”Life handed me a few good cards, several challenging ones, and some legit hurdles”
Tanna Donalson
I am Tanna Donalson. Life handed me a few good cards, several challenging ones, and some legit hurdles I had to learn to embrace. All of that created a pretty unique path for me. I have a story to tell, but in fact, we all do. My desire to write even a snapshot of my journey comes from the fact that I know every woman can relate. Any woman who knows that her spirit has big dreams and ambitions and feels like a caged animal but doesn’t know how to set herself free… she needs to know that there is an army of women who have gone before her who can rally around her and help her make her dreams come true. With the right support and the right inspiration, her dreams can one day come to fruition and she can unleash her gifts on this world that needs everything she has to offer.
Until I was 32, I grew up and spent my life in Oklahoma. Now, I am 38, and for the last six years of my experience, I have been on a massive journey to bring my dreams to light. This journey has and continues to truly make me feel that I am becoming what I was created to be. I am a Certified Physician Assistant and spent roughly 12 years in Emergency Medicine. During this time, I learned the grand majority of what I know about medicine, the hard way! I did not have many hands to hold, a trustworthy mentor, or even a family member who was in medicine to guide me, swap stories with, or cry with at the end of the day. During the 2nd half of the decade I spent in the ER, I began to feel this deep, undeniable yearning for something greater, more fulfilling.
For a long time, I did not know what that meant. I would learn a new skill, travel to a new place, meet new people, and do things that scared me to try to satisfy that yearning…. but it never did. While I was still living in Oklahoma, I had the opportunity to work with a doctor, plastic surgeon, mentor, teacher, and father-like figure, Juan Brou. It was then that I slowly began to discover the immense creativity that lived inside me, and the wheels started turning. Long story short, I have now not only opened my own medical spa in Denver Redbud Medical Spa, but also have helped several other doctors, PA’s, NP’s, and nurses do the same thing. In addition, I have networked and made connections with so many driven, amazing people and as a result have licensed a technology created by NASA and started another company called Aspire Medical Technologies where I am the CEO, and working to bring a groundbreaking, novel medical technology to market that will change the future of Trauma and Orthopedic Medicine and save limbs and lives for decades to come.
”Nobody taught me business or showed me the ropes.”
At Redbud, I offer Injectables including Botox and dermal fillers, chemical peels, multiple laser procedures, Beauty Counter, pelvic floor health for women, and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Nobody taught me business or showed me the ropes. Nobody warned me when I was making decisions that ultimately caused me more trouble than anything else. I learned nearly all of it by trial and error. Once I realized that I had figured out how to successfully run and manage a business on my own, the word got out and now I have begun consulting even more and am helping women follow their dreams and open their own businesses. It is one of the joys of my life to be able to pass down all I have researched and learned about opening businesses to these women, so they can learn from my mistakes and bypass all the roadblocks I ran into.
Inner strength was the magic
In 2018, I left the ER after a difficult divorce and was working tirelessly to figure out how to manage my spa, other part time jobs I was working as well as raising two kids. I had to come to grips with the hard truth that nobody was able to rescue me and I was going to have to dig deep and find the most grit I could come up with so I could not just stay above water, but I could thrive, grow and become even more successful despite difficult circumstances.
I was surrounded by love, support, advice, wisdom, and all the emotional resources a girl could want, but really, what I needed was to change my narrative about myself and adopt a new belief system about who I was and what I could accomplish. I had to mute the mediocre thoughts and negative input and begin to dream and believe wonderful and great things for my life. I knew I had what it took to grow my businesses to the next level and beyond. Shifting my mindset was not much of a process, it was a conscious decision made in a moment where I just decided to be firm and determined because I was tired of believing in lesser things for myself. I worked hard to fight the lies, the false stories, unsupportive comments, judgments, and anybody else’s opinions that could waste my energy and ultimately not bring life. I was ready to deal with anything that got in the way of my dreams. I realized how much control we have over our minds. I am not a victim inside my own life; I have been handed a challenging deck of cards and what I chose to do with them – that’s the beauty – that’s the creativity, and that’s my story. Beauty from ashes and a redemptive story.
I could have EASILY crumbled at any one point, but I didn’t. My faith was very pivotal through all of that and still is, but I also have to say that being surrounded by strong women has been immeasurably powerful. They pulled me out of bed in the morning, and they pushed me when I wanted to quit and reminded me what this journey was all about. They kept me focused not on the prize at the end, but on the beauty of the journey as I continue to become more myself, the authentic, unashamed, best version of me.
Near to destinations
My chosen mindset has been such a gift in so many ways. It has continued to deliver success, by opening doors to networking and collaborative opportunities as well as build life giving relationships with like minded people. As a result, I have become a part of an incredible community of providers at a lovely place we call Nurture in Denver, CO. I am beginning to settle into my life while simultaneously witness how my gifts fit into the world and watch my businesses and ideas manifest and come to fruition. On the hard days when my flesh just wants to recluse and do something easy, all I have to do is look in the eyes of my two remarkable children who, just by looking at me, motivate me and remind me that I can move mountains and that quitting isn’t an option. I now have a life coach, an incredible financial team, a handful of extraordinary mentors who push me, a family who loves me, and this irreplaceable army of women surrounding me. I would not be half the woman I am without all the people and support I have mentioned.
Future focus and vision
My vision for all my business endeavours is to use each business platform bring value to every conversation, listen well so that I can hear the cries of people and aim to empower anyone who crosses my path to be the best version of themselves. My dream is for everyone to be confident and share their gifts with a world who needs the positivity and light. Because in the end, its not really about all the businesses I start, the wealth I acquire, or how I changed the world. It’s about love, relationships and how my life was a testimony to others that there is no ceiling to their potential, no matter what the world throws at us.
Check www.redbudmedicalspa.com more information about Tanna’s Medical Spa
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