Tara Geraghty has spent over 24+ years in leadership development leading a team of women across the nation. She holds a degree in theatre, has a background in improvisation and is both Counselling Practitioner and REBT certified. She is the founder of Hey Girl, You Can a community of 39,000+ women from around the world. Tara is a sought after Top 5 TEDx speaker, a TEDx Play Series Performer, the Author of Making Cancer Fun: A Parent’s Guide (Amazon #1 New Release), and has been featured on MSNBC, GMA, 5280 & Reader’s Digest to name a few. She is a contributing author on Every Entrepreneur’s Guide to Running your Own Business, a contributor to Conquer Magazine: The Patient’s Voice, and can be heard on podcasts worldwide. Tara lives in NJ with her miracle kid daughter Emily Grace.
Who is Tara Geraghty?
I’m a Christian, a mom to a miracle kid, a believer in women, a community builder and someone who can find something to be grateful for in every circumstance.
What is your backstory?
I grew up thinking I would be a ballerina, an actress or at least something in the performing arts. While getting my degree in theatre I started a part time business in direct sales. It was something to do on the side to make money while I finished school. I never expected to fall in love with coaching women, personal development and entrepreneurship. I also didn’t know it was the training ground for 10 years later when I found myself in the middle of a domestic violence divorce the same year my 3 ½ year old was diagnosed with stage 4 high risk cancer. All those years of mindset work and learning how to deal with disappointments mixed with my years of theatre gave me a unique tool set to support my daughter in non traditional ways. After that, I started my second business, Making Cancer Fun. While looking to reach parents whose children were going though life changing medical diagnosis’, I started a small club on the new clubhouse app, gave it a name, and found myself 45 days later leading a group of over 10,000 women. I’ve learned life is an adventure, it never goes in the direction I expect, and I am excited to see what happens next!
Your Club House room Hey Girl You Can grew from 2 to 10,000 members in less than 45 days. Then doubled after that. Did you have this as an intended goal? What sparked this growth?
When I initially heard of clubhouse I thought, “Oh no, not another app!” A friend was raving that this was the next hottest app (aren’t they all!) but I decided to download it. Back then you went on a waitlist and had to get an invitation to join. To my surprise I got an invitation right away. Then my sister-in-law told me I had to start a club. Since I was focused on reaching parents and professionals in paediatric medicine, I initially thought I would start a club for that. What I quickly realised was those parents weren’t really active on CH. I remember thinking, “Well Tara, what do you know? What can you talk about?” I figured I had two decades of experience coaching women so I decided I would focus on women. I figured this was also a backdoor way to meet families going through life changing medical diagnoses. Little did I know the adventure that was in store for me!
Like you mentioned, in less than 45 days we had 10K women and my inbox was filling up with hundreds of messages a day! I could barely keep up! Everyone started asking what I was doing.
I realised that the same skills I had used to build communities in the “real world” worked in the social audio world. I also realised there were simple things I did, that no one else was doing. I understood how to build esprit de corps, and I believe that’s why we not only grew fast but had strong loyalty to the club from the beginning.
What tips would you share for growing presence on Clubhouse?
You need to show up consistently and know why you are there! Clubhouse is so different from other social media platforms. I heard it said early on that Instagram cares about what you look like and how well you edit your photo. Clubhouse cares about what’s in your mind. What you know and how well you communicate what you know. That was a game changer for me.
I focused on small rooms. Ideally less than 20 people. I wanted to get on stage, be able to contribute to the conversation and actually meet people. I also made sure to message people, go over to their IG and like their photos, and ask people to moderate rooms with me. I invested time in cultivating relationships through the app. I found a great group of women and started hosting rooms every morning. I am not a morning person and was resistant at first. My sister-in-law told me to get over it, get up and get on the app early otherwise I was missing out because of my unwillingness to be inconvenienced. She was right. I listened to her and started to grow quickly.
Do you think setting goals is important and why?
