Her Story
About Tiara
Tiara Lyons is a professional in the field of community building based in Atlanta, Georgia. She attributes her success to her passion for helping people, whether by paying it forward from her own experiences or providing the support she would have liked to receive. In advising young women entering the industry, she emphasizes keeping an open mind, remaining empathetic, and establishing boundaries to prevent burnout and enable consistent, long-term engagement with one's passion. She notes that community building increasingly involves global awareness, as local efforts often engage individuals from diverse cultural, religious, and regional backgrounds, requiring ongoing learning about people, places, current events, and cross-cultural communication.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tiara
01What do you attribute your success to?
If I would say, attribute myself to anything, it's just my passion, to kind of help people, in the ways that I've been helping life, or in the ways that I haven't been helped in life. So, that is... those are... that's basically what fueled me. So, either helping people how I've been helped, kind of, like, pay it forward, or help people how I would have liked to have been helped.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
What advice I would give women going into community building? I would say that, keep an open mind, be very empathetic, but learn how to build boundaries, because I feel that, sometimes when starting out, not the boundaries can lead you to burnout, which helps, which makes it much harder for you to do your, at a consistent pace, or, you know, to fill out your passion at a consistent pace, and, being able to have longevity. So, learning how to mention being nice and having berries.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Because basically, I've mostly been talking about community building, so I was... just being aware. A lot of things are moving to a global aspect, and even if you help out your local community, you're always, if you're in community building, you're always coming to people who may have moved from a different area, who have different cultural values, who maybe have a different religion. So, being abreast of culture. different cultural, activities, different religions, knowing what to say, how to say, how to communicate with people, and how communication may be different across, cultures and from parts of society. I would just think being open to learning more about people, about places, and keeping up with current events. Even things that are not global are global, because... People everywhere, from everywhere, you know, in any given location.
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