Why Choosing Yourself Is a Branding Decision with Tara Jaye Frank

---

Episodes You Might Also Like

Description

What happens when the version of you that’s always holding it together finally can’t anymore?

In You Are Before the World, Tara Jaye Frank writes with radical honesty about depletion, overgiving, and the moment she realized that putting everyone else first was costing her herself.

In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula sits down with Tara to talk about the internal reckoning that shaped the book and the deeper truth beneath it: that worth is not earned through sacrifice, helpfulness, or being “twice as good.” Drawing from her leadership journey, her decade-long partnership with Dr. Maya Angelou, and the personal losses that forced her to reexamine who she was without her roles, Tara reflects on what it really takes to choose yourself.

This is a conversation about boundaries, grief, divorce, motherhood, and the courage to stop contorting yourself to fit spaces that were never designed to hold you fully. If you’ve ever believed your value lived in what you give, or felt the pressure to stay composed while quietly unraveling, this episode is an invitation to remember: you are before the world.

Chapters

1:22 – How Tara’s definition of personal branding has changed from a couple of years ago and the unique way she describes herself

4:15 – The idea of getting ready for what’s ready for you and what plays for Tara when she’s having a bad day or needs to get hyped up

7:17 – How her Cape Verdean community in MA and experiences outside of it shaped Tara and her bridge-building skill

13:23 – Tara’s career, from greeting card writer to CEO of her own firm, and how she became a writer for Hallmark

18:43 – Lessons learned from partnering with Dr. Maya Angelou for 10 years

21:36 – How a single, unexpected moment can reframe an entire life’s work

26:24 – Paula’s experience from reading You Are Before the World

30:22 – The hidden emotional load behind being a helper

34:13 – Why breaking the box is often more painful than staying inside it

43:06 – Stories that Tara had to rewrite for herself to move forward

49:38 – The quiet grief of losing roles you once built your identity around

55:29 – What Tara does for fun, what she’ll never compromise on, and the differentiator that is her magic

Connect With Tara Jaye Frank

Tara Jaye Frank is a workplace culture and leadership strategist who has advised and educated thousands of Fortune 500 executives across multiple industries and large member organizations. Her work, fueled by a deep belief in the creative power and potential of all, focuses on building bridges between people, ideas, and opportunity.

Before founding The Waymakers Change Group—a culture and leadership consultancy that helps midsized and large companies deeply understand their employee experience and build capacity to lead all people well, Tara spent 21 years at Hallmark, where she served in multiple executive roles, including vice-president creative writing and editorial, vice-president business innovation, vice-president multicultural strategy, and corporate culture advisor to the president. Her previous book, The Waymakers: Clearing the Path to Workplace Equity with Competence and Confidence, is an invitation to those with power and position to open doors, remove barriers, and facilitate access and opportunity for all people. 

Tara lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, one of their six children, and their three dogs. She is also a Spelman Alumna and a member of both the Executive Leadership Council and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. 

Tara Jaye Frank | LinkedIn | Instagram

You Are Before the World and The Waymakers by Tara Jaye Frank

Mentioned In Why Choosing Yourself Is a Branding Decision with Tara Jaye Frank

The 92 Project – IKONI Collective

The Waymakers Change Group (TWCHG)

National Association of Women Lawyers

Curated Resources from Paula

Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Webinars

Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer

Subscribe to The Branding Room Only on YouTube

Call to Action

Follow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review.

Want more branding insights? Join Paula’s newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe Here

Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.

PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.

Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.

