Habits and Hustle - Episode 145: Teneshia Warner – CEO of Egami Group, Founder Dream Project, Speaker and Author

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Teneshia Warner is the CEO of Egami Group, Founder Dream Project, a speaker, and author. Egami Group is an award-winning multicultural marketing firm specializing in brands to urban and multicultural consumers. In this episode, we discuss the power of truly dreaming of your best life. Teneshia discusses the importance of dreaming and breaks down a step-by-step method to do it effectively. This woman is vibrating with incredible energy and wisdom! You won’t want to miss this.  Youtube Link to This Episode Teneshia’s Instagram Teneshia’s Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to Habens in Hustle, fresh it. Today on the podcast and I really enjoyed this one was Tanisha Jackson Warner, who is an award-winning multicultural marketing expert, a purpose-driven entrepreneur and author. Her latest book is called The Big Stretch, which is 90 days to expand your dreams, crush your goals, and create your own success. I really enjoyed this conversation with Tanisha because not only is she an excellent communicator, but she actually has very

practical and actionable ways that you can integrate her advice into your life. She gives these tests on her website where you can even pick the kind of dreamer you are and then help you figure out what your next move and step is. She created also, she's the founder of the Dream Project Symposium, and that's an annual empowerment conference

that helps thousands of entrepreneurs, creatives of the Dream Project Symposium, and that's an annual empowerment conference that helps thousands of entrepreneurs, creatives, and career dreamers plan and achieve their goals. I really hope you enjoyed this thing to this podcast. It's filled with some amazing information to really help you level up your life. I promise you, enjoy. So today we have Tenecia Jackson Warner,

who is the CEO of the Agammy Group and the author of the book, The Big Stretch. And we're going to jump right in Tenecia. Are you ready? All right, let's do this. And thank you so much, Jennifer, for having me. No, absolutely. I was just saying to Tenecia offline that she's an amazing

communicator and she really lands the plane. She gets to the point, she has very succinct messages. So I'm really excited that you're on the podcast because I think that you, I think the people listening can glean a lot of really practical, relevant information if it's somebody who's a dreamer, someone who's changing careers, who wants to like kind of fulfill whatever their life purpose is, you're a great person to have on the podcast. So let's first start with the book title, right? The big stretch. What exactly does that mean? The big stretch. Okay, so I define the stretch as the expansion that will be required of you to meet the best version of yourself.

Another way to look at it is the expansion outside of your comfort song and moving in the direction of your dreams. So one thing that I found in speaking with hundreds of iconic dreamers, all of them had one universal truth. In order to achieve that dream, they had to be willing to stretch and expand outside of their comfort zone and in the direction of their dreams. Well that's okay. So let me start by saying, what is the first step though towards turning your dream into a reality? Because I know that we're going to get into this. I know your whole thing is about following that dream, and you even have a quiz that people

can take to see what kind of, there's like archetypes of different dreamers, right? So I loved it. I took the quiz, by the way. We'll get into that in a second. There's like archetypes of different dreamers, right? Yes. I loved it. I took the quiz, by the way. We'll get into that in a second. But yes. But to start, how does someone start?

I think the hardest part in for people is the start. They're overwhelmed. What do you suggest? So Jennifer, the way that I approached this book was from two directions. Number one, I am a dreamer at heart. And I've been on a dream journey for about 18 years now. So I was able to use my key learnings of just manifesting dream after dream after dream.

And then the second thing that I did, I analyzed all of these dreamers that I interviewed by way of the dream project, and I really tried to find a dreamers' blueprint. And so the steps that I'm gonna share with you, they are the universal truths that I found after speaking with these dreamers, but also after living it personally myself.

So phase one is giving yourself the time to dream and imagine. And so Jennifer, what I found is a lot of people were so busy that we're not even giving ourselves the time to stop, pause, get inspired, actually allow your imagination, the freedom to determine what is it that it wants to create through you. And something that I found with all of these business people, Magic Johnson was one of the dreamers I interviewed. He talked

about the importance of walking on the treadmill because he knew that's where he got his ideas, right? Oh my God, I love that you just said that. You see behind me what I have is treadmills. I do the podcast on treadmills. You do? Yes, that's why I'm person because I'm a huge, I believe that too.

I mean, magic are like in sync. I get my best ideas on the treadmill. I think that it is a great way to really focus and also cognitively, you know, your brain creatively gets your juices flowing. So I don't like to sit sedentary. I do the treadmill every day, but also I do the podcast on the treadmill, see?

Oh my God. I didn't know that those were treadmills behind you. So that means Jennifer, you are already in tune and aware of your ideal dream environments. But in this first phase, I'm challenging the dreamer to give yourself that time to imagine. A second thing that I tell you is, I don't want you to start prematurely thinking about the how.

One of the greatest killers of a dream is for you to start thinking about how to soon. Like you have to first let the inspiration come and actually allow your imagination to just run wild, run free. And there's going to be a point where we get to the how, but not too prematurely. In the dream phase, other things that I challenge is also really understanding your ideal dream environment.

Jennifer, you seem to really know that your treadmill is a part of your secret magic formula. So, that's something that I actually have the reader that you all will actually journal about to become aware. Do you know where you get your ideas? I get my ideas when I'm immersed in nature. A second thing that I challenge dreamers to do in this phase is actually study your dream ancestry. And this is very important. If you don't take the time to actually ask yourself,

what were you taught about dreaming? From your mother, your father, your grandparents, there's usually a dream DNA that can be found in the lineage of dreamers, And you need to identify with that because you need to know what's working for you and or what's working against you. An example here is my grandmother. What I was taught about dreaming Jennifer for my grandmother was you go and you get a good good job. Period. Yeah, me too. That was basically the same. Get an education and get a job.

