Divas That Care Network
The #divasthatcare movement is an ever-evolving movement of positivity and progression. It is a group of cohesive women working toward a common goal as way makers for the next generation. These women also plan to pass on the tools and resources necessary for future generations to eagerly step up to the plate. By defining your purpose, you can do tremendous things for people around you. You can contribute to making the world a better place every single day. The Divas That Care Change makers have walked the walk and are talking the talk and we do it one day at a time.
Divas That Care Network
Girl Empowerment
Join Host Candace Gish as she interviews a variety of committed women weekly, who are working to make the world a better place! #DivasThatCare
BIO: Tara Levine is a focused leader, on a powerful mission to influence the world of leadership, coaching and development. Born and raised in Wichita Kansas, with two undergraduate degrees, three certifications and a law degree under her belt, she comes with a plethora of experience and education supporting her awareness of challenges women of color face daily in their corporate environment. She is an advocate for mentorship and strong, supportive networks.
Recently, Tara made history as the first married, mother and woman over the traditional age of 28 (she’s 40) to be crowned Miss San Antonio USA, marking a monumental moment in the USA pageant system. In 2022 the Miss Universe Organization released the restrictions, allowing for more diversity in women representation.
In Tara’s mind, with pain comes power, due to the unexpected passing of her youngest sister in 2018- she has been enthused at creating a better world for young ladies transitioning from high school into college, as a result Talia’s Team was founded. Talia’s Team is a non-profit mentorship organization developed to support young ladies navigating relationships, love, careers, finances and more as they step into the next chapter of life. Tara enjoys connecting with goal-oriented women and a commitment to make a difference. She believes in the power of women converging to implement change and has ensured that the purpose of Talia’s Team quantifies just that.
Tara Levine shares her inspiring journey founding Talia's Team, a nonprofit helping young women transition from high school to college while discovering their authentic selves beyond societal pressures. After losing her sister to an accidental overdose in 2018, Tara created this organization to provide mentorship for girls struggling with identity and societal expectations.
• Founded Talia's Team after her sister's death to help young women find their authentic selves
• Society pressures young women to immediately know their path after high school
• Unbiased mentorship provides crucial support young women cannot always get from parents
• Importance of regional mentors who understand the "unwritten rules" of different areas
• Practice of "grace and space" – holding yourself accountable while giving yourself permission to rest
• Surrounding yourself with mentally, morally, and ethically strong people is critical to success
• Let go of relationships and situations that cause pain to free yourself for growth
• Women can balance motherhood, careers, and personal goals with realistic expectations
• Upcoming coaching program to help women uncover outdated mental systems and discover their authentic selves
• Connect with Tara
@misssanantoniousa
@coach.tara.levine
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It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas that Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit divasthatcarecom. After the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome back to the Divas that Care. My name is Candice Gish. If this is your very first time tuning into the Divas that Care, a huge welcome. The Divas that Care is now in its 12th season and we're listened to in over 30 countries around the world. So we're always welcoming brand new people to our family and we're so excited that you've joined us today. All right, I have a brand new diva we're going to be welcoming to our family today. She is absolutely extraordinary. I've had the opportunity to kind of stalk her a little bit, I would say, on social media, because I was so inspired by what she was doing and a quick conversation we had had. I'm like, okay, let's figure out who this amazing lady is. And I'm like, oh my gosh, guys, you're going to love her. So, carol Levine, welcome to the Divas I Care.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Candice. It's an honor to be here with you today. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, I am very excited to have you on our program. I know you're extremely busy, so we really appreciate you taking the time to chat with all of our listeners today.
Speaker 3:It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you in this space. For sure, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:All right, Tara, before we kind of dive into today's program, would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3:Sure, no problem. Well, my name is Tara Levine. As you noted, I am living and residing in San Antonio, texas, so it's beautiful, 80 degrees today, gorgeous, loving it here, outside of just my professional environment. I'm also a mother. I have two small children six and 11, two boys. I also run a nonprofit organization called Talia's Team, which is dedicated to supporting the growth and development of high school ladies transitioning into college. I'm also operating in a coaching business right now I am getting ready to graduate with my certification to provide life coaching and leadership coaching to organizations and individuals. I am also a lawyer I graduated with my law degree in 2018, and I currently work in the risk space right now, so providing companies with the understanding of their risk and risk exposure and trying to mitigate that.
Speaker 2:So you're basically telling us you're a jack-of-all-trades and you're extremely busy.
Speaker 3:Yes, pretty much.
Speaker 1:I do quite a lot.