To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Paula Edgar: Welcome to Branding Room Only, the podcast where your personal brand gets a front-row seat. I'm Paula Edgar, and if you're here, it's because you know your brand isn't just about what you do. It's about how people experience you. In each episode, you'll hear stories, strategies, and lessons from leaders and influencers who built their brands and made their mark. And I'll share the tools you need to do the same. Let's go. Hi, all. It is Paula Edgar back in the Branding Room for a wonderful conversation that I know I'm going to enjoy. I've been manifesting this for a long time. Let me tell you about my guest, Tara Jaye Frank. She's the founder of the Waymakers Change Group, leadership strategist, equity advocate, award-winning author of The Waymakers, and current project, You Are Before the World, an executive producer of Ninety-Two: The Silent Revolt No One Saw Coming, and my friend in my head. Tara, welcome to The Branding Room. Tara Jaye Frank: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You are also my friend in my head, so I appreciate this opportunity. Paula Edgar: Love, love, love that. So let's jump in. The podcast is about personal branding, but I mean the personal part about it for me is that I have lived this my entire life. I ask everybody, what does personal branding mean to you? How would you define it? Tara Jaye Frank: Yeah, it's interesting because I'm 51. I say that because what it means to me today is different from what it meant even two or three years ago. I used to think personal branding is about credibility. It is about the identity that you project to the world. It's what other people perceive of you, believe of you, and by extension, how they consider and treat you. These days, the idea of a personal brand is something that I appreciate and respect and simultaneously am railing against a little bit. Because I am committing to myself to just be myself every day in as many ways as I possibly can. Whatever that conveys to people is, in fact, my personal brand. I don't even always know what that is, meaning I don't know what they would say it is. I just know that I'm trying to be myself. Paula Edgar: That authenticity at the core of how you show up. I think for some people, when they define and say authenticity, I'm like, "Okay." But I feel that. I feel you that it's a values and a day-by-day, minute-by-minute, here's what you're going to get. I love that. I think that that is very authentic. Tara Jaye Frank: Well, thank you. Yeah. Paula Edgar: Speaking of which, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases? Tara Jaye Frank: Well, I am curious, insatiably so. I am creative. I am a little bit, lot bit of a hot mess. Infused with distinctive strokes of brilliance, I will say. Yeah, I'm really an interesting combination of very creative, but extremely analytical. I think that's allowed me to see things, understand things, synthesize information, convey that information in ways that is somewhat unique, that stands out. But it all really comes from that same root, that insatiable curiosity. Paula Edgar: I remember, I think I'm remembering this correctly. You are of the Virgo, correct? Tara Jaye Frank: Yes. Yes. Paula Edgar: I was like, "I felt it." Yes. I love all of that. It came through for me when you were talking. I was like, "Yep, exactly right." Okay. Do you have a favorite quote or a motto that is present for you right now? Tara Jaye Frank: A favorite quote or motto. That's a really good question, actually. I will say that right now I have really been keying into this idea of getting ready for what's ready for me. So as a Virgo and as someone who's quite frankly been conditioned to do more, go farther, dig deeper, build higher, I spent a lot of years just honestly getting ready for any possible scenario, all the contingency planning that could ever be contingency planned. I've learned over the last few years that getting ready before things are ready for me means a lot of wasted effort and energy, time, sometimes money. So these days I'm reminding myself on the regular, just get ready for what's ready for you. Paula Edgar: Hmm. It's a good intention too. I feel like it's energetically like I'm going to show up and it's going to show up for me when we are supposed to be with each other versus living in expectation, which my therapist tells me all the time is a setup. Tara Jaye Frank: Oh, I was just talking to a good friend about this yesterday about expectation. Yeah. Yeah. You can do a whole show just about that. Paula Edgar: I might just. I might just. Because I find myself grappling on a weekly basis with my therapist about how to not have expectations when I'm of the mighty Gen X. We want it done. Tara Jaye Frank: We drive on expectations. Paula Edgar: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So I know your quote. Tell me about your hype song. When they're going to get full Tara walking in the room, on the stage, what is playing in your head? Or on the flip side, if you're having a bad day, what do you need to hype you up? And it could be the same song or a different song. Tara Jaye Frank: Oh, I actually love that you asked that. It's a very different song. When I'm having a hard time, I listen to The Goodness of God by CeCe Winans. It is like the song that I can play on repeat. It calms my nervous system. But lately, don't laugh at me, my hype song is Defying Gravity. Paula Edgar: I'm not going to laugh at you. Come on. There are people who are listening. Tara Jaye Frank: Something has changed within me. Something is not the same. Paula Edgar: The people are like, yes, shout out to hashtag green girls. We represent. Tara Jaye Frank: Yes. Something is not the same. Paula Edgar: Yeah. A lot is not the same. Tara Jaye Frank: A lot is not the same. Paula Edgar: Well, tell me about your path. Where did you grow up? And how do you think that that shaped you? Tara Jaye Frank: Well, I grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It is a relatively small, very insular city. I'm Cape Verdean, so I grew up around basically a bunch of Cape Verdeans, a dash of Portuguese people, some French folks, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans. I mean, it was diverse in that way. But most of the people who live where I lived were second generation born in America. So immigrant, lots of immigrants. Because my Cape Verdean community was so insular, we all just spoke the same language. When I say spoke the same language, I don't mean literally like a language other than English. I just mean we understood each other. We ate the same foods. We listened to the same music. We had the same celebrations because our Independence Day, for instance, was