Tamara Thompson
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
what we do today with broadcast your 30 authority which is a very simplified similar system on the data-driven side right we wanted to still fill that void where business owners and ceos and founders felt like they could broadcast their authority in a more impactful way but also have the data behind it like here's here's what people are actually searching for
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
that you've had to overcome personal or business or both wherever you want to take it i don't care um you know what's funny mick is i went through my personal journey first so um About 14 years ago in December, I decided to sober up. I stopped drinking alcohol, any substance and cigarettes, you name it, anything, just cold turkey due to having some run-ins with the law multiple times.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So I have this very deep story of the ins and outs of jail systems in my 20s and putting together this opportunity for myself that actually created my life path from there. But I wouldn't take it back for the world. On a deeper note, I was actually put away for a few months, locked up, locked away. I was put on house arrest for nine months, so a total of a year I was put away.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Basically, if it was locked up with an ankle bracelet like Lindsay Lohan, it was back around the same time she was dealing with it too. Look at her now today. She's doing great.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I went through that journey, but the things that I went through, through that process of ins and outs of jail and
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
courtrooms and attorneys and going in debt from going through these experiences that was because I went through my own depression period and I won't go into that that part of it but once I came out of that depression and I sobered up that was actually when I decided to go into the entrepreneurial space and actually went back to film school in my late 20s and then I started a company
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
at the age of 30. And so that was when I actually sobered up. It took the first two years to really figure out that point of what I wanted to do. But I took that hobby of filmmaking and YouTube and turned it into a company. And then I told myself later online, later in life, that By going through that stuff, I became extremely resilient. Things just didn't faze me.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
The BS bullshitter, you know, sorry, didn't mean to swear. It's my podcast.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I can read people. And so when I went through that process of really understanding that and trusting my gut and intuition through different experiences, joining masterminds, attending events, I really started to figuring out like what my soul's purpose really was on this journey. And so I started living that life the way that I wanted to.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And then I wanted to help more people, but I wanted to do it through some sort of service that I enjoyed, which back then, of course, was video and filmmaking. And then it evolved into podcasting. But what's unique about it is I've hit tons of barriers, walls, failures, fallovers through business, opportunity, and growth.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I may have hit a specific set of success that people see as success at this point in life. but it didn't come easy, right? And so, but all of those trials and tribulations that went through in the business side of it, all of it was because of everything that went through in that personal rock bottom journey.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Everything today, I always tell my team, they're always like, how did you handle that conversation? And I'm like, I was like, it really didn't phase me. It's just something that had to be done because of the fact that I've dealt with harder in my life. And it pushed me and propelled me into a stronger woman in business because of those life stories that I had with my past.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And so it all evolves and changes and shifts. And my mindset completely shifted and stepped into as more of like a leader with the company and started removing myself from different things and started focusing on what I was passionate about and allowing everybody else to do everything that they were passionate about and skilled at.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
You know, people ask me similar frame questions. I like yours better than, like, what's your why? What's your because? It's very, very powerful. My because, you know, I think it started, and I didn't even realize what my because was probably over the years as things were actually growing and formulating. My because was going down the line.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And so that was really more of my path, but that's a little bit more of my backstory.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
It wasn't that bad, but it was more of like a women's correctional facility. So we shared the space and it was hard because people were coming in late at night. They'd bring them in. You had people come in like, oh, she just came in from the psych ward. Or, oh, she's coming down off meth. So there were some very intriguing...