And basically, and follow the linear line of like, then have two kids and then have this and have that very, very structured what is supposed to be the good way of living, right? Or like the, what's considered to be a successful life, right? That's, I'm Jewish. Like education is very important. And there are so many people that are on the path,

but if you've never taken the time to actually study, what were you taught about dreaming? Then you can't analyze what beliefs are you taking from your family history that's supporting you, but what beliefs will you have to actually release that won't support you going forward in the direction of the dream? So I actually have you spend a lot of time on that.

I did that personally as well, Jennifer. I was working a great job at IBM Global Services, and I realized I had no passion for the job at all, and I took a big bow step to leave that job and actually move in the direction of passion and purpose. I love that. I was gonna ask you about that. I want, you know what, that's a question.

And then area I wanted to focus on later on because you didn't become a marketing, you didn't start this on a linear path. You were doing something different and you made a pivot because of a professor, which I'm gonna this on a linear path. You were doing something different and you made a pivot because of a professor, which I'm going to ask, we're going to talk about. I heard you speak about that on something else.

And I thought that was fantastic. But what you did say, what I think is very interesting, is the time piece. Because I think, especially now, in a time of a lot of social media, we have a lot of information coming our way. We're inundated, but yet we don't, our brains are so busy, like trying to filter things and see this and our attention spans are so limited,

even more so than ever. I saw a study recently that said that, you know, in the last 15 years, our attention span has went from like, I think it used to be like 16 seconds down to like seven seconds or something and saying like that, like a minute or something crazy. But how do people find the time, or would you tell people when they say to you, but Tanisha,

I don't have the time. I don't have the time to dream because I have kids, I have a work, I don't have time to, you know, even like blow my nose. How am I going to have time to dream, right? So what I'm going to do is actually tell them to go to the big stretchbook.com and download and time audit exercise that is available for no cost. And the first thing I want to tell all the centers best if you if that's your excuse that you don't have time is I want you to do this time audit. And essentially what I'm going to have you do in that time audit is log all of your time for a period of time. I think I start you out with like seven days. And then I want you to go back and actually pay attention to where

are you spending your time. And then you have to do a negotiation with yourself to say, where am I going to get my time back for me? I did this exercise before with the mother and she was also a working executive and she was I was working with her on a dream to write a book and when she did this time audit exercise she actually came back to me and I think she started out with only 30 minutes that she could carve out from 11.30 p.m. to 12.00m. And I mean, this was like after working, after putting the kids to sleep, doing what she had to do, major executive,

but she really wanted to do this dream. She took those 30 minutes and over a period of time, she used those 30 minutes to write the outline for the book, to then eventually turn it into a proposal. Did it take a longer time? Yes, but she was aware of what time she was dedicating to her dream. That's amazing, I do.

That's a fantastic idea. And I think that a lot of times, it's like calories, right? People don't realize how many calories they're reading a day, right? Because they're hidden. You're like, I don't know, all I had was a salad. Me and that salad have like 5,000 calories,

because you're not counting the cheese and the groutons. Safety with time, I think when people maybe look at their day and they're super, super busy, they'll notice that they're like watching real housewives and Beverly Hills. Or like, you know what I mean? Or like, they're like curling their hair for 45 minutes when, you know, they can put their hair in a ponytail

or whatever it is. Like, there's ways that you can see visually if you actually like, you actually do something where you're righted down and you see it in front of you, that is a really good idea. I really love that. Yeah, and then you can bargain with yourself. Okay, which one?

Netflix binge watch or dream? And you can borrow the time back from yourself or reallocate the time and make it work for you in the direction of your dream. So, because I was gonna say to you, that my follow up was, what do you tell people when they don't have a dream? Like they kind of know they don't want to be doing what they're doing.

But they don't really know if they should go right or left. Is that where the time piece becomes so important? Because you can figure that out. Or is there anything else you can suggest for people who don't really know. They know they don't want to be doing what they're doing, but how they can figure out what their dream is. Well, the first thing that I would say is

I want them to take a big mousa because it feels like pressure to all of a sudden you need to know what's your purpose for your life or you need to know what's your purpose for your life or you need to know what's your big dream. Here's the thing I've found I know this personally which I'll tell you when we start talking about this story. Oftentimes you may not know what the ultimate answer is going to be but if you're willing to number one be curious, almost do a self analysis on yourself and ask yourself, what are the passion areas?

Like what are the things that you would do for no fee? What are the things, and you don't have to connect the dots logically at first. Become self aware to understand what are your passions? What are you interested in? After you do that exercise, then I'm going to challenge you to be curious. Do research. Maybe someone jot it down.

You know what? I love designing homes, like interior designs. My mom would be great at this exercise. She watches hours of HG to be right. And so when you're curious, Google, like what are all the careers in interior design? Maybe you find one or two that you research and just being curious will open different pathways for you. It can open different opportunities. And so be okay with knowing that it's a journey of discovery. And sometimes you won't have like a perfect match. For me, when I left IBM Global Services,

here's what I knew. I knew that I was on the wrong bus and the wrong seat. Talk about like right people right in the seat. I was on the wrong bus, wrong seat going in wrong direction. That's what I knew. I didn't know where I was supposed to be going, but I knew where I was going was not right for me. I started with this internal exercise. I wrote fashion down. I mean, I was spending my whole check on clothes at the time. That's not the case anymore. I wrote fashion. I wrote entertainment, I wrote culture, I wrote community. I allowed myself to then follow the interest area. In fashion, I researched all of these different people. I actually started reaching out to do

informational interviews. And that's another thing. You'll be surprised. People will not turn you down to do informational interview. But now you ask for like 15 to 20 minutes of their time. Don't do like a whole hour if you don't know them. But I found that like fashion stylists would meet with me and make a long story short. I ended up landing an opportunity to volunteer on a movie set as a costume stylist.

