Tatter-a-fact® PMU Podcast

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This week, we're revisiting one of our favorite episodes of Tatter-a-fact, a conversation that feels just as relevant today as when it first aired.
When life feels overwhelming, it's easy to believe optimism means pretending everything is okay.
But real optimism isn't about ignoring reality.
It's about acknowledging life's challenges while believing you have the ability to move through them.
In this episode, Teryn Darling explores the difference between practical optimism and toxic positivity, why optimism is a learned skill for most people, and how protecting your mindset can impact your relationships, your business, your health, and your future.
She also shares practical strategies for building optimism, setting healthy boundaries, managing difficult emotions, and creating habits that help you navigate life's inevitable challenges with resilience and hope.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, artist, business owner, or simply someone going through a difficult season, this conversation serves as a reminder that optimism isn't something you're born with, it's something you can intentionally build.
In This Episode:
• Practical optimism vs. toxic positivity
• Why optimism is a learned behavior
• Building resilience through difficult seasons
• Protecting your mindset and mental energy
• The power of positive self-talk and visualization
• Healthy boundaries and surrounding yourself with the right people
• Practical habits for creating a more hopeful future
Sometimes the conversations we need most are the ones worth hearing again.

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For years, Teryn Darling believed she wasn't smart enough.
Not because anyone ever told her she wasn't—but because she struggled in school and quietly allowed grades to define her worth.
In Chapter 3 of Tatter-a-fact: The Story Series, Teryn shares one of the deepest insecurities of her childhood and the realization that changed everything: intelligence isn't measured by report cards alone.
This episode explores what it feels like to compare yourself to others, carry the weight of unrealistic expectations, and eventually discover that creativity, resilience, observation, emotional awareness, and entrepreneurship are forms of intelligence too.
Teryn also opens up about anxiety, overthinking, and living with an intense creative mind—an experience many artists and entrepreneurs know all too well.
If you've ever questioned your abilities, struggled with self-doubt, or felt like you simply didn't fit into traditional systems, this chapter is for you.
In This Episode:
• Growing up believing "I'm not smart enough"
• How grades shaped self-worth
• Different forms of intelligence
• Creativity, entrepreneurship, and finding your strengths
• Anxiety, overthinking, and the creative mind
• Why your environment matters more than you think
About Tatter-a-Fact: The Story Series
For years, most people have known Teryn Darling as an artist, educator, entrepreneur, mentor, and founder of Girlz Ink.
The Story Series is different.
This is where she shares the story behind all of it—one chapter at a time.
The good. The painful. The funny. The weird. The embarrassing. The beautiful.
Because sometimes we don't realize who we're becoming until we finally look back.

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Long before Girlz Ink. Before PMU. Before pigments, podcasts, stages, mentorship, and entrepreneurship... there was a kid in Maine trying to figure out how to make her own money. 
In Chapter 2 of Tatter-a-fact: The Story Series, Teryn Darling shares the story of her earliest hustles, from babysitting and collecting cans to riding her bike to a local farm before sunrise to pick peas for $7 a bushel. What seemed like ordinary childhood jobs at the time we quietly building something much bigger: work ethic, responsibility, resilience, consistency, and the desire for independence. 
But this episode isn't really about money.
It's about what money represented.
Freedom.
Security.
Possibility.
It's also about growing up believing you weren't smart enough, struggling in school, comparing yourself to others, and slowly discovering that intelligence comes in many forms. While some kids were earning A's and preparing for college, Teryn was learning lessons that couldn't be measured on a report card—showing up, solving problems, building confidence, and figuring things out one uncomfortable step at a time.
If you've ever felt behind, doubted yourself, worked harder than everyone around you, or dreamed of creating your own freedom, this chapter is for you.

In This Episode:
• The connection between money and freedom
• Childhood hustles and early entrepreneurship
• Babysitting, farm work, and earning independence
• Responsibility, consistency, and work ethic
• Academic struggles and self-doubt
• Different forms of intelligence
• Why confidence often comes after action
• The quiet beginnings of an entrepreneurial mindset

About Tatter-a-Fact: The Story Series
For years, most people have known Teryn Darling as an artist, educator, entrepreneur, mentor, and founder of Girlz Ink.
The Story Series is different.
This is where she shares the story behind all of it—one chapter at a time.
The good. The painful. The funny. The weird. The embarrassing. The beautiful.
All of it. 
Subscribe and follow for future chapters as Teryn shares the experiences, lessons, failures, and defining moments that shaped the person she would eventually become.
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Chapter 1: The Red Wagon
I spent years believing I wasn't smart.
I thought smart people got good grades.
I thought smart people were in accelerated classes.
I thought smart people understood math and science.
That wasn't me.
Meanwhile, at twelve years old, I was pulling a little red wagon through my neighborhood collecting cans, building work ethic, resourcefulness, independence, and an entrepreneurial mindset long before I understood what any of those words meant.
Welcome to Chapter 1 of Tatter-a-fact: The Story Series.
For years, you've known me as a PMU artist, educator, mentor, and business owner. But very few people know the beginning.
The anxious kid.
The insecure kid.
The kid who struggled in school.
The kid who quietly believed she wasn't smart enough.
This new series is my attempt to tell the whole story—the good, the painful, the funny, the embarrassing, the beautiful, and everything in between.
In this first chapter, I take you back to my childhood in South Portland, Maine, the family that shaped me, the insecurities I carried, and the little red wagon that became one of the earliest signs of who I was becoming.
Because maybe success doesn't begin when the world notices you.
Maybe it begins much earlier.
Maybe the signs are already there.
And maybe you're not behind.
Maybe you're becoming.

In This Episode:
• Growing up in South Portland, Maine
• Childhood anxiety and learning to read the room
• Family, community, camping, and small-town memories
• The story behind "Relax, Peanut"
• The little red wagon that sparked independence
• Early signs of entrepreneurship
• Why I believed I wasn't smart
• Redefining intelligence, resilience, and success
• The lessons we only understand when we look back
If this story resonates with you, I hope you'll join me for future chapters as I share the experiences, failures, successes, insecurities, and defining moments that shaped who I became—and who I'm still becoming.
Maybe you're not behind. Maybe you're becoming.

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Some conversations age well, and this is one of them. With everything happening in the PMU industry right now, we felt this discussion about clients, professionalism, bad reviews, refunds, boundaries, and business growth was more relevant than ever.
In this episode of the Tatter-a-fact PMU Podcast, Teryn Darling speaks on the real side of being a permanent makeup artist, the parts of the PMU industry that people don’t always talk about openly.
From getting more PMU clients outside of social media, to handling difficult client situations, bad reviews, refunds, and unrealistic expectations, this episode is packed with honest advice and real-world experience for both new and established PMU artists.
Topics include:
• How to grow your PMU clientele through real human connection
• Why networking still matters in the beauty industry
• How to professionally respond to negative reviews
• PMU refunds and protecting your peace of mind
• Setting client boundaries during procedures
• Guests in the procedure room and phone etiquette
• Why professionalism and communication matter more than ever in PMU
Whether you offer microblading, powder brows, nano brows, lip blush, eyeliner tattooing, or saline tattoo removal, this conversation will resonate with artists navigating today’s permanent makeup industry.