We were lucky to catch up with Taryn Starr recently and have shared our conversation below.

Taryn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Are you looking to find your passion?

I understand, when I began my journey taking my skills into the marketplace, I was completely at a loss, depressed, and working 80 hours at three jobs to make ends meet.
Greatness is built in small pieces over time until suddenly a spotlight shines. A lot of people ask me today how I chose the path I have taken. For some context, I own a music production company, a health and home store, work as a speaker, musician, and model with an agency.

This is my story.

Many business owners and artists knew they wanted to go into their area long before succeeding. As amazing as that can be, it is not my story.
I began speaking at a very young age. Throughout my life, I participated in different extracurricular activities and even a few pre-professional vocational schools. From the age of seven, my grandmother paid for my sisters and me to attend a pre-professional dance academy. In addition, my parents wanted all their kids to be trained musicians and speakers. That was the official beginning of my journey. From age seven on, I had a rigorous schedule that included high-level academics (we had to drop activities if our grades dropped), professional dance (ballet, tap, jazz, modern, and hip hop), private piano lessons, and professional speaking.
At age fifteen, I traveled the country as an accredited speaker and debater. I spent the fall and all between travel time training 40 hours a week in dance while practicing piano daily for an average of an hour a day. You could say that discipline has made me who I am. At seventeen, I began dabbling in business but was discouraged by my family who wanted me to have a “stable” job and a college degree.
Everything in my life changed when I met my now mentors and coaches, who asked me for the first time,

“What do you want your life to look like?”

My answer is still the same today. I want to travel the world, be creative every day, and inspire people to live their lives instead of giving their time away to a career they do not want.

If you are looking for a path forward, be it into a new career, or stepping out into your art form for the first time, ask yourself these questions:

“What do I want my life to look like? Whose life do I want to change? What specific ways am I gifted to do that?” You will find your answer if you look deep enough.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Taryn Enos, but when performing or speaking I go by Taryn Starr, Starr is my middle name and it makes a great stage name. I currently work in the Tech industry as a leader and entreprenuar. I enjoy speaking and training others how to speak professionally. Currently, I work in a few industries and businesses and provide consulting and career coaching for those looking for their passion.

If anyone wanted to see my e-commerce store, they could visit this link: www.amway.com/myshop/tarynenos.

For those looking for Motivational Speaking, Music, or my current Gallery of model work, please reach out to me by visiting my site: https://tarynstarr.com/contact/.

Those looking to book me as a model should reach out to Chic Models and ask for Taryn Starr at: https://www.chicmodels.com/contact-us-2/

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

The best way for us to begin supporting artists is to raise interest in the art community and awareness of local artists. If we do not know they exist, how can we help them? There are two ends to this question, what the artist can do, and what that society can do to support artists.

On the artist side, sometimes this looks like getting out and intentionally being a part of expos and small business art displays. A good start in marketing is to find a consultant to build and create a marketing plan to raise awareness for your business.

Going from small to profitable can be a leap. As an artist myself, I understand that most artists are not business people. I was blessed in having two business-owner parents which created an understanding of business and marketing for me. If business is a daunting word, take some of the guess work out and look for an experienced consultant.

On the social side, there are multiple things we could do. However, I would submit the most important thing is to change the mindset around art. Art is not something that is reserved only for the rich and famous. It is also not something that should be difficult to find. I would personally love to see more environments like open gallery shows at local coffee shops, spoken word open mics, and other small and local forums that encourage our local gifted artists to participate. I began my journey as a musician in a local coffee shop called “Jives Coffee” in Colorado Springs. From there, I was hired as a pianist at Hotel Elegante in Colorado Springs and later worked as a performer in elderly homes around the state. Finally, I got to the point where I played piano at the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado. Without that grassroots opportunity, I would have never grown enough to make the jump to actually working as a paid musician and working professionally.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I had reached out to people who have succeeded in my area sooner. I am a mixture of business and artistic. Because of that, I am grateful to have grown up with a large number of coaches, teachers, and much later, mentors. As a young person, I had dance professors who had been in the dance companies that I wanted to work for. I had many coaches in speaking who had traveled the world as speakers before me.

If I could say one thing, find people who have done what you would like and who are currently at the level you would like to be. In my case, I needed to find artists and business owners who had not only started but had actually achieved what I wanted. It is quite easy to find people who have “started” working as an artist. However, it is much more difficult to find someone who has successfully become financially stable and even successful in the art world.

I would recommend this process for anyone looking for “what I want to do”.

1. Make a list of potential options (careers, types of art, businesses, etc)
2. Narrow the list to three things
3. Research people who are in those industries or artists who you relate to
4. Reach out to 3-4 people in each of those areas to see if you could ask them questions
5. Research their life. Look at more than the career itself. Remember, what makes you happy is not only the work, it is the life you will be living while doing that work, so make sure to include a reality check. (How happy is their family, home, financial, emotional, mental health).

Take your life and your journey seriously. It is wonderful to have the typical artist personality of “go with the flow”, but remember that sometimes where you want to go is not the puddle at the end of the river. Sometimes you want to build a canal or a waterfall. Learn to take a calculated jump, and know that you are not alone. If you are someone struggling with finding your calling or purpose and don’t know where to start, I am open to speaking with you. Feel free to reach out to me via any of the mentioned contact points and I would enjoy setting up a quick chat by email or phone call. For me, I have had people give me help who had no reason to, and I want to pass on that tradition.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tarynstarr.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarynstarr.pianist/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taryn-enos-969401209/
• Other: www.amway.com/myshop/tarynenos

Image Credits
Daniel Verona Rachel Enos