Articles
The Power of Identification, Paint Cans, and TEDxWomen
Two pieces of news.
They are unrelated, but not.
One: I am speaking at TEDxWomen on December 1. (My hands just shook as I typed that: I. Am. Speaking. At. TEDxWomen. On. December 1). So, you know, kinda a big deal.
Two: I finally got rid of the paint cans on my front porch.
Which one would you like to hear about first…the paint cans you say? Well, if you insist.
We have no garage, so unfortunately for our neighbours, we have become, over time, THOSE PEOPLE who store crap on their front porch. You know, stuff that no longer belongs in the house, but is one step away from the proper disposal. Like all bad habits, it was an innocuous first step that became a slippery slope of incremental crap housing. One bag of mortar mix begat the paint cans which begat the long-forgotten wagon which begat the ladder etc.
Getting rid of said paint cans has been on (though admittedly low-down on) the to-do list for longer than I care to share.
Oh, I’ve known where I need to take them. In fact, I’m pretty sure a two minute Google search would tell me who would come and pick them up for me. Safely. It’s just NOT been a priority.
Then one morning, as I was supposed to be writing my TEDxWomen talk (ahem), I received a group email:
Something that frustrates me to no end is not having easy access to information that teaches and shows us how to easily, safely and responsibly dispose of household hazardous waste items.
Been hoarding a bag of batteries in your 'bits and bobs drawer' since high school? Politely ignoring the leftover solvents and paints that are hiding beneath a tarp under your back deck or on your porch from that redecorating project in 2005?
Ummmmmmmmmm. Yes.
I identified with it. Fully and completely. It’s like she was writing with one eye on me. But you can read in these words that this rich context is likely borne of HER own experience, not mine. And it landed. Boom.
So, a short trip to the closest depot one day later, our front porch is (mostly) clear.
Identification leads to action.
So, about that TEDxWomen talk.
I’m tackling a topic that lives dead smack in the middle of my heart: how the Impostor Complex keeps people from their dreams. And to me, this is unacceptable, so I’m taking it down.
At the highest level, I know the talk will be grand: smart stuff, with a whole process, charming stories ‘n everything.
Annnnnnnnnd naturally, MY Impostor Complex is having a field day reminding me how woefully incompetent I am. How there are people far more qualified to speak to the topic than me. How I’m not funny, or smart, or captivating, or…
I’ve been struggling with the words. Procrastinating. Needling the nuances, incanting, sweating, fretting and tearing my hair out. Because it really, really matters to me.
Hell on the ego, but heavenly fertile ground for developing honest and authentic content.
The more clever I notice myself wanting to become, or smarter, or funnier, or deeper or more poetic, the more I feel disconnected from the truth that MUST imbue my words. Which disconnects me from the point. Which will disconnect the audience from me.
Also not acceptable. Not for the work I need to do.
So here’s what the audience at TEDxWomen Isfeld can expect:
I will share what I know of my own experience with the Impostor Complex and the process I use with the hundreds of clients I’ve worked with. I will share in my way, in my language, and in my voice and some will identify with my words (and some will not). And some will take action (and some will not).
And you? Are you giving people the chance to experience you? Or are you hiding behind clever, or funnier, or deeper or more poetic, too?
My request: bring the fullest, most truthful expression of you, glorious YOU. Your people will identify and then take action. Promise.
And isn’t that the point?
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Today is End Sex Trafficking Day
As the title of this post suggests, today IS End Sex Trafficking Day. Can you believe there even needs to be a day dedicated to this? That such horror exists? It does.
Women and children are bought and sold every 30 seconds around the world.
How many ways can we say: unacceptable?
When Erin Giles reached out to me in the spring to tell me about End Sex Trafficking Day and her desire to curate a book to help end this madness, about the project, I was an immediate and effusive, YES.
Buy a copy of End Sex Trafficking for $20 — a collection of 60 essays on love, knowledge + freedom by trailblazers like Seth Godin, Danielle La Porte, Jonathan Fields and yours truly (I wrote about love: "The Wisdom of the Beaten Heart") — and all of the authors proceeds goes to the Not For Sale Campaign an organization fighting to abolish slavery every single day.
None of the essay contributors, the publisher or the editor is taking any money from sales. It’s not just a book, it's a chance to change the world.
More than 27 million human beings are enslaved in the world in 2012. So — you want to stand up for freedom...today?
Let’s get this pressing message to all the hearts and lit up screens we can.
