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Most frameworks on going independent cover pricing, positioning, and client funnels. Almost none of them cover what happens on a random Tuesday morning when you're staring at your laptop wondering what you're actually doing with your life.
In this Landa Learning Session, Teresa De la Garza with 23 years in corporate public affairs, now founder of TGM Global Advisory opened up about exactly that.
🔗 Watch the full session recording here
Stepping out of a corporate structure means losing the title, the team, the budget, the building, and with it, an identity you didn't realize was partly borrowed. What's left is just you, and you have to decide what your name actually stands for.
That loss is real, even when the decision is the right one. Seeing a former employer's annual leadership offsite on LinkedIn and feeling a pang of FOMO doesn't mean the decision was wrong. It means you're grieving something, and naming that feeling matters more than pushing past it.
A trap she fell into early on: filling the calendar with reasonable-sounding excuses such as "I'm still recovering" or "I need more time with the kids", that can quietly stretch on forever. Going independent has no external structure pushing you forward. That part is entirely on you.
"Learning to tolerate being seen as in progress is a superpower." — Teresa De la Garza
Visibility is uncomfortable at first too. Posting, speaking, showing up before you feel "ready" means risking being wrong in public, with no institution to soften the fall. Her takeaway: tolerating being seen as a work in progress is a skill worth building deliberately.
Financial stability is what lets you negotiate from strength instead of fear. Know your runway in months (six, nine, twelve) before you need it. For a deeper framework on this, see our piece on designing your financial runway.
Pricing out of fear of not having a client is a fast way to undervalue your own expertise. A retainer negotiated from scarcity sets a bad baseline for everything after it.
Being busy isn't the same as being profitable. A client who fills your hours without paying enough can quietly crowd out the work that actually builds the business. And avoid major financial decisions in the first 90 days, because the anxiety of watching savings tick down is real, but it shouldn't be the thing steering decisions this early.
Your expert identity isn't your CV. It's the specific, valuable perspective you've built that most people in your field don't have, and that's what people are actually trusting when they hire you.
Three things make it land:
Refining a pitch takes real repetition. Teresa's own elevator pitch is still evolving through what she calls market testing: saying it out loud, in different rooms, until it starts resonating with the right people.
People react to your leap into going independent in three predictable ways: some root for you and actively help; some are kind but won't act unless you ask them directly and specifically; and a few quietly stop returning calls once the title is gone. None of it is personal, just information about where your network actually stands.
Then there are the surprises: people who show up to help in ways you never expected or asked for. Don't discount those relationships just because they weren't part of the plan.
Trust often gets built before any invoice does. A free intro call, a generous introduction, and sharing your thinking publicly with no immediate ask. Done intentionally rather than indefinitely, it's one of the most reliable ways early clients find you.
Gabriela Espinosa → How long did it take to refine your pitch to the point where people actually got it?
JC M → What are the top mistakes or things to avoid in this transition of going independent?
Paula Tejeda → How do you keep business development consistent when execution gets busy and the pipeline goes quiet?
✅ Name the loss instead of pushing past it. Grief is part of a real transformation, not a sign you made the wrong call.
✅ Build daily structure on purpose: going independent has no guardrails unless you make your own.
✅ Know your runway in months before you need it, and never price your first retainer out of fear. ✅ Define your expert identity around your perspective, not your CV.
✅ Give before you ask: generously, but intentionally, not indefinitely.
❌ Don't assume your reputation alone will bring clients to your door. Visibility takes deliberate work.
⚡️ Teresa's session was a reminder that going independent is as much an emotional transition as a professional one — and that naming what you're feeling, rather than performing confidence you don't have, is what actually builds something honest and lasting.
Related: How to Design Your Financial Runway with Luis Robaina
Spent 23 years in corporate public affairs and risk prevention, most recently leading corporate affairs at FEMSA, before launching TGM Global Advisory. Based in Austin, she now works at the intersection of public policy, crisis management, and government relations across the US and Latin America.
