We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tanja Diamond a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tanja, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
If you dream of being your boss and carving your path, you better be ready for some serious risks.
I’ve been chasing visions and entrepreneurial dreams since I was sixteen.
Back in the 90s, I lost 25K in a startup with Paul Allen. If we had just waited ten more months, we could’ve been partnering with an online giant like eBay. Timing is everything.
I’ve had my share of wins and losses. Over hundreds businesses later, from brick-and-mortars to online ventures, I’ve learned that risk is an inherent part of the journey.
My parents called me reckless, my friends thought I was crazy, and my lovers didn’t understand. One of my exes even said in court that I couldn’t be a good parent because I believed I could make money from this thing called the internet.
I saw the future in ’92 when a friend built my first website. I was clueless about tech and even scared of my computer.
Despite my failures, I’ve found success. Each failure made me stronger and more confident, even when few others believed in me.
My biggest challenge? I’m usually five years ahead of what’s happening. Being too early can be just as tough as being too late. But staying ahead is where the magic happens.
I was teaching energy work before Oprah made it mainstream, talking about tantra when people thought it was code for sex work, and diving into trauma recovery, nervous system regulation, and biohacking before those terms even existed. Building websites on dial-up was a lesson in patience—update, take a nap, repeat.
I was selling online programs in the mid-90s when no one had a clue what they were. With no online payment processors, people sent me checks. HA HA!
In 2006, I moved my in-person clients to Skype. They were skeptical. Now, Zoom is everyone’s go-to.
My first products were teleseminars, e-books, and MP3s. In 2009, I created the first-ever V-Book, a video-embedded ebook, and conducted my first live-streaming workshop.
The first time I did a 100K launch from a webinar, it felt like money from thin air. It’s true—you can make money from the internet. Most people are too afraid of the potential risks to start early. They wait to see others succeed before taking the plunge.
From being tech-scared to building my systems and mastering the necessary software, I’ve built online empires. It’s all doable.
Even when I lost everything and had to start over, even when no one believed in me, even when people called me a dreamer disconnected from reality, I kept going.
I’m not special (well, maybe a bit, HA HA).
I’ve made more mistakes than most will ever experience, and I make them at warp speed to learn and succeed. I take risks to learn, invest in my process, and I NEVER STOP! You can do the same.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m an autistic polymath who loves to solve life challenges. I’ve been finding solutions to life and business challenges since I was a kid and have been paid to do it since I was sixteen.
I get deeply involved with things I’m curious about and leave no stone unturned until I master it. This path has allowed me to be certified/licensed/educated in thousands of subjects and do apprenticeships worldwide. I’m fortunate to have only worked part-time for most of my life, and this, and a very rapid reading speed, has led me to the title of life and business strategist. I don’t see myself as a coach because my clients typically pay me to tell them what to do to get the fastest results possible.
I love finding the broken foundations in businesses and then figuring out how to improve things. In life, love and sex I love helping people heal unresolved trauma, I found that most programs or modalities don’t address the core of the issues. So people spend hundreds of hours and a lot of money and never get complete, sustainable healing. I uncovered the 5 Innate Systems, which, once worked on with some very simple 5-minute practices, can heal old patterns, energetically, chemically, emotionally, physically and mentally. These are in my Recover Your Life in 20 Minutes a Day program. It has a 99% success rate working with people who had lost hope of ever feeling whole again. I’ve been bio-hacking since before it was even called that.
I did a deep dive into healing people’s sexual traumas as well and have created Sexual Healing Programs for men and women, leaning into my classical Tantra energy master training and Neo Tantra, the Alchemy of sexual connection. I have two podcasts, Men, Sex, and Tantra, and the other one, Tantra, Love, Sex, and Intimacy, where you can get a taste of what I do.
I became a five-time #1 international bestselling author in the last eight years and a 2X International TEDx speaker, TEDx organizer curator, and speaker coach for multiple TEDx events in the US. Spending the last three years on the subject of public speaking around the TEDx brand has led me to help hundreds of speakers get their TEDx stage and Ghostwrite six TEDx talks, getting millions of views. In 2024, I’ll be “TEDx retiring” to create my speaking programs, starting with Discover Your Unique Speaking Style. I’ll be leading a VIP speakers retreat in Oct 2024, on the heels of speaking to 700K people in India.
Last week, I received an email stating that I was a finalist for the entrepreneurial TV show The Blox. I’m excited to be part of it.
I’m honored and privileged to have worked with more than 90,000 people and 22,00 animals in 60 countries over the last forty-five years.
I can tell you this… if I’m curious about solving a challenge, I won’t stop until I get it handled. I love solving the puzzle when it benefits others. You can check out InspireLifeLLC.com or google my name to learn more about me.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
You hear it all the time, yet so few people are brave enough to show their imperfect selves. I happen to be quite polarizing and an in-your-face person. Over the years, I have created quite a reputation among people who follow me. They love me or hate me, but either way, they are fans.
It always makes me laugh when someone says. I couldn’t stand you when I first started seeing your posts, and then over the years, I became a fan, and I want to work with you.
Our clients need to know what we stand for and against. They need to get to know us for real, not the person we create in hopes of selling them something. I believe in giving value. By showing people I can help them, they have an easier time deciding I’m the one they want to work with. I’m not afraid to let people get free information from my social media or podcast to see what I do. I don’t live in the fear or scarcity model.
Half of my business is referral-based because I get results for my clients. I don’t want to waste my time or anyone’s time or money by not getting results. That is out of integrity for me. So, I concentrate on providing epic value and results.
I see people spending more time on marketing tactics than on client results. Get back to basics. Provide insane value for a reasonable price, and you will have more than enough clients to work with.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
I remember a phone call from a man who said he had been listening to my radio show and wanted to know everything I did… I laughed, and he said, I’m serious; how do I get your knowledge? This was back in 2006, and the most expensive program I had was a 4-month program for men to learn to have better sex.
Remember, back then, no one was used to paying for an evergreen online program, and it was always hard to get that 3K sale.
I thought momentarily and said I would call him back in 2 days.
In those two days, I created a year-long hybrid program (an online course with some 1:1) that goes through the sexual education no one ever gives you, complete with healing past trauma and nervous system regulation—mind, body, and soul. I priced it at 25K, sold it to him, offered it to three other clients, and closed them all in three days.
Today, I have a hundred-thousand-dollar year-long program.
If you aren’t willing to create what your clients really want versus what you think they need, you are leaving money on the table. Listen to what your clients want from you and then give it to them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://inspirelifellc.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanjadiamondunleashed/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanja.diamond/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanjadiamond/
- Other: https://tanjadiamondspeaker.com/
https://speakercoachtanja.com/
https://evolutioncoaches.com/