Thank you, you free and compassionate soul.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
It's a GOLDEN Day!!
Creative? (Check.)
Female entrepreneur? (Yup.)
Loving what you do? (With all my heart.)
Longing to form beautiful alliances? (Oh yes)
Missing the feeling of abundance when it comes to your offerings/finances/opportunities/client love? (Absolutely.)
Welcome in The Golden Ticket!
With you, your business, your essence and your deepest desires in mind, Michelle Ward and I have lovingly created what we think is unlike anything that's been done before. We've spent a combined 100 hours just on crafting the program and offer alone, as we refused to rest (just ask our husbands) on anything that was less than a stellar, unique, engaging, ground-breaking, lightbulb-moment-inducing program. The number of times we Skype high-fived and happy-danced is actually quite preposterous.
From the moment you get on the first call, to the moment we clink our glasses in NYC right after you have your Golden Time in the Spotlight (aka a stage in a black box theatre!!!) you will feel held, cared for, championed, inspired, motivated and absolutely clear on how to move your business forward in a way that hand-holds who you are, what you stand for, and who you serve.
We only created 30 Golden Tickets (we want to keep this intimate), and 10 have already been claimed at posting time, so go claim yours… we can't wait to serve you.
Click here to become a Golden Goddess.
And speaking of Golden Time in the Spotlight: my time with Jamie Ridler!!!!!
Joy oh joy!!!! I was invited to speak with my friend Jamie Ridler on her beloved podcast: Creative Living with Jamie. I’m seriously honoured and deeply grateful. First of all, the very ESSENCE of Jamie is golden (spend just one minute listening to her voice, reading her words or being in her presence and you’ll know EXACTLY what I mean). And secondly, she just has the most incredible way of inviting you to go deeper, think deeper, feel deeper with most miraculous blend of sister energy, Obi Wan wisdom, sparkly shimmer, and show-stopping Rock Star. She is truly remarkable and truly masterful.
We spoke about creativity, the (okay, MY) creative process, and some strategies to get.it.done.
I hope you’ll give it a listen. I hope you’ll sign up for Jamie’s podcast. I hope you’ll be inspired.
And here’s what I really hope you take away:
I believe that you were born to create. I want you to believe that too. I want you to believe there is untold and unexpressed beauty within you yearning to be released. It needs to trust that you will not judge its imperfections, nor try to force it into something it’s not. That you will love it for what it is. And that in time, when you have nurtured this tender new growth into the fulsome being that it wants to be, that you will lovingly release it into the world, so that others may rejoice in the beauty: of your words. Of your song. Of your silverwork. Of your adornment. Of your art.
I want you to create for you. And THEN spread it around. With joy and abandon.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Thing Finding Thursday with Kate Swoboda
Kate Swoboda is one serious force of nature.
Her gifts are many, but what I’m always struck by in our conversations is her ability to simultaneously listen at a very deep/heart level AND have her mind pick away at the situation and survey it with care from every angle. Curiosity, compassion and courage are a fierce combination.
That’s my Kate.
She’s quite simply a brilliant coach who recognizes that being a brilliant coach doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s easy to build a brilliant business. (Word.)
And so, for the brilliant coaches of the world, she has created The Coaching Blueprint (aff link). It’s an e-program as hella-smart and hella-generous as she is.
In this interview, she shares how she found her THING and how she has parlayed it into a business that people care about. She also shares some big learnings about undertaking massive projects as well as signposts to look for along your own path.
Interview with Kate Swoboda for Thing Finding Thursday
Tweetworthy Kate-isms (for your sharing pleasure)
What does trusting your body have to do with finding your thing? @katecourageous tells @TanyaGeisler (TWEET IT)
Justifications create a lot of mediocrity. via @katecourageous (TWEET IT)
I can be totally afraid and it doesn’t make me weak. via @katecourageous (TWEET IT)
Cultivating trust in your body’s feelings will help you find YOUR path. via @katecourageous (TWEET IT)
Transformation happens whenever we choose to dive into something even though fear is along for the ride. via @katecourageous (TWEET IT)
Transcript of edited interview (for your reading pleasure)
Kate: Thank you so much for having me. I’m crazy excited to be on your interview series.
Tanya: What’s your thing?
Kate: My thing, we can go in technical titles, we can go what the titles are about. The technical titles are I’m a life coach, speaker, and writer. But, I really feel like working with fear in my own life and then how that translates to what shows up in my writing, my coaching, and my speaking, and specifically how we just beautifully practice courage is my vocation – it’s my calling, it’s that thing that I get really jazzed about.
