We were lucky to catch up with Tara Jamison recently and have shared our conversation below.
Tara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
If I had to identify one defining moment that changed the trajectory of my career, it would be the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020.
Ironically, it happened during a time when the world appeared to be standing still.
I had started my aesthetics business as a side hustle in 2019 while continuing to work as a nurse. At that stage, I was still very new to the industry and, if I’m honest, my understanding of aesthetics was relatively narrow. Like many people entering the field, I thought aesthetics largely revolved around lip fillers and anti-wrinkle treatments. I enjoyed it, but I hadn’t yet grasped the depth, complexity and potential of the industry.
Then lockdown happened.
While I was continuing to work demanding 13-hour shifts as a nurse during the pandemic, the aesthetics world suddenly became more accessible than ever before. Conferences, masterclasses and industry events that would normally require expensive travel and exclusive access moved online almost overnight.
For someone like me, that changed everything.
Night after night, often at 2am after finishing a shift, I joined international Zoom calls and virtual training sessions led by some of the biggest names in aesthetics, regenerative medicine and business. What I thought was a small industry centred around cosmetic treatments suddenly revealed itself to be a sophisticated global field driven by science, innovation, patient safety, clinical excellence and entrepreneurship.
A whole new world opened up.
I became fascinated not only by advanced aesthetic medicine but also by facial anatomy, regenerative treatments, patient psychology, clinical governance, business strategy, branding and leadership. The more I learned, the more I realised that aesthetics wasn’t about selling treatments, it was about building trust, delivering exceptional patient outcomes and creating a business that could genuinely transform lives. I soaked up every detail.
That period completely changed my perspective, the world around me was changing and I was evolving.
For the first time in my adult life, the pace of the world slowed down. I had spent years moving from one responsibility to the next.. raising children, working multiple jobs, studying, building a career and simply trying to keep up. Lockdown created space that I had never really had before.
Alongside the professional development, I began investing in myself in a completely different way. I started reading books on mindset, business and personal growth. I journaled regularly, spent time reflecting on where I was heading, practised meditation and became more intentional about how I was living my life. Instead of constantly reacting to circumstances, I started consciously designing the future I wanted to create.
Looking back, this was just as transformative as the clinical and business education I was receiving. It taught me the value of self-awareness, discipline and long-term thinking. For the first time, I wasn’t just developing new skills, I was developing a new mindset.
I began to realise that success wasn’t reserved for people with different backgrounds, better connections or more favourable circumstances. It came from a willingness to learn, adapt and continuously invest in your own growth.
For the first time, I could see a future that extended beyond the career path I had originally imagined for myself. I stopped seeing aesthetics as a side hustle and started seeing it as a serious business opportunity and a platform through which I could combine my clinical expertise, entrepreneurial ambition and passion for helping people.
The defining moment wasn’t a single Zoom call or training session. It was the gradual realisation that I was operating in an industry with limitless opportunities for growth and innovation, and that I was capable of contributing to it at a much higher level than I had ever imagined.
Within six months of the lockdowns, I had grown my aesthetics business enough to leave my nursing role and open my own clinic. But more importantly, I had transformed from someone providing treatments on the side into someone building a vision.
The biggest lesson I took from that experience is that opportunities often appear when you’re willing to look beyond what you think you know. What started as a small side business introduced me to a global community of experts, mentors and innovators who completely expanded my thinking. The pandemic taught me that growth isn’t always about working harder—sometimes it’s about exposing yourself to bigger ideas.
Looking back, COVID didn’t just help me grow a business. It expanded my understanding of what aesthetics could be, what entrepreneurship could be, and ultimately what I was capable of becoming.
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 the founder of a multi-award-winning medical aesthetics clinic called AlterEgo Aesthetics and a training academy called Precision Point Medical Training as well as a Clinical Educator, and a BAMAN Lead.
I am an advocate for natural bespoke aesthetic results that focus or restoring lost youth and creating facial harmony and balance. We are specialists in a full face multimodality approach and an advocate for aesthetic training that focuses on building deep understanding and longer mentorship style courses rather than a traditional 1 day approach.
Today, I am recognised for excellence within the aesthetics industry, but my journey began far from the world I now operate in.