Speaker 3:I have lots of balls in the air. Yeah, absolutely, it's how I thrive in life, I'm sure oh, I love it.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely extraordinary. So today we're going to be talking a little bit about girl empowerment and I really want to know about Talia's team. Why did you decide to do that? Tell us a little bit about background, about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm so happy that you asked that question.
Speaker 3:And just to be very, very transparent, very vulnerable. The organization is Talia's Team and it's named after my younger sister, who passed away in 2018. She struggled a lot. It was an accidental overdose and she struggled a lot with kind of identifying this societal image that is pressured on young girls and trying to find herself at a very young age, so kind of that sweet spot of transitioning out of high school and going into college. The American way and the way society says is that once you got out of high school, you should know exactly what you want to do. You should find a college, you should commit to that and you should go to it for four years After your graduation, you should find a job that's in that same field and then you should do that until you die, or until you retire and then die. And so adopting that kind of mindset is really hard for young women when they're just simply trying to find out who they are.
Speaker 3:They're trying to find out what they like, what they enjoy, what speaks to them and some people are blessed enough to know that immediately when they're born they know what their purpose is and they're driven to accomplish that purpose. But there's also that wide niche of women that just still trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what's right for them and what works for them, and society doesn't really hold a lot of space individuals to make those mistakes and then figure out and kind of readjust their pathway that feels more fulfilling to them. And so I created the organization because I took note of that after experiencing the loss of my sister and just watching her try to discover herself and then still align to these pressures, to what society said that she should be and what she should do, all the while just kind of neglecting and suppressing her true, authentic self. And so I noticed that that was an issue with a lot of people. I did a lot of research. I spoke to a lot of young girls in high school and universally they were all struggling with kind of finding their identity, finding out who they are.
Speaker 3:Social media pressures, the pressure to look a certain way, to be a certain way and you hold yourself to be standard, and my heart just broke for these young women. And so I created the organization to try to offer young ladies some more additional support, helping them try to figure that out, navigating those waters. There's regional support as well. I'm sure that you're familiar with. Going and living in Canada is completely different than living in Texas. There's those unwritten rules, right and so having a female to support you, to have your back as you navigate those waters an unbiased person as well, not a parent, not somebody that has an agenda to tell you what you should or should do, but just that support network is definitely needed in today's society.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's absolutely amazing and I applaud you for everything that you're doing, because that is an extraordinary undertaking.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with you. You know, I've definitely changed my mind in a lot of ways over the years because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, and it's kind of one of the running jokes in our family is that I haven't decided what I want to do.
Speaker 2:you know, when I up kind of thing, and yeah, because it is it's always a transition it's always a journey and you're changing and and that's okay and I think that that was a pressure people haven't told you that it's okay that you can change your mind, you don't have to be stuck in one position. But you know, I remember growing up and it was kind of one of those things that people always shook their heads. They're like no, you're supposed to, you're supposed to be on this path and you're supposed to stay there, and even if you're unhappy and I'm like holy, I can't do that and I was always changing my mind and, yeah, I used to have a lot of people that were very negative about that, so I completely understand Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's impossible, right? Because if you look at the way human beings are, we're not static, we don't stay the same. We are supposed to grow, we are supposed to evolve. That's a part of our journey, especially as women, and men as well. But, women, we go through so many different things we have hormones. It's just so many different things going through the female body and to be told that you need to suppress all that and you should be one particular way. It's invalid and it's completely unrealistic.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I think this is an amazing organization and so is this mostly. You know we had talked that you're from Texas and you grew up in Kansas, so is this an organization that is throughout the United States or is it in specific areas?
Speaker 3:It is throughout the United States. The origins of it were in Kansas Wichita, kansas, primarily, where I'm from, where I know what it's like to be a teenager trying to find myself and trying to figure out where do I go. I want to go to a large city, but I don't know anyone there. How do I reach out to somebody? How do I connect with somebody that's in the same field that can be honest with me? I know that there was a lot of young girls who they all decided they wanted to be a nurse and then when they got into the field, after they got there, they figured out that maybe this isn't quite for me. So I think the program is intended to put you into touch with mentors so you can ask those tough questions that you can get with someone to say, hey, tell me the good, the bad and the ugly. I want to hear it from a different perspective, instead of me going in naively thinking that this is going to be triumphant for me and it turns out to be something that I completely thought otherwise.
