We were lucky to catch up with Tara Nurin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

In April 2022, I took my first non-working vacation in 12 years. Sure, I’d been on vacation. But my version of vacation had always involved staying wired to my wireless devices and working constantly — poolside in Puerto Rico or the back of a rickety bus in Brazil. My travel companions weren’t generally happy about my choices but this kept me firmly within my comfort zone. I was happier multi-tasking than relaxing.

But, by that spring, I was burnt out. At my aunt’s funeral a few months prior, my two female cousins and I agreed to travel together for the first time. We settled on nine nights in Sayulita, Mexico, a free-spirited beach town near Puerto Vallarta, and even though they’d both be working remotely on weekdays, I determined to take the time off. I mean really off.

There was only one significant problem: the week after we returned, I’d be running my biggest client project ever — managing all on-and-off-site content, logistics and activities for a four-day trade show that involved three vendor booths, a one-hour sponsored sales presentation and ten staffers from three countries. During COVID, in an unfamiliar city.

Starting in January, I spent every possible minute attending to every possible detail. I didn’t tell my client about my vacation plans until a few days before the trip — once I had accounted for any item imaginable. I packed my laptop, hoping desperately not to need it, and left.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I had so much lighthearted fun, I felt buoyed for the rest of the year. I dove in the ocean; laughed with strangers; read four books on the beach; attended two jungle yoga classes and a sound healing; meditated every day; intentionally lost myself walking back roads; served up happy hours and meticulously chopped dinners for my cousins on our waterfront patio; climbed a terrifying mountain peak with a private guide; zoomed around in a UTV; pet a tired-looking bull dressed in an outlandish costume; drank fresh local coffee, craft beer and mezcal; shopped market stalls for raw fish, fire-roasted whole chicken and cold coconut water; allowed my cousin to convince me that Modelo is delicious on a sultry salty night; tasted the Mexican spirits of sotol, raicilla and pechuga [mezcal infused with poultry flesh]; drank copious street-side micheladas and homemade frozen margaritas; watched a young woman make hundreds of tortillas an hour by hand; spied on Sunday service at a Colonial-era church; danced in the town square way past my bedtime; slept in a loft reached by a wooden ladder; ate everything everywhere because it was colorful and fresh and fulfilling.

Though I did monitor the cell phone for any crises that might arrive via email [there were none] and I did sit with a few minutes of mild discomfort over my lack of an agenda, there is one thing I didn’t do, not even once: open my computer.

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 owe my career to a kid’s book. Some people credit Gandhi, Woodward and Bernstein or their grandmothers. I have a wisp of children’s literature to thank. The book, whose name has been lost to history, featured a main character who aspired to become a reporter. Reading this as a ten-year-old, I first thought, “Hmm. A journalist? Cool.” Then, “I’d be good at that.” And finally, “I bet those journalists get a lot of free food.”

Admittedly, I do get gustatory fringe benefits as an international independent journalist, educator and consultant focusing on drinks, dining and destinations – far more than during my ten years chasing fires as a TV news reporter. But my profession has never been about the perks; it’s about speaking the truth and advocating for justice.

As a freelancer for twenty years, I train my eyes, ears and typing fingers on the places where food and beverage intersects with business, culture, history, sustainability and identity. Often using liquid lubricants as a mirror to reflect broader societal trends, I file stories and present talks on DEIJ [diversity, equity, inclusion and justice] at some of the world’s most colorful breweries, bars and boardrooms, while also appearing frequently as a featured expert on broadcasts and live panels hosted by entities like the BBC, Smithsonian and Colonial Williamsburg.

Passionate about promoting women’s challenges and achievements, I published my first book, a history of women in beer, entitled A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse: A Forgotten History of Alewives, Brewsters, Witches, and CEOs, which won first prize from the North American Guild of Beer Writers. I also received the inaugural Epikur Writer of the Year award for excellence in Philadelphia food and drink writing and have won two writing awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, along with several awards for book editing and documentary production and direction.

I absolutely loved planning events for member organizations as a teenager and college student and still do. I’ve run various large-scale events and marketing campaigns, along with continuing to write corporate press and stakeholder materials. One of my proudest moments as a freelance marketing professional came when I unexpectedly took over as media manager for the annual U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce conference – a job that had me coordinating logistics with the White House and securing credentials for the international press corps in advance of a significant policy speech given by President Obama.