And at the end of that movie set, the lead fashion designer told me, you have a great personality We love your energy here But I don't think this is the path for you Tanisha and I was so disappointed I said why not and they said we've never had a fashion stylist on set Organized all of the clothing in a spreadsheet by color. It's like more of a creative thing But jerk the way your rain works. And so I discovered I was I became closer to my purpose by

discovering what it was. So sometimes it's a process of elimination but even if you're just willing to move in that direction you're moving on the right path. I could not agree with you more. This is like you're singing my song right now. I could not agree with you more. This is like you're singing my song right now. I totally agree with you. I think also what you said one time when I was researching you a bit that really struck a chord with me, too, is the volunteer aspect.

But you just, because you just talked about that. And today's time, people don't look at volunteering as like a sexy thing anymore, like, or like, their time is too valuable, or God forbid, I volunteer, no one wants to volunteer. But volunteering is an amazing way to see if that's really a path or an area that you should be going down,

because at the end of the day, you don't really know what you don't know. And to your point with the fashion, in your brain, you thought it was one thing, but then until you did it and you figured it out, you were like, no, this, maybe this isn't the right thing for me. So volunteering, information,

and these are all things that people are more than willing to, if you call somebody up and you say, I want to volunteer, no one's gonna, no very few people are gonna turn down free help, right? I won't, call me, you know? Jennifer, so many people, and especially now, like it's almost unheard of that you're talking to people about the power of service

and the power of volunteering. Hands down, if you were to ask me, like in my toolbox, what were your top three tools that you utilize to change the trajectory of your career volunteering by far would be in my top three. So number one, I told you about being, you know, pitching myself to the movie fashion director, and I landed an opportunity to work on a movie set, which by the way, I did that while working at IBM Global Services, I knew where I could reallocate the time,

I learned what the purpose wasn't. Fast forward, you know, maybe a year or so later, I actually pitched myself to Camora and Russell Simmons, and I asked, can I volunteer in exchange for an opportunity to learn that pitch, you know, I call it a pitch, you know, people would say volunteer, whatever. But that pitch changed my life because I was allowed the opportunity to volunteer at Rush Communications. And I learned so much about community culture, entertainment. I later went from a volunteer to General Manager of Rush Communications and then later took all of that information which is now very much so a part of our core offerings at my

marketing firm. But if you trace it all back it started with a willingness to volunteer in exchange for an opportunity to learn. Keep coming back you got plenty of space. Oof, not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can rely on, like USAA, who has helped guide the military community for the past 100 years. USAA, get a quote today.

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you're speaking my language, It makes perfect sense to me. Do you believe that you can teach drive or you can teach ambition? Because a lot of people don't love their spot in life, but they don't want to do the work to get to where they need to go. Oh my God. So first of all, Jennifer, no one has ever asked me that question. This is such a good interview. Do I believe you can teach drive and ambition? So I'm going to give one of those answers that you probably don't like.

That's like, uh, uh, so I think you can help a person actually tap into a drive that maybe is lying dormant, that they do not know is there. You can help a person actually tap into a drive that maybe is lying dormant, that they do not know is there. I do think you can coat someone into that. One of the major ways that I would say do that is getting that person into it. What is it costing you to not be driven? Like, what is it costing you to not be driven? Like what is it costing you to not be more ambitious?

And then the question that I always ask myself is what version of myself will I not get to meet in this lifetime if I don't keep going and going and going? I want to meet every version of myself and I'm changing every single day. So I want it to meet the CEO. I want to meet every version of myself and I'm changing every single day. So I wanted to meet the CEO, I wanted to meet the author, I want to meet the philanthropist, I want to meet the global international thought leader, which I haven't met her yet, but I want to meet her. And so I want to meet every version of myself

in this lifetime. It's not going to happen with me just sitting doing nothing. I gotta push and drive and fight to meet the best me. And so I do think you can inspire or coach an individual into how do you harness your inner drive. But I will say this, at the end of the day, we can coach, we can push. The person that it's going to boil down to is the person that's looking at you in the mirror. And if you're unwilling to be more ambitious for that person

or you're unwilling to tap into that drive, all of the coaching in the world. I mean, you use the diet analogy or, I mean, it's like working out with a trainer. You know, I honestly, I'm laughing to myself now because I feel like I'm talking to myself in this interview. I mean, I agree with you. I mean, I really don't believe. That's a good answer.

I don't think I'm going to, it's because it's a hard question because I do believe that you can inspire someone, but the problem I have with Motivate, you can't, people always ask that, how do you get, you know, what about motivation? Motivation to me is a silly term because people don't stay motivated. It's not a long-term fix. It's a very short-term fix. Now, you know, I think, you know, you just said, you can be inspired, but if someone in themselves are not, don't want it, you can't, you can't, it's okay, well then that's, it's on them, you know? So, but I really, I like that. And can you talk then about, because I think this can help people too,

figuring out what type of dreamer they are, because maybe that can help them figure out what path to go on, or what area to focus on. So, and I'm so excited. I mean, you're just, I'm loving spending this time with you. So Jennifer, one of the areas that, so for all of the listeners, if you go over to thebigstress.com,

there is a Dreamers Profile Assessment. I'm gonna tell you why it's important to take this. So in doing my conference, the Dream Project, I started to notice that people would come up to me and actually feel guilty if they did not identify what they perceived the dreamers path was. And in many cases, it was an entrepreneur. So I would actually have people come to me and say, you know, I just don't think I have the guts to start my own business. And then almost look at me like, man, I'm not a dreamer. And so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to go a bit deeper into supporting people to understand your dream path is as unique as you are.

