Meet Taneka Johnson | Business Strategist & Certified Professional Life Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Taneka Johnson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Taneka, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The thought process for me behind starting a business is that it typically should be based off of your real life experiences, something that comes to you naturally to do or a skillset that can be monetized and has proven itself monetizable.

When you build a business from your real life experiences, you provide the chance for a more authentic brand to be built, which these days is hard for people to find on social media with so much fabricated fluff out there.

The authenticity and real life experiences are what helps your brand/business stand out specifically to the magic you bring to the industry. The thing that makes it uniquely yours. This way you aren’t worried about a saturated market in the field of what it is that you want to do.

What should our readers know about your business?
Cultivate With Taneka Johnson

Cultivate was founded by me, Taneka Johnson, a life-long hustler, tenacious entrepreneur, and organizational psychology expert.

I earned my degree in Industrial & Organizational (I/O) Psychology from Capella University in 2016. I am also currently enrolled, working on my Doctorate for I/O Psychology at Capella University.

My mission is to provide opportunities to help CEO’s create longevity in their life and business that focusses on 4 key areas or success: Mindset, Operations, Business Diversity (multiple streams of income in one business) and business credit. These are the four pillar areas that help entrepreneurs through their growth and scale phases of their business. By implementing systems and processes that bring ease, flow, and connectivity to teams while enhancing the collaborative spirit and culture within the business.

My specialty is in helping small, mid, and large businesses grow into their full potential through improving their organizational culture, leadership, and workplace.

My goal is to inspire positive change in what the next generation of successful companies looks like, and we do that with healthy teams, company cultures, and environments. I want to equip small, mid, and large sized businesses with the things that they need to start healthy, remain healthy, and keep being healthy – to be that trailblazer, that disruptor in the industry to help bring everything together, full-circle.

What I am most proud of is how I now have a brand and a business that truly speak to who I am as an individual. I feel truly aligned with my business and my brand now and it really feels good! But the only way that I was able to get here was by allowing myself to evolve as an individual, learning more about myself, who I wish to serve, the impact I want to make, and how to do it with being authentically me. So many people get stuck in businesses or brands that are not authentically them and have been mirrored from watching someone else. I’m glad that I took the time to do the self discovery work and self care to be able to add the more personable touch to my business. Because of that, I’m majorly excited of where my business is headed!

Entrepreneurship is by no means easy at all. Even though that’s what social media portrays, it’s not. It takes a lot of endurance to travel this journey and you have to be open to making mistakes, doing some trial and error, and taking risk to bet on yourself and trust yourself. Honestly the only way that I was able to get past most challenges that I have had is by hiring a coach to help me in building this vision and implementing a self care regimen that keeps me grounded. Self care is so important in my practice as a coach and even as a strategist. If I am not at my best, there is no way that I can perform the way my clients, or even my friends and family need me to. That’s important to me. The other part of beating the challenges is having a great support system. My friends are literally the greatest group of friends that I could ever ask for and they keep me grounded, focused, and make sure I stay on top of my self care regimen.

The biggest lessons that I have learned along the way are:
1. If you can’t find a door, build one. Don’t be afraid to be the first to build a blueprint for what you desire to do. When there is no table, be the table and then determine, who will sit with you.

2. Free yourself from the validation of others & society. Put more focus into being self validated and lead fearlessly.

3. The timing will never be right, the money won’t always be there, DO IT ANYWAY!

4. Learn how to self advocate!! In every aspect of your life! The moment you learn how to do this, your life will change.

-#CoachTWithTheKeys

What I would love for the world to know about my brand and story is that it was birthed from my own experience in corporate America. I came from a very toxic workplace, with unreliable leadership, and always went above and beyond to do my job, but for whatever reason, I was constantly passed up for opportunities to advance. I would be teased a lot to believe that I would get the opportunities, only later to find out that they had hired a less dedicated and less qualified person off of the street. Somehow, they still saw fit for me to continuously get added responsibility without any raise or promotion, because they knew I was the most educated there and was smart, but chose not to allow me the best platforms and opportunities to display that and get the recognition for it. Too often is great talent like that abused because of improper leadership and toxic workplace culture. It’s time to be intentional about changing that, and lead a new way of what proper organizational culture should be like, how employees should be treated, and how important it is to coach and educate leadership into properly exercising their titles, versus just wearing them on their chest. Cultivate is here to change that and lead the way.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Here at home in Memphis, some of my favorite spots are Coastal Fish Company, Fancy’s Fish House, Mahogany Memphis, BenYay’s, Beck and Call at the Hyatt Centric, LOVE Nightclub, Thrive lounge in midtown, The Pocket/Tailor’s Union downtown, Overton Square, Shelby Farms, there are literally so many places there are too many to name.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Absolutely!! I have so much gratitude for my nutritionist, Ryan Zuber (Your Favorite Nutritionist), my best friend Nicole Dotson (Care Love Repeat Wellness), my friend and accountability partner, Marisa Cotton (Your Star Power Solutions), and a coach must have a coach of her own and I value mine dearly. Her name is Jayna Butler, owner of Elocin Consulting.

Website: www.cultvatewithtj.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultivatewithtj/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cultivatewithtanekajohnson/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultivateWithTJ

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultivatewithtj

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF8BlC-R48zjTD7et-vHwoQ

Other: You can check out all of the current offerings, ways to work with Cultivate and even book a free qualifier call to get you headed in the right direction here: https://linktr.ee/cultivatewithtj We are currently accepting new clients as well as speaking engagements and podcast opportunities. Inquiries can be sent to hello@cultivatewithtj.com

Image Credits
Images were produced by Myeisha Nichols of Natrual Xpressions Studios & Amanada Ghobadi of The Branding Babe