not the same as American Independence Day. So we had an entire culture and we just moved through that in a very natural way. Well, the way it shaped me, though, is when I moved to Spelman. So I went to Spelman for college. I was like a fish out of all of the water. Nobody knew. I got all the what are you. I said things that people who live in Massachusetts say, like, where is the bubbler, instead of where is the water fountain. First time I went to the grocery store, someone asked me, "Do you want paper or plastic," when I moved to the Midwest. And I thought they were asking me if I was going to pay with cash or credit. They were asking me what bag I wanted. So I had all these experiences. So I went from being one of many and just foundationally understood, even though I've always been a little bit on the edge, a little bit unique, but still culturally being very understood to being not understood at all. What that cultivated in me is the bridge-building skill that I have refined over time. So you can pretty much throw me into almost, I'm careful to say almost, any situation with different kinds of people and I am able to understand just enough about them to find common ground and then to nurture it. Now, that doesn't always work, especially these days, because I find the more time that goes by and the more fraught things become societally, the less interested I am in every instance of doing that, the less energy I have for it. Paula Edgar: That resonates. Tara Jaye Frank: Yeah, depending on how sharp the blades are, if that makes sense. Sometimes I'm just choosing not to get cut. Paula Edgar: That resonates. One of the reasons why I ask all of my guests this question is because I feel like it is hard to know who you are if you don't know from when to have come, and I love finding all of it connectivity. For example, I as a 14-year-old girl went to Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and knew nothing about white people, about money, about lots of things. After Deerfield, which I enjoyed, loved, and still connect with today, I went to UMass Amherst, and the first time I went to UMass Amherst to just visit when I was at Deerfield, I met a woman who said she was from Cape Verde Islands. I was like, “I don’t know what that is. What is a Cape Verde? Girl, what is that? What are you even talking about?” Tara Jaye Frank: Where is that? What is that? Paula Edgar: Exactly. I was like, “Is that Puerto Rico? Or, like, I have two islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, which one is it?” And so I had to learn a lot. So when you talk about this, I want to call that out because there are still a lot of who don’t know what the Cape Verde Islands are, what it is. That is its own culture, its own space, Portuguese, Africa coming together and doing what people do, which is do the thing and making lots of wonderful people, some of my favorite folks. So that part. Tara Jaye Frank: Oh, you're sweet. Yeah, a few hundred miles off the West Coast of Africa. Surprised to no one, it was a Portuguese colony for a long time until 1975 when it gained its independence as an African nation. So a lot of the people that came over to New Bedford when my grandparents did came over when it was still a Portuguese colony. So as you can imagine, there was always lots of cultural complexity associated with that. But my dad was a member of the Party for African Independence for Guinea and Cape Verde, so he was part of that group that helped stateside with the independence. So yeah, a very rich, very rich culture, very rich history. I’m grateful for that. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Second piece that resonated for me was that you made the choice to change the world at Spelman. My daughter is a junior there right now. I say to her, "I also go to Spelman with you because I’m paying tuition." It is such a powerful, powerful, powerful community, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. So, so happy that she made that choice. So I just love finding the places of connection because they are so strong and so rich. It is a wonderful thing. Okay. So tell me from your path from Bedford to Spelman, tell me about your career. Tell me about what happened from there. Give me the, too long, didn’t read, but I’m going to read because everybody’s going to see the show notes. Tara Jaye Frank: Yes. So I started my career as a greeting card writer at Hallmark. I did that for a couple of years. I then became an editor and then an editorial director and then a creative director of editorial and then a vice president of writing and editorial. Then I moved into business innovation. I led business innovation for a while. Then I designed and stood up a multicultural center of excellence, which was built to help all of the consumer-facing divisions better understand how America's demography was changing and create solutions that would allow us to meet a diverse set of needs more reliably, more sustainably, in a more relevant way. I did that for a bit. I led that organization for a bit. Then certain personal things in my life started to shift. I became a corporate culture advisor to the president. I did that for a while. Then I resigned to start my own leadership and consulting firm, leadership and culture consulting firm, which is what I lead today. Paula Edgar: Mm hmm. Now, when you say the president, the president of— Tara Jaye Frank: Hallmark. Paula Edgar: Okay, I just want to make sure. I was like, “I think that's okay.” All right. I was like, okay. So how does one go into Hallmark to write greeting cards? Tara Jaye Frank: Well, first, let me say that I have been writing since I was very young. So I had my first poem published in the newspaper when I was six years old. Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that. Tara Jaye Frank: Yeah. So I've always been a big reader, big writer. When I was 14, I decided that I wanted to write greeting cards for Hallmark. Paula Edgar: When you were 14? Tara Jaye Frank: When I was 14, yes. I loved to draw and I loved to write. I was also very emotionally curious, which we would now just call nosy. But I like to think about it as emotional curiosity. So anyway, greeting cards is a thing that brings all of that together, right? The writing, the being curious about people's emotional lives, the artwork. So that vehicle was really fascinating to me. I used to make cards all the time. A lot of people do. But I didn't know how to get there because the internet was not a thing when I was 14. I figured, honestly, I'll just get there eventually. Like, I'll find my way there eventually. Then when I was at Spelman and I was sitting in Shakespeare class my junior year, Dr. Christine Sizemore was reading the announcements. She said, "Hallmark Cards is coming to campus on such and such day. They're looking for interns." Paula Edgar: I love it. Tara Jaye Frank: I was like— Paula Edgar: “Look at God.” Tara Jaye Frank: So immediately after class, I ran to the career placement center. I was like, I understand Hallmark's coming. I would like to be their tour guide. I'd like to take them to lunch. I'd like to be in any and all of the meetings. This is what I want to do. So they said, "Yes, okay, you can do that." Then I'm pretty sure I annoyed the people who came from Hallmark to no end during our visit. I asked so many questions, but I was also just really honest and forthright about my interest and my passion. So I submitted a portfolio. And, you know, funny story here, I talk about this in The Waymakers. I actually saw the comments on my portfolio when I became the leader of that entire division. The very first comment said from one of the writing managers at the time said, “sparks of brilliance, but no.” Paula Edgar: Ooh. Tara Jaye Frank: I was like, "Hmm." I think he still worked for me at that time. Paula Edgar: I was going to say, I was like, “[inaudible].” Tara Jaye Frank: I wasn't sure if he had left or not. I don't really know. But all that to say that there were people, people who came to campus, people who advocated for me in the room when they were deciding which folks to accept to the internship. There were people, a Black woman, namely, not the only one, but her name is Kim Carter. We're friends to this day, who advocated for me, who was like, "She was really passionate, There's definitely something here." She used whatever power influence she had in that moment to get me in the door. Once I got in the door, I just broke that thing down. Paula Edgar: I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. A part of your trajectory was that you had the opportunity to spend 10 years partnering with Dr. Maya Angelou. What's a lesson that you learned from her that still shapes you today? Tara Jaye Frank: Well, one time, I'm not going to say at band camp, but see, I couldn't help myself. We were in Malibu in a business meeting and there were several of us on our side and there were some other people we were meeting with. We're at this long table. She was sitting in the middle on one side of the table. I had pulled out the chair to sit directly across from her. But then the guests came in and there was a man. There wasn't really a seat readily available. So I was guiding him to the seat that I had been in. She shot me a look. I saw. I was trying to read. And she sat me down with her eyes. She was like—and I was just like—it was one of those—I grabbed the back of the chair. I was like—and she leaned in and she said, “You are as worthy of that seat as anyone. Do not ever give up your seat at the table.” Paula Edgar: Wow. Wow. Tara Jaye Frank: So yeah, there were many, to be honest. But that's one of them that really, really stuck with me. That really stuck with me. I was just trying to be a good host, if that makes sense. Like that's what was going on in my body. Like we're hosting the meeting. This person is a guest. I want him to have a seat. But she was having none of it. So I sat down across from her and the rest is history. The other thing she used to say all the time, and she first said this one, we were having dinner at her home in Winston-Salem and we were commenting on just all the beautiful artwork all over her house. She had sculptures in the backyard. Like it was like a museum of sorts. She said, “Yep, if it's not beautiful or useful, get rid of it.” So I still use that to this day when I'm like trying to declutter or whatever. Yeah. I just, I say to myself, “Okay, is this beautiful or useful?” And if it's not, you know, it's easier for me to get rid of it. That's a practical one. Paula Edgar: I'm going to take that one. I'm going to take that lesson from you via Dr. Angelou, because I need that, because I have a lot of not useful. I'm a collector of things. Tara Jaye Frank: Thanks. It's easy to do. Paula Edgar: Yes, it is. Okay, so let's jump into this. Your latest book, You Are Before the World, began with a moment of deep personal reckoning. Having read—that's probably an understatement—but okay, let's go with deep personal reckoning. Tara Jaye Frank: That works. Paula Edgar: When did you realize that that moment needed to become a book? Tara Jaye Frank: I love this question because it didn't happen in exactly that way. Like I was already writing and I wasn't sure exactly what I was writing or where it was going to go, but I was already beginning to tell stories. Because a decade before, I heard God say, “Tell them how I restored you.” The decade before, I tried writing this book and it didn't—it wouldn't come out. So I put it down. So, you know, kind of getting close to this moment of reckoning, I had begun trying to get some of this out. The day after the election, I just felt vacated. I felt emptied. I could not connect with myself, if that makes sense. I was, I guess, experiencing a disassociation of sorts. I had an experience the very morning after I was supposed to be getting on a plane to go to an author's weekend in another state. We planned it months before we thought we'd be celebrating. So that day I got up, I'm like, “I have to travel. I have to actually go and be around people.” I was not happy about that. I had a difficult morning and, you know, chat with my son, which we might get into at some point. So I get there to the place where we're going to be staying, and I ordered groceries to be delivered because I didn't want to go outside any more than I already had to be outside. And the reason is I didn't want my composure to be threatened. My personal brand when I worked in corporate was that composure, so composed, all of that. I was concerned that I could not keep it together if I heard the wrong thing or saw something triggering or whatever. So he showed up, the name popped up in the app, it said Socrates. I had to laugh to myself. So when he showed up, I asked him, “Is that your real name?” And he said, “Yeah, it's the name my parents gave me.” I said, “Well, I could use a little philosophy right about now.” He said, “About what?” And I swear to you, if you could have seen my face. I was like, “Did this man just ask me about what?” This was a Black man. I was like, “What do you mean about what?” So I said, “The world.” And he said, “You are before the world.” And he set the groceries down, and he smiled, and he walked away. And I stood there for what felt like forever, but it was probably more like two minutes. Just letting that fall on me like rain. Everything that statement meant was just coming up in my spirit. Like, “You're before the world. You