And it's not like a right-size fix, fix, fix all. Everyone is not meant to be an entrepreneur. I have a friend. She needs to get a W2 and she needs to get her paycheck on the first and 15th. She's no less than a dreamer than myself who's been on an entrepreneur journey for 18 years. And sometimes society will make you think if you're not on the entrepreneur path then maybe you you know don't have what it takes to be a dreamer especially on Instagram when everybody's like looking like they're doing you know whatever totally, totally true. So this profile assessment when

you take it there's five different types and even when you take it I there's five different types. And even when you take it, I do want you to know you may end up realizing that you identify with multiple types. So one is, and I'm going to start here, a career per newer. A career per newer is someone who really works extremely well in structure. They thrive working on teams, they enjoy working in structured environments, but for them, they really want to map a profession and purpose together.

They need to have more meaning in their career. And I've worked with amazing careerpreneurs that are driving like major impact in the world and we need them there. So that's one dreamer type. The second one is the make it happen dreamer. So the make it happen dreamer, that is that entrepreneur type that I was talking about. This is someone that you will meet and they don't do well in structure. They do not do well with people telling them what to do, but they usually have a high tolerance for risk.

And so they can stomach if that chick doesn't come on the first and 15th, a little bit more than someone who like will go just completely crazy, if the 15th comes and the chick isn't there. My husband is a make it happen dreamer. Another one is a hobby dreamer. I have a dreamer that I work with and she was so honest with me.

She said, Tanisha, I need you to understand my professional career affords me an extremely good lifestyle and it really did. She said, do I like it? No. Do I love the lifestyle? Absolutely. Will I trade the benefits of the lifestyle? No.

But I want to try to figure out how do I nurture my passion. So for her, we figured out that she was passionate about fashion, fitness, and travel. And she started this blog just nurturing her passion. And she's what I call a hobby dreamer. Later that passion led to her becoming a Chicago based influencer and she started to get gigs and paid and trips all by following her passion. So that's a hobby dreamer. You want to nurture your passion but you do not want to put the responsibility of your passion to take care of you. So you might like like painting, right? But you have responsibilities and you don't want to say, okay, I don't want

to put the responsibility of painting to take care of me and my family. So that's a hobby dreamer. The CEO dreamer is someone who you potentially have worked in corporate for a number of years, but you've always wondered, do I have what it takes to one day take all of my skills and venture out and do my own thing? You're usually able to take your skills that you have from your career and it's a transferable career

and you are able to then branch out and do your own thing. And the last one is the activist dreamer. An activist dreamer is someone that will see a problem in the world and they must do something about it. These are, you know, non-profit leaders. These are leaders of societal issues and movements. And I found that some people will see a problem in the world and they must act.

And so, and they are willing to dedicate their life and drink to it. So those are the five types. I want you to go and take the test. You might identify with maybe one to two and Jennifer, I can't wait. I want to know what dream are type. Where are you? You know, okay, that's funny because when you were talking about it, I feel like I would be the one that your husband is the Make it happen make it happen But it was the CEO one that I got the CEO dreamer And I think did you before doing this career? Did you work somewhere? I did yeah, I worked I was in the music business as in the sports world and Yeah, I worked, I was in the music business, I was in the sports world. And now I, like I started my own companies

and I sold companies. But so, but like I never, I think why I got the CEO one because there's a couple of questions that I think, I'm a creature of habit and I love hat. Like I'm very routine based. So maybe that threw them off, but I'm very routine-based. So maybe that threw them off, but I only like that for myself. So like my morning routine or my evening routine,

like I'm a big person who believes that you have routine and ritual in place so you can be as productive and as on point as possible, which is why exercise is a big one for me, because it gets my mind revved up and I'm much more alert. But yet, I don't like routine when it comes to dealing with people.

So like, I'm very much the ton of misperson. I like to call the shots in a certain way. So I think that's why there was a lot of like differences. Like I'm like a total, yeah, like I'm not organized with spreadsheets and And and that doesn't work for me, but Yeah, so that's a mirror hybrid I'm a hybrid happen and a CEO dreamer. I can totally see that. Yeah, I'm a hybrid for sure

But I like that test and this is the thing. So I come back to this because now people, I love that time modded thing we talked about. So let's say people now are getting closer to understanding where what they want to do or where they go and whatever else between the between taking the dream test, the time auditing. And now what's the next step? Like when are they supposed to implement

and how do they implement? So once you have been out in what I call like the creative world where you're exploring and you're learning and you're thinking about your past then you've taken the test and maybe now you have something that you know you want to move towards. We're going to move you from the dream phase into phase number two, which is design. And design is really where you have to then apply structure to the creative process.

And so for example, I'm going to just throw a goal out there. Let's go back to the fashion. I don't know why fashion keeps coming. But maybe you have determined that you would like to identify a career in the fashion industry. You figure that out in the dream phase, right? The design phase is having you apply structure. And so I'd like to start from a year basis. What is the one year goal that you want to achieve

as it relates to this dream? Now, the example that I'm using, let's say that the one year goal is, I will have landed a job in the fashion industry over a 12 month period. So again, you're taking that vision and then you zone in on one component of what is the one thing you want to achieve in this dream in 12 months. Then I ask you in order to achieve that part of the vision in 12 months, what would need to start happening today? And it allows you to start breaking it down into achievable parts. And so, and I'd

like you to break it down into achievable parts over 90 days. This is what we do in my company is what a lot of major companies do. They're taking it quarter by quarter. Right. And so if the ultimate goal is to land that career in the fashion industry, then potentially you, let's say in the 90 days, you're researching up to 20 job opportunities a week. You are sending LinkedIn notices to recruiters up to 10 a week. You are committed to at least going on a minimal of two interviews a month and you will meet a new person from networking. Maybe you say one to five a month.