As a certified BJCP beer judge, I co-founded Ferment Your Event, a company that hosts private beer pairings and events, and I design and teach three for-credit beer and spirits courses for Wilmington University in Delaware. I volunteer for the Pink Boots Society non-profit for women in the alcoholic beverage industry as well as the Sisterly Love Collective of Philadelphia-area women in hospitality. Additionally, I founded Beer for Babes, New Jersey’s original beer education group for women. Bring on the beer education. 2024 finds me taking over a fledgling organization dedicated to cultivating workplace wellness in hospitality through consciousness-raising training sessions and transcendental meditation scholarships for survivors of workplace trauma.

In my younger years, I earned a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. I speak Spanish and French, thanks in part to spending my first 26 winter holidays in a sleepy Puerto Rican beach town and residing in 11 states and countries, including Paris, where I had the privilege to study art and politics. I now live as an urban pioneer on the Camden, NJ, waterfront, where I joyfully watch the sunset over the Philadelphia skyline a block away from my “double-wide” brick rowhouse.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I am unlearning how to be as productive as possible.

I am learning that maximum productivity is counterproductive.

Somewhere between my early career as a TV reporter and mid-career as a freelance journalist, I decided I’d wasted my youth. Spent too much time socializing, traveling, doing everything but Working Hard Enough. I needed to make up for my perceived lack of discipline.

So I got obsessed. Barely did anything that wasn’t PRODUCTIVE. Happy hour at 4pm? Don’t you know I work until 7? Lunch with a friend and her baby on a weekday? How dare she minimize my dedication to my self-employment? Visit my relatives for the holidays? The laundry isn’t going to fold itself, is it?

For 25 years I stopped talking on the phone. I stopped reading for fun. I stopped seeing friends with families [and missed out on knowing their kids]. I stopped almost everything that didn’t bear quantifiable results.

I had a therapist tell me I was staying busy to avoid confronting my issues. I didn’t believe her. How could I, when I spent so much time intentionally alone?

But then, in my late 40s, I burned out. I couldn’t go any further at that pace. I acutely felt the stress and the constant Rolodexing of tasks ruining my mental health and threatening my ability to sustain any sort of professional longevity. So I went on what I half-jokingly called a “temporary partial retirement.” Quit working most nights, weekends and mornings. Allowed myself to feel fulfilled by my achievements. Learned to prioritize the activities that were either crucial or would directly help me meet my goals, which I reset to include paying loving attention to myself and the loyal friends who didn’t abandon me even though I had pretty much abandoned them.

I still stress out. I still worry that I should be returning emails when I’m taking a walk and walking when I’m returning emails. And I’m still unraveling decades of programming — both self-inflicted and societal — that tells me I have to be DOING something to be worth anything. But what I have learned is that the capitalistic systems that pull our economic strings benefit from this patriarchal work work work structure but we humans do not. Just like Mother Earth in winter, we need rest in order to restore and revive. It is the only way that we can even dream of renewing ourselves enough to resiliently and victoriously meet each new season of our lives.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I am pivoting as we speak.

After 25 years as a pretty successful journalist, I’m shifting my career focus and launching a non-profit that helps foster workplace wellness in hospitality. When the #MeToo movement finally came to craft beer in 2021, my friend Meagen and I decided to raise scholarships to train female survivors of beer industry abuse via transcendental meditation, a form of meditation that we both practice and that has been shown through more than 600 peer-reviewed studies to cultivate significant improvements in physical and mental health.

As a sought-after writer and speaker on topics of DEIJ [diversity, equity, inclusion and justice] in the beverage alcohol industry, I know and love this topic. I want to fill the void that exists where employee sustainability should be. And I feel my run as a journalist — which started at age ten when I decided that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up — has somewhat run its course.

But I feel a little lost not having a clear, non-journalistic path for the first time since I started self-employment nearly twenty years ago, and I must admit I’m feeling resentful toward certain aspects of the profession I devoted my life to. I’ve been procrastinating on tasks, and I’m tempted to say I don’t know what I’m doing.

Yet the truth is, I probably do, at least enough to press forward. I wrote a detailed business plan, have given multiple presentations and interviews, applied for grants, and secured mentors and a fiscal sponsor. Plus, I lean on a small cadre of beer-influencer supporters who meditate, and I know whom I need to contact and what I need to say.

Over the years, many people have complimented my ability to self-start and get to where I want to go. They marvel that I spend my days working instead of watching TV. They tell me I have the authority, savoir-faire and reputation to build this organization to help hospitality workers lead more self-actualized lives. I suppose I know in my subconscious that I’m capable of doing this, and I’m humbled at the thought of devoting at least the next 15 years of my career to it.

But how to take each next step when the climb looks so daunting from the bottom of the mountain?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.taranurin.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taranurin/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taranurin
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-nurin-659a58/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaraNurin
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/AWomansPlaceIsInTheBrewhouse/

Image Credits
Steven Lyford