in this unique business, regardless of what the business is, OK, your personality, your things that you enjoy, it's all going to shape how you run your business and so there really is not this one size fits all strategy and so when we think about rules, rules tend to be very rigid.    

06:09  It's this is the rule for everyone. Well, it doesn't work that way in business because people are not rigid and people are different. And what we really want to do is we want to figure out what is fun and then create rules for ourselves that work in business so the other piece of this I think is very important as a business owner is 1 is that's freeing that just because it works for somebody else, don't feel like I got to figure this out it has to work for me. We're going to talk about how do you tweak that? It's very fraying because there also becomes a point and sometimes as women, this is challenging to be successful in business there is a certain level of trusting your gut.    

06:48  You know, when you hear very successful people interviewed and you're asked kind of their secrets, one of the things that you will hear a lot is they trusted their gut. They didn't listen to what everybody else was doing. They followed what they kind of knew that little voice and, and I believe that if you are walking the path that God intended for you and building a business that isn't is part of your dreams and part of what you are to bring to this world, right? Like this is your gift to the world then your gut, your voice, that inner voice is always going to be the smartest, the wisest out of all of the voices.    

07:24  And let me give you an example. You know, a few years ago when I started Hey, girl, you can, I needed to come up with a name. And I really had no idea what I wanted to call our community and I remember I was sitting at my desk and I just thought, and I have no idea where it came from truly. I thought I'm going to call it Hey, girl, you can. And it it was just kind of like this, you know, lightning bolt moment that the name came to me and I remember saying to my sister-in-law I think I'm gonna call it Hey, girl, you can.    

07:51  And she said that's a dumb name. She didn't like the name and she told me all the reasons why she didn't like the name. And I sat there for a minute and I thought, you know, she's really brilliant and she's great at marketing and and she's kind of my go to person for a lot of things. But I thought, you know, oh, I just kind of really like it like it just it fits me if it's my personality, if it's who I am, I'm a half, you know, glass half full person. I'm AI will find the gift in everything i'm a nothing is impossible.    

08:22  We can figure this out. Go for your dream person i'm the one that if you hang out with me, I am going to have you believing that you can that you can do this we are going to figure it out we are going to find a way for you to have that dream or that goal or the thing that you have in your heart. And so I thought, well, this fits me and my personality and you know what, I went with that.    

08:45  And it was interesting in the early stages of my community, as we were building, we would have people say, oh, I just saw the name And I had to join and figure out what this was about because I would say, well, how did you find us and they would say, I saw the name and, and it, it resonated with me i wanted to find out what this was that positive energy that that brightness of who I am that came through in that name people were drawn to.    

09:10  And so it was a moment of really trusting my gut and saying this feels aligned for me. And so that's a big part of what you want to do as a business owner you know, yes, other people do certain things, but at the end of the day, trust your gut. Trust your gut that goes, this feels really light this feels really good or, you know, this just doesn't feel like this is what I should be doing, even if everybody is telling you that's how you should do it. Even if everybody is saying this is the rule, your gut will always know best when you are working in alignment, when you are working in your best, when you were working in your gifts.    

09:46  Like if you have a business, it's because your business is meant to be a gift for all of us, right? We are all meant to benefit from your expertise, your zone of genius that's the gift that you give the world. And so trust that that alignment that that God is going to speak into your spirit and your gut is going to know. So one of the questions I want you to ask yourself is what would be fun for me? What would be fun for me and my business if I was having the most fun this month in my business, what would that look like? If I was having the most fun I've ever had in my business this year, what would that look like and I want you to write down a couple of things what do you really enjoy? What is really fun? Ok, now with that, you might also write down what are some things that you've been doing that really aren't fun, that you don't really enjoy, that maybe really aren't moving the needle as fast as you would like, but you feel like you should.    

10:40  You feel like the rules say this is what you're supposed to do. And so that's the rule i I feel like I should be doing it, even though it doesn't really resonate with me. When you look at the things that are fun, I want you to pick one area of your business where maybe you've been following somebody else's rules, but you kind of know this doesn't feel aligned with you. This doesn't feel like it's right for you. It doesn't feel like this is what you should be doing. Like you just kind of know that. And there's something else that feels lighter, that feels more fun, that feels more energy giving to you write that down.    

