Day 343: Tamara Elizabeth Cobbin
“So not only am I an emerging woman in transition, but I’m actually hoping to then be able to help others. Because if I can help one woman to feel better about herself, then somehow I’m going to change the world one woman at a time, kind of like the butterfly effect.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Tamara, for being part of the Project and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Tamara Elizabeth Cobbin: Good morning. My name is Tamara Elizabeth Cobbin, and I’ll be going by Tamara Elizabeth for my new book that’s getting published later this fall called Fabulously Fifty and Reflecting It: Discovering My Loveable Me.
Toni: Well fantastic, and congratulations on the book!
Tamara Elizabeth: Thank you very much.
Toni: When you think of the word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?
Tamara Elizabeth: I inspire women that have gone the same journey I have, and that’s a journey of transition. Having to start again. Having to discover the fabulously loveable self.
I love the word “moxie.” I love the 20s woman. They did so much regarding the vote. They went to jail for their convictions. They had moxie. And so I really like to inspire women that feel that it’s up, it’s over, there’s nothing more for them, to find their sass, their courage, their spunk, determination, and especially their attitudes. And so my website that I’ve designed to go with this book is called Moxiemizing.me and made up the word to be a verb because it’s an action verb.
And how do you get moxiemized? That’s who I hope to enthuse, to inspire these women that feel that they’re in pain, the challenge is too great, if they’ve had to fight in the ring or fight in the street, and now they want to jump back in the ring and say, “You know what? I’m not going to live up. I’m going to live again because we have so much living to do, especially at my age.”
Toni: Can you give me an example of what happens and how you inspire women to, you know, get that moxie that they need?
Tamara Elizabeth: I try to show them how to empower themselves, and I have four E’s to empowerment. I live by them, and I try to instill them in everybody I meet, whether they are a client or whether they are a friend, whether they are male, because I live in a predominantly gay neighborhood. A lot of males need self-esteem support, and I do help them with this.
My four E’s are Enthusiasm, Excitement, Expectancy, and Ecstasy. And so I try to help people with those four E’s. And then I sometimes, if they’re very good, I like to bring in my bonus E, and I teach them how to feel the exhilaration of being alive, and I compare it to having your blood carbonated.
Toni: Well that’s a fantastic lead-in to the second question of the Project, which is how to do you help others to explore their potential? So you introduce these four E’s to people, and then you’ve got your bonus E. Can you …
Tamara Elizabeth: Through a series of steps. I’ve done ten steps of how I wish them to slowly do this over a 10-week program or through a 10-week work program. I’ve taken this whole idea and then thrown it into ten steps.
Toni: I see; and what happens when I come out of this program? I’m more inspired? I’m more empowered? Is that what happens to me?
Tamara Elizabeth: I will say that you will be totally moxiemized. You will embrace yourself as the most perfect, authentic, lovable, fabulous person that you were always meant to be – that your inner being will take over and your inner child will be put in place, and there’s no more convictions of how you were raised or what people thought or who cares what. You are the most perfect person that you can be, and you will love to live with yourself that way. If you can live with yourself that way, you will affect the whole world around you, because you attract others like that.
Toni: Fantastic. Thank you. So what inspires you?
Tamara Elizabeth: Oh my goodness – it could be anything from a joke, which I love. I spent years writing jokes, taking jokes and writing stories, especially blonde jokes. I have a million stories I’ve written off of blonde jokes. And quotes – I’m a big quote nut. Love them, use them all the time. They’re in my book. I live by them. They inspire me so much because it gets me to think deeper and to get me to see things different, from a different point of view.
It could be a request and idea. Oh my God, if you come to me with an idea that you need solved, my gerbils get going on that wheel and monkey mind gets going. There’s no meditation in the world that can get me to slow down. You have to tell me to stop or push the coin return, because I’ll just keep going, and that’s what made me a really great fundraiser my whole life. I always fundraised and designed fundraisers for people, because I knew how to find a solution to their problem.
It could be anything as simple as an idea. Just an idea of walking down the street, see an idea – and I got a lot of ideas through photography, because everything goes into a small space, and that’s how I designed my other business, which is called Every Small Space. It is about designing small spaces, which I’m actually living now, because I just left a 3,500 square foot home to move to the big city to live in 500 square feet, so I’m actually having to practice what I preach.
