Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tara Thompson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Tara, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
Height tends to portray confidence and as a woman being over six foot tall people assume I have had and have more confidence than I have realistically had in the past. Growing up it was so awkward being tall and it’s something that you have to work at to get your personality wise and confidence wise to match what people assume you already are. I would say I was on the slow side of building self esteem and confidence and in some aspects of my life I would say I am still lacking.
When I was in my early 20’s I took a job working for a window covering company and I was doing sales which I was awful at. Sales is not my forte and as I’ve gotten older I realized my boundaries with sales but I would never again take a full time position in sales. The owner of the company was a great guy named Dave and he sent me to take a Dale Carnegie course which changed my projection with my confidence and self esteem. I was still young and naive but this was my first growth step that set me on the right projection course to be able to get to where I am today even though it was my worst job failure and I still feel a little guilty all these years later that I failed so badly for my employer.
In many of the jobs I’ve had over my life I have usually moved up into some sort of leadership role some official some non official but when I first moved over into my first official manager role I knew the tasks of the job in and out and had all the confidence in the world that I could dominate the role. I soon learned the task of the job was nothing compared to the pressure of everything on your shoulders and my self esteem dropped faster than a 10 pound brick. With time and good mentors I was able to work back into some confidence. Again I had another great male allie in my Store Director at the time name Todd and he started introducing me to the fun side of Business Management teaching me about Profit and Loss and other higher financial reports which laid the groundwork for me to have the confidence to think I was ready for my future role of running a company. I say “think I was ready” because we never are really ready for the new adventures we dive into but that false confidence we have allows us to push ourselves into those new roles and allow us to truly develop the confidence needed to fulfill that role.
When I made the decision to move back to St. George which is where I grew up and planned to come help my brother grow my parents business. My Mom said she wouldn’t hire me because she couldn’t afford the additional payroll even though we were talking about wages that I could probably have made working the drive thru at McDonalds. Turns out people pissing you off can be quite the self esteem boost to prove someone wrong. My brother went the rounds and my Mom finally caved and agreed to bring me on. On one hand working with my family gave me the confidence to make changes and have leeway that working for some else I may not have had but also it was a small company that didn’t have much of a safety net so if I screwed up it could cost my parents everything. I will say that what I lacked in confidence and self esteem was made up for in determination and hours spent building the business. Once again time spent on the job and great mentors helped me pave my way to confidence and self esteem in my role.
Over the past few years I’ve reached outside of my company resources into the community to expand my skill set and networking pool. This has been a great way for me to build some confidence in some skill sets that I wouldn’t get in a normal day to day from the work within the company like public speaking. It has also helped introduce me to business owners that I can have conversations about high level topics or things that are hard to discuss openly inside of the company. Sometimes just being able to talk through those high level issues allows you to have a little more confidence when addressing those harder issues. All in all experience, pushing into new things and finding those right mentors and allies will help you build that confidence and self esteem that we all need to be successful and knowing that it’s ok that we don’t have it all today but with focus and hard work we can be successful in anything we want in life.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
This year I celebrated my 10th anniversary with Dixie 4 Wheel Drive which is a full service shop with a focus in 4 wheel drive vehicles. The year also marks our 30th anniversary for the company. Our off road recreation in Southern Utah is a draw for people from all around the country and we love our family ties that we have had in the creation of the Sand Mountain Recreation area like Milt’s Mile iconic trail being named after Milt Thompson which is the original founder of Dixie 4 Wheel Drive. Our company was founded on the passion for exploring and getting off the beaten trail and we currently are fighting battles every day to keep our lands and trails open for everyone to use. Owner Milt Thompson serves on the board of directors of Utah Public Lands Alliance and I serve on SEMA’s Truck and Off Road Alliance which has a large focus on land use initiatives on a national level. We offer free gpx trails on our website and host free off road training classes every month. We believe that if people have the right tools to get out and do it safely and responsibly it will go a long way to ensure that we can keep access open. We also just like to build really cool stuff so check out our website www.dixie4wheeldrive.com or youtube Dixie4WheelDrive and see some of the cool stuff we build and fun places we go.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Three things that I’ve learned over the years that I think have helped me or shifted my mindset are, number one people are inherently selfish and worried about themselves so more often than not they don’t care how you look or what you are doing unless it is going to affect them or impact them in some way so who cares what that 99% thinks focus on that other 1% that you care about or need.
Second, expand your network!!!! The frustrating old saying of “who you know not what you know” is a real thing but have the skill sets to back yourself up but your network will open doors you can never open alone.
Third, If you go to work with the mindset of “they are only paying me to do this” you will never move up and you will be an employee the rest of your life. Business is hard and takes a lot of work to make it successful and it’s usually the employees that won’t put in any extra effort that when they get the chance to start a business or do something more they fail quickly because they haven’t built the work ethic to persevere.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Overwhelmed feels like normal operating procedure when running a company and juggling family and life but one thing I learned during the Dale Carnegie program years ago was looking at your problem and going through the scenario of worst case outcomes. Once you lay out the problem and think through the very worst outcome you can then accept that and face the problem head on. Most problems we face on a day to day we find out really aren’t too bad and the things that are that bad we have given ourselves a moment to really contemplate how we feel about them and if we want to survive the outcome we might face from the decision.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dixie4wheeldrive.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dixie4wheelDrive
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-thompson-5aa172119/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dixie4wheeldrive
