Written in Partnership with Amir BakianEntrepreneur Tiffany Lea shares her secrets of success for group projects.
Choosing the right project or professional path can be a challenge. Knowing who to work with, how long to work with them and the steps you can take to achieve your goals can be a series of complex decisions. Here to help with making those decisions is entrepreneur Tiffany Lea.
Balancing a digital marketing agency, an affordable housing business, presenting a talk show and consulting, as well as meeting the needs of having a young family, Lea is a mastermind of the one element that brings all these things together: collaboration.
As well as collaboration, Lea’s guiding light is the ultimate purpose of her work. “Whatever the goals might be, they all need to tie in with my purpose, my mission,” she says. “I remind myself all the time, ‘Who am I serving?’ with this work. If I feel lost or overwhelmed by it all, I come back to that question time and again.”
In the context of collaborative work, it is crucial to align with teams that share your values so you are working towards a common goal. All the difficulties that arise can be worked through if everyone is on the same page about why you are all there in the first place.
“When we come together and put our minds together and work for something for the greater good, we are not easily broken,” Lea says. “I want us to start focusing on the things we can fix. Refocus our efforts to improve our neighborhoods and communities, so we start from home and build out from there. Always remember who you are serving when you feel like giving up.”
“We are all here for a purpose,” says Lea. “We have all been born with unique gifts and abilities to use, but sometimes we forget that and get lost on the way. Getting back to basics and thinking about who you are and what you stand for can make all the difference.” By juggling multiple businesses and demands, Lea has figured out three major insights to help others succeed.
Trust your gut
Intuition is an undervalued business tool. That small inner voice which might whisper a warning in certain situations, indicating this partnership or project isn’t the one for you. It is easy to bulldoze over the whisper, with rationalization or justification, thinking that external reasons like profit or strategy win out. But in these cases, if you push on through, the voice is nearly always proved to be right in the end.
Tuning in to your gut instincts is a key part of Lea’s philosophy. “Do what feels right. Pay attention to how you feel if you are faced with conflicting advice or an opportunity you are not sure you should take,” says Lea. “Learn to trust your intuition and it will guide you to the right choice for you. No one else can know what your path should be, you are the only one.”
Jump in
“Don’t hold back,” says Lea. “Do the thing even if it feels scary. It feels scary because your ego is trying to keep you safe if it’s something you’ve never done before. But evolution and change only come from doing things you’ve never done before! This could be great because what you’ve been doing before wasn’t working for you in the first place. So jump in and try something new. It will be worth it.”
Lea advises joining a group of like minded people that you think have similar interests as you. Find the opportunity and then jump in, even if it feels scary. Starting something new has its own set of challenges and every entrepreneur has doubted themselves along the way. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway is the only way to move through those barriers and achieve the life you want!
Don’t give up
When the road gets rocky, it is easier to quit and blame the obstacle. But overcoming the obstacles is what leads to success. “Don’t ever give up,” says Lea. “Keep going. You’re going to get discouraged, that’s a natural part of progress. Always just keep trying, and look within yourself for reassurance you are on the right track.”
“I change up my goals sometimes because life is fluid and you need to reserve the right to change your mind if something stops feeling right. Trust yourself to stick with your intuition and don’t stop moving along that path, even if things get tough. Life is about taking chances. Why not take a chance on yourself?”
To find out more about Tiffany Lea and the services she offers, check out her website.
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