We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Gums. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.

Erin, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

The mission of my business, Tap into your Wellspring, is to support women of color to reclaim the lives their grandmothers would have dreamed of, if only they were truly allowed to dream.

Like many of my clients, I come from a long legacy and lineage of hard-working women, who had no choice but to work themselves to the bone, put themselves last, and cast their own dreams aside to support everyone around them. They had to do all this to survive.

This spirit and work ethic is literally in our blood. So it’s no wonder we so often adopt the role of over-achieving caregiver and experience disproportionate levels of burnout. But the difference between us and our grandmothers’ generation is that we have a lot more choice, a lot more freedom.

I feel so grateful to live in an age where we have access to so much information about trauma recovery, emotional wellbeing, and mental health. But it takes more than just knowledge and awareness to shed generations of conditioning, and start taking good care of ourselves while pursuing our dreams. It takes dedicated energy, effort, and support to live in a completely new way. In my coaching practice, I help my clients define what they really want, build confidence in their ability to get it, and create an action plan and accountability to go after it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am founder of Tap into your Wellspring, a coaching and wellness platform for women of color. I’m a certified coach supporting high-achieving women of color to let go of what they’re “supposed to do” and become who they’re meant to be. I bring my coach training and lived experience to my work with clients, to intuitively meet them where they are and help them create what they most need to go after their dreams.

I have an MBA and have worked in management consulting, education, and tech, and have been a brand & marketing leader on blockbuster entertainment brands. I started my business after deciding, alongside so many women around me, that I no longer wanted to conform to societal standards of success.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was: “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.” This saying means that it is better to stick with what you have than risk it for something greater.

I come from a long line of survivors. Humble beginnings, if you will. So in my family, everything was about pursuing safety, and getting a stable, steady job. There wasn’t as much room for being creative and dreaming up something completely new.

When I started my business, I was doing something very few people I knew had ever done. In order to create something you or anyone around you has never experienced before, you just might have to give up on the “safe” option or the “tried and true” path and take a leap of faith to go after your dreams. That doesn’t mean making unwise decisions, but taking calculated risks is a necessary part of the process of creating brand new opportunities.

In the case of many of my clients, they are usually far more qualified and capable than they give themselves credit for. They are perfectly equipped to go after their next career move, new relationship, or whatever new opportunity they desire. It may be scary, but they often have to let of a “good thing” in hand, in order to make room for something far greater.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

“true power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero, and leader.” This quote is from a poem from the book Inward by yung pueblo. It came to me in an early part of my healing journey. It inspired me to stop looking to external sources as validation that I was worthy of going after my dreams, that I had everything I needed within me to be successful. It also is a belief I hold front and center in my work with clients. I believe they have the answers they need within them, I just support them to create the stillness they need to hear them.

More recently, I read the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. He shares the concept of an “Upper Limit Problem,” which is that we all have unconscious limits to how happy we can be or how good things can be before we get scared and allow our fear to bring us back to old patterns of chaos and confusion.

I am committed to the belief that my life, and my entrepreneurial journey, can be filled with ease and joy, just as it is filled with hard work and effort. I can recognize when I’m butting up against my upper limits and find the support I need to work through them. Hendricks shares the quote, “Excitement is just fear without the breath.” When you are grounded in who you are and your purpose, you can turn your fear into excitement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tapintoyourwellspring.com/
• Instagram: @tapintoyourwellspring

Image Credits
Last image is of my grandmothers, who I hope to honor through my work