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Um, times where I just, they actually saw me as a leader in there and the women in there respected me as they got to know me, the ones that were in there with me for the time. And it was very interesting to see because I, I, I'm fairly tall for a woman, five, nine. And I was in the, actually the best shape of my life. Cause I was constantly doing like.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
You know, tricep dips off the bunks, you know, wall sits off the wall, lunges across the room, doing stuff off the picnic table that was pinned to the floor. You know, like everything was pinned down. So there's just like this crazy, you know, the stories that I have in there as well. But like everything that went through, like I was even told that I inspired the officers in there too.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Like it was weird. Like after I got out, like all of a sudden the officers like in there were were trying to add me on Facebook and I was like, I do not believe this is a good idea. So, but yeah, that really like, there was so many like crazy stories that went on, went on in there. There was a gal one day that literally came in from the Usain Asylum and this gal was being bullied.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And this is another thing that in my past, I was very much bullied in middle school and I don't ever appreciate anyone talking down to anybody or bullying somebody. And I will step in and say something when I see fit and, And she was bullying this nice woman that had been in there. And she came in and I was sitting on that bolted down bench, right? And so she was standing in front of me.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And I was wearing glasses at the time, just like you. I haven't had LASIK since then, but grateful for that. But I was wearing glasses. And the first thing I thought when she came at me was, I'm going to get my glasses smashed in my eyes right about now, but I'm not going to flinch. So I literally said, hey, you don't need to speak with her like that. She's just asking a question.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I could tell that the mental health was not stable. And at that point, after I opened my mouth, the gal lunged at me, basically pulls her fist up right into my face. And I literally was like... OK, I could lose my eye right now or I could stay calm and they'll get the officers in here, which it was the latter. And so it went through that process that was removed.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
But it was like after that, all the women also saw me as a leader, too. In that scenario, they always like would flock and be like, what do you want to watch on TV? I was like, well, what do you guys want to watch as a collectively whole? Yeah. And so things like Shark Tank and other things like that. So I started learning more business while I was away and then watching more when I was out.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Um, years back, I, I actually just wanted to, to actually connect with more people. Like I genuinely just wanted to connect people, help people talk to people. It was one of those things that was just kind of part of my personality, I guess. I just wanted to be there to help support people. And, um,
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And so then I went into entrepreneurship later on in life. But it was very interesting to see that. But that really was part of my monumental experience from a personal path, from being bullied younger, to being pulled over for DUIs, to being put away, to... to the jail, to the house arrest, to interlock on my car for five years. You know, those little bluey things. Yeah. Five years.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So that's how bad it was. I also lived in Seattle, Washington, which was probably the second worst state for DUIs at that point, which I understand, but I'm actually grateful. I went through all of it because it, It put me in debt. It put me through these experiences. I had to live and learn and figure out how to grow and get through them.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And I actually ended up negotiating with the judge for my sentence and got the best case scenario for myself with the lesser amount through the experience because of... the knowledge of negotiation, which is also applied in business. But yeah, I've just taken all those things. So yeah, it's a lot more backstory there, but that really propelled me into the woman I am today.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Yeah. No, everything Broadcast Your Authority, our YouTube channel, it's where we host our podcast. We're excited because we have our annual event coming up in April, the end of April for Broadcast Your Authority. We're on Instagram, Broadcast Your Authority, TikTok. For me personally, though, my favorite platform is Instagram. And you can connect with me at Tamara Thompson Official.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
uh, Mick knows we, we message in there, you know, each month we're like, Hey, what's up? How's it going? What are you doing? You traveling? What are you speaking? So, so yeah, that's my favorite spot, but yeah, I'm definitely on, on Facebook and all the other platforms, but definitely connect on broadcast your authority, even our websites, broadcast your authority.com.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And we're just super excited for all the stuff coming up the rest of the year.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
in different experiences, being able to help people with not just their podcast, but their life or introductions or connections or driving someone to the doctor or just, like, doing something out of the norm. Like, I always wanted to do something and give back. It wasn't something where I just wanted to say hey and, like, expect something from it. So, like...
