It has been one year since my 5-day “Women Who Inspire” interview extravaganza. For this series I interviewed Christy Turlington Burns who has done so much good work with her organization Every Mother Counts, Spiritual Author Gabrielle Bernstein, Tiny Buddha Founder Lori Deschene, and Business Coach Leonie Dawson. I also interviewed one of the most motivational and inspiring experts on women’s leadership and wellbeing, Tara Sophia Mohr.

Today I am excited to share the revival of the Women Who Inspire series – now called the Monthly Mentor series – and am thrilled to introduce Tara Sohia Moher as the very first Mentor.

Though I can’t recall my first introduction to Tara, I do know that she has played an important role in helping me get to where I am today with this blog, and my writing career. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt overwhelmed with fear and doubt on this journey, only to refresh my email and find a newsletter that truly could have been written just for me addressing my fears and helping me to overcome them instantly. Tara is an expert at helping to calm irrational fears and make them disappear.

Her pinnacle work, Playing Big, is a leadership course for women who are ready to change the world.

Below is my Q&A with Tara. In it she provides advice for those who are still seeking their passion, and those who are contemplating making big career changes. She also talks about the upcoming Playing Big course, and more. I DARE you not to be inspired by this interview!

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Q1. You work with women who want to “Play Bigger”, and also send out regular newsletter to help encourage women from falling into patterns of fear. What about women who are searching and haven’t found their true passion yet. Do you have any advice for those who know they are destined for great things, but are still unsure of what that looks like?

TSM: Well, there’s a lot to say about that!

I find that about 90% of the time we are saying/thinking “I just don’t know”, at some level, we know. We know about that dream that keeps tugging at our heart. We know about that childhood love we keep feeling pulled to. Quite often, though, we rationalize away our callings because they don’t “make sense” or because we feel we couldn’t possibly be the one to pull off such a big vision.

Our callings always are grand –because they come from our souls, from the grandest parts of us. Our inner critics will always look at those grand callings as grandiose and try to get us to back out of them.

So the first thing is to be willing to honor the whispers that already are there – no matter how vague or strange they are – and to begin to take action – small, simple action that honors what they are asking of you.

Q2. I know you made a major shift in careers when you began Wise Living. It is often a scary thing to experience such great change and dive into the unknown. What are your thoughts about making major career changes when you aren’t certain of the outcome?

TSM: Yes, I did make a major career shift – from working in the nonprofit field and in philanthropy (working for a large foundation) to the much more creative career I have now. But, interestingly, I wouldn’t say I ever “dove into the unknown.” There were no dramatic dives! There was a slow, multi-year process that began with a growing dissatisfaction with my previous career, and a knowing that that career path was the result of my being more loyal to my fears than I was being to my dreams.

I decided I didn’t want to die with that feeling – that I had made fear-based choices and never really gone for the career and creative expression in the world I wanted. Then there were many months when all there was an inner shift – no action yet, but a new stance. Instead of being the skeptic in relationship to my dreams, I was saying back to heart, “honey, I don’t know how yet, but I will do my best to try and get us all that you are longing for. I won’t ignore you any more.” And then there was getting trained as a coach, while working my other job. Starting to blog. Starting to coach. And then eventually, when I felt on very solid ground both personally about wanting to move in this new direction, and financially about my ability to build a business, I left my job.

All this to say, I believe we can be absolutely radical in our inner allegiance to our dreams, in our embrace of our callings, and at the same time, we can honor our own desires to support ourselves financially, to support our families, to have stability in our lives, to make change on solid ground. I’m not a cliff-jumper when it comes to change. I’m a hiker. I prefer to walk a long path that feels solid underneath my feet.

Q3. What about the Nay Sayers? The inevitable people that will pop up to tell you you’re crazy for choosing the unknown over the well laid out path.

TSM: Bless them! Thank them! They are the ones that give you the opportunity to connect even more deeply to your truth. Honestly, some key people in my life FREAKED out when I announced I was quitting my job. I was told I was ruining my life basically. And that was painful, because I so wanted their support, but it was also an opportunity for me to learn how to stay centered in my truth.

Q4. I recently read your article, “Women Need to Realize Work Isn’t School” in the Harvard Business Review with Whitney Johnson. Can you talk a little bit about this work and the idea that women need to learn to be more “disruptive”?

TSM: Yes, this is a topic I’ve become quite passionate about it and it’s also part of what I addressed in my recent TEDxWomen talk, which should be coming online too!

Right now the conversation culturally is all about celebrating what’s happening with women in education: women are earning more advanced degrees than ever before, and we are performing really well academically, relative to boys, whether it’s in elementary school or graduate school. Of course, this is good for our economic advancement.

But we need to take a closer look, underneath those statistics and explore what’s really going on. What I started to notice is that educated women were coming out of school extremely well-trained in what I would call good girl skills. That good girl skills (rule-following, pleasing the authority, trusting outside information, etc.) are eerily close to good student skills – in most traditional educational environments.

In school we learn to figure out what the authority figure (the teacher) wants and give it to them. We learn how to absorb and trust and regurgitate information we just absorbed from the outside. And we learn to follow the rules. Education will help us produce women who can continue to do all these things in their careers and therefore reach a mid-level of success within the status quo, but will education – as it’s now delivered –  create the movement of women changemakers, innovators, and leaders we need to revolutionize the world? We need to change education so it does that, and we need to help women become aware of how they need to shift their approach when they get into their careers. In our careers, we need new skills: how to challenge and influence authority, how to improvise, how to go beyond just doing good work, and also make our good work known to the world.

Q5. I’ve shared details about your leadership course Playing Big above. Can you talk a little bit about how this course evolved and why you chose to focus on entrepreneurs who are ready to take a big leap?

TSM: Yes, Playing Big comes in right in that gap I was just speaking about – teaching women the skills we need to truly play big.

Many women have the sense that they are playing small – and they want to change that. In the course, we change what’s is holding so many women back – self doubt, feeling “not ready yet,” sensitivity to criticism and praise, and, also importantly – the lack of a supportive community of women that truly supports them in playing bigger.

The course has been a huge hit with women, I’m proud to say, and it’s really my labor of love. It’s a synthesis of all the tools, practices and ideas that I’ve seen again and that have the biggest impact in actually moving women from playing small to playing big.

Q6. Is there anything else you would like to share?

TSM: I adore you! Thanks for having me.

And I’d love to invite people over to www.taramohr.com/10rules to grab the free 10 Rules for Brilliant Women workbook, so they can start playing bigger right away.

Thanks Tara! Now, what are you waiting for? Click here to sign up for Playing Big!