Tanya: How did you land there or is there a way in which you’re still landing, how from here to there, what was your process?
Kate: I love that you say there’s a way in which you’re still landing, because I think that especially in our more materialistically oriented culture we tend to think there’s a place “over there” that we’re supposed to land. Part of my “landing process” you could say was the discovery that there is no landing, that the suffering in the world and in one’s personal life is about thinking that there’s a place to land, that there’s this thing out there, this day out there where if I just do enough work I won’t be afraid.
One of the things I talk about on my website and in my work is that the practice of courage is about feeling afraid, because you’re never going to get out of that part as long as you’re a human being trying new things and diving in anyway. What would you want to do otherwise? Stay stuck? That isn’t a recipe for fully alive living for most people.
Then transforming, because that’s always what happens whenever we choose to dive into something even though fear is along for the ride. The transformation doesn’t necessarily look like always that the heavens part and life is perfect there ever after.
Actually, that 1 inch of freedom is a really valuable inch to have gained. We always have some kind of transformation just by the process of saying, “This thing scared me, this thing that I wanted and I decided to go for it anyway.”
For a long time it was sort of a dysfunctional thing. It was like white-knuckling my way through fear. What that has blossomed into and what I’ve transformed is the realization that I didn’t need to white-knuckle or defend against but this was actually something that I could flow with and I could be with.
In fact, it was the essence of my power to say, “I can be with this. I can be totally afraid and it doesn’t make me weak. It actually makes me incredibly on my edge to be with this fear that’s coming up from me.”
Kate: I actually really believe that one of the most powerful choices I can make where I’m afraid is to lay down on my bed and just cry it out. That is actually a conscious choice to work with fear right there. I don’t have to go get a business license, hang out my shingle, or do all the big things like start a blog that feels so scary if I wanted to start a business.
(Tell us about The Coaching Blueprint, will ya?)
In 2011, I had gotten to a point in my business where a lot of coaches were emailing me and saying, “Okay, Kate how are you doing this? How are you getting the guest posts booked and how are you booking interviews with best selling authors like SARK or TED talk researchers like Brené Brown. How are you doing the marketing thing and not going crazy?”
All these questions were coming up and I said, “Well, I’m going to create a program for you to teach you everything I need to know.” Along the way, I’m going to interview other coaches who are amazing and get their wisdom too. Especially, because we’re all coming from different perspectives and somebody probably wants the business coaching perspective of Tara Gentile, if they’re a business coach. They might want the creative coaching perspective of Jamie Ridler if they’re a creativity coach.
I interviewed 12 coaches and counselors and put that out. Now, in the past year, things change. Facebook has changed in the past year. Technology has changed in the past year. Pinterest has become big in the past year.
Basically, I’m re-launching the Coaching Blueprint. I shouldn’t even say re-launch. I’m updating the Coaching Blueprint. I’m adding more content and more interviews with Leonie Dawson who is a rock star who made $100,000 in 3 months. I’m like I want to talk to a coach who knows how to do that because I want to know how to do that. It’s going to be live on October 4, 2012. I’m completely and totally excited.
Tanya: I’m completely and totally excited for you too. What fears, obstacles, or shit showed up as you were creating this?
Kate: I learned that when you launch something, more is going come up then you ever think is going to come up. That’s something that I’m going to be talking about in the Coaching Blueprint 2.0.
So much stuff came up in the last launch. Like last minute things. Things people were requesting. Suddenly remembering at 10:30 at night just as I was about to nod off to sleep. Oh my God, I didn’t get that email to that person.
I have really set an intention for myself with this launch that I’m going to be working out, getting my salad, making my green smoothie in the morning, and drinking lots of water. My practice of courage is really being attuned to and releasing the thought that if it’s not done in a certain way it’s wrong, or it won’t be successful, or that’s its bad, and all of that.
Really, where’s the priority? That’s the take-away for when you take on a massive project and it’s scary and shit’s coming up. Is it worth doing if you drive yourself into the ground? I don’t think it’s worth doing if you drive yourself into the ground.
Tanya: Is there anything you want the viewers who are in the process of looking for their thing, maybe they feel like they’re on edge, it’s not quite fitting, but there in a process. Is there anything that you have, any questions, or sign posts that you would love for them to see on their own journey?
