“If you aren’t having a supportive and inclusive culture, then what do you have?”
Taylor Douglas uses proven and practiced principles of human connection to empower business owners to create potent brands that magnetize the perfect clients. She is a widely requested speaker, intuitive brand and marketing strategist, and interpersonal influence expert.
Taylor takes you on a journey of discovery to show you how to harness the unique superpowers of your brand so you can show up proudly in your business and life every single day.
Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Taylor Douglas: We are a company that helps individuals and teams step into their most authentic version of themselves so they could build magnetic offers, brands, and teams to take their business forward with. In the future, we are an internationally recognized Business and Professional Branding Expert. We have systems that we have taken all over the world to help people understand their and their team’s work so that they can create incredible businesses.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Taylor Douglas: You would be really surprised how often I’ve heard kids say that. I started wanting to be an entrepreneur when I was very young. In elementary school, my older brother ran a successful food and production business and I joined my first entrepreneurship club in the fourth grade. When I was young though, I wanted to be an actress and a singer but now I realized it’s just because I like to be on a stage.
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Taylor Douglas: Even though I teach people how to promote and run their businesses now, when I was twenty years old, I could not get a job as a waitress because I didn’t have “enough experience.”
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Taylor Douglas: There’s so much stigma on the word ‘entrepreneur,’ and there are many ways to be an entrepreneur. Anyone who has big ideas and is willing to take action on them, I call that person an entrepreneur. I don’t think that all entrepreneurs will see success in their lifetime because entrepreneurship is a mindset, a headset, it’s something you seem to be born with and it comes out in all your daily actions. I know for me that if I were to give up on owning a business and going back to corporate America that every single day, I would be thinking of days where I could build something for myself and I think that’s what makes it being an entrepreneur.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Taylor Douglas: If you aren’t having a supportive and inclusive culture, then what do you have? There’re so many types of people in this world that when you expect everybody to be the same way; same strengths, abilities, opinions, and preferences, you are really limiting your ability to tap into people who provide incredible genius to your business. So not only is it important from the aspect of being able to do the jobs you need them to do, but it’s important because we’re all human beings. As human beings, we are capable of so much good love and connection that if we can intentionally weave that into our businesses, the difference you’ll see is massive.
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Taylor Douglas: In my opinion, a leader can be disruptive by standing up from the status quo. No matter what period of time it is− Covid or no covid, people first should be the mindset. Being a disruptive leader means standing up for something that others around will not stand for or that goes against the status quo.
Culturally, we are a people of do-what-you’re-told, follow the steps on the system and everything will be fine. But the best leaders in this world are willing to step outside of that box and acknowledge that people matter, mental health matters, neurodiversity matters, allowing someone to fully be in their strength matters. I have a saying that says, “Context is key,” and in the post covid world, this is still true. You will never know what somebody has experienced in their life that had led them to be where they are in this exact moment and when we can’t acknowledge that, we tend to put leadership on the backlog because good leaders acknowledge that people need to come first.
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Taylor Douglas: I help people understand the reasons they do their business and turn those into frameworks for them to be successful. A lot like when somebody builds a house, they need to build the bottom of the house first, the walls, and then the roof before they put any paint or decorations. I make sure that people understand there’s an order in which they build their house in and that’s kind of what I do with people’s businesses.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Taylor Douglas: We stepped out of the norm of corporate America and we let our employees say no to projects if it’s not within their realm of expertise. It’s difficult to have expectations of someone and have them tell you no but what we’ve discovered is that when we allow our employees to determine if they have the skill, the bandwidth, or the mental health to accomplish something that it creates significant loyalty. They know that we actually care for them as human beings and the things they say ‘YES’ to we get a plus work in those areas and they’re willing to take on things that they may not have skills in because we allow them to say ‘NO’ to the things they are not able to or don’t want to do in that aspect.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Taylor Douglas: I am pretty good at going into a store, shopping for an hour, and not buying anything if you want to call that a talent.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Taylor Douglas: “Chaos, Clarity, and Connection.”
This interview was originally published on ValiantCEO.
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