“we must be able to imagine otherwise.”
hello, i’m
tasha golden
I’m an international speaker and consultant, a career singer/songwriter, and a public health scientist. I help leaders, creatives, organizations, and change-makers of all kinds think bigger: using creativity to grow their impact and improve wellbeing.
Across sectors and industries, I help clients:
Grow their reach and impact
Bolster their own wellbeing
Better support their clients and communities
Imagine new paths and partnerships
My unusual background lends a unique perspective:
As an artist, I know creativity’s an essential part of how we navigate and improve the human experience.
As a health scientist, I know that limiting our tools limits health, knowledge, and change. We need innovation.
As both, I help clients get creative: reimagining their work to solve problems and drive positive change.
As a researcher, I direct research for the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As a speaker & consultant, I work with clients around the globe.
I can tell you: Creativity is part of “how we human.” Integrating it will transform your work and grow your impact.
Scroll for more about me & my work, or get in touch.
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What I do
When I’m not in nature or hanging out with my partner and cats (or tbh, even when I am), I spend my time imagining how clients can grow their work and change the world. As a neurodivergent creative, my wheelhouse includes questioning assumptions, bridging silos, and helping leaders re-cognize their work. As Baldwin wrote, “The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”
✔️ keynote speaker
I speak internationally for a variety of events and audiences, and would love to connect with you. Drawing on my history as a performer, I create dynamic, memorable experiences to support your work.
✔️ training & workshops
I give professional trainings, workshops, and courses that help clients grow their impact, expand their reach, generate new partnerships, and reimagine their work.
My custom frameworks are rooted in research and practice, and I’d love to walk you through them! We’re all on unique journeys, but you don’t have to go it alone.
Because of my unusual path, I’ve had to find and curate the tools I needed, create the trainings I wanted to take, and build the supports I wish I had. That work took a LOT of years, trial, and error! I now share what I’ve learned so that others don’t have to invent their own wheels. Reach out.
✔️ CONSULTING & ADVISING
I consult for clients ranging from global institutions to local nonprofits—helping them think creatively about their growth potential, programs and strategies, evaluations, and communications. I bring an entrepreneur-creator lens to research and practice… Stir in my passion for real talk and real-world impact, and we make things happen.
✔️ research & evaluation
See PUBLICATIONS for examples of recent research.
“We can’t heal what we can’t talk abouT”: A STORY
Over years as a touring songwriter, I noticed that songs about domestic violence or depression made these topics "talk-about-able." All over the world, listeners stayed after shows to share with me their own experiences with these issues, often telling their stories for the first time.
What was it about those shows—about the art, music, setting—that allowed people to tell me what they’d never even told their doctors? Their loved ones?
And what does this tell us about humans’ literal need for creativity?
How have healthcare, businesses, nonprofits, governments, and education suffered because leaders expect humans to think and communicate in limited ways?
Similar questions came up when I founded Project Uncaged: a trauma-informed creative writing program for incarcerated girls. Writers shared very different experiences in their poems than in conversations or questionnaires—often revealing critical insights into their needs and strengths.
What was it about poetry that made these stories shareable? And what did this mean for girls’ well-being? After all, most decision-makers in juvenile justice aren’t reading youths’ poems. What are they missing by relying on data that don’t include art?
More broadly, what opportunities do we ALL miss when we fail to build creativity into our practices?
Driven by these questions,
I now research well-being, how it’s affected by creativity, and how we USE this knowledge to drive real change.
I lost my music career due to severe burnout and major depression. I had to reimagine my life, identity, and path—the hardest and most creative work I’ve ever done.
I know the deep value of asking hard questions, of sustaining our wellbeing, and of learning to Imagine Otherwise.
In my life, my research, and my clients, I’ve seen that creativity helps us understand ourselves, our work, and our worlds.
We either dig into this truth, or we miss great opportunities.
Ready to dig in?