Kate: What I would say is really start to notice the sensations in your body. Justifications create a lot of mediocrity. I don’t mean mediocrity in the way that people typically banter about the term like don’t be mediocre, be better than that. I mean like mediocrity as in things that don’t really rise you to your truest calling or your purpose. Like really rise you to that place.
When you’re doing too much up here the justifications can convince you to go a certain direction. When I sit down to write something for the Coaching Blueprint or when I was sitting down to write something for the Courageous Living Program or when I’m sitting down to write for my blog, it’s like if I’m sitting down and I’m going ten ways to practice courage, oh, okay well what is what one way. It’s thinking. It’s just not going to be a successful post.
When I have that thought, when I run across an amazing quote and I think oh that’s a great idea and I scribble it down. I feel it in my body. I feel it down here. I feel it everywhere. The more you can cultivate trusting that feeling, the more you’re going to really find yourself on your path, not somebody else’s path, not the path you think you should be on.
++++++++++++
Go find Kate and her courageous self at her site and on Twitter.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Thank you. Again.
Last Friday was a complete and utter whirlwind of loveliness.
It was my 40th birthday and it was Pay What You Choose Day for Board of Your Life. Which meant for the vast majority of the day, I was receiving Facebook messages, tweets, phone calls, emails and every other manner of missive. Every last piece of digital love went into my “YAY” folder and notes went into my actual “YUM + YAY” folder. (Blues-busters…both of them: highly recommend.) My folders and my heart are bursting at the seams.
I spent much of the weekend in a bit of a dazed afterglow and kept feeling the tug to create some meaningful “lessons” for you, my readers. (I want everyone to have such a day.)
And it’s kind of a challenge to tease out the learnings because I collapsed two events people seem to care about (my birthday + Pay What You Choose Day) into one day. I mean, the fine folks at Facebook made sure my FB world knew it was my birthday with their handy-dandy side bar. But as far as the Board of Your Life offer that I wanted to reach many many people, well, that was up to me.
There are two things I want you to know:
1) If you want to throw a party, you have to invite some people. You have to ASK THEM TO SHOW UP. If you live in any social media space, there is a decent chance you came across a mention of my birthday or offer from someone other than me. It’s important for me that you know that I ASKED friends for help in spreading the word so that:
a) you don’t have some belief that I am just lucky enough to have people falling all over themselves to help me (triggering any sort of: “why don’t people do that for me” story line.)
b) you know that I walk my talk. I make asks. I send heart-in-my-throat requests that make me feel like I am asking for too much. (But knowing that the ask was reasonable, specific, brief, and respectful, I felt pretty confident pressing “send”.)
2) People are generous. In particular, YOUR people. Yes, they are generous and kind and want what you have to offer. I have said this time and time again. And while this is a fundamental belief that I hold, I hold it LIGHTLY in my hands so that I don’t crush it, leaving space for the wonder when it reveals itself. In that way, and like the smell of crisp fall air, it never ceases to amaze and thrill me.
There is much, MUCH more for me to crystallize from the day (in particular, the Pay What You Choose experience), but I have a ton of thank you notes to write, so for now let me just say, once again, THANK YOU. For being here, for showing up, for YOUR generosity, for asking for what you want and for helping me to grow.
With full heart,
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Pay What You Choose Board of Your Life Birthday-ness!!!!!!
Sale is over
40 years ago today, Paul Henderson scored “the goal of the century”, CityTV opened its doors and I was born.
To most Canadians, the first event was pretty noteworthy. It was the final game of the Canada-Soviet Union Summit Series at the height of the Cold War. It was a scrappy fight for both hockey supremacy AND (ahem) democracy. So, you know, a ginormous international peeing match.
So, on September 28 1972, the patients and staff of a hospital in Toronto, like pretty much everyone across the nation, were fixed to the tube, watching the puck careen across the ice in fuzzy black and white.
My mother had taken the pain-relieving meds on offer in the 70’s (good ‘n heavy ones, so I’m told), and was oblivious to the scene beyond her labour experience.
Upon delivering me with success (YAY!), she was wheeled back to her room. It was in that moment that Paul Henderson made THE GOAL. The hospital exploded with cheers and hoots and celebration.
My mother, holding my swaddled self to her chest, looked up beatifically to my father and said, in her elegant but wonder-filled way: how marvelous, but really, she’s just a baby.
God, I love that story.
I love the vision of my stunning Mama, in her own world, bathed in love and in the belief that the world was cheering her (and me) on.
Maybe they were.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.