Toni: When you find yourself needing inspiration, and maybe there’s a day where you need to be inspired more than others, what do you find yourself reaching for on a consistent basis?
Tamara Elizabeth: Being outdoors.
Toni: Outdoors.
Tamara Elizabeth: Me, Tamara, just going. Going anywhere with my camera and seeing what I can put in that little lens, seeing the world through my eyes. On my worst days, I grab my two Bichon Frises and off we go, and we just look and look. And that’s what I do when I travel. I never stay where the tourists are. I’m always off the beaten track. I’m always in where the locals are. I’m always taking pictures of laundry or a nook in the wall or a cranny here or a cranny there. I get inspired by these beautiful things in life.
People who walk with me through a town always say, “Tammy” (that’s my other nickname, Tammy) “Tammy, you always find things that we would never see.” Because I’m always looking up, and if you’re always looking up, you’re always moving forward.
Toni: What a great approach to life. I think that’s fantastic! Now, when you … you’ve written this book about, you know, being fabulous and the moxie. Have you always been that way? Have you always shown up to the table that way?
Tamara Elizabeth: I’ve … not always myself, because it’s very hard to practice sometimes what you preach, but through my self-love coaching journey that I’ve been on, I have discovered that it’s always in me, and now I’ve learned that it has been always me.
I’ve come to the table that way, because I look at my daughter and my four grown boys. My daughter at 19 is everything I could have wished to be and more, and I’m so thankful. She’s strong. She knows what she wants. She won’t settle for second best. She won’t put up with anything. And my boys are gentlemen. They treat their women right. They have good heads on their shoulders. They’ve never gotten themselves in too much trouble, except for the normal stuff that all kids do, and they’ve grown into fine young men.
When I look back on that, I think everything that I just said to you I instilled in them, and it worked. And so sometimes when I haven’t done it, maybe, it’s okay. I know I’ve been teaching it. But generally, I can pretty well get anyone to see the different sides of things, whether I do it myself at times, I need somebody else to help me, or not. I can do it.
Toni: So what are you doing now to explore your own potential?
Tamara Elizabeth: What am I doing now? Well, I hooked up with the self-love coach and I went through her program, and then from there with all my worksheets, she probably took my work to some of her peers who decided that I should write the book. So I’ve written the book, which is going to be in workbook type format so that not only do you read one reflection of my past, present, or future of what’s happened in my life – no names mentioned, this is not a “Mommy Dearest,” it’s just about things that have happened in my life – and then the next page will be an inspiring quote and a question and then their own worksheet.
So I’ve done that through that, and then when she took my book to her peers back again, they said, “Why isn’t she a coach?” So now I’m enrolled to become one in six months, and that’s what I’m on now. So not only am I an emerging woman in transition, but I’m actually hoping to then be able to help others. Because if I can help one woman to feel better about herself, then somehow I’m going to change the world one woman at a time, kind of like the butterfly effect.
Toni: Absolutely; and isn’t it interesting how you reached out for that help and how that help has opened up a whole new world for you as an author and as a coach yourself?
Tamara Elizabeth: Exactly. So I want to give back, and the only way I could survive what I’ve been through these last tumultuous six months is I could curl up and die and say, “I’m 50, it’s over” or I can say, “No, I’m just beginning. I’ve got another 50 fabulous years on this earth. Let’s make something of it and let me help a few people on the way.”
Toni: What a great attitude and what a great message to leave at the interview for everyone who’s listening to this around the world, that is a great, great, message to leave with them. Thank you so very much for being part of this Project, and we will have a link to your site. Congratulations on your book. We can’t wait for it to come out. And also, good luck with your coaching business.
Tamara Elizabeth: Thank you very much. I’m really looking forward to it. I feel like I’m reborn. The first 50 years was just practice.
Toni: There you go! Well, congratulations to you and thank you for sharing your story with the Get Inspired! Project.
Tamara Elizabeth: Thank you so much for asking me, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Toni: Take care.
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For more information about Tamara Elizabeth Cobbin: tamaracobbin.blogspot.com
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