have to take care of yourself first.” “You're before the world,” meaning sometimes you have to go before, you have to clear the path, which is connected to my last book. “You are before the world” as in people are more important than systems, right? The systems may be failing us, but there are individuals still, and human beings that we can connect with and build with and grow with. So all of that was coming on me, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I told you I'd already been writing the book. It had a different name, but this You Are Before the World was keeping me up at night. One night I just felt and saw all of these puzzle pieces coming into place. When I woke up, I knew that that was the book. So I changed the name of it that day. I began putting the puzzle pieces together in a new way based on that framing. Paula Edgar: I love how you spoke out the different ways in which the phrase can be thought about. Before I started reading, I thought to myself, “You are before the world,” meaning like you are talking, you are in front of the world. So it's all of those things. I have to confess something to you. I'd like to support everybody. Anybody who has a book, I'm buying. I'm buying a book because I just know it's important. So I bought The Waymakers, but it is one of those ones that sits. It just sits, sits there. Tara Jaye Frank: Thank you. Paula Edgar: Lovingly looking at me, knowing that I love it. The fact that I felt like I'm supporting somebody who's important to me and it's there, that's a happy thing. But this one, I actually had an opportunity to read and jump into. You have such a beautiful way of putting pen to paper, hand to keyboard, whatever way, that it felt like I was being carried through the story. Everybody who listens to me knows this, I don't often, number one, take the time to read the book beforehand. I don't. I just, it is what it is. Tara Jaye Frank: I hear you. Yeah, it's a lot. Paula Edgar: But I was called to do so. As I was reading it, I was like, “Okay. All right, God. I see you. I see you.” Because I have a book living inside of me that has been playing around. But more so, I realize the power of when you connect with the reader. Again, I was already team Tara right over here, but stronger now because I can talk about what I experienced as opposed to just being a superficial fan. So I want to encourage everyone. I'm going to do that anyway, but I want to encourage everyone, you know that I don't effusively talk about a lot. So you should take this as a call to action to experience what I had the opportunity to experience. So I want to just say that I feel like you really, truly have a blessing when it comes to how you put words on a paper. So that's how I want to share that. Tara Jaye Frank: Two things. One, thank you. I appreciate that more than you know. Second, okay, three, don't kick me. Second, you're not the first person to use those exact words, which I find fascinating, to say, “I felt carried through the story.” When I hear multiple people say that exact thing, I'm like, this is the reaction I'm having. Because the third thing is I prayed that You Are Before the World would meet people where they are with what they need. So much so that when I ask different people what it's about, I get many different answers. Paula Edgar: I can see that. Tara Jaye Frank: That's what tells me that my prayer was answered. Paula Edgar: Yeah, mission accomplished, I would say. Tara Jaye Frank: That's what tells me that the prayer is answered. Paula Edgar: Mission accomplished. And it pulls back to what you started with, which is that you show up authentically. That is what resonates, right? I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm in the closet looking at her world, and she's sharing this with me.” I'm like, “Does she know I'm here? I'm seeing this.” Tara Jaye Frank: If she knew I was here, would she close this door? Paula Edgar: But it's appreciated because so often we don't get the opportunity to be in community with someone in such an intimate way and still feel like we're all okay. I know that you came out of this, even though I was like, “What's going to happen next?” You know, so anyway, let me get back. Let me focus. “Focus, Paula. Focus.” Okay. So you, in this book, so deeply, so truly write openly about how you navigate fear and anxiety and the emotional load of being a helper. What did that inward journey reveal for you that may have surprised you? Tara Jaye Frank: One of the things I realized in the writing of the book, and I tell people that I was a different Tara when I finished writing it than I was when I started. People who read it all the way through can feel that. When I say that, they're like, “Yeah, I feel that.” So in the writing of it, I realized that I was afraid to establish boundaries because I felt like my helping was the reason why some people loved me. That if I withdrew my help, that they would withdraw their love. That honestly was probably one of, if not the biggest insight I had. I said yes to everything and everyone and extended myself and overextended myself. Because I feared not doing so would render me lonely. Paula Edgar: That resonates, not I think, I know, for many of the people who listen to this. But even if it's just me and you, it resonates so deeply because abandonment is something all of us live like we don't want. Regardless of our childhood trauma or not, societally it's like, how do I show up and show value? And if the value isn't in the helping, the doing, and the doing, and the doing, and the doing, and the doing, and the doing, and the doing, and the doing, and you're doing so much that you're done, and you can't do it for you, it doesn't resonate. Tara Jaye Frank: Then you're like, somewhere, like I say in the book, naked and afraid. I'll tell you, the day after the election, what happened there put a fine point on this for me. Because I thought to myself, "Hmm you can work twice as hard and do twice as much and jump twice as far. You can do all the things and still not get the outcome you want." Paula Edgar: Be uber qualified. Be uber qualified. Tara Jaye Frank: If that's true, that you can do all the things and be all the things and give all the things and still not be guaranteed the outcome you want, what does that mean for the over-giving, overdoing, and over-being? What is that real insight there? I talk about this in the film Ninety-two, but that was big for me. I was like, “Okay, what I want out of this life is not going to come by my might.” Paula Edgar: For real, for real. Because we are bending over backwards, doing backflips to show up. Sometimes the world is not before us doing what it is to do. Tara Jaye Frank: That’s exactly right. They won’t come