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Well, we appreciate you as well. And thank you so much for having me on your show. Appreciate you.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Then I started to tap into what that really looked like. I truly believe, because a lot of people in my family live these generations of entrepreneurship and things like that. My mom was actually an entrepreneur growing up as a kid. I saw how hard she put work into things. She helped build our family. She was actually the stable one in the family.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And my dad would go through jobs like underwear, you know, rest in peace, he's no longer with us today and I still love you dad. And so, but we had this like stress, stress level piece of it but there was this part of my mom that she would always like.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
do certain things and she would build the success and she would always talk about like how i had these dreams and how i could always help other people and so i believed her and i really wanted to she was like you can go and do whatever you want and help more people in the world you could be an entrepreneur too tamra and that wasn't something that i actually thought of until i was an entrepreneur because i really didn't think i was going to go down that that path but i think it was because of some of the struggles that we had
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
in our life growing up that started leading me onto this path of understanding that I could do something much more for other people that led back to a bigger mission. And that's what we did at Broadcast Your Authority because we've now built a network of over thousands of business influencers and CEOs and work with them with their podcast pieces.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And I was like, wow, I'm like, I'm actually doing that because I want to help more people in that line. It may sound a little cliche, but you know, it really is that point. Like, When I was decided I could actually help more people and I actually showed results for more people, then the doors also started opening in my space as well.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So hopefully that answers a little bit of the backstory, but it really kind of stemmed from the entrepreneurial path that my mom had. And then she kind of guided me and showed me. My dad was a dreamer, and he really – stepped into like that dreamer part. He didn't quite keep the jobs, but, but he was the dreamer. He was always like, you can do it, you know?
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
But then he's like, sorry, I lost my job, you know? But when it was like that, that stress, but I was like, Oh, I was like, I know I can go out there and impact more people, serve more people, but actually do something and make money from it because my mom showed me that path. And so that really inspired me to go into that.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And it was just kind of a mentality I had growing up and then stepping it forth into business and, you know, connections at this point.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I appreciate that. Well, I appreciate your soul too. And you know, when people come into your path, like you genuinely feel connected more to certain souls. And when I have conversations with people, including yourself, it's just like, I want to stay connected. I want to touch base. You could touch base somebody every seven days or every seven months or every seven weeks.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And you still feel connected to that person. You still want to see how they're doing. And that's what I put forth to with most of our connections that I built over the years. Like, Literally today, I was like, I should reach out to so-and-so and so-and-so.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I literally just started messaging a bunch of my connections even today and this morning because I was like, I want to know what's going on in their lives. So I set up all these calls for this week. And I go to these spurts where I just want to understand what people need, what they want, and how I can help serve them. And then other things start to open from there.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And that's really what happens with those. We call them maybe basic touch points, but it really means something to most people.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I appreciate that. I was like, do it now, right now.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
That's a great question. So at times I felt like there was multiple gaps that were jumping in there with. I was like, I can't just point just one down. You know, what was unique about it is originally it started way back actually when we had our production company first before we evolved into Broadcast Your Authority. So to give you some context here, we had a production company where we
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
we really felt like we wanted to help people share their message and their stories in a more impactful way, but also got them results. And so we would create these short-form content pieces, which we called teaser videos, trailer videos, and then we led them back to a long-form content piece, which back then we were directing impactful documentary films.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
But of course, we were with brands, celebrities, influencers, entrepreneurs, CEOs. We started doing all these films, but a lot of that, of course, is just like a one-off project. And so we thought to ourselves, well, how can we help work with more people? And there was a moment where we had a teaser video take off and it had 888,000 views. That's angel numbers for you, 888.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And so when it took off, it had that in a matter of like less than 10 days taking off on YouTube. And we were literally like, what was that? And so we're like, okay, let's learn and figure out this YouTube beast. And that was back in 2012.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So when we jumped in to learn all the algorithms, it was a mixture of like content, topics, inspiration, even the music use that was impactful that took off on the channel. So we turned around and said, well, how can we, and that's where it evolved and shifted into what we do today with Broadcast Your Authority, which is a very simplified, similar system on the data-driven side, right?