I grew up on a council estate and became a teenage mother at a young age. Those experiences could easily have defined the limits of my future, but instead they became the catalyst for everything I have built. Through resilience, determination, and an unwavering belief that our circumstances do not have to dictate our outcomes, I created a successful business and a career dedicated to helping others transform their lives.
I initially entered the aesthetics industry because I was fascinated by the connection between appearance, confidence, and wellbeing. Over the years, I realised that the treatments themselves were only part of the transformation. What many clients were really seeking was confidence, self-belief, and permission to invest in themselves. Through thousands of patient interactions, I found myself becoming a mentor, mindset coach, and advocate for women’s health as much as an aesthetics practitioner.
Today, my work spans far beyond aesthetics. Alongside delivering advanced aesthetic treatments and training healthcare professionals, I am passionate about empowering women to overcome limiting beliefs, improve their health, raise their standards, and create lives they are proud of. I help women recognise that where they start does not determine where they can finish through Project26: Becoming Her.
What sets me apart is that my message comes from lived experience. I have navigated challenges that many women face, including financial hardship, self-doubt, and the pressure of building a future while raising a family. Everything I teach and advocate for has been tested through my own journey. I have also invested so much into my own personal development and mindset mentors. My clients know they are working with someone who understands both the practical and emotional aspects of transformation.
The achievement I am most proud of is not the awards, titles, or business success.. although I am grateful for all of them. It is proving that change is possible. It is showing women from backgrounds like mine that they are capable of far more than they have been led to believe. Every time a client gains confidence, improves their health, starts a business, pursues a dream, or changes the way they see themselves, I feel I have fulfilled my purpose.
As I continue to grow my platform, my mission is to create a movement centred around empowerment, health, mindset, and possibility. I want people to know that my brand is built on authenticity, integrity, and transformation. Whether someone comes to me for aesthetics, education, or inspiration, my goal is the same: to help them see their potential and give them the tools and belief to become the person they were always capable of being.
Have you ever had to pivot?
People often ask me about the biggest pivot I’ve made in my life, but the truth is my entire life has been a series of pivots.
The first happened when I became a teen mum.
At an age when most people were planning nights out and deciding what they wanted to do with their lives, I was holding a baby and trying to work out how I was going to be a role model for another human being. I felt the weight of judgement everywhere. There is an unspoken assumption that becoming a young mother somehow limits your potential, that your story has already been written for you.
For a long time, I believed that too.
By the time I was 23, had three children under the age of five, I was exhausted, overwhelmed and struggling with anxiety. I loved my children fiercely, but there were moments when I felt completely lost in motherhood. I knew I was capable of more, and that they were deserving of more, but I couldn’t see a way through. I remember looking at my children and feeling terrified that I would never become the woman I wanted them to see me as, or that I couldn’t give them a life they deserved.
That fear became fuel.
I decided to grow, to show them that with hard work and dedication, anything was possible. I enrolled on an Access Course. To many people it was just a college course. To me, it was a lifeline. It was the first promise I made to myself that I wasn’t finished. I studied around nap times, school runs, part time jobs and sleepless nights. I carried textbooks alongside changing bags. There were countless moments when I wanted to quit because the easier option would have been to accept the life people expected me to have.
Instead, I kept going.
That decision led me to university and eventually into nursing. For the first time in years, I felt like I was building something. Nursing gave me confidence, purpose and identity outside of being a mother. It taught me resilience and compassion, but most importantly it taught me that I could do hard things, that I could help people and improve myself in the process. I was able to treat my family to amazing holidays and create experiences I only ever dreamed of. I was finally becoming the role model I dreamed I could be.
Then life pivoted again.
During my nursing career, I discovered medical aesthetics. What started as curiosity quickly became an obsession. I became fascinated by the science, the artistry, and the opportunity to genuinely improve people’s confidence. Every spare pound I earned went back into training. Every spare hour was spent learning.
In 2019, I started offering treatments as a hobby.
What happened next surprised even me.
Clients started recommending me. Demand grew. My diary became busier. Slowly, the thing I had started out of passion began turning into a business.
Then the world shut down.
COVID arrived and, like everyone else, I faced uncertainty. I was working long nursing shifts during one of the most frightening periods in modern healthcare. Every day brought fear, loss and exhaustion. Yet somewhere amongst that chaos, another transformation was taking place.