And so what you're doing is you're breaking that down in order to do it, what actions need to happen today to help me realize that dream. And if you do that, you'll start to map in these 90 day actionable plans. Now, it's very important. You probably noticed Jennifer that I quantified. It can't be vague. You got to be able to hold yourself accountable. It needs to be measurable. So that's why I was saying like 20 interviews or 20 networks or three interviews a month, whatever that may be, you need to make it measurable so you're holding yourself accountable. And that's where you actually start getting traction. More from our guests, but first if you were to from our sponsor, entrepreneurs are always

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Okay, so this is, I got two questions for you. People will then be like, phase two, say, I'm just playing devil's advocate. They'll say, I don't know how to make an action plan. I've never done this before. And then they like kind of like get overwhelmed and freak out and then they don't do it. There's no action, you know?

So there's, because people will get stuck in phase one. How do you help them create the action plan? Or because the hardest part, to me, an object in motion stays in motion. Once you're doing something, it's easier to keep on going. But if you have no idea how to even create an action plan, you're screwed. Then you're just kind of like sitting there

and like, I don't know. And that's where people then also because of their own self doubt and insecurity will get very upset with the idea of failure and then they'll just not do anything. So a few things. One, and I think it's such a valid point, like of getting paralyzed when you say you don't

know how to make a plan. Number one, we're going to take that excuse away and let's assume that I'm going to give you some basic tools right now that will support you in doing that. I actually have a downloadable template. You have everything on the website. It is a big stretch book that come and you want to go through the exercises and download the template that says 90 day action plan. You didn't know I was coming in with all this stuff right? No, you have an answer for everything. You're like, what do you mean?

I have a free time on it. What do you mean? I have a free action plan. You just follow this. What do you mean? I can a free action plan. You just follow this. What do you mean? I can give you a job. Just call my office and I fight, I fight. Now, that I can't do, but I can do a lot of other stuff. So, in inside of this, I actually walk you through some basic questions.

And sometimes you got to know, like, keep it simple. Keep it simple. And so, seriously, it can be as basic, You got to know like keep it simple keep it simple and so seriously It can be as basic and I'm not doing the questions verbatim from the book I'm just talking from my heart right now, but seriously it can be as simple as Right down the vision that you see for yourself You know the dream and the vision write, right? And then the next step is what part of that vision do you want to achieve in 12 months? And like, give yourself the time. What is it that you want to achieve in one year from today? Okay, we're gonna let you answer that. Then answer what actions must take place

in order for me to achieve that 12 month goal. There's no right or wrong to this, but and that's another thing. If it's progress and not perfection, that's what one of my coaches always tell me. If you're trying to make the perfect plan, there's no such thing as a perfect plan. I am so grateful to God that we wrote our 2020 plan in pencil. If we didn't write our 2020 business plan in pencil, I would have a business right now.

It was written in pencil when a pandemic hit, everything that I thought was going to happen. When I had to do it, I had to take the eraser, erase and find a new path. And so to the listeners, there's no perfect plan. But at least if you start designing from at least the goal in mind and breaking it down into achievable parts, ultimately, I just want to see you in action toward that goal. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

And I love that you said about the, I heard you say that before, but the pencil, because you know, plans, you know, what is that saying? Like you make a plan and you know, God laughs, we make a plan, right? Because things, you have to be able to pivot and like a lot of people like you,

you're a business owner, and you had to do major pivots in 2020. I'm sure, right? To be honest, right? So many. I learned a whole new level of like tenacity that I and grit that me along with my leaders that we had. Like we were stronger than we knew.

Right. And so I'm glad that I wanted to say, I was gonna ask you anyway, like in your opinion, what are some of the, like some big qualities or important necessary qualities it is for someone to be a business owner and an entrepreneur. We talked about earlier how a lot of people, you know, when they take the test and they realize maybe they're not cut out for the entrepreneurial life, but they're more for something else. From what you've noticed,

what would you say the top three skills are besides being a risk taker and being okay with not getting a paycheck? What would you say they are? I think an entrepreneur has to be a visionary. And so you really need to be able to potentially see what does not exist as clearly as if it does exist. And even if you're the only person that can see it, you need to be able to grasp that vision. That's number one, and that's important because when you get that vision, not only do you need that vision,

you gotta enroll others in the vision if you wanna start hiring people, if you want to go sell a business plan, you gotta be able to paint that picture for others. If you need to go get credit at a bank, like you need to be able to paint that picture for others. If you need to go get credit at a bank, like you need to be able to articulate that vision and believe in that vision that you can enroll others in it. That's number one.

The second thing would be, I call it the dream warrior. You gotta be a fighter, like seriously. Like you gotta be a fighter like seriously. Like you got to be a fighter. There's not again every dreamer I know is a fighter at some point you're going to have to fight the giant of rejection, the giant of no, the giant of lack of resources. Last year, the giant of a global pandemic, like when the hits come, if you're going to let one or two hits take you out, like entrepreneur, you take those hits and sometimes I, there, I've had some

hits Jennifer that knocked the wind out of me and put you in the bed, you know, a couple days. But the thing is, after those two days, I had to get up. Like, yeah, you gotta keep getting up. You gotta fight in the name of that dream. That's important. And I don't think people talk about it enough, honestly. And then the last one would be daring. Like, you gotta go for it.