Speaker 2:it's just trying to help set young ladies up for success you know what it's brilliant and because the world is changing so quickly and it's really difficult to keep up with it and if you have you think one way and you know the world is a different way it's, you're going to get lost in that transition. And having the mentors that you're talking about to really help these young girls go through this is extraordinary and I really applaud you, as I said, for that, because it is a difficult time. I'm a mother of four daughters. You know my fourth one is just about to be a teenager. You know my oldest is going to be 20 this year and see the transitions my children are going through. And I am so glad when I have the opportunity to interview women like yourself because then they can listen to that and they can say you know what? I can, I understand I can, I can do that and I have my children in mentorship programs because I truly believe that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, like when you have your own children, sometimes they're really open to hearing what parents have to say and sometimes they just kind of shrug it off because, they're like oh, it's just my parents saying x, y and z and after talking to a lot of young girls and their parents and their mothers, they say sometimes you know, we tell them the same advice but they don't actually listen to it.
Speaker 3:it comes from somebody that they respect or someone that they admire or somebody that they look up to, because sometimes, being the parent, it feels like they're parenting them or they're helicoptering them or things of that nature. Especially young women Like we want to be in control, we want to be independent. We don't want people telling us what to do.
Speaker 2:And so you know what I mean, you've got four girls.
Speaker 3:You know what that's probably like, and so it's good to be able to put them in contact with somebody that's just unbiased, that says listen, I just want to see you succeed.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. As I said, this is great. I love what you are doing. And so, on top of doing all this nonprofit and that probably takes a lot of your time and you have young boys and you're working, so let's talk. Takes a lot of your time and you have young boys and you're working, so let's talk about the rest of your life. You know you've got so much going on and, plus, you were mentioning that you're building a new house on top of all of this stuff. How do you do that?
Speaker 3:Well, I have learned that.
Speaker 3:I've learned to hold myself accountable accountable, but yet give myself grace and space.
Speaker 3:I think that that's one of the key things that you just have to do when you're juggling so many different balls in the air Just be able to hold yourself accountable, accomplish your dreams and still give yourself grace and space to say you know what, today I'm tired, I need to take care of myself and I want to get some rest instead of, you know, staying up until midnight working on a project. I'm very forgiving to myself. I practice a lot of self-care. I work out every day and I just do a little bit by little bit each and every single day. I don't try to accomplish everything. I think people sometimes have this mindset of perfectionism and they think that they need to deliver these instantaneous results without appreciating the journey and the pathway that's going to get you there. And so I've done that and adopted that as a part of my mindset that I'm not going to accomplish it all today, but just taking little bit by little bit is going to get me to my end result.
Speaker 2:That is very wise and that's something that takes people many, many years to figure that out, and you figured that out at a young age for yourself, and I think that's absolutely extraordinary and you're really leading by example and showing people. You are leading by example and I really respect that. So one of the things I want to ask you, Tara you have a whole bunch of mentors. Do you also do some mentorship for some of these young ladies?
Speaker 3:I do, I do, and that's kind of that's another element of the inspiration that I had. I've always been a person that when I get into new organizations or I'm into new areas, I always look for a mentor for me and then I always am willing to open my door to mentor others. I think it's kind of a chain-up kind of experience, especially being a female and trying to navigate the waters, learning how to juggle it all being a working mom, having small children, self-care, trying to figure out ways to take care of yourself and not lose yourself as a mom. I know lots of women who have lost themselves just being a mom and trying to give everything to your children. So what I've done is really been very particular about the women that I gravitate towards that show me that it's possible to do it all.
Speaker 3:Because society tells us like, oh, if you're a mom, then you've got to be a mom and that's got to be your only priority. You can't do anything for yourself, you can't take care of yourself, you need to just be a mom. And I don't believe that. And you can't be working, you can't be a working mom because you can't do it all. And I don't think that's true. I think that you can do it all. You can accomplish all of your goals Be a working mom and be able to have your own businesses, take care of yourself. It's all about priority and it's all about just doing a little bit at a time and making sure that you have realistic expectations.
Speaker 3:A lot of women that I have gravitated towards. I've seen that they were strong in areas that I wanted to be strong in, but, most importantly, a lot of the younger ladies that I've opened my door up to. I don't ever close my door to any young lady that says, hey, I'm inspired by you, will you walk with me? I grab their hands and we go on the pathway together. How?
Speaker 2:important is it to surround yourself with a strong support network.
Speaker 3:Oh, to me it's one of those things that will make or break you. When you are surrounded by people that are strong and what I mean by strong? I mean mentally strong, morally strong, ethically strong. When you're surrounded by those people, you will feed into that same energy, you will absorb that same kind of mindset and you will observe and see how they go about doing things, and it will then therefore inspire you to do things in the same accordance. It's very important for you to surround yourself by key people.