While many people were baking bread and watching Netflix, I was attending virtual masterclasses with some of the biggest names in aesthetics across America, Australia, Europe and Asia. I would finish a 13-hour nursing shift, come home emotionally and physically drained, and sit in front of a laptop until the early hours of the morning because I was terrified of wasting an opportunity to learn.
Looking back, I don’t think I realised it at the time, but I was rebuilding myself. Building a brand.
The pandemic changed my mindset completely. It taught me that growth doesn’t happen when life is comfortable. It happens when life is difficult and you choose to keep moving anyway.
When restrictions lifted, I emerged with a completely different level of knowledge, confidence and ambition. My business exploded. My appointment book filled weeks in advance. I opened my own clinic and created a business model that allowed other practitioners to grow alongside me. What had started as a hobby had become a thriving business.
But the greatest achievement wasn’t the clinic, the awards, or the financial success.
It was proving to myself that the anxious teenage mum who once questioned her worth had been wrong.
Today, I travel internationally, both in my capacity as a clinical educator and as an eternal student who is always striving for better. I am a regional lead for BAMAN, helping drive change in an industry that desperately needs safer standards and stronger regulation. I have won multiple industry awards, built a successful aesthetics business and launched my own clinical education academy and earned a reputation as a leader in my field.
Yet the achievements I am most proud of is much simpler than that.
I gave my kids a positive role model and the life I always wished I could.
My eldest daughter works in healthcare and has given me a beautiful grandson, my son is an aeronautical engineer and my youngest daughter also works in healthcare and alongside me in clinic as a skin therapist.
I evolved from being ruled by anxiety to conquering it and I never allowed one chapter of my life to define the next.
Every time life presented me with a reason to stop, I found a reason to pivot instead.
And that has made all the difference.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
Beyond training and technical knowledge, I believe mindset and personal development is the single most important factor in succeeding in any field. You cannot truly help others until you help yourself.
Skills can be taught. Qualifications can be earned. Knowledge can be acquired. But the ability to persevere when things don’t go to plan, to remain coachable, and to keep moving forward in the face of setbacks is what ultimately separates those who succeed from those who don’t.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned throughout my career is that failure isn’t something to fear, it’s something to embrace. Every mistake, disappointment, setback, or wrong decision carries a lesson if you’re willing to look for it and embrace it. Some of the most valuable growth in my life has come from the moments that didn’t go according to plan. The situations that challenged me, the business decisions that didn’t deliver the outcome I expected, the opportunities I missed, and the periods where I questioned myself the most have all taught me lessons that success never could.
I’ve always believed that growth requires humility. No matter how experienced you become, there is always someone who knows something you don’t. That’s why mentorship has been such a powerful part of my journey. Throughout my career, I have actively sought out people who were operating at a level above me and learned everything I could from them. The ability to listen, reflect, and remain open to new perspectives has accelerated my growth far more than trying to have all the answers.
This also highlights one of the most underrated factors in success is the strength of your network. No matter how talented or knowledgeable you are, growth accelerates when you’re surrounded by people who challenge, inspire, and support you. Through my role as a regional lead for BAMAN and through the amazing network of colleagues and peers I have built over the years, I’ve seen first-hand the power of peer support and collaboration.
Some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned haven’t come from textbooks or training courses, but from conversations with colleagues who have generously shared their experiences, mistakes, and insights. In an industry that can often feel isolating, having a community committed to raising standards, sharing knowledge, and championing best practice is invaluable. Success becomes far more sustainable when you stop seeing others as competition and start seeing them as part of your professional ecosystem.
Reflection is equally important. In an industry that moves as quickly as aesthetics, it’s easy to become focused on what’s next. But real growth comes from taking the time to evaluate what’s working, what isn’t, and where improvements can be made. Reflection turns experience into wisdom. Without it, we risk repeating the same mistakes and missing valuable opportunities for development.
Ultimately, success in this industry isn’t built on talent alone. It’s built on resilience, self-awareness, and a willingness to learn continuously. The practitioners who thrive are not necessarily the ones who never fail; they are the ones who view every challenge as feedback, every setback as an opportunity to evolve, and every success as motivation to keep improving
That mindset has been the foundation of everything I’ve achieved, and it continues to shape the way I approach both business and life today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.alteregoaesthetics.com
- Instagram: @alterego_aesthetics
- Facebook: @alteregoaesthetics
Image Credits
Acceleratorproductions (red suit image)
Big Mood Media (grey scrubs images)