along. Sometimes the world does not come alone. Paula Edgar: Yeah, yeah. There was a line in the book that hit me like a, it was like, boom. I sat with that, I sat there like, "Oh, okay." It is this, "We contort ourselves to fill the spaces offered to us. When we go beyond the parameters, we either hide our light or break the box." What led you to that? What was the moment that brought you to, I mean, I know because I read the book, but yeah, I want you to talk about this. Tara Jaye Frank: Well, at that point in the book, I was talking about romantic relationships. I was talking about how when we’re younger, which can be younger in age or younger in experience, and we want someone to love us—but that could be a job, too. It doesn’t have to be romantic. But in the book, I was talking about romantic relationships—we want someone to love us. We try to be what we think they want us to be because we want them. It’s really scary to resist that tendency to say, “Okay, this person or this job or whatever really likes or wants or requires this. I really want this person or this job or whatever. So yeah, I can do that. I can twist myself a little to the left. I can shrink just a little bit. I can take that extra layer off. I can stop saying exactly what comes to mind and think about a different way to say it. I can do all of this.” Every time we do one of those little half adjustments, it doesn’t feel like a big deal. Until we look back and the series of half adjustments has become a person we do not recognize. So this tension between contorting ourselves or breaking the box, breaking the box often means we will lose things. It is really scary to lose things. We can lose that person we thought we loved. We can lose a job. We can even lose our identity. Like I talk in the book about my divorce and I say one of the hard things was fixing my mind to create space where I could be a mother and only have my children half the time. My mental model did not allow for that. I had to break that box. What I had to lose in that instance was the idea of me, and mother differently. Mother in a new way. So yeah, the box breaking, we talk about it as something sexy, but I think we also have to respect it as something immensely difficult to do. Paula Edgar: I mean, it’s so true. It really connects to what you were just talking about to the how we can do all the things and still not get. It’s that same contorting. I think about it from the perspective of branding in that so often there’s what we think we’re supposed to do and be. You show up in this way and then this thing will happen and you’ll get these opportunities. Your point about the breaking and the loss, all of that is an active saying, “I’m not, I can’t or won’t be who I was yesterday.” That is a scary, scary, scary thing. I remember during the pandemic, I said, “I’m a different person every single day.” I was like, “But I know who I am.” Then I was like, “Oh, no, I have no idea who I am. I don’t know who I’m going to show up tomorrow,” because now we’re experiencing these things that unprecedented times is unprecedented time. So we show up differently in those spaces. But I don’t know. When I read that, I just was like, "It’s so, so true. So true." Tara Jaye Frank: You know, one of the things I really also wanted to challenge in this book, because I’ve struggled with it myself, is the perception that you have to have it all together. That successful women are always confident, that we have learned all of our lessons and now we just get to tell them to you. Paula Edgar: Girl. Tara Jaye Frank: That we’re always in the right rooms with the right people doing the right things, because that’s not true at all for me. I know it’s not true for them either, but I say they loosely. Clearly it’s probably true for some people. But I think a lot of women feel like they have to project not just this perfection, but like this strength, this assurance, this fortitude, this wisdom. Like, that’s why when you asked me to describe myself and I said I’m a hot mess, like infused with strokes of brilliance, because that is how I see myself. Like if I see myself as this successful, put together, polished, sharpened person, then the expectations I’m going to have of me are going to put me under. I’m not that person. Guess what? To your point, I decided in the last year, I don’t want to be in all of those rooms. Not because I don’t like the people in them. I do. I like them a lot. But because I don’t want to buy new shoes. I don’t want to buy new clothes. I don’t want to be on planes all the time. When I get tired of talking to people, I want to not have to do that. Like I just had to be honest with myself about what I really am willing to do, to be seen as this fancy person. I’m actually not willing. I’m not willing to do it. I don’t want to, is what I had to admit to myself. Then I was like, “Well, Tara, you may never be invited to the room with the fancy people.” I was like, “I’m okay with that.” I want to be in rooms like this with people like me who know that this is all just one very raggedy, up and down, circular, sometimes huge leap, sometimes big splat journey, experiment. Do you know what I mean? So I was also trying to push against that in the book a little bit to give us permission to be where we are. Paula Edgar: I do. I do. It does resonate. Although you are in a fancy room. I’m just letting you know. Tara Jaye Frank: You are fancy. Yes. I’m in a fancy room at the moment, but you know, I’m not in many fancy rooms anymore. And some of it’s by choice. Some of it’s just that I don’t get invited. That’s okay too. Like it is what it is. Paula Edgar: There’s a calm that comes from not needing to be chosen, that you’re choosing yourself. Tara Jaye Frank: You are before the world. Paula Edgar: That is what I felt from this book. It aligned very deeply with, I call her perimenopausal Paula, paulamenopausal, all of that. Because what I’m finding in this phase of my life is I don’t care. That there’s a deep, like, “You know what, if that doesn’t serve me, then that’s all right.” It doesn’t serve me versus I have to have this, I have to do that. While, again, I know from therapy that you cannot give people your lessons and for them to take it the same way, we can have people learn from them. One of the things I tell my daughter recently was, if I could give you any gift, the gift would be to leapfrog over mistakes that I made so you can make fresh, new, different mistakes. But I also know that that is not how the world works and that you’re going to have to do your own path and do these things. But one of the reasons why I have this podcast is because I just know that we learn from people’s stories. Tara Jaye Frank: We do. Paula Edgar: We do. So thinking