Author, coach, mentor helps women be successful
October 2015
By David Zaslawsky
Photography by Robert Fouts
The chapters are titled “Hopeful,” “Confident,” “Courageous,” “Grateful,” “Fearless,” “Inspired” and “Free.”
The author – Tasha M. Scott – wrote Don’t Limit Me: Giving Yourself Permission to Live the Life You’ve Always Dreamed. There is a second part to that. “If you’re waiting on somebody else to give it to you, it might not happen.” It’s a favorite saying of Scott, who details her journey of understanding in the book. As a speaker, author and personal development/business growth coach – Scott now helps other women improve both their personal lives and professional lives. She does that through coaching programs, workshops and webinars.
Scott, who started the business in January 2014, received help from coaches and mentors as an entrepreneur/owner of Scott Realtime Reporting, which provides captioning services for people who are hard of hearing or deaf.
For Scott, it’s a matter of “paying it forward,” which is helping others as a coach. “It’s almost like passing the baton,” she said.
What she has found is that many of her clients lack confidence. “Confidence is the core of everything because if you don’t have the confidence to believe that you can succeed – you won’t.”
Another prevalent issue is fear of success. “A lot of the women that I work with have dreams; they have a vision, but they are afraid of can I handle this,” Scott said. “The fear of being able to handle it all – being a woman; being a wife; being a mother – feeling like you’re losing control.”
A successful female business owner may question that she is not being a good wife or mother, Scott said. “It all goes back to confidence and having the confidence to believe your dream that I can be the owner of the company. I can be the one in charge and that I can make the decisions and not feel like, ‘Oh my God, what if I mess this up?’ ”
When asked if women fear success because confident women may be perceived as conceited, arrogant and egotistical in today’s society, Scott said, “Yes, if we stand out, we’ll be talked about. Society has a way of making us think inside a box. Well, maybe we weren’t made to think inside a box. Maybe we were made to stand out and think outside the box and being able to own that.”
In her book, Don’t Limit Me, Scott tells the story that she had to look at herself in the mirror and say, “Don’t limit me because I was the only one in my own way.”
She said her personal problems “clouded my vision and clouded my views so I felt like I was just existing, but I wasn’t thriving in life.”
One of her coaching programs is four, one-hour sessions with homework and materials. She calls the first program “Get Unstuck” because clients would ask her if she could get them unstuck. She helps clients identify their strengths. “It’s almost like I’m helping you go dig for treasure on the inside of you.” Scott said she helps clients reconnect with their purpose. She also helps clients to maximize their strengths as well as realistic goal setting and time management.
The personal development is the first track, and business growth follows with the “master minds” groups. She is participating in a program called “Book Yourself Solid” with New York Times best-selling author Michael Port. The program focuses on making or remaking a foundation for your business “so that you can grow and become book solid,” Scott said.
Other key aspects are learning your target audience and learning how to talk about what you do. That is a six-month program.
She does daily video blogs on Periscope, where Scott shares personal development and business growth strategies to help women in business.
Scott started a women’s networking group called Women Connect Alabama, which is on Facebook. She has another group called Women Connect Worldwide. “I’m striving to build a community of support and accountability with women in business whether they go through my coaching programs or whether they get support and accountability from just interacting with each other through Facebook,” Scott said.