I strongly believe goal setting should be tied to confidence building and not just productivity. It’s not enough to just “do something,” it’s about how you feel about yourself after you accomplish your goal. I’ve heard it said, we are wired to win, not to work. When we go after a win, there’s an excitement, an energy and a focus that propels us when we want to quit and give up. I also think goals should be 100% dependent on yourself. I host a room on goal setting every Monday at 8am EST in the club. It’s interesting how many women come in and don’t know how to set effective goals. They will say things like, “My goal is to sign up 25 people for my new course.” Or, “My goal is to add 100 people to my email list.” In my opinion, these are horrible goals! Your ability to hit your goal, to win, is completely dependent on other people! If no one signs up at the end of the week you feel like a loser and your confidence is crushed. Instead, your goal should be something only you are in control of. For example, my goal is to reach out to 100 women and invite them to my new course. Or, my goal is to send out 4 specific targeting campaigns promoting my new course. Or, my goal is to reach out to 20 people in my field and offer them an affiliate option for promoting my new course to their networks.
Another example, if my goal is to lose 2 lbs this week and I don’t, I feel bad about myself (and might just go self-medicate with a giant hot fudge sundae!) Instead, my goal could be: I will go to the gym 4x this week, I will drink 8 glasses of water a day, I will track my food and macros all week, I will not drink any alcohol or sugary drinks this week. I can’t control if my body decides this is the week it will lose 2 lbs, but I can control all those other things.
These are examples of how our goals are attainable by our efforts, not our results. I can win through my own effort, this builds my confidence, and as a result now I can reach even higher next week.
What keeps you going when the going gets tough?
My faith for sure. I have example after example of how I have seen God active in my life. Even when I didn’t see it at the time! It was through my deepest darkest pain I found peace. Not where I would have chosen to find it, but I did nonetheless. I also consistently remind myself I always have a choice. I may not particularly like the choices in front of me, but I still have a choice, and that gives me a sense of control at times when I don’t feel like I have any.
How do you define success?
I will share with you the quote that hangs on my wall. I believe it defines what success for my life would be to me. It’s by Erma Bombeck. “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”
In 2008 you were involved in a painful divorce, you hit rock bottom because of it and then your daughter got diagnosed with high-risk cancer. How was that experience? How were you able to rise from it strong?
That was the most traumatic time in my life. I had just come back from having the honour of speaking at a regional conference for my direct sales company. That weekend my (now ex) husband was arrested for domestic violence against me. I wish I could say that was the worst part, it wasn’t. Over the next year I found out the person I had been married to, had a child with, and had moved across the country for, had made up a complete life that never existed. From the college he said he attended that my in-laws posted in our engagement announcement, to a drug arrest while we were engaged that was covered up, to jobs that never existed, and people he never knew, it was all a lie. I can only imagine it felt similar to being “un” brainwashed. It was horrible acknowledging the person I loved and married never actually existed. It’s still difficult to process all these years later. Unfortunately, I was forced to go into survival mode immediately. He was graphically describing how he was going to kill me to our daughter, consistently violating my restraining order and at one point was stalking me. During the same year our divorce was finalised our daughter was diagnosed with stage 4 high risk neuroblastoma. I now call that time “my 6-year life crisis”.
I appreciate you think I rose from it strong. Many people have said to me, “I could never go through what you went through.” Which I think is funny. I mean what’s the alternative? Death? You’d be surprised how strong you really are if you had to be. And I had to be, my daughter was depending on me.
I think 4 things significantly impacted me during that time.
#1. I decided if my daughter was only going to live for a short time, I was going to make that time as fun as possible. Overnight I became a full-time cancer fun maker! (oh, and in case you are wondering, she will be 16 this spring! She is my real-life miracle kid!)
#2. I started a gratitude practice. Every night while she would sleep in her hospital bed, I would sit beside her and list all the reasons I had to be grateful for that day. As many as I possibly could. From the inventor of coffee to a clean scan. Nothing was too big or too small.
#3. I was conscious about the thoughts I left in my head. When fear would seep in, I would consciously repeat a life affirming scripture. I refused to let my mind go down the rabbit hole of fear.
And finally, #4. I prayed. A lot.
That same experience inspired you to write your book Making Cancer Fun: A Parent’s Guide a number # 1 New Release. Why is it so important to you to share your story?
