Tara Rego

I would say grit. I continuously dig in when it gets hard. I don't give up, I don't stop - I dig in, and I try harder, I try to learn more, I ask more questions, and I try to find a way all the time to get where I'm going. I have a saying that when I heard it, it became the epitome of my grit: when I lost all my excuses, I found my results. So that's kind of how I approach everything. If all of a sudden I'm making a bunch of excuses for why I can't get something done or why I can't move past something, I ask myself how can I overcome those excuses? What makes those excuses go away? And then when you get all the excuses out of the way, then all you have left is results.

The best career advice I've ever received is that you always want to make sure you're in a place where they understand your value, and if they don't, then you should probably be looking for somewhere else to go. I took that really to heart, and I'll put that mirror in front of me quite frequently, even though I've been where I'm currently at for 10 years. Every now and then, I'll put that mirror up to my face and ask myself, am I being valued the way I should be? Because if I'm being misvalued, then something needs to change. I don't think anybody should ever work in an environment where they're not being valued appropriately. Just because you're not valued doesn't mean you don't have value - you do. You just have to make sure that you're getting the value that you bring to somewhere, somebody would. It's about making sure I'm getting the value that I feel I'm bringing in the way that I'm bringing it, and the moment that my company wouldn't be able to do that, it's probably time to say, well, am I bringing value that they need? And if I'm not, where could I take my value somewhere else that it would be needed and it would be giving me the amount of value I need there.

Trust yourself, trust your gut. If you think it's something that's important, speak up and say it. Because every time that you're willing to put yourself out there and make yourself uncomfortable, you're gonna be rewarded for it. It might hurt a little at first, but you will be rewarded for it. I think too many times people are afraid to speak up for fear of retribution or making themselves look silly. Speak up - whether it's with a client, whether it's with a coworker. Don't be afraid to be a disruptor.

I think right now in my field, it is kind of like an apex moment of change. The way advertising works in general is going through this huge change, and I think the biggest opportunity right now is for people to be looking to where that change is going and seeing how they can be part of it. We all know AI is everywhere, automation is everywhere - and how does that affect advertising and advertising roles and the way people advertise? It affects it huge. Understanding human response and behavior to ads, and wanting to figure out how people can spend their dollars more efficiently, how people can get the right ads at the right time, and everyone has the knowledge of the businesses they want to have knowledge of - I think there's so much opportunity. It's becoming an open field if you're willing to look at the way the business is moving instead of where it's been. It's creating new jobs. We talk about all the jobs AI and automation are getting rid of, but we don't talk about all the jobs it's also creating. Every time we get tech-heavy in one area, it does kill a certain number of jobs, but then it creates a whole other level of jobs. That's where a lot of the opportunities in the business are right now - looking to where the business is moving and going within that change. It's kind of like a wild, wild west open market.

The first thing that comes to mind is accountability. I hold myself accountable, and I value those around me who do the same. I think that no one should ever have fear that they failed or did something wrong when they are just being accountable for what they've done. I think they should be able to openly say when they've done something that didn't work out the way it was supposed to, be accountable for it, and own it, and then talk about where they're gonna go from that, how they're going to grow from that, and what they're gonna do differently. That's one of the strongest values I have for myself, and I tend to hold others to that standard and really value people that are willing to hold themselves accountable. To me, there's someone that I can trust, and that I will continue to try to work with, because I know if something isn't working, they're gonna say it's not working. And if it is working, they're gonna let me know why it's working. I think those are the kind of people that you always know exactly where a project stands, exactly where everything stands, and I think that's important to make things move fluidly.