Speaker 2:I love that. You know growing up and being an entrepreneur for so many years. There's a lot of naysayers out there. What is some of your advice to these young women out there that are going to come across people that are not supportive, are not in their corner, that are trying to, you know, put them down, like, what kind of things can you say to them to really help them? Lift them up?
Speaker 3:That's such a beautiful question, candice. Thank you so much for that. I would say if you imagine in your mind, I like to do metaphors. If you imagine in your mind, I like to do metaphors. If you imagine in your mind holding onto a rope and this rope is literally cutting you and bleeding all over you, but you're holding on so desperately to this rope because you're too afraid to just let the rope go. And by letting that rope go, you free your hands from all the wounds, all the cuts, all the bleeding, and it's just the simple power of letting go.
Speaker 3:And I would encourage those individuals to let go of things that cut you let go of things that cause you to bleed because, it's not intentional for you to hold on to that. It's intentional for you to let it go so you can grow and develop and manifest into being the beautiful woman that you're intended to be. I know that's so hard sometimes for people to just let go of things that are no longer serving them, but in the reality of things, if the longer that you hold on to it, the more damage it's doing to you.
Speaker 2:I love that advice. I wish somebody had told me that years ago and I probably wouldn't have gone through the things that I had gone through, and that's why we need people like you yourself. And now you know the learning experience we need to learn from one another to support one another, and I think we're finding a lot more of that. I find that there's such a connection, more so than ever before, where people are starting to step up and say you know what? I've had enough. I want to be there for others. I want to show them a new pathway that they can walk, and I can be there with them, locking arms, collaborating with them, and together we're making the world a better place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, because you're not intended to journey it on by yourself. You know you're intended. People come into your life and out of your life for particular reasons and everything is intended for your growth and development and if you pay attention to that, you can allow your heart to open to where you can receive that and feel that human connection and continue to grow and be that for others as well.
Speaker 2:This is great. Okay, so one of the things I want to ask you, tara there is a lot of, because we are an international program. We have people from all around the world that tune into our show. Do you have a way for our listeners you know to check out what you're doing? Do you have a podcast? Do you have a YouTube video? Is there a workshop that maybe other people from other countries can participate in?
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for that question. It's all coming soon, but the best way to connect with me right now is through Instagram. And that's at the handle at Lawveen and that's L-A-W-V-I-N-E. That is the best way right now to get in contact with me, and also Facebook as just a Tara Levine search, and you should be able to find me as well.
Speaker 2:I love that. And Tara, last minute question here Do you have any tips, any tools, things you'd love to share with our listeners, or perhaps some things that are going to be happening in your life soon that you want to share?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm actually going to be putting together a coaching program and platform where we kind of share and discuss these types of things to help women just kind of tap into their true potential, their authentic self, and just also discuss things that may be old systems, old parameters, old concepts, that are kind of stuck and living in your construct, in your mind and you just don't know aware of those things or you're not aware of those things.
Speaker 3:So we'll be unpacking some ways and opportunities to kind of tap into those old, dated systems that may be in your mind and figure out ways how to to kind of tap into those outdated systems that may be in your mind and figure out ways how to re-challenge those concepts, to really discover who you are as an authentic individual.
Speaker 3:We as women, we as human beings, are beautiful, we are gifted, we are talented. We are all individual and we have gifts of our own. So sometimes it's hard because society has kind of made us unpack those things and align to a certain thought process of what good looks like. But in reality, what good looks like is just who we are as our authentic selves and who we are. Loving ourselves is the most beautiful thing that we could possibly do. So I'll be putting out some content, some information on ways to uncover that and really just tap into that potential. So be sure to follow me and like on Instagram and you'll be a part of the journey.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Thank you so much and we would love to have you back on the program again in the future to talk about your workshops and any of the things that you are doing. We would definitely like to have you back.
Speaker 3:It'd be an honor and I appreciate it so much. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh well, thank you, Tara. As I said, I know you're extremely busy. I appreciate you coming onto our program, so thank you so much for being my guest today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thank you to all of our amazing listeners that have been tuning into us over the last 12 years. You to all of our amazing listeners that have been tuning in to us over the last 12 years. You are absolutely extraordinary. We are so grateful for your kindness and the support that you give all of our guests on the program and all of our hosts. Thank you so much for everything. Please like share comment on all of our shows. It really supports the guests. And make sure you check out all of our other hosts at divasthatcarecom, because you want to definitely listen to all of their shows. Again, thank you to Tara, thank you to our listeners and please, please, do something kind today Until next time, everyone.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. This show was brought to you by Divas that Care. Connect with us on Facebook, on Instagram and, of course, on divasthatcarecom, where you can subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss a thing.