Like, you gotta be bold and daring. And, you know, when I moved to New York from Minneapolis at the time, I didn't know a soul here. I knew my dream was here, but I didn't know anyone. That was a big daring bold move for somebody who's originally from Alabama. And that's just one daring move. bone move for somebody who's originally from Alabama. And that's just one daring move.

There's probably been thousands of daring moves in the name of the dream. No, I think that's amazing. And what would you say? How would you tell people to embrace failure? Because failure is a part of it no matter what your dream is, no matter what you're going after, being an entrepreneur, personally, whatever, how do you tell, how do you, because it's inevitable. Well, go ahead, hit. No, no, please, go ahead. Well, first off, I want to challenge you to challenge you to change your definition of failure.

So if you look it up in Webster, I'm sure it says something like to not succeed or something, right? I don't know, I didn't look it up, but I'm sure that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so change your definition and actually embrace and view failure as one of your greatest teachers. There's my greatest lessons as an entrepreneur.

It didn't come because you told me Jennifer or it didn't come because I read it in a book. My greatest lessons, it came because I failed and the lesson was so hard that I got it. And then that's how I learned. And then I took, okay, that didn't work. And now I know it doesn't work. I'll never do that again. Let me reapply and go forward.

And then I always ask myself questions around, what did it teach you? Like, how can you reapply these key learnings to make you stronger or better, make your business stronger and better? So yeah, you got to look at failures. Great teachers. Yeah, they're the hard teachers. Yeah, but I, again, I agree with you. And so in terms of let's talk about your company a little bit the agami group, that's how you call it, right? Agami group. Yeah. I want to talk about lessons learned from 2020. I think that's really important because you've learned a lot. And then I want to talk to you about marketing a little bit, because that's what your company does, right?

So what are the lessons that you did learn as an entrepreneur working and like having to keep a float in 2020? Were there big ones? I'm sure there were. Yes. And some of the things we've already started to hit. First and foremost, So we've already, some of the themes we've actually already started to hit. First and foremost, you must have a plan, but make sure you have the plan in pencil. I think the companies that remain too fixed and weren't willing to pivot or find new ways fast, not all of them, but some of those, unfortunately, were left behind. And so, there were so many things coming so fast,

Jennifer, there was one week. I got so many calls from clients saying, Tanisha, I'm sorry, but we got to cancel the contract. I put your contract on hold. So we went from a a quarter because it was marked, right? So we were like, yes, we're starting the year like never before to like everything being dried up. And so in that moment, that required great pivots. And some of those was like, what are the resources out here? We need to talk to.

What did you do? Yeah, like, what did you do? Some of the things that, yeah, some of the things that I did is I surrounded myself with like-minded individuals. So other CEOs of marketing and advertising agencies. And I made myself vulnerable to say, Hey, these are the hits I just took in the last 72 hours. Are you taking them? And they said, yep, got those same calls. What are you doing? And like we did a lot of best practice sharing in real time or what I would call problem solving

in real time in a think tank group. Potentially maybe we could do this. Rather than do layoffs, maybe we can just put our team on hold. How many employees do you guys have? We have over 30 employees. We didn't do any layoffs. I will tell you, some of my advisors and some of the companies that I was working with in that think tank.

Yeah. Some did tell me release employees immediately because, you know, basically, you're, you're, your margins are going to take such a great hit. This is where as entrepreneur, sometimes you've got to trust your good. Something told me, I wasn't going to do that. I was going to protect my our team by any means necessary. But we had to get other resources. We got the PPP, the first round,

the first time all of these other entrepreneurs I knew they got it and I had, I heard no like two or three times, Jennifer, and I just kept going back and back and back. Yeah, I was so frustrated, but then we finally got it. And so, it was just, so that was one thing. The second thing we talked that too, that being resourceful every single day. And so, like literally thinking of new ways

every single day. So, I would challenge myself based upon what the biggest problem was of that date. I would then brainstorm what are five possible things that we can do to solve for that problem. And it was all kinds of things like the first and foremost was how do we engage with that clients? Yeah. And we moved everything virtually like the world. Right. The second thing was being willing to change our working model.

You know, before the pandemic, I wanted everybody to come into the office and all this good stuff. People wanted to be with their families. And so we changed our working model to say, go be wherever you feel safe. If you want to be with your family, go there. So just little things like that. Just being resourceful every single day. I think also there's another lesson when things get really hard

and that is what I would call the power of surrender. So there's something that I say, you can do everything you can in your own strength, but it comes a time when you have to release it and say, I've done my best. And like, however this plays out, this is how it plays out. For me, when I do that surrender, I also pray and say, God, I've done everything that I can do, hands off, whatever your will is, just let it be done. And so the power of surrender was really big during that moment because there was so many things

happening so fast that we couldn't troubleshoot them all if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. What have you, I'm curious in terms of like the business now going now that we're kind of transitioning out of the pandemic and you are a marketing advertising agency, what have you seen have been like, how has the business changed marketing wise?

Well, a few things, number one, who knew that 2020 would end up being one of our best years ever. So, you know, in March, when we were in the fight and just like, ah, you know, I woke up by the third or fourth quarter and realized we were having the best year ever. How? So, a few things, depending upon what categories and realize we were having the best year ever. How? So a few things, depending upon what categories

you were serving. And it just so happens, one of our biggest clients is a consumer package good client. And so that's things like paper towel and shampoo. And so. Oh yeah. Oh god. like paper towel and and and so and shampoo and so yeah one of the biggest is we weren't going anywhere so consumers were consuming like never before and yes and and that's across many categories not just consumer package goods but if you take a look at everything like I went to go buy a hot tub and the hot tub was sold out for nine months and it's still not there.