about stories, you talk about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves, especially the ones that aren’t helpful anymore. What story did you have to rewrite for yourself to move forward? Tara Jaye Frank: Well, there are two. There are probably more than two, but the two coming up for me right now, one I already talked about a little bit, like I have to work twice as hard and be twice as good. I have to be who I am. I have to give my best when I have my best to give. I have to do what I can do until I can’t do it. You know what I mean? Paula Edgar: Yeah. Tara Jaye Frank: Like my daddy always used to say, “I don’t have to do nothing, but stay Black and die.” So like, that’s what comes up for me. I just, I have to be myself. I have to honor my values. You know, those are the things I have to do. But back to knowing that being twice as good is not the guaranteed outcome. Like I don’t say that to myself anymore. I don’t say it to anybody else. I think that what it really is, is getting ready for something that’s not ready for you. I don’t do that anymore. So that’s one of them. The other is that everybody who didn’t vote like me hates me. I felt that way in the beginning. I felt it like on a cellular level. I’m a very emotional person. So a rational person would be like, “Well, of course that’s not true. A plus B equals seven.” But I’m not that person. I feel everything very deeply. And I felt discarded. I felt betrayed. I felt abandoned. I felt underestimated and dehumanized in a way. My emotions initially were like, “We tried to tell you what all of this was going to mean. You didn’t care.” So now we are all going to have to feel the pain of that unwillingness to listen. Of course, now we know that was true. It is a very hard pill to swallow, and still I know that it is human nature for us to self-preserve. There are a lot of people who believe that that is what they were doing, whether they had good evidence or not, whether they were getting their info from a good source. Fact of the matter is, a lot of people believe that they were self-preserving. Many are now discovering that they in fact were not. But I realized that telling myself the story that people hate me is not healthy for me. What does that do for me? It makes me feel sad. You know, it makes me feel hopeless. I mean, I’m being a little dramatic, but I think you get my gist. I don’t think of it that way anymore. I think people had information. Some of it was good. Some of it was not so good. Some people were indeed malicious. A lot of other people just weren’t thinking because they can’t necessarily see too far beyond their nose, because they’ve not ever had to. We’ll all figure it out eventually. Or we won’t. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Deep sigh. Deep sigh emoji. Deep sigh. Tara Jaye Frank: Deep sigh, eye roll emoji. Paula Edgar: Exactly. Black girl shrug. All of the things. Yeah. Tara Jaye Frank: This one. Paula Edgar: Yeah, exactly. That part. When you said betrayal, I felt that. I’m from Brooklyn. Most people know this. I do feel like I take things personally. It’s a little bit of mafia in there and a little bit of “how could you?” When the election happened, I had just come from Spellhouse Homecoming, like the blackest experience I’ve ever been to in my entire life, where there was this energy and excitement. To go from that to that. Then similar to what you were saying, the day after the election, I had to speak to a room for the National Association of Women Lawyers. It was a room full of women lawyers. I was supposed to be talking about branding and here’s what we’re going to do. I got up on the stage and I was like, “No. We can’t. You’re not going to get Paulianna because I can’t.” Also, look to your left and look to your right and know that somebody in this place did not do what you think that they did. We have to navigate that. People still message me and say, I still remember, because I was hurt. Tara Jaye Frank: Hurt. Yeah. Hurt. It’s hard to do your best work when you are in pain. Paula Edgar: Yeah. I was like, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to show up the way you want me to. That is not my responsibility. I got to show up as who I am, and who I am is pissed. That’s where you’re going to get right now. Still one of my favorite experiences, because I was like, "You know what? You’re going to get full Paula, and you usually do, but you’re going to get her not prepared to say what I’m going to say. I’m just going to say what I think you need to hear." Let’s talk about, you already started to get into it, but I wanted to delve into it a bit more, the loss of roles as part of the conversation you have in this book. You talk about what happens when you lose roles, titles, expectations, and you specifically talk about this when it comes to your divorce. As I was reading this, I’m a married woman. I’ve been married 22 years. I’ve got lots of friends who’ve been through divorce, who’ve been happily married, and who are happily single. All of the things. But as you were writing about this, I was sitting in the “who am I if I’m not a wife?” Your point about what does motherhood mean if it’s only half the time. How did you navigate the way you understood who you were, who yourself was, in that shift of changing roles and expectations? Tara Jaye Frank: Well, I made a lot of mistakes in that period because I was just grasping at straws a little bit. I wish I could tell you that, I was like, "Yes, I stepped back, I created a story arc, and then began to step into that story." That was not how that happened. I did some dumb stuff. I acted in some weird ways. All of that. I drank a lot. I went through the things, to be honest. People kept telling me, “Focus on you, focus on you, focus on you.” So it’s like the “you are before the world.” I just began, honestly, brick by brick, reconnecting to things that were important to me. I started writing poetry every day. I would listen to the same playlist every morning, an edifying playlist. There was some India Arie on there, some Howard Hewett, “Say Amen,” on it, there was some CeCe. It was just a mix of things. I listened to it every single morning when I brushed my teeth and washed my face and got ready for work, and every single night when I went to bed, I created habits with my kids, things we would do every Saturday, things we would do every Tuesday night. I started investing in my health. I began working out. I hired a personal chef. That sounds more fancy than it is. What it basically meant is she would drop food off like twice a week, and I would just eat what she gave me. I didn’t have to think about anything else. I was like, “I’m just eating what’s in this box.” I started doing things like that. I spent time with my friends. Every Friday we would do a little happy hour thing, and I’d get a babysitter. So it was really small acts of care. People always tell us when somebody else you know and love is going through something, we feel like, “Oh, acts of kindness mean so much.” Well, I was giving that to myself. Paula Edgar: Oh, I love it. Tara Jaye Frank: And in that, I emerged. Does that make sense? Paula Edgar: Yeah. Tara Jaye Frank: I emerged from the rubble by putting myself before the world, by being kind to me. I emerged. Paula Edgar: Like a Phoenix. Tara Jaye Frank: Like a Phoenix. Paula Edgar: Like a Phoenix. Hmm. Tara Jaye Frank: And I'm so grateful. Then because you read the book, you know that even though I emerged like a Phoenix, I still had a little bit of a clip to my wings, and I had to work through that stuff too. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Yes. I was sending you energy. I was like, “Oh my. Oh my.” Tara Jaye Frank: I know it was a lot. I was doing the most. People will have to read it to know. Paula Edgar: We’re going to start our own little book club on the podcast. I’m like, "Okay, after y’all read it, send me a message." Then we’re going to figure out how to have our own Zoom talking about, “Did you meet that point?” Tara Jaye Frank: That was probably the part where you felt like you were in the closet. Like, “I don’t think she means for me to see this.” It's real. Paula Edgar: Everybody, you hear me. I am grasping for words. It is so, so real. Okay, so first of all, before I even get to this, you have to come back on the podcast. Tara Jaye Frank: Okay, I’d love to. Paula Edgar: So there's that. Because I have so many other things. Plus, after people read it, they’re going to ask me questions, and I’m going to have more questions for you. Tara Jaye Frank: I think you should host a little Oprah multi-screen Zoom thing where people come and then we talk about it. We saw that during COVID. She did it during COVID. You could do it. Paula Edgar: One hundred percent. We should do it. We should do a LinkedIn Live. Like, “Girl, did you read that part?” Yes, indeed. Okay, I’m going to jump forward because I feel like we’ve gotten to some of the core pieces. Tara Jaye Frank: We got to a lot of good stuff. Paula Edgar: We did. I want to ask you this. I ask everybody these last three questions. What do you do for fun? Tara Jaye Frank: Sometimes I watch the same movie I’ve seen repeatedly, again, that I love. I watch musicals for fun. Paula Edgar: Tell me which ones. I'd love to hear. Tara Jaye Frank: My husband thinks I'm very weird, but I’ve watched Wicked a lot of times. I’ve watched The Wiz. That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. Even though The Color Purple has some sad parts, I love watching The Color Purple. I love The Greatest Showman. I’m a big musical person. I enjoy I also read for fun. I listen to a ton of audiobooks. I made a post on LinkedIn recently. I listened to like fifteen memoirs this year. I just really enjoy it, hearing other people's stories and what they're learning. During the holidays, when I have more time, I love to bake. I like to try new recipes. I like being in the same room with my husband, and just be in the same room with my husband. That makes me very happy. We have two grandchildren now. Being with them, talking with them, especially our granddaughter, our grandson's coming up right now, but that’s a lot of fun for me. I find little bits of fun in a lot of different places, honestly. Paula Edgar: I love that. Okay. Give me two minutes. One quickly. What is the authentic aspect of your personal brand that you will never compromise on? Tara Jaye Frank: I want to say my values, but I know that’s really broad. So here it is. I believe every single person deserves to be able to contribute to the world fully, freely, and fairly. My entire body of work is rooted in this belief. I will not compromise on that. What that looks like practically is if I’m in conversation with someone and I get the sense that they are posing a challenge to another person’s humanity or right to exist or right to contribute fully, freely, and fairly, I will not engage. I have fired clients for less. Paula Edgar: Same. I love that. Okay. My final question to you is this. The podcast is called Branding Room Only because it’s a play on the term standing room only because I’m clever. Tara Jaye Frank: You are. I like it, chick. Paula Edgar: What is the magic of you that will leave a room with no seats left, standing room only for folks to experience about you? Tara Jaye Frank: I think the way I communicate is a differentiator. You know, again, I think it’s the curiosity combined with the creativity and also that synthesis skill. I will pull a gold thread from some chaos and spin the heck out of it. Paula Edgar: Make a lovely frock. Tara Jaye Frank: Make a lovely frock. When I say spin, I don’t mean lie and misdirect. But you know what I mean? I will make a lovely frock, girl. I will make a lovely frock. Paula Edgar: I love that. I love that. Tara Jaye Frank: It’s the thing that people say. You know, you said reading the book was like being carried. You said I have a gift for putting pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard. People even said that about The Waymakers. They said that they could tell that I am a poet. Because even though it is a business book, it was written beautifully. So I love words and I love the way they work together. So that’s probably the thing. Paula Edgar: Well, I love the words that you have chosen and the way in which you have used your gift to help support us in all of our journeys. I thank you so much for being in the Branding Room. Everybody, I already told you like three or four times, you know I like to repeat myself. You better go get this book because I am changed and you need to be changed with me so we can talk about it. You are going to find all the links, all the stories, all the things in the show notes. Go look at them, share them, tell people about this conversation. I want us to make sure we remember that we are before the world. Tara, thank you so much for being. Tara Jaye Frank: Thank you so much, Paula. I really appreciate the invitation. It means so much to me. Thank you. Paula Edgar: All right. Bye, y’all. That's it for this episode. I appreciate you hanging out with me on Branding Room Only. Now, please do me a quick favor: head over to ratethispodcast.com/branding so more people can join this conversation. And make sure to stop by at paulaedgar.com/events to see what's next. Whether I'm live, online, or in person, I'd love to see you there. See you next time in the Branding Room. And until then, stand tall, shine bright, and always stand by your brand.