11:21  That's what I want you to do for the next 90 days now why 90 days? 90 days is such a key important day in business. And again, I've been in business for 27 years i've had lots of 90 days. It takes 90 days to fully see the efforts, the results of our efforts. So here's what I mean by this. Anytime I wanted to implement something new, anytime I wanted to try a new marketing strategy, a new program a, new, promotion whatever it was, I give myself 90 days.    

11:55  Because what I have found, and I have found this to be true over and over again, that it's like planting a garden. It takes some time to plant a garden. You have to go in and be in the dirt for a while. You have to get on your hands and knees and you got to toil that dirt and you've got to plant those seeds and get dirty and you have to go out and fertilize and you have to water and you have to take care of the garden and make sure there's not too much sun and not too much shade and you know, all the nutrients in the soil are good and, and it takes a little bit for those seeds to kind of take root.    

12:30  And for a while when you work in your garden, it just looks like you're playing in dirt it looks like there's nothing there, right? But one day, one day you go out and you see a little, a little sprout, a little sprout out of the dirt and you're like, I think something's happening. And then the next day you see a bunch of little sprouts and you're like, Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. And then one day you walk outside and it looks like this beautiful garden. And of course, people walking by, all they see is the beautiful garden.    

12:59  They didn't see the dirt that you played in for 90 days before that garden bloomed. And that's how it is in business. Nobody sees the 90 days of effort. They just see a beautiful garden. And so you want to put 90 days to say, does this work before you evaluate your results? Now let's talk about when you should break rules and when you shouldn't. You should break the rules when they stifle your creativity you should break the rules when they go against your strengths, the things that you're naturally good at, or when they feel out of alignment with your truth and your mission. You should never break the rules when it comes to financial responsibility, ethical or legal boundaries, and never when it questions your integrity and the way you treat people.    

13:48  I want you to embrace the saying that you want to break the rules like a rebel, but you never break your integrity. I believe that when you embrace the fun, you have freedom. F freedom. You get to choose you don't have to do what all the rules are saying what other people are saying you get to do. You get to do what you enjoy. The you is you get to be unapologetic because you step into your own greatness you realize that you are unique you have your own strengths, you trust your gut, your own unique part of that makes you special. And then the N is for now that you don't wait. You try something for 90 days if it doesn't work, you pivot then you try it again and you pivot again and you give it 90 days.    

14:30  But you don't wait, you take action now the goal is to build a business that actually feels really, really fun to run. How would that be for you? Would you love that would you love a business that felt so light and so fun to run? Now I will say this is a big part of what we do in the Hey Girl You Can community.    

14:50  We're all about building businesses where you grow you so you can grow yourself so that you can have a business with more fun and more confidence and more connection that you have that mentorship and that support and that environment of women positively like cheering you on. And and so if you like that and you're looking for that, I really hope that you reach out and that you connect with me and, and we can have a chat and talk more about our community and see if it's a good fit for you. So whether it's Hey girl, you can or whatever community you're part of that you find your tribe, you find your people, you find that community where you're going to have fun and get energy and and be poured into.    

15:26  I'm going to leave you with a little challenge so I'm going to leave you with two things. One is I want you to write down one business rule and you kind of did this a little bit before, but one that you want to break today and I would love for you to share that on social media and tag me. I'm basically Tara's voice everywhere. And the only place that it's going to be different is on Instagram it's going to be Tara's voice iG somebody else already had Tara's voice, but you can find me everywhere is Tara's voice or Tara's voice. Higi would love to hear the rule you're going to break and what's going to be fun for you i want to be your biggest cheerleader i want to cheer you on i want to encourage you.    

16:00  I want to say to you, hey girl, you can. And I want to be part of that with you. I want to end with my absolute favorite quote and this is truly my prayer for you as you go forward and build this business that is fun, that is freeing and that you love to do and it's hangs on my wall i look at it every single day it's by Irma Baumbach and I'm going to read it to you it says when I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and I could say I used everything you gave me and I hope that for you, I hope that you use every single bit of talent you have and you have tons of fun along the way.    

16:42  Thank you guys for being part of my session i am going to be looking for your tags so tag me and tell me what's the rule you're breaking how much fun can we have together?