And I said, what's going on? And they say, everybody's like you, like they're out of their mind and they're bored. They're not going anywhere and they want to just do something. And so, everything's on back order for like a year, right? You're getting it like, you're getting it like after the pandemic, it's unbelievable, unbelievable to me. Oops, let me hear it. So for our business, that just worked out

because we're helping clients market to consumers. Yeah, and that's until what is, okay, so other than that though, what are the biggest driving forces for marketing? How are people, are you now, are companies now spending most of their marketing dollars online or social media? How are people converting products? Like, what do you do there with your company?

Are you doing that mostly? Like, so our company specializes in connecting Fortune 150 brands to diverse audiences. And so those are segments like Blacks, Latinx, Asian Pacific American. And so they're coming to us with a focus. And so, first and foremost, something that's very important as marketers is you need to take time to understand the insights to who you're targeting to. And so for us, we call that cultural insights. So I spend a lot of time doing almost like a translation for clients to help them understand

a certain segment. Like here is what a day in the life of a black millennial mom looks like. Here's her interests, here's her habits, here's her behaviors, here's her values, here's where she consumes information and data. And so by understanding those things first, once you understand those, then you can build an informed marketing plan to reach that particular target, but you can't do that

without taking the time to understand. So to answer your question on, like, are we telling people to go on IG or on social media or to an event or you know or an experience. It really varies depending upon what the insights are telling us about the behaviors of whoever we're targeting. And so it really does vary. So you know in some cases I'll tell a brand you know from a social cases, I'll tell a brand, you know, from a social media perspective, I won't tell in my digital team wheel. Let me clarify that. So you need your prime social drivers should be IG.

In some cases, it's Facebook for a completely different reason. Or in some cases, we help clients know these are the events and spaces that you need to show up at if you want to authentically connect with this audience. So it's really all driven by research and insights. So what I like about this is that also you have a very, you have a niche in the market, right? So you're not just like a one size fits all,

which I feel and maybe I'm wrong, but in your world, right? So you're not just like a one size fits all, which I feel and maybe I'm wrong, but in your world, you have a better chance of success when you are a master of one, not a jack of all trades, right? Because then people know you're the go-to for this particular thing, and you can be exceptionally good in that area versus trying to like do a little bit of everything and kind of like hodgepodge it together. Now, were you always this, were you guys always a diverse

marketing company that kind of specialized in this for 13, I know you've been around what, for 13 years? 14 years, yeah, 14 years. We specialize from the very beginning. Yeah, I can't tell you that it was like this great wisdom that told me to do it. I think we chose what I knew we would be good at, right? And just the other day, I was at a client and they wanted to know, they said, okay, tell me if I had to sum up what's your superpower?

Give me your superpower in a couple words because that's what I need to like walk through the halls of this corporation. Essentially Jennifer, that procurement person was saying what you're saying. Like what are you known for? And it's better to be very, very good going deep versus trying to go so wide that you're not necessarily any one thing because you're trying to be so many things. I recommend going deep and specializing in focus versus trying to go to wide. I just had a friend call me

and she was looking for a Greek therapist and she interviewed a Greek therapist and she said that the person actually lost credibility with her when they said, oh, yeah I can also be your fitness trainer too, and that's not to say you can't be more serious. So it's not to say you can't be multiple things, but in term, I friend off because she's like, I really need you to be deep in this area. And so anyway, that's just. No, I'm smiling because it's a very like, it's a catch 22, right? Because you know, not to compartmental, like, you know, I think it's human nature and psychologically,

when we hire somebody, we want to know that they're like, they're like an expert in that particular thing. And I think it becomes very brand-confusing when you're like, I could be a fitness trainer, but I also could be a grief therapist. And I can also, I'm also a chef at night, and I can be a nerd. Like I think people feel as a client or a customer,

you always feel, even if it's like subconscious, more comfortable knowing that I got an expert in that one area. The catch 22 is, there's a lot of people, I think I'm included in this, that I am a kind of a chameleon. I can be really good. I'm very bad at almost everything, but I'm very good at three orameleon. I can be really good. I'm very bad at almost everything,

but I'm very good at three or four things. So I can pivot. So that's why, again, even when you're trying to find somebody's dream, when you're trying to find someone's true purpose, it can get confusing because you could have more than one thing that you really have a passion with and then what. It's hard to know, do you specialize because it's easier to make a living probably in that way

and flourish? Or if you dab on a few things, what to do? I'm just thinking about that. I definitely don't want you to think that you are know, you are linear and you can't have these multiple dimensions. I don't want any listener to think that, but I will caveat that never underestimate the power of focusing in, totally, on the one thing during the season that you're supposed to focus on the one thing, right? And so idea people, especially visionaries, someone gave me this, I mean this analogy before. They said, imagine that there's a house and there's a bunch of people just running around in the house. Okay, the house is your mind, the people are ideas and

Okay, the house is your mind, the people are ideas. And imagine if all of the ideas tried to get through the door at one time. Could 10 people go through the door at one time? Or would they need to line up and go out one at a time? That helped me with like, oh, I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that, I wanted to do this. That helped me say, okay, you know what, there's five big ideas of my hair right now,

but here's how I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna let this idea come to life first. I'm gonna let this idea come to life second. And even when doing that, one of the biggest things that my advice for one of my business advice is probably told me for three years is Tanisha, we need you to focus. Tanisha, we need you to focus.

