Leading Ladies - Tamara McCleary
Tamara McCleary has been such an amazing role model to follow. She is an internationally recognized expert on relationships and conscious business. Tamara is always such a joy to follow and connect with on Twitter as her content is full of inspiration and you can tell she is always looking to make relationships the best they can be.
Ranked in the Top 1% of global Social Media Influencers, Tamara is one to connect with! Enjoy her feature as I know you will learn so much!
HOW DID YOU GET YOUR START?
I started about about age 8 collecting aluminum cans on my bicycle and turning them in for cash at the recycling center. So I guess being an entrepreneur for me is best coined by Lady Ga Ga, baby I was born this way. I started my own independent consulting firm in 1996 after almost a decade spent in healthcare management,operations and a practicing clinician. I was a registered nurse working in end-of-life care as a pediatric hospice case manager. After years of doing bereavement counseling with parents of dying children and working in the field of death and dying, I learned a ton about living and life. That experience drove me to push to live to my fullest self-expression, as well as, powered by an enormous passionate desire to help others create a life of deep fulfillment, joy, happiness, and feeling fully self-expressed. I enjoy every minute of what I do facilitating success for individuals, groups, and companies.
WHAT RISKS DID YOU TAKE?
Since my entire experience is shaped around the reality that the only thing we can count on is that this too shall pass and we do have an end as far as this physical expression is concerned, I feel the only risk is in not doing something we’ve always wanted to try. The most common regret that people share at the time of their death is what they didn’t say, didn’t try, didn’t do, didn’t see, didn’t experience.
WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU?
Spiders? Not having an experience that I want to have? I am being 100% honest, authentic, and transparent when I say that after watching, caring for, and being at the bedside of hundreds of dying children who never had a chance to experience all the wonder and amazement of growing up, No-thing scares me. And yes, I am ready for my departure when it comes. I hope it’s a long, long, time from now.. but I’ve dealt with my issues around death, I was forced to look death straight in the eye, every day, for almost a decade. Let’s just say I’m so high and passionate about life that there’s no room for fear.
LOOKING BACK ON YOUR CAREER, WHAT WAS A MAJOR TURNING POINT FOR YOU?
The giant transition in 1996 from employee to employer. As an entrepreneur, it’s 100% full responsibility….full joy, full freedom, full dedication, full devotion, full discipline, fulfillment.
WHAT ARE THREE PIECES OF ADVICE YOU'VE RECEIVED THAT YOU'VE CARRIED WITH YOU THROUGHOUT YOUR CAREER?
- Lord, release me from the need for love, approval and appreciation so that I might be truly free.
- Don’t worry about what other people think about you because everyone is worried about what everyone thinks when no one is thinking of anyone but themselves anyway.
- Begin with the end in-mind. When you leave this earth, what is it that you want to be remembered for and to have experienced before you leave? Be that and Do that NOW.
BIGGEST MISTAKE?
Believing in the illusion of mistakes. There are no mistakes, only missed opportunities to learn and grow, and consequences for our decisions and actions. Be fearless, get messy, and learn, learn, learn! We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. Give yourself a break and enjoy the experience of being a deliciously flawed human being having a magical, wonderful, miraculous opportunity to feel what it is to be alive!