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
We wanted to still fill that void where business owners and CEOs and founders were felt like they could broadcast their authority in a more impactful way, but also have the data behind it. Like, here's what people are actually searching for. This is what actually performed the best on your channel. This is what we suggest you do more of because this content took off.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So if your audience has already spoken about your content, your episodes, do more of what they love and pay attention to that data. So it really turned into this platform that people were able to share their message in an impactful way, but also have direction so that they could, you know, analyze the data, see what's taking off, take, you know, feedback. It's like, hey, this isn't working.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
This is working. Hey, let's try something else. Let's change the thumbnails. Let's do YouTube thumbnails. So there's a lot of techie stuff, data stuff in there as well. But it was always back to everyone that we talked to said they wanted to share their message more and they wanted to share it more consistently.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And so we stepped into that space because podcasting wasn't necessarily as big as it is today. But what was unique about when COVID came online there was so many more listeners to podcasts. There were more creators to podcasts, but far more listeners. And then now it's such a huge medium to be able to help people share their stories through podcasting.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
And Broadcast Your Authority has been able to help in different ways, from the side of the creation side, from the actually one-stop shop for your show, or on the side of podcast booking tours, if you want to be booked on other people's shows. And then we have our experience model.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So that's my favorite part of it because I get to connect with people in person, put together these awesome PR experiences, connect the dots and bring people together. And that's really what we do as a whole. So it's, I call it the three tripod legs because that's really what it was with the background of videography and filmmaking in the background.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
It evolved from that into the three tripod legs of broadcast your authority and how we serve our clients at this point. So yeah. that's really why I felt like we kind of came into that one-stop shop filling different things, but it really came back from something that they really wanted to share their message in a more data-driven way.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
You know, what's interesting, Mick, is the fact that a lot of people don't believe that they have a strong enough story to share. I think a lot of people actually, there's big brands, corporations that tell the company brand story, which is very important, right? We work with corporations, brands, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
The ones that I have the most passionate for, though, is the business owners, the entrepreneurs on that side. And when they're able to step in and understand that they actually have a story to share, but having an expert come in and kind of pull that story out, I think people also start to share the wrong stories.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
One of the things that I did in my early years, I went way back and was telling my story from way back here all the way through these trenches to build this part to success. There's incremental stories within, so if you could take those little bitty pieces of the stories that has an overarching...
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
you know, the arch basically of storytelling and understand that you can tell these stories in different ways, especially on podcasts. Right. So obviously you have podcasts with multiple episodes, right? You're not going to talk about the same thing over and over and over again. Right.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
So if they have a specific show, you want to make sure that they have a story that aligns with the content of the day. Right. And so I think when people can really hone in on what that overall arc story is for the show and the brand and the company or themselves, and then find all the mini stories within so then they can leverage those pieces out to come back to the arc storytelling piece of it.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
That's the most important part is to find what is the bigger picture? What is it because of the company? What is it because of the brand? And you wrap that back around really nicely on that side. So hopefully that answers that question.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
I'm doing awesome. Thanks, Mick. I appreciate the T-Squared introduction. I was like, that goes way back. Yeah.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
You have to expand more with PR because you're getting that exposure. You're leveraging different credibility options out there. You're getting on other people's shows that have a large following too. When you do a PR tour, like let's say a podcast booking tour, or you're getting booked on TV shows, maybe you're at Good Morning America, maybe you have a book launch.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
all those things are super important for when you're doing something with a big push or you want more of a consistent growth method. Because once you do that push with PR first, that's where the marketing comes in second. Because then you're going through and then you're nurturing those people that come in from
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
Those interviews, those campaigns, those appearances, they come through like, oh, I found you on a mixed podcast. I loved your story. I'd love to connect with you because that would be a PR positioning factor. Right. So when you do that, it's a great opportunity and be very grateful for all the PR opportunities that are out there.
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
and then step forth and say like great like how how can we now serve this individual or this um person that's reaching out that turns into the marketing efforts of how how that that funnel goes through but it's more than just a funnel you know what i mean it's just like you're building relationships you're building community aspects so i agree with you 100 i believe pr is one exponential
Mick Unplugged
Tamara Thompson: Why Your Story Matters for Influence, Community, and Real Growth
tool and resource that can help brands, individuals, leaders, authors, speakers, uh, to really position themselves out there. And that really helps see that, that effort that goes into the marketing that is, should be consistent on the marketing side of it.