Tanisha, we need you to focus. And it took me a while to get the power of focusing. Yeah, no, I understand that. Now you've set a few times in this interview, my advisor or this coach, how important do you think it is for somebody to have an advisor or a coach if they are trying to, I hate the word level up, but kind of like achieve their goals. I started being extremely intentional about surrounding myself with advisors maybe about

six or seven years ago. And the reason why I did this is I had a moment that I realized I've taken this dream, and I do have multiple dreams, but this particular drain of Igani group. I've taken it as far as I can take it with the knowledge that is accessible to me today. So if there is a burning desire to take it further, I have to expand the knowledge that is available to me today. I chose the expansion route through advisors. Maybe you can take the expansion route by going back to school

or maybe you can take the expansion route by listening to great podcasts, like Jennifer's podcast. Whatever it may be, sometimes you need to realize when you need additional resources and tools. And so it was just me hitting a wall. And I had plateaued from a growth perspective or revenue perspective.

And I think my experiences at that time, I hit the ceiling. And so what I did was find people that had traveled the path that I desired to travel and tried to form relationships with them, some more of like a mentor capacity, some even in a business paid advisor capacity, to form those relationships, to infuse new levels of knowledge that would help me break through the ceiling that I was hitting at the time. Right. No, that's why I'm as curious because I know a lot of people

I know who are exceptionally successful. They're constantly want to grow and kind of be better. And a lot of times you need people even to bounce ideas off of and keep you accountable or like make you think in a different way. So they have advisors or they even have like performance coaches and all sorts of things. So I was wondering because you mentioned it a couple of times. So I wanted to ask you about that. And then I wanted to end with the story or about your professor of how when you were taking,

when you were in school and what he taught you. So, because I liked it, I thought it was very, well, you tell. I don't need to say it. You're here. You're here. Okay. Well, you all already heard that I was working at the amazing company of IBM. Yes.

And everybody says, you know, IBM was a good company. It was just the wrong seat for me. When I had the aha that it was the wrong career, I thought I could fix it by trying to make more money. And so one of the only ways that I could make more money is if I went back to school to get my masters. So I go back to get my masters and there is a professor which I wish I could find him one day. His name was Professor Charlie Bison. And one of the assignments he gave us was to examine the major decisions in our life and what was the driving factors and

forces behind those decisions. He pushed us to not stay surface level and to really go deep. And I took the assignment really serious and I had, you know, at that point in life, because I was, you know, still, I wasn't that far along in my career. But at that point in life, I had made a few major decisions and I kept digging deep in the commonality behind all of the major decisions that I had made up until that point in life was all tied to earning potential. And so I even asked myself deeper, why, you know, is, why is money

in the driver's seat of your major choices? Going deeper, I really thought about the struggles that I encountered or witness growing up, and by no means, let me say, it wasn't like struggle in a sense of, I wasn't homeless or anything like that, but I definitely grew up in a home where money was a consideration,

where it was more of a scarcity than an abundance mindset. And I had to make choices all the time around money, turn the lights off because light build is gonna be high. Which one do you wanna go to? Because you can't do both. Pick one Christmas gift

because you're not gonna get all of them. Like it was so, it was in my mind that there was, it was the scarcity when it came too many. So that's why I chose money to be in the driving seat unknowingly, right? I was, I was really designing a life from a reactive place of what I didn't want to experience. And so once I got that awareness, I ended the paper by saying, I'm going to take the keys for money in the driver's seat, no longer will it be the driving force of my decision, and I want to see what would a life look like if I allow purpose and passion to lead the way. And that assignment was, it was everything. That was the start of me going out on this dream journey that I'm talking to you about. Yeah, I know why I wanted to end with

that is because I think a lot of people, you know, have either golden handcuffs or they just pick their wherever they're doing based on how much money they're making. And to me, success comes in all sorts of different ways and happiness. And at the end of the day, I know people who are gazillionaires and because of what they've done and they're not any happier. A lot of people, if you actually follow what you want to do, the money can sometimes even, the money can come. But overall happiness, success to me is about being, overall, happy and content. If you have to go to work because you're

making a big paycheck, it doesn't make sense if you're miserable all the time. So I like that when people can like, it's, it's assess why they are doing what they're doing. And I like that story. So thank you for sharing it. Oh, well thank you. No, thank you for coming on the podcast. I think I've asked you everything and you know, I agree with so many. I'm so on your page with how you're perspective and how you think. So this was like, I loved it. So I love, I love your

so I do and I'm totally coming to see you when I come to LA. Oh my God, I really hope so. Where do people find you? Give them, give people your stuff so they can, they know they can go on the website and they can find every downloadable, you know, action item possible from the time I bought it to the action plan. So big is a big it's big stretch dot com. So it's big it's big stretch book dot com. So that's where all of those exercises are, okay. And then where you can book with me is anywhere on social under tanisha t-e-n-e-s-h-i-a-j like Jackson Warner. So tanisha j Warner. Okay and then when next time you come to L.A. I don't know when you're coming but I am definitely seeing you okay. Yes and then I just wanted I double check one thing because I said it wrong. For that website, it's thebigstretchbook.com.

Yes, thebigstretchbook.com. And it's a very good book. It's very valuable for people if they want to like reach the purpose and find their dreams. Obviously, you give them a million practical ways. And actually, it's besides just hiring them themselves or like giving them their opportunity I mean it's a great great resource so thank you so much for coming on thank you so much all right I'll see you when I'm in LA I promise absolutely absolutely thank you. Okay, bye bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me?

I'm gonna go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show so you can believe my listeners. I have been a longtime fan of Heather's, no matter what phase of life I find myself in, Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience and personality are unmatched and I love her go getter attitude.

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