Would you be surprised to know I didn’t want to? I wanted to end that piece of my life, and move on. But Brendon Burchard has a famous saying, “If you have struggled through something, and survived, you should then help those who are still struggling.” I kept meeting parents so filled with paralysing fear. They didn’t know what to do, and I knew I had these tools to help them, and change their child’s experience. I knew I had an obligation to write Making Cancer Fun.
Your hands are full with businesses to run and a daughter to raise as a single mother, how do you create life and work balance?
I don’t. Balance doesn’t exist. It implies all things are equal (think of a scale or a balance sheet). My businesses will never be equal to my daughter. The time I spend at church will never be equal to the time I spend at work! I don’t try to attain balance. Instead, I strive to create harmony. I teach this concept in one of my masterclasses. Harmony comes from a suffixed form of the root “ar” which means, “to fit together.” It evolved in the late 14c to an old French word harmonie which meant, “combination of tones pleasing to the ear”. Think of music, you have all these separate notes but they fit together to create a beautiful harmony. That’s how I want my life to be, a beautiful harmony.
You are so passionate about supporting and encouraging other women, why is it so important to you?
I have never thought about that. I guess I would say because I believe women have been told a lie. The lie that they need to watch their backs, that women are catty and backstabbing. Yes, some women are that way because some people are that way. However, I believe more women are collaborative, supportive, and giving. I believe that collectively we are powerful and being told this lie keeps us from this collective power. Women sometimes need to be reminded how significant they are. I started praying years ago to have “Christ-like eyes” so I could see people the way God sees them. See the goodness and unique gifts each person possesses, and then affirm that in them.
Do you have a life mantra? Please share
Yes! I started praying years ago to have “Christ-like eyes” so I could see people the way God sees them.
Do you have a morning ritual? Please share
My only morning ritual is to drink my coffee before anyone speaks to me or expects me to speak back to them.
Where do we see Tara in the next 5-10 years?
After having my life change so dramatically each year for a number of years, I find it difficult to plan more than 6 months at a time. Which has been helpful these past two years during a pandemic when everything is constantly changing anyway! All I hope is that I still have a lot of talent left that God is letting me use!
Leave one challenge for Stellar Woman readers to help them achieve their goals for 2022?
It’s simple but difficult. Difficult because new habits don’t just happen, they take effort. But what if I told you this one new habit would 100% change your life. That if you were just willing to do it even for 1 solid month it would change you possibly forever. Would you be willing to do it every day for 30 days? And if you miss a day start over? Ready? I challenge you every day to write a list of everything you can think of to be grateful for in the last 24 hours. Now, here’s the kicker. You can’t list the same things everyday. A gratitude practice is just like a yoga practice. You can’t go to the studio every day, do the same 3 poses and then expect to have a long, lean, strong body. Every day you need to try a new pose, hold it a little longer, push through a little further. This is how you grow and it’s the same with gratitude. You can’t list your job, your health and your family every day. It’s like you’re stuck in child’s pose. Your challenge is to find the seemingly insignificant and make it significant. For example, you are stuck in traffic because there is an accident up ahead. Are you grateful you were just 5 minutes late and not in the accident? Find the tiny things that happen all day long you can be grateful for and then list them out, one by one.
As I’m writing this it’s 4pm and here’s an example of my list so far today:
I’m grateful my daughter has a friend over because she just had her first breakup and her friend came over today to keep her company.
I am grateful that while I absolutely hate her new nose piercing, she only wanted her nose pierced and not her tongue.
I am grateful it’s not raining today.
I am grateful my cleaning lady came today because I am a horrible cleaner.
I am grateful I can afford a cleaning lady, there were many years I couldn’t.
I am grateful for the new crisp apple I just ate because my grocery delivery was last night and the ones I had were soft and yucky.
I am grateful my yoga studio reopened recently after closing last year and I started my Monday morning with a great class.
And finally, I am grateful I had the time today to do this interview because it’s a privilege to shared with your community.
You can find Tara online at www.heygirlyoucan.com and www.makingcancerfun.com