Candid conversations with small business owners about what’s working to run & grow their businesses

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EP 242: Embracing Uncertainty To Grow Your Business With Co-Creating Inclusion Founder Alethea Fitzpatrick

Mindset & Identity

Alethea is the founder of Co-Creating Inclusion, a diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting firm with a mission to shift culture and drive equity through workshop facilitation, leadership development, and business integration.

But Alethea has also been the founder of a host of other ventures!

To continue our focus on resilience and entrepreneurship, I wanted to talk with Alethea about the long and winding journey she’s taken to get to where she is now. Because where she is now is authentic, organic growth and a whole new level of success doing work that is incredibly important to her (and to the world).

EP 241: Finishing What You Start With Start Finishing Author Charlie Gilkey

Mindset & Identity

Today, I invited my dear friend Charlie Gilkey back on the show to talk about the subject of his new book, Start Finishing: How To Go From Idea To Done. It’s perfect for this month we’re spending on resilience.

You see, Start Finishing, sounds like a book on productivity—and it is. But it’s the kind of productivity book that only a philosopher could write. And this is the kind of interview on productivity, decision-making, planning, and doing your best work that only a philosopher could give.

If you don’t know Charlie already, let me give you a bit of background. Charlie is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Nebraska. He was a logistics officer in the Army National Guard and was deployed in Iraq. He’s now the co-founder & CEO of Productive Flourishing, which helps people build better businesses through strategic planning, system development, self-mastery, and personal effectiveness.

I wanted to find out what resilience has to do with the way we do—or do not—complete the projects that we start and the goals we half-heartedly commit to.

My conversation with Charlie certainly provided some answers to that question—and a whole lot more.

EP 240: Leveraging Commitment To Find What Works With Tara McMullin And Big Dreams Bold Moves Host Malia Russell

Community

Today, you’re going to hear from me.

A few months back, I got an email from Malia Russell, the founder & host of Big Dreams. Bold Moves., which helps expat families deal with the challenges—and opportunities!—of living and working abroad. Malia wanted to know if I’d do an episode on what works for What Works.

So I invited her to interview me and pick my brain about how things have evolved at What Works, why we’ve landed on running things the way we do, the mistakes I’ve made along the way, and what goes on behind-the-scenes.

By the end of this interview, I think you’ll have a better idea of why I’m steadfastly committed to What Works and the philosophy that powers it. Plus, you’ll learn more about what’s working for us right now.

EP 239: Expanding Your Capacity Beyond The Classroom With Design Dance Founder Debra Giunta

Growth

My guest is Debra Giunta, the founder of Design Dance, a community dance education company that’s reaching over 1500 K-12 students with arts education and social-emotional learning every year.

I talk with Debra about her vision for Design Dance and how it led her to making important choices about when she started hiring help. We also talk about how Design Dance has expanded from its original school partner into 50 different sites, how she hires teachers to manage all those programs, and the nitty-gritty of how the business runs on the inside.

From Our Listeners

“I love Tara’s ‘let’s get real’ style and willingness to go deep with her guests about what’s actually working in their businesses. With so much smoke-and-mirrors content out there in the business world, this podcast is a refreshing, honest, and genuine change of pace for serious small business owners.” – Lara Dalch, Health Coach

“I get so many ideas from listening to this podcast. Tara asks excellent questions. What I love most is hearing from business owners whose business is different from mine and seeing what works for them, and what I can apply in my own business.” – Dr. Michelle Mazur, founder of Communication Rebel

Are you a small business owner with an unconventional or highly thoughtful way of working?

Would you like to share the nitty-gritty of how you do things with the What Works audience?

We’re always looking for guests, especially from unusual industries, using creative business models, and from underrepresented communities.

Here’s how to be considered:

  • Let us know 2-3 processes or strategies you use in your business that are unconventional or incredibly thoughtful that might make a good angle for a 30-40 min deep dive interview, or…
  • Share a personal inflection point in your business–like a mindset shift you made and how it played out in your business
Once we have the potential story in mind, we can see how you might fit into our editorial calendar!

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Meet Tara McMullin

Tara McMullin is the founder & host of What Works. She’s been connecting small business owners through mastermind groups and online community for over a decade. Whether on the podcast or in the online network, her goal is to facilitate the free flow of ideas, information, and inspiration between entrepreneurs.

She believes that no one person has the answer to “what works” in small business–but that, together, we can create living, breathing knowledge-base of real-world solutions to all of our small business challenges.